From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of events
Events from the year 1878 in the United States .
Incumbents
Events
Thomas Edison and his
phonograph
A. A. Pope starts an American
bicycle craze .
January 28
February 18 – The
Lincoln County War begins in
Lincoln County, New Mexico .
February 19 – The
phonograph is patented by
Thomas Edison .
February 23 –
Bland–Allison Act , leading to first minting of the
Morgan dollar .
February 28 –
Mississippi State University is created by the
Mississippi Legislature (under the name The Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi).
March 26 –
University of California, Hastings College of the Law is founded.
April 4 – The
Gunfight at Blazer's Mill occurs in
Lincoln County, New Mexico .
May 2 – The
Washburn "A" Mill in
Minneapolis, Minnesota explodes, killing 18.
May 14 –
Salem witchcraft trial , the last of its kind in the U.S., opens in
Salem, Massachusetts .
June 18 –
Posse Comitatus Act signed into law to limit the powers of the
federal government of the United States in using the
United States Army to enforce
domestic policy within the U.S.
July 12 –
Yellow fever epidemic begins in
New Orleans . It will eventually kill 4,500 people.
July 26 – In
California , the poet and
American West outlaw calling himself "
Black Bart " makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a
Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box is found later with a taunting
poem inside.
August 9 – The
Wallingford Tornado of 1878 , the deadliest
tornado in
Connecticut history, destroys the town of
Wallingford , killing 34 people and injuring 70 or more.
September 30 – The ship Priscilla arrives in
Hawaii from
Funchal ,
Madeira , marking the beginning of the
Portuguese immigration to the
Hawaiian Islands (1878–1913).
October 1 –
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) opens as Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College.
October 27 – The
Manhattan Savings Institution is robbed .
[2]
November 18 – Soprano
Marie Selika Williams becomes the first African American artist to perform at the
White House .
Undated
Ongoing
Sport
Births
January 6 –
Carl Sandburg , poet and historian (died 1967)
January 9 –
John B. Watson , psychologist (died 1958)
January 29
February 1 –
Hattie Caraway , U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1931 to 1945 (died 1950)
February 18 –
Kate Gordon , psychologist (died 1963)
February 27
February 28 –
Hugh A. Butler , U.S. Senator from Nebraska from 1941 to 1954 (died 1954)
March 31 –
Jack Johnson , boxer (died 1946)
April 28 –
Lionel Barrymore , actor (died 1954)
May 5 –
Edward Gay II , U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1918 to 1921 (died 1952)
May 13 –
Julia Dean , stage and film actress (died 1952)
May 21 –
Glenn H. Curtiss , aviation pioneer (died 1930)
May 25 –
Bill Robinson , African American tap dancer (died 1949)
June 1 –
C. Harold Wills , automobile engineer and businessman (died 1940)
June 4 –
Thomas D. Schall , U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1925 to 1935 (died 1935)
June 12 –
James Oliver Curwood , novelist and conservationist (died 1927)
June 20 –
Will Mastin , vaudevillian (died 1979)
July 3 –
George M. Cohan , singer, dancer, composer, actor and writer (died 1942)
July 12 –
Claude C. Bloch , admiral (died 1967)
July 17 –
Mabel Van Buren , actress (died 1947)
July 29
August 2 –
Nathan L. Bachman , U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1933 to 1937 (died 1937)
August 4 –
Ernest Lundeen , U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1937 to 1940 (died 1940)
August 13 –
Harold Clarke Goddard , Shakespearean scholar (died 1950)
August 28 –
George Whipple , pathologist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934 (died 1976)
August 31 –
Frank Jarvis , track athlete (died 1933)
September 14
September 18 –
James O. Richardson , admiral (died
1974 )
September 20 –
Upton Sinclair , novelist (died 1968)
October 2 –
Richard Spikes , African American inventor (died 1963)
October 16 –
Maxie Long , track athlete (died 1959)
October 17 –
Louise Dresser , actress (died 1965)
October 18 –
Blind Uncle Gaspard , Cajun vocalist and guitarist (died 1937)
October 19 –
Alphonse Picou , jazz clarinettist (died 1961)
October 31 –
Roberta Lawson , Indigenous American (Lenape) activist and musician (died 1940)
November 17 –
Grace Abbott , social worker and activist (died 1939)
November 26 –
Major Taylor , first African-American World Champion Cyclist (died 1932)
November 23 –
Ernest King , Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations (COMINCH-CNO) during World War II (died 1956)
December 1 –
Nathaniel Baldwin , inventor and Mormon fundamentalist (died 1961)
C. Louise Boehringer , educationalist (died 1956)
Rufus Billings
Sam Strong
Deaths
February 11
February 18 –
John Tunstall , rancher, merchant, first man killed in the
Lincoln County War (born
1853 )
March 6 –
Asa Biggs , U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1855 to 1858 (born
1811 )
March 29 –
Mark Hopkins, Jr. , entrepreneur (born
1813 )
April 4 –
Richard M. Brewer , gunslinger, cowboy (born
1850 )
April 5 –
Buckshot Roberts , buffalo hunter who killed
Richard M. Brewer (shot) (born
1831 )
May 25 –
John Scott Harrison , member of the
United States House of Representatives from
Ohio , son of
William Henry Harrison , father of
Benjamin Harrison (born
1804 )
June 16 –
Crawford Long , American surgeon and pharmacist (born
1815 )
June 27 –
Sidney Breese , U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1843 to 1849 (born
1800 )
September 23 –
Kinloch Falconer , 23rd Secretary of State of Mississippi (born
1838 )
October 5 –
George Boyer Vashon , African-American attorney, educationalist, abolitionist, essayist and poet (born
1824 )
October 20 –
Hiram Paulding , admiral (born
1797 )
November 16 –
Sarah Harris Fayerweather , African-American whose 1832 admission to a Connecticut school resulted in the first integrated schoolhouse (born
1812 )
November 28 –
Orson Hyde , religious leader (born
1805 )
December 10 –
Henry Wells , businessman (born
1805 )
See also
References
External links