1875 Works

Events

January–March

* January 1 – The Midland Railway of England abolishes the Second Class passenger category, leaving First Class and Third Class. Other British railway companies follow Midland's lead during the rest of the year (Third Class is renamed Second Class in 1956).
* January 5 – The Palais Garnier, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, is inaugurated in Paris.
* January 12 – Guangxu becomes the 11th Qing Dynasty Emperor of China at the age of 3, in succession to his cousin.
* January 14 – The newly proclaimed King Alfonso XII of Spain (Queen Isabella II's son) arrives in Spain to restore the monarchy during the Third Carlist War.
* February 3 – Third Carlist War – Battle of Lácar: Carlist commander Torcuato Mendíri secures a brilliant victory, when he surprises and routs a Government force under General Enrique Bargés at Lácar, east of Estella, nearly capturing newly crowned King Alfonso XII. The Carlists take several pieces of artillery, more than 2,000 rifles, and 300 prisoners. 800 men of both sides are killed (mostly government troops).
* February 18 – The Mason County War begins, as a German-American mob breaks into a prison, and lynches cattle rustlers in central Texas.
* February 24 – The sinks off Australia's east coast with the loss of approximately 102 lives, including a number of high-profile civil servants and dignitaries.
* February 25 – The majority of the Yavapai (Wipukyipai) and Tonto Apache (Dil Zhéé) tribes are forced by the United States Cavalry, under command of Brigadier General George Crook, to walk at gunpoint from Arizona's Verde Valley, to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, 180 miles to the southeast. The two tribes are not allowed to return to the Verde Valley until 1900.
* February 27 – Newton Booth, 11th Governor of California, resigns, having been elected Senator. Lieutenant Governor of California Romualdo Pacheco becomes acting Governor. He is later replaced by elected governor William Irwin.
* March 1 – The United States Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in public accommodations and jury duty.
* March 3
** Bizet’s ''Carmen'' is first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, France.
** The first indoor ice hockey game is played at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
* March 15 – Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York John McCloskey is named the first cardinal in the United States.

April–June

* April – 'Albert's swarm' of Rocky Mountain locusts begins to devastate the western United States.
* April 10 – The Arya Samaj is founded in Mumbai by Swami Dayananda Saraswati.
* April 25 – Ten sophomores from Rutgers College (modern-day Rutgers University) steal a one-ton cannon from the campus of the College of New Jersey (modern-day Princeton University), and start the Rutgers–Princeton Cannon War.
* May 7 – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg is signed between Japan and Russia.
* May 7 – German liner wrecks on the rocks off the Isles of Scilly, with the loss of 335 lives.
* May 17 – Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.
* May 20 – The Metre Convention is signed in Paris, France.
* June – The record-setting American clipper '' Flying Cloud'' of 1851 is burned for scrap metal.
* June 4 – Two American colleges play each other in arguably the first game of college football: Tufts University and Harvard University at Jarvis Field in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
* June 18 – The Dublin whiskey fire leaves 13 people dead and causes more than €6 million worth of damage.

July–September

* Summer – Third Carlist War in Spain: Two government armies under General Quesada and Martínez Campos start encroaching on Carlist territory. Both they and their Carlist opponent (Mendiri) drive opposing sympathisers from their homes, and burn crops in areas they can not hold. Several Carlist generals (Dorregaray, Savalls, and others) are unjustly put on trial for disloyalty. Mendiri is also removed from his command, and replaced by the Count of Caserta. Despite having 48 infantry battalions, 3 cavalry regiments, 2 engineer battalions, and 100 pieces of artillery at his disposal, Caserta is heavily outnumbered by the government forces opposing him.
* July 1 – The General Postal Union is established.
* July 1– 7 – Third Carlist War – Battle of Treviño: Advancing on the key city of Vitoria, in Navarre, Spanish Republican commander General Jenardo de Quesada sends General Tello to attack the Carlist lines just to the southwest, at Treviño. The newly appointed Carlist commander General José Pérula is heavily defeated and withdraws, and soon afterwards Quesada enters Vitoria in triumph.
* July 28 – Joe Borden throws the first no-hitter in baseball history versus Mike Golden and the Chicago White Stockings in his third start as a replacement for Cherokee Fisher as a member of the Philadelphia White Stockings
* August 6 – Hibernian F.C. is founded by Irishmen, in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland.
* August 25 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel.
* September 1 – A murder conviction begins to break the power of the violent Irish-American anti-owner coal miners, the "Molly Maguires".
* September 7 – Battle of Agurdat: An Egyptian invasion of Ethiopia fails, when Emperor Yohannes IV defeats an army led by Werner Munzinger.
* September 11 – Egypt adopts the Gregorian calendar, having previously used the Alexandrian calendar.
* September – English Association football team Birmingham City F.C. is founded as Small Heath Alliance in Birmingham by a group of cricketers from Holy Trinity Church, Bordesley, playing its first match in November.

