Events of 1887

January–March

Jan.6: Menelik II

• January 6 – `Abd-Allah II of Harar opens the Battle of Chelenqo with an attack on the camp of the Shewan army of Negus Menelik II early in the morning; prepared for the assault, the Negus orders a counter-attack which routs the enemy, a few days later resulting in the capture of Harar.

• January 11 – Louis Pasteur's anti-rabies treatment is defended in the French Academy of Medicine by Dr. Joseph Grancher.

• January 20 – The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.

• January 21

• *The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is formed.

• *Brisbane receives a daily rainfall of 465 millimetres – a record for any Australian capital city.

March 3: Helen Keller and Sullivan.

• January 24 – Battle of Dogali: Abyssinian troops defeat the Italians.

• January 28 – In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, USA, the largest snowflakes on record are reported. They are 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.

• February 2 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the first Groundhog Day is observed.

• February 5 – The Giuseppe Verdi opera Otello premieres at La Scala.

• February 8 – The Dawes Act, or the General Allotment Act, is enacted.

• February 23 – The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000 along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

• February 26 – At the Sydney Cricket Ground, George Lohmann becomes the first bowler to take eight wickets in a Test innings.

• March 3 – Anne Sullivan begins teaching Helen Keller.

• March 4 – Gottlieb Daimler unveils his first automobile.

• March 7 – North Carolina State University is established as North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.

• March 13 – Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs.

• March 19 – Henry Cogswell College is established by Henry D. Cogswell.

March 4: Daimler

April–June

• April 4 – Argonia, Kansas elects Susanna M. Salter as the first female mayor in the United States.

• April 21 – Schnaebele incident – French/German border incident nearly leads to war between the two countries.

• May 3 – An earthquake hits Sonora, Mexico.

• May 9 – Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show opens in London.

• May 14 – The cornerstone of the new Stanford University, in northern California, is laid (the college opens in 1891).

• June 8 – Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his punch card calculator.

• June 18 – The Reinsurance Treaty is closed between Germany and Russia.

• June 21 – The British Empire celebrates Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, marking the 50th year of her reign.

• June 23 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada, creating that nation's first national park, Banff National Park.

• June 28 – Minot, North Dakota is incorporated as a city.

June 23: Banff National Park.

July–September

• July 12 – Odense Boldklub, the Danish football team, is founded as the Odense Cricket Club.

• July 26 – L. L. Zamenhof publishes "Dr. Esperanto's International Tongue".

• August – The U.S. National Institutes of Health is founded at the Marine Hospital, Staten Island, NY, as the Laboratory of Hygiene.

• August 13 – The Hibernian F.C. defeats Preston North End to win the "Championship of the World" after the two teams win the Association football Cup competitions in their respective countries.

• September 5 – The Theatre Royal, Exeter, England burns down, killing 186 people.

July 26: Esperanto

October–December

• October 1 – The British Empire takes over Balochistan.

• November – Results of the Michelson-Morley experiment are published, indicating that the speed of light is independent of motion.

• November 3 – The Associação Académica de Coimbra, the students' union of the University of Coimbra in Portugal, is founded.

• November 10 – Louis Lingg, sentenced to be hanged for his alleged role in the Haymarket Riot bomb, kills himself by dynamite.

• November 11 – August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Michael Schwab, and Samuel Fielden are hanged for inciting riot and murder in the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886.

• November 13 – Bloody Sunday: Police clash with pro-Irish independence protesters.

November: Michelson-Morley.

• December 25 – Glenfiddich single malt Scotch whisky is first produced.

Undated

• Franz König published "Über freie Körper in den Gelenken" in the medical journal Deutsche Zeitschrift für Chirurgie, describing (and naming) the disease Osteochondritis dissecans for the first time.

• Teachers College, later part of Columbia University, is founded.

• Thomas Stevens is the first man to bicycle around the world.

• The Gramophone is patented by Emile Berliner.

• The New Gate is built in Jerusalem.

• The comptometer is patented by Dorr Eugene Felt.

• The first All-Ireland Hurling and Football Finals are held.

• Japan annexes Iwo Jima.

• Zululand becomes a British colony.

• The Yellow river floods in China, killing 900,000.

