Architect William LeBaron Jenney designs the first U.S. skyscraper, the ten story Home Insurance Building, in Chicago. Construction begins on May 1. The building is completed in the autumn of 1885.

The Metropolitan Opera House opens in New York on October 22.

On October 16, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases pronounces the 1875 Civil Rights Act unconstitutional.

On November 2, John A. Garfield of Ohio is elected the twentieth President of the U.S. but is assassinated the following year. Vice President Governor Chester A. Arthur, the former Governor of New York, becomes the twenty-first President.

On Nov. 7, Romualdo Pacheco, a former Republican Governor of California, becomes the first Latino elected to Congress.