Great Famine in India
Drought kills millions while grain is still exported
After the monsoons failed during a powerful El Niño, drought gripped southern and western India. By various estimates 5.5 to 10 million people died of hunger and disease. The colonial authorities cut relief and did not halt grain exports, and at the height of the disaster, in 1877, Viceroy Lytton held a lavish Delhi Durbar to proclaim Victoria Empress of India.
Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — 15 years earlier
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — 2 years earlier
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — 2 years later
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — 10 years later
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — 13 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 15 years earlier
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 9 years earlier
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — 7 years earlier
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — 1 year later
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — 19 years later
Middle East
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — same year
Africa
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — 7 years earlier
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — 3 years later
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 9 years later
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — 9 years later
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 10 years later
Americas
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — 12 years earlier
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — 9 years earlier
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — 7 years earlier
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — same year
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 3 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 25 years earlier
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 17 years later
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 17 years later
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 67)
- Karl Marx (aged 58)
- Queen Victoria (aged 57)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 55)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 48)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 42)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 36)
- Thomas Edison (aged 29)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 23)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 20)