* 1871 – Prince Alexander John of Wales ( d. 1871 )

* 1871 – Ioannis Metaxas, Greek general and dictator ( d. 1941 )

* 1871 – The Camp Grant Massacre takes place in Arizona Territory.

* 1871 – Theodore Dreiser, American author ( d. 1945 )

* 1871 – Leonid Andreyev, Russian writer ( d. 1919 )

* 1871 – John French Sloan, American artist ( d. 1951 )

* 1871 – The first stage of the Brill Tramway opened.

* 1925 – Lars Jørgen Madsen, Danish rifle shooter ( b. 1871 )

* 1871 – John Lester, American cricketer ( d. 1969 )

* 1871 – John Millington Synge, Irish writer ( d. 1909 )

* 1871 – Guangxu Emperor of China ( d. 1908 )

* 1871 – Orville Wright, American aviation pioneer ( d. 1948 )

* 1789 – Lucio Norberto Mansilla, Argentine military ( d. 1871 )

* 1871 – Emperor Meiji orders the Abolition of the han system and the establishment of prefectures as local centers of administration.

* 1871 – Albert Lebrun, French politician ( d. 1950 )

* 1871 – Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand-English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate ( d. 1937 )

* 1941 – Guillermo Kahlo, German-Mexican photographer, father of Frida Kahlo ( b. 1871 )

Armoured trains saw use during the 19th century in the American Civil War ( 1861 – 1865 ), the Franco-Prussian War ( 1870 – 1871 ), the First and Second Boer Wars ( 1880 – 81 and 1899 – 1902 ), the First ( 1914 – 1918 ) and Second World Wars ( 1939 – 1945 ) and the First Indochina War ( 1946 – 1954 ).

* Prince Alexander John of Wales ( 1871 ), short-lived son of Edward VII

* 1871 – Prince Alexander John of Wales ( b. 1871 )

The Christadelphian religious group traces its origins to Dr John Thomas ( 1805 – 1871 ), who migrated to North America from England in 1832.

* Stephen Hill, The Life of Brother John Thomas – 1805 to 1871 ( 2006 ).

* Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough ( 1871 – 1934 ), only son of the 8th Duke

John Alden Shoudy came to the Kittitas Valley in 1871, and purchased a small trading post from Andrew Jackson " A. J.

In 1871, producer John Hollingshead brought Gilbert and Sullivan together to produce a Christmas entertainment, Thespis, at his Gaiety Theatre, a large West End house.

The horseshoe is presented as a talisman in The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil ; Showing how the Horse-Shoe came to be a Charm against Witchcraft, written in 1871 by Edward G. Flight, with illustrations by George Cruikshank and engravings by John Thompson.

Illustration by John Tenniel, 1871

* 1805 – John Bigler, American lawyer, politician and diplomat ; 3rd Governor of California ; and former United States Envoy to Chile ( d. 1871 )

In 1871, Arthur Severn married Joan Ruskin Agnew, a cousin of the Victorian art and social critic John Ruskin.

John " Jack " Butler Yeats ( 29 August 1871 – 28 March 1957 ) was an Irish artist and Olympic medallist.

* 1909 – John Millington Synge, Irish playwright ( b. 1871 )

* 1871 – Bishop John Coleridge Patteson is martyred on the island of Nukapu, a Polynesian outlier island now in the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands.

** John French Sloan, American artist ( b. 1871 )

* September 3 – John Lester, American cricketer ( b. 1871 )

** John Henry Pratt, English clergyman and mathematician ( d. 1871 )

* March 7 – John Herschel, English mathematician and astronomer ( d. 1871 )

The name " curl " was first suggested by James Clerk Maxwell in 1871.

According to Gibbs, the term " statistical ", in the context of mechanics, i. e. statistical mechanics, was first used by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1871.

The fact that electromagnetic radiation exerts a pressure upon any surface exposed to it was deduced theoretically by James Clerk Maxwell in 1871 and Adolfo Bartoli in 1876, and proven experimentally by Russian physicist Peter Lebedev in 1900 and by Ernest Fox Nichols and Gordon Ferrie Hull in 1901.

* James Clerk Maxwell 1871 – 1879

James Clerk Maxwell, in an 1871 essay titled the " Theory of Heat ," proposed a thought experiment showing why the Second Law might just be a temporary condition, why entropy might be beatable.

John Preston Maxwell ( 5 December 1871 – 25 July 1961 ), son of James Laidlaw Maxwell, was a Presbyterian obstetric missionary to China.

John Preston Maxwell was born on 5 December 1871 in Birmingham, where his father Dr James Laidlaw Maxwell, practised medicine.

* James Clerk Maxwell ( 1871 – 1879 )

Waning Godbeite influence showed even by 1871 when Liberals Dennis Toohy and George R. Maxwell infuriated Godbeites at a party meeting by calling polygamists " dupes " and criminals of perverse sensuality.

Brigadier General Francis Aylmer Maxwell VC, CSI, DSO & Bar ( 7 September 1871 – 21 September 1917 ) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross ( VC ), the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

* William George Maxwell ( 1871 – 1959 ), British naturalist and colonial administrator in British Malaya and Straits Settlements

The Great Chicago Fire, of 1871, started only a few blocks away but burned north and east, sparing Maxwell Street and the rest of the Near West Side.