October–December

* October – The Ottoman state declares partial bankruptcy, and places its finances in the hands of European creditors.
* October 15 – Chief Lone Horn of the Minneconjou dies at the Cheyenne River, leaving his son Big Foot as the new chief.
* October 16 – Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.
* October 25 – The first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is given in Boston, Massachusetts, with Hans von Bülow as soloist.
* October 30 – The Theosophical Society is founded in New York by Helena Blavatsky, H. S. Olcott, W. Q. Judge, and others.
* November 5 – Blackburn Rovers F.C. is founded by two old-boys of Shrewsbury School following a meeting at the Leger Hotel, Blackburn.
* November 9 – American Indian Wars: In Washington, D.C., Indian Inspector E.C. Watkins issues a report stating that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne associated with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are hostile to the United States (the Battle of the Little Bighorn is fought in Montana the next year).
* November 16 – Battle of Gundat: Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV defeats another Egyptian army.
* November 26 – '' The Times'' newspaper in London reveals that Isma'il Pasha has sold Egypt's 44% share in the Suez Canal to Britain, in a deal secured by Benjamin Disraeli, without the prior sanction of the British Parliament.
* November 29 – Dōshisha English School, predecessor of Dōshisha University, is founded in Kyōto, Japan.
* December 4 – Notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison and flees to Spain.
* December 5– 6 – German emigrant ship SS ''Deutschland'' runs aground in the English Channel, resulting in the death of 157 passengers and crew.
* December 9 – The Massachusetts Rifle Association, America's Oldest Active Gun Club, is formed.
* December 20 – The ICRM is renamed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
* December 25 – The first Edinburgh derby in Association football is played: Heart of Midlothian F.C. wins 1–0 against Hibernian F.C.

Date unknown

* Widespread nationalist rebellion in the Ottoman Empire results in Turkish repression, Russian intervention and Great Power tensions.
* Asia's first stock exchange is established as ''The Native Share & Stock Brokers Association'' (the modern-day Bombay Stock Exchange).
* Wimbledon: Henry Cavendish Jones convinces the ''All England Croquet Club'' to replace a croquet court with a lawn tennis court.
* The Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875 is passed in the United Kingdom, to permit slum clearance.
* Convent Scandal: During the winter in Montreal, typhoid fever strikes at a convent school. The corpses of the victims are filched by body-snatchers before relatives arrive from America, causing much furor. Eventually the Anatomy Act of Quebec is changed over it.
* The opening of Flushing High School, the oldest public high school in New York City.
* Tanaka Manufacturing, a telecommunications factory in Ginza, Tokyo, a predecessor of Toshiba, a Japanese electromechanics giant, is founded.
* World's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg, Russia, invented and tested by Fyodor Pirotsky.

Notable births

January–February

* January 3 – Alexandros Diomidis, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1950)
* January 5 – J. Stuart Blackton, American film producer (d. 1941)
* January 6 – Leslie Green, British architect (d. 1908)
* January 7 – Thomas Hicks, American runner (d. 1952)
* January 9 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, American sculptor, socialite (d. 1942)
* January 11 – Reinhold Glière, Russian composer (d. 1956)
* January 14
** Felix Hamrin, 22nd Prime Minister of Sweden (d. 1937)
** Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian philosopher and musician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1965)
* January 15
** Thomas Burke, American sprinter (d. 1929)
**King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia (d. 1953)
* January 22 – D. W. Griffith, American film director, ('' The Birth of a Nation'') (d. 1948)
* February 1 – Eddie Polo, Austrian-American actor (d. 1961)
* February 2 – Fritz Kreisler, Austrian violinist (d. 1962)
* February 4 – Ludwig Prandtl, German physicist (d. 1953)
* February 7 – Erkki Melartin, Finnish composer (d. 1937)
* February 8 – Valentine O'Hara, Irish author, authority on Russia and the Baltic states (d. 1941)
* February 21 – Jeanne Calment, French supercentenarian, world's longest lived person (d. 1997)
* February 26 – Emma Dunn, British-born stage, screen actress (d. 1966)

