Crime & Justice in the 19th century

224 sourced entries, 1801 CE to 1899 CE, oldest first. Also see Crime & Justice across every century or everything else in the 19th century.

• 1801March 23 – Tsar Paul I of Russia is murdered; he is succeeded by his son Alexander I.source
• 1801September 24 – Joseph Marie Jacquard exhibits his new invention, a loom where the pattern being woven is controlled by punched cards, at the National Exposition in Paris.source
• 1801Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, begins removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens.source
• 1802June 2 – Indigenous Australian Pemulwuy, a leader of the resistance to European settlement of Australia, is shot dead by Henry Hacking.source
• 1803February 24 – Marbury v. Madison: The Supreme Court of the United States establishes the principle of judicial review.source
• 1804November 30 – The Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase, on charges of political bias (he is acquitted by the United States Senate of all charges on March 1, 1805).source
• 1805March 1 – Justice Samuel Chase is acquitted of impeachment charges by the United States Senate.source
• 1807February 19 – Burr conspiracy: In Alabama, former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr is tried for conspiracy, but acquitted.source
• 1807May 22 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr for treason.source
• 1807September 1 – Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr is acquitted of treason. He had been accused of plotting to annex parts of Louisiana and Mexico, to become part of an independent republic.source
• 1807September 27 – Napoleon purchases the Borghese art collection, including the Antinous Mondragone, and brings it to Paris.source
• 1807October 30 – El Escorial Conspiracy: Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias is arrested for conspiring against his father Charles IV of Spain.source
• 1807Le Petit Oracle des Dames 42 card deck and booklet are published in Paris by the widow of Gueffier.source
• 1808The Rijksmuseum moves from The Hague to Amsterdam, where it is located temporarily at the Royal Palace.source
• 1809November 25 – Benjamin Bathurst, a British diplomat, mysteriously disappears (possibly murdered) in Perleberg, west of Berlin.source
• 18104,500 chests of opium are sold in China.source
• 1812March 15 – Luddites attack the wool-processing factory of Frank Vickerman in West Yorkshire.source
• 1814August 12 – In England, the last hanging under the Black Act is carried out, of William Potter for cutting down an orchard (although the judge petitions for reprieve).source
• 1815March 13 – Participants at the Congress of Vienna declare Napoleon an outlaw following his escape from Elbasource
• 1815December 7 – Marshal Ney is executed in Paris, near the Jardin du Luxembourg.source
• 1815In the United Kingdom, use of the pillory is limited to punishment for perjury.source
• 1819Early – Denis Johnson of London markets his "pedestrian curricle", a form of dandy horse, velocipede or kick scooter.source
• 1820May 1 – The last judicial decapitation in the United Kingdom is meted out to the principals in the Cato Street conspirators after their public hanging for treason in London. Legally, the post-hanging beheading is a mitigation of the last sentence in Britain of "hanging, drawing and quartering".source
• 182018,957 black slaves leave Luanda, Angola.source
• 1821September 4 – Chilean general José Miguel Carrera is executed by an Argentinian military tribunal, in the city of Mendoza.source
• 1822May 25 – Christos Palaskas and Alexis Noutsos are executed by Odysseas Androutsos' forces.source
• 1822August 12 – Lord Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, commits suicide at his house in Kent. He is judged to have been insane at the time.source
• 1825March 5 – Capture of the sloop Anne: Roberto Cofresí, one of the last successful pirates in the Caribbean, is defeated by an international naval force.source
• 1826March 1 – A male Indian elephant, Chunee, which was brought to London in 1811, is killed at a menagerie after running amok the week before, killing one of his keepers. After arsenic and shooting fail, the animal is stabbed to death.source
• 1826March 7 – Ellen Turner, a wealthy 15-year-old heiress from Cheshire in England, is kidnapped by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. On May 14, Wakefield, his brother and a servant are sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the crime. Wakefield later becomes politically active in the colonisation of New Zealand.source
• 1826July 26 – Cayetano Ripoll becomes the last person to be executed by the Spanish Inquisition's successor at its last auto-da-fé, held in Valencia.source
• 1826August 18 – Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing becomes the first European to reach Timbuktu but is murdered there on September 26.source
