1869

Events

January–March

• January 3 - Abdur Rahman Khan is defeated at Tinah Khan, and exiled from Afghanistan.
• January 5 - Scotland's oldest professional football team, Kilmarnock F.C., 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.
• January 27 - The Republic of Ezo is proclaimed on the northern Japanese island of Ezo by remaining adherents to the Tokugawa shogunate.
• February 5 - Prospectors in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, discover the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found, known as the "Welcome Stranger".
• February 20 - Ranavalona II, the Merina Queen of Madagascar, is baptized.
• February 25 - The Iron and Steel Institute is formed in London.
• February 26 - Mahbub Ali Khan, 2½, begins a 42-year reign as Nizam of Hyderabad.
• March - In Japan, the daimyōs of the Tosa, Hizen, Satsuma and Chōshū Domains are persuaded to return their domains to the Emperor Meiji, leading to creation of a fully centralized government in the country.
• March 1
• *The North German Confederation issues 10gr and 30gr value stamps, printed on goldbeater's skin.
• * - Dmitri Mendeleev finishes his design of the first periodic table and sends it for publishing.
• March 4 - Ulysses S. Grant is sworn in, as the 18th President of the United States.
• March 9 - Southern Illinois University Carbondale is founded.
• March 18 - Dmitri Mendeleev makes a formal presentation of his periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.
• March 24 - Titokowaru's War ends with the surrender of the last Māori troops at large, in the South Taranaki District of New Zealand's North Island.

  April–June

• April 6 - The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York.
• April 17 - The State of Morelos is created in Mexico.
• May - In France, the opposition, consisting of republicans, monarchists and liberals, polls almost 45% of the vote in national elections.
• May 4-10 - Naval Battle of Hakodate: The Imperial Japanese Navy defeats adherents of the Tokugawa shogunate.
• May 6 - Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.
• May 10 - The First Transcontinental Railroad in North America is completed at Promontory, Utah, by the driving of the "golden spike". - The First Transcontinental Railroad in North America is completed
• May 15 - Women's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
• May 18 - One day after surrendering at the land Battle of Hakodate, Enomoto Takeaki turns over Goryōkaku to Japanese forces, signaling the collapse of the Republic of Ezo.
• May 22 - Sainsbury's first store, in Drury Lane, London, is opened.
• May 24 - John Wesley Powell departs Green River WY, with a company of 9 other men, on a trip down the Green and Colorado Rivers.
• May 26 - Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
• June 1 - The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional team.
• June 2 - Sherwood College is founded in Nainital, India.
• June 15 - John Wesley Hyatt patents celluloid in Albany, New York.
• June 27 - The fortress of Goryōkaku is turned over to Imperial Japanese forces, bringing an end to the Republic of Ezo, the Battle of Hakodate and the Boshin War.
• June 30-July 2 - The first Estonian Song Festival takes place in Tartu.

  July–September

• July 10 - Gävle, Sweden is destroyed in a city fire; 8,000 people become homeless.
• July 15 - Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès files a patent for margarine in France.
• July 26 - The Irish Church Act 1869 is given royal assent by Queen Victoria, disestablishing the Church of Ireland effective January 1, 1871.
• August 9 - August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht found the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany.
• August 27 - The University of Oxford wins the first international boat race held on the River Thames, against Harvard University.
• August 31 - Irish scientist Mary Ward is killed by a steam car.
• September 5 - The foundation stone is laid for Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria.
• September 11 - Work on the Wallace Monument is completed in Stirling, Scotland.
• September 12-13 - The P&O's runs aground and sinks in the Red Sea; 31 drown.
• September 24 - Black Friday: The Fisk–Gould Scandal causes a financial panic in the United States.

  October–December

• October - The 'Edinburgh Seven', led by Sophia Jex-Blake, start to attend lectures at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, the first women in the United Kingdom to do so.
• October 8 - Austria-Hungary sends reinforcements to battle the uprising in Krivošije.
• October 11
• * The Red River Rebellion breaks out against British forces in Canada.
• * Gamma Sigma becomes the first high school fraternity in North America at Brockport Normal School, Brockport, New York.
• October 16 - England's first residential university-level women's college, the College for Women, is founded at Hitchin, by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon.
• November 4 - The first issue of the scientific journal Nature is published in London, edited by Norman Lockyer.
• 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 19 - The Hudson's Bay Company surrenders its claim to Rupert's Land in Canada, under its letters patent, back to the British Crown.
• November 23 - In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper ship Cutty Sark is launched.
• December - Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace is published in complete book form, in Russia.
• December 7 - American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.
• December 8 - The First Vatican Council opens in Rome.
• December 10
• * Women's suffrage: The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, the first such law in the world.
• * The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.
• December 31 - Paraguayan War: Triple Alliance forces take Asunción.

