1881
Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century
Decades: 1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s - 1880s - 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s
Years: 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 - 1881 - 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886
Events:
- January 25 - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company
- February 5 - Phoenix, Arizona is incorporated.
- February 19 - Kansas became the first U.S. state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.
- March 4 - A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story, begins.
- March 13 - Alexander II of Russia is killed near his palace when a bomb is thrown at him.
- Jefferson Davis finishes his book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
- Change of US presidency from Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) to James Garfield
- Change of US presidency from James Garfield to Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)
- Founding of the Pali Text Society
Births:
- January 4 - Wilhelm Lehmbruck, sculptor (+ 1919)
- January 6 - Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (+ 1961)
- January 16 - Sir Arthur Percy Morris Fleming, radio pioneer
- February 4 - Fernand Leger, painter (+ 1955)
- February 12 - Anna Pavlova, ballerina (+ 1931)
- March 12 - Kemal Ataturk, founder and first president of the Turkish Republic (+ 1938)
- March 25 - Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer.
- June 17 - Tommy Burns, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion
- August 6 - Sir Alexander Fleming, British discoverer of penicillin.
- October 15 - P. G. Wodehouse, British-American writer.
- Kemal Ataturk
- October 25 - Pablo Picasso, outstanding artist of the 20th century
Deaths:
- February 9 - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, author
- March 13 - Tsar Alexander II of Russia
- March 28 - Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer
- Michelson and Morley discover speed of light is independent of Earth's orbital motion.