Directory

1896 CE

Walter Arnold, of East Peckham, Kent, England, is fined 1 shilling for speeding at 8 mph km/h, exceeding the contemporary urban speed limit of 2 mph km/h, the first speeding fine. The opening ceremonies of the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first modern Olympic Games, are held in Athens, Greece. 1896 United States presidential election: Republican William McKinley defeats William Jennings Bryan. The event is viewed by some as a political realignment for the United States Republican Party.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.source
  • May 13 – The Franchise Bill is passed by the Colony of Natal's Legislative Assembly, disfranchising natives of other countries.source
  • May 18 – Plessy v. Ferguson: The U.S. Supreme Court introduces the separate but equal doctrine, and upholds racial segregation.source
  • June 23 – Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier defeats Charles Tupper during Canadian federal elections for the 8th Canadian Parliament, to become the first Francophone Prime Minister of Canada.source
  • July 11 – Wilfrid Laurier becomes Canada's seventh prime minister, and the first French-speaker to hold that office.source
  • August 27 – Britain establishes a Protectorate over the Ashanti people concluding the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War.source
  • September 30 – Italy and France sign a treaty whereby Italy virtually recognizes Tunisia as a French dependency.source
  • November 3 – 1896 United States presidential election: Republican William McKinley defeats William Jennings Bryan. The event is viewed by some as a political realignment for the United States Republican Party.source
  • France establishes an administrative post in Abengourou, Ivory Coast.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end as Jameson surrenders to the Boers.source
  • January 6 – Cecil Rhodes is forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope for his involvement in the Jameson Raid.source
  • January 17 – Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War: British redcoats enter the Ashanti capital, Kumasi, and Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I is deposed.source
  • March 1 – Battle of Adwa: Ethiopia defends its independence from Italy, ending the First Italo-Ethiopian War.source
  • May 30 – Khodynka Tragedy: a crowd crush at Khodynka Field in Moscow kills at least 1,200 of those marking the coronation year of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.source
  • June 7 – Mahdist War: Battle of Ferkeh – British and Egyptian troops are victorious.source
  • August 23 – The Cry of Pugad Lawin initiates the Philippine Revolution.source
  • August 27 – The shortest war in recorded history, the Anglo-Zanzibar War, starts at 9:00 in the morning, and lasts for 45 minutes of shelling.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • July 27 – A causeway is opened between the islands of Saaremaa and Muhu in Estonia.source
  • August 16 – Keish (often called Skookum Jim Mason), George Carmack, and Dawson Charlie discover gold in the Klondike, Yukon.source
  • December 1 – Archaeologist Alois Anton Führer, Nepalese General Khadga Samsher Rana and an expedition rediscover the great stone pillar of Ashoka at Lumbini, traditionally the spot of the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, after using Faxian's records.source

Religion & Belief

  • March 29 – The Royal College of St Patrick, Maynooth in Ireland is granted the status of pontifical university by charter of the Holy See.source
  • May 26 – Coronation of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna in the Dormition Cathedral, Moscow; this will be the last coronation of the Russian monarch. The Qing dynasty is represented at the coronation by Chinese official Li Hongzhang who through September goes on to visit Germany, Britain, Canada and the United States.source
  • July 21 – In Washington, D.C., in response to a "call to confer" issued by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin to all women of color, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs is organized.source
  • Pope Leo XIII is filmed, making him the first ever Pope to be filmed and the earliest-born person to be captured on film. (Note: to view the event in the video above, go to timestamp 3:07)source

Economy & Finance

  • March 9 – Responding to national outrage at the defeat at Adwa, Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns.source
  • May 26 – Eleven years after its foundation, a group of 12 purely industrial stocks are chosen to form the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the U.S. The index is composed entirely of industrial shares for the first time.source
  • July 26 – The International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress opens in London.source
  • August 1 – The Park Seung-jik shop, predecessor of South Korean conglomerate Doosan Group, is founded in Joseon (the kingdom of Korea).source
  • September 28 – Pathé Frères, a French film company and one of the oldest film companies, is founded by the brothers Charles Pathé, Théophile Pathé, Émile Pathé and Jacques Pathé.source
  • November 21 - The Hamburg dockworkers' strike of 1896-97 is considered one of the largest labour disputes in the German Empire.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • June 4 – The Ford Quadricycle, the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford, is completed, eventually leading Ford to build the empire that "put America on wheels".source
  • June 18 – The New York Telephone Company is formed, succeeding the Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company, to control telephone service within New York City.source
  • August 14 – The Uganda Railway Act, 1896, is approved in the United Kingdom, for construction of a railway in Africa from Mombasa to Lake Victoria.source
  • October 1 – Gottlieb Daimler builds the first gasoline truck.source
  • December 14 – The Glasgow Subway, the third-oldest underground metro system in the world, opens.source
  • A school of mines opens in Kimberley and will form the core of the University of the Witwatersrand.source