  Date unknown

• The investment bank Goldman Sachs is founded in New York.
• The capital of the Isle of Man moves from Castletown to Douglas.
• Arabella Mansfield became the first woman in the United States awarded a license to practice law, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
• James Gordon Bennett, Jr. of the New York Herald asks Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. David Livingstone.
• The Co-operative Central Board is founded in Manchester, England.
• Friedrich Miescher discovers deoxyribonucleic acid.
• The Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts is founded in Great Britain.
• French missionary and naturalist Père Armand David receives the skin of a giant panda from a hunter, the first time this species becomes known to a Westerner; he also first describes a specimen of the "pocket handkerchief tree", which will be named in his honor as Davidia involucrata.
• The University of Otago is founded, making it New Zealand's oldest university.
• Glasgow University Rugby Football Club is founded in Scotland.
• Campbell Soup Company has founded in New Jersey, United States.
• Heinz, as predecessor of Kraft Heinz, a food processing and cheese brand on worldwide, founded in Pennsylvania, United States.

  Births

January–March

• January 4 - Tommy Corcoran, American baseball player
• January 6 - Edith Anne Stoney, Irish physicist
• January 10 - Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic
• January 11 - Carl Theodore Vogelgesang, American admiral
• January 13 - Emanuele Filiberto, 2nd Duke of Aosta, Italian general, Marshal of Italy
• January 15 - Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter and architect
• January 21 - Agnelo de Souza, Portuguese Roman Catholic priest, missionary and saint
• January 22 - José Vicente de Freitas, Portuguese colonel and politician, 97th Prime Minister of Portugal
• January 24
• *Ernest Broșteanu, Romanian general
• *Yoshinori Shirakawa, Japanese general
• January 25 - Max Hoffmann, German general
• February 11
• * Helene Kröller-Müller, Dutch museum founder, patron of the arts
• * Else Lasker-Schüler, German-born poet, author
• February 14 - Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel laureate
• February 26 - Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Russian Marxist revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin's wife
• February 28 - William V. Pratt, American admiral
• March 3
• * Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal, archbishop
• * Henry Wood, British conductor
• March 11 - Rosa Louise Woodberry, American journalist, educator
• March 12 - George Forbes, New Zealand Prime Minister, first leader of the New Zealand National Party
• March 14 - Algernon Blackwood, English writer
• March 15 - Stanisław Wojciechowski, 2nd President of the Republic of Poland
• March 18 - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• March 22 - Emilio Aguinaldo, 1st President of the Philippines
• March 23 - Calouste Gulbenkian, British-Armenian businessman and philanthropist
• March 29 - Edwin Lutyens, British architect

  April–June

• April 2 - Hughie Jennings, American baseball player
• April 4 - Mary Colter, American architect
• April 8
• * Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon
• * Ignatius Maloyan, Armenian Eastern Catholic archbishop and blessed
• April 10 - Signe Bergman, Swedish suffragist
• April 11 - Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor
• April 12 - Henri Désiré Landru, French serial killer
• April 23 - Louise Compain, French feminist author
• April 27 - May Moss, Australian women's rights activist
• May 3 - Warren Terhune, United States Navy Commander, 13th Governor of American Samoa
• May 5 - Hans Pfitzner, German composer
• May 9 - Tyrone Power Sr, English-born actor
• May 12 - Carl Schuhmann, German athlete
• May 13 - Bob Dalton, Wild Western outlaw
• May 18
• *Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, Bavarian military leader, last Bavarian crown prince
• *Lucy Beaumont, English actress
• May 20 - John Stone Stone, American physicist, inventor
• May 28 - Hugo Meurer, German admiral
• May 30 - Giulio Douhet, Italian general, air power theorist
• June 7 - Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich of Russia
• June 17 - Flora Finch, English-born comedian
• June 24 - Prince George of Greece and Denmark, high commissioner of the Cretan State
• June 27 - Hans Spemann, German embryologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• June 28 - Lydia Wahlström, Swedish historian, women's rights activist

