1877

Events in 1877 31

• 1794 – 1877 Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) Died 4 January 1877, aged 82 Cornelius Vanderbilt built a fortune in steamships and railroads, controlling the New York Central Railroad and much of the rail traffic into New York City. At his death he was among the wealthiest men in American history and left the bulk of his estate to his son William. He endowed Vanderbilt University with a founding gift in 1873.
• 1797 – 1877 Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) Died 3 September 1877, aged 80 Adolphe Thiers served as the first President of the French Third Republic from 1871 to 1873, overseeing the suppression of the Paris Commune and the recovery from the Franco-Prussian War. He was also a prolific historian and had earlier served as a minister and briefly as prime minister under the July Monarchy. He remained an influential political figure until his death.
• 1801 – 1877 Brigham Young (1801-1877) Died 29 August 1877, aged 76 Brigham Young led the Latter-day Saints west after the death of Joseph Smith, founding Salt Lake City and directing the settlement of Utah. He served as the first governor of Utah Territory and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for three decades. He oversaw the church's rapid expansion and the colonization of much of the Mountain West.
• 1814 – 1877 John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877) Died 29 May 1877, aged 63 John Lothrop Motley was an American historian and diplomat best known for his multivolume history of the Dutch Republic's revolt against Spain. He served as United States minister to Austria and later to Great Britain. His histories were widely read in the nineteenth century for their narrative style.
• 1828 – 1877 Saigo Takamori (1828-1877) Died 24 September 1877, aged 49 Saigo Takamori was a samurai leader who helped restore imperial rule in the Meiji Restoration before breaking with the new government over its modernization policies. He led the Satsuma Rebellion against the government he had helped create and died by suicide after his defeat at the Battle of Shiroyama. He is remembered in Japan as an emblem of samurai loyalty and honor.
• 1877 – 1955 Alben Barkley (1877-1955) Died 30 April 1955, aged 77 Alben Barkley served as Vice President of the United States under Harry Truman from 1949 to 1953. He collapsed and died of a heart attack while delivering a speech at Washington and Lee University. He was previously a longtime US Senator from Kentucky.
• 1877 – 1956 Alben Barkley (1877-1956) Died 30 April 1956, aged 78 American politician who served as Vice President under Harry Truman from 1949 to 1953, after a long career as a US Senator from Kentucky. He collapsed and died of a heart attack while giving a speech at Washington and Lee University. He remained active in politics up to the moment of his death.
• 1877 – 1915 Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (1877-1915) Died 7 May 1915, aged 37 American businessman and heir to the Vanderbilt railroad fortune, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt drowned when the RMS Lusitania was torpedoed off the Irish coast. He reportedly gave up his life jacket to help other passengers before the ship sank.
• 1877 – 1932 André Maginot (1877-1932) Died 7 January 1932, aged 54 As French Minister of War, Maginot pressed for the fortifications on the German border that became known as the Maginot Line.
• 1877 Anna Karenina published in book form Tolstoy's novel completes its serialized run Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina, serialized since 1875, was published as a complete book in 1877. The Russian journal Russky Vestnik refused to print Tolstoy's final installment over its political content, prompting him to publish the ending separately. The novel became one of the most acclaimed works of Russian literature.
• 1877 – 1944 Charles Glover Barkla (1877-1944) Died 23 October 1944, aged 67 English physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1917 for his discovery of the characteristic X-rays emitted by elements. His work on X-ray scattering contributed to understanding atomic structure. He was professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
• 1877 – 1910 Charles Rolls (1877-1910) Died 12 July 1910, aged 32 British motoring and aviation pioneer who co-founded Rolls-Royce with Henry Royce in 1904. He died when his Wright biplane broke apart during a flying display in Bournemouth, becoming the first Briton to be killed in a powered aircraft accident. He had earlier been the first person to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by air.
• 1877 – 1927 Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) Died 14 September 1927, aged 50 Isadora Duncan was an American dancer who rejected ballet technique in favour of free, natural movement, and she is considered a founder of modern dance. She died in Nice when her long silk scarf caught in the wheel of an open car.
• 1877 – 1943 Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) Died 2 September 1943, aged 66 Marsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter. He is known for his German military paintings and his later landscapes of Maine. He was part of Alfred Stieglitz's circle.
• 1877 – 1938 Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) Died 21 April 1938, aged 60 Iqbal was a poet and philosopher who wrote in Urdu and Persian. His call for a Muslim homeland in north-west India made him the spiritual father of Pakistan.
