1879

1879 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1879; MDCCCLXXIX
Ab urbe condita	2632
Armenian calendar	1328; ԹՎ ՌՅԻԸ
Assyrian calendar	6629
Bahá'í calendar	35–36
Balinese saka calendar	1800–1801
Bengali calendar	1286
Berber calendar	2829
British Regnal year	42 Vict. 1 – 43 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2423
Burmese calendar	1241
Byzantine calendar	7387–7388
Chinese calendar	戊寅年 (Earth Tiger); 4575 or 4515; — to —; 己卯年 (Earth Rabbit); 4576 or 4516
Coptic calendar	1595–1596
Discordian calendar	3045
Ethiopian calendar	1871–1872
Hebrew calendar	5639–5640
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1935–1936
- Shaka Samvat	1800–1801
- Kali Yuga	4979–4980
Holocene calendar	11879
Igbo calendar	879–880
Iranian calendar	1257–1258
Islamic calendar	1296–1297
Japanese calendar	Meiji 12; (明治１２年)
Javanese calendar	1807–1808
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4212
Minguo calendar	33 before ROC ; 民前33年
Nanakshahi calendar	411
Thai solar calendar	2421–2422
Tibetan calendar	阳土虎年; (male Earth-Tiger); 2005 or 1624 or 852; — to —; 阴土兔年; (female Earth-Rabbit); 2006 or 1625 or 853

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century ; 19th century ; 20th century ;
Decades:	1850s ; 1860s ; 1870s ; 1880s ; 1890s ;
Years:	1876 ; 1877 ; 1878 ; 1879 ; 1880 ; 1881 ; 1882 ;

Last updated March 29, 2019

1879 ( MDCCCLXXIX ) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar , the 1879th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 879th year of the 2nd millennium , the 79th year of the 19th century , and the 10th and last year of the 1870s decade. As of the start of 1879, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Roman numerals Numbers in the Roman numeral system

The numeric system represented by Roman numerals originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers in this system are represented by combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet. Roman numerals, as used today, employ seven symbols, each with a fixed integer value, as follows:

A common year is a calendar year with 365 days, as distinguished from a leap year, which has 366. More generally, a common year is one without intercalation. The Gregorian calendar,, employs both common years and leap years to keep the calendar aligned with the tropical year, which does not contain an exact number of days.

A common year starting on Wednesday is any non-leap year that begins on Wednesday, 1 January, and ends on Wednesday, 31 December. Its dominical letter hence is E. The most recent year of such kind was 2014, and the next one will be 2025 in the in the Gregorian calendar or, likewise, 2009, 2015, and 2026 in the obsolete Julian calendar. The century year, 1800, was also a common year starting on Wednesday in the Gregorian calendar, see below for more. Any common year that starts on Wednesday, Friday or Saturday has only one Friday the 13th; The only Friday the 13th in this common year occurs in June. Leap years starting on Tuesday share this characteristic.

Events

January–March

January – The current constitution of the State of California in the United States is ratified.
January 1 – The Specie Resumption Act takes effect. The United States Note is valued the same as gold, for the first time since the American Civil War.
January 11 – The Anglo-Zulu War begins.
January 22 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Isandlwana: A force of 1,200 British soldiers is wiped out by over 20,000 Zulu warriors.
January 23 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Rorke's Drift: Following the previous day's defeat, a smaller British force of 140 successfully repels an attack by 4,000 Zulus.
February 8 – At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute, engineer and inventor Sandford Fleming first proposes the global adoption of standard time.
March 11 – The Ryukyu Domain is incorporated into the Okinawa Prefecture of Japan, and the last ruler, Shō Tai, is exiled to Tokyo.
March 28 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Hlobane: British forces suffer a defeat.
March 29 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Kambula: British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus.

January is the first month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the first of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The first day of the month is known as New Year's Day. It is, on average, the coldest month of the year within most of the Northern Hemisphere and the warmest month of the year within most of the Southern Hemisphere. In the Southern hemisphere, January is the seasonal equivalent of July in the Northern hemisphere and vice versa.

January 1 is the first day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year. This day is known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the year. It is also the first day of the first quarter of the year and the first half of the year.

A United States Note, also known as a Legal Tender Note, is a type of paper money that was issued from 1862 to 1971 in the U.S. Having been current for 109 years, they were issued for longer than any other form of U.S. paper money. They were known popularly as "greenbacks", a name inherited from the earlier greenbacks, the Demand Notes, that they replaced in 1862. Often termed Legal Tender Notes, they were named United States Notes by the First Legal Tender Act, which authorized them as a form of fiat currency. During the 1860s the so-called second obligation on the reverse of the notes stated:

This Note is a Legal Tender for All Debts Public and Private Except Duties On Imports And Interest On The Public Debt; And Is Redeemable In Payment Of All Loans Made To The United States.

