Premiere of Swan Lake
Tchaikovsky's flop becomes the world's most famous ballet
On 4 March 1877 Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet premiered at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre. The first staging was not a success, but the 1895 Petipa–Ivanov production at the Mariinsky made Swan Lake the world's most famous ballet.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1861 Unification of Italy — 16 years earlier
- 1874 First Impressionist exhibition — 3 years earlier
- 1878 Congress of Berlin — 1 year later
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — 9 years later
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — 12 years later
Middle East
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — 1 year earlier
Africa
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — 8 years earlier
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — 2 years later
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 8 years later
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — 8 years later
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 9 years later
Asia
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 24 years earlier
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — 9 years earlier
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — 1 year earlier
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 6 years later
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 8 years later
Americas
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — 10 years earlier
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — 8 years earlier
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — 1 year earlier
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 2 years later
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — 11 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 16 years later
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 16 years later
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 68)
- Karl Marx (aged 59)
- Queen Victoria (aged 58)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 56)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 49)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 43)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 37)
- Thomas Edison (aged 30)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 24)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 21)