• 1877 – 1953 Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) Died 23 March 1953, aged 75 Raoul Dufy was a French painter known for his brightly colored, decorative style associated with Fauvism. His work spanned painting, textile design, and ceramics, and he remained active despite severe rheumatoid arthritis in his later years. He is remembered as one of the leading French artists of the early twentieth century.
• 1877 – 1927 Wang Guowei (1877-1927) Died 2 June 1927, aged 49 Wang Guowei was a Chinese scholar of history, literary criticism and the Shang dynasty oracle bones. He drowned himself in Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing.
• 1877 Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India Delhi Durbar marks new imperial title At a ceremonial assembly in Delhi on 1 January 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, a title created under the Royal Titles Act of 1876. Viceroy Lord Lytton presided over the durbar before an assembly of Indian princes and British officials. The title underscored direct Crown rule over India following the end of East India Company administration.
• 1877 Satsuma Rebellion Samurai uprising against the Meiji government Disaffected samurai in southwestern Japan, led by Saigo Takamori, rose against the modernizing Meiji government's abolition of samurai privileges. Imperial conscript forces defeated the rebels after months of fighting, culminating in the Battle of Shiroyama. The rebellion was the last major armed challenge to the new Japanese state and ended the samurai class as a military force.
• 1877 Swan Lake premieres in Moscow Tchaikovsky's first ballet debuts at the Bolshoi Theatre Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 4 March 1877. The original production and choreography were poorly received by contemporary critics. It was only revived successfully after the composer's death and later became one of the most performed ballets in the world.
• 1877 Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated as US president Takes office after the disputed 1876 election Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as the 19th President of the United States on 5 March 1877, following a bitterly contested election resolved by a special Electoral Commission. His inauguration followed the informal Compromise of 1877, under which Democrats accepted his presidency in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South.
• 1877 Reconstruction ends in the American South Federal troops withdrawn under the Compromise of 1877 In April 1877, President Hayes ordered the withdrawal of the last federal troops stationed in Southern state capitals, ending military Reconstruction. Democratic 'Redeemer' governments took full control of the remaining Southern states. The withdrawal allowed the rollback of Reconstruction-era civil rights protections for African Americans in the following decades.
• 1877 Russo-Turkish War begins Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire over the Balkans Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 24 April 1877, citing the treatment of Christian populations in the Balkans. The conflict was fought across Bulgaria and the Caucasus and ended in a decisive Russian victory. It led to the independence of Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania and the autonomy of Bulgaria.
• 1877 Nez Perce War Chief Joseph leads his band on a 1,170-mile flight toward Canada After refusing to be confined to a reduced reservation, several bands of Nez Perce under leaders including Chief Joseph fled the US Army across Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. The war included battles at White Bird Canyon and the Big Hole before Chief Joseph's surrender near the Bear Paw Mountains on 5 October 1877, just short of the Canadian border. His surrender speech, including the line 'I will fight no more forever,' became widely quoted.
• 1877 – 1961 Charles Coburn (1877-1961) American stage actor who became one of Hollywood's favourite character actors in his sixties, winning an Oscar for The More the Merrier.
• 1877 Wimbledon 1877 Men: Spencer Gore First Wimbledon Championships held at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, Worple Road, London. Spencer Gore won the inaugural men's singles. Women's singles would not begin until 1884.
• 1877 Great Railroad Strike of 1877 First nationwide labor strike in United States history Rail workers walked out after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut wages for the third time in a year, and the strike spread to cities across the country. Violent clashes with state militias and federal troops killed dozens of workers before the strike was suppressed. It marked the first large-scale labor uprising in American industrial history.
• 1877 Siege of Plevna Ottoman forces hold out for months during the Russo-Turkish War Ottoman troops under Osman Pasha withstood repeated Russian and Romanian assaults at Plevna in present-day Bulgaria for nearly five months. The eventual Ottoman surrender on 10 December 1877 was a turning point that opened the road to Constantinople. The siege was one of the longest and costliest engagements of the Russo-Turkish War.
• 1877 Phobos and Deimos discovered Asaph Hall identifies Mars's two moons American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Mars's two small moons using the US Naval Observatory's refracting telescope, finding Deimos on 12 August 1877 and Phobos six days later. He named them after the mythological attendants of the war god Ares. They remain the only known natural satellites of Mars.
• 1877 – 1959 Edmund Gwenn (1877-1959) English actor, the Santa Claus of Miracle on 34th Street.
• 1877 Edison invents the phonograph First machine to record and play back sound Thomas Edison recorded and played back the first known sound recording of a human voice, reciting 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,' in late November 1877. He filed a patent for the phonograph on 24 December 1877. The invention launched the recorded sound industry.