Directory

1891 CE

1st Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald wins a 4th consecutive parliamentary victory over the Liberal Party. The first penalty kick is awarded in an Association football match: John Heath scores it for Wolverhampton Wanderers in England. Eugène Dubois finds the first fragmentary bones of Pithecanthropus erectus (later redesignated Homo erectus), or "Java Man", at Trinil on the Solo River.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 1 – Germany takes formal possession of its new African territories.source
  • January 7 – The Inter-American Monetary Commission meets in Washington, D.C.source
  • January 10 – In France, the Irish Nationalist leaders hold a conference at Boulogne. The French government promptly takes loan.source
  • January 20 – Jim Hogg becomes the first native Texan to be governor of that state.source
  • January 29 – Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii.source
  • February 24 – The constitution of the First Brazilian Republic is promulgated.source
  • March 5 – 1st Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald wins a 4th consecutive parliamentary victory over the Liberal Party.source
  • June 15 – Minas Gerais was granted in 1891.source
  • July 7 – The Home Alliance was established in Woodland, California where, initially, it was the only publication in the state that fought the legalized liquor traffic.source
  • August 27 – France and Russia conclude a defensive alliance.source
  • September 18 – The Chilean Civil War of 1891 ends with the suicide of deposed President José Manuel Balmaceda and victory for the Congressional party, beginning the country's Parliamentary Era.source
  • December 17 – Drexel University is inaugurated as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in Philadelphia.source
  • Brahmin teacher and nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak begins agitation for Indian Home Rule.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 1 – A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence.source
  • January 5 – A fight between the United States and Lakota people breaks out near Pine Ridge agency.source
  • January 7 – General Nelson A. Miles' forces surround the Lakota in the Pine Ridge Reservation.source
  • January 11 – 3,000 Lakotas approach Pine Ridge with a view to surrender.source
  • January 12 – Canada brings suit before the United States Supreme Court in re seizures of vessels in the Bering Sea.source
  • January 14 – Conference of Lakota chiefs with General Miles at Pine Ridge Reservation: the Lakota agree to surrender.source
  • January 16 – The Chilean Civil War of 1891 breaks out.source
  • January 31 – The Portuguese republican revolution breaks out, in the northern city of Porto.source
  • February – The Tobacco Protest begins in Iran.source
  • April 23 – Chilean Civil War of 1891: Chilean ironclad Blanco Encalada is sunk at the Battle of Caldera Bay by torpedo boats. This is the first ironclad warship lost to a self-propelled torpedo.source
  • May 1 – Troops fire on a workers' May Day demonstration in support of the 8-hour workday in Fourmies, France, killing 9 and wounding 30.source
  • May 11 – Ōtsu incident: Tsesarevich Nikolay Alexandrovich (the future Czar Nicholas II) of Russia survives an assassination attempt while visiting Japan.source
  • November 11 – Jindandao Incident: The Chinese Juu Uda League in Inner Mongolia massacres tens of thousands of Mongols, before being suppressed by government troops in late December.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 19 – A British Royal Navy squadron is ordered to Chile.source
  • January 27–May 2 – The Jamaica International Exhibition is held.source
  • October – Eugène Dubois finds the first fragmentary bones of Pithecanthropus erectus (later redesignated Homo erectus), or "Java Man", at Trinil on the Solo River.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 12 – St. Mary's Cathedral is dedicated in San Francisco.source
  • May 15 – Pope Leo XIII issues the encyclical Rerum novarum, on the rights and duties of capital and labor, resulting in the creation of many Christian Democrat parties throughout Europe.source
  • May – Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claims to be the Promised Messiah (the second coming of Jesus) and the Mahdi awaited in Islam.source

Economy & Finance

  • September 29 – Thyssen, predecessor of the Thyssen Krupp worldwide conglomerate, is founded in Duisburg, Germany.source
  • A predecessor of the Japanese personal care brand Lion Corporation is founded as Kobayashi Tomijirō Shōten (小林富次郎商店).source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 5 – A fight between railway strikers and police breaks out at Motherwell, Scotland.source
  • January 15 – Scottish railway strikers attempt to wreck a train near Greenock, Scotland.source
  • March 18 – The London–Paris telephone system officially opens.source
  • April 1 – The London–Paris telephone system is opened to the general public.source
  • May 1 – The first Fascio dei lavoratori (Workers League) is founded by Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida in Catania, Sicily.source
  • May 31 N.S. (May 19 O.S.) – In the Kuperovskaya district of Vladivostok, a grand ceremonial inauguration of construction work on the Trans-Siberian Railway is carried out by the Tsesarevich Nikolay Alexandrovich, and a religious service held.source
  • June 21 – The first long-distance transmission of alternating current is made, from the Ames power plant near Telluride, Colorado, by Lucien and Paul Nunn.source
  • June – The clipper ship Cromdale is completed. She is the last fully rigged ship built for the Australian wool trade.source
  • August 5 – The first American Express traveler's cheque is cashed.source
  • September 22 – The first hydropower plant of Finland is commissioned along the Tammerkoski rapids in Tampere, Pirkanmaa.source
  • September 28 – Club Atlético Peñarol is founded in Montevideo, under the name of the CURCC (Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club).source
  • November 28 – The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is organized in St. Louis, Missouri.source
  • Philips founded in Eindhoven, Netherlands, for the production of carbon-filament lamps and other electro-technical products.source
  • Michelin patents the removable pneumatic bicycle tire.source
  • Production of the Swiss Army Knife by Victorinox begins.source

