Cleopatra's Needle reaches London
An obelisk sailed in an iron tube and was lost in a storm
Gifted to Britain back in 1819, the obelisk was towed from Alexandria inside an iron cylinder-ship. In October 1877 it had to be cut loose in a Biscay storm; Spanish fishermen found it four days later, and in 1878 the Needle was raised on the Thames.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Did you know
Cleopatra's Needle is almost 1,400 years older than Cleopatra: it was raised under Thutmose III around 1450 BC, and she was born in 69 BC. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 17 years earlier
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — 14 years earlier
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 11 years earlier
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — 9 years earlier
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — 1 year earlier
Middle East
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — 2 years earlier
Africa
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — 9 years earlier
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — 1 year later
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 7 years later
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — 7 years later
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 8 years later
Asia
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 25 years earlier
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — 10 years earlier
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — 2 years earlier
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 5 years later
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 7 years later
Americas
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — 11 years earlier
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — 9 years earlier
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — 2 years earlier
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 1 year later
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — 10 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 15 years later
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 15 years later
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 69)
- Karl Marx (aged 60)
- Queen Victoria (aged 59)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 57)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 50)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 44)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 38)
- Thomas Edison (aged 31)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 25)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 22)