Russia formally transferred Alaska to the United States at Sitka, ending 126 years of Russian colonial presence in North America.

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, later becoming the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

Samurai reformer Sakamoto Ryoma, architect of the alliance that ended Japan's shogunate, was assassinated in Kyoto weeks before the Meiji Restoration.

Orville Wright, who with his brother Wilbur achieved the first powered, sustained flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft, was born in Dayton, Ohio.