Events January–March January 1 The first edition of The Northern Echo newspaper is published in Priestgate, Darlington, England. Plans for the Brooklyn Bridge are completed. January 3 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins in New York City. January 6 – The Musikverein, Vienna, is inaugurated in Austria-Hungary. January 10 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil. January 15 – A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey (A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly). January 23 – Marias Massacre: U.S. soldiers attack a peaceful camp of Piegan Blackfeet Indians, led by chief Heavy Runner. January 26 – Reconstruction Era (United States): Virginia rejoins the Union. This year it adopts a new Constitution, drawn up by John Curtiss Underwood, expanding suffrage to all male citizens over 21, including freedmen. January 28 – British departs Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a transatlantic passage on which it will be lost with all 191 aboard. February – Denis Vrain-Lucas is sentenced to 2 years in prison for multiple forgery, in Paris. February 1 – Goodna State School in Goodna, Queensland, Australia, is founded. February 2 It is revealed that the famed Cardiff Giant in the U.S. is just carved gypsum and not the petrified remains of a human. The Seven Brothers (Seitsemän veljestä), a novel by Finnish author Aleksis Kivi, is published first time in several thin booklets. February 3 – The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing African American men the right to vote, is passed. February 9 – The U.S. Army Weather Bureau is created within the Army Signal Corps. February 10 Anaheim, California, is incorporated. The YWCA is founded in New York City. February 12 – Women's suffrage: Women gain the right to vote in Utah Territory. February 23 – Military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union. February 25 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American to sit in the U.S. Congress. February 26 In New York City, the first pneumatic subway, Beach Pneumatic Transit, is opened. The German Commerzbank is founded in Hamburg. February 27 – The 'circle of the sun' flag of Japan is adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships, by proclamation of the Daijō-kan. February 28 – The Bulgarian Exarchate is