1878

January–March

 * January 5 – Russo-Turkish War: Battle of Shipka Pass IV – Russian and Bulgarian forces defeat the Ottoman Empire.
 * January 9 – Umberto I becomes King of Italy.
 * January 17 – Russo-Turkish War: Battle of Philippopolis – Russian troops defeat the Ottoman Empire.
 * January 23 – Benjamin Disraeli orders the British fleet to the Dardanelles.
 * January 24 – Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich shoots at Fyodor Trepov, Governor of Saint Petersburg.
 * January 28 – In the United States:
 * The world's First Telephone Exchange begins commercial operation in New Haven, Connecticut.
 * The Yale News becomes the first daily college newspaper in the U.S.
 * January 31 – Turkey agrees to an armistice at Adrianople.
 * February 2 – Greece declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
 * February 7 – Pope Pius IX dies, after a 31½ year pontificate (the longest definitely confirmed).
 * February 8 – The British fleet enters Turkish waters, and anchors off Istanbul; Russia threatens to occupy Istanbul, but does not carry out the threat.
 * February 18 – The Lincoln County War begins in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
 * February 19 – The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison.
 * February 20 – Pope Leo XIII succeeds Pope Pius IX, as the 256th pope.
 * February 23 – Gajanan Maharaj appears at Shegaon, Maharashtra.
 * February 24 – Anti-Russian demonstrations occur in Hyde Park, London.
 * February 28 – Mississippi State University is created by the Mississippi Legislature (under the name The Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi).
 * March 17 – Emancipated U.S. slave and Baptist minister Rev. John Jasper first preaches his sermon "The Sun Do Move."
 * March 24 – The British Royal Navy frigate HMS Eurydice (1843) capsizes in the English Channel; all but 2 of the 319 crew members are killed.
 * March 25 – Russia rejects a British proposal to lay the Treaty of San Stefano before a European congress.
 * March 27 – In anticipation of war with Russia, Disraeli mobilizes the reserves, and calls up Indian troops to Malta.

April–June

 * April 16 – The Senate of the Grand Duchy of Finland issues a declaration establishing a city of Kotka on the southern part of the islands from the old Kymi parish.
 * April 20 – The Stawell Gift sprint is run for the first time in Australia.
 * May 2 – The Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis explodes, killing 18.
 * May 15 – The Tokyo Stock Exchange is established.
 * May 25 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore debuts in London at the Opera Comique, with a first run of 571 performances.
 * June 1
 * The General Postal Union is renamed the Universal Postal Union (UPU).
 * British clipper Loch Ard is wrecked off the Shipwreck Coast of Victoria (Australia) with the loss of 52 lives and only 2 survivors.
 * June 4 – Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom, but retains the nominal title.
 * June 10 – The League of Prizren is officially founded "to struggle in arms to defend the wholeness of the territories of Albania".
 * June 13–July 13 – The Congress of Berlin convenes to discuss the Ottoman Empire.
 * June 15 – Eadweard Muybridge produces the sequence of stop-motion still photographs Sallie Gardner at a Gallop in California (a predecessor of silent film), demonstrating that all four feet of a galloping horse are off the ground at the same time.
 * June 20 – The United States Coast Survey is renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.
 * June 22 – Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld leaves Karlskrona on a voyage that will make him the first man to navigate the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, along the Siberian coast.

July–September

 * July 4 – A match race between champion thoroughbred racehorses Ten Broeck and Mollie McCarty draws more than 30,000 fans to Louisville, and inspires the folk song, "Molly and Tenbrooks".
 * July 13 – The Treaty of Berlin makes Serbia, Montenegro and Romania completely independent, confirms the autonomy of Bulgaria, makes Cyprus a British possession, and allows Austria-Hungary to garrison the Bosnia Vilayet.
 * August 9 – The Wallingford Tornado of 1878, the deadliest tornado in Connecticut history, destroys the town of Wallingford, killing 34 people and injuring more than 70.
 * August 26 – Uyedineniya Island is discovered in the Kara Sea, by Norwegian explorer Captain Edvard Holm Johannesen.
 * September 3 – Over 640 die when the crowded pleasure boat SS Princess Alice (1865) collides with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames.
 * September 12 – Cleopatra's Needle is erected beside the Thames in London, having arrived in England on January 21.
 * September 20 – The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, is founded.

