date: October 30

text: October 30 – The Historical American Exposition opens in Madrid.

source_section: Events › October


date: February 29

section: Religion & Belief

text: February 29 – St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated as a town.

source_section: Events › February


date: December 8

text: December 8 – The various congregations of Trappists leave the Cistercian Order entirely and merge to form a new order with the approval of Pope Leo XIII named the 'Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe', formalising their identity and spirituality as a separate monastic community.

source_section: Events › December


date: April 15

section: Economy & Finance

text: April 15 – The General Electric Company is established through the merger of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company and the Edison General Electric Company.

source_section: Events › April


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Samoa changes its time zone from 4 hours ahead of Japan to being 3 hours behind California, such that it crosses the International Date Line, and Monday, July 4 occurs twice.

source_section: Events › July


date: September 15

text: September 15 – Sergei Witte replaces Ivan Vyshnegradsky as Russian finance minister.

source_section: Events › September


date: February 27

section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies for a patent in Germany, on his compression ignition engine (the Diesel engine).


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Jesse W. Reno patents the first escalator, installed at Coney Island as a pleasure ride.

source_section: Events › March


date: March 31

text: March 31 – The world's first fingerprinting bureau is formally opened by the Buenos Aires Chief of Police; it has been operating unofficially since the previous year.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – The last broad gauge train runs from Paddington on the Great Western Railway of England.

source_section: Events › May


date: June 6

text: June 6 – The Chicago "L" begins operation for the first time with the opening of the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad.

source_section: Events › June


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.

source_section: Events › August


date: September 9

section: Science & Discovery

text: September 9 – Amalthea, the fifth moon of Jupiter, is discovered by Edward Emerson Barnard.


text: Viruses are first described by Russian biologist Dmitri Ivanovsky.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


section: Health & Medicine

text: A cholera outbreak occurs in Hamburg, Germany.


date: June 7

section: Crime & Justice

text: June 7 – Homer Plessy, a mixed-race man, is arrested for deliberately sitting in a whites-only railroad car in Louisiana, leading to the landmark United States Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson, which legitimizes "separate but equal" racial segregation in the United States.


date: July 6

text: July 6 – Dr. José Rizal, Filipino writer, philosopher and political activist, is arrested by Spanish authorities in connection with La Liga Filipina.


date: August 4

text: August 4 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home; she will be acquitted of their murder.


date: September 22

text: September 22 – The 'Little Pastry Chef', a French police informant among anarchists, is murdered in Saint-Denis.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Master criminal Adam Worth is captured in Liège, Belgium, during an attempted robbery of a money delivery cart.


text: October 5 – The Dalton Gang, attempting to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kansas, is shot by the townspeople; only Emmett Dalton, with 23 wounds, survives, to spend 14 years in prison.


date: June 5

section: Disasters & Accidents

text: June 5 – An oil fire in Oil City, Pennsylvania, United States, kills 130 people.


date: July 8

text: July 8 – The Great Fire of 1892 devastates the city of St. John's, Newfoundland.


date: November 24

text: November 24 – The Hotel Zinzendorf catches fire in the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina; 45 people die.

source_section: Events › November


date: March 17

section: Climate & Environment

text: March 17 – The St. Patrick's Day Snowstorm besieges Tennessee with upwards of 26 inches of snow, establishing accumulation records that still stand.


date: July 12

text: July 12 – A hidden lake bursts out of a glacier on the side of Mont Blanc, flooding the valley below and killing around 200 villagers and holidaymakers in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains.


date: March 11

section: Culture & Society

text: March 11 – The first basketball game is played in public, between students and faculty at the Springfield, Massachusetts, YMCA before 200 spectators. The final score is 5–1 in favor of the students, with the only goal for the faculty being scored by Amos Alonzo Stagg.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – The Liverpool Football Club is founded in England by John Houlding, the owner of Anfield; Houlding decides to form his own team after Everton leaves Anfield, in an argument over rent.


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Sir Frederick Stanley, Governor General of Canada, announces his intention to donate the Stanley Cup for ice hockey.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – The first ever French rugby championship final takes place in Paris. Pierre de Coubertin referees the match, which Racing Club de France wins 4–3 over Stade Français.


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Prince George (later George V of the United Kingdom) becomes Duke of York.


date: June 3

text: June 3 – Liverpool Football Club officially comes into existence


date: June 11

text: June 11 – The Limelight Department, later one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – The United International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property (UIBPIP or BIRPI) is established in Bern, Switzerland.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – The Community of the Resurrection, an Anglican religious community for men, is founded by Charles Gore and Walter Frere, initially in Oxford.


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Valparaíso, Chile founds its first football team, Santiago Wanderers.


date: September

text: September – Women are first admitted to Yale University's graduate school.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – The University of Chicago holds its first classes.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – To mark the 400th anniversary Columbus Day holiday, the "Pledge of Allegiance" is first recited in unison by students in U.S. public schools.


date: October 31

text: October 31 – The first collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories from The Strand Magazine, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, is published in London.


date: November 2

text: November 2 – The first football club in Bohemia, Slavia Praha is established, originally under name of Akademický cyklistický odbor Slavia (A.C.O.S.), focusing on cycling.


date: November 8

text: November 8 – The four-day New Orleans General Strike begins.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – The Newcastle East End F.C. is renamed Newcastle United F.C., following the demise of the Newcastle West End F.C. and East End's move to St James' Park, formerly West End's home, in the north east of England.


date: December 17

text: December 17 – First issue of Vogue is published in the United States.


date: December 18

text: December 18 – The Nutcracker ballet, with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is premiered at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia.


text: A 50-year-old tortoise called Timothy, previously serving as a naval mascot, is brought to the estate of Powderham Castle in England, where she lives until her death in 2004.


date: February 3

section: Births

text: February 3 – Juan Negrín, Spanish physician, politician and 67th Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1956)

source_section: Births › February


date: February 13

text: February 13 – Robert H. Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials (d. 1954)


date: February 15

text: February 15 – James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense (d. 1949)


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Wendell Willkie, U.S. Republican presidential candidate (d. 1944)


date: May 9

text: May 9 – Ștefan Foriș, Hungarian-Romanian journalist and politician (d. 1946)

source_section: Births › May


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Shirō Ishii, Japanese microbiologist, lieutenant general of Unit 731 (d. 1959)

source_section: Births › June


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Walter Benjamin, German philosopher and cultural critic (suicide 1940)

source_section: Births › July


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, English composer and pianist (d. 1988)

source_section: Births › August


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Louis de Broglie, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Edward Victor Appleton, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1965)

source_section: Births › September


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Arthur Compton, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)


date: October 7

text: October 7 – Louis C. Fraina, founder of the Communist Party USA (d. 1953)

source_section: Births › October


date: October 9

text: October 9 – Ivo Andrić, Serbo-Croatian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)


date: January 2

section: Deaths

text: January 2 – Sir George Biddell Airy, English astronomer royal (b. 1801)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, second in line for the throne of the United Kingdom (b. 1864)


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Charles Spurgeon, English preacher (b. 1834)


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Ernest Louis, a grandson of Queen Victoria, becomes Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine on the death of his father, Grand Duke Louis IV.


date: March 26

text: March 26 – Walt Whitman, American poet (b. 1819)


date: April 19

text: April 19 – Fr. Thomas Pelham Dale SSC, Anglo-Catholic clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s (b. 1821)


date: April 25

text: April 25 – William Backhouse Astor Jr., American businessman (b. 1830)


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Ravachol, French illegalist anarchist (b. 1859)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Carlo Cafiero, Italian anarchist and leader of the Italian section of the International Workingmen's Association (b. 1846)


date: September 7

text: September 7 – John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet, abolitionist (b. 1807)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – Ernest Renan, French philosopher, philologist, historian and writer (b. 1823)


date: October 25

text: October 25 – Caroline Harrison, First Lady of the United States (b. 1832)


date: November 15

text: November 15 – Thomas Neill Cream, Scottish-Canadian serial killer (b. 1850)


date: December 18

text: December 18 – John M. Lloyd, American bricklayer and police officer (b. 1835)


date: January 13

section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: January 13 – The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom has its first meeting.

source_section: Events › January


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Ivory Coast becomes a French colony.


date: June 15

text: June 15 – 1893 German federal election: Small anti-Semitic parties secure 2.9% of the vote.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Frederick Jackson Turner gives a lecture titled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" before the American Historical Association in Chicago.

source_section: Events › July


date: September 1

text: September 1 – William Ewart Gladstone's Government of Ireland Bill 1893, intended to give Ireland self-government, is rejected by the U.K. Parliament.

source_section: Events › September


text: September 7 – Under pressure of a general strike, the Belgian Federal Parliament enacts general multiple suffrage.


date: September 19

text: September 19 – New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant women's suffrage.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – The Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1893 is signed, as the Kingdom of Siam cedes all of its territories east of the Mekong River to France, creating the territory of Laos.

source_section: Events › October


date: November 7

text: November 7 – Colorado women are granted the right to vote.


date: December 5

text: December 5 – Plural voting is abolished in New South Wales.

source_section: Events › December


text: By 1893 – 8,000 Chinese have arrived in Cuba.


section: Conflict & Security

text: January 13 – U.S. Marines from the USS Boston land in Honolulu, Hawaii, to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii: Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety in Hawaii, with the intervention of the United States Marine Corps, overthrow the government of Queen Liliuokalani.


