1880s

The 1880s (pronounced "eighteen-eighties") was the decade that began on January 1, 1880, and ended on December 31, 1889. The decade took place during what historians call the Victorian Era in the History of the United Kingdom, the Belle Époque in the History of France, and the Gilded Age in the History of the United States,

The period was characterized in general by economic growth and prosperity in many parts of the world, especially Western Europe and North America. It occurred at the height of the Second Industrial Revolution and saw numerous developments in science and a sudden proliferation of electrical technologies, particularly in mass transit and telecommunications. It saw the emergence of modern cities and the foundation of many long-lived corporations, franchises, and brands, as well as the invention of the skyscraper. Elsewhere the major European colonial powers extended their empires, especially the British Empire and the French colonial empire.

The last living survivor from this decade was María Capovilla; she died in Ecuador in 2006.

Politics and wars

Wars

Aceh War (1873–1904) War of the Pacific (1879–1884) First Boer War (1880–1881) Mahdist War (1881–1899) 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War (1882) 13 September 1882 — British troops occupy Cairo, and Egypt becomes a British protectorate. Sino-French War (1884–1885) Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885)

Internal conflicts American Indian Wars (Intermittently from 1622 to 1918) 20 July 1881 — Sioux chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford in Montana. Frequent lynchings of African Americans in Southern United States during the years 1880–1890 Urabi Revolt (1879-1882)

Colonization France colonizes Indochina (1883) German colonization (1887) Increasing colonial interest and conquest in Africa leads representatives from Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain to divide Africa into regions of colonial influence at the Berlin Conference. This would be followed over the next few decades by conquest of almost the entirety of the remaining uncolonised parts of the continent, broadly along the lines determined. (1889)

Prominent political events 3 August 1881: The Pretoria Convention peace treaty is signed, officially ending the war between the Boers and Britain. 3 May 1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur. 20 May 1882: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy form The Triple Alliance as a defensive military allianceGrenville, John; Wasserstein, Bernard, eds. (2013). The Major International Treaties of the Twentieth Century: A History and Guide with Texts. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 9780415141253. Retrieved 2 March 2014. 1884: International Meridian Conference in Washington D.C., held to determine the Prime Meridian of the world. 1884–1885: Berlin Conference, when the western powers divided Africa. The United States had five Presidents during the decade, the most since the 1840s. They were Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison. 20-22 June 1887: The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated marking Queen Victoria's 50 year reign. 13 May 1888: Brazil abolishes slavery, the last country in the western hemisphere to do so.

Disasters May to August, 1883: Krakatoa, a volcano in Indonesia, erupted cataclysmically; 36,000 people were killed, the majority being killed by the resulting tsunami. September 1887: The Yellow river flooded and killed about 900,000 people. 11 March to 14 March, 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888 kills 400 in the eastern United States. May 1889: The Johnstown Flood occurred after the failure of the dam due to excessive rainfall in Pennsylvania. Nurse Clara Barton notably helped in the relief effort.

Assassinations and attempts

Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include: YearDateNamePositionCulpritsCountryDescriptionImage188113 MarchAlexander II of RussiaTsar of the Russian EmpirePervomartovtsy and Narodnaya Volya Russian EmpireFive Cossacks killed the Tsar by throwing a bomb at his carriage.188119 SeptemberJames A. GarfieldPresident of the United States Charles J. GuiteauUnited StatesGarfield was leaving Washington for his summer vacation and was about to board a train at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station when Guiteau appeared and shot Garfield twice.18822 March Queen Victoria Queen of the British EmpireRoderick MacleanEnglandMaclean was offended when Victoria refused to accept one of his poems and so decided to shoot at the Queen as her carriage left Windsor railway station.18823 April Jesse Jamesoutlaw Bob FordUnited StatesWhile Jesse James was dusting a picture, Ford grabbed James' pistol and shooting him in the back.18826 MayLord Frederick CavendishChief Secretary for Irelandmembers of Irish National Invincibles.IrelandWhile walking in the Phoenix Park in company with Thomas Henry Burke, he was assassinated Irish National Invincibles.18824 December William Henry Haywood Tison39th speaker of the Mississippi House of RepresentativesJ. Edward SandersUnited StatesOn December 4, 1882, J. Edward Sanders shot him in Baldwyn, Mississippi.188220 December Franz Joseph IEmperor of AustriaGuglielmo OberdanAustria-HungaryOberdan and Istrian pharmacist Donato Ragosa plotted an assassination attempt on the emperor. Oberdan's attempt failed, as he was arrested in Ronchi shortly after crossing the border into Austrian territory. 1882 - Guglielmo Oberdan fails to assassinate Austria-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph and is executedSalata 1932, p. 290

