1878 in Belgium

Incumbents

• Monarch: Leopold II
• Prime Minister: Jules Malou ; Walthère Frère-Orban

  Events

• May to November – Belgium participates in the Paris Universal Exhibition.
• 11-18 June – Partial legislative elections of 1878
• 19 June – Walthère Frère-Orban replaces Jules Malou as Prime Minister
• 22-25 August – Twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebrations of King Leopold II and Queen Marie-Henriette, including a parade of 23,000 school children on 23 August.
• 13 November – Jules Guillery succeeds as Charles Rogier as Speaker of the Chamber of Representatives

  Publications

• Almanach de Poche de Bruxelles
• Annuaire de l'Observatoire royal de Bruxelles, 46
• Annuaire du Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles, 2
• Bulletin de la Société belge de géographie, 2
• Bulletins de l'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, 47.
• Le Moniteur Belge.
• Revue de l'horticulture belge et étrangère
• Revue du notariat belge, 4

• Hendrik Conscience, De Schat van Felix Roobeek

  Art and architecture

• Great Synagogue of Brussels completed

• Félicien Rops, Pornocrates

  Births

• 18 January – Henri Baels, politician
• 19 February – Henri Carton de Tournai, politician
• 5 March – Gaston Salmon, fencer
• 16 March – Émile Cammaerts, author
• 29 March – Jules Pire, resistance leader
• 14 April – August Borms, quisling
• 23 June – Gustave Strauven, architect
• 1 July – Joseph Maréchal, Jesuit
• 5 July – Jean de Bosschère, writer and painter
• 6 July – Charles Terlinden, historian
• 13 September – Oscar Joliet, bishop
• 20 November – Joseph-Marie Canivez, Trappist

  Deaths

• 18 January – Frans de Cort, writer
• 9 July – Barthélemy Charles Joseph Dumortier, botanist and politician
• 7 August – Joseph Gustave Ernest Allard, politician
• 16 November – Charles Vilain XIIII, politician