1869
1869 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar).
| Years: 1866 1867 1868 - 1869 - 1870 1871 1872 | |
| Decades: 1830s 1840s 1850s - 1860s - 1870s 1880s 1890s | |
| Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century 1869 in topic: Lists of leaders: | |
Events
- March 1 - North German Confederation issues 10gr and 30gr value stamps, printed on goldbeater's skin
- May 4 - Naval Battle of Hakodate in Japan.
- May 10 - Transcontinental Railroad completed at Promontory, Utah.
- May 15 - Woman's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman's Suffrage Association.
- May 26 - Last public hanging in Britain - Fenian bomber Michael Barrett
- May 29 - British parliament passes the Capital Punishment within Prisons Bill ending public hanging
- August 4/12 - Emperor Norton I of the United States abolished both the Democratic and Republican parties.
- August 9 - Ferdinand Lassalle founds the SAP, the first socialist workers party in Germany.
- August 20 - Abergele Train Disaster - Irish Mail passenger train collides with cargo trucks loaded with paraffin - 33 dead; First major train disaster in Britain
- September 11 - Work completed on the Wallace Monument
- October 16 - England's first residential college for women, Girton College, is founded.
- November 4 - The first issue of scientific journal Nature is published.
- November 6 - The first intercollegiate American football game is played. Rutgers defeats Princeton, 6 to 4.
- November 17 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.
- November 23 - In Dumbarton, Scotland the clipper ship Cutty Sark is launched (it was one of the last clipper ships to be built, and the only one surviving to the present day).
- December 10 - First American chapter of Kappa Sigma founded at the University of Virginia.
- December 31 - Triple Alliance forces take Asuncion
- Basutoland becomes British protectorate
- British parliament ends transportation to Australia as punishment
- Venancio Flores murdered in Montevideo
- Ulysses S. Grant succeeds Andrew Johnson as President of the United States of America.
- Fire burns down about 75% of Hancock, Michigan
- Mahbub Ali Pasha begins a 42 year reign as Nizam of Hyderabad
- James Bennet of the New York Herald, asks Henry Morton Stanley to go and find Dr Livingstone, despite him not being lost or in difficulty.
- The Meiji Emperor of Japan accepts the surrender of the four most powerful clans (Choshu, Tosa, Hizen and Satsuma) and reappoints the clan chiefs as Provincial Governors, on reduced revenues.
- Invention of barbed wire, see ranching.
- Heinz Established
- Abdur Rahman Khan is exiled from Afghanistan.
- The Roman Catholic Church prohibits abortion under any circumstance.
Births
- January 4 - Tommy Corcoran, baseball player (d. 1960)
- January 10 - Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic (d. 1916)
- January 15 - Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter, and architect (d. 1907)
- February 11 - Helene Kroller-Muller, Dutch museum founder and patron of the arts (d. 1939)
- February 14 - Charles Wilson, Scottish physicist (d. 1959)
- March 5 - Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal and archbishop (d. 1952)
- March 14 - Algernon Blackwood, English writer (d. 1951)
- March 18 - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1940)
- March 21 - Florenz Ziegfeld, theatrical producer (d. 1932)
- April 2 - Hughie Jennings, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1928)
- April 8 - Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon (d. 1939)
- April 11 - Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor (d. 1943)
- May 14 - Friedrich Karl Kleine, physician (d. 1951)
- June 17 - Flora Finch, silent film comedienne (d. 1940)
- August 10 - Lawrence Binyon, English poet and scholar (d. 1943)
- September 3 - Fritz Pregl, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1930)
- September 23 - Mary Mallon, "Typhoid Mary" (d. 1938)
- October 2 - Mohandas Gandhi, founder of the modern Indian state and proponent of nonviolence (d. 1948)
- October 25 - John Heisman, American football coach (d. 1936)
- November 22 - André Gide, French writer (d. 1951)
- November 25 - Herbert Greenfield, Premier of Alberta (d. 1949)
- December 18 - Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist and composer (b. 1829)
- December 30 - Stephen Leacock, British-Canadian author and economist (d. 1944)
- December 31 - Henri Matisse, French painter (d. 1954)
Deaths
- March 8 - Hector Berlioz, French composer (b. 1803)
- March 24 - Antoine-Henri Jomini, French general (b. 1779)
- April 20 - Carl Loewe, German composer (b. 1796)
- May 11 - Hijikata Toshizou, 2nd commander of the Shinsengumi (b. 1835)
- October 13 - Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (b. 1804)
- December 18 - Louis Moreau Gottschalk American composer and pianist (b. 1829)