1882

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.
1881–1890	USA, UK [statistics and demography]	Emigration to the USA is 807,357 from Britain and 655,482 from Ireland.
1882	France [cinema and film]	French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey invents a rifle-shaped camera that records 12 successive photographs a second. In order to study the flight of birds, he mounts images on a rotating glass plate to simulate motion, and then projects them. They are the first motion pictures taken with a single camera.
1882	France [fiction]	The French writer Guy de Maupassant publishes his short story collection Mademoiselle Fifi.
1882	UK [legislation]	The Married Women's Property Act in Britain gives married women the right of separate ownership of property of all kinds.
1882	UK [legislation]	A second Married Women's Property Act in Britain permits women to retain rights over their own property.
1882	Russia [literature and language]	The book Dieu et l'Etat/God and the State by the Russian anarchist Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin is published posthumously.
1882	Germany, USA [opera]	The opera Parsifal by the German composer Richard Wagner is first performed, in Bayreuth, Germany. Wagner did not want the opera performed anywhere but at Bayreuth, but illegal performances were given, one of the first being in the USA in 1903, in New York City.
1882	USA [physics]	US physicist Henry Augustus Rowland invents the concave diffraction grating, in which 20,000 lines to the inch are engraved on spherical concave mirrored surfaces. The grating revolutionizes spectrometry by dispersing light and permitting spectral lines to be focused.
1882	UK [physics]	Scottish physicist Balfour Stewart postulates the existence of an electrically conducting layer of the outer atmosphere (now known as the ionosphere) to account for the daily variation in the Earth's magnetic field.
1882	Japan [sports]	The first judo kodokan (training hall) is established at Shitaya, Japan, by Jigoro Kano.
18 January 1882	England [births and deaths]	A(lan) A(lexander) Milne, English author who creates Winnie-the-Pooh, born in London, England (–1956).
25 January 1882	England [births and deaths]	Virginia Woolf, English author and critic, born in London, England (–1941).
30 January 1882	USA [births and deaths]	Franklin Delano Roosevelt, US statesman, thirty-second president of the USA 1933–45 (re-elected three times), a Democrat, born in Hyde Park, New York (–1945).
2 February 1882	Ireland [births and deaths]	James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet, born in Dublin, Ireland (–1941).
1 March - 30 March 1882	USA [natural disasters]	Floods along the Mississippi River in the USA leave about 85,000 people homeless.
24 March 1882	Germany [biology]	German physician Robert Koch announces the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis. This is the first time a micro-organism has been definitively associated with a human disease.
19 April 1882	England [births and deaths]	Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist who developed the theory of evolution through natural selection, dies in Downe, Kent, England (73).
20 May 1882	Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany [treaties]	Italy joins the Austro-German alliance for a period of five years, thereby forming the Triple Alliance (which is subsequently renewed until 1915). This assures Italy of support in the event of attack by France, commits Italy to support Germany in the event of a French attack on Germany, and guarantees Italian neutrality in the event of war between Austria-Hungary and Russia.
2 June 1882	Italy [births and deaths]	Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian soldier whose conquest of Sicily and Naples helped to unify Italy, dies in Caprera, Italy (74).
27 August 1882	USA, Poland [births and deaths]	Samuel Goldwyn, US pioneer Hollywood film-maker and producer, one of the founders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), born in Warsaw, Poland (–1974).
4 September 1882	USA [energy]	US inventor Thomas Alva Edison opens the Pearl Street electric generating station in New York City. The first in the USA, it employs three 125 horsepower steam generators to supply direct current (DC) to 225 houses.
13 September 1882	Egypt, UK, Sudan [wars]	The British general Sir Garnet Wolseley defeats the Egyptians at Tel-el-Kebir, Lower Egypt, and proceeds to occupy Egypt and the Sudan.
30 September 1882	USA [energy]	The world's first hydroelectric generating plant opens at Appleton, Wisconsin. It consists of two direct current generators powered by a 107 cm/42 in waterwheel. It produces 2.5 kW of power.
30 September 1882	Germany [births and deaths]	Hans Geiger, German physicist who invents the Geiger counter to measure radioactivity, born in Neustadt-an-der-Haardt, Germany (–1945).
5 October 1882	USA [births and deaths]	Robert Goddard, US astronautics pioneer who develops modern rockets used for launching spacecraft, born in Worcester, Massachusetts (–1945).
14 October 1882	Ireland, USA, UK [births and deaths]	Eamon de Valéra, Irish politician and revolutionary, president 1959–73 who takes Ireland out of the British Commonwealth, born in New York City (–1975).
9 November 1882	Egypt, UK, France [wars]	Anglo-French dual control of Egypt is re-established following its suspension during Arabi Pasha's period of influence.