Ioseb Jughashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, is born in Gori, Georgia.
The European powers reorganise the Balkans after the Russo-Turkish War, recognising the independence of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania.
The physicist Albert Einstein, author of the theory of relativity, is born in Ulm, Germany.
Tsar Alexander II is killed by a bomb thrown by members of the revolutionary group Narodnaya Volya in Saint Petersburg.
Winston Churchill, Britain's prime minister during the Second World War, is born at Blenheim Palace.
In Berlin, Robert Koch announces the discovery of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, strengthening the germ theory of disease.
Karl Marx dies in London, where he had lived in exile and written Das Kapital.