1877

1877 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).

Events

January – April

• January 1 – Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India by the Royal Titles Act, introduced by United Kingdom Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.
• January 8 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry (Montana)
• January 20 – Ottoman Turkey rejects proposals of internal reform and Balkan provisions – Conference of Constantinople ends
• March 2 – U.S. presidential election, 1876: The United States declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876
• March 4 – Emile Berliner invents the microphone.
• March 4 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake debuts
• March 15 – The first Test cricket match, between England and Australia
• March 24 – For the first and only time in history, the Boat Race between the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford is declared a "dead heat" (i.e. a draw).
• April 24 – Russia declares war on Turkey

May – August

• May 5 – Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
• May 6 – Realizing that his people were weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
• May 8 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens (ends May 11).
• May 10 – Romania declares itself independent from Turkey (recognized in 1881 after the end of the Romanian independence war).
• May 16 – Romania declares war on Turkey
• June 15 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.
• June 26 – Eruption of Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador causes severe mudflows that wipe out surrounding cities and valleys – 1000 dead
• June 30 – British Mediterranean fleet is sent to Besika Bay
• July 9 – All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club begins its first lawn tennis tournament at Wimbledon.
• July 21 – A day after bloody rioting in Baltimore from Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of 9 rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia – Pittsburgh then erupts into widespread rioting.
• August 9 – Indian Wars: Battle of Big Hole – Near Big Hole River in Montana, a small band of Nez Percé Indians who refused government orders to move to a reservation, clash with the United States Army. The army lost 29 soldiers and Indians lost 89 warriors in a US Army win.
• August 12 – Asaph Hall discovers Deimos, outer moon of Mars.
• August 17 – Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill will die the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.
• August 18 – Asaph Hall discovers Phobos, inner moon of Mars.

September – December

• September 5 – Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.
• October 10 – Following the recovery of Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer's body from where he fell during the Battle of Little Big Horn the previous year, Custer is given a funeral with full military honors and is laid to rest at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
• November 21 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound (this is considered to be Edison's first great invention) (Edison demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29).
• December 14 – Serbia restates its previous declaration of war against Turkey

Unknown date

• War between Russia and the Ottoman Empire (Russo-Turkish War), leading to the formation of Bulgaria in 1878. See Russian Foreign Affairs after the Crimean War.
• Nineteenth Century magazine founded.

Births

• January 2 – Slava Raskaj, Croatian painter (d. 1906)
• February 7 – G. H. Hardy, British mathematician (d. 1947)
• February 14 – Edmund Landau, German mathematician (d. 1938)
• February 17 – André Maginot, French politician (d. 1932)
• February 19 – Gabriele Münter, German painter (d. 1962)
• February 25 – Erich von Hornbostel, Austrain musicologist (d. 1935)
• March 2 – Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough (d. 1964)
• March 16 – Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (d. 1944)
• March 18 – Edgar Cayce, American psychic (d. 1945)
• June 14 – Jane Bathori, French opera singer (d. 1970)
• July 2 – Hermann Hesse, German writer (d. 1962)
• July 6 – Arnaud Massy, French golfer (d. 1950)
• July 13 – Erik Scavenius, Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1962)
• July 17 – Ernst von Dohnanyi, Hungarian conductor (d. 1960)
• August 6 – Wallace H. White, Jr., U.S. Senator from Maine (d. 1952)
• August 7 – Ulrich Salchow, Swedish figure skater (d. 1949)
• September 6 – Buddy Bolden, American jazz musician (d. 1930)
• October 4 – Razor Smith, English cricketer (d. 1946)
• October 27 – George Thompson, English cricketer (d. 1943)
• November 9 – Allama Iqbal, Indian philosopher and poet (d. 1938)
• November 26 – Alfred Cortot, Swiss pianist (d. 1962)
• December 3 – Richard Pearse, New Zealand airplane pioneer (d. 1953)
• Alois Kayser, German missionary (d. 1944)

Deaths

• January 4 – Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (b. 1794)
• August 29 – Brigham Young, American Mormon leader (b. 1801)
• September 2 – Constantine Kanaris, Greek politician (b. 1795)
• September 5 – Crazy Horse, chief of the Oglala Sioux (b. 1849)
• October 16 – Theodore Barrière, French dramatist (b. 1823)
• December 31 – Gustave Courbet, French painter (b. 1819)