• 1826September 13 – William Morgan (anti-Mason) of Batavia, New York, disappears mysteriously after being released from the jail in Canandaigua and agreeing to accompany his benefactor, a Mr. Loton Lawson.He is never seen in public again, and a number of witnesses will indicate later that on September 20, a man resembling Morgan was tied up and thrown into the Niagara River following a meeting of the Masonic Society.source
• 1828May 26 – The supposed feral child Kaspar Hauser is discovered in Nuremberg, Germany.source
• 1828August 11 – William Corder is hanged at Bury St Edmunds, England, for the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn a year earlier.source
• 183010,000 chests of opium are sold in China.source
• 1834January 3 – The government of Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City.source
• 1834June 7 – Greek independence: General Theodoros Kolokotronis is sentenced to death for treason, for resisting the rule of Otto of Greece (he is released the following year).source
• 1834August 14 – The Poor Law Amendment Act in the United Kingdom states that no able-bodied British man can receive assistance, unless he enters a workhouse (a kind of poorhouse).source
• 1835November 27 – Two London men, James Pratt and John Smith, are hanged in front of Newgate Prison in London, after a conviction of buggery. They are the last to suffer capital punishment for homosexual acts in England.source
• 1836Chatsworth Head is found near Tamassos, Cyprus.source
• 1837February – Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist begins publication in serial form in London.source
• 1837November 7 – American abolitionist and newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy is killed by a pro-slavery mob, at his warehouse in Alton, Illinois.source
• 1838The 5th century BC bronze Chatsworth Head is acquired by the 6th Duke of Devonshire at Smyrna, from H. P. Borrell.source
• 1839Charles Goodyear vulcanizes rubber.source
• 1840February 5 – Damascus Affair: The murder of a Capuchin friar and his Greek servant leads to a highly publicized case of blood libel, against the Jews of Damascus.source
• 1840August 10 – Fortsas hoax: A number of book collectors gather in Binche, Belgium, to attend a non-existent book auction of the late "Count of Fortsas".source
• 1841February 18 – The first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins, and lasts until March 11.source
• 1841March 9 – United States v. The Amistad: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the case, that the Africans who seized control of the ship had been taken into slavery illegally.source
• 1841John Augustus develops the concept of probation in Boston, Massachusetts.source
• 1842April–September – 1842 general strike spreads across England's industrial districts, driven by Chartism. Includes the Preston Strike and Pottery Riots. Protestors are killed by the military in several places.source
• 1842November 10 & 19 – London debtor's prisons the Fleet Prison and Marshalsea are closed and inmates transferred to Queen's Bench Prison. Pentonville Prison for criminals is completed in north London this year.source
• 1844June 27 – Killing of Joseph Smith: Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum, are murdered in Carthage Jail, Carthage, Illinois by an armed mob, leading to a succession crisis in the movement. John Taylor, future president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is severely injured but survives, while the fourth man inside the upper room, then-apostle Willard Richards, escapes with only a graze to his upper ear.source
• 1846September 19 – Our Lady of La Salette, a Marian apparition, is said to have been seen by two children at La Salette-Fallavaux in France.source
• 1847March 1 – The state of Michigan formally abolishes the death penalty.source
• 1848February 23 – French Revolution of 1848: François Guizot, Prime Minister of France, resigns; 52 people from the Paris mob are killed by soldiers guarding public buildings.source
• 1848April 10 – A Chartist 'Monster Rally' is held in Kennington Park London, headed by Feargus O'Connor. A petition demanding the franchise is presented to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.source
• 1849July 31–August 1 – Joven Daniel wrecks at the coast of Araucanía, Chile, leading to allegations that local Mapuche tribes murdered survivors and kidnapped Elisa Bravo.source
• 1849November 13 – Swiss-born Marie Manning and her husband Frederick are publicly hanged for the murder of her lover in London, before a crowd of 30,000-50,000.source
• 1849November 16 – A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoyevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group, the Petrashevsky Circle. Facing a firing squad on December 23, the group members are reprieved at the last moment, and exiled to the katorga prison camps in Siberia.source
• 1849Seven of the "best known" opium clippers go missing: Sylph, Coquette, Kelpie, Greyhound, Don Juan, Mischief, and Anna Eliza.source
• 1850Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, in the United States.source
