1877 Events

1877 Douglass is Appointed U.S. Marshal of the District of Columbia
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), the most important African American figure of the 19th Century, is appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia by President Rutherford B. Hayes. This was...
1877 Mar 1 Jack McCall is Hung for the Murder of James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok
"As I write the closing lines of this brief sketch, word reaches me that the slayer of Wild Bill has been re-arrested by the United State authorities, and after trial has been sentenced to..." —Leander Richardson
1877 Mar 4 Ulysses S. Grant Leaves The White House
The second President from Ohio, Grant was elected the 18th President of the United States in 1868, and was re-elected to the office in 1872. Grant served as President from March 4, 1869, ...
1877 Mar 5 Rutherford B. Hayes is inaugurated as the 19th president of the United States
The outcome of the election of 1876 was not known until the week before the inauguration itself. Democrat Samuel Tilden had won the greater number of popular votes and lacked only one ele...
1877 Jun 18 James Montgomery Flagg Is Born
James Montgomery Flagg, creator of this illustration of Uncle Sam, was born on June 18, 1877, in Pelham Manor, New York. Flagg claimed that his illustration, an indelible American icon, h...
1877 Jul 9 Bell Telephone Company Organized
The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized on July 9, 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a si...
1877 Aug 12 Thomas Alva Edison Completes The Model For The First Phonograph
August 12, 1877, is the date popularly given for Thomas Alva Edison's completion of the model for the first phonograph, a device that recorded sound onto tinfoil cylinders. It is more lik...
1877 Oct 5 Chief Joseph Surrenders
On October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph, exhausted and disheartened, surrendered in the Bears Paw Mountains of Montana, forty miles south of Canada. Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain was born in...
1877 Nov 17 Charles Darwin received an Honorary Doctorate of Law from Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge had come round to Darwinism, and on Saturday 17 November the family attended the Senate House for a ceremony in which Darwin was awarded an honorary Doctorate ...