Year '1870' ('
MDCCCLXX') was a
common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the
Gregorian calendar (or a
common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower
Julian calendar).
Events of 1870
January - March
★
January 1 - First edition of
The Northern Echo newspaper published.
★
January 1 - Plans for the
Brooklyn Bridge are completed.
★
January 3 - Construction of the
Brooklyn Bridge begins.
★
January 6 - The inauguration of the
Musikverein (
Vienna).
★
January 10 -
John D. Rockefeller incorporates
Standard Oil.
★
January 15 - A political
cartoon for the first time symbolizes the
United States Democratic Party with a
donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by
Thomas Nast for ''
Harper's Weekly'').
★
January 26 -
Reconstruction:
Virginia rejoins the
Union.
★
January 27 - First college
sorority,
Kappa Alpha Theta, is established at
DePauw University.
★ February -
Vrain Denis-Lucas in sentenced for two years in prison for multiple
forgery in
Paris.
★
February 1 -
Goodna State School in
Goodna,
Queensland,
Australia is founded.
★
February 2 - It is revealed that the famed
Cardiff Giant was just carved
gypsum and not the petrified remains of a
human.
★
February 3 - The
15th Amendment to the
United States Constitution is passed.
★
February 10
★
★
Anaheim, California is incorporated.
★
★ The
YWCA is founded in
New York City.
★
February 12 - Women gain the
right to vote in
Utah Territory.
★
February 23 - Military control of
Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
★
February 25 -
Hiram Rhodes Revels, a
Republican from
Mississippi, is sworn into the
United States Senate, becoming the first
African American ever to sit in the
U.S. Congress.
★
February 26 - In New York City, the first
pneumatic-
subway is opened.
★
February 28 - The
Bulgarian Exarchate is established by decree of Sultan
Abd-ul-Aziz of the
Ottoman Empire.
★
March 2 -
Francisco Solano López' last troops cornered by
Triple Alliance troops at
Cerro Cora. López refuses to surrender and is killed. Fighting ends in
Paraguay - the
War of the Triple Alliance is over.
★
March 3 -
Thomas Scott is executed by
Louis Reil's provisional government during the
Red River Rebellion in modern day
Manitoba Canada.
★
March 19 - Ohio Legislature passes the Cannon Act, thereby establishing the Ohio Agriculture and Mechanical College, later
The Ohio State University.
★
March 24 -
Syracuse University is established and officially opens.
★
March 30
★
★ The
15th Amendment is entered into the
United States Constitution, giving blacks the right to vote.
★
★
Texas is readmitted to the Union following
Reconstruction.
★
March 31 -
Thomas Mundy Peterson the first African-American to vote in an election.
April - June
★
April 11 -
Irish peer Lord Muncaster and his entourage kidnapped in
Greece.
★
May 12 - The
Canadian province of
Manitoba is created in response to
Louis Riel's
Red River Rebellion.
★
May 14 - First
rugby match to be played in
New Zealand, between the Nelson Football Club and
Nelson College.
★
May 24 - The
Port Adelaide Football Club play their first match of
Australian rules football at Buck's Flat, Glanville,
South Australia.
★
June 9 - The great author and actor
Charles Dickens dies after suffering from a stroke. The inscription on his tomb reads: ''"He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world."''
★
June 22 - The
U.S. Congress creates the
Department of Justice.
★
June 26
★
★
Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the
United States.
★
★
Richard Wagner's opera
Die Walküre is first performed at
Munich's National Theatre.
July - September
★
July 13 - The ''
Ems Dispatch'' serves as a reason for a
war between
Prussia and
France.
★
July 15 -
Reconstruction:
Georgia becomes the last former
Confederate state to be readmitted to the
Union, and the CSA is dissoluted.
★
July 16 -
Lambert McKenna is born, Irish scholar.
★
July 19 -
Franco-Prussian War:
France declares war on
Prussia.
★
August 8 - The ''
Republic of Ploieşti'', a failed rising against
Domnitor Carol of
Romania.
★
August 24 - The
Red River Rebellion ends with the arrival of the
Wolseley Expedition and the fleeing of
Louis Riel.
★
September 2 -
Franco-Prussian War:
Battle of Sedan -
Prussian forces defeat the
French armies and take emperor
Napoleon III and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner at
Sedan.
★
September 4 - Emperor
Napoleon III of France is deposed and the
Third Republic is declared.
Empress Eugenie flees to England with her children.
★
September 6 - Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming, votes in the morning, becoming the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.
★
September 20 - With ''
Bersaglieri'' soldiers entering
Rome at
Porta Pia, the
unification of Italy is completed. End of the last remnant of the
Papal States.
October - December
★
October 2 -
Referendum in
Rome supports joining the
Italy with 133681 against 1500. Decision is made official
October 6.
Rome becomes the capital of
unified Italy.
★
October 8 -
Leon Michel Gambetta escapes the besieged
Paris in a
hot-air balloon.
★
November 1 - In the
United States, the newly-created Weather Bureau (later renamed the
National Weather Service) makes its first official
meteorological forecast: "High winds at Chicago and Milwaukee... and along the Lakes".
★
November 16 -
Spanish Cortes Generales proclaims Amadeo de Saboya as King
Amadeus I of Spain.
★
December 30 - Assassination of
Juan Prim, Prime minister of
Spain.
Births
January - June
★
January 2 -
Ernst Barlach, German sculptor, graphic artist, and poet (d.
1938)
★
January 6 -
Gustav Bauer,
Chancellor of Germany (d.
1944)
★
January 8 -
Miguel Primo de Rivera, dictator of Spain (d.
1930)
★
February 7 -
Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist (d.
1937)
★
March 4 -
Thomas Sturge Moore, English poet, author and artist (d.
1944)
★
March 5 -
Rosa Luxemburg, Polish-born German political theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary (d.
1919)
★
March 5 -
Frank Norris, American writer (d.
1902)
★
March 13 -
Seale Harris, American Physician (d.
1957)
★
March 17 -
Horace Donisthorpe, English entomologist (d.
1951)
★
March 20 -
Paul Erich von Lettow-Vorbeck, German general (d.
1964)
★
April 1 -
Hamaguchi Osachi, 27th
Prime Minister of Japan (d.
1931)
★
April 4 -
George Albert Smith, president of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d.
1951)
★
April 22 -
Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary and first
Premier of the
Soviet Union (d.
1924)
★
April 30 -
Franz Lehár, Austrian composer (d.
1948)
★
May 9 -
Harry Vardon, English Golf Professional (d.
1937)
★
May 19 -
Albert Fish, American serial killer (d.
1936)
★
June 13 -
Jules Bordet, Belgian immunologist and microbiologist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d.
1961)
July - December
★
July 3 -
Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh
Prime Minister of Canada (d.
1947)
★
July 12 -
Louis II of Monaco (d.
1949)
★
July 29 -
George Dixon, Canadian boxer (d.
1909)
★
August 3 -
Caroline Celestia "Carrie" Ingalls, née Swanzey, Younger sister of author
Laura Ingalls Wilder (d.
June 2,
1946)
★
August 11 -
Tom Richardson, English cricketer (d.
1912)
★
August 31 -
Maria Montessori, Italian educator (d.
1952)
★
September 25 -
James A. Hawken, Schoolteacher (d.
1964)
★
September 26 - King
Christian X of Denmark (d.
1947)
★
September 30 -
Jean Baptiste Perrin, French physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1942)
★
October 10 -
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, Russian writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1953)
★
November 21 -
Sigfrid Edström, Swedish sports official (d.
1964)
★
November 27 -
Juho Kusti Paasikivi,
Prime Minister and
President of Finland (d.
1956)
★
December 5 -
Vítězslav Novák, Czech composer (d.
1949)
★
December 10 -
Mary Bonaparte, pretender to the French imperial throne (d.
1947)
★
December 12 -
Walter Benona Sharp, American oil pioneer (d.
1912)
★
December 18 -
Saki, English writer (d.
1916)
: ''See also .''
Deaths
January - June
★
January 29 -
Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b.
1797)
★
February 7 -
Sylvain Salnave a Hatian president (b.
1827)
★
February 19 -
Nathaniel de Rothschild, French wine grower (b.
1812)
★
March 11 -
Moshoeshoe I of
Lesotho (b.
1786?)
★
March 28 -
George Henry Thomas, American general (b.
1816)
★
May 6 -
Sir James Young Simpson, Scottish physician and researcher (b.
1811)
★
June 9 -
Charles Dickens, British novelist (b.
1812)
★
June 24 -
Adam Lindsay Gordon, Australian poet (b.
1833)
July - December
★
July 20 -
Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt, French writer and publisher (b.
1830)
★
September 12 -
Fitz Hugh Ludlow, American author and explorer (b.
1836)
★
September 23 -
Prosper Mérimée, French writer (b.
1803)
★
October 12 -
Robert E. Lee, American Confederate general (b.
1807)
★
November 24 -
Comte de Lautreamont, French poet and writer (b.
1846)
★
November 28 -
Frédéric Bazille, French painter (b.
1841)
★
December 5 -
Alexandre Dumas, père, French author (b.
1802)
★
December 27 -
General Prim, Spanish dictator (b.
1814)
★ ''date unknown'' -
Patrick MacDowell, Northern Irish sculptor (b.
1799)
: ''See also .''