1883

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.
1883	Scotland [fiction]	The Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson publishes his adventure novel Treasure Island. It first appeared as a serial in the magazine Young Folks from 1881 to 1882 under the title The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island.
1883	India, UK [literature and language]	British explorer and translator Richard (Francis) Burton translates the Indian classic the Kama Sutra.
1883	Germany [orchestral music]	The German composer Johannes Brahms completes his Symphony No. 3.
1883	Russia [painting]	The Russian artist Ilya Yefimovich Repin paints The Return of the Exile.
1883	Germany [philosophy]	The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche publishes the first part of his Also sprach Zarathustra/Thus Spake Zarathustra. The final part appears in 1885. It is in this work that he develops his concept of the übermensch (superman).
1883	Germany [physiology]	German physiologist Paul Ehrlich publishes ‘The Requirement of the Organism for Oxygen’, in which he shows that different tissues consume oxygen at different rates and that the rate of consumption can be used to measure biological activity.
1883	UK [physics]	Irish physicist George Francis FitzGerald suggests that electromagnetic waves (radio waves) can be created by oscillating an electric current. A later demonstration of such waves by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz leads to the development of wireless telegraphy.
1883	USA [physics]	US inventor Thomas Alva Edison observes the flow of current between a hot electrode and a cold electrode in one of his vacuum bulbs. Known as the ‘Edison effect’, it results from the thermionic emission of electrons from the hot electrode, and is the principle behind the working of the electron tube, which is to form the basis of the electronics industry.
1883	[biography]	The US writer Mark Twain (pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens) publishes his autobiographical Life on the Mississippi.
1883	USA [buildings]	US architect William Lebaron Jenney completes construction of the ten-storey Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois. The world's first true skyscraper, it consists of a steel-girder framework on which the outer covering of masonry hangs. It sparks a boom in the construction of skyscrapers in Chicago.
3 January 1883	England [births and deaths]	Clement Attlee, Earl Attlee, British prime minister 1945–51, a member of the Labour Party, born in London, England (–1967).
13 February 1883	Germany, Venice [births and deaths]	(Wilhelm) Richard Wagner, German dramatic composer and theorist, who wrote the operatic sequence Der Ring des Nibelungen/The Ring of the Nibelung dies in Venice, Italy (69).
14 March 1883	Prussia, England [births and deaths]	Karl Marx, Prussian political theorist, economist, and sociologist whose ideas formed the basis of communism, dies in London, England (65).
31 March 1883	UK [football]	Blackburn Olympic defeat the Old Etonians 2–1 at The Oval, London, England, before a crowd of 8,000 people, to become the first team from the north of England to win the Football Association (FA) Cup.
30 April 1883	France [births and deaths]	Edouard Manet, French realist painter and important 19th-century artist, dies in Paris, France (51).
1 May 1883	Germany [welfare]	Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduces a state sickness insurance scheme in Germany to lessen the appeal of socialism to the working classes.
24 May 1883	USA [other structures]	The Brooklyn Bridge over the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York City, opens. Designed by German-born US engineer Augustus Roebling, and completed by his son Washington Roebling, the suspension bridge is the first to use steel cable wire and is the longest in the world, with a span of 486 m/1595 ft.
June 1883 - December 1885	Madagascar, France [wars]	The French wage a war with Madagascar when the Hova government rejects the island's status as a French protectorate, created in 1882.
5 June 1883	England [births and deaths]	John Maynard Keynes, English economist concerned with the causes and solutions of long-term unemployment, born in Cambridge, England (–1946).
3 July 1883	Bohemia [births and deaths]	Franz Kafka, Bohemian-born German writer, born in Prague, Bohemia (–1924).
19 July 1883	Italy [births and deaths]	Benito Mussolini, ‘Il Duce’, Italian prime minister 1922–43, first of Europe's fascist dictators, born in Predappio, Italy (–1945).
19 August 1883	France [births and deaths]	Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel, French couturier whose classic designs become widely copied, born in Saumur, France (–1971).
25 August 1883	Southeast Asia, France [colonization]	France proclaims a protectorate in Annam and Tonkin, in Southeast Asia.
26 August - 28 August 1883	Indonesia [natural disasters]	Krakatoa volcano, Indonesia, erupts in one of the most catastrophic volcanic events in human history. The climactic explosion on the second day is heard nearly 3,000 miles away. Over 36,000 people in Sumatra and Java are drowned by an ensuing tsunami (tidal wave) 35 m/115 ft high, and dust, which is thrown 80 km/50 mi into the air, drifts around the world, causing spectacular sunsets for over a year.
4 September 1883	Russia, France [births and deaths]	Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Russian novelist, poet, and playwright, dies in Bougival, near Paris, France (65).
14 September 1883	USA [births and deaths]	Margaret Sanger, US birth control advocate who opens the first birth control clinic in the USA, born in Corning, New York (–1966).
4 October 1883	France, Bulgaria, Turkey [railways]	The luxury train the Orient Express leaves on its first trip. Europe's first transcontinental express train, it runs 2,740 km/1,700 mi from Paris, France, to Varna, Bulgaria, where passengers disembark to be ferried to Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey.
20 October 1883	Peru, Chile [wars]	By the peace of Ancón, hostilities between Peru and Chile are concluded. Peru cedes territory to Chile, which is to occupy the disputed provinces of Tacna and Arica for ten years, at the end of which a plebiscite is to be held.
5 November 1883	Egypt, UK, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan [wars]	The Sudanese followers of the dervish Mahdi (prophet) Mohammed Ahmed of Dongola defeat an Egyptian force under the British general William Hicks at El Obeid, in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and the British decide to evacuate the country.