Year 1883 (MDCCCLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1883

February 16: Ladies Home Journal begins (photo 1906).

January - March

• January 10 - A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee kills 73.
• January 16 - The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil service, is passed.
• January 19 - The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires begins service (Roselle, New Jersey) It was built by Thomas Edison.
• February 13 - The German composer Richard Wagner dies of a heart attack in Venice, Italy.
• February 16 - Ladies Home Journal is published for the first time.
• February 23 - Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an antitrust law.
• February 28 - The first vaudeville theater is opened, in Boston, Massachusetts.
• March 5 - Gloucester City A.F.C. is formed.

April - June

May 24: Brooklyn Bridge is opened.

• May 24 - Brooklyn Bridge is opened to traffic after 13 years of construction.
• May 30 - In New York City, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge was going to collapse causes a stampede which crushes twelve people.
• June 16 - Victoria Hall disaster: A rush for treats results in 183 children being asphyxiated in a concert hall in Sunderland, England.
• June 30 - First appearance of The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson as a serial in Young Folks; A Boys' and Girls' Paper of Instructive and Entertaining Literature. Stevenson would complete the novel at the end of summer in France.

July - September

• July 3 - SS Daphne disaster in Glasgow leaves 124 dead.
• July 4 - World's first rodeo held in Pecos, Texas.
• July 22 - Zulu king Cetshwayo barely escapes rebel attack with his life.
• August - King William's College is opened on the Isle of Man.
• August 12 - The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
• August 26-28 - Krakatoa (Krakatau) volcano erupts 10:02 AM (local time): 163 villages are destroyed, 36,380 dead.
• September 14- Gadicharla Harisarvothama Rao, One of the Formost Freedom Fighters of India was born in Kurnool, then in Madras Province and at present in Andhra Pradesh in India.
• September 15
  • The Bombay Natural History Society is founded.
  • University of Texas at Austin opens to students.
• September 29 - A consortium of flour mill operators in Minneapolis, Minnesota form the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie and Atlantic Railway as a means to get their product to the Great Lakes ports but avoid the high tariffs of Chicago.

August 26: Krakatoa volcano erupts.

October - December

• October 1 - Sydney Boys High School is founded in Sydney, Australia. It is the first boys public school in Australia.
• October 4
  • The Boys' Brigade is founded in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the first Uniformed Youth Organization in existence.
  • The Orient Express begins operation.
• October 15 - The Supreme Court of the United States declares part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to be unconstitutional since the Court allowed private individuals and corporations to discriminate based on race.
• October 20 - Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province was ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific.
• October 24 - Cardiff University, Wales, opens (under the name of University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire)
• October 30- Two Clan na Gael dynamite bombs explode in the London underground, injuring several people. Next day Home Secretary Vernon Harcourt drafts 300 policemen to guard the underground and introduces the Explosives Bill. Public continues as before.
• November 1 - Amsterdam: The first international colonial and export exhibition closes having had over 1 million visitors.
• November 3 - American Old West: Self-described "Black Bart the Po-8" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves an incriminating clue that eventually leads to his capture.
• November 14 - Chile's National Library of Congress is founded
• November 18 - US and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
• November 28 - Whitman College is chartered as a four-year college in Walla Walla, Washington.

Undated

• Wolf's Head Society, known as "The Third Society" until 1888, founded at Yale University
• Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (German bacteriologist) discovers the cholera bacillus.
• Antoni Gaudí begins to build Sagrada Família cathedral.
• LIFE magazine is founded.
• Duncan, Arizona is founded.
• The suburb of Ingleburn, in Sydney, Australia is established.
• During construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883, blasting and excavation reveal high concentrations of nickel-copper ore at Murray Mine on the edge of the Sudbury Basin located near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
• Founding of:
  • Houghton College
  • Wagner College
  • Baltimore Polytechnic Institute
• Founding of:
  • Footscray Football Club (now the Western Bulldogs).
  • Raith Rovers Football Club
  • The Black Arabs F.C (now Bristol Rovers)
  • Dunstable Town F.C.