  July–September

• July 11 - Pío Valenzuela, Filipino doctor, patriot
• July 14 - Bruno Albert Forsterer, U.S. Marine Sergeant
• July 17 - Mariette Rheiner Garner, Second Lady of the United States
• July 19 - Xenophon Stratigos, Greek general
• July 30 - Cristóbal Magallanes Jara, Mexican Roman Catholic priest, martyr and saint
• August 10 - Laurence Binyon, English poet, scholar
• August 11 - Hale Holden, president of Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad 1914-1918 and 1920-1929
• August 13 - Paul Behncke, German admiral
• August 14 - Armas Järnefelt, Finnish composer, conductor
• August 16 - Mignon Talbot, American paleontologist
• September 3 - Fritz Pregl, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 6 - Felix Salten, Austrian author
• September 11 - Charles Kilpatrick, American one-legged trick cyclist
• September 17 - Christian Lous Lange, Norwegian pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• September 19 - Ben Turpin, American actor and comedian
• September 23 - Mary Mallon, first known asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever
• September 26 - Winsor McCay, American cartoonist, animator

  October–December

• October 2 - Mohandas Gandhi, Indian political leader, Father of the Nation
• October 18 - Johannes Linnankoski, Finnish author
• October 21 - William Edward Dodd, American historian, diplomat
• October 25 - John Heisman, American football coach
• October 26 - Washington Luís, 13th President of Brazil
• October 27 - Viola Allen, American actress
• October 31 - William A. Moffett, American admiral
• November 10 - Wayne Wheeler, American temperance movement leader
• November 11 - Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy
• November 20 - Herbert Tudor Buckland, seminal British Arts and Crafts architect
• November 22 - André Gide, French writer, Nobel laureate
• November 24 - Óscar Carmona, President of Portugal
• November 25 - Herbert Greenfield, Premier of Alberta, Canada
• November 30 - Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist, Nobel laureate
• December 5 - Ellis Parker Butler, American humorist
• December 16 - Hristo Tatarchev, Bulgarian revolutionary, leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace
• December 20 - Charley Grapewin, American vaudeville performer, stage and film actor
• December 22
• * Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet
• * Nathan Paine, American lumber baron
• December 24 - Henriette Roland Holst, Dutch poet, socialist
• December 30 - Stephen Leacock, British-Canadian author, economist
• December 31 - Henri Matisse, French painter

  Date unknown

• Harry Grant Dart, American cartoonist

  Deaths

January–June

• January 1
• * Martin W. Bates, American senator
• * James B. Longacre, fourth Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint
• January 18 - Bertalan Szemere, 3rd Prime Minister of Hungary
• January 19 - Carl Reichenbach, German chemist
• January 30
• * Frances Catherine Barnard, English author
• * William Carleton, Irish novelist
• February 15 - Ghalib, Indian poet
• March 8 - Hector Berlioz, French composer
• March 20 - John Pascoe Grenfell, British admiral of the Brazilian Navy
• March 21 - Juan Almonte, Mexican general, diplomat and regent
• March 24 - Antoine-Henri Jomini, French general
• April 2 - Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer, German palaeontologist
• April 20 - Carl Loewe, German composer
• June 16 - Charles Sturt, Australian explorer
• June 20 - Hijikata Toshizō, Japanese military commander

  July–December

• July 18 - Laurent Clerc, French advocate for the American deaf
• July 22 - John A. Roebling, American bridge engineer
• July 28 - Carl Gustav Carus, German physiologist
• August 21 - Casto Méndez Núñez, Spanish admiral
• August 31 - Mary Ward, Irish scientist, first car crash victim
• September 4 - John Pascoe Fawkner, Australian pioneer, settler and politician,
• September 12 - Peter Mark Roget, British lexicographer
• October 8 - Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States
• October 12 - Pyotr Anjou, arctic explorer and admiral of the Russian Navy
• October 13 - Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic
• October 16 - Joseph Ritner, American politician
• October 23 - Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• October 31 - Charles A. Wickliffe, American politician, 14th Governor of Kentucky
• November 8 - Christodoulos Hatzipetros, Greek military leader
• December 8 - Narcisa de Jesús Martillo, Ecuadorian saint
• December 18 - Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer, pianist
• December 24 - Edwin Stanton, American lawyer, judge and politician

  Yearbooks

• American Annual Cyclopedia...for 1869, large compendium of facts, worldwide coverage