March–April

* March 4 – Mihály Károlyi, Prime Minister and President of Hungary (d. 1955)
* March 7 – Maurice Ravel, French composer (d. 1937)
* March 8 – Kenkichi Ueda, Japanese general (d. 1962)
* March 9 – Juan de Dios Martínez, 23rd President of Ecuador (d. 1955)
* March 19 – Zhang Zuolin, Chinese bandit, soldier, and warlord (d. 1928)
* March 26 – Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea (d. 1965)
* March 28 – Helen Westley, American stage, film actress (d. 1942)
* April 1 – Edgar Wallace, English author (d. 1932)
* April 2 – Walter Chrysler, American automobile pioneer (d. 1940)
* April 4
** Samuel S. Hinds, American actor (d. 1948)
** Pierre Monteux, French conductor (d. 1964)
* April 5 – Mistinguett, French singer (d. 1956)
* April 8 – King Albert I of Belgium (d. 1934)
* April 15 – James J. Jeffries, American boxer (d. 1953)
* April 18 – Abd-ru-shin, German author (d. 1941)

May–June

* May 2 – Owen Roberts, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1955)
* May 6 – William D. Leahy, American admiral (d. 1959)
* May 11 – Harriet Quimby, American pilot (d. 1912)
* May 12
** Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya, Indian philosopher (d. 1949)
** Charles Holden, British architect (d. 1960)
* May 23 – Alfred P. Sloan, American automobile industrialist (d. 1966)
* June 4 – Albert E. Smith, English stage magician, film director and producer (d. 1958)
* June 6
** J. Farrell MacDonald, American character actor, film director (d. 1952)
** Thomas Mann, German novelist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)
* June 9 – Henry Hallett Dale, English pharmacologist and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
* June 12 – Sam De Grasse, Canadian actor (d. 1953)
* June 15 – Herman Smith-Johannsen, Norwegian supercentenarian (d. 1987)
* June 24 – Diedrich Westermann, German linguist (d. 1956)
* June 28 – Henri Lebesgue, French mathematician (d. 1941)

July–August

* July 3
** Tanxu, Chinese Buddhist monk (d. 1963)
** Ferdinand Sauerbruch, German surgeon (d. 1951)
* July 10
** Dezső Pattantyús-Ábrahám, Hungarian politician (d. 1973)
** Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator (d. 1955)
* July 25 – Jim Corbett, Anglo-Indian hunter, conservationist and author (d. 1955)
* July 26
** Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (d. 1961)
** Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (d. 1939)
* August 8 – Arthur Bernardes, 12th President of Brazil (d. 1955)
* August 10 – Florrie Forde, Australian-born music hall singer (d. 1940)
* August 15 – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, English composer (d. 1912)
* August 16 – Juho Sunila, Prime Minister of Finland (d. 1936)
* August 21 – Winnifred Eaton, Canadian author (d. 1954)
* August 26 – John Buchan, Scottish-Canadian historian and politician, 15th Governor General of Canada (d. 1940)
* August 27 – Katharine McCormick, American suffragist (d. 1967)
* August 29 – Leonardo De Lorenzo, Italian flautist (d. 1962)

September–October

* September 1 – Edgar Rice Burroughs, American author (d. 1950)
* September 3 – Ferdinand Porsche, Austrian automotive engineer (d. 1951)
* September 16 – James Cash Penney, American businessman, founder of J. C. Penney (d. 1971)
* September 18 – Tomás Burgos, Chilean philanthropist (d. 1945)
* September 20 – Matthias Erzberger, German politician (assassinated 1921)
* September 22 – Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Lithuanian composer (d. 1911)
* October – George Ranetti

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