Angl0‑Zulu War begins
After the Zulu kingdom ignores the British ultimatum to fully demilitarize within 30 days, British troops invade Zululand in three columns from the southern African republic of Natal, under the…
This Year in History:
1879
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
After the Zulu kingdom ignores the British ultimatum to fully demilitarize within 30 days, British troops invade Zululand in three columns from the southern African republic of Natal, under the…
Cheyenne chief Dull Knife (also anglicized as “Morning Star”) and his people are defeated by U.S. army soldiers after one of their “outbreaks” from reservation confinement. In doing so, the so‑called…
Congress establishes the United States Geological Survey, an organization that played a pivotal role in the exploration and development of the West. Although the rough geographical outlines of much of…
On March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein is born, the son of a Jewish electrical engineer in Ulm, Germany. Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity drastically altered human understanding of…
Doc Holliday commits his first murder, killing a man for shooting up his New Mexico saloon. Despite his formidable reputation as a deadly gunslinger, Doc Holliday only engaged in eight…
Emiliano Zapata, a leader of peasants and Indigenous people during the Mexican Revolution, is born in Anenecuilco, Mexico. Born a peasant, Zapata was forced into the Mexican army in 1908…
King Cetshwayo, the last great ruler of Zululand, is captured by the British following his defeat in the British‑Zulu War. He was subsequently sent into exile. Cetshwayo’s defiance of British…
In the first public demonstration of his incandescent lightbulb, American inventor Thomas Alva Edison lights up a street in Menlo Park, New Jersey. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company ran special trains…