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Liberal general and politician José Santos Zelaya leads a successful revolt in Nicaragua.


text: July 13 – Paknam Incident: Two French Navy ships are fired upon by Siamese cannons stationed at the Paknam Fort, that guards the Chao Phraya River. Three months later, Siam is forced to cede modern-day Laos to France.


date: August 15

text: August 15 – The Ibadan area becomes a British protectorate, after a treaty signed by Fijabi, the Baale of Ibadan, with the British acting Governor of Lagos, George C. Denton.

source_section: Events › August


date: October 23

text: October 23 – The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) is founded in the town of Thessaloniki. Its aim is to liberate the region of Macedonia from the Ottoman Turks.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – First Matabele War: Battle of Bembezi, British South Africa Company defeats an assault by the Matabele.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – First Matabele War: The Shangani Patrol of British South Africa Company soldiers is ambushed and annihilated, by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors.


date: September 16

section: Exploration & Expansion

text: September 16 – Settlers make a land run for prime land in the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma.


date: November 12

text: November 12 – The Durand Line is established as the boundary between British India and Afghanistan, by a memorandum of understanding signed by Sir Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of British India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress; the charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.


date: April 1

text: April 1 – The rank of Chief Petty Officer is established in the United States Navy.

source_section: Events › April


date: April 6

text: April 6 – The iconic Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dedicated, after 40 years of construction.


date: May

text: May – The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is formed.

source_section: Events › May


text: September 19 – Swami Vivekananda delivers an inspiring paper at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.


date: September 23

text: September 23 – The Baháʼí Faith is first publicly mentioned in the United States, at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.


date: September 27

text: September 27 – The World Parliament of Religions holds its closing meeting in Chicago.


text: The Girls' Brigade is founded in Dublin, Ireland, origin of the international Christian youth organisation.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


text: TMI Episcopal is founded in San Antonio as "The West Texas School for Boys", quickly changed to "West Texas Military Academy", by Bishop James S. Johnston.


date: May 5

text: May 5 – Panic of 1893: A crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.


date: December 20

text: December 20 – Evergreen Park, Illinois, is incorporated.


date: January 2

text: January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.


date: January 15

text: January 15 – The Telefon Hírmondó service starts with around 60 subscribers, in Budapest.


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine.

source_section: Events › February


date: March 6

text: March 6 – The Liverpool Overhead Railway opens with 2-car electric multiple units, the first to operate in the world.

source_section: Events › March


date: June 20

text: June 20 – The Wengernalpbahn railway in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.

source_section: Events › June


date: August 6

text: 6 August – The Corinth Canal is completed in Greece.


date: August 14

text: August 14 – The world's first driving licenses are introduced in France under the Paris Police Ordinance.


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America, on public roads in Springfield, Massachusetts.


date: October 10

text: October 10 – The first car number plates appear in Paris, France.


date: December

text: Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson begins serialization in The Century Magazine (U.S.)


text: The first recumbent bicycle, the Fautenil Vélociped, is made in France.


text: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, is incorporated as a town.


date: February 28

text: February 28 – USS Indiana, the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to other nation's battleships of the time, is launched.


date: May 9

text: May 9 – Edison's 1½ inch system of Kinetoscope is first demonstrated in public, at the Brooklyn Institute.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland is operated on in secret.


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Kōkichi Mikimoto, in Japan, develops the method to seed and grow cultured pearls.


text: Carl Anton Larsen becomes the first man to ski in Antarctica.


text: German physicist Wilhelm Wien formulates Wien's displacement law.


text: American pharmacist Caleb Bradham invents the recipe for what later becomes Pepsi. He originally sells it as 'Brad's Drink' at his pharmacy in New Bern, North Carolina.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – In Belgium, Adam Worth is sentenced to 7 years for robbery (he is released in 1897).


date: June 17

text: June 17 – Gold is found in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.


text: June 20 – Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the axe murder of her parents in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – American sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill copyright their book Song Stories for the Kindergarten including "Good Morning to All". The melody, by Mildred Hill, is later adapted, without authorization, by Robert H. Coleman as "Good Morning to You!", with the second stanza containing the words to "Happy Birthday to You", leading to a successful copyright lawsuit by the Hill sisters in 1934.


date: February 11

text: February 11–19 – White Star Line cargo liner sinks without a trace in heavy seas on the Liverpool–New York transatlantic passage.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – The flagship of the British Mediterranean Fleet collides with and sinks in 10 minutes; Vice-admiral Sir George Tryon goes down with his ship.


date: September 7

text: September 7 – Russian monitor Rusalka sinks in a storm in the Gulf of Finland, with the loss of all 177 crew; her hulk is eventually discovered in 2003 off Helsinki.


date: January 21

text: January 21 – The Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of Matabeleland, is formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate (modern-day Botswana).


date: June 6

text: June 6 – The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa, is nearly destroyed by a tornado; 71 people are killed and 200 injured.


date: August 27

text: August 27 – The Sea Islands hurricane hits Savannah, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, and the Sea Islands, killing 1,000–2,000.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – A devastating levee collapse, flash flood and landslide hit and damage around Kyushu Island, Shikoku Island and western Honshū in Japan, due to a strong typhoon wind; an official document reports that 2,044 people perish.


date: October 30

text: October 30 – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, closes.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Thomas Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – The American University is established by an Act of Congress, in Washington, D.C.


date: April 8

text: April 8 – The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, between the Geneva College Covenanters and the New Brighton YMCA.


date: April 17

text: April 17 – Belgian general strike of 1893: Riots erupt in Mons; the day after, the Belgian Parliament approves universal male suffrage.


text: April 17 – The Alpha Xi Delta Sorority is founded at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, Illinois. The first United States commemorative postage stamps are issued for the event.


date: May 23

text: May 23 – Gandhi arrives in South Africa, where he will live until 1914, lead non-violent protests on behalf of Indian immigrants in the South African Republic (Transvaal), and develop a deeper experience of such activities.


date: June 4

text: June 4 – The Anti-Saloon League is incorporated, originally as a state organization, in Oberlin, Ohio. On December 18, 1895, it becomes a nationwide organization. The same year, the American Council on Alcohol Problems is established, along with the Committee of Fifty for the Study of the Liquor Problem.


text: June 6 – Wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck: the future King George V of the United Kingdom marries at St James's Palace in London.


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Unveiling of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain at Piccadilly Circus in London with its statue of Anteros.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Scottish Association football club Dundee F.C. is formed.


text: September 7 – Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club, the oldest Italian Association football club, is formed.


date: September 11

text: September 11 – The World Parliament of Religions opens as an adjunct to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; Bengali Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda receives a standing ovation for his address in response to his welcoming.


date: September 12

text: September 12 – American Temperance University begins classes in Harriman, Tennessee (it closes after 15 years, in May 1908).


date: September 28

text: September 28 – The Portuguese sports club Futebol Clube do Porto is founded.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – The first students enter St Hilda's College, Oxford, England, founded for women by Dorothea Beale.


date: October 28

text: October 28 (October 16 O.S.) – In Saint Petersburg (Russia), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducts the first performance of his Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Pathétique, nine days before his death.


date: November 15

text: November 15 – FC Basel Association football club is founded in Switzerland.

source_section: Events › November


date: November 16

text: November 16 – Athletic club Královské Vinohrady, later Sparta Prague, is founded.


date: December 16

text: December 16 – Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 (From the New World) receives its premiere at Carnegie Hall, New York City, conducted by the composer, to immediate acclaim.


text: Booker T. Washington High School (Houston) is founded as "Colored High", the first African-American high school in Houston, Texas.


text: A 16th century Ardabil Carpet from Persia enters the collection of the South Kensington Museum in London.


date: January 27

text: January 27 – Soong Ching-ling, one of the Soong sisters, wife of Chinese president Sun Yat-sen (d. 1981)

source_section: Births › January–March


date: April 11

text: April 11 – Dean Acheson, 51st United States Secretary of State (d. 1971)

source_section: Births › April–June


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Allen Dulles, American Central Intelligence Agency director (d. 1969)


date: April 29

text: April 29 – Harold Urey, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)


date: June 10

text: June 10 – Hattie McDaniel, actress, first African-American woman to win an Academy Award (d. 1952)


date: June 13

text: June 13 – Dorothy L. Sayers, British crime writer, poet, playwright and essayist (d. 1957)


date: June 24

text: June 24 – Roy O. Disney, brother, business partner of Walter Elias Disney (d. 1971)


date: August 17

text: August 17 – Mae West, American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol (d. 1980)

source_section: Births › July–September


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Huey Long, Louisiana governor and senator (assassinated 1935)


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Claire Lee Chennault, American aviator, general and leader of the Flying Tigers (d. 1958)


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Kurt Huber, German university professor, member of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany (d. 1943)

source_section: Births › October–December


date: November 22

text: November 22 – Lazar Kaganovich, Soviet politician, Great Purge perpetrator (d. 1991)


date: December 26

text: December 26 – Mao Zedong, Chinese communist leader, founder of the People’s Republic of China (d. 1976)


date: January 11

text: January 11 – Benjamin Butler, American lawyer, politician, and general (b. 1818)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (b. 1822)


date: January 23

text: January 23 – Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, U.S. Supreme Court justice (b. 1825)


date: January 27

text: January 27 – James G. Blaine, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator, and U.S. Secretary of State (b. 1830)


