1871

This article is about the year 1871.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1840s  1850s  1860s  – 1870s –  1880s  1890s  1900s
Years:	1868 1869 1870 – 1871 – 1872 1873 1874

1871 in topic:

Humanities

Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Literature – Music

By country

Australia – Canada – France – Germany – Mexico – South Africa – US – UK

Other topics

Rail Transport – Science – Sports

Lists of leaders

Colonial Governors – State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births – Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments – Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1871 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1871 MDCCCLXXI
Ab urbe condita	2624
Armenian calendar	1320 ԹՎ ՌՅԻ
Assyrian calendar	6621
Bahá'í calendar	27–28
Bengali calendar	1278
Berber calendar	2821
British Regnal year	34 Vict. 1 – 35 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2415
Burmese calendar	1233
Byzantine calendar	7379–7380
Chinese calendar	庚午年十一月十一日 (4507/4567-11-11) — to — 辛未年十一月二十日 (4508/4568-11-20)
Coptic calendar	1587–1588
Ethiopian calendar	1863–1864
Hebrew calendar	5631–5632
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1927–1928
- Shaka Samvat	1793–1794
- Kali Yuga	4972–4973
Holocene calendar	11871
Iranian calendar	1249–1250
Islamic calendar	1287–1288
Japanese calendar	Meiji 4 (明治4年)
Korean calendar	4204
Minguo calendar	41 before ROC 民前41年
Thai solar calendar	2414

Year 1871 (MDCCCLXXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

• January 2 – Amadeus I becomes King of Spain.
• January 18 – The member-states of the North German Federation and the south German states unite into a single nation-state known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany.
• January 21 – Giuseppe Garibaldi's group of French and Italian volunteer troops in support of the French Third Republic win a battle against the Prussians in Dijon.
• February 9 – U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries
• March 21 – John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, whose father, the 8th Duke of Argyll, is the serving Secretary of State for India, marries Princess Louise.
• March 22
  • In North Carolina, William Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.
  • The U.S. Army issued an order for the abandonment of Fort Kearny, Nebraska.
• March 26 – The Paris Commune is formally established in Paris.
• March 27 – The first Rugby Union International results in a 4–1 win by Scotland over England.
• March 29
  • First Surgeon General appointed.
  • The Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.

April–June

• April – The Stockholms Handelsbank is founded.
• April 20 – The U.S President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Civil Rights Act of 1871.
• May 4 – The first supposedly Major League Baseball game is played.
• May 8 – The First MLB (Major League Baseball) home run is hit by Ezra Sutton of the Cleveland Forest Citys.
• May 10 – Treaty of Frankfurt is signed confirming the frontiers between Germany and France.
• May 11 – The first trial of the case of Tichborne Claimant begins in the London Court of Common Pleas.
• May 21 – Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the Rigi-Bahnen on Mount Rigi.
• May 28 – Following the invasion of the Paris Commune by Government troops, 147 Communards, the last defenders of the workers' district of Belleville, are shot, on the last day of the "Bloody Week" (Semaine Sanglante) in which the Commune is crushed.
• May 30 – French Third Republic: Government suppression of the Paris Commune rebellion is completed.
• June 10 – Captain McLane Tilton leads 109 U.S. Marines in a naval attack on the Han River forts in Korea - the United States expedition to Korea
• June 18 – The University Tests Act removes religious tests at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham universities.

July–September

• July 20
  • British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
  • C. W. Alcock proposes that "a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association", giving birth to the FA Cup.
• July 21 – August 26 – First ever photographs of Yellowstone National Park region taken by the photographer William Henry Jackson during the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871.
• July 22 – The foundation stone of the first Tay Rail Bridge is laid; the bridge collapses in a storm eight years later.
• July 28 – The Annie, the first boat ever launched on Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park region.
• August 29 – The abolition of the han system is carried out in Japan.
• August 31 – Adolphe Thiers becomes the President of the French Republic.
• September – Whaling Disaster of 1871: 1,219 people abandon 33 whaling ships caught in the ice pack off the northern coast of Alaska.

