1879

1879 (MDCCCLXXIX) was a common year beginning on a Wednesday according to the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

• 22 January:
  • Battle of Isandhlwana between British troops and Zulu warriors for the control of Swaziland.
  • Battle of Rorke's Drift between British Army and Zulu warriors for the control of Swaziland.

February

• 14 February: In the city of Antofagasta, then a Bolivian port, Chilean troops occupy the city. Thus the war actions of the Pacific War begin.
• February 27: Cesáreo Guillermo begins his second term as president of the Dominican Republic until December 6 of the same year.

March

• 1 March:
  • In Spain the first steam tram between Barcelona and San Andrés de Palomar enters into operation.
  • Bolivia declares war on Chile, the Pacific War begins.
• March 3: in Spain the first total crisis of the Government of Alfonso XII reigns. Cesa Cánovas and replaces Martínez Campos.
• March 23: Pacific War: Battle of Calama, first armed confrontation of the war.

April

• April 5: Chile declares war against Bolivia and Peru. The Pacific war officially begins.
• April 8: In northern Argentina, Lieutenant Colonel Luis Jorge Fontana founded the city of Formosa.
• April 15: In Hornos de Cal (in the Cuban province of Sancti Spíritus), the Jarao Protest against the Zanjón Pact is produced, guided by General Ramón Leocadio Bonachea.
• April 29: from the town of Carhué, 1900 soldiers and about 100 indigenous allies to Patagonia are leaving; the Conquest of the Desert formally begins.

May

• May 1st: in Maracaibo, Venezuela, the first edition of the Diario El Fonograph, the most important newspaper in Venezuela until 1917, the year of its closure by the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez.
• 2 May: in Spain, Pablo Iglesias founded the PSOE (Spanish Workers' Socialist Party). It will be legalized in 1881.
• May 21: Iquique and Punta Gruesa naval fights during the Pacific War. The Chilean corvette Esmeralda (at the hands of the Huáscar monitor) and the Peruvian Independence frigate (at the hands of the Covadonga gulet). In addition, Captain Arturo Prat is dead in Iquique, becoming a Chilean national hero.

June

• June 30: On the island of Mindanao there is an earthquake of 7.4 that causes serious damage without casualties.

July

• 1 July: in the province of Gansu, China, an earthquake of 8.0 leaves a balance of 22,000 dead.

September

• September 15: In San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador, the present National Anthem of El Salvador is first sung at an official ceremony.

October

• October 8: Angamos Naval Combat that confronted the Peruvian Navy and the Chilean Navy in the South Pacific in front of Punta Angamos. With the consequent capture of the best Peruvian ship Monitor Huáscar by Chilean Navy warships. He also called for the death of Admiral Miguel Grau and took a decisive step towards the victory of the Republic of Chile in the Pacific War.
• October 15: Riada de Santa Teresa, in the Segura river that reaches a flow of 1,890 m3/s in Murcia and causes serious destruction in the valley of Guadalentín, Huerta de Murcia and Vega Baja. The Guadalentin header is estimated to have dropped 600 mm/h
• October 21: Thomas Alva Edison first showed the electric lamp with a light bulb that was lit for 48 hours.
• October Kabul is conquered by British troops.

November

• November 2: Pacific War: Landing and Combating of Pisagua, The first modern amphibious landing of history occurs in Peruvian territory by Chilean forces. The port, defended by 3000 allies is taken to the assault by 2000 Chileans.
• November 19: Pacific War: Battle of Dolores, 10000 ally army men are facing against 6000 Chilean soldiers in the hills that surround the Dolores water wells, being the victory for the latter after 5 hours of combat.
• November 23: Pacific War: Rendition of Iquique, The Peruvian port of Iquique, abandoned by its authorities, surrenders to the Chilean Navy, being occupied by marine staff of the vessels that carried out the blockade.
• November 27: Pacific War: Battle of Tarapacá, land armed confrontation between 6000 Peruvians and 2000 Chileans, with the victory of the first, losing the last 70% of their strength.
• 29 November: In Spain, King Alfonso XII married for the second time, after the death of Maria de las Mercedes de Orleans. He marries Maria Cristina of Habsburg-Lorraine, with whom he will have his heir, Alfonso XIII.

December

• December 6: Cesáreo Guillermo's second term as president of the Dominican Republic ends.
• 21 December: El New York Herald announces that Edison has invented the lighting by electricity.

Unknown dates

• Discovery of the paintings of the Cueva de Altamira by María Sautuola and Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, near Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain.
• December 30: Francisco Otero González shoots against the kings of Spain Alfonso XII and María Cristina.

No exact date

• In Matanzas (Cuba), the musician Miguel Faílde creates the national dance of Cuba: the danzón.
• In Argentina the army begins the Conquest of the Desert.

Art and literature

• Max Liebermann: Jesus among the scribes.
• Fiódor Dostoyevski: The Karamazov brothers.
• William Adolphe Bouguereau: The Birth of Venus.
• Henrik Ibsen: House of Dolls.
• José Hernández: Turn of Martin Fierro.

