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1880 (MDCCCLXXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1880

January–March

• February 2 – The first electric streetlight is installed in Wabash, Indiana.
• March 31 – Wabash, Indiana becomes the first electrically lighted city in the world.

April – July

• April 18 – William Ewart Gladstone defeats Benjamin Disraeli in the United Kingdom general election to become Prime Minister for the second time.[1]
• May 13 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.
• June 1 – Tinius Olsen awarded a United States Patent for the Little Giant Testing Machine
• June 29 – France annexes Tahiti.
• July 14 – Dorchester Penitentiary opens in Canada.
• July 22 – Abdur Rahman Khan becomes Emir of Afghanistan.

October–December

• October – The "Blizzard of 1880" begins in North America.
• October 6 – The University of Southern California opens its doors to 53 students and 10 faculty.
• October 15 – Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.
• October 28 – The first stone is laid for the Clarkson Memorial in Wisbech.
• November – U.S. presidential election, 1880: James Garfield defeats Winfield S. Hancock.
• November 4 – The first cash register is patented by James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio.
• November 11 – Australian bushranger and bank robber Ned Kelly is hanged in Melbourne.
• November 22 – Vaudeville actress Lillian Russell makes her debut at Tony Pastor's Theatre in New York City.
• December 20 – First Boer War: The Action at Bronkhorstspruit results in a Boer victory over the British.
• December 30 – The Transvaal becomes a republic and Paul Kruger becomes its first president.

Undated

• Piezoelectricity is discovered by Pierre Curie and Jacques Curie.
• Cologne Cathedral is completed.
• The journal Science is founded by Thomas Edison.
• Cocaine is isolated.
• The Capuchin catacombs of Palermo are officially closed (there will be some burials afterwards).
• The Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction of the Women's Christian Temperance Union is established.
• 4 million Jews of Europe's 7 million live in the Russian Empire.
• Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza signs a treaty of protection with the chief on the large Teke tribe and begins to establish a French protectorate on the north bank of the Congo River.
• More than 100,000 Chinese men and 3,000 Chinese women are living in the western United States.

Ongoing

• Aceh War (1873–1904)
• War of the Pacific (1879–1884)

Births

January–June

• January 6 – Tom Mix, American actor (d. 1940)
• January 11 – Rudolph Palm, Curaçao born composer (d. 1950)
• January 17 – Mack Sennett, Canadian director and producer (d. 1960)
• January 26 – Douglas MacArthur, American general (d. 1964)
• January 28 – Herbert Strudwick, English cricketer (d. 1970)
• January 29 – W.C. Fields, American actor (d. 1946)
• February 5 – Gabriel Voisin, French aviation pioneer (d. 1973)
• February 8 – Franz Marc, German artist (d. 1916)
• February 12
  • George Preca, Maltese saint (d. 1962)
  • John L. Lewis, American labor union leader (d. 1969)
• February 14 – Frederick J. Horne, American four star Admiral (d. 1959)
• February 16 – Frank Burke, American baseball player (d. 1946)
• February 21 – Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (d. 1952)
• February 22 – Frigyes Riesz, Hungarian mathematician (d. 1956)
• February 27 – Olivia Nordgren, Swedish politician (d. 1969)
• March 1 – Giles Lytton Strachey, British writer and biographer (d. 1932)
• March 4 – Channing Pollock (writer), American playwright and critic (d. 1946)
• March 10 – Bronco Billy Anderson, American actor (d. 1971)
• March 11 – Harry H. Laughlin, American eugenicist (d. 1943)
• March 22 – Kuniaki Koiso, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1950)
• March 23 – Heikki Ritavuori, Finnish Minister of the Interior (d. 1922)
• March 28 – Louis Wolheim, American character actor (d. 1931)
• March 30 – Sean O'Casey, Irish writer (d. 1964)
• April 13 – Charles Christie, Canadian-born film studio owner (d. 1955)
• April 15 – Max Wertheimer, father of Gestalt Theory (d. 1943)
• April 18 – Sam Crawford, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1968)
• May 6 – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, German painter (d. 1938)
• May 14 – B.C. Forbes, Scottish-born financial publisher (d. 1954)
• May 21 – Tudor Arghezi, Romanian writer (d. 1967)
• May 25
  • Jean Alexandre Barré, French neurologist (d. 1967)
  • Alf Common, English footballer (d. 1946)
• May 29 – Oswald Spengler, German philosopher (d. 1936)
• June 6 – W. T. Cosgrave, Irish politician (d. 1965)
• June 17 – Carl Van Vechten, American writer and photographer (d. 1964)
• June 21 – Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, British civil servant, industrialist and economist (d. 1941)
• June 27 – Helen Keller, American spokeswoman for the deaf and blind (d. 1968)

