This Year in History:
1871
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his famous search through Africa for the missing British explorer Dr. David Livingstone. In the late 19th century, Europeans and Americans were fascinated by the…
With passage of the Third Force Act, popularly known as the Ku Klux Act, Congress authorizes President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations…
The humiliating defeat of Louis Napoleon’s Second Empire of France is made complete on May 10, 1871, when the Treaty of Frankfurt am Main is signed, ending the Franco‑Prussian War…
The Kiowa Chief Satanta joins with other Native Americans to massacre a wagon train near the Red River in northeastern Texas. One of the leading chiefs of the Kiowa in…
John Wesley Hardin, one of the deadliest men in the history of the Old West, arrives in Abilene, Kansas, where he briefly becomes friends with Marshal Wild Bill Hickok. Hardin…
On October 8, 1871, flames spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, igniting a two‑day blaze that kills between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings, leaves…
The most devastating fire in United States history burns in Wisconsin on October 8, 1871. Some 1,200 people lost their lives and 2 billion trees were consumed by flames. Despite…
