Elizabeth Hog Bennett became the first woman in the U.S. to successfully give birth to a child by a Cesarean section. Her husband, Dr. Jessee Bennett of Edom, VA., performed the operation, though he had no anesthetic to give her. Another local doctor who he asked for assistance declined, citing excessive risk. In his place, he enlisted the help of two field hands to hold the mother on a wooden table. Whereas this operation was the first of its kind in the U.S., the history of the Cesarean operation has been traced as far back as ancient Chinese etchings that depict the procedure on apparently living women. Roman law under Julius Caesar decreed that all women who were dead or dying must be cut open to save the child.

The first demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone to Queen Victoria at her Osborne House estate on the Isle of Wight. Bell had patented the telephone in 1876, and in 1877, Bell had come to England for his honeymoon, and spent time on business. He had demonstrated his device to telegraph engineers and given lectures to scientists. When the Queen saw his telephone, she was much impressed, and ordered a private line to be laid between Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, and Buckingham Palace.