1874
Year 1874 (MDCCCLXXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.
Events
January–March
- January – The Pangkor Treaty (also known as the Pangkor Engagement), by which the British extended their control over, first the Sultanate of Perak and later the other independent Malay States, is signed.
- January 1 – New York City annexes The Bronx.
- January 2 – Ignacio María González becomes head of state of the Dominican Republic for the first time.
- January 3 – Battle of Caspe (Third Carlist War): Campaigning on the Ebro in Aragon for the Spanish Republican Government, Colonel Eulogio Despujol surprised a Carlist force under Manuel Marco de Bello at Caspe, northeast of Alcañiz. In a brilliant action the Carlists were routed, losing 200 prisoners and 80 horses, while Despujol was promoted to Brigadier and became Conde de Caspe.
- January 23 – Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria, marries Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia, only daughter of Tsar Alexander III of Russia.
- January 23 – Camille Saint-Saëns' composition Danse Macabre is premiered.
- February 21 – The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first newspaper.
- February 23 – Walter Clopton Wingfield patents a game called "sphairistike" which is more commonly called lawn tennis.
- February 24-25 –First Battle of Somorrostro (Third Carlist War): Determined to raise the siege of Bilbao by the Pretender Don Carlos VII, Republican commander Marshal Francisco Serrano sent General Domingo Moriones with a relief force of 14,000 men. Carlists, under General Nicolás Ollo, entrenched at Somorrostro outside Bilbao drive back a courageous assault by General Fernando Primo de Rivera and then the entire Republican army. The republicans lose 1,200 men, and Moriones loses his nerve demanding reinforcements and a replacement for himself. Moriones men entrenched and waited.
- March 14 – Battle of Castellfullit de la Roca (Third Carlist War): Appointed to command the Spanish Republican army in the north, General Ramón Nouvilas attempted to relieve the Carlist siege of Olot in Gerona. But at Castellfullit de la Roca, in one of the Government’s worst defeats, Nouvilas was routed by Carlist General Francisco Savalls, and captured along with about 2,000 of his men. Olot capitulated two days later.
- March 18 – Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights.
- March 18 – The Dresden English Football Club is founded, first soccer club on European mainland.
- March 25-27 – Second Battle of Somorrostro (Third Carlist War): In a renewed attempt to raise the siege of Bilbao by Don Carlos VII, Republican commander Marshal Francisco Serrano himself arrived with 27,000 men and 70 cannon. However in three days of fierce fighting, the Carlist General Joaquín Elío, with just 17,000 men, once again drove off the attack at nearby Somorrostro, and it was another six weeks before Serrano managed to relieve Bilbao.
- March – The Young Men's Hebrew Association in Manhattan (which still operates today as the 92nd Street Y) is founded.
April–June
- April 15–May 15 – First exhibition of the group of young painters, Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, at the studio of the photographer Nadar in Paris. Louis Leroy's critical review of it published on 25 April gives rise to the term Impressionism for the movement, with reference to Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise.
- May 2 – Siege of Bilbao (Third Carlist War): The seige is lifted
- May 9 – The first commercial horse drawn carriage debuts in the city of Bombay, plying two routes.
- May 20 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets. The price is $13.50 per dozen.
- June 4 – The flag of Estonia is taken as the flag of the Estonian Students Society in Otepää.
- June 14 – Michel Domingue becomes head of state of Haiti.
- June 22 – Andrew Taylor Still starts the Osteopathic Medicine movement in the United States at Kirksville, MO.
- June 25–June 27 – Third Carlist War : Battle of Monte Muro: Carlist forces entrenched around Abárzuza, on the approach to Estella in Navarre, repel an attack by Isabelino/Liberal (supporters of Queen Isabella II) troops led by General Manuel Gutiérrez de la Concha, Marqués del Duero, who is killed on the third day of fighting.
July–September
- July 1 – Philadelphia Zoo opens, the first public zoo in the U.S.
- July 23 – Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos is appointed the Archbishop of the Portuguese colonial enclave of Goa.
- July 24 – Mathew Evans and Henry Woodward patent the first incandescent lamp with an electric light bulb.
- July 24 – Sack of Cuenca (Third Carlist War): After Carlist forces successfully defended Estella, Don Alfonso de Bourbon, brother of the Don Carlos VII, led 14,000 Catalan Carlists south to attack Cuenca 136 km from Madrid, held by Republicans under Don Hilario Lozano. After two days the outnumbered garrison capitulated but Don Alfonso permitted a terrible slaughter. The city is sacked. Subsequently another republican force defeats the disorderly Catalans who flee back to the Ebro.
- August 11 – Battle of Oteiza (Third Carlist War): Two months after Government forces were repulsed from Carlist-held Estella, in Navarre, Republican General Domingo Moriones made a fresh diversionary attack a few miles to the southeast at Oteiza. In heavy fighting Moriones secured a costly tactical victory over Carlist General Torcuato Mendíri, but the war continued another 18 months before Estella finally fell.
