Events of 1869

January–March

• January 1 – Sigma Nu, the first anti-hazing Honor/Social Fraternity, is founded.

• January 20 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.

• January 21 – The P.E.O. Sisterhood,a philanthropic educational organization for women, is founded at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.

• February 20 – Ranavalona II, the Merina Queen of Madagascar, is baptized.

• March 1 – North German Confederation issues 10gr and 30gr value stamps, printed on goldbeater's skin.

• March 4 – Ulysses S. Grant succeeds Andrew Johnson as the 18th President of the United States of America.

• March 6 – Mendeleev makes a formal presentation to the Russian Chemical Society.

April–June

• April 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York.

• May 4–10 – Naval Battle of Hakodate in Japan: The Imperial Japanese Navy defeats the Tokugawa shogunate.

• May 6 – Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.

• May 10 – The Transcontinental Railroad is completed in Promontory, Utah.

• May 15 – Woman's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman's Suffrage Association.

• may 22 – Sainsbury's first store in Drury Lane opened

• May 26 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

• May 29 – The British Parliament passes the Capital Punishment within Prisons Bill, thus ending public hanging.

• June 1 – The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional baseball team.

• June 2 – Sherwood College is founded in Nainital, India.

• June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents the first plastic, Celluloid, in Albany, New York.

• June 18 – The first Estonian Song Festival takes place in Tartu.

July–September

• July 4 – The University of Bucharest is founded.

• August 9 – August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht found the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP).

• August 31 – Irish scientist Mary Ward is killed in a car accident, possibly the first person ever to suffer this fate.

• September 5 – The foundation stone is laid for Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria (southern Germany).

• September 11 – Work on the Wallace Monument is completed in Stirling, Scotland.

• September 24- The Fisk-Gould Scandal (also known as Black Friday) causes a financial panic in the United States.

October–December

• October 16 – England's first residential college for women, Girton College, is founded.

• November 4 – The first issue of the scientific journal Nature is published.

• November 6 – The first game of American Football between two American colleges is played. Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6–4 in a forerunner to American football and College football.

• November 17 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.

• November 23 – In Dumbarton, Scotland the last surviving clipper ship, Cutty Sark, is launched.

• December 1 – The official transfer of Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Dominion of Canada is executed.

• December 10 – The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.

• December 10 – The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, the first such law in the world.

• December 31 – Triple Alliance forces take Asunción.

Undated

• Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.

• The British Parliament ends transportation to Australia as punishment for criminals.

• Mahbub Ali Pasha begins a 42-year reign as the Nizam of Hyderabad.

• James Gordon Bennett, Jr. of the New York Herald asks Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. Livingstone.

• The Meiji Emperor of Japan accepts the surrender of the four most powerful clans—(Chōshū, Tosa, Hizen, and Satsuma)—and reappoints the clan chiefs as Provincial Governors on reduced revenues.

• Abdur Rahman Khan is exiled from Afghanistan.

• Southern Illinois University, Carbondale is founded.

• The co-operative Central Board (later Co-operatives UK) is founded in Manchester.

• The Glasgow University Rugby Football Club (GURFC) is founded.

• The opposition, consisting of republicans, monarchists and liberals, polls almost 45% of the vote in France.

• Marcus Jastrow arrives in the United States to become rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.

Births

January–June

• January 4 – Tommy Corcoran, American baseball player (d. 1960)

• January 10 – Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic (d. 1916)

• January 15 – Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter, and architect (d. 1907)

• February 11 – Helene Kroller-Muller, Dutch museum founder and patron of the arts (d. 1939)

• February 14 – Charles Wilson, Scottish physicist and Nobel laureate (d. 1959)

• February 26 – Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Russian Marxist revolutionary and Vladimir Lenin's wife (d.1939)

• March 3

• *Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal and archbishop (d. 1952)

• *Henry Wood, British conductor (d. 1944)

• March 12 – George William Forbes, New Zealand Prime Minister and first leader of the New Zealand National Party (d. 1947)

• March 14 – Algernon Blackwood, English writer (d. 1951)

• March 18 – Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1940)

• March 21 – Florenz Ziegfeld, American theatrical producer (d. 1932)

• March 22 – Emilio Aguinaldo, first President of the Philippines (d. 1964)

• April 2 – Hughie Jennings, American baseball player (d. 1928)

• April 4 – Mary Colter, American architect (d. 1958)

• April 8 – Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon (d. 1939)

• April 11 – Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor (d. 1943)

• April 27 – May Moss, Australian women's rights activist (d. 1948)

• May 5 – Hans Pfitzner, German composer (d. 1949)

• May 20 – John Stone Stone, American physicist and inventor (d. 1943)

• June 17 – Flora Finch, English-born comedian (d. 1940)

• June 27 – Hans Spemann, German embryologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1941)

July–December

• July 11 – Pio Valenzuela, Filipino doctor and patriot

• August 10 – Lawrence Binyon, English poet and scholar (d. 1943)

• September 3 – Fritz Pregl, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1930)

• September 17 – Christian Lous Lange, Norwegian pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1938)

• September 23 – Mary Mallon, "Typhoid Mary" (d. 1938)

• October 2 – Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political leader, Father of the Nation (d. 1948)

• October 25 – John Heisman, American football coach (d. 1936)

• October 27 – Viola Allen, actress (d. 1948)

• November 10 – Wayne Wheeler, American temperance movement leader (d. 1927)

• November 11 – Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy (d. 1947)

• November 20 – Herbert Tudor Buckland, seminal British Arts and crafts architect (d.1951)

• November 22 – André Gide, French writer and Nobel laureate (d. 1951)

• November 25 – Herbert Greenfield, Premier of Alberta, Canada (d. 1949)

• November 30 – Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist and Nobel laureate (d. 1937)

• December 5 – Ellis Parker Butler, American humorist (d. 1937)

• December 16 – Hristo Tatarchev, Bulgarian revolutionary and leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace

• December 22 – Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (d. 1935)

• December 22 – Nathan Paine, American lumber baron (d. 1947)

• December 30 – Stephen Leacock, British-Canadian author and economist (d. 1944)

• December 31 – Henri Matisse, French painter (d. 1954)

Deaths

January–June

• January 1

• *Martin W. Bates, American senator (b. 1786)

• *James B. Longacre, fourth Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint (b. 1794)

• January 30 – William Carleton, Irish novelist (b. 1794)

• February 15 – Mirza Ghalib, Indian poet (b. 1796).

• March 8 – Hector Berlioz, French composer (b. 1803)

• March 20 – John Pascoe Grenfell, British admiral of the Brazilian Navy (b. 1800)

• March 24 – Antoine-Henri Jomini, French general (b. 1779)

• April 20 – Carl Loewe, German composer (b. 1796)

• June 16 – Charles Sturt, Australian explorer (b. 1795)

• June 20 – Hijikata Toshizou, Japanese military commander (b. 1835)

July–December

• July 18 – Laurent Clerc, American advocate for the deaf (b. 1785)

• July 22 – John A. Roebling, American bridge engineer (b. 1806)

• August 31 – Mary Ward, Irish scientist and the first car accident victim (b. 1827)

• September 4 – John Pascoe Fawkner, Australian pioneer, settler and politician, Melbourne, Victoria (b. 1792)

• September 12 – Peter Mark Roget, British lexicographer (b. 1779)

• October 8 – Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States (b. 1804)

• October 13 – Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (b. 1804)

• October 23 – Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1799)

• December 8 – Narcisa de Jesús Martillo, an Ecuadorian saint (b. 1832)

• December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer and pianist (b. 1829)