• 1851February 15 – In Boston, Massachusetts, members of the anti-slavery Boston Vigilance Committee rescue fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins from a courtroom, following his arrest by U.S. marshals.source
• 1851July 1 – Serial poisoner Hélène Jégado is arrested in Rennes, France. Her trial opens on December 6; she is eventually sentenced to death and executed by guillotine.source
• 1853July 25 – Outlaw and bandit Joaquin Murrieta is killed in California.source
• 1854January 6 – The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is perhaps born.source
• 1855May 15 – The Great Gold Robbery is made from a moving train between London Bridge and Folkestone in England, one of the first crimes of its kind.source
• 1856May 14 – The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance is founded in the United States. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials, and disbands itself on August 18.source
• 1856Charles III of Monaco grants a concession to Napoléon Langlois and Albert Aubert to establish a German-style casino at Monte Carlo.source
• 1857May 5 – October 17 – The Art Treasures of Great Britain exhibition is held in Manchester, one of the largest such displays of all time.source
• 1857July 18 – Prison hulks are used for the last time in the United Kingdom.source
• 1857October 24 – 28 enslaved people escape their enslavers in Maryland.source
• 1857La Tène culture artifacts are discovered in Switzerland, by Hansli Kopp.source
• 1858July 17 – The Lutine bell is salvaged, and subsequently hung in Lloyd's of London.source
• 1859February 27 – United States Congressman Daniel Sickles shoots Philip Barton Key (U.S. District Attorney) for having an affair with his wife.source
• 1859December 2 – Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.source
• 1861January 31 – Kukis raid the Chhagalnaiya plains in eastern Bengal, murdering and kidnapping hundreds of people, particularly women.source
• 1861May 13 – North Star affair: The British merchant ship North Star leaves Hong Kong for Nagasaki, Japan. Chinese pirates board the vessel, kill an officer, and escape with a large quantity of gold.source
• 1861August 27 – Martin Doyle is the last person executed in Britain for attempted murder.source
• 1862June 12 – John Winter Robinson, the Secretary of State of Kansas, is convicted and removed from office as the result of a bond scandal, becoming the first state executive official to be impeached and removed from office in American history.source
• 1862November 5 – American Indian Wars: In Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of rape and murder of white settlers, and are sentenced to hang.source
• 1863January 7 – In the Swiss canton of Ticino, the village of Bedretto is partly destroyed and 29 killed by an avalanche.source
• 1863April 13 – The Winged Victory of Samothrace, one of the most significant sculptures of classical antiquity, is found in excavations on the Greek island of Samothrace by Charles Champoiseau. Made c. 190 BC, it is later shipped to the Louvre in Paris.source
• 1863April 20 – The Augustus of Prima Porta, one of the most significant sculptures of classical antiquity, is found in excavations in the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta, near Rome.source
• 1863May 17 – The opening of Salon des Refusés in Paris draws attention to paintings by avant-garde artists, notably Manet's_ Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe.source
• 1863The Colmar Treasure, a hoard of 14th century Jewish precious metal objects, is discovered in Alsace.source
• 1864May 20 – Australian bushranger Ben Hall and his gang escape from a shootout with police, after attempting to rob the Bang Bang Hotel in Koorawatha, New South Wales.source
• 1864July 29 – Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops, and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.source
• 1865April 26 – Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth in a Virginia barn, and cavalryman Boston Corbett fatally shoots the assassin.source
• 1865In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the country takes place.source
• 1865July 21 – Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout: In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots "Little Dave" Davis Tutt dead over a poker debt, in what is regarded as the first true western fast draw showdown.source
• 1865September 26 – Champ Ferguson becomes the first person (and one of only two) to be convicted of war crimes for actions taken during the American Civil War, found guilty by a U.S. Army tribunal on 23 charges, arising from the murder of 53 people. He is hanged on October 20, two days after the conviction of Henry Wirz for war crimes.source
• 1865December 24 – Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form the Ku Klux Klan in the American South, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate carpetbaggers and scalawags, as well as to repress the freedpeople.source
