Discovery of X-rays
Jan 1 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen announces his discovery of x-rays
- Jan 2 Battle at Doornkop, South Africa (Boers beat Dr Jamesons troops)
- Jan 3 Emperor Wilhelm congratulates President Kruger on the Jameson Raid
- Jan 4 American Federation of Labor (AFL) charters Actors' National Protective Union, NYC
- Jan 4 Following Mormon abandonment of sanctioned polygamy, Utah is admitted as 45th US state
- Jan 5 "Die Presse" newspaper (Germany) publicly announces Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of X-rays and their potential for new methods of medical diagnoses in a front-page article
- Jan 5 Isaac Albéniz' opera "Pepita Jiminez" premieres in Barcelona
- Jan 6 1st US women's 6-day bicycle race starts, Madison Square Garden
Cecil Rhodes Resigns
Jan 6 Cecil Rhodes resigns as premier of Cape colony
- Jan 7 Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook "The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book"
- Jan 12 1st X-ray photo in US (Dr Henry Smith, Davidson NC)
- Jan 15 Henry Arthur Jones' "Michael & his Lost Angel" premieres in London
- Jan 16 Defeat of Cymru Fydd at South Wales Liberal Federation AGM, Newport, Monmouthshire.
- Jan 18 1st demonstration of an X-ray machine in US (NYC)
- Jan 18 British troops occupy Kumasi, West Africa
- Jan 18 First college basketball game with 5 players on each side is conducted by the University of Iowa; invites student athletes from University of Chicago for an experimental game; Chicago beats Iowa 15-12
- Jan 23 Edward Macdowell's 2nd Suite in E premieres
- Jan 27 Tasmania bowl out Victoria for 65 for their 1st ever innings victory
- Jan 29 American Emile Grubbe is the first doctor to use radiation treatment for breast cancer
"La Boheme"
Feb 1 Giacomo Puccini's opera "La Boheme" premieres in Turin
- Feb 8 Georges Feydeau's farce "Le Dindon" premieres in Paris
- Feb 8 Western Conference forms to be first Western college football season, later renamed Big 10 Conference
Salome
Feb 11 Oscar Wilde's "Salome" premieres in Paris
Der Judenstaat
Feb 14 Austro-Hungarian Zionist Theodor Herzl publishes "Der Judenstaat" (The Jewish State), encouraging Jews to purchase land in Palestine
Sports History
Feb 14 George Lohmann takes a hat-trick for England v South Africa, 8-7 for inning - their lowest ever
- Feb 14 Stanley Cup, Victoria Skating Rink, Montreal, Quebec: Winnipeg Victorias beat Montreal Victorias, 2-0
- Feb 14 Theodor Hertzl's "Der Judenstaat" (The Jewish State) is published, proposing a Jewish homeland as a means of escaping anti-Semitism in Europe
The Yellow Kid
Feb 16 First US newspaper comic strip, Richard Felton Outcault's "The Yellow Kid," is published in William Randolph Hearst’s "New York Journal" [1]
- Feb 17 Muzzling Order on the London County Council enforced
- Feb 18 Cave of Winds at Niagara Falls goes almost dry for first time in 50 yrs
- Feb 23 Tootsie Roll introduced by Leo Hirshfield
- Feb 25 Italian government decides to attack governor Baratieri of Eritrea
- Feb 28 France dismisses Queen Ranavalona III of Madagascar and exiles her to the island of Réunion
Battle of Adwa
Mar 1 Battle of Adwa: 80,000 Ethiopians destroy 20,000 Italians in Ethopia, killing two generals and capturing General Matteo Albertone
Radioactivity Discovered
Mar 1 Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity
- Mar 2 Best 9-wicket haul in cricket history; George Lohmann takes 9-28 as England beats South Africa by an innings and 197 runs in 2nd Test at Johannesburg
- Mar 5 Italian governor of Eritrea, General Baldissera, reaches Massawa
- Mar 5 Italian premier Francesco Crispi resigns
- Mar 6 1st auto in Detroit, Charles B King rides his "Horseless Carriage"
The Grand Duke
Mar 7 W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's 14th and final comic opera together "The Grand Duke" premieres at the Savoy Theatre, London
Songs of a Wayfarer
Mar 16 Gustav Mahler conducts premiere of his "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" (Songs of a Wayfarer), leading the Berlin Philharmonic and Dutch baritone Anton Sistermans as soloist