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Serranus Clinton Hastings, American politician (b. 1814)


date: February 20

text: February 20 – P. G. T. Beauregard, American Confederate general (b. 1818)


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Bandō Kakitsu I, Japanese kabuki actor (b. 1847)


date: April 22

text: April 22 – Edward Fitzgerald Beale, American adventurer, businessman (b. 1822)


date: June 22

text: June 22 – Sir George Tryon, British admiral (b. 1832)


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta, French general, politician, and 1st president of the Third Republic (1875-1879) (b. 1808)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Charles Gounod, French composer (b. 1818)


date: October 30

text: October 30 – Sir John Abbott, 3rd Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1821)


date: November 17

text: November 17 – Alexander of Battenberg, first prince of Bulgaria (b. 1857)


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Final Problem", published in the December dated issue of The Strand Magazine and serialized in Sunday newspapers worldwide, surprises the reading public by revealing that his popular character Sherlock Holmes had apparently died at the Reichenbach Falls on May 4, 1891.


date: January 4

text: January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire.

source_section: Events › January


date: March 2

text: March 2 – William Gladstone resigns as British Prime Minister.


date: March 5

text: March 5 – The Local Government Act (coming into effect December 1894–January 1895) reforms local government in Britain, creating a system of urban and rural districts with elected councils, with elected civil parish councils in rural areas, and gives women, irrespective of marital status, the right to vote and stand in local (but not national) elections.


text: June 22 – Dahomey becomes a French colony.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole.

source_section: Events › July


date: July 16

text: July 16 – The United Kingdom and Japan sign the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, as the U.K. becomes the first of the Western nations to agree to give up its extraterritorial rights in Japan.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Petrópolis becomes the capital of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, until 1902.

source_section: Events › October


date: December 18

text: December 18 – Women in South Australia become the first in Australia to gain the right to vote and the first in the world with the right to be elected to Parliament, taking effect from 1895, after decades of activism.

source_section: Events › December


date: December 21

text: December 21 – Mackenzie Bowell becomes Canada's fifth prime minister.


date: February 12

text: February 12 – Ère des attentats: Café Terminus attack – In one of the first acts of modern terrorism, French anarchist Émile Henry throws a bomb into the Café Terminus in Paris, France, killing one person and injuring at least seventeen.


date: May

text: May Day riots break out in Cleveland, Ohio.


date: June 18

text: June 18 – Britain establishes a protectorate over Uganda.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – Sadi Carnot, president of France, is assassinated in Lyon.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – War is declared between the Qing Empire of China and the Empire of Japan over their rival claims of influence on their common ally, the Joseon dynasty of Korea. The event marks the start of the First Sino-Japanese War.

source_section: Events › August


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio is executed by guillotine for the assassination of French President Carnot in Lyon.


date: November 3

text: November 3 – Waziristan campaign (1894–1895): Battle of Wana Camp – British colonial forces stationed in Wana would come under attack by rebel Mahsud tribesmen. The battle began a campaign of offensive actions against the Mahsud tribes in Waziristan to reduce their strength.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – First Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lushunkou – Japanese troops secure a decisive victory over the Chinese, capture the port city of Lüshunkou, and begin the Port Arthur massacre, in which more than 1,000 Chinese servicemen and civilians die.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – The Masonic Grande Loge de France is founded, splitting from the larger and older Grand Orient de France.


date: August 31

text: August 31 – New Zealand enacts the world's first minimum wage law, to take effect on January 1, in the passage of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1894.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United States.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts.


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.


date: May 14

text: May 14 – Blackpool Tower is opened in Blackpool, in north-west England, as a visitor attraction.

source_section: Events › May


date: May 21

text: May 21 – The Manchester Ship Canal and Docks are officially opened by Queen Victoria, linking the previously landlocked industrial city of Manchester, in north-west England, to the Irish Sea.


date: June 30

text: June 30 – Tower Bridge in London opens for traffic.


date: July 22

text: July 22 – The Paris–Rouen Competition for Horseless Carriages, the first automobile competition, is held.


date: October 30

text: October 30 – Domenico Menegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.


date: March 21

text: March 21 – A syzygy of planets occurs, as Mercury transits the Sun as seen from Venus, and Mercury and Venus both transit the Sun as seen from Saturn, but no two of the transits are simultaneous.


text: Oil is discovered on the Osage Indian reservation, making the Osage the "richest group of people in the world".

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: May

text: May – Third plague pandemic: Bubonic plague breaks out in the Tai Ping Shan area of Hong Kong (by the end of the year, the death toll is 2,552 people); it also breaks out this year in Canton.


date: September 1

text: September 1 – Great Hinckley Fire: A forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, kills more than 450 people.

source_section: Events › September


text: Coxey's Army arrives in Washington; Coxey is arrested on the Capitol grounds.


date: October 15

text: October 15 – Dreyfus affair: French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying.


date: December 22

text: December 22 – Dreyfus affair: French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason. It will be 12 years before his innocence is officially recognised.


text: Spillers Records is founded in Cardiff (Wales), the world's oldest record shop still in operation.


date: April 21

text: April 21 – A bituminous coal miners' strike closes mines across the central United States.

source_section: Events › April


date: May 11

text: May 11 – Pullman Strike: Three thousand Pullman Palace Car Company factory workers go on a "wildcat" (without union approval) strike in Illinois.


date: July 6

text: July 6 – A fire at the site of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago destroys most of the remaining buildings.


date: September 26

text: September 26 – The and the schooner barge Ironton collide and sink in Lake Huron. While the crew of the Ohio is rescued, five of the other craft's seven-member crew, including the captain, are lost.


date: November 8

text: November 8 – The Italian cargo steamship Etnea struck the rocks of the islet of Školjić west of Unije and sank.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – In Korea, peasant unrest erupts in the Donghak Peasant Revolution, a massive revolt by followers of the Donghak movement. Both China and Japan send military forces, claiming to come to the ruling Joseon dynasty government's aid.

source_section: Events › February


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Canada's largest known landslide occurs in Saint-Alban, Quebec, displacing 185 e6m3 of rock and dirt, and leaving a 40 m scar that covers 4.6 e6m2 .


date: November 6

text: November 6 – Republicans win by a landslide in the United States House of Representatives elections, which sets the stage for the decisive presidential election of 1896.

source_section: Events › November


date: March 25

text: March 25 – Coxey's Army (of the unemployed), the first significant protest march in the United States, departs from Massillon, Ohio, for Washington, D.C.

source_section: Events › March


date: April 16

text: April 16 – Manchester City Football Club is formed in north-west England under this name.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – In protests by the unemployed in the United States:


date: June 23

text: June 23 – The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne, Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

source_section: Events › June


date: July 4

text: July 4 – The football club FC La Chaux-de-Fonds is founded in Switzerland.


date: September 4

text: September 4 – In New York City, 12,000 tailors strike against sweatshop working conditions.


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Richard Strauss marries Pauline De Ahna.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Emperor Alexander III of Russia is succeeded by his son, Nicholas II.


text: November 1 – The first issue of Billboard magazine is published in Cincinnati, Ohio by William Donaldson and James Hennegan. Initially, it covers the advertising and bill posting industry, and is at the time known as Billboard Advertising.


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Wedding of Nicholas II of Russia and Alix of Hesse in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace at Saint Petersburg.


date: December 6

text: December 6 – Kate Chopin's feminist short story "The Story of an Hour" is first published, in the American magazine Vogue.


text: The Society of Beaux-Arts Architects is founded in the United States.


text: Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern publish the waltz The Little Lost Child in the United States, promoting the playing of the waltz with slides projected by a magic lantern, the earliest version of music video known as the illustrated song.


text: The Liga Femeilor Române, the first women's organisation in Romania, is founded.