• Construction of Spandau Prison in Berlin is completed.

• Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect on the production and reception of electromagnetic (EM) waves (radio). This was an important step towards the understanding of the quantum nature of light.

• The U.S. Congress passes the Interstate Commerce Act.

• Adolf Eugen Fick invents the contact lens, made of a type of brown glass.

• A. G. Edwards is founded by General Albert Gallatin Edwards.

Heinrich Hertz.

Yellow River flood kills 900,000 people living along its banks.

• Laos and Cambodia are added to French Indochina.

• Antonio Guzmán Blanco ends his term in Venezuela as the president.

Births

January–June

• January 1 – Wilhelm Canaris, head of German military intelligence in World War II (d. 1945)

• January 3 – August Macke, German painter (d. 1914)

• January 10 – Robinson Jeffers, American poet (d. 1962)

• January 13 – Jorge Chavez, pioneer Peruvian aviator (d. 1910)

• January 17 – Ola Raknes, Norwegian psychoanalyst and philologist (d. 1975)

• January 19 – Alexander Woollcott, American intellectual (d. 1943)

• January 21 – Maude Davis, oldest person in the World (d. 2002)

• January 22 – Helen Hoyt, American poet (d. 1972)

• January 23 – Dorothy Payne Whitney, American-born philanthropist and social activist (d. 1968)

• January 28 – Arthur Rubinstein, Polish-born pianist and conductor (d. 1982)

• February 1 – Charles Nordhoff, English-born author (d. 1947)

• February 2 – Pat Sullivan, Australian director and producer of animated films (d. 1933)

• February 3 – Georg Trakl, Austrian poet (d. 1914)

• February 4 – Sheila Kaye-Smith, English writer (d. 1955)

• February 6 – Josef Frings, Archbishop of Cologne (d. 1978)

• February 10 – John Franklin Enders, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1985)

• February 11

• *Ernst Hanfstängl, German-born pianist and U.S. politician (d. 1975)

• *John van Melle, Dutch-born writer (d. 1953)

• February 17 – Leevi Madetoja, Finnish composer (d. 1947)

• February 20 – Vincent Massey, Governor-General of Canada (d. 1967)

• February 26

• *Grover Cleveland Alexander, baseball player (d. 1950)

• *William Frawley, American actor (d. 1966)

• March 3 – Lincoln Beachey, American stunt pilot (d. 1915)

• March 4 – Violet MacMillan, American Broadway theatre actress (d. 1953)

• March 5 – Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer (d. 1959)

• March 9 – Phil Mead, English cricketer (d. 1958)

• March 14 – Sylvia Beach, American publisher in Paris (d. 1952)

• March 14 – Charles Reisner, American silent actor and film director (d. 1962)

• March 22 – Chico Marx, American comedian and actor (d. 1961)

• March 23 – Juan Gris, Spanish-born painter and graphic artist (d. 1927)

• March 23 – Prince Felix Yussupov, Russian assassin of Rasputin (d. 1967)

• March 24 – Fatty Arbuckle, American actor (d. 1933)

• April 10 – Bernardo Houssay, Argentine physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)

• April 15 – Mike Brady, American golfer (d. 1972)

• May 2 – Eddie Collins, baseball player (d. 1951)

• May 5 – Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1972)

• May 10 – Mir Ghotbeddin Mohammad Angha, 40th master of the Oveyssi Sufi Order (d. 1962)

• May 11 – Paul Wittgenstein, Austrian-born pianist (d. 1951)

• May 25 – Pio of Pietrelcina, Italian saint (d. 1968)

• May 26 – Paul Lukas, Hungarian-born actor (d. 1971)

• May 31 – Saint-John Perse, French diplomat and writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)

• June 2 – Orrick Johns, American poet and playwright (d. 1946)

• June 22 – Julian Huxley, British biologist (d. 1975)

• June 25 – George Abbott, American playwright (d. 1995)

July–December

• July 7 – Marc Chagall, Russian-born painter (d. 1985)

• July 16 – Shoeless Joe Jackson, baseball player (d. 1951)

• July 18 – Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian politician and traitor (d. 1945)

• July 22 – Gustav Hertz, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)

• July 28 – Marcel Duchamp, French-born artist (d. 1968)

