Directory

1894 CE

Blackpool Tower is opened in Blackpool, in north-west England, as a visitor attraction. War is declared between the Qing Empire of China and the Empire of Japan over their rival claims of influence on their common ally, the Joseon dynasty of Korea. The event marks the start of the First Sino-Japanese War. Wedding of Nicholas II of Russia and Alix of Hesse in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace at Saint Petersburg.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire.source
  • March 2 – William Gladstone resigns as British Prime Minister.source
  • March 5 – The Local Government Act (coming into effect December 1894–January 1895) reforms local government in Britain, creating a system of urban and rural districts with elected councils, with elected civil parish councils in rural areas, and gives women, irrespective of marital status, the right to vote and stand in local (but not national) elections.source
  • June 22 – Dahomey becomes a French colony.source
  • July 4 – The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole.source
  • July 16 – The United Kingdom and Japan sign the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, as the U.K. becomes the first of the Western nations to agree to give up its extraterritorial rights in Japan.source
  • October 1 – Petrópolis becomes the capital of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, until 1902.source
  • December 18 – Women in South Australia become the first in Australia to gain the right to vote and the first in the world with the right to be elected to Parliament, taking effect from 1895, after decades of activism.source
  • December 21 – Mackenzie Bowell becomes Canada's fifth prime minister.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 12 – Ère des attentats: Café Terminus attack – In one of the first acts of modern terrorism, French anarchist Émile Henry throws a bomb into the Café Terminus in Paris, France, killing one person and injuring at least seventeen.source
  • May Day riots break out in Cleveland, Ohio.source
  • June 18 – Britain establishes a protectorate over Uganda.source
  • June 24 – Sadi Carnot, president of France, is assassinated in Lyon.source
  • August 1 – War is declared between the Qing Empire of China and the Empire of Japan over their rival claims of influence on their common ally, the Joseon dynasty of Korea. The event marks the start of the First Sino-Japanese War.source
  • August 16 – Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio is executed by guillotine for the assassination of French President Carnot in Lyon.source
  • November 3 – Waziristan campaign (1894–1895): Battle of Wana Camp – British colonial forces stationed in Wana would come under attack by rebel Mahsud tribesmen. The battle began a campaign of offensive actions against the Mahsud tribes in Waziristan to reduce their strength.source
  • November 21 – First Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lushunkou – Japanese troops secure a decisive victory over the Chinese, capture the port city of Lüshunkou, and begin the Port Arthur massacre, in which more than 1,000 Chinese servicemen and civilians die.source

Religion & Belief

  • November 7 – The Masonic Grande Loge de France is founded, splitting from the larger and older Grand Orient de France.source

Economy & Finance

  • August 31 – New Zealand enacts the world's first minimum wage law, to take effect on January 1, in the passage of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1894.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United States.source
  • January 9 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts.source
  • March 12 – Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.source
  • May 14 – Blackpool Tower is opened in Blackpool, in north-west England, as a visitor attraction.source
  • May 21 – The Manchester Ship Canal and Docks are officially opened by Queen Victoria, linking the previously landlocked industrial city of Manchester, in north-west England, to the Irish Sea.source
  • June 30 – Tower Bridge in London opens for traffic.source
  • July 22 – The Paris–Rouen Competition for Horseless Carriages, the first automobile competition, is held.source
  • October 30 – Domenico Menegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.source

Science & Discovery

  • March 21 – A syzygy of planets occurs, as Mercury transits the Sun as seen from Venus, and Mercury and Venus both transit the Sun as seen from Saturn, but no two of the transits are simultaneous.source
  • Oil is discovered on the Osage Indian reservation, making the Osage the "richest group of people in the world".source

Health & Medicine

  • May – Third plague pandemic: Bubonic plague breaks out in the Tai Ping Shan area of Hong Kong (by the end of the year, the death toll is 2,552 people); it also breaks out this year in Canton.source
  • September 1 – Great Hinckley Fire: A forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, kills more than 450 people.source

Crime & Justice

  • Coxey's Army arrives in Washington; Coxey is arrested on the Capitol grounds.source
  • October 15 – Dreyfus affair: French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying.source
  • December 22 – Dreyfus affair: French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason. It will be 12 years before his innocence is officially recognised.source
  • Spillers Records is founded in Cardiff (Wales), the world's oldest record shop still in operation.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • April 21 – A bituminous coal miners' strike closes mines across the central United States.source
  • May 11 – Pullman Strike: Three thousand Pullman Palace Car Company factory workers go on a "wildcat" (without union approval) strike in Illinois.source
  • July 6 – A fire at the site of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago destroys most of the remaining buildings.source
  • September 26 – The and the schooner barge Ironton collide and sink in Lake Huron. While the crew of the Ohio is rescued, five of the other craft's seven-member crew, including the captain, are lost.source
  • November 8 – The Italian cargo steamship Etnea struck the rocks of the islet of Školjić west of Unije and sank.source

