Timeline December 1879

Events in December 1879 6

• 1879 – 1954 Sydney Greenstreet (1879-1954) English actor who made his film debut at 61 in The Maltese Falcon and went on to Casablanca.
• 1879 Sydney Greenstreet born in Sandwich Sydney Greenstreet is born in Sandwich.
• 1879 Tay Bridge Disaster Rail bridge collapses in a storm, killing all aboard a train The central spans of the Tay Bridge in Scotland collapsed during a severe gale as a passenger train crossed, plunging the train into the Firth of Tay. All approximately 75 people aboard were killed. The disaster exposed serious design and construction flaws and became one of the most notorious engineering failures of the Victorian era.
• 1879 Death of Louisa May Alcott's sister May The model for Amy Her youngest sister, the painter May Alcott Nieriker, dies in Paris weeks after giving birth. Louisa raises her niece Lulu.
• 1879 Benz's petrol engine runs on New Year's Eve A workshop in Mannheim After a night of failed attempts, Karl Benz's two-stroke petrol engine finally runs on the last evening of 1879. His wife Bertha, who has funded much of the work with her dowry, is there to hear it. He patents it the following year and it becomes the financial foundation for everything that follows.
• 1879 The Pirates of Penzance Premieres Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera opens in New York Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance received its official premiere at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, staged there first to secure American copyright. The work became one of the pair's most popular operas, known for songs including 'I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General.' It has remained a staple of the comic opera repertoire ever since.