October–December

 * October 1 – Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) opens as Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, in the United States.
 * October 14 – The world's first recorded floodlit football fixture is played at Bramall Lane, in Sheffield, England.
 * October 17 – John A. Macdonald returns to office, as Prime Minister of Canada.
 * October 27 – The Manhattan Savings Institution robbery occurs.
 * October 31 – A fire destroys the Eldkvarn gristmill mill in Stockholm, Sweden.
 * November 17 – The first assassination attempt is made against Umberto I of Italy by anarchist Giovanni Passannante, armed with a dagger. The King survives with a slight wound in one arm. Prime minister Benedetto Cairoli blocks the aggressor, receiving a leg injury.
 * November 21 – The Second Anglo-Afghan War commences when the British attack Ali Masjid in the Khyber Pass.
 * November 26 – American-born artist James McNeill Whistler's libel case against English critic John Ruskin, over a review of the painting Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, (in which Whistler is described as "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face"), is decided in the High Court of Justice in London. Whistler wins a farthing in nominal damages and only half of the costs, leading to his bankruptcy, and alienates patrons.
 * December 7 – The United States territory of New Mexico is linked to the rest of the nation by railroad for the first time, as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway inaugurates a newly completed line through the Raton Pass.
 * December 18 – French passenger steamer Byzantin founders in the Dardanelles during a gale after collision with British SS Rinaldo, killing around 210 people, with only 14 crew of the Byzantin saved.
 * December 25 – Stella Maris Church, Sliema on Malta becomes a parish, seceding from the Parish of St. Helen's in Birkirkara.

Date unknown

 * Small town La Farge, Wisconsin founded along the Kickapoo River
 * U.S. arbitration rejects Argentine claims to Paraguay's part of the Chaco region.
 * Otto von Bismarck abandons his Kulturkampf, and forces through legislation outlawing the Social Democrats.
 * The 10-year Nauruan Tribal War breaks out.
 * Yellow fever in the Mississippi Valley kills over 13,000.
 * Foundation of:
 * Nainital Cantonment.
 * The Buchan School, Isle of Man.
 * The Johns Hopkins University Press, America's oldest university press.
 * Geiger (corporation), formed as Geiger Brothers.
 * Kawasaki Tsukiji Shipyard, as predecessor of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a motorbike, helicopters, rolling stock and shipbuilding concern in Japan.
 * The following English Association football clubs:
 * Everton F.C., formed as St Domingo.
 * Grimsby Town F.C., formed as Grimsby Pelham.
 * Ipswich Town Football Club, formed as amateur club Ipswich A.F.C. They will not turn professional until 1936.
 * Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club, the team that will become Manchester United.
 * West Bromwich Albion F.C., formed as West Bromwich Strollers F.C.
 * Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina is published complete in book form in Moscow.
 * Lester Allan Pelton produces the first operational Pelton wheel.
 * E. Remington and Sons, in the United States, introduce their No. 2 typewriter, the first with a shift key, enabling production of lower as well as upper case characters.
 * The last confirmed Cape lion dies.
 * In Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, the much studied stele of the Roman legionary Caius Largennius is discovered.

