| 1845–1958 | Germany [earth sciences] | German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion. |
| 1861–1870 | USA, UK, Ireland [statistics and demography] | Emigration to the USA from Britain totals 606,896; from Ireland it is 435,779. |
| c. 1869 | USA [unions and associations] | Philadelphia tailor Uriah S Stephens founds the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, a national labour organization committed to cooperative enterprise, equal pay for men and women, and an eight-hour day. |
| 1869 | England [women's rights] | The English philosopher John Stuart Mill publishes ‘The Subjection of Women’, an essay arguing for sexual equality. |
| 1869 | USA [fiction] | The Perkins Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, produces the first novel in raised type for blind people, Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop. |
| 1869 | UK [food and drink] | Margarine goes on sale in Britain for the first time, under the name Butterine. |
| 1869 | France [food and drink] | French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés patents margarine. |
| 1869 | England [historical study] | The English writer Matthew Arnold publishes Culture and Anarchy. His major work, it is a study of the moral, intellectual, and religious perplexities of Victorian society. |
| 1869–1870 | Vatican [Catholicism] | At the First Vatican council, a council of the Roman Catholic Church convened by Pope Pius IX, liberalism is condemned and the infallibility of the pope is asserted. |
| 1869 | Russia [chemistry] | Russian chemist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev develops the periodic table of the elements. He leaves gaps for elements yet to be discovered. |
| 1869 | USA [chemistry] | US inventor John Wesley Hyatt, in an effort to find a substitute for the ivory in billiard balls, invents celluloid. The first artificial plastic, it can be produced cheaply in a variety of colours, is resistant to water, oil, and weak acids, and quickly finds use in making such things as combs, toys, and false teeth. |
| 1869 | USA [economic conditions] | Foreigners invest $1.5 billion in the USA; US interests invest $100 million overseas. |
| 1869 | Germany, UK, USA [opera] | The opera Das Rheingold by the German composer Richard Wagner is first performed, in Munich, Germany. It is the first part of his Der Ring des Nibelungen/The Ring of the Nibelung cycle of operas. |
| 1869 | France [painting] | The French artist Edgar Degas paints The Orchestra of the Opéra. |
| 1869 | France [photography] | French physicist Louis Ducos du Hauron publishes Les Couleurs en photographie: Solution du problème/Colours in Photography: Solution of the Problem, in which he identifies the additive and subtractive system of colour photography. |
| 1869 | Germany [solo and chamber music] | The German composer Johannes Brahms completes the last of his Ungarische Tänze/Hungarian Dances for piano and his Liebesliederwalzer/Love Song Waltzes for piano and voices (Opus 52). |
| 3 March 1869 | England [births and deaths] | Henry Joseph Wood, English conductor, founder of the Promenade Concerts (the ‘Proms’) in 1895, born in London, England (–1944). |
| April 1869 | USA [legislation] | After ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing black American male suffrage, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas are readmitted to the Union. |
| 10 May 1869 | USA [railways] | The first US transcontinental railway is completed when the Union Pacific Railroad, building west, and the Central Pacific Railway, building east, meet at Promontory Point, Utah. It is 2,832 km/1,770 mi long. |
| 2 October 1869 | India, UK [births and deaths] | Mahatma Gandhi (honorific name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi), leader of the nationalist movement to free India from British rule, born in Porbandar, India (–1948). |
| 17 November 1869 | Egypt [canals] | French diplomat and engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps completes the 168 km/105 mi long Suez Canal in Egypt that links the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and which reduces the route from Europe to Asia by 8,000 km/5,000 mi. |
| December 1869 | USA [legislation] | The Wyoming Territory becomes the first US state or territory to grant suffrage to women. |
| 31 December 1869 | France [births and deaths] | Henri Matisse, French painter, sculptor, illustrator, and designer, born in Le Cateau, France (–1954). |
