Britain, France and Italy take joint control of the finances of a bankrupt Tunisia

British explorer Samuel Baker annexes the southern Sudan, or Equatoria, on behalf of the khedive of Egypt

The most famous of the three-masted tea-clippers, the Cutty Sark is launched at Dumbarton for service to and from China

Young French artists Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir paint together in the open air at La Grenouillère, developing the Impressionist style

French part-time painter Henri Rousseau becomes known as Douanier ('customs officer') Rousseau because of his paid employment

Coppélia, with choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to music by Delibes, has its premiere at the Paris Opera

Pope Pius IX, rapidly losing temporal authority, declares a new dogma – that the pope, when speaking from the throne, is infallible on matters of faith or morals

The Turkish sultan finally allows the Christians of Bulgaria to have their own Orthodox patriarch

With public opinion in France outraged by the Ems telegram, the French government declares war on Prussia

16-year-old Arthur Rimbaud sends some of his poems to Paul Verlaine, already an established poet

French artist Claude Monet, fleeing from the Franco-Prussian War, arrives in London

Isaac Butt, an Irish MP at Westminster, founds the Home Rule association

Napoleon III is among 83,000 French prisoners captured by the Germans at Sedan in the Franco-Prussian war

A French government of national defence deposes Napoleon III and proclaims the third French republic

The all-round English cricketer W.G. Grace begins a 28-year career as captain of Gloucestershire

As the result of a plebiscite, Rome and the remaining papal states are included in the kingdom of Italy

The Prussian king, William I, is proclaimed emperor of a united Germany in the palace at Versailles

Troops of the new German empire march through Paris in a victory parade at the end of the Franco-Prussian war

An uprising results in the Paris Commune, followed by the siege of the city by French government forces

Rome becomes the capital city of the entire Italian peninsula, for the first time since the Roman empire

18-year-old English entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes, on a temporary visit to South Africa, arrives in the new diamond town of Kimberley

The Paris communards are overwhelmed in a battle at the Père Lachaise cemetery, which is followed by brutal reprisals

Whistler paints his mother and calls the picture Arrangement in Grey and Black