Science and technology

• In Chicago, USA, the first high metal structure building is opened.
• Lars Fredrik Nilson discovers the scan.
• Thomas Alva Edison invents the dynamo to lighted by incandescence.
• Siemens: electric locomotive.
• John Anderson describes for the first time the tropical or rorcual dwarf (Balaenóptera edeni).
• Wilhelm Wundt Creates the first psychology laboratory, separating psychology as independent science.

Music

• Franz von Suppé: Boccaccio (opereta).

Births

January

• January 1st: Edward Morgan Forster, a British novelist and essayist (f. 1970).
• January 1st: William Fox, American Film Producer (f. 1952).
• 11 January: Charles Yu Hsingling, Chinese diplomat and engineer (unknown).
• January 22: Francis Picabia, French poet and painter (f. 1953).

February

• 13 February: Emilio Herrera Linares, militar, scientist and Spanish politician (f. 1967).
• February 19: Angel Cabrera Latorre, paleontologist and Argentine zoologist of Spanish origin (f. 1960).

March

Albert Einstein.

• 1 March: Robert Daniel Carmichael, American mathematician (f. 1967).
• March 8: Otto Hahn, German chemist, nobel chemistry award (f. 1968).
• 13 March: Alfredo Kindelán, a Spanish military and aviator (f. 1962).
• March 14: Albert Einstein, German-American physicist, nobel prize of physics (f. 1955).
• March 17: Walter Kirchhoff, German tenor (f. 1951).
• March 18: Carlos Alberto Imery, painter and teacher of Salvadoran graphic arts (f. 1949).

April

• April 8: Arturo Mundet, Spanish entrepreneur based in Mexico (f. 1965).
• April 26: Owen Willans Richardson, British physicist, nobel physics award in 1928 (f. 1959).

May

• May 27: Karl Bühler, philosopher, linguist and German pedagogue (f. 1963).
• May 28: Vanessa Bell, a British painter and interior designer (f. 1961).

June

• June 12: Juan E. O'Leary, journalist, historian, politician, poet and essayist Paraguay (f. 1969).
• 14 June: Charles H. Lankester, a Costa Rican naturalist of British origin (f. 1969).

July

• 9 July: Ottorino Respighi, composer, director of Italian orchestra and musicologist (f. 1936).
• July 9: Carlos Chagas, a Brazilian doctor (f. 1934).
• July 15: Alcides Arguedas, a Bolivian writer, politician and historian (f. 1946).
• July 28: Gabriel Miró, Spanish writer (f. 1930).

August

• August 8: Emiliano Zapata, a Mexican revolutionary (f. 1919).
• August 8: Robert Holbrook Smith, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (f. 1950).
• August 26: Camerino Z. Mendoza, a Mexican revolutionary (f. 1913).

September

• September 6: Joseph Wirth, Chancellor of Germany (f. 1956).
• September 21: Pedro Manini Rios, Uruguayan politician (f. 1958).
• September 23: Carlos Greene, Mexican military (f. 1924).

October

• October 9: Max von Laue, German physicist, nobel prize of physics in 1914 (f. 1960).
• October 15: Tomás Meabe, a Spanish politician (f. 1915).
• October 29: Franz von Papen, a German politician and diplomat (f. 1969).

November

• 7 November: Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary (f. 1940).
• 13 November: Antonio Ramón Ramón, Spanish anarchist (f. 1924).
• 14 November: Antonio Escobar, a Spanish military officer (f. 1940).
• 29 November: Mateo Morral, anarchist Spanish (f. 1906).

December

• December 3: Porola Byington, a philanthropist and a Brazilian social activist (f. 1963).
• 4 December: Kafū Nagai, a Japanese writer (f. 1959).
• December 9: Erwin Popper, an Austrian pediatric doctor, one of three discoverers of the polyo virus (f. 1955).
• 18 December: Paul Klee, Swiss painter (f. 1940).
• 30 December: Ramana Maharshi, mystic Hindu (advaita) (f. 1950).

Deaths

• January 8: Spaniard Baldomero Espartero, militar y política liberal española, Regente durante lamino de edad de Isabel II (n. 1793).
• January 16: Lorenzo Salvi, Italian tenor (n. 1810).
• February 23: Albrecht Graf von Roon, a Prussian military man (n. 1803).
• 13 March: Adolf Anderssen, German chessman (n. 1818).
• 17 March: Ludwig Reichenbach, German botanist and ornithologist (n. 1793).
• March 23: Eduardo Abaroa, Bolivian businessman, one of the greatest heroes in his country (n. 1838).
• March 30: Teodoro Cottrau, Italian composer.
• 16 April: Peter Kozler, cartographer, activist and industrial Slovenian (n. 1824).
• April 16: Bernadette Soubirous, French religious.
• May 21: Arturo Prat, Chilean naval hero (n. 1848).
• 17 September: Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, French architect (n. 1814).
• October 8: Miguel Grau, a Peruvian military and hero (n. 1834).
• October 24: José Pedro Varela, sociologist, journalist and Uruguayan politician (n. 1845).
• November 5: James Clerk Maxwell, British physicist (n. 1831).
• November 27: Eleuterio Ramírez Molina, Chilean military (n. 1836).
• December 29: Manuel de Araújo Porto-Alegre, poet, playwright, painter, urbanist and Brazilian diplomat (n. 1806).