January–March

 * January 2 – Jaakko Mäki, Finnish politician (d. 1938)
 * January 4
 * A. E. Coppard, English short story writer and poet (d. 1957)
 * Augustus John, Welsh painter (d. 1961)
 * January 6 – Carl Sandburg, American poet and historian (d. 1967)
 * January 9 – John B. Watson, American psychologist (d. 1958)
 * January 11
 * Theodoros Pangalos, Greek general, politician and President of Greece (d. 1952)
 * Leopoldo Saro, Spanish general (d. 1936)
 * January 12 – Ferenc Molnár, Hungarian-born author (d. 1952)
 * January 16 – Harry Carey, American actor (d. 1947)
 * January 20 – Finlay Currie, Scottish actor (d. 1968)
 * January 22 – Constance Collier, English stage, screen actress (d. 1955)
 * January 23 – Rutland Boughton, English composer (d. 1960)
 * January 25 – Ernst Alexanderson, Swedish-born American television pioneer (d. 1975)
 * January 26
 * Luís of Orléans-Braganza, Brazilian royalty
 * Harry Rountree, New Zealand illustrator (d. 1950)
 * February 1 – Milan Hodža, Slovak politician, champion of regional integration in Europe (d. 1944)
 * February 2
 * Alfréd Hajós, Hungarian swimmer, architect (d. 1955)
 * Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn, American suffragist (d. 1951)
 * February 3 – Gordon Coates, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1943)
 * February 4 – Grigory Petrovsky, Ukrainian Soviet politician and Old Bolshevik (d. 1958)
 * February 5 – André Citroën, French automobile manufacturer (d. 1935)
 * February 8 – Martin Buber, Austrian philosopher (d. 1965)
 * February 14 – Kōki Hirota, 21st Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1948)
 * February 16 – Big Jim Colosimo, Italian-born American gangster (d. 1920)
 * February 18 – Kate Gordon Moore, American psychologist (d. 1963)
 * February 21 – Mirra Alfassa, multi-origined spiritual leader and founder of Auroville, India (d. 1973)
 * February 26 – Emmy Destinn, Czech soprano (d. 1930)
 * February 28 – Pierre Fatou, French mathematician (d. 1929)
 * March 3 – Edward Thomas, British poet (d. 1917)
 * March 4
 * Egbert Van Alstyne, American songwriter, pianist (d. 1951)
 * Arishima Takeo, Japanese novelist, short-story writer and essayist (d. 1923)
 * March 5 – P. D. Ouspensky, Russian mathematician and philosopher (d. 1947)
 * March 7 – Boris Kustodiev, Soviet painter and designer (d. 1927)
 * March 16
 * Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (d. 1944)
 * Clemens August Graf von Galen, German Catholic cardinal (d. 1946)
 * March 20 – Heinrich XXIV, Prince Reuss of Greiz (d. 1927)
 * March 22 – Michel Théato, Luxembourg athlete (d. 1923)
 * March 23 – Franz Schreker, Austrian composer (d. 1934)
 * March 25 – Frances Glessner Lee, American forensic scientist; known as "mother of forensic science" (d. 1962)
 * March 26 – Henry Gullett, Australian politician (d. 1940)
 * March 31 – Jack Johnson, American boxer (d. 1946)

April–June

 * April 1 – C. Ganesha Iyer, Ceylon Tamil philologist (d. 1958)
 * April 4 – Stylianos Lykoudis, Greek admiral (d. 1958)
 * April 6
 * Erich Mühsam, German author (d. 1934)
 * Vicente Mejía Colindres, 23rd President of Honduras (d. 1966)
 * April 24 – Jean Crotti, Swiss artist (d. 1958)
 * April 28
 * Lionel Barrymore, American actor (d. 1954)
 * Willem Mengelberg, Dutch conductor (d. 1951)
 * April 30 – Władysław Witwicki, Polish psychologist, philosopher, translator, historian (of philosophy and art) and artist (d. 1948)
 * May 2 – Roy Atwell, American actor, comedian and composer (d. 1962)
 * May 10 – Gustav Stresemann, Chancellor of Germany, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1929)
 * May 13 – Julia Dean, American actress (d. 1952),
 * May 16 – Taylor Holmes, American actor (d. 1959)
 * May 21 – Glenn Curtiss, American aviation pioneer (d. 1930)
 * May 22 – The Great Gama, Punjabi wrestler (d. 1960)
 * May 25 – Bill Robinson, African-American tap dancer (d. 1949)
 * May 28 – Paul Pelliot, French sinologist (d. 1945)
 * June 1 – John Masefield, English poet, novelist (d. 1967)
 * June 3 – Barney Oldfield, American automobile racer, pioneer (d. 1946)
 * June 5 – Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary (d. 1923)
 * June 10 – William Skelly, American oil magnate (d. 1957)
 * June 12 – James Oliver Curwood, American writer, conservationist (d. 1927)
 * June 19 – Yakov Yurovsky, Russian Old Bolshevik, revolutionary, and Chekist (d.1938)
 * June 22 – John Burton Cleland, Australian naturalist, microbiologist, mycologist and ornithologist (d. 1971)
 * June 27 – He Xiangning, Chinese revolutionary, feminist, politician, painter and poet (d. 1972)

