You selectedJanuary 1877

Pick an exact day to narrow your search.

Today is September11, 2026 Friday.

Born ?

The World in 1877 the year you paid to hear a voice down a wire

About 200 people paid a shilling to stand around one grass court and watch the first Wimbledon final. A single carriage on a modern train would hold the whole crowd.

Life back then

A telephone was something you went to see, not something you owned. Bell carried a pair of them around lecture halls, and audiences bought tickets to hear a voice or a brass band arrive down a wire from a town miles away. In June the first paying customers rented a set, strung straight from a shop to a house, with no exchange and no number to ask for. Roughly three thousand telephones were in use in the whole country by December. Everyone else still wrote out a telegram and waited for a boy to bring the answer back.

The year in 8 events

• 👑Jan 1 Queen Victoria is proclaimed Empress of India.
• 🏏Mar 15 England and Australia begin the first Test cricket match, in Melbourne.
• ☎️Jun 20 The first telephone service sold to a customer is installed.
• 🎾Jul 9 The first Wimbledon championships begin at a croquet club in London.
• 🚂Jul 16 Railroad workers in Maryland walk out over pay cuts. The strike spreads across several states.
• 🔭Aug 12 Asaph Hall finds a small moon going around Mars. He spots a second one six days later.
• 🕯️Oct 22 An explosion in the coal pits at Blantyre in Scotland kills more than 200 miners.
• 🎵Nov 21 Edison announces that he has built a machine that records and replays sound.

Who Was in Charge?

Share & Embed Take this date with you