Climate & Environment

  • February 15 – In Korea, peasant unrest erupts in the Donghak Peasant Revolution, a massive revolt by followers of the Donghak movement. Both China and Japan send military forces, claiming to come to the ruling Joseon dynasty government's aid.source
  • April 27 – Canada's largest known landslide occurs in Saint-Alban, Quebec, displacing 185 e6m3 of rock and dirt, and leaving a 40 m scar that covers 4.6 e6m2 .source
  • November 6 – Republicans win by a landslide in the United States House of Representatives elections, which sets the stage for the decisive presidential election of 1896.source

Culture & Society

  • March 25 – Coxey's Army (of the unemployed), the first significant protest march in the United States, departs from Massillon, Ohio, for Washington, D.C.source
  • April 16 – Manchester City Football Club is formed in north-west England under this name.source
  • May 1 – In protests by the unemployed in the United States:source
  • June 23 – The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne, Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.source
  • July 4 – The football club FC La Chaux-de-Fonds is founded in Switzerland.source
  • September 4 – In New York City, 12,000 tailors strike against sweatshop working conditions.source
  • September 10 – Richard Strauss marries Pauline De Ahna.source
  • November 1 – Emperor Alexander III of Russia is succeeded by his son, Nicholas II.source
  • November 1 – The first issue of Billboard magazine is published in Cincinnati, Ohio by William Donaldson and James Hennegan. Initially, it covers the advertising and bill posting industry, and is at the time known as Billboard Advertising.source
  • November 26 – Wedding of Nicholas II of Russia and Alix of Hesse in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace at Saint Petersburg.source
  • December 6 – Kate Chopin's feminist short story "The Story of an Hour" is first published, in the American magazine Vogue.source
  • The Society of Beaux-Arts Architects is founded in the United States.source
  • Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern publish the waltz The Little Lost Child in the United States, promoting the playing of the waltz with slides projected by a magic lantern, the earliest version of music video known as the illustrated song.source
  • The Liga Femeilor Române, the first women's organisation in Romania, is founded.source

Births

  • January 8 – Maximilian Kolbe, Polish friar and martyr (k. 1941 in Auschwitz concentration camp)source
  • February 1 – John Ford, American film director (d. 1973)source
  • February 10 – Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1986)source
  • April 10 – Archibald Roosevelt, American conservative political activist, son of President Theodore Roosevelt (d. 1979)source
  • May 27 – Dashiell Hammett, American detective fiction writer (d. 1961)source
  • May 29 – Josef von Sternberg, Austrian-American film director (d. 1969)source
  • July 8 – Pyotr Kapitsa, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)source
  • July 19 – Khawaja Nazimuddin, 2nd Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1964)source
  • July 20 – Wiley Rutledge, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1949)source
  • August 1 – Benjamin Mays, American Baptist minister and civil rights leader (d. 1984)source
  • August 10 – V. V. Giri, Indian politician, 4th President of India (d. 1980)source
  • October 7 – Herman Dooyeweerd, Dutch philosopher and professor of law (d. 1977)source
  • October 25 – Âşık Veysel, Turkish poet, songwriter and saz player (d. 1973)source
  • December 10 – Philip Drinker, American hygienist and inventor of the iron lung (d. 1972)source

Deaths

  • January 13 – Nadezhda von Meck, Russian patron of Peter Tchaikovsky (b. 1831)source
  • February 15 – French anarchist Martial Bourdin dies of an accidental detonation of his own bomb, next to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in London, England.source
  • February 21 – Gustave Caillebotte, French painter (b. 1848)source
  • February 27 – Hilarión Daza, President of Bolivia (assassinated) (b. 1840)source
  • March 2 – Jubal Early, American Confederate general (b. 1816)source
  • May 12 – Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna of Russia, granddaughter of Tsar Paul I (b. 1827)source
  • July 30 – Walter Pater, English essayist, critic (b. 1839)source
  • September 1 – Nathaniel P. Banks, American politician, general (b. 1816)source
  • September 8 – Hermann von Helmholtz, German physician, physicist (b. 1821)source
  • October 7 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., American author (b. 1809)source
  • October 10 – William Robinson (Canadian architect), Canadian architect and land surveyor (b. 1812)source
  • November 25 – Solomon Caesar Malan, Swiss-born orientalist (b. 1812)source
  • November 29 – Juan N. Méndez, interim President of Mexico from 1876 to 1877. (b. 1820)source
  • December 12 – Sir John Thompson, 4th Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1845)source