April–June

April – Postman Ferdinand Cheval begins to build his Palais Idéal at Hauterives in France.
April 5 – War of the Pacific: Chile formally declares war on Bolivia and Peru.^[1]
April 12 – Mary Baker Eddy founds the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts.
April 26 – The National Park, later renamed the Royal National Park, is declared in New South Wales, Australia, the world's second oldest purposed national park.
May 2 – The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) is founded clandestinely at the Casa Labra Tavern in Madrid, by printer Pablo Iglesias.^[2]
May 10 – The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is formed.
May 12 – English Catholic convert John Henry Newman is elevated to Cardinal.
May 14 – The first group of 463 Indian indentured labourers arrive in Fiji, aboard the Leonidas .
May 26 – Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak, establishing an Afghan state.
May 30 – New York City's Gilmore's Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt, and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.
June 1 – Anglo-Zulu War: Napoléon, Prince Imperial (Napoléon IV), great-nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte, Bonapartist pretender to the French throne, is killed in Africa while attached to the British Army.
June 4 – Yasukuni Shrine is officially renamed, from Tokyo Shokonsha Shrine in Japan.^[3]^[4]
June 6 – William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first ocean-going steamer to be built of mild steel, the SS Rotomahana, on the River Clyde in Scotland.^[5] On October 2 they launch the first transatlantic steamer of the same material, the SS Buenos Ayrean; on December 1 she makes her maiden voyage out of Glasgow, bound for South America.^[6]
June 14 – Sidney Faithorn Green, a priest in the Church of England, is tried and convicted for using Ritualist practices.
June 21 – German company Linde is founded by Carl von Linde.

April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, the fifth in the early Julian, the first of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the second of five months to have a length of less than 31 days.

Ferdinand Cheval was a French postman who spent thirty-three years of his life building Le Palais idéal in Hauterives. The Palace is regarded as an extraordinary example of naïve art architecture.

April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 270 days remaining until the end of the year.

July–September

July 1 – American Christian Restorationist Charles Taze Russell publishes the first issue of the monthly Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence which, as The Watchtower , will become the most widely circulated magazine in the world.
July 4 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Ulundi: A British victory effectively ends the war.^[7]
July 8 – Led by George W. De Long, the ill-fated United States Jeannette Expedition departs San Francisco, in an attempt to reach the North Pole, by pioneering a route through the Bering Strait.
August 16 – Fulham F.C. is founded in London as a church soccer team.
August 21 – Claimed apparition to local people at Knock, County Mayo, Ireland of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist and Jesus Christ (as the Lamb of God).
September – Henry George self-publishes his major work Progress and Poverty .^[8]
September 8 – A fire in The Octagon, Dunedin (New Zealand) claims 12 victims.
September 19 – The Blackpool Illuminations are switched on for the first time.
September 25 – A fire in Deadwood, South Dakota leaves 2,000 people homeless and 300 buildings destroyed; total loss of property is estimated at $3 million.
September 29 – Meeker Massacre: Nathan Meeker and others are killed in an uprising, at the White River Ute Indian reservation in Colorado.

July 1 is the 182nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 183 days remaining until the end of the year.

Charles Taze Russell, or Pastor Russell, was an American Christian restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and founder of what is now known as the Bible Student movement. After his death, Jehovah's Witnesses and numerous independent Bible Student groups developed from this base.

The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom is an illustrated religious magazine, published monthly by Jehovah's Witnesses via the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. Along with its companion magazine, Awake!, Jehovah's Witnesses distribute The Watchtower—Public Edition in their door-to-door ministry.

October–December

October 7 – The Dual Alliance is formed by Germany and Austria-Hungary.
October 8 – War of the Pacific – Naval Battle of Angamos: The Chilean Navy defeats Peruvian naval forces.
October 13 – The first female students are admitted to study for degrees of Oxford University in England, at the new Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville Hall, and with the Society of Oxford Home-Students.^[7]
October 17 – Sunderland Association Football Club is formed by a group of schoolteachers, in Northeast England.
October 22 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric light bulb (it lasts 13½ hours before burning out).
November – Land is acquired for Simmons College of Kentucky, an historically black school, established as a Baptist institution.
November – The Age of Michael begins, according to French occultist Eliphas Levi, and Johannes Trithemius.^[9]
November 4 – Thomas Edison applies for the patent for his invention, the incandescent light bulb (U.S. Patent 223,898 will be granted on January 27, 1880).^[10]
November 10 – The Bell Telephone Company and Western Union reach an agreement in the United States, in which the former agrees to stay out of telegraphy, and the latter to keep out of the telephone business.^[11]
December 21 – Henrik Ibsen's controversial drama A Doll's House premières at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen (having been first published on December 4 in the city).
December 28 – Tay Bridge disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge at Dundee, Scotland, collapses in a storm as a train passes over it, killing 75.^[7]
December 31
- Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
- Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance opens at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City (following a token performance the day before for U.K. copyright reasons in Paignton, Devon).^[12]
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman, who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He is credited with developing many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb, had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He is often credited with establishing the first industrial research laboratory.
Menlo Park is an unincorporated community located within Edison Township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States.
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known.

October 7 is the 280th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 85 days remaining until the end of the year.

The Dual Alliance was a defensive alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary, which was created by treaty on 7 October 1879 as part of Bismarck's system of alliances to prevent or limit war. The two powers promised each other support in case of attack by Russia. Also, each state promised benevolent neutrality to the other if one of them was attacked by another European power. Germany's Otto von Bismarck saw the alliance as a way to prevent the isolation of the German Empire, which had just been founded a few years before, and to preserve peace, as Russia would not wage war against both empires.

The German Empire, also known as Imperial Germany, was the German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918.

Date unknown

Colonel Ahmed ‘Urabi forms the Egyptian Nationalist Party.
The Hall effect is discovered by Dr. Edwin Hall.
The Stefan–Boltzmann law is discovered by Jozef Stefan.
Wilhelm Wundt establishes the first psychological research laboratory, at the University of Leipzig.
Tetteh Quarshie first brings cocoa beans to Ghana from Equatorial Guinea.
Gottlob Frege publishes Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens in Halle, a significant text in the development of mathematical logic.