Timeline December 1880

Events in December 1880 3

• 1819 – 1880 George Eliot (1819-1880) Died 22 December 1880, aged 61 George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist whose works include Middlemarch and Silas Marner. She died in London on 22 December 1880, a few months after marrying John Cross. Her fiction is noted for its psychological depth and realism.
• 1880 Land League boycott of Captain Boycott Irish tenants coin a new word for social ostracism Tenant farmers in County Mayo, organized by the Irish National Land League, isolated land agent Charles Boycott after he evicted tenants for withholding rent. Boycott was shunned by laborers, merchants, and the postal service through the autumn of 1880. His name entered the English language as a verb for organized ostracism.
• 1880 First Boer War begins Transvaal Boers rise against British annexation Boer settlers in the Transvaal declared independence from British rule and attacked a British column at Bronkhorstspruit on 16 December 1880. The conflict exposed British forces to a string of defeats over the following weeks. It ended in 1881 with the restoration of Transvaal self-government.