1874

Years: 1871 1872 1873 - 1874 - 1875 1876 1877
Decades: 1840s 1850s 1860s - 1870s - 1880s 1890s 1900s

Events of 1874

January 1 – New York City annexes The Bronx.
January 2 – Ignacio (Maria) Gonzalez becomes head of state of the Dominican Republic (for the first time).
January 23 – Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria, marries Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia, the only daughter of Emperor Alexander III of Russia.
January 23 – Camille Saint-Saëns' composition Danse Macabre is premiered.
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.
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.
March 18 – Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights.
March – The Young Men's Hebrew Association in Manhattan (which still operates today as the 92nd Street Y) is founded.
March – The Aston Villa Football Club is formed.

April 25 – Louis Leroy reviews the first Impressionist exhibition, held in Paris, and coins the term with reference to Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise.
May 9 – The first horse drawn carriage makes its debut in the city of Mumbai, plying on 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 consecrated as the flag of the Estonian Students Society in Otepää.
June 14 – Michel Domingue becomes the head of state of Haiti.
June 25 – Battle of Monte Muru: Third Carlist War of Spain.
June 27 - The marquis of Duero died during an attack of government forces against carlist troops at the battle of Monte Muro (Navarra),changing the course of the third Carlist War.

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.

October 19 – The modern University of Zagreb is founded in Zagreb.
November 4 – Democrats regain the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time since 1860.
November 7 – Harper's Weekly publishes a cartoon by Thomas Nast considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the Republican Party. [1].
November 10 – John Ernst Worrell Keely demonstrates his "induction resonance motion motor" (a later investigation reveals fraud behind another perpetual motion machine).
November 11 – The Gamma Phi Beta sorority is founded at Syracuse University. This is the first women's Greek letter organization to be called a sorority.
November 25 – The United States Greenback Party is established as a political party, made primarily of farmers financially hurt by the Panic of 1873.
December 1 – Iceland is granted a constitution and limited home rule.
December 9 – A Transit of Venus occurs.

February 15 - Sir Ernest Shackleton, British polar explorer (d. 1922)
March 17 - Stephen Wise, America’s “Red Rabbi” (d. 1949)
March 24 - Harry Houdini, Jewish Hungarian-born magician (d. 1926)
April 19 - Ernst Rudin, National Socialist eugenicist (d. 1952)
May 3 - François Coty, French perfume manufacturer and Fascist publisher (d. 1934)
May 9 - Howard Carter, British archaeologist (d. 1939)
July 19 - Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, Austrian occultist (d. 1954)
September 28 - George Van Horn Moseley, United States Army general and nationalist. (d. 1960)
November 10 - Richard M. Whitney, American journalist and anti-communist author (d. 1924)

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