July–September

 * July 3 – George M. Cohan, American singer, dancer, composer, actor and writer (d. 1942)
 * July 8 – Jimmy Quinn, Scottish footballer (d. 1945)
 * July 16 – Andreas Hermes, German agricultural scientist, politician (d. 1964)
 * July 24 – Lord Dunsany, Irish author (d. 1957)
 * August 1
 * Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1961)
 * José Pedro Montero, 27th President of Paraguay (d. 1927)
 * Eva Tanguay, Canadian-born vaudeville performer (d. 1947)
 * August 2
 * Princess Ingeborg of Denmark, Princess of Sweden (d. 1958)
 * Aino Kallas, Finnish-Estonian author (d. 1956)
 * August 9 – Eileen Gray, Irish architect, furniture designer (d. 1976)
 * August 10 – Alfred Döblin, German writer (d. 1957)
 * August 15 – Paa Grant, Ghanian politician (d. 1956)
 * August 19 – Manuel L. Quezon, 2nd President of the Philippines (d. 1944)
 * August 20 – Maria Assunta Pallotta, Italian Roman Catholic religious professed and blessed (d. 1905)
 * August 26 – Lina Stern, Soviet biochemist, physiologist and humanist (d. 1968)
 * August 27 – Pyotr Wrangel, Russian general, anti-Bolshevik leader (d. 1928)
 * August 28 – George Whipple, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
 * August 31 – Frank Jarvis, American athlete (d. 1933)
 * September 2 – Werner von Blomberg, German field marshal (d. 1946)
 * September 5 – Robert von Lieben, Austrian physicist (d. 1913)
 * September 9
 * Sergio Osmeña, 4th President of the Philippines (d. 1961)
 * Princess Catherine Yurievskaya, daughter of daughter of Alexander II of Russia (d. 1959)
 * September 13 – Matilde Moisant, American pilot (d. 1964)
 * September 16 – Karl Albiker, German sculptor, lithographer and teacher (d. 1961)
 * September 20 – Upton Sinclair, American writer (d. 1968)
 * September 22 – Shigeru Yoshida, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1967)
 * September 24 – Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, Swiss writer (d. 1947)
 * September 26 – Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, German general and Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr (d. 1943)
 * September 28 – Jirō Tamon, Japanese general (d. 1934)

October–December

 * October 1 – Othmar Spann, Austrian philosopher, economist (d. 1950)
 * October 5 – Louise Dresser, American actress (d. 1965)
 * October 9 – Robert Warwick, American actor (d. 1964)
 * October 11 – Nicole Girard-Mangin, French physician in the French Army (d. 1919)
 * October 12 – Karl Buresch, 9th Chancellor of Austria (d. 1936)
 * October 15 – Paul Reynaud, 77th Prime Minister of France (d. 1966)
 * October 16 – Maxie Long, American athlete (d. 1959)
 * October 18 – Miguel Llobet, Spanish guitarist (d. 1938)
 * October 26 – William Kissam Vanderbilt II, American motor racing driver and yachtsman (d. 1944)
 * October 29 – Alexander von Falkenhausen, German general (d. 1966)
 * October 30 – Arthur Scherbius, German electrical engineer, mathematician, cryptanalyst and inventor (d. 1929)
 * November 1 – Carlos Saavedra Lamas, Argentine politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1959)
 * November 7
 * Lise Meitner, German-Austrian physicist, discoverer of nuclear fission (d. 1968)
 * Margaret Cousins, Irish-Indian educationist, suffragist and Theosophist (d. 1954)
 * Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, Belarusian-born Orthodox rabbi (d. 1953)
 * November 8 – Dorothea Bate, British archaeologist and pioneer of archaeozoology (d. 1951)
 * November 14
 * Inigo Campioni, Italian admiral (d. 1944)
 * Julie Manet, French painter (d. 1966)
 * Leopold Staff, Polish poet (d. 1957)
 * November 17 – Grace Abbott, American social worker, activist (d. 1939)
 * November 23
 * Ernest Joseph King, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations (COMINCH-CNO) during World War II (d. 1956)
 * Frank Pick, British transport administrator, designer (d. 1941)
 * November 27 – William Orpen, Irish artist (d. 1931)
 * December 1 – Jeni Bojilova-Pateva, Bulgarian women's rights activist and suffragist (d. 1955)
 * December 3 – Edith Vane-Tempest-Stewart, English noble (d. 1959)
 * December 10 – C. Rajagopalachari, Indian politician, freedom fighter (d. 1972)
 * December 18 – Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union (d. 1953)
 * December 22 – Myer Prinstein, Polish-American athlete (d. 1925)
 * December 25
 * Louis Chevrolet, Swiss-born race driver, automobile builder (d. 1941)
 * Joseph M. Schenck, Russian-born American film executive (d. 1961)
 * December 28 – Nikolai Bryukhanov, Soviet statesman, political figure who served as People's Commissar of Finances (d. 1938)
 * December 31
 * Elizabeth Arden, Canadian-born beautician, cosmetics entrepreneur (d. 1966)
 * Horacio Quiroga, Uruguayan writer (d. 1937)

