1869 (idea)

• The Transcontinental Railroad is completed as Leland Stanford hammers in the golden spike connecting the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads at Promontory, Utah.
• His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I abolishes America's Republican and Democratic parties.
• In the first College Footbal game ever played, Rutgers University defeats Princeton, 6 to 4.
• Leo Tolstoy completes the Great Russian Novel, War and Peace.
• Harry Wright establishes the first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, which, thanks to the exploits of star shortstop George Wright (Harry's brother), compiles a record of 56-0 on a nationwide tour against all comers.

These people were born in 1869:

• Mahatma Gandhi.
• Russian mystic and hard man to kill Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin.
• Future British prime minister and notorious Nazi appeasement advocate Neville Chamberlain.

These people died in 1869:

• Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States.
• American pencil pioneer Joseph Dixon.

1868 - 1869 - 1870

19th century

This is a collaboratively edited writeup. You are encouraged to assimilate and supersede it.