* 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 ).

Following the formation of baseball's first professional organization, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players, which became known as the National Association, the Association, or NA, in 1871, Spalding joined the Boston Red Stockings ( precursor club to the modern Atlanta Braves ) and was highly successful ; winning 206 games ( and losing only 53 ) as a pitcher and batting. 323 as a hitter.

The first person to experiment in this fashion was Francis Herbert Wenham, who in doing so constructed the first wind tunnel in 1871.

Ned Cuthbert, playing for the Philadelphia Keystones in either 1863 or 1865, is documented as the first baseball player to steal a base in a baseball game, although the term stolen base was not used until 1871.

The first attempt at forming a " major league " produced the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, which lasted from 1871 to 1875.

The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players operated from 1871 through 1875, and is considered by some to have been the first major league.

This connection was first formally made by Dr George Bennett of the Australian Museum in 1871, but in the early 1990s, palaeontologist Pat Vickers-Rich and geologist Neil Archbold also cautiously suggested that Aboriginal legends " perhaps had stemmed from an acquaintance with prehistoric bones or even living prehistoric animals themselves ...

The Survey sent him to Europe five times, first in 1871 as part of a group sent to observe a solar eclipse ; there, he sought out Augustus De Morgan, William Stanley Jevons, and William Kingdon Clifford, British mathematicians and logicians whose turn of mind resembled his own.

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

In 1871, Cadillac's first sawmill began operations.

In 1871 the Forest Citys joined the new National Association of Professional Base Ball Players ( NA ), the first professional league.

In 1871, Canada's first formal census was conducted, which counted the population of Nova Scotia, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Quebec.

The census will cover all Grama Niladhari ( GN ) divisions of the country. The first scientific census in Sri Lanka was conducted on 27 March 1871.

* 1871 – Gilbert and Sullivan collaborate for the first time, on their lost opera, Thespis.

The two were unable to marry until after Katrine had obtained a divorce on 21 February 1871, after the birth of their first two sons.

The FA Cup was first held in 1871 – 72.

The first, the ' little tin idol ', was used from the inception of the Cup in 1871 – 72 until it was stolen from a Birmingham shoe shop window belonging to William Shillcock while held by Aston Villa on 11 September 1895, and was never seen again.

Die Proklamation des Deutschen Kaiserreiches by Anton von Werner ( 1877 ), depicting the proclamation of the foundation of the German Reich ( 18 January 1871, Palace of Versailles ). Left, on the podium ( in black ): Crown Prince Frederick ( later Frederick III, German Emperor | Frederick III ), his father Emperor William I, German Emperor | William I, and Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden | Frederick I of Baden, proposing a toast to the new emperor. Centre ( in white ): Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of Germany, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Prussian Chief of Staff.

The thermoregulatory hypothesis ( first proposed by Darwin in 1871 and later developed by Dr. Peter Wheeler, 1984, 1985 ) suggests that a need for decreased body hair originated as a response to climate change that began approximately 3 million years ago.

The first connection to Australia was an undersea telegraph cable that was completed on 18 November 1871, connecting Java to Darwin, and eventually to the Australian Overland Telegraph Line across Australia.

* 1871 – Wilhelm I of Germany is proclaimed the first German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles ( France ) towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War.

At first, these were intended to be used primarily for reconnaissance in support of armies on the ground, just as balloons had been during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 – 1871 and in the Napoleonic Wars.

Quincy Adams Shaw and his brother-in-law Henry Higginson became major investors in the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, and Shaw was the first president of the company and retained that position until 1871, when Agassiz's son Alexander Agassiz took over.

* 1871 – The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.