Henry Ford's first car
Zip fastener invented
Alfred Lord Tennyson dies, aged 83, at his house Aldworth, near Haslemere
Electric oven invented
Shop Hours Act - limit 74 hours per week for under-18's
Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera
Fictional date when Sherlock Holmes throws Moriarty over Reichenbach Falls, then disappears for 3 years! (published in 1893)
First telephone link between London & Paris
Primary education made free and compulsory
City & South London Railway opens - London's first deep-level tube railway and first major railway in the world to use electric traction
Forth railway bridge opens - took six years to build
Length of a metre defined
Canadian Pacific Railway completed from coast to coast
Children's charity NSPCC launched in London
Eiffel Tower completed (to mark centenary of French Revolution)
Celluloid film produced
Dock Strike - docker's won their 'Docker's Tanner' 6 old pennies
Football League formed
Convention of Constantinople guarantees free maritime passage through Suez Canal in war and peace
Jack the Ripper active in east London during the latter half of the year
County Councils set up in Britain
Dunlop invents pneumatic tyre
First box camera - George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak, and receives a patent for his camera which uses roll film
Daimler produces a four-wheeled motor car
Putney Bridge opens in London
Pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage later named 'Coca-Cola'
Mersey railway (under Mersey) opened by Prince of Wales
First electric tramcar used at Blackpool
The first train runs through the Severn Tunnel
First UK cremation in modern times took place at Woking
Carl Benz builds the 'Motorwagen', a single-cylinder motor car
Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first motorcycle
Eastman makes first coated photographic paper
Canadian Pacific Railway completed
Greenwich made prime meridian of the world
John Harvey Kellogg patents corn flakes
Eruption of Krakatoa near Java - 30,000 killed by tidal wave
Parcel post starts in Britain
Brooklyn Bridge, New York opens (crosses East River)
Statue of Liberty presented to USA by France
Fourth Eddystone Lighthouse completed
Gunfight at OK Corral
Godalming in Surrey became the first town in England to have a public electricity supply installed (but in 1884 it reverted to gas lighting until 1904)
Postal Orders introduced
Flogging abolished in Army and Royal Navy
Greenwich Mean Time adopted throughout UK
Education Act: schooling compulsory for 5-10 year olds
Mosquito found to be the carrier of malaria
Blackpool illuminations switched on for first time
Edison & Swan invent electric lamp
Red Flag Act in Britain limits mechanical road vehicles to 4mph
CID established at New Scotland Yard
Edison invents microphone and phonograph
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
End of Crimean War