1878 in the United States

Events from the year 1878 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

Events

January 28
* The world's First Telephone Exchange begins commercial operation in New Haven, Connecticut.
* The Yale News becomes the first daily college newspaper in the U.S.
February 18 - The Lincoln County War begins in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
February 19 - The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison.
February 23 - Bland–Allison Act, leading to first minting of the Morgan dollar.
February 28 - Mississippi State University is created by the Mississippi Legislature.
March 26 - University of California, Hastings College of the Law is founded.
April 4 - The Gunfight at Blazer's Mill occurs in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
May 2 - The Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis, Minnesota explodes, killing 18.
May 14 - Salem witchcraft trial, the last of its kind in the U.S., opens in Salem, Massachusetts.
June 18 - Posse Comitatus Act signed into law to limit the powers of the federal government of the United States in using the United States Army to enforce domestic policy within the U.S.
July 12 - Yellow fever epidemic begins in New Orleans. It will eventually kill 4,500 people.
July 26 - In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box is found later with a taunting poem inside.
August 9 - The Wallingford Tornado of 1878, the deadliest tornado in Connecticut history, destroys the town of Wallingford, killing 34 people and injuring 70 or more.
September 30 - The ship Priscilla arrives in Hawaii from Funchal, Madeira, marking the beginning of the Portuguese immigration to the Hawaiian Islands.
October 27 – The Manhattan Savings Institution is robbed.
November 18 - Soprano Marie Selika Williams becomes the first African American artist to perform at the White House.

Undated

Yellow fever in Mississippi Valley kills over 13,000. 2020
U.S. arbitration rejects Argentine claims to Paraguay's part of the Chaco region.
The Johns Hopkins University Press, America's oldest university press, is established
Albert Augustus Pope's Pope Manufacturing Company begins producing the Columbia high-wheel bicycle outside Boston, signalling the beginning of a bicycle craze in the U.S.
The Remington No. 2 typewriter, the first with a shift key enabling production of lower as well as upper case characters, is introduced.
The Wissner Piano Company is opened by Otto Wissner in Brooklyn, New York.
Champlain College, in Burlington, VT is founded.

Ongoing

Sport

October 2 – The Buffalo Bisons of the International League defeat the National League champion Boston Red Caps behind the pitching of Pud Galvin to become Baseball's First Undisputed Champion

Births

January 6 - Carl Sandburg, poet and historian
January 9 - John B. Watson, psychologist
January 29
* Walter F. George, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1922 to 1957
* Barney Oldfield, automobile racer
January 31 - Marta Sandal, Norwegian-born singer
February 1 - Hattie Caraway, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1931 to 1945
February 18 - Kate Gordon, psychologist
February 27
* Alvan T. Fuller, Governor of Massachusetts from 1925 to 1929
* Charles P. Strite, inventor and worker
February 28 - Hugh A. Butler, U.S. Senator from Nebraska from 1941 to 1954
March 31 - Jack Johnson, boxer
April 28 - Lionel Barrymore, actor
May 5 - Edward Gay II, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1918 to 1921
May 13 - Julia Dean, stage and film actress
May 21 - Glenn H. Curtiss, aviation pioneer
May 25 - Bill Robinson, African American tap dancer
June 1 - C. Harold Wills, automobile engineer and businessman
June 4 - Thomas D. Schall, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1925 to 1935
June 12 - James Oliver Curwood, novelist and conservationist
June 20 - Will Mastin, vaudevillian
July 3 - George M. Cohan, singer, dancer, composer, actor and writer
July 12 - Claude C. Bloch, admiral
July 17 - Mabel Van Buren, actress
July 29
* Don Marquis, author
* James M. Slattery, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1939 to 1940
August 2 - Nathan L. Bachman, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1933 to 1937
August 4 - Ernest Lundeen, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1937 to 1940
August 13 - Harold Clarke Goddard, Shakespearean scholar
August 28 - George Whipple, pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934
August 31 - Frank Jarvis, track athlete
September 14
* Ion Farris, politician, Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives
* Scott Loftin, U.S. Senator from Florida in 1936
September 18 - James O. Richardson, admiral
September 20 - Upton Sinclair, novelist
October 2 - Richard Spikes, African American inventor
October 16 - Maxie Long, track athlete
October 17 - Louise Dresser, actress
October 18 - Blind Uncle Gaspard, Cajun vocalist and guitarist
October 19 - Alphonse Picou, jazz clarinettist
October 31 - Roberta Lawson, Indigenous American activist and musician
November 17 - Grace Abbott, social worker and activist
November 26 - Major Taylor, first African-American World Champion Cyclist
November 23 - Ernest King, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations during World War II
December 1 - Nathaniel Baldwin, inventor and Mormon fundamentalist
C. Louise Boehringer, educationalist
Rufus Billings
Sam Strong

Deaths

February 11
* Charles Magill Conrad, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1842 to 1843
* Gideon Welles, politician
February 18 - John Tunstall, rancher, merchant, first man killed in the Lincoln County War
March 6 - Asa Biggs, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1855 to 1858
March 29 - Mark Hopkins, Jr., entrepreneur
April 4 - Richard M. Brewer, gunslinger, cowboy
April 5 - Buckshot Roberts, buffalo hunter who killed Richard M. Brewer
May 25 - John Scott Harrison, member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio, son of William Henry Harrison, father of Benjamin Harrison
June 16 - Crawford Long, American surgeon and pharmacist
June 27 - Sidney Breese, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1843 to 1849
September 23 - Kinloch Falconer, 23rd Secretary of State of Mississippi
October 5 - George Boyer Vashon, African-American attorney, educationalist, abolitionist, essayist and poet
October 20 - Hiram Paulding, admiral
November 16 - Sarah Harris Fayerweather, African-American whose 1832 admission to a Connecticut school resulted in the first integrated schoolhouse
November 28 - Orson Hyde, religious leader
December 10 - Henry Wells, businessman