Births

January-July

• January 1
  • Ichir? Hatoyama, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1959)
  • Alberto Gerchunoff, Argentine writer (d. 1949)
• January 3 - Clement Attlee, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1967)
• January 5 - Döme Sztójay, prime minister of Hungary (d. 1946)
• January 6 - Khalil Gibran, Lebanese poet, painter, and novelist (d. 1931)
• January 10 - Francis X. Bushman, American actor (d. 1966)
• January 10 - Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi, Russian writer (d. 1945)
• January 16 - Hugh Oswald Short, British aviation pioneer and aircraft builder, youngest of the Short Brothers (d. 1969)
• January 20 - Bertram Ramsay, British admiral (d. 1945)
• January 21 - Olav Aukrust, Norwegian poet (d. 1929)
• February 9 - Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot, German architect, interior designer and designer (d. 1960)
• February 15 - Sax Rohmer, English author (d. 1959)
• February 16 - Elizabeth Craig, British Writer (d. 1980)
• February 18 - Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek poet (d. 1957)
• February 22 - Marguerite Clark, American silent film actress (d. 1940)
• February 23
  • Karl Jaspers, German philosopher (d. 1969)
  • Victor Fleming, American film director (d. 1949)
• March 3 - Cyril Burt, educational psychologist (d. 1971)
• March 4 - Sam Langford, Canadian boxer (d. 1956)
• March 19
  • Walter Haworth, British chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)
  • Joseph Stilwell, American soldier (d. 1946)
• April 1 - Lon Chaney, Sr., American actor (d. 1930)
• April 15 - Stanley Bruce, eighth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1967)
• April 30 - Jaroslav Ha?ek, Czech writer (d. 1923)
• May 1 - Tom Moore, Irish-American actor (d. 1955)
• May 9 - José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher (d. 1955)
• May 10 - Eugen Levine, Communist leader of Munich Soviet Republic (d. 1919)
• May 16 - Celal Bayar, Turkish politician, statesman and the third President of Turkey(d. 1986)
• May 18 - Walter Gropius, German architect (d. 1969)
• May 20 - King Faisal I of Iraq (d. 1933)
• May 23 - Douglas Fairbanks, American actor (d. 1939)
• May 31 - Lauri Kristian Relander, President of Finland (d. 1942)
• June 5 - John Maynard Keynes, English economist (d. 1946)
• June 7 - Sylvanus G. Morley, American scholar and World War I spy (d. 1948)
• June 21 - Lluís Companys i Jover, President of Catalonia (d. 1940)
• June 24 - Victor Franz Hess, Austrian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1964)
• June 28 - Pierre Laval, Prime Minister of France (d. 1945)
• June 29 - Lothrop Stoddard, American eugenicist and racist (d. 1950)

July - December

• July 3 - Franz Kafka, Austrian writer (d. 1924)
• July 4 - Rube Goldberg, American cartoonist (d. 1970)
• July 29
  • Porfirio Barba-Jacob, Colombian writer (d. 1942)
  • Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy (d. 1945)
• August 19
  • Coco Chanel, French stylist (d. 1971)
  • Elsie Ferguson, American actress (d. 1961)
• August 23
  • Jesse Pennington, English footballer (d. 1970)
  • Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV, American general (d. 1953)
• August 30 - Theo van Doesburg, Dutch artist, painter, architect, and poet (d. 1931)
• September 15 - Esteban Terradas i Illa, Catalan mathematician, scientist, and engineer (d. 1950)
• October 8 - Otto Heinrich Warburg, German physician and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)
• October 26 - Paul Pilgrim, American athlete (d. 1958)
• November 4 - Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (d. 1953)
• November 8 - Arnold Bax, English composer (d. 1953)
• November 11 - Ernest Ansermet, Swiss conductor (d. 1969)
• November 18 - Carl Vinson, U.S. Congressman (d. 1981)
• November 25
  • Harvey Spencer Lewis, American Rosicrucian mystic (d. 1939)
  • Merrill C. Meigs, American newspaper publisher and aviation promoter (d. 1968)
• December 3 - Anton Webern, Austrian composer (d. 1945)
• December 13 - Belle da Costa Greene, librarian, bibliographer, archivist (d. 1950)
• December 14 - Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of the Martial Art Style Aikido (d. 1969)
• December 16 - Max Linder, French actor (d. 1925)
• December 22 - Edgard Varèse, French composer (d. 1965)
• December 26 - Maurice Utrillo, French artist and illustrator (d. 1955)
• probable - T. F. O'Rahilly, Irish academic (d. 1953)