• 1866February 13 – The first daylight bank robbery in United States history during peacetime takes place in Liberty, Missouri. This is considered to be the first robbery committed by Jesse James and his gang, although James's role is disputed.source
• 1867November 23 – The three 'Manchester Martyrs' are hanged in England for the murder of a policeman whilst attempting to rescue two Irish Republican Brotherhood members from imprisonment on 18 September.source
• 1868February 16 – In New York City, the Jolly Corks organization is renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).source
• 1868March 12 – Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Edinburgh, is shot in the back in Sydney, Australia, at a fundraising event for the Sydney Sailors Home, by Irishman Henry James O'Farrell. The prince survives and quickly recovers; O'Farrell is executed on April 21, despite attempts by the prince to gain clemency for him.source
• 1868May 16, May 26 – President Andrew Johnson is twice acquitted during his impeachment trial, by one vote in the United States Senate.source
• 1868May 26 – Fenian bomber Michael Barrett becomes the last person publicly hanged in the United Kingdom.source
• 1869January 20 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.source
• 1869August 31 – Irish scientist Mary Ward is killed by a steam car.source
• 1869December 7 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.source
• 1869Arabella Mansfield became the first woman in the United States awarded a license to practice law, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa.source
• 1870February 2 – It is revealed that the famed Cardiff Giant in the U.S. is just carved gypsum and not the petrified remains of a human.source
• 1870February – Denis Vrain-Lucas is sentenced to 2 years in prison for multiple forgery, in Paris.source
• 1871April 4 – The New Jersey Detective Agency is chartered, and the New Jersey State Detectives are initiated.source
• 1871April 24 – Murder of Jane Clouson, a servant girl, in Eltham, England; her probable murderer is acquitted.source
• 1871May 11 – The first trial in the Tichborne case begins, in the London Court of Common Pleas.source
• 1871October 12 – The Criminal Tribes Act is enacted by the British Raj in India, naming over 160 communities as "Denotified Tribes", allegedly habitually criminal (it will be repealed in 1949, after Indian independence).source
• 1871October 24 – Chinese massacre of 1871: In Los Angeles' Chinatown, 19 Chinese immigrants are killed by a mob of 500 men.source
• 1871October 27 – Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall is arrested for bribery, ending his grip on New York City.source
• 1871November 5 – Wickenburg Massacre: Six men travelling by stagecoach, in the Arizona Territory, are reportedly murdered by Yavapai people.source
• 1871Gold is discovered at Pilgrim's Creek in the Pilgrim's Rest area.source
• 1872March 5 – The Tichborne case is decided in London against claimant Arthur Orton (who, as a result, is convicted of perjury in 1874).source
• 1872November 5 – Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, American suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time (on November 18 she is served an arrest warrant, and in the subsequent trial is fined $100, which she never pays).source
• 1872November 13 – Claude Monet begins painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant, the painting that will give a name to Impressionism) as viewed from his hotel room at Le Havre in France.source
• 1873January 1 – The California Penal Code goes into effect.source
• 1873July 21 – At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West (US$3,000 from the Rock Island Express).source
• 1874November 9 – The New York Zoo hoax, a supposed breakout of animals from the Central Park Zoo, is perpetrated on the public.source
• 1875September 1 – A murder conviction begins to break the power of the violent Irish-American anti-owner coal miners, the "Molly Maguires", in Pennsylvania.source
• 1876January 27 – The Northampton Bank robbery occurs in Massachusetts.source
• 1876May 16 – German American "Napoleon of crime" Adam Worth steals Gainsborough's Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire from a London gallery three weeks after its sale at Christie's for 10,000 guineas, the highest price ever paid for a painting at auction at this time. It is not recovered until 1901.source
• 1876May 29 – The United States Senate votes 37 to 29 that U.S. Secretary of War William W. Belknap cannot be barred from trial and impeachment, despite being a private citizen; however, this is far short of the two-thirds majority required and thus he is acquitted.source
• 1876July 13 – The prosecution of Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman, for using ritualist practices begins.source
• 1876August 1 – The United States Senate votes to acquit former Secretary of War William W. Belknap of all impeachment charges relating to the trader post scandal.source
• 1876August 2 – Wild Bill Hickok is murdered in Deadwood, South Dakota.source
