• Monarch – Christian IX^[1]
• Prime minister – C. E. Frijs

• 24 April – The Port of Esbjerg construction act provides for the construction of a new export port at Esbjerg, until then a tiny community, as a replacement for the harbour in Altona, which had previously been Denmark's most important North Sea harbour.^[2]
• 7 August – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Copenhagen is established.
• 16 October – All Danish rights to the Nicobar Islands, which since 1848 had been gradually abandoned, are sold to the British as the last remains of Danish India.

Undated edit

• Magasin du Nord is established in Aarhus as Emil Vett & Co. by Theodor Wessel and Emil Vett.

January–March edit

• 7 January – Johannes Wilhjelm, painter (died 1938)
• 9 January – S. P. L. Sørensen, chemist (died 1939)

April–June edit

• 13 May – Peter Hansen, painter (d. 1928)
• 25 April – Carl Wentorf, artist (d. 1914)
• 26 May – Carl Johan Bonnesen, sculptor (d. 1933)

July–September edit

• 17 july – Henri Nathansen, writer and stage director (d. 1944)

October–December edit

• 25 October – Rasmus Harboe, sculptor (d. 1952)
• 27 November – Wilhelm Hansen, businessman and art collector (died 1936)

• 16 January – Christopher Bagnæs Hansen, furniture maker (b. 1806)
• 14 February – Emil Bærentzen, painter (b. 1799)
• 8 March – Axel Kittendorff, lithographer (born 1721)
• 10 March
  • Herman Wilhelm Bissen, sculptor (b. 1798)
  • Bernt Wilhelm Westermann, businessman (b. 1781)