- Mar 20 Marines land in Nicaragua to protect US citizens
- Mar 20 Uprising in Matabeleland
- Mar 22 Charilaos Vasilakos of Greece wins 1st modern marathon in 3:18 at the Panhellenic Games
- Mar 23 The Raines Law is passed by the New York State Legislature, restricting Sunday sale of alcohol to hotels
- Mar 27 58th Grand National: Former owner David Campbell wins aboard 40/1 outsider The Soarer
- Mar 28 Umberto Giordano's opera "Andrea Chenier" premieres at La Scala, Milan with Giuseppe Borgatti singing the title role; libretto by Luigi Illica
- Apr 4 Announcement of the discovery of gold in the Yukon
- Apr 6 First modern Summer Olympic Games open in Athens, Greece; American athlete James Connolly becomes first modern Olympic champion when he wins triple jump (then 2 hops and a jump); later 3rd in long jump, 2nd in high jump
- Apr 7 American athlete Robert Garrett wins the throwing double at the Athens Olympics by taking out the shot putt (11.22m); wins the discus the previous day
First Olympic 1500m
Apr 7 Australian athlete Edwin Flack wins gold in the first Olympic 1500m final at inaugural modern Games in Athens; goes on to win 800m two days later
- Apr 9 Australian athlete Edwin Flack claims the middle distance double at the Athens Olympics winning the 800m final in 2:11.0; his 2nd victory of the Games after success in the 1500m
- Apr 9 Greek shooter Pantelis Karasevdas scores a perfect 40 hits to win the military rifle event at the Athens Olympics; Greek 1-2-3 with Pavlos Pavlidis and Nicolaos Trikupis taking out the minor placings
- Apr 10 American athlete Thomas Burke claims the sprint double at the Athens Olympics winning the 100m final in 12.0s; his 2nd victory of the Games after success in the 400m
- Apr 10 High jumper Ellery Clark leads an American sweep of the placings with a leap of 1.81m at the Athens Olympics; his 2nd victory of the Games after taking out the long jump
1st Olympic Marathon
Apr 10 Spyridon Louis of Greece wins inaugural Olympic marathon (2:58:50) in Athens; runs last lap accompanied by Constantine I
- Apr 11 Hungarian swimmer Alfréd Hajós beats Otto Herschmann of Austria by 0.6s to win the inaugural Olympic 100m freestyle final in 1:22.2 at the Athens Games; also takes out the 1,200m on the same day
- Apr 11 Irish tennis player John Boland, representing Great Britain wins both the men's singles and doubles finals at the Athens Olympics; Dionysios Kasdaglis of Greece loses both matches
- Apr 12 Stamasia Portrisi is 1st woman to win a marathon (5:30 in Athens)
El Capitan
Apr 13 John Philip Sousa's "El Capitan" premieres at the Tremont Theatre in Boston
- Apr 14 US Patent Office issues Patent No. 558,393 to Dr John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan for "flaked cereal, and process of making same"
- Apr 15 1st modern Summer Olympic Games close in Athens, Greece; USA wins gold medal count, 11; Greece wins total medal count, 46; IOC has retroactively assigned gold, silver & bronze medals to 3 best placed athletes in each event
- Apr 20 John Philip Sousa's operetta "El Capitan" premieres on Broadway at Broadway Theatre, NYC
- Apr 23 Vitascope system of movie projection 1st shown at Koster & Bial's Music Hall, New York City
- Apr 25 Fight in Central Dance Hall starts fire at Cripple Creek, Colorado
- Apr 25 Sidney Jones & Harry Greenbacks musical "The Geisha" premieres at Daly's Theatre, London; runs for 760 performances
PM Charles Tupper
May 1 Seven days after parliament was dissolved, Charles Tupper is sworn in as the 6th Prime Minister of Canada
- May 4 1st edition of London Daily Mail (halfpenny)
- May 4 Grease fire ignites half ton of dynamite at Cripple Creek, Colorado
- May 6 22nd Kentucky Derby: Willie Simms aboard Ben Brush wins first Derby held at the current distance of 1.25 miles (2.0km)
- May 6 Samuel Pierpont Langley flies his unpiloted Number 5 aircraft using a catapult launch from a boat on the Potomac River, USA. The aircraft travels almost 3/4 of a mile - ten times further than any previous heavier-than-air flying machine.