• 1876November 7 – A failed grave robbery of the Lincoln Tomb takes place this night.source
• 1876November 23 – Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Marcy Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City, after being captured in Spain.source
• 1877June 21 – The Molly Maguires are hanged at Carbon County Prison, in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania.source
• 1878January 24 – Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich shoots at Fyodor Trepov, Governor of Saint Petersburg.source
• 1878October 27 – The Manhattan Savings Institution robbery occurs.source
• 1878In Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, the much studied stele of the Roman legionary Caius Largennius is discovered.source
• 1880The international White slave trade affair scandal in Brussels is exposed and attracts international infamy.source
• 1880June 28 – Australian police capture bank robber Ned Kelly, after a gun battle at Glenrowan, Victoria.source
• 1880October 15 – Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.source
• 1880November 11 – Australian bushranger and bank robber Ned Kelly is hanged in Melbourne.source
• 1881January 24 – William Edward Forster, chief secretary for Ireland, introduces his Coercion Bill, which temporarily suspends habeas corpus so that those people suspected of committing an offence can be detained without trial; it goes through a long debate before it is accepted February 2. Note that Coercion bills had been passed almost annually in the 19th century, with a total of 105 such bills passed from 1801 to 1921.source
• 1881April 28 – Billy the Kid escapes from his 2 jailers at the Lincoln County Jail in Mesilla, New Mexico, killing James Bell and Robert Ollinger, before stealing a horse and riding out of town.source
• 1881July 14 – Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Pat Garrett, outside Fort Sumner, New Mexico.source
• 1881December 28 – Virgil Earp is ambushed in Tombstone, Arizona, and loses the use of his left arm.source
• 1882February 4 – Charles J. Guiteau, the murderer of President James A. Garfield, is sentenced to death (found guilty on January 25), despite an insanity defense raised by his lawyer.source
• 1882April 3 – Old West outlaw Jesse James is shot in the back of the head and killed by Robert Ford in St. Joseph, Missouri.source
• 1882May 1 – Édouard Manet exhibits his painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère at the Paris Salon.source
• 1882May 6 – Phoenix Park Murders in Ireland: Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Thomas Henry Burke, his Permanent Undersecretary, are fatally stabbed in Phoenix Park, Dublin, by members of the Irish National Invincibles (militant Irish republicans).source
• 1882June 30 – U.S. presidential assassin Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C.source
• 1882November 14 – Franklyn Leslie shoots Billy Claiborne dead in the streets of Tombstone, Arizona.source
• 1882Waterloo F.C., a rugby union club, as Serpentine on Merseyside in the north of England.source
• 1882Glentoran F.C. in Belfast in the north of Ireland;source
• 1882Albion Rovers F.C. (through the amalgamation of two Coatbridge clubs, Albion and Rovers) in the urban west of Scotland;source
• 1883November 3 – American Old West: Self-described Black Bart the Po-8 makes his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves a handkerchief with a laundry mark that eventually leads to his capture.source
• 1883December 5 – Bisbee Massacre: Five people are killed in the robbery of a general store by bandits in Bisbee, Arizona.source
• 1883The Black Arabs F.C (later Bristol Rovers) in Englandsource
• 1884December 1 – American Old West: Near Frisco, New Mexico, deputy sheriff Elfego Baca holds off a gang of 80 Texan cowboys, who want to kill him for arresting cowboy Charles McCarthy (the cowboys have been terrorizing the area's Hispanos, and Baca is working against them).source
• 1884December 9 – Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens are convicted of murder in the survival cannibalism case of R v. Dudley and Stephens in the English courts.source
• 1885February 23 – An English executioner fails after several attempts to hang John Babbacombe Lee, sentenced for the murder of his employer Emma Keyse; Lee's sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.source
• 1885September 18 – Five Chinese people were lynched outside of Pierce City in the Idaho Territory of the United States.source
• 1887July 6 – Berthe bombing, targeting a Parisian landowner in conflict with several Italian anarchists. Nobody is sentenced but Vittorio Pini and Paolo Chiericotti are heavily suspected by French authorities.source
• 1887November 10 – Louis Lingg, sentenced to be hanged for his alleged role in the Haymarket affair (a bombing in Chicago on May 4, 1886), kills himself by dynamite.source
• 1887November 11 – August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are hanged for inciting riot and murder in the Haymarket affair.source
