1882

Events from the year 1882 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Chester A. Arthur (R-NY)
* Vice President: vacant
* Chief Justice: Morrison Waite (OH)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: J. Warren Keifer (R-OH)
* Congress: 47th
==Events==
===January - March===
* January 2
** The Standard Oil Trust is secretly created to control multiple corporations set up by John D. Rockefeller and his associates.
** Oscar Wilde arrives in the United States for an extended lecture tour.
* January 5 – Charles J. Guiteau is found guilty of the assassination of James A. Garfield (President of the United States), despite an insanity defense raised by his lawyer.
* March 18 – Morgan Earp is assassinated by outlaws while playing billiards in Tombstone, Arizona.
* March 22 – Polygamy is made a felony by the Edmunds Act passed by the United States Congress.
* March 29 – The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization, is incorporated in New Haven, Connecticut by Father Michael J. McGivney.
===April - June===
* April 3 – Old West outlaw Jesse James is shot in the back of the head and killed by fellow outlaw Robert Ford in his home at St. Joseph, Missouri for reward.
* May 6 – The Chinese Exclusion Act is the first significant law that restricts immigration into the U.S.
* June 30 – Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield, is hanged.
===July - September===
* August 3 – The U.S. Congress passes the 1882 Immigration Act.
* August 5 – Standard Oil of New Jersey is established.
* September 1 – Redpath's McGee Illustrated Weekly newspaper changes it's name to Redpath's Illustrated Weekly.
* September 4 – Thomas Edison starts the U.S.'s first commercial electrical power plant, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan.
* September 5 – The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City.
* September 30 – The Vulcan Street Plant, the first hydroelectric central station to serve a system of private and commercial customers in North America, comes on stream in Appleton, Wisconsin.
===October - December===
* October 5 – The Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago (the modern-day Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago) is founded by Felix Adler.
* October 16 – The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad ("Nickel Plate Road") runs its first trains over the entire system between Buffalo, New York, and Chicago. Nine days later the Seney Syndicate sells the road to William Henry Vanderbilt for US$7.2 million.
* November 14 – Franklyn Leslie shoots Billy Claiborne dead in the streets of Tombstone, Arizona.
* December 22 – First string of Christmas lights created by Thomas Edison.
==Sport==
* October 7 – The Chicago White Stockings even their series with the Cincinnati Red Stockings with a 2–0 victory. Cincinnati will drop out of the series under threats of expulsion by the American Association.
* December 6 – The National League formally admits the New York Gothams and the Philadelphia Quakers.
==Memoriam==
* January 3 – Clement Claiborne Clay, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1853 to 1862, Confederate States Senator from Alabama from 1862 to 1864 (aged 65; Gurley, AL, USA)
* January 13 – Webster Wagner, inventor, manufacturer and politician (aged 64; Spuyten Duyvil, NY, USA)
* January 30 – Henry Whitney Bellows, clergyman of the Unitarian Church (aged 67; New York City, NY, USA)
* February 25 – James Bates, U.S. Representative from Maine from 1831 to 1833 (aged 92; Yarmouth, ME, USA)
* March 4 – Milton Latham, U.S. Senator from California from 1860 to 1863 (aged 54; New York City, NY, USA)
* March 24 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet and professor, dies of peritonitis in his Cambridge home (aged 75; Cambridge, MA, USA)
* April 3 – Jesse James, outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla, and leader (aged 34; St. Joseph, MO, USA)
* April 27 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist and poet (aged 78; Concord, MA, USA)
* June 30 – Charles J. Guiteau, Assassin of President James A. Garfield (hung) (aged 40; Washington, DC, USA)
* July 16 – Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States as wife of Abraham Lincoln (aged 63; Springfield, IL, USA)
* July 19 – George N. Stearns, founder of E. C. Stearns & Company (aged 69; Syracuse, NY, USA)
* August 8 – Gouverneur K. Warren, civil engineer and Union Army general in the American Civil War (aged 52; Newport, RI, USA)
* August 16 – Benjamin Harvey Hill, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1877 to 1882 (aged 58; Gurley, AL, USA)
* September 27 – Fernando C. Beaman, teacher, lawyer and politician from Michigan (aged 68; Adrian, MI, USA)
* November 5 – Robert Woodward Barnwell, U.S. Senator from South Carolina from 1862 to 1865 (aged 81; Columbia, SC, USA)
* November 8 – Richard Arnold, Union Army brigadier general (aged 54; New York City, NY, USA)
* December 10 – Alexander Gardner, Scottish-born Civil War photographer (aged 61; Washington, DC, USA)
* December 12 – Robert Morris, abolitionist and one of the first African American lawyers (aged 59; Boston, MA, USA)
==External links==
* 1882 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 11