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Maximilian Kolbe, Polish friar and martyr (k. 1941 in Auschwitz concentration camp)

source_section: Births › January–February


date: February 1

text: February 1 – John Ford, American film director (d. 1973)


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1986)


date: April 10

text: April 10 – Archibald Roosevelt, American conservative political activist, son of President Theodore Roosevelt (d. 1979)

source_section: Births › March–April


date: May 27

text: May 27 – Dashiell Hammett, American detective fiction writer (d. 1961)

source_section: Births › May–June


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Josef von Sternberg, Austrian-American film director (d. 1969)


date: July 8

text: July 8 – Pyotr Kapitsa, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)

source_section: Births › July–August


date: July 19

text: July 19 – Khawaja Nazimuddin, 2nd Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1964)


date: July 20

text: July 20 – Wiley Rutledge, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1949)


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Benjamin Mays, American Baptist minister and civil rights leader (d. 1984)


date: August 10

text: August 10 – V. V. Giri, Indian politician, 4th President of India (d. 1980)


date: October 7

text: October 7 – Herman Dooyeweerd, Dutch philosopher and professor of law (d. 1977)

source_section: Births › September–October


date: October 25

text: October 25 – Âşık Veysel, Turkish poet, songwriter and saz player (d. 1973)


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Philip Drinker, American hygienist and inventor of the iron lung (d. 1972)

source_section: Births › November–December


date: January 13

text: January 13 – Nadezhda von Meck, Russian patron of Peter Tchaikovsky (b. 1831)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: February 15

text: February 15 – French anarchist Martial Bourdin dies of an accidental detonation of his own bomb, next to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in London, England.


date: February 21

text: February 21 – Gustave Caillebotte, French painter (b. 1848)


date: February 27

text: February 27 – Hilarión Daza, President of Bolivia (assassinated) (b. 1840)


date: March 2

text: March 2 – Jubal Early, American Confederate general (b. 1816)


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna of Russia, granddaughter of Tsar Paul I (b. 1827)


date: July 30

text: July 30 – Walter Pater, English essayist, critic (b. 1839)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: September 1

text: September 1 – Nathaniel P. Banks, American politician, general (b. 1816)


date: September 8

text: September 8 – Hermann von Helmholtz, German physician, physicist (b. 1821)


text: October 7 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., American author (b. 1809)


date: October 10

text: October 10 – William Robinson (Canadian architect), Canadian architect and land surveyor (b. 1812)


date: November 25

text: November 25 – Solomon Caesar Malan, Swiss-born orientalist (b. 1812)


date: November 29

text: November 29 – Juan N. Méndez, interim President of Mexico from 1876 to 1877. (b. 1820)


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Sir John Thompson, 4th Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1845)


date: January 24

text: January 24 – An effort to restore the Hawaiian monarchy ends as the former Queen Liliʻuokalani abdicates and pledges allegiance to the Republic of Hawaii.

source_section: Events › January


date: February 20

text: February 20 – Venezuelan crisis of 1895: U.S. President Grover Cleveland signs into law a bill resulting from the proposition of House Resolution 252, by William Lindsay Scruggs and Congressman Leonidas Livingston, to the third session of the 53rd Congress of the United States of America. The bill recommends that Venezuela and Great Britain settle their dispute by arbitration.


date: April 17

text: April 17 – The Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed between China and Japan. This marks the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, and the defeated Qing Empire is forced to renounce its claims on Korea, and to concede the southern portion of Fengtian province, Taiwan and the Penghu to Japan. The huge indemnity exacted from China is used to establish the Yawata Iron and Steel Works in Japan.


date: April 22

text: April 22 – Gongche Shangshu movement: 603 candidates sign a 10,000-word petition against the Treaty of Shimonoseki.


date: May 2

text: May 2 – Gongche Shangshu movement: Thousands of Beijing scholars and citizens protest against the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

source_section: Events › May


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Anti-Japanese officials, led by Tang Jingsong in Taiwan, declare independence from the Qing dynasty, forming the short-lived Republic of Formosa.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – In re Debs: The Supreme Court of the United States decides that the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, legalizing the military suppression of the Pullman Strike.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – Britain annexes Tongaland, between Zululand and Mozambique.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – The Treaty of Amapala establishes the union of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador (which ends in 1898).


date: June 28

text: June 28 – The United States Court of Private Land Claims rules that James Reavis's claim to the Barony of Arizona is "wholly fictitious and fraudulent".


date: January 6

text: January 6 – The Wilcox rebellion, an attempt led by Robert Wilcox to overthrow the Republic of Hawaii and restore the Kingdom of Hawaii, begins with royalist troops landing at Waikiki Beach in O'ahu and clashing with republican defenders. The rebellion ends after three days and the remaining 190 royalists are taken prisoners of war.


date: January 13

text: January 13 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Coatit – Italian forces defeat the Ethiopians.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – The first rebellions of the Cuban War of Independence break out.


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Japanese troops capture Liaoyang and land in Taiwan.


date: July 10

text: July 10–11 – The Doukhobors' pacifist protests culminate in the "burning of the arms" in the South Caucasus.

source_section: Events › July


date: August 29

text: August 29 – The Mat Salleh Rebellion in North Borneo is incited.

source_section: Events › August


date: October 1

text: October 1 – French troops capture Antananarivo, Madagascar.

source_section: Events › October


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Queen Min, queen consort of Joseon (Korea), is assassinated at her private residence within Gyeongbokgung Palace by Japanese agents.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – The city of Tainan, last stronghold of the Republic of Formosa, capitulates to the forces of the Empire of Japan, ending the short-lived republic, and beginning the era of Taiwan under Japanese rule.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – A corps of 2,350 Italian troops, mostly Askari, are crushed by 30,000 Abyssinian troops at Amba Alagi.

source_section: Events › December


date: December

text: Ottoman troops burn 3,000 Armenians alive in Urfa.


text: The Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War begins.


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Nansen's Fram expedition to the Arctic reaches 86°13.6'N, almost 3° beyond the previous Farthest North attained.

source_section: Events › April


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Heian Shrine is completed in Kyoto, Japan.

source_section: Events › March


date: January 21

text: January 21 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in United States v. E. C. Knight Co. that Congress and the U.S. federal government cannot regulate manufacturing, and dismisses an antitrust lawsuit against American Sugar Refining Company, which controls 98 percent of sugar refining in the United States.


date: February 20

text: February 20 – The gold reserve of the U.S. Treasury is saved when J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds loan $65 million worth of gold to the United States government. The offering of syndicate bonds sells out only 22 minutes after the New York market opens, and just two hours after going on sale in London.

source_section: Events › February


date: July 31

text: July 31 – The Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) is founded by Sabino Arana.


text: The Swarovski Company is founded by Armand Kosman, Franz Weis and Daniel Swarovski in the Austrian Tyrol, for the production of crystal glass.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


text: The Raiffeisen model of Cooperative Credit and Saving Bank, predecessor of Rabobank, a worldwide multiple financial service provider, is founded in the Netherlands.


date: March 18

text: March 18 – The world's first gasoline bus route is started in Germany, between Siegen and Netphen.


date: March 22

text: March 22 – Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière make what is probably the first presentation of a projected celluloid film moving picture, the 46-second Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, to members of the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale in Paris.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine in Germany.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – The unique, historic and picturesque Spiral Bridge is constructed to carry U.S. 61 over the Mississippi River at Hastings, Minnesota. It is demolished in 1951.


date: May 18

text: May 18 – The first motor race in Italy is held, on a course from Turin to Asti and back, a total of 93 km mi. Five entrants start the event; only three complete it. It is won by Simone Federman in a four-seat Daimler Omnibus, at an average speed of 15.5 km/h mph.


date: June 21

text: June 21 – The Kiel Canal, connecting the North Sea to the Baltic across the base of the Jutland peninsula in Germany, is officially opened.

source_section: Events › June


date: September 3

text: September 3 – The first professional American football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club (Latrobe wins 12–0).

source_section: Events › September


date: September 24

text: September 24–October 3 – the Automobile Club de France sponsors the longest race to date, a 1710 km mi event, from Bordeaux to Agen and back. Because it is held in ten stages, it can be considered the first rally. The first three places are taken by two Panhards and a three-wheeler De Dion-Bouton.


date: November 5

text: November 5 – George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.

source_section: Events › November


date: December 15

text: December 15 – The railways of the Cape of Good Hope, Colony of Natal, the Orange Free State, the South African Republic and southern Mozambique are all linked at Union Junction near Alberton.


date: December 18

text: December 18 – The Laurin & Klement automobile brand, predecessor of Škoda Auto, is founded as a bicycle manufacturer in central Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic).


text: The world's first portable handheld electric drill is developed, by brothers Wilhelm and Carl Fein in Germany.


text: The Duck Reach Power Station opens in Tasmania (the first publicly owned hydroelectric plant in the Southern Hemisphere).


text: The name 'HP Sauce' is first registered in the United Kingdom for a brown sauce.


date: October

text: October – Rudyard Kipling publishes the story "Mowgli Leaves the Jungle Forever" in The Cosmopolitan illustrated magazine in the United States, collected in The Second Jungle Book, published in England in November.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil present a short film at the Berlin Wintergarten theatre in Germany using the movie projector they have developed.


date: November 8

text: November 8 – Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the type of electromagnetic radiation later known as X-rays.


date: December 11

text: December 11 – Svante Arrhenius becomes the first scientist to deliver quantified data about the sensitivity of global climate to atmospheric carbon dioxide (the "Greenhouse effect"), as he presents his paper "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon The Temperature of the Ground" to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.


text: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposes a space elevator.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – Daniel David Palmer performs the first chiropractic spinal adjustment, on Harvey Lillard, whose complaint was partial deafness after an injury.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island (off French Guiana) on what is much later admitted to be a false charge of treason.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – In Munich, Germany, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Bridget Cleary is killed and her body burned in County Tipperary, Ireland, by her husband, Michael; he is subsequently convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter, his defence being a belief that he had killed a changeling left in his wife's place after she had been abducted by fairies.


date: April 6

text: April 6 – Oscar Wilde is arrested in London for "gross indecency", after losing a criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.


date: May 9

text: May 9 – Thirteen workers are killed by soldiers of the Russian Empire during the Yaroslavl Great Manufacture strike.


date: May 25

text: May 25 – R. v. Wilde: Oscar Wilde is convicted in London of "unlawfully committing acts of gross indecency with certain male persons" (under the Labouchere Amendment) and given a two years' sentence of hard labour, during which he will write De Profundis.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – The Paris–Bordeaux–Paris automobile trial is held.


date: August 19

text: August 19 – American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.


date: January 15

text: January 15 – A warehouse fire and dynamite explosion kills 57 people, including 13 firefighters in Butte, Montana in the U.S.


date: January 21

text: January 21 – The American steamer S.S. Chicora sinks in a storm on Lake Michigan, along with all 21 of its crew and a lone passenger.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – The sinking of the German ocean liner SS Elbe kills 334 people on board, 20 minutes after the ship had collided with the British steamer SS Crathie in the North Sea. Only two lifeboats are able to evacuate before the Elbe goes down, and the first lifeboat capsizes when too many passengers attempt to get onboard. A second lifeboat, with 15 members of the crew, four men and a woman, carries the only survivors.


date: December 24

text: December 24 – Kingstown lifeboat disaster: 15 crew are lost when their life-boat capsizes while trying to rescue the crew of the Palme off Kingstown (modern-day Dún Laoghaire), near Dublin, Ireland.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – A 6.8 magnitude earthquake strikes northeastern Iran near the town of Quchan and causes at least 1,000 deaths.


date: April 14

text: April 14 – A major earthquake severely damages Ljubljana, the capital of Carniola.


date: October 31

text: October 31 – 1895 Charleston earthquake: A major earthquake occurs near Charleston, Missouri, in the New Madrid Seismic Zone of the midwestern United States. As of 2014, the earthquake risk for the region is being closely monitored.


date: January 12

text: January 12 – Britain's National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.


date: June 5

text: June 5 – The Liberal Revolution begins in Ecuador, making the civil war more intense in the country.


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Archie MacLaren scores an English County Championship cricket record innings of 424 for Lancashire, against Somerset, at Taunton. This record lasts until 1994.


date: July

text: July – Oldham Athletic A.F.C. is founded in England.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – The Aljaž Tower, a symbol of the Slovenes, is erected on Mount Triglav.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – The first ever indoor promenade concert, origin of The Proms, is held at the Queen's Hall in London, opening a series conducted by Henry Wood.


date: August 29

text: August 29 – The Northern Rugby Football Union (the modern-day Rugby Football League) is formed at a meeting of 21 rugby clubs at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, in the north of England, leading to the creation of the professional sport of rugby league football.


date: September 7

text: September 7 – The first game of what will become known as rugby league football is played in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.


date: September

text: September – Shelbourne F.C. is founded in Dublin, Ireland.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – Peiyang University, predecessor of Tianjin University, is founded as an institution of higher education in Qing dynasty China.


date: October 10

text: October 10 – The London School of Economics holds its first classes in London, England.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – Flamengo, a well known professional football club in Brazil, is officially founded.


date: November 25

text: November 25 – Oscar Hammerstein opens the Olympia Theatre, the first theatre to be built in New York City's Times Square district.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death.


date: November 28

text: November 28 – Chicago Times-Herald race: The first American automobile race in history is sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald. Press coverage first arouses significant American interest in the automobile.


date: December 13

text: December 13 – The first complete performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 is given, with the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra conducted by the composer.


date: December 24

text: December 24 – George Washington Vanderbilt II officially opens his Biltmore Estate, inviting his family and guests to celebrate his new home in Asheville, North Carolina.


date: December 28

text: December 28 – Auguste and Louis Lumière make what is probably the first commercial public screening of projected moving picture films to a paying audience, at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris.


text: The first sample fair (Mustermesse) is held at Leipzig, Germany.


text: The first Boxer dog club is established in Germany.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – J. Edgar Hoover, American Federal Bureau of Investigation director (d. 1972)

source_section: Births › January


date: February 8

text: February 8 – Khorloogiin Choibalsan, Marshal of the Mongolian People's Republic, Prime Minister of the Mongolian People's Republic (d. 1952)

source_section: Births › February


date: March 3

text: March 3 – Matthew Ridgway, United States Army Chief of Staff, Commander of NATO (d. 1993)

source_section: Births › March


text: March 3 – Ragnar Frisch, Norwegian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)


date: March 28

text: March 28 – Spencer W. Kimball, 12th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1985)


date: March 29

text: March 29 – Ernst Jünger, German military hero, philosopher and entomologist (d. 1998)


date: May 6

text: May 6 – Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (d. 1926)

source_section: Births › May


date: May 11

text: May 11 – Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher, speaker and writer (d. 1986)


date: May 21

text: May 21 – Lázaro Cárdenas, 44th President of Mexico, 1934–1940 (d. 1970)


date: June 17

text: June 17 – Ruben Rausing, Swedish entrepreneur, founder of Tetra Pak (d. 1983)

source_section: Births › June


date: September 18

text: September 18 – John Diefenbaker, 13th Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1979)

source_section: Births › September


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Liaquat Ali Khan, 1st Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1951)

source_section: Births › October


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Wolfram von Richthofen, German field marshal (d. 1945)


date: November 17

text: November 17 – Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian philosopher, literary scholar (d. 1975)

source_section: Births › November


date: January 28

text: January 28 – François Certain de Canrobert, French general, Marshal of France (b. 1809)

source_section: Deaths › January–February


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen, Austrian general (b. 1817)


date: March 2

text: March 2 – Berthe Morisot, French painter (b. 1841)

source_section: Deaths › March–April


date: March 9

text: March 9 – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Austrian writer for whom the word masochism is named (b. 1836)


date: May 19

text: May 19 – José Martí, Cuban independence leader (b. 1853)

source_section: Deaths › May–June


date: June 4

text: June 4 – Abu Bakar of Johor, Malaysian sultan (b. 1833)


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Thomas Henry Huxley, English evolutionary biologist (b. 1825)


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Stefan Stambolov, 9th Prime Minister of Bulgaria (assassinated) (b. 1854)

source_section: Deaths › July–August


date: August 8

text: August 8 – Howell Edmunds Jackson, American Supreme Court Justice (b. 1832)


date: September 28

text: September 28 – Louis Pasteur, French microbiologist, chemist (b. 1822)

source_section: Deaths › September–October


date: October 3

text: October 3 – Harry Wright, English-born American baseball pioneer (b. 1835)


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Empress Myeongseong (Queen Min), last Korean empress (assassinated) (b. 1851)


date: October 27

text: October 27/28 – Adele Spitzeder, German actress, folk singer and confidence trickster (b. 1832)


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Ányos Jedlik, Hungarian physicist, inventor of the dynamo (b. 1800)

source_section: Deaths › November–December


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.

source_section: Events › January


date: May 13

text: May 13 – The Franchise Bill is passed by the Colony of Natal's Legislative Assembly, disfranchising natives of other countries.

source_section: Events › May


date: May 18

text: May 18 – Plessy v. Ferguson: The U.S. Supreme Court introduces the separate but equal doctrine, and upholds racial segregation.


date: June 23

text: June 23 – Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier defeats Charles Tupper during Canadian federal elections for the 8th Canadian Parliament, to become the first Francophone Prime Minister of Canada.

source_section: Events › June


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Wilfrid Laurier becomes Canada's seventh prime minister, and the first French-speaker to hold that office.

source_section: Events › July


date: August 27

text: August 27 – Britain establishes a Protectorate over the Ashanti people concluding the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War.

source_section: Events › August


date: September 30

text: September 30 – Italy and France sign a treaty whereby Italy virtually recognizes Tunisia as a French dependency.

source_section: Events › September


date: November 3

text: November 3 – 1896 United States presidential election: Republican William McKinley defeats William Jennings Bryan. The event is viewed by some as a political realignment for the United States Republican Party.

source_section: Events › November


text: France establishes an administrative post in Abengourou, Ivory Coast.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: January 2

text: January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end as Jameson surrenders to the Boers.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Cecil Rhodes is forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope for his involvement in the Jameson Raid.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War: British redcoats enter the Ashanti capital, Kumasi, and Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I is deposed.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Battle of Adwa: Ethiopia defends its independence from Italy, ending the First Italo-Ethiopian War.

source_section: Events › March


date: May 30

text: May 30 – Khodynka Tragedy: a crowd crush at Khodynka Field in Moscow kills at least 1,200 of those marking the coronation year of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.


date: June 7

text: June 7 – Mahdist War: Battle of Ferkeh – British and Egyptian troops are victorious.


date: August 23

text: August 23 – The Cry of Pugad Lawin initiates the Philippine Revolution.


text: August 27 – The shortest war in recorded history, the Anglo-Zanzibar War, starts at 9:00 in the morning, and lasts for 45 minutes of shelling.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – A causeway is opened between the islands of Saaremaa and Muhu in Estonia.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Keish (often called Skookum Jim Mason), George Carmack, and Dawson Charlie discover gold in the Klondike, Yukon.