Science and technology Technology 1880: Oliver Heaviside of Camden Town, London, England receives a patent for the coaxial cable. In 1887, Heaviside introduced the concept of loading coils. In the 1890s, Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin would both create the loading coils and receive a patent of them, failing to credit Heaviside's work. 1880–1882: Development and commercial production of electric lighting was underway. Thomas Edison of Milan, Ohio, established Edison Illuminating Company on December 17, 1880. Based at New York City, it was the pioneer company of the electrical power industry. Edison's system was based on creating a central power plant equipped with electrical generators. Copper electrical wires would then connect the station with other buildings, allowing for electric power distribution. Pearl Street Station was the first central power plant in the United States. It was located at 255–257 Pearl Street in Manhattan on a site measuring 50 by 100 feet,"Edison" by Matthew Josephson. McGraw Hill, New York, 1959, pg. 255. , just south of Fulton Street. It began with one direct current generator, and it started generating electricity on September 4, 1882, serving an initial load of 400 lamps at 85 customers. By 1884, Pearl Street Station was serving 508 customers with 10,164 lamps. 1880–1886: Charles F. Brush of Euclid, Ohio, and Brush Electric Light Company installed carbon arc lights along Broadway, New York City. A small generating station was established at Manhattan's 25th Street. The electric arc lights went into regular service on December 20, 1880. The new Brooklyn Bridge of 1883 had seventy arc lamps installed in it. By 1886, there was a reported number of 1,500 arc lights installed in Manhattan. 1880–1883: James Wimshurst of Poplar, London, England invents the Wimshurst Machine. 1881–1885: Stefan Drzewiecki of Podolia, Russian Empire finishes his submarine-building project (which had begun in 1879). The crafts were constructed at Nevskiy Shipbuilding and Machinery works at Saint Petersburg. Altogether, 50 units were delivered to the Ministry of War. They were reportedly deployed as part of the defense of Kronstadt and Sevastopol. In 1885, the submarines were transferred to the Imperial Russian Navy. They were soon declared "ineffective" and discarded. By 1887, Drzewiecki was designing submarines for the French Third Republic. 1881–1883: John Philip Holland of Liscannor, County Clare, IrelandSource: Lecture by Pat Sweeney, Maritime Institute of Ireland 16 January 2009: His father was a member of the Coastguard and occupied a coastguard cottage. There were no coastguard cottages or station in Liscannor. builds the Fenian Ram submarine for the Fenian Brotherhood. During extensive trials, Holland made numerous dives and test-fired the gun using dummy projectiles. However, due to funding disputes within the Irish Republican Brotherhood and disagreement over payments from the IRB to Holland, the IRB stole Fenian Ram and the Holland III prototype in November 1883.Davies, R. Nautilus: The Story of Man Under the Sea. Naval Institute Press. 1995. . 1882: William Edward Ayrton of London, England and John Perry of Garvagh, County Londonderry, Ireland build an electric tricycle. It reportedly had a range of 10 to 25 miles, powered by a lead acid battery. A significant innovation of the vehicle was its use of electric lights, here playing the role of headlamps. 1882: James Atkinson of Hampstead, London, England invented the Atkinson cycle engine. By use of variable engine strokes from a complex crankshaft, Atkinson was able to increase the efficiency of his engine, at the cost of some power, over traditional Otto-cycle engines. 1882: Schuyler Wheeler of Massachusetts invented the two-blade electric fan. Henry W. Seely of New York invented the electric safety iron. Both were arguably among the earliest small domestic electrical appliances to appear. 1882–1883: John Hopkinson of Manchester, England patents the three-phase electric power system in 1882. In 1883 Hopkinson showed mathematically that it was possible to connect two alternating current dynamos in parallel — a problem that had long bedeviled electrical engineers. 1883: Charles Fritts, an American inventor, creates the first working solar cell. The energy conversion efficiency of these early devices was less than 1%. Denounced as a fraud in the US for "generating power without consuming matter, thus violating the laws of physics". 1883–1885: Josiah H. L. Tuck, an American inventor, works in his own submarine designs. His 1883 model was created in Delameter Iron Works. It was 30-feet long, "all-electric and had vertical and horizontal propellers clutched to the same shaft, with a 20-feet breathing pipe and an airlock for a diver." His 1885 model, called the "Peacemaker", was larger. It used "a caustic soda patent boiler to power a 14-HP Westinghouse steam engine". She managed a number of short trips within the New York Harbor area. The Peacemaker had a submerged endurance of 5 hours. Tuck did not benefit from his achievement. His family feared that the inventor was squandering his fortune on the Peacemaker. They had him committed to an insane asylum by the end of the decade. 1883–1886: John Joseph Montgomery of Yuba City, California, starts his attempts at early flight. In 1884, using a glider designed and built in 1883, Montgomery made the "first heavier-than-air human-carrying aircraft to achieve controlled piloted flight" in the Western Hemisphere. This glider had a curved parabolic wing surface. He reportedly made a glide of "considerable length" from Otay Mesa, San Diego, California, his first successful flight and arguably the first successful one in the United States. In 1884–1885, Montgomery tested a second monoplane glider with flat wings. The innovation in design was "hinged surfaces at the rear of the wings to maintain lateral balance". These were early forms of Aileron. After experimentation with a water tank and smoke chamber to understand the nature of flow over surfaces, in 1886, Montgomery designed a third glider with fully rotating wings as pitcherons. He then turned to theoretic research towards the development of a manuscript "Soaring Flight" in 1896.