October–December

• October 8 – Four major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Holland, Michigan, and Manistee, Michigan. The Great Chicago Fire is the most famous of these, leaving nearly 100,000 people homeless, although the Peshtigo Fire kills as many as 2,500 people, making it the deadliest fire in United States history.
• October 12 – Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) enacted by British rule in India, which named over 160 communities "Criminal Tribes", i.e. hereditary criminals. It was Repealed in 1949, after Independence of India.
• October 20 – The Royal Regiment of Artillery forms the first regular Canadian army units when they create two batteries of garrison artillery, which later become the Royal Canadian Artillery.
• October 27
  • Henry, Count of Chambord, refuses to be crowned "King Henry V of France" until France abandons its tricolor and returns to the old Bourbon flag.
  • The Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall (Boss Tweed) is arrested.
• November 5 – Wickenburg massacre: six men travelling by stagecoach are reportedly murdered by the Yavapai Indians.
• November 10 – Henry Morton Stanley locates the missing explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, and greets him by saying "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
• November 17 – The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.
• December 10 – German chancellor Otto von Bismarck tries to ban Catholics from the political stage by introducing harsh laws concerning the separation of church and state.
• December 19 – The city of Birmingham, Alabama, is incorporated with the merger of three pre-existing towns.
• December 24 – Aida opens in Cairo
• December 25 – The Reading Football Club is formed.
• December 26 – Thespis, the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, premières. It does modestly well, but the two composers will not collaborate again for four years.

Date unknown

• The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine are transferred from France to Germany.
• British trade unions are legalized.
• Heinrich Schliemann begins the excavation of Troy.
• Japan forms its own nationwide police force based on the French model.
• George Biddell Airy discovers that astronomical aberration is independent of the local medium.
• William M. Tweed serves his last year as the "Boss" of the Tammany Hall political machine in New York.
• The South Improvement Company is formed by John D. Rockefeller and a group of major railroad interests in an early effort to organize and control the petroleum industry in the U.S.A.
• The Harvard Summer School is founded.
• The Constitution of the German Empire abolishes all restrictions on Jewish marriage, choice of occupation, place of residence, and property ownership. Exclusion from government employment and discrimination in social relations remain in effect.
• The American minister to China takes five warships to attempt to "open up" Korea, but his forces leave after exchanges of fire result in 250 Koreans dying and the Korean government still unwilling to make any concessions.
• Virginia adopts a new Constitution, taking into account, among other things, all of the counties that had left Virginia in 1863 to form the new non-slave state of West Virginia. No other state has ever formed by breaking off from another without the consent of the legislature of the parent state, as in the cases of Vermont, Kentucky, and Maine.

Births

January–June

• January 7 – Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel, French mathematician and politician (d. 1956)
• January 30 – Wilfred Lucas, Canadian-born actor (d. 1940)
• February 4 – Friedrich Ebert, President of Germany (d. 1925)
• February 9 – Howard Taylor Ricketts, American bacteriologist. (d. 1910)
• February 18 – Harry Brearley, English inventor (d. 1948)
• February 28 – Manuel Díaz Rodríguez, Venezuelan writer (d. 1927)
• March 1 – Ben Harney, American composer and pianist (d. 1938)
• March 4 – Boris Galerkin, Russian mathematician (d. 1945)
• March 5 – Rosa Luxemburg, German politician (d. 1919)
• March 19 – Schofield Haigh, English cricketer (d. 1921)
• March 27 – Heinrich Mann, German writer (d. 1950)
• March 31 – Arthur Griffith, President of Ireland (d. 1922)
• April 8 – Clarence Hudson White, American photographer (d. 1925)
• May 3 – Walter Robinson Parr, English-born pastor (d. 1922)
• May 6
  • Victor Grignard, French chemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate (d. 1935)
  • Christian Morgenstern, German author (d. 1914)
• May 27 – Georges Rouault, French painter and graphic artist (d. 1958)
• June 14 – Jacob Ellehammer, Danish inventor (d. 1946)