Deaths

January - June

• January 10
  • Samuel Mudd, American doctor to John Wilkes Booth (b. 1833)
  • Elling Eielsen, Norwegian Lutheran leader (b. 1804)
• January 23 - Gustave Doré, French artist (b. 1832)
• January 24 - Friedrich von Flotow, German composer (b. 1812)
• February 13 - Richard Wagner, German composer (b. 1813)
• February 15 - Prince Kwacho Hiroatsu of Japan (b. 1875)
• February 17
  • Napoleon Coste, French guitarist and composer (b. 1806)
  • Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, Indian revolutionary (b. 1845)
• March 14 - Karl Marx, German philosopher (b. 1818)
• March 20 - Charles Lasègue, French physician (b. 1816)
• March 21 - Grigol Orbeliani, Georgian poet and soldier (b. 1804)
• April 4 - Peter Cooper, American Industrialist, inventor and philanthropist (b. 1791)
• April 16 - Charles II, Duke of Parma (b. 1799)
• April 26 - Napoleon Orda, Belarussian composer and artist (b. 1807)
• April 30 - Edouard Manet, French painter (b. 1832)
• May 15 - Keelikolani, princess of Hawaii (b. 1826)
• May 26
  • Abdel Kadir, Algerian leader (b. 1808)
  • Edward Sabine, Irish astronomer (b. 1788)
• June 20 - John William Colenso, Bishop of Natal (b. 1814)

July - December

• July 15 - General Tom Thumb, circus midget (b. 1838)
• July 22 - Edward Ord, U.S. Army officer (b. 1818)
• August 24 - Henri, comte de Chambord, pretender to the French throne (b. 1820)
• September 3 - Ivan Turgenev, Russian writer (b. 1818)
• October 5 - Joachim Barrande, French palaeontologist (b. 1799)
• October 22 - Thomas Mayne Reid, Irish-American novelist (b. 1818)
• October 30 - Robert Volkmann, German composer (b. 1815)
• December 13 - Victor de Laprade, French poet and critic (b. 1812)

af:1883 am:1883 ?.?.?. ar:1883 an:1883 ast:1883 az:1883 bn:???? map-bms:1883 be:1883 be-x-old:1883 bh:???? bs:1883 br:1883 bg:1883 ca:1883 cv:1883 cs:1883 co:1883 cy:1883 da:1883 de:1883 et:1883 el:1883 es:1883 eo:1883 eu:1883 fa:???? (??????) fo:1883 hif:1883 fr:1883 fy:1883 fur:1883 ga:1883 gd:1883 gl:1883 ko:1883? hy:1883 hi:1883 hr:1883. io:1883 ilo:1883 bpy:???? ???? id:1883 ia:1883 os:1883 is:1883 it:1883 he:1883 jv:1883 ka:1883 csb:1883 sw:1883 ht:1883 (almanak gregoryen) ku:1883 la:1883 lv:1883 lb:1883 lt:1883 m. lmo:1883 hu:1883 mk:1883 mi:1883 mr:?.?. ???? ms:1883 nah:1883 nl:1883 new:? ?? ???? ja:1883? nap:1883 no:1883 nn:1883 nrm:1883 nov:1883 oc:1883 uz:1883 pi:???? nds:1883 pl:1883 pt:1883 ksh:Joohr 1883 ro:1883 ru:1883 ??? se:1883 sq:1883 scn:1883 simple:1883 sk:1883 sl:1883 sr:1883 sh:1883 su:1883 fi:1883 sv:1883 tl:1883 ta:1883 tt:1883 te:1883 tet:1883 th:?.?. 2426 tg:1883 tr:1883 uk:1883 vec:1883 wa:1883 vls:1883 zh-yue:1883? cbk-zam:1883 bat-smg:1883 zh:1883?