- May 8 Bobby Peel scores 210 not out as Yorkshire is dismissed for 887 in drawn County Cricket match against Warwickshire in Birmingham
- May 9 1st horseless carriage show in London (featured 10 models)
- May 14 Lowest US temperature in May recorded (-10°F /-23°C at Climax, Colorado)
- May 15 Tornado kills 78 in Texas
- May 18 US Supreme court affirms legitimacy of racial separation (Plessy v Ferguson), a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal"
- May 20 The six ton chandelier of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris falls on the crowd resulting in the death of one and the injury of many others
- May 26 Dow Jones index begins with an average of 12 industrial stocks (closing is 40.94)
- May 26 James Dunham murders six people in Campbell, California
Coronation of Nicholas II
May 26 Last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, crowned
- May 26 Worst streetcar disaster in North American history when part of Port Ellice Bridge collapses killing 55 people at Victoria harbour, British Columbia [1]
- May 27 Bay District Race Track in San Francisco closes
- May 27 Tornado hit St Louis, killing 255, leaving thousands homeless
- May 30 First car accident occurs; Henry Wells hits a cyclist in NYC
- May 30 Khodynka Tragedy: Stampeding crowd on Khodynka Field, Moscow, during the festivities for coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, results in the deaths of about 1,300 people
- Jun 2 30th Belmont: Henry Griffin aboard Hastings wins in 2:24.5
Marconi's Wireless Patent
Jun 2 Italian engineer and inventor Guglielmo Marconi applies for the first ever patent for a system of wireless telegraphy in the United Kingdom
Beatty to Egypt
Jun 3 British naval officer David Beatty is seconded to the Egyptian government and appointed second in command of the river flotilla
Henry Ford's 1st Drive
Jun 4 Henry Ford takes his 1st Ford through streets of Detroit
- Jun 6 Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo leave NY harbor to row across Atlantic; their 55 day record for rowing was not broken for 114 years
- Jun 6 Preakness Stakes: Henry Griffin aboard the Byron McClelland trained Margrave wins in 1:51
- Jun 8 First car thief; Baron de Zuylen’s Peugeot is stolen by his mechanic in Paris
- Jun 11 US Assay Office in Deadwood South Dakota authorized
- Jun 12 England cricket spin bowler Jack Hearne sets record for earliest date taking 100 first-class wickets in a season when he captures 9-73 for the MCC in an innings & 18 run drubbing of Australia at Lord's
36th British Men's Open
Jun 13 British Open Men's Golf, Muirfield: Harry Vardon of Jersey wins first of 6 Open titles by 4 strokes in a 36-hole playoff with defending champion J.H. Taylor
Polar Explorers' Arctic Meeting
Jun 17 Polar explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Frederick Jackson meet by chance in Franz Josef Land, the Arctic
- Jun 20 US National Championship Women's Tennis, Philadelphia CC: Elisabeth Moore beats defending champion Juliette Atkinson 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2
Event of Interest
Jun 27 Review of Paul Laurence Dunbar's second book, "Majors and Minors" by William Dean Howells in "Harper's Weekly" brings the poet to national attention
Event of Interest
Jul 1 Wilfrid Laurier sworn in as 1st French speaking Prime Minister of Canada
- Jul 8 Charles Tupper resigns as Prime Minister of Canada after losing the June 23rd election, his 69-day term the shortest in Canadian history
Presidential Convention
Jul 8 Orator William Jennings Bryan's "cross of gold" speech at Democratic convention in Chicago
- Jul 11 Wilfrid Laurier sworn in as the 7th Prime Minister of Canada
- Jul 13 Philadelphia outfielder Ed Delahanty becomes second major leaguer to hit 4 HRs in a game as Phillies lose 9-8 to Chicago Colts at the West Side Grounds, Chicago
- Jul 16 Indian born K S Ranjitsinhji debuts for England v Australia in 2nd Test at Old Trafford; first Indian to play Test cricket
- Jul 18 George Giffen is 1st to complete 1000/100 double, in 30th Test Cricket
- Jul 18 Indian born K S Ranjitsinhji completes an unbeaten 154 on Test cricket debut for England in 2nd Test against Australia at Old Trafford
- Jul 18 US Open Men's Golf, Shinnecock Hills: American-based Scot James Foulis wins by 3 strokes ahead of Englishman Horace Rawlins
Wimbledon Men's Tennis
Jul 20 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Harold Mahony beats 3-time champion Wilfred Baddeley 6-2, 6-8, 5-7, 8-6, 6-3
- Jul 21 National Federation of Colored Women established in Washington, D.C.
