Timeline

1887

The monumental Dawes Severalty Act replaced tribal control of reservations with private land allotments, causing Native Americans to lose 62 percent of their pre-1887 holdings. In China, Yellow River flooding killed more than a million people. Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee, marking 50 years on the British throne, construction began on the Eiffel Tower and a young deafblind girl named Helen Keller met her “miracle worker,” Anne Sullivan. In literature, Arthur Conan Doyle published “A Study in Scarlet,” introducing Sherlock Holmes.

Jan

19th Century

Record cold and snow decimates cattle herds

On one of the worst days of the “worst winter in the West,” nearly an inch of snow falls every hour for 16 hours, impeding the ability of already starving cattle to find food.

Feb

Arts & Entertainment

Official registration of Hollywood

On February 1, 1887, Harvey Wilcox officially registers Hollywood with the Los Angeles County recorder’s office.

Feb

Inventions & Science

First Groundhog Day

On February 2, 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, it gets scared and runs back into its burrow, predicting six more weeks of winter weather; no shadow means an early spring.

Groundhog Day Is Celebrated In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

PUNXSUTAWNEY, PA - FEBRUARY 2: Groundhog Day Inner Circle Vice President Dan McGinley announces the weather prognostication as groundhog handler AJ Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil after he did not see his shadow predicting an early Spring during the 138th annual Groundhog Day festivities on Friday February 2, 2024 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Groundhog Day is a popular tradition in the United States and Canada. Over 40,000 people spent a night of revelry awaiting the sunrise and the groundhog's exit from his winter den. If Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow he regards it as an omen of six more weeks of bad weather and returns to his den. Early spring arrives if he does not see his shadow, causing Phil to remain above ground. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Feb

Native American History

Dawes Severalty Act approved, ending tribal control of land

In a well-meaning but ultimately flawed attempt to assimilate Native Americans, President Grover Cleveland signs an act to end tribal control of reservations and divide their land into individual holdings.

Mar

19th Century

Helen Keller meets Anne Sullivan, her teacher and ‘miracle worker’

On March 3, 1887, Anne Sullivan begins teaching six-year-old Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing after a severe illness at the age of 19 months. Under Sullivan’s tutelage, including her pioneering “touch teaching” techniques, Keller flourished, eventually graduating from college and becoming an international lecturer and activist. Sullivan, later dubbed “the miracle worker,” remained Keller’s interpreter and constant companion until the older woman’s death in 1936.

Helen Keller Gestures Toward Anne Sullivan

(Original Caption) Born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Helen Keller was stricken nineteen months later by a strange disease that left her both blind and deaf. She began a life of loneliness in the sudden silence and blackness of a strange world. On March 3, 1887, a twenty-one-year-old girl, Anne Sullivan, daughter of Irish immigrants, who had been half-blind herself as a child, arrived at the Keller's household. "That date," Helen later remarked "was my soul's birthday." Then began the formal training of seven-year-old Helen Keller that eventually made her one of the best educated women in the world. Above she is shown (foreground), age 13, with "Teacher" Anne Sullivan in 1893.

Bettmann Archive

May

19th Century

“Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” show opens in London

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show opens in London, giving Queen Victoria and her subjects their first look at a romanticized version of the American West.

May

19th Century

Chinese gold miners are slaughtered in the Hells Canyon Massacre

The Hells Canyon Massacre begins on May 27, 1887, in Lewiston, Washington Territory, in what is now Idaho. The mass slaughter of Chinese gold miners by a gang of white horse thieves was one of many hate crimes perpetrated against Asian immigrants in the American West during this period.

Jul

19th Century

Gunfighter Clay Allison killed

Clay Allison, eccentric gunfighter and rancher, is believed to have died on July 3, 1887, in a [freak wagon accident](http://On July 3, 1887, while hauling supplies to his ranch from Pecos he was thrown from his heavily loaded wagon and fatally injured when run over by its rear wheel.) in Texas.

Nov

19th Century

Doc Holliday dies of tuberculosis

Doc Holliday—gunslinger, gambler, and occasional dentist—dies from tuberculosis.

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