July–December

• July 10 – Marcel Proust, French writer (d. 1922)
• July 17 – Lyonel Feininger, German painter (d. 1956)
• July 18 – Sada Yacco, Japanese stage actress (d. 1946)
• July 25 – Richard Ernest Turner, Canadian soldier (d. 1961)
• August 1 – John Lester, American cricketer (d. 1969)
• August 14 – Guangxu Emperor of China (d. 1908)
• August 19
  • Orville Wright, American aviation pioneer, co-inventor of the airplane with brother Wilbur (d. 1948)
  • Joseph E. Widener, American art collector (d. 1943)
• August 25 – Ross Winn, American anarchist writer and publisher (d. 1912)
• August 27 – Theodore Dreiser, American writer (d. 1945)
• August 29 – Albert Lebrun, French politician (d. 1950)
• August 30 – Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 1937)
• September 1 – J. Reuben Clark, Under Secretary of State for U.S. President Calvin Coolidge (d. 1961)
• September 10 – Charles Collett, Great Western Railway Chief mechanical engineer (d. 1952)
• September 24 – Lottie Dod, English athlete (d. 1960)
• September 26 – Winsor McCay, American cartoonist and animator (d. 1934)
• September 27 – Grazia Deledda, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1936)
• October 2 – Cordell Hull, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1955)
• October 19 – Walter Bradford Cannon, American physiologist (d. 1945)
• October 11 – Harriet Boyd-Hawes, American archaeologist (d. 1945)
• October 30
  • Paul Valéry, French poet (d. 1945)
  • Buck Freeman, American baseball player (d. 1949)
• November 1 – Stephen Crane, American writer (d. 1900)
• November 3 – Albert Goldthorpe, English rugby league footballer (d. 1943)
• December 9 – Joe Kelley, American Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1943)
• December 13 – Emily Carr, Canadian artist (d. 1945)

Deaths

January–June

• January 8 – José Trinidad Cabañas, a Honduran General, President and National Hero (b. 1805)
• January 13 – Kawakami Gensai, a highly skilled swordsman and one of the four most notable assassins of the Bakumatsu period. In the manga Rurouni Kenshin, the main character is a skilled swordsman named Kenshin Himura. He is loosely based on Gensai.
• January 15 – Edward C. Delevan, American temperance movement leader (b. 1793)
• January 19 – Sir William Denison, Governor of New South Wales (b. 1804)
• February 12 – Alice Cary, American poet, sister to Phoebe Cary (1824–1871) (b. 1820)
• February 20 – Paul Kane, Irish-born painter (b. 1810)
• March 18 – Augustus De Morgan, professor of mathematics and mathematician (b. 1806)
• April 7 – Prince Alexander John of Wales (b. April 6, prematurely)
• May 11 – John Herschel, English astronomer (b. 1792)
• May 12 – Elzéar-Henri Juchereau Duchesnay, Canadian politician (b. 1809)
• May 23 – Jarosław Dąbrowski, Polish general (b. 1836)

July–December

• July 5 – Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, Italian noblewoman, patriot, writer and journalist (b. 1808)
• July 31 – Phoebe Cary, American poet, sister to Alice Cary (1820–1871) (b. 1824)
• September 20 – John Coleridge Patteson, Anglican bishop and missionary (martyred) (b. 1827)
• September 23 – Louis-Joseph Papineau, Canadian politician (b. 1786)
• October 18 – Charles Babbage, English mathematician and inventor (b. 1791)
• November 22 – Oscar James Dunn, Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana (b. 1825)
• December 28 – John Henry Pratt, English clergyman and mathematician (b. 1809)

References

• Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia...for 1871 (1873), comprehensive collection of facts online edition