Events and Trends

Technology

• Development and commercial production of electric lighting
• Development and commercial production of gasoline-powered automobile by Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Maybach
• First commercial production and sales of phonographs and phonograph recordings.
• First steel frame construction "sky-scrapers"
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers founded 16 February 1880, New York, N.Y.
• Construction begins on the Panama Canal by the French. This is the first attempt to build the Canal.

Science

• Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect
• Michelson-Morley experiment, showing that the speed of light is invariant
• James-Lange theory of emotion

War, peace and politics

• First Boer War
• The New Imperialism

Literature and Arts

• Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• Feodor Dostoevsky publishes The Brothers Karamazov.
• Robert Louis Stevenson publishes Treasure Island.
• First edition of Oxford English Dictionary published.
• Arthur Conan Doyle publishes his first Sherlock Holmes tale.

Other

• Krakatoa, a volcano in Indonesia, erupts cataclysmically; 36,000 people are killed, the majority by the resulting tsunami
• About 300,000 Swedes emigrate to the United States

People

World Leaders

• Emperor Franz Josef (Austria-Hungary)
• Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald (Canada)
• Guangxu Emperor (China)
• Emperor Wilhelm I (German Empire)
• Emperor Wilhelm II (German Empire)
• Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (German Empire)
• King Umberto I (Italy)
• Pope Leo XIII
• Emperor Meiji (Japan)
• Emperor Alexander II (Russia)
• King Alfonso XII (Spain)
• Queen - Empress Victoria (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
• Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
• Prime Minister Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
• President Rutherford B. Hayes (United States)
• President Chester A. Arthur (United States)
• President Grover Cleveland (United States)
• Nasser-al-Din Shah of Qajar dynasty (Persia)

1880s

1880-те | 1880au | 1880'erne | 1880er | 1880. aastad | Años 1880 | Années 1880 | 1880a yari | Anni 1880 | 1880-90 | 1880年代 | Lata 80. XIX wieku | Anii 1880 | 1880. | 1880-luku | 1880-talet | 1880年代