1880s

Events and Trends

Technology

• Development and commercial production of electric lighting
• Development and commercial production of gasoline-powered automobile by Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Maybach
• First commercial production and sales of phonographs and phonograph recordings.
• First steel frame construction "sky-scrapers"
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers founded 16 February 1880, New York, N.Y.

Science

• Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect
• Michelson-Morley experiment, showing that the speed of light is invariant
• James-Lange theory of emotion

War, peace and politics

• First Boer War
• The New Imperialism

Other

• Krakatoa, a volcano in Indonesia, erupts cataclysmically; 36,000 people are killed, the majority by the resulting tsunami
• About 300,000 Swedes emigrate to the United States