• 1888April 3 – London prostitute Emma Elizabeth Smith is brutally attacked by two or three men, dying of her injuries the following day, first of the Whitechapel murders, but probably not a victim of Jack the Ripper.source
• 1888August 7 – Whitechapel murders: The body of London prostitute Martha Tabram is found, a possible victim of Jack the Ripper.source
• 1888August 31 – Whitechapel murders: The mutilated body of London prostitute Mary Ann Nichols is found; she is considered the first victim of Jack the Ripper.source
• 1888September 8 – Whitechapel murders: The mutilated body of London prostitute Annie Chapman is found (considered to be the second victim of Jack the Ripper).source
• 1888September 27 – Whitechapel murders: The 'Dear Boss letter' signed "Jack the Ripper", the first time the name is used, is received by London's Central News Agency.source
• 1888September 30 – Whitechapel murders: The bodies of London prostitutes Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, the latter mutilated, are found. They are generally considered Jack the Ripper's third and fourth victims, respectively.source
• 1888October 2 – The Whitehall Mystery: Dismembered remains of a woman's body are discovered at three central London locations, one being the construction site of the police headquarters at New Scotland Yard.source
• 1888November 9 – Whitechapel murders: The mutilated body of London prostitute Mary Jane Kelly is found. She is considered to be the fifth, and last, of Jack the Ripper's victims. A number of similar murders in England follow, but the police attribute them to copy-cat killers.source
• 1889January 30 – Mayerling incident: Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, and his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera commit a double suicide (or a murder-suicide) at the Mayerling hunting lodge in the Vienna Woods.source
• 1889February 25 – The landmark court decision in the case of The Moorcock establishes the concept of implied terms in English contract law.source
• 1889May 11 – Wham Paymaster robbery: An attack upon a U.S. Army paymaster and escort in the Arizona Territory results in the theft of over $28,000, and the award of two Medals of Honor.source
• 1889June – Vincent van Gogh paints The Starry Night at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.source
• 1889July 6 – Several aristocrats are implicated in the Cleveland Street scandal after police raid a male brothel in London.source
• 1889August 26 – The Prevention of Cruelty to, and Protection of, Children Act, commonly known as the Children's Charter, is passed in the United Kingdom; for the first time it imposes criminal penalties to deter child abuse.source
• 1889Arthur Wharton signs for Rotherham Town F.C. in England for the 1889/90 season, becoming probably the world's first black professional Association football player.source
• 1890May 20 – Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh moves to Auvers-sur-Oise on the edge of Paris, in the care of Paul Gachet, where he will produce around seventy paintings in as many days.source
• 1890August 6 – At Auburn Prison in New York, William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed in the electric chair.source
• 1890November – Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, moves to a building on London's Victoria Embankment, as New Scotland Yard.source
• 1890December 15 – Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull is killed by police on Standing Rock Indian Reservation.source
• 1891February 14 – In the FA Cup quarter-final in English association football, a goal is deliberately stopped by handball on the goal line. An indirect free kick is awarded, since the penalty kick, proposed the previous year by William McCrum, has not yet been implemented. This event probably changes public opinion on the penalty kick, seen previously as an Irishman's motion.source
• 1891March 14 – In New Orleans, a lynch mob storms the Old Parish Prison, and lynches 11 Italians arrested but found innocent of the murder of Police Chief David Hennessy.source
• 1891June 25 – Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes appears in The Strand Magazine (London) for the first time, in the issue dated July.source
• 1891September 14 – The first penalty kick is awarded in an Association football match: John Heath scores it for Wolverhampton Wanderers in England.source
• 1892June 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.source
• 1892July 6 – Dr. José Rizal, Filipino writer, philosopher and political activist, is arrested by Spanish authorities in connection with La Liga Filipina.source
• 1892August 4 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home; she will be acquitted of their murder.source
• 1892September 22 – The 'Little Pastry Chef', a French police informant among anarchists, is murdered in Saint-Denis.source
• 1892October 5 – Master criminal Adam Worth is captured in Liège, Belgium, during an attempted robbery of a money delivery cart.source