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Archaeologist Alois Anton Führer, Nepalese General Khadga Samsher Rana and an expedition rediscover the great stone pillar of Ashoka at Lumbini, traditionally the spot of the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, after using Faxian's records.

source_section: Events › December


date: March 29

text: March 29 – The Royal College of St Patrick, Maynooth in Ireland is granted the status of pontifical university by charter of the Holy See.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – Coronation of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna in the Dormition Cathedral, Moscow; this will be the last coronation of the Russian monarch. The Qing dynasty is represented at the coronation by Chinese official Li Hongzhang who through September goes on to visit Germany, Britain, Canada and the United States.


date: July 21

text: July 21 – In Washington, D.C., in response to a "call to confer" issued by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin to all women of color, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs is organized.


text: Pope Leo XIII is filmed, making him the first ever Pope to be filmed and the earliest-born person to be captured on film. (Note: to view the event in the video above, go to timestamp 3:07)


date: March 9

text: March 9 – Responding to national outrage at the defeat at Adwa, Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns.


text: May 26 – Eleven years after its foundation, a group of 12 purely industrial stocks are chosen to form the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the U.S. The index is composed entirely of industrial shares for the first time.


date: July 26

text: July 26 – The International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress opens in London.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – The Park Seung-jik shop, predecessor of South Korean conglomerate Doosan Group, is founded in Joseon (the kingdom of Korea).


date: September 28

text: September 28 – Pathé Frères, a French film company and one of the oldest film companies, is founded by the brothers Charles Pathé, Théophile Pathé, Émile Pathé and Jacques Pathé.


date: November 21

text: November 21 - The Hamburg dockworkers' strike of 1896-97 is considered one of the largest labour disputes in the German Empire.


date: June 4

text: June 4 – The Ford Quadricycle, the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford, is completed, eventually leading Ford to build the empire that "put America on wheels".


date: June 18

text: June 18 – The New York Telephone Company is formed, succeeding the Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company, to control telephone service within New York City.


date: August 14

text: August 14 – The Uganda Railway Act, 1896, is approved in the United Kingdom, for construction of a railway in Africa from Mombasa to Lake Victoria.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Gottlieb Daimler builds the first gasoline truck.

source_section: Events › October


date: December 14

text: December 14 – The Glasgow Subway, the third-oldest underground metro system in the world, opens.


text: A school of mines opens in Kimberley and will form the core of the University of the Witwatersrand.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery, last November, of a type of electromagnetic radiation, later known as X-rays.


date: January 12

text: January 12 – H. L. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph.


date: April

text: April – Svante Arrhenius first publishes the "greenhouse law", becoming the first person to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes are large enough to cause global warming through the greenhouse effect.

source_section: Events › April


date: August

text: August – The 1896 Eastern North America heat wave kills 1,500 people from Chicago, Illinois to Boston, Massachusetts.


text: The pharmaceutical and healthcare company Hoffmann-La Roche in Switzerland comes wholly under the control of Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche.


date: January 28

text: January 28 – Walter Arnold, of East Peckham, Kent, England, is fined 1 shilling for speeding at 8 mph km/h, exceeding the contemporary urban speed limit of 2 mph km/h, the first speeding fine.


date: September 15

text: September 15 – The Crash at Crush train wreck stunt is held in Texas.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – "St. Augustine Monster": A large carcass, later postulated to be the remains of a gigantic octopus, is found washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida.


date: December 30

text: December 30 – José Rizal, Filipino scholar and poet, is executed by Spanish authorities in the Philippines.


date: February 19

text: February 19 – Braamfontein Explosion: A train carrying 56 tons of dynamite explodes at Braamfontein, Johannesburg, killing more than 78 people.

source_section: Events › February


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Twin Shaft disaster: An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.


date: July 30

text: July 30 – Atlantic City rail crash: Shortly after 6:30 pm, at a crossing just west of Atlantic City, New Jersey, two trains collide, crushing five loaded passenger coaches, killing 50 and seriously injuring approximately sixty.


date: August 17

text: August 17 – Bridget Driscoll is run over by a Benz car on the grounds of The Crystal Palace, London, the world's first motoring fatality.


date: October 4

text: October 4 – A locomotive in Bulawayo explodes and kills ten prisoners.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado: The costliest and third deadliest tornado in U.S. history levels a mile wide swath of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, incurring US$2.9 billion (1997 USD) in normalized damages, killing more than 255 and injuring over 1,000 people.


date: June 12

text: June 12 – J. T. Hearne sets a record for the earliest date of taking 100 wickets in cricket, in England (it is equalled by Charlie Parker in 1931).


date: June 15

text: June 15 – The 8.5 Sanriku earthquake and tsunami kills 22,000 in northeastern Japan.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – American culinary expert Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook.


date: January 16

text: January 16 – Devonport High School for Boys is founded in Plymouth (England).


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème premieres in Turin, Italy.


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Oscar Wilde's play Salomé (1891) has its stage premiere (while Wilde is in prison) in its original French in Paris.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – Publication begins for Der Eigene, the world's first magazine with an orientation to male homosexuality, by Adolf Brand in Berlin.


date: March 19

text: March 19 – Dvořák's Cello Concerto premieres, in London.


date: April 4

text: April 4 – The first known women's basketball game between two colleges is played between Stanford and California.


date: April 6

text: April 6 – The opening ceremonies of the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first modern Olympic Games, are held in Athens, Greece.


date: April 9

text: April 9 – The National Farm School (later Delaware Valley College) is chartered in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Blackpool Pleasure Beach, a popular English theme park ("Britain's Biggest Tourist Attraction"), is founded by Alderman William George Bean.


date: May 8

text: May 8 – Cricket: Against Warwickshire, Yorkshire sets a still-standing County Championship record in England, when they accumulate an innings total of 887.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech at the Democratic National Convention, which nominates him for president of the United States.


date: September 2

text: September 2 – Clarkson University holds its first classes, with 17 students attending in Potsdam, New York.


date: September 22

text: September 22 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest-reigning monarch in British history up to this time.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – The Victorian Football League is established as Australian rules football in Australia (a predecessor of the Australian Football League).


date: October 30

text: October 30 – The Augusta High School cornerstone is laid in Augusta, Kentucky, marking the end of the Augusta Methodist College.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – Richard Strauss's orchestral tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra is first performed, in Frankfurt, conducted by the composer.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – Udinese Calcio Association football club is founded in Udine, Italy.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – The premiere of Alfred Jarry's absurdist play Ubu Roi in Paris causes a near-riot.


date: December 25

text: December 25 – John Philip Sousa composes The Stars and Stripes Forever which will become the national march of the United States.


text: Racing Club de Lyon, a football club in France, is officially founded and becomes a predecessor of Olympique Lyonnais.


date: May 2

text: May 2 – Helen of Greece and Denmark, Queen Mother of Romania (d. 1982)

source_section: Births › May–June


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Albert Ball, British World War I fighter ace, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1917)

source_section: Births › July–August


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Gerty Cori, Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1957)


date: August 17

text: August 17 – Leslie Groves, United States Army general, director of the Manhattan Project (d. 1970)


date: September 1

text: September 1 – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Indian religious leader, founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (d. 1977)

source_section: Births › September–October


date: October 12

text: October 12 – Eugenio Montale, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)


date: October 22

text: October 22 – Earle Clements, American politician, governor of Kentucky (d. 1985)


date: November 4

text: November 4 – Carlos P. Garcia, 8th President of the Philippines (d. 1971)

source_section: Births › November–December


date: November 14

text: November 14 – Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States (d. 1979)


date: November 16

text: November 16 – Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (d. 1980)


date: November 25

text: November 25 – Albertus Soegijapranata, Indonesian Jesuit priest (d. 1963)


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Georgi Zhukov, Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union (d. 1974)


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Jimmy Doolittle, American aviation pioneer, World War II United States Army Air Forces general (d. 1993)


date: December 16

text: December 16 – Anna Anderson, pretender to the Russian throne (d. 1984)


date: January 20

text: January 20 – Prince Henry of Battenberg, Lombardy-born British royal, married to Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (b. 1858)

source_section: Deaths › January–March


date: January 26

text: January 26 – James Edwin Campbell, American educator, school administrator, newspaper editor, poet, and essayist (b. 1867)


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Sir Henry Parkes, Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales (b. 1815)

source_section: Deaths › April–June


date: April 30

text: April 30 – Hamilton Disston, American industrialist and land developer (b. 1844)


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia, King of Herat (b. 1831)


date: May 20

text: May 20 – Clara Schumann, German composer, pianist (b. 1819)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author (b. 1811)

source_section: Deaths › July–September


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer, journalist (b. 1850)


date: August 13

text: August 13 – Sir John Everett Millais, British Pre-Raphaelite painter (b. 1829)


date: October 3

text: October 3 – William Morris, English designer, poet and political activist (b. 1834)

source_section: Deaths › October–December


date: October 6

text: October 6 – Sir James Abbott, British army officer and colonial administrator in India (b. 1807)


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Columbus Delano, American statesman (b. 1809)


date: November 22

text: November 22 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., American inventor of the Ferris wheel (b. 1859)


date: December 30

text: December 30 – José Rizal, national hero of the Philippines (b. 1861)


date: February 16

text: February 16 – The French conquer the island of Raiatea and capture the rebel chief Teraupo'o, ending the Leeward Islands War and bringing all of the Society Islands under their control.


date: February 27

text: February 27 – The French military governor of Madagascar, Joseph Gallieni, exiles Queen Ranavalona III to Réunion, abolishing the monarchy the next day.


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Representatives of the Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation and U.S. Dawes Commission sign the Atoka Agreement, which becomes an important precursor for creating the State of Oklahoma.


