1877 - What happened in 1877 ?

January 1877

Monday 08:

Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry (Montana).

March 1877

Friday 02:

U.S. presidential election, 1876: The U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876 (Reconstruction ends).

Saturday 03:

Rutherford B. Hayes is privately inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (his public inauguration coming on March 5).

Sunday 04:

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake debuts.

Monday 05:

Rutherford B. Hayes is publicly inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (he was privately inaugurated on March 3).

Thursday 15:

The first Test cricket match begins, between England and Australia.

April 1877

Thursday 12:

The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.

May 1877

Saturday 05:

Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.

Sunday 06:

Realizing that his people were weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.

Tuesday 08:

At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens (ends May 11).

Thursday 10:

Romania declares itself independent from Turkey, recognized on March 26, 1881 after the end of the Romanian independence war.

June 1877

Friday 15:

Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.

Wednesday 20:

Alexander Graham Bell installs world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Thursday 21:

The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants who were labor activists, are hanged in the Carbon County, Pennsylvania Prison.

July 1877

Saturday 21:

After rioting by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of 9 rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia.

August 1877

Thursday 09:

Near Big Hole River in Montana, a small band of Nez Percé Indians who refused government orders to move to a reservation, clash with the United States Army. The army lost 29 soldiers and Indians lost 89 warriors in a US Army win.

Sunday 12:

Asaph Hall discovers Deimos

Wednesday 15:

"Mary Had a Little Lamb"

Friday 17:

Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill will die the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.

Saturday 18:

Asaph Hall discovers Martian moon Phobos.

September 1877

Wednesday 05:

Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

October 1877

Friday 05:

Chief Joseph surrenders his Nez Percé band to General Nelson A. Miles.

Wednesday 10:

Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer is given a funeral with full military honors.

November 1877

Wednesday 21:

Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound (this is considered to be Edison's first great invention).

Thursday 29:

Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.

December 1877

Thursday 06:

First publication of the Washington Post newspaper.