July 13 – The first cat exhibition is held at the Crystal Palace of London. July 20 British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada. C. W. Alcock proposes that "a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association", giving birth to the FA Cup for Association football in England. July 21–August 26 – The first ever photographs of Yellowstone National Park region are taken by photographer William Henry Jackson, during the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871. July 22 – The foundation stone of the first Tay Rail Bridge is laid; the bridge collapses in a storm eight years later. July 28 – The Annie becomes the first boat ever launched on Yellowstone Lake, in the Yellowstone National Park region. August 7 – Banco de Concepcion, as predecessor of Itau Unibanco, major financial services in South America, founded in Chile. August 9 – One of the few known major hurricanes to strike what becomes the US state of Hawaii causes significant damage on Hawai'i and Maui. August 29 – The abolition of the han system is carried out in Japan. August 31 – Adolphe Thiers becomes President of the French Republic. September 2 – Whaling Disaster of 1871: The Comet, a brig used by whalers, becomes the first of 33 ships to be crushed in the Arctic ice by an early freeze. Remarkably, all 1,219 people on the abandoned ships are rescued without a single loss of life. September 3 – New York City residents, tired of the corruption of the "Tammany Hall" political machine and "Boss" William M. Tweed, its "Grand Sachem", meet to form the 'Committee of Seventy' to reform local politics. October–December October 5 – The Società degli Spettroscopisti Italiani (now Società Astronomica Italiana) was established in Rome, the first scientific organisation in the world dedicated to astrophysics. October 8 – Four major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago; Peshtigo, Wisconsin; Holland, Michigan; and Manistee, Michigan. The Great Chicago Fire is the most famous of these, leaving nearly 100,000 people homeless, although the Peshtigo Fire kills as many as 2,500 people, making it the deadliest in United States history. October 11 – Heinrich Schliemann begins the excavation of Troy. October 12 – The Criminal Tribes Act is enacted by the British Raj in India, naming over 160 communities as "Denotified Tribes", allegedly habitually criminal (it will be repealed in 1949, after