What Happened in 1871 — Events, Births & Deaths

Franco-Prussian War: In the Siege of Paris, Prussia wins the Battle of St. Quentin. Meanwhile, the French attempt to break the siege in the Battle of Buzenval will end unsuccessfully the following day.

Franco-Prussian War: The Siege of Paris ends in French defeat and an armistice.

Declaration of the Paris Commune; President of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, orders the evacuation of Paris.

Otto von Bismarck is appointed as the first Chancellor of the German Empire.

Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.

The elections of Commune council of the Paris Commune are held.

The first international rugby football match, when Scotland defeats England in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.

Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.

The Camp Grant massacre takes place in Arizona Territory.

The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The Paris Commune falls after two months.

The Universities Tests Act 1871 allows students to enter the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests (except for those intending to study theology).

The Connecticut Valley Railroad opens between Old Saybrook, Connecticut and Hartford, Connecticut in the United States.

The Staten Island Ferry Westfield's boiler explodes, killing over 85 people.

An explosion of guncotton occurs in Stowmarket, England, killing 28.

Bishop John Coleridge Patteson, first bishop of Melanesia, is martyred on Nukapu, now in the Solomon Islands.

The Brazilian Parliament passes a law that frees all children thereafter born to slaves, and all government-owned slaves.

Slash-and-burn land management, months of drought, and the passage of a strong cold front cause the Peshtigo Fire, the Great Chicago Fire and the Great Michigan Fires to break out.

Liberian President Edward James Roye is deposed in a coup d'état.

Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, famously greeting him with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

The National Rifle Association of America receives its charter from New York State.

Sixteen-year-old telegraphist Ella Stewart keys and sends the first telegraphed message from Arizona Territory at the Deseret Telegraph Company office in Pipe Spring.

Thespis, the first Gilbert and Sullivan collaboration, debuts.