1877 in the United States

1877 in the United States
Decades:	1850s 1860s – 1870s – 1880s 1890s
Years:	1874 1875 1876 – 1877 – 1878 1879 1880
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38 stars (1877 – 1890)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1865–1918)

Events from the year 1877 in the United States.

Incumbents

• President: Ulysses S. Grant (Republican) (until March 4), Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) (starting March 4)
• Vice President: vacant (until March 4), William A. Wheeler (Republican) (starting March 4)
• Chief Justice: Morrison Waite
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Samuel J. Randall (D-Pennsylvania)
• Congress: 44th (until March 4), 45th (starting March 4)

Events

January–March

March 4: Rutherford B. Hayes becomes President

• January 8 – Indian Wars – Battle of Wolf Mountain: Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry in Montana.
• March 2 – In the Compromise of 1877, the U.S. presidential election, 1876 is resolved with the selection of Rutherford B. Hayes as the winner, even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
• March 4 – Rutherford B. Hayes becomes President of the United States, succeeding Ulysses S. Grant.

April–June

• May 5 – Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
• May 6 – Realizing that his people are weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
• May 8 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens (ends May 11).
• June 15 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.
• June 17 – Indian Wars – Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
• June 21 – The Molly Maguires are hanged at Carbon County Prison in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

July–September

• July 10 – The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.
• July 16 – Great railroad strike of 1877: Riots by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad railroad workers in Baltimore, Maryland lead to a sympathy strike and rioting in Pittsburgh, and a full-scale worker's rebellion in St. Louis, briefly establishing a Communist government before U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes calls in the armed forces.
• August 9 – Indian Wars – Battle of Big Hole: Near Big Hole River in Montana, a small band of Nez Percé Indians who refused government orders to move to a reservation, clash with the United States Army. The army loses 29 soldiers and Indians lose 89 warriors in a U.S. Army victory.
• August 17 – Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill dies the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.
• September – The first meeting of the Knights of Reliance in Lampasas County, Texas, which morphed into the Farmers' Alliance and eventually became the Populist Party.
• September 5 – Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier, after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

October–December

• October 10 – Following the recovery of Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer's body from where he fell during the Battle of Little Big Horn the previous year, Custer is given a funeral with full military honors and is laid to rest at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
• November 21 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound, considered Edison's first great invention. Edison demonstrates the device for the first time on November 29.
• November 22 – The first college lacrosse game is played between New York University and Manhattan College.

Ongoing

• Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• Depression of 1873–79 (1873–1879)

Births

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Deaths

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External links

• Media related to 1877 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons