May 2 – US stops minting 20 cent coin.

May 08 – Paul Hines performs the first unassisted triple play in organized baseball.

May 14 – Vaseline is first sold.

May 24 – CA Parker of Harvard wins the first American bike race in Beacon Park, Boston.

May 31 – US Congress accepts decrease in dollar circulation.

June 4 – Turkey cedes Cyprus over to Britain for administrative purposes.

June 13 – Berlin congress meets to divide colonized Africa. The congress ends on July 14.

June 15 – First attempt at motion pictures (using 12 cameras, each taking 1 picture) done to see if all 4 of a horse’s hooves leave the ground.

July 3 – John Wise of Lancaster, PA was the pilot for the maiden flight of a dirigible.

July 12 – Historical fever epidemic begins in New Orleans. It killed 4,500 people.

July 26 – In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself “Black Bart” makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box is found later with a taunting poem inside.

September 30 – The ship Priscilla arrives in Hawaii from Funchal, Madeira, marking the beginning of the Portuguese immigration to the Hawaiian Islands (1878–1913).

October 18 – Edison makes electricity available for household usage.

December 26 – John Wanamaker installed electric lights in his Philadelphia department store.