July–December

• July 5 – Jan Kubelík, Czech violinist (d. 1940)
• July 12 – Tod Browning, American motion picture director, horror film pioneer (d. 1962)
• July 21 – Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Slovak General, politician, and astronomer (d. 1919).
• July 24
  • Ernest Bloch, Swiss-born composer (d. 1959)
  • Kristian Hellström, Swedish athlete (d. 1946)
• August 6 – Hans Moser, Austrian actor (d. 1964)
• August 8 – Earle Page, eleventh Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1961)
• August 10 – Robert L. Thornton, American businessman, philanthropist, and mayor of Dallas, Texas (d. 1964)
• August 12– Christy Mathewson, American Baseball player (d.1925)
• August 22 – George Herriman, American cartoonist (d. 1944)
• August 23 – Wyndham Standing, British actor of stage & film (d. 1963)
• August 26 – Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet (d. 1918)
• August 29 – Marie-Louise Meilleur, verified as longest-lived Canadian ever (d. 1998)
• August 30 – Nikolai Astrup, Norwegian painter (d. 1928)
• August 31 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (d. 1962)
• September 12 – H. L. Mencken, American journalist (d. 1956)
• September 14
  • Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov), Orthodox missionary and writer, Exarch of Russian Church in North America (d. 1961)
  • Archie Hahn, American athlete (d. 1955)
• September 16 – Alfred Noyes, English poet (d. 1958)
• September 22 – Christabel Pankhurst, English suffragette (d. 1958)
• September 23 – John Boyd Orr, Scottish physician and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1971)
• September 24 – Sarah Knauss, verified as longest-lived American ever (d. 1999)
• October 4 – Damon Runyon, American writer (d. 1946)
• October 23 – Una O'Connor, Irish actress (d. 1959)
• November 1
  • Grantland Rice, American sportswriter (d. 1954)
  • Alfred Wegener, German scientist and meteorolog$2 (d. 1930)
• November 2 – John Foulds, British classical music composer (d. 1939)
• November 5 – Richard Oswald, Austrian film director (d. 1963)
• November 6 – Robert Musil, Austrian novelist (d. 1942)
• November 10 – Jacob Epstein, American-born sculptor (d. 1959)
• November 25 – Elsie J. Oxenham, British children's novelist (d. 1960)
• December 1 – Joseph Trumpeldor, Russian Zionist (d. 1920)
• December 4 – Garfield Wood, American motorboat racer (d. 1971)
• December 10 – Jessie Aspinall, Australian doctor, first female junior medical resident at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (d. 1953)
• December 11 – Frank Tarrant, Australian cricketer (d. 1951)
• December 24 – Johnny Gruelle, American cartoonist and children's book author (d. 1938)
• December 31 – George Marshall, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1959)
• date unknown
  • William J. Simmons, founder of the second Ku Klux Klan (d. 1945)
  • Reginald Farrer, English botanist (d. 1920)
  • Li Shutong, Chinese artist and art teacher (d. 1942)

Deaths

January–June

• January 4
  • Anselm Feuerbach, German painter (b. 1829)
  • Marthe Camille Bachasson, Count of Montalivet, French statesman (b. 1801)
• January 8 – Joshua A. Norton, self-anointed Emperor Norton I of the United States of America (b. 1811)
• January 14 – Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein (b. 1829)
• January 12 – Ida, Countess von Hahn-Hahn, author (b. 1805)
• January 20 – Captain Moonlite, Australian bushranger (b. 1842) (hanged)
• January 31 – Adolphe Granier de Cassagnac, French politician (b. 1806)
• April 23 – Raden Saleh, Indonesian painter (b. 1807)
• March 14 – Pagan Min, King of Ava (b. 1811)
• March 31 – Henryk Wieniawski, Polish composer (b. 1835)
• May 4 – Edward Clark, Confederate Governor of Texas (b. 1815)
• May 8 – Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (b. 1821)
• May 20
  • Károly Alexy, Hungarian sculptor (b. 1816)
  • Ana Néri, Brazilian nurse (b. 1814)
• June 8 – Maria Alexandrovna (Marie of Hesse), Empress Consort of Czar Alexander II of Russia (b. 1824)
• June 28 – Texas Jack Omohundro, American frontier scout, actor, and cowboy (b. 1846)

July–December

• July 7 – Lydia Maria Child, American novelist and abolitionist (b. 1802)
• July 17 – Tomasz Chołodecki, Polish political activist (b. 1813)
• July 21 – Hiram Walden, American politician (b. 1800)
• August 15 – Adelaide Neilson, English actress (b. 1848)
• August 17 – Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (b. 1810)
• August 24 – Chief Ouray, Native American leader (b. c. 1833)
• October – Victorio, Chiricahua Apache chief
• October 4 – Jacques Offenbach, German-born composer (b. 1819)
• October 22 – Alphonse Penaud, French aviation pioneer (b. 1850)
• November 11 – Ned Kelly, Australian bush ranger (hanged) (b. c. 1855)
• November 28 – Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos, (Portuguese) Archbishop of Goa (b. 1837)
• December 22 – George Eliot, English writer (b. 1819)

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