- Jan 1 Norway adopts Mid-European time
French History
Jan 5 French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank; later exonerated
- Jan 5 Henry James' play "Guy Domville" opens in London
- Jan 12 The National Trust is founded in Britain.
Theater Premiere
Jan 13 Oscar Wilde's play "An Ideal Husband" premieres at the Haymarket Theatre in London
- Jan 15 French fleet reaches Majunga, Madagascar
- Jan 17 French president Casimir-Perier resigns; Félix Faure installed.
- Jan 22 National Association of Manufacturers organized in Cincinnati
- Jan 29 King Koko's Kopermannen assault on Akassa Niger, 100's killed
- Jan 30 C J Eady (Tas) 1st Australian to score twin centuries (v Vic)
- Jan 30 SS Elbe sinks after collision in North Sea, 332 killed
- Jan 30 Tasmania beat Victoria for 1st F-C victory in 41 years
- Jan 31 Jose Martí & others leave NYC for invasion of Spanish Cuba
- Feb 3 Wilhelm Mauseth skates world record 500 m (46.8 secs)
- Feb 4 1st rolling lift bridge opens in Chicago
- Feb 11 -17°F (-27.2°C) in Braemar, Grampian (UK record)
- Feb 11 Georgetown became part of Washington, D.C.
- Feb 13 Moving picture projector patented
- Feb 14 Oscar Wilde's "Importance of Being Earnest," opens in London
- Feb 15 23 cm (9 inches) of snow falls on New Orleans
- Feb 20 Congress authorizes a US mint at Denver, Colorodo
Historic Event
Feb 21 NC Legislature, adjourns for day to mark death of Frederick Douglass
Historic Event
Feb 25 Groenkloof Nature Reserve in Pretoria established by President Paul Kruger as the first game sanctuary in Africa
- Feb 26 Michael Owens of Toledo, Ohio, patents a glass-blowing machine
- Mar 2 US Congress renames the Office of Immigration as the Bureau of Immigration
- Mar 11 Spanish cruiser Reina Regente sinks in Straits of Gibraltar, over 400 die
- Mar 18 200 African Americans leave Savannah, Georgia for Liberia
- Mar 19 Los Angeles Railway established to provide streetcar service
- Mar 25 Italian troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
- Mar 26 King Alfonso plants pine sapling in Madrid, starts Spain's Arbor Day
- Apr 5 Oscar Wilde loses libel case against Marquess of Queensberry, who accused him of homosexual practices
Historic Expedition
Apr 7 Polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen reaches record 86°13.6′N latitude north, expedition closest to the North pole
Around The World Alone In A Fishing Boat
Apr 24 Canadian-American adventurer Joshua Slocum sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts on a solo around-the-world voyage aboard 'Spray', an 11.2-m oyster sloop [1]
- May 7 Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention - the world's first radio receiver in St. Petersberg. Celebrated as Radio Day in Russia.
- May 8 China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki
- May 25 Oscar Wilde sentenced to 2 years imprisonment for gross indecency
- May 25 The Republic of Formosa is formed, with Tang Ching-sung as the president
- May 27 British inventor Birt Acres patents film camera/projector
- Jun 11 Charles Duryea patents a gas-driven automobile
- Jun 17 US Ship Canal (W 225th St) in the Bronx completed; cutting Marble Hill off from Manhattan
- Jun 20 1st female PhD from an American University, earned by Caroline Willard Baldwin (in Science) at Cornell University
- Jun 20 Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras form a short-lived confederation
- Jun 21 British Earl of Rosebery's Liberal Party government falls
- Jun 28 El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua form Central American Union
Historic Event
Jun 28 French painter Paul Gauguin leaves France for Tahiti for the second time
- Jun 29 Doukhobors burn their weapons as a protest against conscription by the Tsarist Russian government.
- Jul 4 Katherine Lee Bates publishes "America the Beautiful"
- Jul 8 Delagoa Bay Railway opens in South Africa
- Aug 19 American frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin is shot and killed by John Selman Sr. in a saloon in El Paso, Texas
- Aug 26 Electric generator at Niagara Falls produces first power
- Aug 30 Belgium begins compulsory Roman Catholic education
- Aug 31 1st pro football game (QB John Brallier paid $10 & won 12-0)
- Sep 5 George Washington Murray elected to Congress from SC
- Sep 9 American Bowling Congress forms (NYC)
Historic Event
Sep 18 Booker T. Washington delivers 'Atlanta Compromise' address
- Sep 18 Daniel David Palmer of Davenport, Iowa, gives the first chiropractic adjustment
- Sep 21 America's first automotive producer, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company, is founded by Charles and J. Frank Duryea
- Sep 23 French labor union CGT (Confederation Generale du Travail) forms
- Sep 26 Italian general Oreste Baratieri lands in Massawa, Eritrea
- Sep 30 France proclaims a protectorate over Madagascar
- Oct 1 Romanians in Costantinople massacred
- Oct 8 Ohio Valley Improvement Association forms
Treaty of Interest
Oct 11 Emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia rejects a treaty with Italy
- Oct 15 Henry Perky patents a machine he developed with William Ford for the preparation of cereals for food, otherwise known as shredded wheat
- Oct 21 The Republic of Formosa collapses as Japanese forces invade.
- Oct 22 David Belasco's "Heart of Maryland" premieres in NYC
- Oct 22 In Paris an express train overruns a buffer stop, crosses more than 30 meters of concourse before plummeting through a window at Gare Montparnasse
- Nov 5 1st US patent granted for auto (George B Selden) for gasoline driven car
- Nov 5 Edward, Prince of Wales, says "We are all Socialists nowadays"
- Nov 5 US state Utah accepts female suffrage
Historic Event
Nov 8 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen produces and detects electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays
Nobel Prize
Nov 27 Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel's will establishes the Nobel Prize
- Dec 2 54th Congress (1895-97) convenes
- Dec 7 Battle at Amba Alagi: Abyssinians beat Italian armies
- Dec 8 Battle at Amba Alagi: Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II drives Italian General Baratieri out
- Dec 17 Anti-Saloon League of America formed, Washington, D.C.
- Dec 17 George Brownell patents a machine to make paper twine (Mass)
- Dec 24 George Vanderbilt opens Biltmore estate, the largest privately owned house in America at 178,926 square feet (16,622.8 m2) in Asheville, North Carolina
- Dec 29 Dr L S Jameson begins failed raid on Johannesburg