January–June

 * January 5 – Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora, 6th Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1804)
 * January 8 – Nikolay Nekrasov, Russian poet (b. 1821)
 * January 9 – King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy (b. 1820)
 * January 18 – Antoine César Becquerel, French scientist (b. 1788)
 * February 7 – Pope Pius IX (b. 1792)
 * February 11 – Gideon Welles, American politician (b. 1802)
 * February 19 – Charles-François Daubigny, French painter (b. 1817)
 * February 26 – Angelo Secchi, Italian astronomer (b. 1818)
 * March 8 – Archduke Franz Karl of Austria (b. 1802)
 * March 20 – Julius von Mayer, German physician, physicist and one of the founders of thermodynamics (b. 1814)
 * March 27 – Sir George Gilbert Scott, British architect (b. 1811)
 * April 8 – Henrietta Treffz, Austrian soprano, first wife of Johann Strauss II (b. 1818)
 * April 11 – Robert Wentworth Little, British occultist (b. 1840)
 * April 12 – William M. Tweed, American politician (b. 1823)
 * April 25 – Anna Sewell, English author (b. 1820)
 * May 11 – Pierre Philippe Denfert-Rochereau, French military officer and politician (b. 1823)
 * May 12 – Anselme Payen, French chemist (b. 1795)
 * May 13 – Joseph Henry, American scientist (b. 1797)
 * May 14 – Ōkubo Toshimichi, Japanese samurai, later leader of the Meiji restoration (b. 1830)
 * May 28 – John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1792)
 * June 5 – Ernst von Bibra, German scientist (b. 1806)
 * June 6
 * Achille Baraguey d'Hilliers, Marshal of France (b. 1795)
 * Robert Stirling, Scottish clergyman, inventor (b. 1790)
 * June 12
 * William Cullen Bryant, American poet, journalist, and editor (b. 1794)
 * Queen Cheorin, Korean queen consort (b. 1837)
 * George V of Hanover (b. 1819)
 * June 15 – Shiv Dayal Singh Founder and first SatGuru of Radha Soami Faith (b. 1818)
 * June 27 – Sidney Breese, U.S. senator from Illinois, father of the Illinois Central Railroad (b. 1800)

July–December

 * July 21 – Sam Bass (outlaw), American outlaw (b. 1851)
 * July 23 – Carl Freiherr von Rokitansky, Bohemian pathologist, philosopher and politician (b. 1804)
 * August 13 – Henry James Montague, English-born actor (b. 1844)
 * August 16 – Richard Upjohn, English-American architect (b. 1802)
 * August 26 – Mariam Baouardy, Syrian Discalced Carmelite and Melkite Greek Catholic nun and saint, canonized (b. 1846)
 * August 30 – James Geiss, English businessman (b. 1820)
 * September 7 – Mehmed Ali Pasha, Prussian-born Ottoman military leader (b. 1827)
 * October 4 – Dora Hand, dance hall singer, actress (b.1844)
 * October 11 – Satanta, Kiowa war chief (b. 1820)
 * December 10 – Henry Wells, American businessman (b. 1805)
 * December 14 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (b. 1843)
 * December 18 – W H Payne, actor and mime artist (b. 1804)
 * December 23 – Frederick Aiken, American lawyer, journalist, and soldier (b. 1832)
 * December 25 – Henry K. Hoff, American admiral (b. 1809)