Wimbledon Women's Tennis
Jul 21 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Defending champion Charlotte Cooper beats Alice Simpson Pickering 6-2, 6-3
- Jul 26 Vitascope Hall, 1st permanent for-profit movie theatre, opens in New Orleans
- Jul 28 City of Miami incorporated
- Aug 6 France annexes Madagascar
- Aug 7 New Jersey fishermen George Harbo and Frank Samuelson are the first to row across the Atlantic arriving in Le Havre (left Manhattan June 6) [1]
- Aug 11 Harvey Hubbell patents electric light bulb socket with a pull chain
- Aug 12 Willem II soccer team forms in Tilburg
- Aug 16 Gold first discovered in Klondike, found at Bonanza Creek in the Yukon, Canada by George Carmack
- Aug 18 Adolph Ochs (39) buys NY Times
- Aug 20 Dial telephone patented
- Aug 23 First Cry of the Philippine Revolution is made in Pugad Lawin (Quezon City), in the province of Manila.
- Aug 26 Armenian Revolutionary Federation assaults the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople to draw attention to the mass-pogroms and massacres of Armenians instigated by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid II
US Men's Tennis Open
Aug 26 US National Championship Men's Tennis, Newport R.I.: Robert Wrenn beats Fred Hovey 7-5, 3-6, 6-0, 1-6, 6-1 for his third US singles title
- Aug 27 Britain defeats Zanzibar in a 38-minute war (9:02 AM-9:40 AM). Shortest recorded war in history.
- Aug 29 Chop suey invented in NYC by chef of visiting Chinese Ambassador
- Aug 30 Eight provinces in the Philippines are declared under martial law by the Spanish Governor General Ramon Blanco. Including provinces of Batangas, Rizal, Cavite and Nueva Ecija
- Aug 31 Louis Napoleon Parker's play "Rosemary" premieres in NYC
- Sep 7 A. H. Whiting wins the 1st automobile race held on a closed-circuit track in Cranston, Rhode Island
- Sep 19 Beginning of the Bombay plague epidemic when Dr.Acacio Gabriel Viegas detects the first case in Mandvi. Goes on to spread and kill 12 million in India.
Event of Interest
Sep 21 British General Kitchener's army occupies Dongola, Sudan
Victoria's Record Reign
Sep 22 Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the (then) longest reigning monarch in British history
- Oct 5 William Gillette's dramatic play "Secret Service" premieres in NYC
Arrest of Jose Rizal
Oct 6 Filipino nationalist Jose Rizal is arrested en route to Cuba via Spain and imprisoned in Barcelona
William McKinley Elected
Nov 3 William McKinley (R) defeats William Jennings Bryan (D) to be President of the United States
- Nov 11 Jules Vandenpeereboom becomes Belgium's minister of War
- Nov 11 Samuel Pierpont Langley's Number 6 'heavier-than-air' aircraft model flies over 1,500 m (5,000 ft).
- Nov 14 Power plant at Niagara Falls begins operation
- Nov 14 The Emancipation Run: 33 motorists parade from London to Brighton to celebrate England's Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which increased automobile speed limit to 14 mph
- Nov 24 1st US absentee voting law enacted by Vermont
- Nov 26 1st large indoor football game, University of Chicago beats University of Michigan 7-6
- Nov 26 Amos Alonzo Stagg of University of Chicago creates American football huddle
Also Sprach Zarathustra
Nov 27 "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Thus Spake Zarathustra) by Richard Strauss, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical novel, debuts in Frankfurt
- Dec 1 1st certified public accountants receive certificates (NY)
Die versunkene Glocke
Dec 2 Gerhart Hauptmann's play "Die versunkene Glocke" premieres in Berlin
Emperor and Galilean
Dec 5 Henrik Ibsen's play "Kejsor og Galileer" (Emperor and Galilean) premieres in Leipzig
- Dec 6 D T Suzuki found the awakening at Engakuji temple, in Kamakura
- Dec 10 Alfred Jarry's play "Ubu Roi" premieres in Paris
- Dec 11 Chief Electrical Engineer of the British Post Office, William Preece, gives a public lecture in London called "Telegraphy without Wires", praising the work of 22-year-old Guglielmo Marconi
- Dec 14 The Glasgow Underground Railway is opened by the Glasgow District Subway Company
- Dec 25 "Stars & Stripes Forever" written by John Philip Sousa
- Dec 30 Filipino nationalist José Rizal is executed by firing squad in Manila by the Spanish
- Dec 30 Stanley Cup, Granite Rink, Winnipeg, Manitoba: Ernie McLea scores a hat-trick as Montreal Victorias beat Winnipeg Victorias, 6-5; first SC Challenge game played outside of Montreal
Authors
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