The inaugural Wimbledon Championships begins.

The 1877 Wimbledon Championship was a men's tennis tournament held at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London. It was the world's first official lawn tennis tournament, and was later recognised as the first Grand Slam tournament or "Major". The AEC & LTC had been founded in July 1868, as the All England Croquet Club. Lawn tennis was introduced in February 1875 to compensate for the waning interest in croquet. In June 1877 the club decided to organise a tennis tournament to pay for the repair of its pony roller, needed to maintain the lawns. A set of rules was drawn up for the tournament, derived from the first standardised rules of tennis issued by the Marylebone Cricket Club in May 1875.

The Wimbledon Championships, commonly called Wimbledon, is a tennis tournament organised by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in collaboration with the Lawn Tennis Association annually in Wimbledon, London. It is chronologically the third of the four Grand Slam tennis events each year, held after the Australian Open and the French Open and before the US Open. It is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious.