1869

Events of 1869

January - March

• January 1 - Sigma Nu, the first anti-hazing Honor/Social Fraternity, is founded.
• January 20 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.
• January 21 - The P.E.O. Sisterhood,a philanthropic educational organization for women, is founded at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
• February 20 - Ranavalona II, the Merina Queen of Madagascar, is baptized.
• March 1 - North German Confederation issues 10gr and 30gr value stamps, printed on goldbeater's skin.
• March 4 - Ulysses S. Grant succeeds Andrew Johnson as the 18th President of the United States of America.
• March 6 - Mendeleev makes a formal presentation to the Russian Chemical Society.

April - June

• April 6 - The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York.
• May 4-10 - Naval Battle of Hakodate in Korea: The Imperial Japanese Navy defeats the Tokugawa shogunate.
• May 6 - Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.
• May 10 - The Transcontinental Railroad is completed in Promontory, Utah.
• May 15 - Woman's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman's Suffrage Association.
• May 26 - Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
• May 29 - The British Parliament passes the Capital Punishment within Prisons Bill, thus ending public hanging.
• June 1 - The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional baseball team.
• June 2 - Sherwood College is founded in Nainital, India.
• June 15 - John Wesley Hyatt patents the first plastic, Celluloid, in Albany, New York.
• June 18 - The first Estonian Song Festival takes place in Tartu.

July - September

• July 4 - The University of Bucharest is founded.
• August 9 - August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht found the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP).
• August 31 - Irish scientist Mary Ward is killed in a car accident, possibly the first person ever to suffer this fate.
• September 5 - The foundation stone is laid for Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria (southern Germany).
• September 11 - Work on the Wallace Monument is completed in Stirling, Scotland.
• September 24- The Fisk-Gould Scandal (also known as Black Friday) causes a financial panic in the United States.

October - December

• October 16 - England's first residential college for women, Girton College, is founded.
• November 4 - The first issue of the scientific journal Nature is published.
• November 6 - The first game of American Football between two American colleges is played. Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6-4 in a forerunner to American football and College football.
• November 17 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.
• November 23 - In Dumbarton, Scotland the last surviving clipper ship, Cutty Sark, is launched.
• December 1 - The official transfer of Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Dominion of Canada is executed.
• December 10 - The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.
• December 31 - Triple Alliance forces take Asunción.

Undated

• Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.
• The British Parliament ends transportation to Australia as punishment for criminals.
• Mahbub Ali Pasha begins a 42-year reign as the Nizam of Hyderabad.
• James Gordon Bennett, Jr. of the New York Herald asks Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. Livingstone.
• The Meiji Emperor of Japan accepts the surrender of the four most powerful clans--(Chōshū, Tosa, Hizen, and Satsuma)--and reappoints the clan chiefs as Provincial Governors on reduced revenues.
• Abdur Rahman Khan is exiled from Afghanistan.
• Southern Illinois University, Carbondale is founded.
• The co-operative Central Board (later Co-operatives UK) is founded in Manchester.
• The Glasgow University Rugby Football Club (GURFC) is founded.
• The opposition, consisting of republicans, monarchists and liberals, polls almost 45% of the vote in France.

Births

January - June

• January 4 - Tommy Corcoran, American baseball player (d. 1960)
• January 10 - Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic (d. 1916)
• January 15 - Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter, and architect (d. 1907)
• February 11 - Helene Kroller-Muller, Dutch museum founder and patron of the arts (d. 1939)
• February 14 - Charles Wilson, Scottish physicist and Nobel laureate (d. 1959)
• February 26 - Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, RussianMarxist revolutionary and Vladimir Lenin's wife (d.1939)
• March 3
• Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal and archbishop (d. 1952)
• Henry Wood, British conductor (d. 1944)
• March 12 - George William Forbes, New Zealand Prime Minister and first leader of the New Zealand National Party (d. 1947)
• March 14 - Algernon Blackwood, English writer (d. 1951)
• March 18 - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1940)
• March 21 - Florenz Ziegfeld, American theatrical producer (d. 1932)
• March 22 - Emilio Aguinaldo, first President of the Philippines (d. 1964)
• April 2 - Hughie Jennings, American baseball player (d. 1928)
• April 4 - Mary Colter, American architect (d. 1958)
• April 8 - Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon (d. 1939)
• April 11 - Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor (d. 1943)
• April 27 - May Moss, Australian women's rights activist (d. 1948)
• May 5 - Hans Pfitzner, German composer (d. 1949)
• May 20 - John Stone Stone, American physicist and inventor (d. 1943)
• June 17 - Flora Finch, English-born comedian (d. 1940)
• June 27 - Hans Spemann, German embryologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1941)

July - December

• July 11 - Pio Valenzuela, Filipino doctor and patriot
• August 10 - Lawrence Binyon, English poet and scholar (d. 1943)
• September 3 - Fritz Pregl, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1930)
• September 17 - Christian Lous Lange, Norwegian pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1938)
• September 23 - Mary Mallon, "Typhoid Mary" (d. 1938)
• October 2 - Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political leader, Father of the Nation (d. 1948)
• October 25 - John Heisman, American football coach (d. 1936)
• November 10 - Wayne Wheeler, American temperance movement leader (d. 1927)
• November 11 - Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy (d. 1947)
• November 20 - Herbert Tudor Buckland, seminal British Arts and crafts architect (d.1951)
• November 22 - André Gide, French writer and Nobel laureate (d. 1951)
• November 25 - Herbert Greenfield, Premier of Alberta, Canada (d. 1949)
• November 30 - Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist and Nobel laureate (d. 1937)
• December 16 - Hristo Tatarchev, Bulgarian revolutionary and leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace
• December 22 - Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (d. 1935)
• December 22 - Nathan Paine, American lumber baron (d. 1947)
• December 30 - Stephen Leacock, British-Canadian author and economist (d. 1944)
• December 31 - Henri Matisse, French painter (d. 1954)

Deaths

January - June

• January 1
• Martin W. Bates, American senator (b. 1786)
• James B. Longacre, fourth Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint (b. 1794)
• January 30 - William Carleton, Irish novelist (b. 1794)
• February 15 - Mirza Ghalib, Indian poet (b. 1796).
• March 8 - Hector Berlioz, French composer (b. 1803)
• March 20 - John Pascoe Grenfell, British admiral of the Brazilian Navy (b. 1800)
• March 24 - Antoine-Henri Jomini, French general (b. 1779)
• April 20 - Carl Loewe, German composer (b. 1796)
• June 16 - Charles Sturt, Australian explorer (b. 1795)
• June 20 - Hijikata Toshizou, Japanese military commander (b. 1835)

July - December

• July 18 - Laurent Clerc, American advocate for the deaf (b. 1785)
• August 31 - Mary Ward, American scientist and the first car accident victim (b. 1827)
• September 4 - John Pascoe Fawkner, Australian pioneer, settler and politician, Melbourne, Victoria (b. 1792)
• September 12 - Peter Roget, British lexicographer (b. 1779)
• October 13 - Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (b. 1804)
• October 23 - Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1799)
• December 18 - Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer and pianist (b. 1829)