1879

Events in 1879 42

• 1795 – 1879 Rowland Hill (1795-1879) Died 27 August 1879, aged 83 Rowland Hill was an English teacher and social reformer who devised the modern postal system, including the Penny Post and the prepaid postage stamp. His 1837 reforms made mail affordable and standardized across Britain and were later adopted worldwide. Hill served as Secretary to the Post Office and was knighted for his contributions.
• 1808 – 1879 Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) Died 10 February 1879, aged 70 Honoré Daumier was a French painter, sculptor, and caricaturist renowned for his satirical lithographs of French politics and society. He produced thousands of prints for Parisian journals over a four-decade career, often targeting corruption and social injustice. Daumier died in Valmondois, France, nearly blind and in poverty.
• 1810 – 1879 William Froude (1810-1879) Died 4 May 1879, aged 68 William Froude was an English engineer and naval architect who pioneered the scientific study of ship hydrodynamics. He developed methods for predicting a ship's resistance and stability using scale models, still known as Froude scaling. His work laid the foundation for modern naval architecture and towing-tank testing.
• 1813 – 1879 Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1879) Died 29 March 1879, aged 65 Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and virtuoso pianist known for technically demanding and harmonically adventurous piano works. A contemporary of Chopin and Liszt, he lived much of his later life as a recluse in Paris. His music was largely neglected after his death but was revived by pianists in the 20th century.
• 1856 – 1879 Napoléon, Prince Imperial (1856-1879) Died 1 June 1879, aged 23 Napoléon, Prince Imperial, was the only child of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie of France and heir to the fallen Bonapartist claim to the French throne. Living in exile in Britain after the fall of the Second Empire, he volunteered to serve with British forces in the Anglo-Zulu War. He was killed in an ambush by Zulu warriors while on a reconnaissance patrol in Natal.
• 1879 – 1923 Aleksandar Stamboliyski (1879-1923) Died 14 June 1923, aged 43 Aleksandar Stamboliyski was the Prime Minister of Bulgaria and leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, pursuing land reform and a peasant-based political program. He was overthrown in a military coup and killed by his captors days later. His government's fall marked a turning point toward right-wing rule in interwar Bulgaria.
• 1879 – 1936 Billy Mitchell (1879-1936) Died 19 February 1936, aged 56 Billy Mitchell was a US Army general and an early advocate of military air power. He was court-martialled in 1925 for publicly criticising his superiors. He is regarded as a father of the United States Air Force.
• 1879 Chocolate Revolution Rudolf Lindt Invention of the "conche" by Lindt, which allowed for the creation of melting, smooth chocolate.
• 1879 – 1970 E.M. Forster (1879-1970) Died 7 June 1970, aged 91 E.M. Forster, the English novelist best known for A Passage to India and Howards End, died in Coventry, England. His novels explored class, empire and personal connection in early twentieth-century Britain.
• 1879 – 1919 Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) Died 10 April 1919, aged 39 Zapata led peasant revolutionary forces in southern Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, fighting under the banner of land reform and the slogan "Tierra y Libertad." He was ambushed and killed by government soldiers at Chinameca and became a lasting symbol of agrarian revolt.
• 1879 – 1959 Ethel Barrymore (1879-1959) Died 18 June 1959, aged 79 Barrymore was a celebrated American stage and film actress and a leading member of the Barrymore theatrical dynasty. Known as "The First Lady of the American Theatre," she won an Academy Award for None but the Lonely Heart in 1944. Her career spanned more than five decades on stage and screen.
• 1879 – 1941 Frank Bridge (1879-1941) Died 10 January 1941, aged 61 Frank Bridge was an English composer and viola player whose later works are notably modernist. He was also the teacher of Benjamin Britten.
• 1879 – 1939 Joseph Lyons (1879-1939) Died 7 April 1939, aged 59 Lyons was Prime Minister of Australia from 1932. He led the United Australia Party through the recovery from the Depression. He was the first Australian prime minister to die in office.
• 1879 – 1935 Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) Died 15 May 1935, aged 56 Malevich was a Russian avant-garde painter who founded Suprematism and painted Black Square. He died of cancer in Leningrad.
• 1879 – 1940 Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) Died 21 August 1940, aged 60 Russian revolutionary, founder of the Red Army and Stalin's chief rival, exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. A Soviet agent, Ramón Mercader, struck him with an ice axe at his home in Coyoacán, Mexico City, on 20 August. He died the following day.
• 1879 Light Bulb Electric Light Thomas Edison’s invention that ended the dependence on daylight and flame.
• 1879 Louisa May Alcott registers to vote First woman in Concord When Massachusetts lets women vote in school committee elections, Alcott is the first woman in Concord to register.
• 1879 – 1966 Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) Died 6 September 1966, aged 86 Margaret Sanger was an American birth control activist who founded the organization that became Planned Parenthood. She died in Tucson, Arizona, on 6 September 1966.
• 1879 – 1936 Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) Died 18 April 1936, aged 56 Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer and musicologist. He is best known for his orchestral Roman Trilogy, which includes The Pines of Rome and The Fountains of Rome. He was also noted for his rich orchestration.
• 1879 – 1940 Paul Klee (1879-1940) Died 29 June 1940, aged 60 Swiss-born German painter and Bauhaus teacher whose work drew on Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism. The Nazis labelled his art degenerate. He died in Switzerland after years of illness.
• 1879 – 1944 Paul Poiret (1879-1944) Died 30 April 1944, aged 65 French couturier who freed women's fashion from the corset in the early twentieth century. His designs drew on Orientalism and Art Deco. He was the leading Paris designer before the First World War but died in poverty.
