Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray each file a patent for the telephone - Bell awarded the rights
London's main sewage system completed
Midland Railway abolishes Second Class passenger facilities, leaving First Class and Third Class. Other British railway companies followed during the rest of the year. (Third Class was renamed Second Class in 1956)
Birkenhead Park opened, said to be the first civic public park in the world - features of it later copied in Central Park, New York
Factory Act introduces 56-hour week
American ship 'Mary Celeste' is found abandoned by the British brig 'Dei Gratia' in the Atlantic Ocean
Licensing hours introduced
Penalties introduced for failing to register births, marriages & deaths (Eng & Wales)
Trades Unions legalised in Britain, but picketing made illegal
Opening of Royal Albert Hall, London
First Rugby Football international, England v Scotland, played in Edinburgh
First British postcard - halfpenny post
GPO takes over the privately-owned Telegraph Companies (nationalised)
Dr Thomas Barnardo opens his first home for destitute children
Water closets come into wide use
Diamonds discovered in Kimberley, South Africa
Cutty Sark launched in Dumbarton
Ball bearings, celluloid, margarine, and washing machines, all invented
Last convicts landed in Australia (Western Australia)
The British North America Act takes effect, creating the Canadian Confederation
William Booth (1829-1912) founds Salvation Army, in London
End of American Civil War - slavery abolished in USA
Abraham Lincoln assassinated in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) becomes first woman doctor in England [she later became the first woman mayor in England, in Aldeburgh 1908]
First concrete roads built in Britain
Clifton Suspension Bridge over the River Avon officially opened
Red Cross established - Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention
The Great Sheffield Flood - over 250 died when a new dam broke while it was being filled for the first time
A man-powered submarine, 'Hunley' sank a Federal steam ship USS Housatonic at the entrance to Charleston harbour in 1864 - the first recorded successful attack by a submarine on a surface ship
First section of the London Underground Railway opens
Football Association founded (UK)
Opening of state institution for criminally insane at Broadmoor, England
First pasteurisation test completed by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard
Lincoln issues first legal US paper money (Greenbacks)
American Civil War begins
First tram service in Europe starts in Birkenhead
Charles Darwin publishes 'The Origin of Species'
Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge opened at Saltash giving rail link between Devon and Cornwall
Work started on building the Suez canal (opened 17 Nov 1869)
Peaceful picketing legalised in Britain
'The great stink' - smell of the River Thames forced Parliament to stop work
Royal Opera House opens in Covent Garden, London
Work starts on the laying of the Transatlantic cable