Science & Discovery

  • March 3 – The International Copyright Act of 1891 is passed, by the 51st United States Congress.source
  • May 20 – Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope is first displayed at Edison's Laboratory, for a convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs.source
  • June 1 – The Johnstown Inclined Plane opens in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.source
  • December 22 – Asteroid 323 Brucia becomes the first asteroid discovered using photography.source
  • Nikola Tesla invents the Tesla coil.source

Health & Medicine

  • January 19 – General Miles officially announces the end of the native outbreak and congratulates his troops.source
  • April 5 – Census in the United Kingdom: 15.6 million people live in cities of 20,000 or more in England and Wales, and cities of 20,000 or more account for 54% of the total English population.source
  • July 30 – The Springboks rugby union team of South Africa play their first international test match against the Lions team of the British Isles, and lose by 4–0.source

Crime & Justice

  • February 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
  • March 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
  • June 25 – Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes appears in The Strand Magazine (London) for the first time, in the issue dated July.source
  • September 14 – The first penalty kick is awarded in an Association football match: John Heath scores it for Wolverhampton Wanderers in England.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 11 – In Mahoning Valley, Ohio, sixteen blast furnaces shut down, putting 10,000 men out of work.source
  • February 21 – Springhill, Nova Scotia suffers a serious mining disaster.source
  • March 17 – The British steamship , carrying Italian migrants to New York, sinks in the inner harbor of Gibraltar after collision with the battleship HMS Anson, killing 564.source

Climate & Environment

  • January 4 – The Earl of Zetland issues a declaration regarding the famine in the western counties of Ireland.source
  • March 9–12 – The Great Blizzard of 1891 in the south and west of England leads to extensive snow drifts and powerful storms off the south coast, with 14 ships sunk, and approximately 220 deaths attributed to the weather conditions.source
  • October 28 – The 8.0 Mino–Owari earthquake strikes the Gifu region of Japan. This oblique-slip event kills over 7,200, injures more than 17,000, and creates fault scarps that still remain visible.source

Culture & Society

  • January 5 – The Australian shearers' strike, that leads indirectly to the foundation of the Australian Labor Party, begins.source
  • January 9 – The great shoe strike in Rochester, New York is called off.source
  • February 15 – Allmänna Idrottsklubben (AIK) sports club is founded in Stockholm, Sweden.source
  • March 12 – Djurgårdens IF (DIF) sports club is founded in Stockholm.source
  • April 1 – The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago.source
  • April 12 – The first official game in the Association football league of Argentina (1891 Argentine Primera División) is held in Caballito, Buenos Aires.source
  • May 5 – The Music Hall in New York (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as guest conductor.source
  • October 1 – Skansen is established as the world's first open-air museum by Artur Hazelius, on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden.source
  • October 1 – Stanford University in California opens its doors.source
  • Seattle University is established as the Immaculate Conception school.source
  • New Mexico Military Institute is founded (as Goss Military Institute) in Roswell, New Mexico Territory.source
  • James Naismith invents basketball in the United States.source

Births

  • January 7 – Zora Neale Hurston, African-American writer, anthropologist, ethnographer (d. 1960)source
  • January 8 – Walther Bothe, German physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics (d. 1957)source
  • January 22 – Antonio Gramsci, Italian Communist writer, politician (d. 1937)source
  • February 2 – Antonio Segni, Italian politician, 34th Prime Minister of Italy (1955–1957, 1959–1960), 4th President of the Italian Republic (d. 1972)source
  • March 19 – Earl Warren, American politician and Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1974)source
  • April 5 – Laura Vicuña, Chilean Roman Catholic holy figure and blessed (d. 1904)source
  • April 14 – B. R. Ambedkar, Indian jurist and politician (d. 1956)source
  • May 15 – Nipo T. Strongheart, Native American filmmaker (d. 1966)source
  • August 17 – Dulcie Mary Pillers, English medical illustrator (d. 1961)source
  • September 12 – Pedro Albizu Campos, advocate of Puerto Rican independence (d. 1965)source
  • October 12 – Fumimaro Konoe, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1945)source
  • October 20 – James Chadwick, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)source
  • October 25 – Charles Coughlin, American Catholic priest, anti-Semitic radio host (d. 1979)source
  • December 10 – Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, British field marshal (d. 1969)source

Deaths

  • January 20 – Kalākaua, last reigning King of Hawaii (b. 1836)source
  • February 4 – Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos, Roman Catholic archbishop and Mexican politician who served as regent during the Second Mexican Empire, 1863-1864 (b. 1816)source
  • May 8 – Sir John Robertson, Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales (b. 1816)source
  • May 8 – Helena Blavatsky, Russian-born author, theosophist (b. 1831)source
  • July 1 – Mihail Kogălniceanu, 3rd Prime Minister of Romania (b. 1817)source
  • July 4 – Hannibal Hamlin, 15th Vice President of the United States (b. 1809)source
  • August 12 – James Russell Lowell, American poet and essayist (b. 1819)source
  • August 14 – Sarah Childress Polk, First Lady of the United States (b. 1803)source
  • September 7 – Lorenzo Sawyer, 9th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California (b. 1820)source
  • September 19 – José Manuel Balmaceda, 10th President of Chile (b. 1840)source
  • September 28 – Herman Melville, American novelist (b. 1819)source
  • October 6 – Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish nationalist leader (b. 1846)source
  • October 15 – Lawrence Dudley Bailey, American abolitionist and jurist who served on the Kansas Supreme Court from 1861 to 1869 (b. 1819)source
  • December 7 – Mary Crane, American activist; mother of the writer, Stephen Crane (b. 1827)source