1877 in the United States

Federal government

• President:

Ulysses S. Grant (R-Ohio) (until March 4)

Rutherford B. Hayes (R-Ohio) (starting March 4)

• Vice President:

vacant (until March 4)

William A. Wheeler (R-New York) (starting March 4)

• Chief Justice: Morrison Waite (Ohio)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Samuel J. Randall (D-Pennsylvania)
• Congress: 44th (until March 4), 45th (starting March 4)

January–March

• January 8 – Indian Wars – Battle of Wolf Mountain: Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry in Montana.
• February 28 – Indian Wars – Agreement of 1877 (19 Stat. 254): Congress annexes Sioux Indian land, including the Black Hills.
• March 2 – In the Compromise of 1877, the U.S. presidential election, 1876 is resolved with the selection of Rutherford B. Hayes as the winner, even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
• March 4
  • Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as the 19th president of the United States, and William A. Wheeler sworn in as the 19th vice president of the United States.
  • Romualdo Pacheco of California takes office as the first Latino to serve in the United States Congress.
• March 13 – Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine, patents earmuffs.

April–June

• April 15 – First telephone line installed between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts.
• May 5 – Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
• May 6 – Realizing that his people are weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
• May 8 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens (ends May 11).
• June 15 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.
• June 17 – Indian Wars – Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
• June 21 – The Molly Maguires are hanged at Carbon County Prison in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

July–September

• July 10 – The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.
• July 16 – Great Railroad Strike of 1877: Riots by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad railroad workers in Baltimore, Maryland, lead to a sympathy strike in Pittsburgh, and a worker's rebellion in St. Louis before U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes calls in the armed forces.
• August 9 – Indian Wars – Battle of Big Hole: Near Big Hole River in Montana, a small band of Nez Percé Indians who refused government orders to move to a reservation, clash with the United States Army. The army loses 29 soldiers and Indians lose 89 warriors in a U.S. Army victory.
• August 17 – Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill dies the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.
• September – The first meeting of the Knights of Reliance in Lampasas County, Texas, which morphed into the Farmers' Alliance and eventually became the Populist Party.
• September 5 – Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier, after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

October–December

• October 10 – Following the recovery of Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer's body from where he fell during the Battle of Little Big Horn the previous year, Custer is given a funeral with full military honors and is laid to rest at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
• November 21 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound, considered Edison's first great invention. Edison demonstrates the device for the first time on December 6.
• November 22 – The first college lacrosse game is played between New York University and Manhattan College.
• December 6 – The Washington Post newspaper first published in D.C.

Ongoing

• Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
• Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
• Depression of 1873–79 (1873–1879)