Editing 1881 (section)

=== January&ndash;March ===
* [[January 1]]&ndash;[[January 24|24]] &ndash; [[Siege of Geok Tepe]]: Russian troops under General [[Mikhail Skobelev]] defeat the [[Turkmen people|Turkomans]].
* [[January 13]] &ndash; [[War of the Pacific]] &ndash; [[Battle of San Juan and Chorrillos]]: The Chilean army defeats Peruvian forces. 
* [[January 15]] &ndash; [[War of the Pacific]] &ndash; [[Battle of Miraflores]]: The Chileans take Lima, capital of Peru, after defeating its second line of defense in Miraflores.
* [[January 24]] &ndash; [[William Edward Forster]], chief secretary for Ireland, introduces his Coercion Bill, which temporarily suspends [[habeas corpus]] so that those people suspected of committing an offence can be detained without trial; it goes through a long debate before it is accepted [[February 2]]. Note that [[Coercion Act#Ireland|Coercion bills]] had been passed almost annually in the 19th century,<ref>{{cite hansard|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1893/sep/05/second-reading#column_5|title=Government of Ireland Bill (No. 265.); Second Reading|quote=I believe that in 87 years there have been 87 Coercion Acts or renewal of Coercion Acts in that country |house=House of Lords |date=5 September 1893 |volume=17 |column=5 |accessdate=18 November 2016}}</ref> with a total of 105 such bills passed from 1801 to 1921.<ref>{{cite book |title=Emergency legislation: the apparatus of repression |series=Field Day Pamphlet |volume=11 |page=5 |year=1986 |first=Michael |last=Farrell }}</ref>
* [[January 25]] &ndash; [[Thomas Edison]] and [[Alexander Graham Bell]] form the [[Oriental Telephone Company]].
* [[February 13]] &ndash; The first issue of the feminist newspaper ''[[La Citoyenne]]'' is published by [[Hubertine Auclert]] in Paris.
* [[February 16]] &ndash; The [[Canadian Pacific Railway]] is incorporated.<ref>[http://members.kos.net/sdgagnon/cpa.html "An Act Respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway"]</ref>
* [[February 18]] &ndash; [[Carlos Finlay]] introduces his discovery of the transmission of [[Yellow Fever]] by mosquitoes ''[[Aedes aegypti]]'', in the Fifth [[International Sanitary Conferences|International Sanitary Conference]] held in [[Washington, D.C.]]
* [[February 19]] &ndash; [[Kansas]] becomes the first U.S. state to [[Alcohol laws of Kansas|prohibit]] all [[alcoholic beverage]]s.
* [[February 24]] (February 12 [[Old Style]]) &ndash; [[Qing dynasty]] China signs the [[Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881)|Treaty of Saint Petersburg]] with the [[Russian Empire]] providing for the return to China of the eastern part of the [[Ili River|Ili]] Basin.{{dubious|date=January 2025}}
* [[February 25]] &ndash; [[Phoenix, Arizona]], is incorporated.
* [[March 1]] &ndash; The [[Cunard Line]]'s {{SS|Servia}}, the first large [[steel]] [[transatlantic liner]], is launched at [[Clydebank]] in Scotland.<ref name="Cassell's Chronology">{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Hywel|title=Cassell's Chronology of World History|location=London|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=2005|isbn=0-304-35730-8|pages=[https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will/page/434 434–435]|url=https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will/page/434}}</ref>
* [[March 13]] (March 1 [[Old Style]]) &ndash; [[Assassination of Alexander II of Russia]]: Emperor [[Alexander II of Russia]] ("the Liberator") is killed near his palace in Saint Petersburg when bombs are thrown at him, an act committed by the [[revolutionary socialist]] group [[Narodnaya Volya]] coordinated by [[Sophia Perovskaya]] but [[Warsaw pogrom (1881)|falsely blamed]] upon [[History of the Jews in Poland#Pogroms in the Russian Empire|Russian Jews]]. He is succeeded by his son, [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]]. The assassin [[Ignacy Hryniewiecki]] is also killed by his own bomb.
* [[March 23]]
** The [[First Boer War]] comes to an end.
** A fire caused by a gas explosion destroys the [[Opéra de Nice]] in the south of France with fatalities.
* [[March 26]] (March 14 [[Old Style]]) &ndash; The [[United Principalities|Principality of Romania]] is proclaimed the [[Kingdom of Romania]].
* [[March 31]] &ndash; Edward Rudolf founds the '[[Church of England]] Central Society for Providing Homes for Waifs and Strays' (later [[The Children's Society]]).<ref>{{cite web|title=A Brief History of the Waifs and Strays' Society|url=http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/articles/history.html|work=Hidden Lives Revealed|access-date=2011-08-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719020252/http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/articles/history.html|archive-date=2011-07-19|url-status=live}}</ref>