• July 29 – Sigmund Romberg, Hungarian-born composer (d. 1951)

• August 3 – Rupert Brooke, British war poet (d. 1915)

• August 12 – Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)

• August 13 – Julius Freed, American inventor and banker (d. 1952)

• August 15 – Edna Ferber, American novelist (d. 1968)other sources give year of her birth as 1885

• August 17

• *Emperor Karl I of Austria (d. 1922)

• *Marcus Garvey, American publisher, entrepreneur, and Pan Africanist (d. 1940)

• August 24 – Harry Hooper, baseball player (d. 1974)

• September 1 – Blaise Cendrars, Swiss writer (d. 1961)

• September 3 – Frank Christian, American jazz musician (d. 1973)

• September 13 – Lavoslav Ružička, Croatian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)

• September 16

• * Nadia Boulanger, French composer and composition teacher (d. 1979)

• * Kamato Hongo, the last verified living person born in 1887 (d. 2003)

• September 26 – Edwin Keppel Bennett, British writer (d. 1958)

• September 28 – Avery Brundage, American sports official (d. 1975)

• October 1 – Violet Jessop, RMS Titanic survivor (d. 1971)

• October 5 – René Cassin, French judge, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1976)

• October 6 – Le Corbusier, Swiss architect (d. 1965)

• October 8 – Huntley Gordon, Canadian-born actor (d. 1956)

• October 22 – John Reed, American journalist (d. 1920)

• October 31 – Chiang Kai-shek, 1st ～ 5th President of the Republic of China (d. 1975)

• November 1 – L. S. Lowry, English painter (d.1976)

• November 6 – Walter Johnson, baseball player (d. 1946)

• November 10 – Arnold Zweig, German writer (d. 1968)

• November 15 – Georgia O'Keeffe, American Woman Painter (d.1986)

• November 17 – Bernard Montgomery, World War II British commander (d. 1976)

• November 19 – James B. Sumner, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)

• November 23 – Boris Karloff, English actor (d. 1969)

• November 28 – Jacobo Palm, Curaçao born composer (d. 1982)

• December 12 – Kurt Atterberg, Swedish composer (d. 1974)

• December 13 – Alvin Cullum York, American war hero during World War I (d. 1964)

• December 22 – Srinivasa Aaiyangar Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (d. 1920)

• date unknown – Pauline Sabin, American activist for the repeal of prohibition in the U.S. (d. 1955)

Deaths

January–June

• February 26 – Anandi Gopal Joshi, first Indian woman doctor (b. 1865)

• February 27 – Alexander Borodin, Russian composer (b. 1833)

• March 8 – Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman and reformer (b. 1813)

• March 24 – Ivan Kramskoi, painter (b. 1837)

• March 28 – Ditlev Gothard Monrad, Danish politician (b. 1811)

• April 23 – John Ceiriog Hughes, Welsh poet (b. 1832)

• May 8 – Aleksandr Ulyanov, Russian revolutionary, brother of V. I. Lenin (b. 1866)

• May 14 – Lysander Spooner, American philosopher and abolitionist (b. 1808)

• June 10 – Richard Lindon, Inventor of the rugby ball, the India-rubber inflatable bladder and the brass hand pump for the same (b. 1816)

July–December

• July 8 – John Wright Oakes, landscape painter (b. 1820)

• July 17 – Dorothea Dix, American social activist (b. 1802)

• July 25 – John Taylor, American religious leader (b. 1808)

• August 8 – Alexander William Doniphan, American lawyer and soldier (b. 1808)

• August 19 – Alvan Clark, telescope manufacturer (b. 1804)

• August 20 – Jules Laforgue, French poet (b. 1860)

• October 17 – Gustav Kirchhoff, German physicist (b. 1824)

• October 21 – Bernard Jauréguiberry, admiral (b. 1815)

• November 2 – Jenny Lind, Swedish soprano (b. 1820)

• November 8 – Doc Holliday, American gambler and gunfighter (b. 1851)

• November 19 – Emma Lazarus, American poet (b. 1859)

• November 28 – Gustav Fechner, experimental psychologist (b. 1801)

• December 5 – Eliza Roxcy Snow, American poet (b. 1804)