1880s

Events and Trends

Technology

• Development and commercial production of electric lighting
• Development and commercial production of gasoline-powered automobile by Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Maybach
• First commercial production and sales of phonographs and phonograph recordings.
• First steel frame construction "sky-scrapers"

Science

• Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect
• Michelson-Morley experiment, showing that the speed of light is invariant
• James-Lange theory of emotion

War, peace and politics

• First Boer War
• The New Imperialism

Other

• Krakatoa, a volcano in Indonesia, erupts cataclysmically; 36,000 people are killed, the majority by the resulting tsunami
• About 300,000 Swedes emigrate to the United States

People

World Leaders

• Emperor Franz Josef (Austria-Hungary)
• Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald (Canada)
• Guangxu Emperor (China)
• Emperor Wilhelm I (Germany)
• Emperor Wilhelm II (Germany)
• Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (Germany)
• King Umberto I (Italy)
• Pope Leo XIII
• Emperor Meiji (Japan)
• Emperor Alexander II (Russia)
• Emperor Alexander III (Russia)
• Queen - Empress Victoria (United Kingdom)
• Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (United Kingdom)
• Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (United Kingdom)
• President Rutherford B. Hayes (United States)
• President Chester A. Arthur (United States)
• President Grover Cleveland (United States)