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Oscar Wilde is released from prison in England, and goes into voluntary exile on the continent.

source_section: Events › May


date: July 17

text: July 17 – The Klondike Gold Rush begins when the first successful prospectors arrive in Seattle

source_section: Events › July


date: September 20

text: September 20 – Greece and Turkey sign a peace treaty to end the Greco-Turkish War.

source_section: Events › September


date: October 12

text: October 12 – The city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil is created. The construction of the second Brazilian planned city is completed successfully; an immigration of 1,000,000 people is estimated.


text: October 12 – The Korean Empire is proclaimed, marking the end of the Joseon dynasty after just over 500 years.


date: November 25

text: November 25 – Spain grants Puerto Rico autonomy.

source_section: Events › November


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Pact of Biak-na-Bato: The Philippine Revolution is settled, with Spanish promises to reform.


text: December 30 – Natal annexes Zululand.


date: April 18

text: April 18 – The Greco-Turkish War of 1897 breaks out.


date: April 27

text: April 27–6 May – Greco-Turkish War of 1897: Battle of Velestino.


date: July 26

text: July 26–August 2 – Siege of Malakand: British troops are besieged by Pashtun tribesmen in Malakand, on the Northwest frontier of British India (modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan).


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Lattimer massacre: A sheriff's posse kills 19 unarmed immigrant miners in Pennsylvania.


date: September 11

text: September 11 – After months of searching, generals of Menelik II of Ethiopia capture Gaki Sherocho, the last king of Kaffa, bringing an end to that ancient kingdom.


date: September 12

text: September 12 – Battle of Saragarhi: Twenty-one Sikhs of the 36th Sikhs regiment of the British Indian Army defend an army post to the death, against 10,000 Afghan and Orakzai tribesmen, in the Tirah Campaign on the Northwest frontier of the British Raj (modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan).


date: October 5

text: October 5 – After a long siege, Brazilian government troops take Canudos in north Brazil, crushing Antônio Conselheiro and his followers.


date: October 6

text: October 6 – Ethiopia adopts the tricolor flag: green is for the land, yellow for gold, and red is symbolic of strength and the blood shed.


text: Karl Lueger becomes mayor of Vienna.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: January 4

text: January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punitive expedition against Benin.

source_section: Events › January


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Benin is put to the torch by the British Army's Benin Expedition. Ovonramwen, Oba of Benin, is exiled from his kingdom and the Benin Bronzes are carried off to London.


text: October 12 – (Cruiser # 3, later CM-1) is recommissioned, since 1890, for several months of duty in the Hawaiian Islands.

source_section: Events › October


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Freedom of religion is proclaimed in Madagascar.


date: March 22

text: March 22 – Emilio Aguinaldo unseats Andrés Bonifacio at the Tejeros Convention, becoming the new head of the Filipino revolutionary group Katipunan.

source_section: Events › March


date: July 31

text: July 31 – Mount Saint Elias, the second highest peak in the United States and Canada, is first ascended.


date: August 29

text: August 29 – The First Zionist Congress convenes in Basel, Switzerland.

source_section: Events › August


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Francis P. Church responds (anonymously) to a letter to the editor of The Sun (New York City) that is known as the famous "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" letter.


text: The pan-African anthem "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" ("God Bless Africa") is composed as a Xhosa hymn by South African teacher Enoch Sontonga.


date: April 15

text: April 15 – Yamaichi Securities founded in Japan; it will cease trading a hundred years later.

source_section: Events › April


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Belo Horizonte, the first planned city in Brazil, is incorporated.

source_section: Events › December


date: January 22

text: January 22 – In this date's issue of the journal Engineering, the word computer is first used to refer to a mechanical calculation device.


date: April 19

text: April 19 – The first Boston Marathon is held in the United States, with fifteen men competing, and is won by John McDermott.


date: May 11

text: May 11 – A patent is awarded for the invention of the first automotive muffler, with the granting by the U.S. Patent Office of application number 582,485 to Milton Reeves and his brother Marshall T. Reeves, of the Reeves Pulley Company of Columbus, Indiana.


date: May 22

text: May 22 – The Blackwall Tunnel, at this time the longest underwater road tunnel in the world, is opened for traffic beneath the River Thames in the East End of London by the Prince of Wales.


date: August 21

text: August 21 – The Olds Motor Vehicle Co. is founded in Lansing, Michigan, by Ransom E. Olds.


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Thomas Edison is granted a patent for the Kinetoscope, a precursor of the movie projector.


date: September 1

text: September 1 – The Tremont Street subway is opened in Boston, Massachusetts.


text: Dos Equis beer is first brewed in Mexico, in anticipation of the new century. "Dos equis" is Spanish for "two x", a reference to the 20th Century (XX in Roman numerals)


text: The first electric bicycle is invented.


date: April 30

text: April 30 – J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announces his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle, over 1,800 times smaller than a proton (in the atomic nucleus), at a lecture at the Royal Institution in London.


date: May 6

text: May 6 – John Jacob Abel announces the successful isolation of epinephrine (adrenaline), in a paper read before the Association of American Physicians.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Writer Jack London sails to join the Klondike Gold Rush, where he will write his first successful stories.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – , a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy, is launched at Portsmouth, England; she will be deployed widely in World War I.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – At the Bayer pharmaceutical company, pharmacist Felix Hoffmann successfully synthesizes acetylsalicylic acid, after isolating a compound from a plant of the Spiraea family; the company markets it under the brand name "Aspirin".


text: April 15 – Drillers near Bartlesville, Oklahoma strike oil for the first time, in the designated "Indian Territory", on land leased from the Osage Indians. The gusher, at the Nellie Johnstone Number One well, leads to rapid population growth.


date: May 10

text: May 10 – 19 zinc miners die of carbon monoxide poisoning at Snaefell Mine on the Isle of Man.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – A cyclone destroys Darwin, Australia.


date: June 12

text: June 12 – 1897 Assam earthquake: An earthquake of magnitude of 8.0 rocks Assam, India, killing over 1,500 people.

source_section: Events › June


date: January 2

text: January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City.


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Lady Flora Shaw, future wife of Governor General Lord Lugard, officially proposes the name "Nigeria" in a newspaper contest, to be given to the British Niger Coast Protectorate.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – The Czechoslovak Trade Union Association is founded in Prague.


date: February 26

text: February 26 – The Sigma Pi fraternity is founded in Vincennes, Indiana.

source_section: Events › February


date: March 13

text: March 13 – San Diego State University is founded.


date: May 14

text: May 14 – The Stars and Stripes Forever, an American patriotic march by John Philip Sousa, is performed for the first time.


text: May 14 – (or May 15) – The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK) is founded in Berlin as an LGBT campaigning organization, the first such in history.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – Irish-born theatrical manager Bram Stoker's contemporary Gothic horror novel Dracula is first published (in London); it will influence the direction of vampire literature for the following century.


date: May 31

text: May 31 – On Decoration Day (later Memorial Day) the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial is dedicated in Boston. The bronze bas relief by Augustus St. Gaudens depicts the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment of black Civil War soldiers.


date: June 18

text: June 18 – Kyoto University is officially established in Japan.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – The British Empire celebrates Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, marking the 60th year of her reign. No other British monarch will celebrate such a jubilee until Victoria's great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II in 2012.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – The Kappa Delta sorority is founded in Farmville, Virginia.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Juventus FC is founded as an association football club in Turin.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – The first issue of the feminist newspaper La Fronde is published by Marguerite Durand in Paris.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – The comic strip The Katzenjammer Kids debuts in the New York Journal.


date: December 28

text: December 28 – The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.


text: Alexander Scriabin publishes his Piano Sonata no. 2 "Sonata-Fantasia" in G sharp minor


text: Zhejiang University is founded in China.


text: Émile Durkheim publishes his classic study Suicide.


date: January 23

text: January 23 – Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian political leader, led the Indian National Army (d. 1945?)

source_section: Births › January–February


date: February 8

text: February 8 – Zakir Husain, Indian politician, 3rd President of India (d. 1969)


date: February 10

text: February 10 – John Franklin Enders, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1985)


date: April 24

text: April 24 – Manuel Ávila Camacho, Mexican general, politician, and 45th President of Mexico, 1940-1946 (d. 1955)

source_section: Births › March–April


date: April 25

text: April 25 – Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood, British princess (d. 1965)


date: May 18

text: May 18 – Frank Capra, American film producer, director and writer (d. 1991)

source_section: Births › May–June


date: May 27

text: May 27 – John Cockcroft, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Jane Ingham, English botanist and scientific translator (d. 1982)

source_section: Births › July–August


date: September 12

text: September 12 – Irène Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 1956)

source_section: Births › September–October


date: September 25

text: September 25 – William Faulkner, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)


date: November 18

text: November 18 – Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)

source_section: Births › November–December


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Quentin Roosevelt, youngest son of American President Theodore Roosevelt, killed in action as fighter pilot (d. 1918)


date: November 24

text: November 24 – Lucky Luciano, Sicilian-American Mafia boss Salvatore Lucania (d. 1962)


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Margaret Chase Smith, American politician, U.S. Senator from Maine ( d. 1995 )


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Sir Thomas Elder, Australian businessman and philanthropist (b. 1818)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Savitribai Phule, Indian social reformer and poet (b. 1831)


