John Wesley Romine II

Personal History

Significant Events of 1880

• Building of Panama Canal begins.
• University of California is founded in Los Angeles, California. Also, the University of Southern California opens its doors for the first time.
• British Parliament officially adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
• Thomas Edison patents electric incandescent lamp. The first electric streetlight is installed in Wabash, Indiana.
• The journal Science is first published in the United States, with financial backing from Thomas Edison.
• The first pay telephone service in the United States is installed in New Haven, Connecticut.
• First commercial hydroelectric power plant in the world begins generating electricity in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
• Australian police capture bank robber Ned Kelly, after a gun battle at Glenrowan, Victoria. He is executed later that same year.
• Beginning of the First Boer War between British Empire and Boer South African Republic.
• France annexes Tahiti.
• Competing circus owners P. T. Barnum and James A. Bailey sign a contract in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to create the Barnum & Bailey Circus.