• 1892October 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.source
• 1893March 20 – In Belgium, Adam Worth is sentenced to 7 years for robbery (he is released in 1897).source
• 1893June 17 – Gold is found in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.source
• 1893June 20 – Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the axe murder of her parents in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892.source
• 1893October 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.source
• 1894Coxey's Army arrives in Washington; Coxey is arrested on the Capitol grounds.source
• 1894October 15 – Dreyfus affair: French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying.source
• 1894December 22 – Dreyfus affair: French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason. It will be 12 years before his innocence is officially recognised.source
• 1894Spillers Records is founded in Cardiff (Wales), the world's oldest record shop still in operation.source
• 1895January 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.source
• 1895March 3 – In Munich, Germany, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates.source
• 1895March 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.source
• 1895April 6 – Oscar Wilde is arrested in London for "gross indecency", after losing a criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.source
• 1895May 9 – Thirteen workers are killed by soldiers of the Russian Empire during the Yaroslavl Great Manufacture strike.source
• 1895May 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.source
• 1895June 11 – The Paris–Bordeaux–Paris automobile trial is held.source
• 1895August 19 – American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.source
• 1896January 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.source
• 1896September 15 – The Crash at Crush train wreck stunt is held in Texas.source
• 1896November 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.source
• 1896December 30 – José Rizal, Filipino scholar and poet, is executed by Spanish authorities in the Philippines.source
• 1898February 23 – Émile Zola is imprisoned in France, after writing J'Accuse…!.source
• 1898October 3 – U.S. Senator Matthew Quay of Pennsylvania is arrested for conspiracy to defraud the People's Bank of Philadelphia.source
• 1898October 23 – An anarchist, suspected of plotting the assassination of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, is arrested in Egypt at Alexandria.source
• 1898December 9 – The first of the two Tsavo Man-Eaters is shot by John Henry Patterson; the second is killed 3 weeks later, after 135 railway construction workers have been killed by the lions.source
• 1898December 15 – A warrant issued in Paris for the arrest of Count Ferdinand Esterhazy in connection with the Dreyfus case.source
• 1898December 29 – King Umberto of Italy commutes the sentences of all prisoners who had been given the death penalty.source
• 1898December 31 – French serial killer Joseph Vacher is executed at Bourg-en-Bresse.source
• 1899February 7 – Following conviction at court-martial for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman" arising from his accusations against Major General Nelson A. Miles, U.S. Commissioner General Charles P. Eagan is suspended from duty for six years by President McKinley.source
• 1899February 23 – Because of distrubances at the funeral of the late President Faure, parliament members Paul Déroulède, Lucien Millevoye and Marcel Habert are arrested.source
• 1899March 20 – At Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York, Martha M. Place becomes the first woman to be executed in an electric chair.source
• 1899May 10 – Finnish farmworker Karl Emil Malmelin kills seven people with an axe at the Simola croft in the village of Klaukkala.source
• 1899June 2 – American outlaws Robert L. Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry A. Longabaugh ("The Sundance Kid") commit their first armed robbery as "The Wild Bunch", stopping a Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Wyoming, with accomplices Harvey Logan and Elzy Lay, and steal more than $30,000 worth of cargo.source
• 1899September 9 – Dreyfus affair: In the retrial of his court-martial, Alfred Dreyfus is again found guilty of treason and sentenced to serve the remaining 10 years of his prison sentence on Devils Island, notwithstanding that the real culprit has previously admitted to his actions.source
• 1899September 19 – Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus is pardoned in France by the Ministry of War. He is released from prison at Rennes the following day but not fully exonerated until 1906.source
• 1899November 7 – (October 26 Old Style) – Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya receives its Russian metropolitan première at the Moscow Art Theatre.source
• 1899November 20 – The U.S. Supreme Court issues its decision in Brown v. New Jersey (175 U.S. 172) and upholds the constitutionality of the "struck jury" method of selecting jurors.source