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Andrés Bonifacio, Filipino revolutionary (b. 1863)


date: May 21

text: May 21 – Gregorio Luperón, Dominican revolutionary leader (b. 1839)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Ropata Wahawaha, New Zealand Māori military leader (b. c.1820)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: July 11

text: July 11 – S. A. Andrée's Arctic Balloon Expedition of 1897 begins. The ill-fated expedition to fly over the Arctic results in the death of the entire team within months.

source_section: Events › July


date: August 8

text: August 8 – Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, incumbent Prime Minister of Spain and historian (assassinated) (b. 1828)


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Louisa Lane Drew, English-born American actress, theater manager (b. 1820)


date: September 27

text: September 27 – George M. Robeson, American politician (b. 1829)


date: September 30

text: September 30 – Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, French Roman Catholic and Discalced Carmelite nun, saint (b. 1873)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – George Pullman, American inventor and industrialist (b. 1831)


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead, British colonial governor (b. 1824)


date: October 29

text: October 29 – Henry George, American economist (b. 1839)


date: November 15

text: November 15 – Lucinda Barbour Helm, American women's religious activist (b. 1839)


date: January 1

text: January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island.

source_section: Events › January


date: March 16

text: March 16 – In Melbourne the representatives of five colonies adopt a constitution which will become the basis of the Commonwealth of Australia.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – The territory of Guangzhouwan is leased by China to France, according to the Treaty of 12 April 1892, as the Territoire de Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, forming part of French Indochina.

source_section: Events › May


date: June 12

text: June 12 – Philippine Declaration of Independence: After 333 years of Spanish dominance, General Emilio Aguinaldo declares the Philippines' independence from Spain.


date: June 13

text: June 13 – Yukon Territory is formed in Canada, with Dawson chosen as its capital.


date: June 21

text: June 21 – Spanish–American War: The United States captures Guam, making it the first overseas territory of the U.S.


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Effective date of the Curtis Act of 1898 which will lead to the dissolution of tribal and communal lands in Indian Territory and ultimately the creation of the State of Oklahoma in 1907.


date: July 7

text: July 7 – The United States annexes the Hawaiian Islands.


date: August 24

text: August 24 – Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes sign the Atoka Agreement, a requirement of the Curtis Act of 1898.


date: August 25

text: August 25 – 700 Greeks and 15 Englishmen are slaughtered by the Turks in Heraklion, Greece, leading to the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – The island of Puerto Rico is turned over by Spain to the United States. Ángel Rivero Méndez, the 149th and last Spanish governor of Puerto Rico, yields the office and turns over the keys to all military installations in the capital, San Juan to U.S. Army Captain Henry A. Reed, and General John R. Brooke becomes the new American military governor.

source_section: Events › October


text: October 28 – U.S. President William McKinley rejects a peace proposal that would result in Spain ceding the island of Luzon to the U.S., in return for Spanish control of the other Philippine Islands. McKinley's message to his five-man negotiating team in Paris is that "Cessation of Luzon alone, leaving the rest of the islands subject to Spanish rule, or to be the subject of future contention, cannot be justified on political, commercial, or humanitarian grounds. The cessation must be the whole archipelago or none."


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Count Ōkuma Shigenobu, Japan's Prime Minister, announces his resignation along with that of his cabinet of ministers.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Charles Dupuy forms a new government as Prime Minister of France following the resignation of Henri Brisson.

source_section: Events › November


date: November 5

text: November 5 – Negros Revolution: Filipinos on the island of Negros revolt against Spanish rule and establish the short-lived Republic of Negros.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – The final meeting of the Cuban Assembly of the República de Cuba en Armas, which had been founded in 1895 during the Cuban War of Independence, is called to order by General Calixto García in the city of Santa Cruz del Sur. Domingo Méndez Capote is elected as president of the assembly.


date: November 8

text: November 8 – Count Yamagata Aritomo forms a new government as Prime Minister of Japan.


date: November 10

text: November 10 – The new United Central American States, a merger of El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, places its capital in the Nicaraguan city of Chinandega.


text: November 10 – Bartolomé Masó, the President of the República de Cuba en Armas that had been founded during the Cuban War of Independence, resigns.


date: November 12

text: November 12 – The Earl of Minto takes office as the new Governor General of Canada.


date: November 26

text: November 26 – General Ramón Blanco resigns as the spanish Governor-General of Cuba and is replaced by General Adolfo Jiménez Castellanos.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – The United Central American States, a merger of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, is formally dissolved after the government was unable to suppress a revolution in San Salvador.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – The French Chamber of Deputies declines to endorse the policies of Prime Minister Charles Dupuy, with the vote failing 228 to 243.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Spanish–American War.


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Annie Oakley promotes the service of women in combat situations, with the United States military. On this day, she writes a letter to President William McKinley "offering the government the services of a company of 50 'lady sharpshooters' who would provide their own arms and ammunition should war break out with Spain."

source_section: Events › April


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Spanish–American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and the captures a Spanish merchant ship.


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Spanish–American War: A conference of senior Spanish Navy officers led by naval minister Segismundo Bermejo decide to send Admiral Pascual Cervera's squadron to Cuba and Puerto Rico.


date: April 25

text: April 25 – Spanish–American War: The United States declares war on Spain; the U.S. Congress announces that a state of war has existed since April 21 (later backdating this one more day to April 20).


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila Bay – Commodore Dewey destroys the Spanish squadron, in the first battle of the war, as well as the first battle in the Philippines Campaign.


date: May 7

text: May 7–9 – Bava Beccaris massacre: Hundreds of demonstrators are killed, when General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris orders troops to fire on a rally in Milan, Italy.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Spanish–American War: The Puerto Rican Campaign begins with the Bombardment of San Juan.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Spanish–American War: Battle of San Juan Hill – United States troops (including Buffalo Soldiers and Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders) take a strategic position close to Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.


date: July 3

text: July 3 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago de Cuba – The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Navy's Caribbean Squadron.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago Bay. Troops under United States General William R. Shafter take the city of Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Spanish–American War: The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins, with a landing at Guánica Bay.


date: August 12

text: August 12 – Spanish–American War: Hostilities end between American and Spanish forces in Cuba.

source_section: Events › August


date: August 13

text: August 13 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila – By prior agreement, the Spanish commander surrenders the city of Manila in the Philippines to the United States, in order to keep it out of the hands of Filipino rebels, ending the war.


date: September 2

text: September 2 – Battle of Omdurman (Mahdist War): British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeat Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, thus establishing British dominance in the Sudan. 11,000 Sudanese are killed and 1,600 wounded in the battle.

source_section: Events › September


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni assassinates Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Geneva, as an act of propaganda of the deed.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – Fashoda Incident: A powerful flotilla of British gunboats arrives at the French-occupied fort of Fashoda on the White Nile, leading to a diplomatic stalemate, until French troops are ordered to withdraw on November 3.


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Empress Dowager Cixi of China engineers a coup d'état, marking the end of the Hundred Days' Reform; the Guangxu Emperor is arrested.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – At the Battle of Sugar Point in the Indian Wars, some Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians (a group of Ojibwe, referred to at the time as Chippewa) warriors, led by Bugonaygeshig, defeat U.S. Army infantry troops in northern Minnesota, with seven U.S. troops killed and 19 wounded. Bugonayegeshig, whom the American soldiers were sent to capture, escapes and is never apprehended.


date: October 21

text: October 21 – General Leonard Wood, the U.S. military governor of Cuba, issues a proclamation guaranteeing personal rights to the Cuban people.


date: October 28

text: October 28 – A general uprising by Filipinos, led by Adriano Hernández against the remaining Spanish authorities in the Philippines begins in the province of Iloilo on the island of Panay.


date: November 3

text: November 3 – With increasing violence threatened by rebels in China, the Russian fleet at Port Arthur and the British warships at Wei-Hai-Wei are readied for battle.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – In the U.S., the racial violence in Phoenix, South Carolina, comes to an end after 12 African-Americans have been lynched.


date: November 10

text: November 10 – The Wilmington massacre of 1898 begins as a coup d'état by the white Democratic Party of the U.S. state of North Carolina against the Republican Mayor of Wilmington. On the first day, a building housing a negro newspaper is burned and eight African Americans are killed.


date: November 26

text: November 26 – The U.S. Marines arrive on USS Boston at Tientsin in China in order to guard the American legation at Beijing.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – The Trans-Mississippi Exposition World's Fair opens, in Omaha, Nebraska.

source_section: Events › June


date: June 9

text: June 9 – The British government arranges a 99-year rent of extended territories of Hong Kong from China.


date: July 3

text: July 3 – American adventurer Joshua Slocum completes a 3-year solo circumnavigation of the world.


date: August 23

text: August 23 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.


date: October 10

text: October 10 – A military expedition departs from France toward the French Equatorial Africa colony of Chad. Commanded by Lieutenant de vaisseau Henri Bretonnet and Lt. Solomon Braun, the force is sent to liberate areas dominated by the Muslim warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, with the help of troops sent by the envoys of the Muslim rulers Mohammed al-Senoussi and Gaourang II, sultan of Bagirmi


date: October 20

text: October 20 – The first residents of the "cooperative socialist colony", created by the Cooperative Brotherhood, arrive at what is now Burley, Washington in Kitsap County, settling on 260 acre km2 of land purchased by the Brotherhood.