October–December
Date unknown
Births
January–June
- January 1 – Gustav Albin Weißkopf, German-born aviation pioneer (d. 1927)
- January 4 – Josef Suk, Czech composer and violinist (d. 1935)
- January 5 – Joseph Erlanger, American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1965)
- January 16 – Robert W. Service, American poet (d. 1958)
- January 20 – Steve Bloomer, English footballer, cricketer and baseball player (d. 1938)
- January 21 – Frederick Madison Smith, American religious leader and author (d. 1946)
- January 25 – William Somerset Maugham, English author (d. 1965)
- January 28 – Vsevolod Meyerhold, Russian Theatre Practitioner (d. 1940)
- January 29 – John D. Rockefeller, Jr., American entrepreneur (d. 1960)
- February 1 – Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian writer (d. 1929)
- February 2 – William T. Innes, American writer, ichthyologist, publisher (d. 1969)
- February 3 – Gertrude Stein, American writer and patron of the arts (d. 1946)
- February 9 – Amy Lowell, American poet (d. 1925)
- February 11
- February 15 – Sir Ernest Shackleton, Irish explorer (d. 1922)
- February 17 – Thomas J. Watson, American computer pioneer (d. 1956)
- February 20 – Mary Garden, American opera soprano of Scots descent (some sources state her birth year as 1877) (d. 1967)
- February 23 – Konstantin Päts, Estonian president (d. 1956)
- February 24 – Honus Wagner, baseball player (d. 1955)
- March 4 – Stephen Victor Graham, United States Navy Rear Admiral and 18th Governor of American Samoa.
- March 12 – Charles Weeghman, American restaurateur and owner of Chicago Cubs (d. 1938)
- March 20 – Börries von Münchhausen, German poet (d. 1945)
- March 24 – Harry Houdini, Hungarian-born magician (d. 1926)
- March 26 – Robert Frost, American poet (d. 1963)
- March 29 – Lou Henry Hoover, First Lady of the United States (d. 1944)
- March 30 – Charles Herbert Lightoller, 2nd Officer of the RMS Titanic (d. 1952)
- April 8 – Stanisław Taczak, Polish general, commander-in-chief of the Greater Poland Uprising (d. 1960)
- April 15 – Johannes Stark, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1957)
- April 19 – Ernst Rudin, Swiss psychiatrist and geneticist (d. 1952)
- April 25 – Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (d. 1937)
- May 3 – François Coty, French perfume manufacturer (d. 1934)
- May 9 – Howard Carter, British archaeologist (d. 1939)
- May 14 – Polaire, French actress and singer (d. 1939)
- May 19 – Gilbert Jessop, English cricketer (d. 1955)
- May 26 – Henri Farman, pioneer French pilot and aircraft designer (d. 1958)
- May 29 – Gilbert Keith Chesterton, English author (d. 1936)
- June 11 – Lyman Gilmore, American aviation pioneer (d. 1951)
- June 16 – Arthur Meighen, ninth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1960)
- June 19 – Peder Oluf Pedersen, Danish engineer and physicist (d. 1941)
July–December
- July 14 – Abbas II, last khedive of Egypt (d. 1944)
- July 25 – Alfred Walton Hinds, 17th Naval Governor of Guam (d. 1957)
- July 26 – Serge Koussevitzky, Russian conductor (d. 1951)
- July 27 – Frank Shannon, American actor (d. 1959)
- July 29 – J. S. Woodsworth, Canadian politician (d. 1942)
- August 6 – Charles Fort, Dutch-American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena (d. 1932)
- August 10 – Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States (d. 1964)
- August 27 – Carl Bosch, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
- September 13
- September 21 – Gustav Holst, English composer (d. 1934)
- October 3 – Charles B. Middleton, American actor (d. 1949)
- October 8 – Nance O'Neil, stage & film actress, friend of Lizzie Borden (d. 1965)
- October 13 – József Klekl, Slovene politician in Hungary (d. 1948)
- October 15 – Prince Alfred of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (d. 1899)
- October 20 – Charles Ives, American composer (d. 1954)
- October 26 – Martin Lowry, English chemist (d. 1936)
- November – Salima Machamba Sultan of Mohéli (d. 1964)
- November 15 – August Krogh, Danish zoophysiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1949)
- November 29 – Egas Moniz, Portuguese physician and neurologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1955)
- November 30
- December 13 – Josef Lhévinne, Russian pianist (d. 1944)
- December 17 – William Lyon Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1950)
- December 22 – Franz Schmidt, Austrian composer (d. 1939)
- December 29 – Cecil Hunter Rodwell, British colonial administrator (d. 1953)
Deaths
January–June
- January 8 – Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, French writer and historian (b. 1814)
- January 17 – Chang and Eng Bunker, Siamese twins and sideshow performers (b. 1811)
- January 19 – August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, German poet (b. 1798)
- February 3 – William Charles Lunalilo, last monarch of the House of Kamehameha (b. 1835)
- February 8 – David Friedrich Strauss, German theologian (b. 1808)
- February 24 – John Bachman, American Lutheran minister, social activist and naturalist, (b. 1790)
- March 8 – Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States (b. 1800)
- March 10 – Moritz von Jacobi, German engineer and physicist (b. 1801)
- March 20 – Hans Christian Lumbye, Danish composer (b. 1810)
- April 13 – Etō Shinpei, Japanese statesman (executed) (b. 1834)
- April 20 – Alexander H. Bailey, American politician (b. 1817)
- June 20 – John Ruggles, American politician (b. 1789)
- June 21 – Anders Jonas Ångström, Swedish physicist (b. 1814)
July–December
References