• 1879 – 1931 Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) Died 5 December 1931, aged 52 American poet, known for performance poems written to be sung or chanted, such as The Congo and General William Booth Enters into Heaven. He helped popularise modern poetry with public audiences. He took his own life in Springfield, Illinois.
• 1879 – 1959 Wanda Landowska (1879-1959) Died 16 August 1959, aged 80 Landowska was a Polish harpsichordist and pianist who almost single-handedly revived the harpsichord and historically informed performance of early music in the twentieth century. Her recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations were highly influential. She taught and performed across Europe before settling in the United States.
• 1879 – 1935 Will Rogers (1879-1935) Died 15 August 1935, aged 55 Rogers was a Cherokee-American humorist, film star and newspaper columnist, and one of the most popular entertainers of his time. He was killed with pilot Wiley Post when their plane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska.
• 1879 United States Resumes Specie Payments Treasury begins redeeming greenbacks in gold The U.S. Treasury began redeeming paper greenbacks for gold coin at face value, fulfilling the 1875 Specie Resumption Act. The move restored the gold standard after the Civil War-era suspension and stabilized the dollar's value. It marked a major milestone in postwar American monetary policy.
• 1879 Battle of Isandlwana Zulu forces inflict a major defeat on British troops A Zulu army overwhelmed a British camp at Isandlwana in Natal, killing over 1,300 British and colonial soldiers. It was the worst defeat inflicted on a modern army by a pre-industrial force in the 19th century. The disaster shocked Britain and forced a reassessment of the Anglo-Zulu War.
• 1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift Small British garrison repels sustained Zulu assault Roughly 150 British and colonial troops defended a mission station at Rorke's Drift against several thousand Zulu warriors through the night. The defenders held out until Zulu forces withdrew, and eleven Victoria Crosses were later awarded for the action. The battle followed hours after the British defeat at Isandlwana.
• 1879 War of the Pacific Begins Chile occupies Antofagasta, igniting war with Bolivia and Peru Chilean troops occupied the Bolivian port of Antofagasta over a mining tax dispute, triggering a war against the allied forces of Bolivia and Peru. The conflict would last until 1883 and reshape the map of South America's Pacific coast. Chile's eventual victory gave it control of the nitrate-rich Atacama region.
• 1879 – 1955 Albert Einstein Relativity Pioneer The physicist who developed the theory of relativity, fundamentally changing our understanding of space and time.
• 1879 Assassination Attempt on Tsar Alexander II Revolutionary Alexander Solovyov fires on the Russian emperor Alexander Solovyov, a member of the revolutionary group Land and Liberty, fired several shots at Tsar Alexander II as he walked near the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The tsar escaped unharmed and Solovyov was captured and later executed. The attempt was one of several against Alexander II before his eventual assassination in 1881.
• 1879 Treaty of Gandamak Signed Afghanistan cedes control of foreign affairs to Britain The treaty ended the first phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, with Emir Yaqub Khan ceding Afghan territory and control of foreign policy to Britain in exchange for an annual subsidy. A British mission was installed in Kabul under Sir Louis Cavagnari. The settlement collapsed within months when the mission was massacred.
• 1879 – 1945 Alla Nazimova (1879-1945) Russian-born actress and producer, a star of Ibsen on Broadway and of silent film, and owner of the Garden of Allah.
• 1879 F.W. Woolworth Opens First Successful Five-and-Dime Store Lancaster, Pennsylvania store launches a retail empire Frank Winfield Woolworth opened a fixed-price five-and-ten-cent store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, after an earlier attempt in Utica, New York had failed. The store's low, fixed-price model proved successful and became the template for the nationwide Woolworth chain. It helped pioneer the modern variety store and five-and-dime retail format.
• 1879 Battle of Ulundi British forces destroy the Zulu capital, ending the main war British troops under Lord Chelmsford defeated the main Zulu army and burned the royal capital of Ulundi, breaking Zulu military power. The victory avenged earlier defeats and effectively ended large-scale fighting in the Anglo-Zulu War. King Cetshwayo fled and was captured by British forces weeks later.
• 1879 Pope Leo XIII Issues Aeterni Patris Encyclical revives Thomas Aquinas as the basis of Catholic philosophy Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Aeterni Patris called for a revival of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas in Catholic education and thought. It launched the Neo-Thomist movement, which shaped Catholic intellectual life for decades. The encyclical remains a foundational document in modern Catholic philosophy.
• 1879 Massacre of the British Residency in Kabul Afghan troops kill the British envoy and his guard Mutinous Afghan soldiers besieged and overran the British mission in Kabul, killing envoy Sir Louis Cavagnari and his entire escort. The massacre reignited the Second Anglo-Afghan War just months after the Treaty of Gandamak had ended its first phase. British forces under General Roberts marched on Kabul in response.
• 1879 Germany and Austria-Hungary Sign the Dual Alliance Defensive pact binds Berlin and Vienna against Russia Chancellor Otto von Bismarck concluded a secret defensive alliance between the German and Austro-Hungarian empires, committing each to support the other if attacked by Russia. The pact became the core of the later Triple Alliance with Italy and shaped European diplomacy until World War I. It marked a decisive shift in Bismarck's balance-of-power strategy.
• 1879 – 1967 Jane Darwell (1879-1967) American actress, Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath and the Bird Woman in Mary Poppins.
• 1879 Irish National Land League Founded Michael Davitt organizes tenant farmers against landlordism Michael Davitt founded the Irish National Land League in Dublin to campaign for fair rents, fixed tenure, and free sale for Irish tenant farmers. Charles Stewart Parnell was elected its president, linking the land agitation to parliamentary nationalism. The League's campaign launched the Land War, a period of agrarian unrest across Ireland.
• 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 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 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.