- Jan 1 Norway adopts Mid-European time
Emilio Aguinaldo
- Jan 5 Henry James' play "Guy Domville" opens in London
Event of Interest
Jan 5 French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank; later exonerated
Alfred Dreyfus
- Jan 12 The National Trust is founded in Britain.
Event of Interest
Jan 13 Oscar Wilde's "Ideal Husband" premieres in London
Oscar Wilde
- 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
Event of Interest
Feb 21 NC Legislature, adjourns for day to mark death of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
- Feb 23 William Heard, AME minister & educator, named American minister to Liberia
- Feb 24 Cuban war for independence begins
- Feb 26 Michael Owens of Toledo, Ohio, patents a glass-blowing machine
- 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
Fridtjof Nansen
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]
Read Article
- 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
Event of Interest
Jun 28 French painter Paul Gauguin leaves France for Tahiti for the second time
Paul Gauguin
- 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 killed by an off-duty policeman 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)
Event of Interest
Sep 18 Booker T. Washington delivers 'Atlanta Compromise' address
Booker T. Washington
- 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
Menelik II
- 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
Event of Interest
Nov 8 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen produces and detects electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays
Wilhelm Röntgen
Nobel Prize
Nov 27 Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel's will establishes the Nobel Prize
Alfred Nobel
- 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 29 Dr L S Jameson begins failed raid on Johannesburg