World History 1876

About the history of the world in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, Diaz becomes leader of Mexico, Turkish lead Bulgarian atrocities.

TWO CENTURIES OF WORLD HISTORY: 1778-1978

1876

* Korea, for centuries known as "the hermit kingdom," was coerced into the 19th century by commercial treaties, first with Japan, then with the U.S. and Europe.

* Alexander Graham Bell, 29, of Boston, invented the telephone.

* Porfirio Diaz, 46, a key military figure in the ouster of French forces from his native Mexico nine years before, overthrew the government of Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada to become president himself. For the next 35 years, Diaz suppressed revolutionaries, bandits, and legitimate dissenters without discrimination. Ardently wooing foreign investors, Diaz pumped outside capital into public improvements, factories, and railroads. All this did not come without cost, however. While the "Diaz system" played well to the military, the large landowners, and the Church, it neglected the needs of the peasants and Indians. Thus, the Diaz government came to be known as the "mother of foreigners and the stepmother of Mexicans."

* May 5-8 In response to a spreading revolt in Bulgaria, Turkish authorities meted out "the Bulgarian atrocities." An estimated 13,000 unarmed civilians were slain. In Batak, villagers scrambled into the presumed sanctuary of the local church just ahead of advancing Turks. Thus trapped by the walls of God, they were massacred to a man.

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