Science & Discovery

  • January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery, last November, of a type of electromagnetic radiation, later known as X-rays.source
  • January 12 – H. L. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph.source
  • April – Svante Arrhenius first publishes the "greenhouse law", becoming the first person to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes are large enough to cause global warming through the greenhouse effect.source

Health & Medicine

  • August – The 1896 Eastern North America heat wave kills 1,500 people from Chicago, Illinois to Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • The pharmaceutical and healthcare company Hoffmann-La Roche in Switzerland comes wholly under the control of Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche.source

Crime & Justice

  • January 28 – Walter Arnold, of East Peckham, Kent, England, is fined 1 shilling for speeding at 8 mph km/h, exceeding the contemporary urban speed limit of 2 mph km/h, the first speeding fine.source
  • September 15 – The Crash at Crush train wreck stunt is held in Texas.source
  • November 30 – "St. Augustine Monster": A large carcass, later postulated to be the remains of a gigantic octopus, is found washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida.source
  • December 30 – José Rizal, Filipino scholar and poet, is executed by Spanish authorities in the Philippines.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • February 19 – Braamfontein Explosion: A train carrying 56 tons of dynamite explodes at Braamfontein, Johannesburg, killing more than 78 people.source
  • June 28 – Twin Shaft disaster: An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.source
  • July 30 – Atlantic City rail crash: Shortly after 6:30 pm, at a crossing just west of Atlantic City, New Jersey, two trains collide, crushing five loaded passenger coaches, killing 50 and seriously injuring approximately sixty.source
  • August 17 – Bridget Driscoll is run over by a Benz car on the grounds of The Crystal Palace, London, the world's first motoring fatality.source
  • October 4 – A locomotive in Bulawayo explodes and kills ten prisoners.source

Climate & Environment

  • May 27 – St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado: The costliest and third deadliest tornado in U.S. history levels a mile wide swath of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, incurring US$2.9 billion (1997 USD) in normalized damages, killing more than 255 and injuring over 1,000 people.source
  • June 12 – J. T. Hearne sets a record for the earliest date of taking 100 wickets in cricket, in England (it is equalled by Charlie Parker in 1931).source
  • June 15 – The 8.5 Sanriku earthquake and tsunami kills 22,000 in northeastern Japan.source

Culture & Society

  • January 7 – American culinary expert Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook.source
  • January 16 – Devonport High School for Boys is founded in Plymouth (England).source
  • February 1 – Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème premieres in Turin, Italy.source
  • February 11 – Oscar Wilde's play Salomé (1891) has its stage premiere (while Wilde is in prison) in its original French in Paris.source
  • March 3 – Publication begins for Der Eigene, the world's first magazine with an orientation to male homosexuality, by Adolf Brand in Berlin.source
  • March 19 – Dvořák's Cello Concerto premieres, in London.source
  • April 4 – The first known women's basketball game between two colleges is played between Stanford and California.source
  • April 6 – The opening ceremonies of the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first modern Olympic Games, are held in Athens, Greece.source
  • April 9 – The National Farm School (later Delaware Valley College) is chartered in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.source
  • April 23 – Blackpool Pleasure Beach, a popular English theme park ("Britain's Biggest Tourist Attraction"), is founded by Alderman William George Bean.source
  • May 8 – Cricket: Against Warwickshire, Yorkshire sets a still-standing County Championship record in England, when they accumulate an innings total of 887.source
  • July 9 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech at the Democratic National Convention, which nominates him for president of the United States.source
  • September 2 – Clarkson University holds its first classes, with 17 students attending in Potsdam, New York.source
  • September 22 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest-reigning monarch in British history up to this time.source
  • October 2 – The Victorian Football League is established as Australian rules football in Australia (a predecessor of the Australian Football League).source
  • October 30 – The Augusta High School cornerstone is laid in Augusta, Kentucky, marking the end of the Augusta Methodist College.source
  • November 27 – Richard Strauss's orchestral tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra is first performed, in Frankfurt, conducted by the composer.source
  • November 30 – Udinese Calcio Association football club is founded in Udine, Italy.source
  • December 10 – The premiere of Alfred Jarry's absurdist play Ubu Roi in Paris causes a near-riot.source
  • December 25 – John Philip Sousa composes The Stars and Stripes Forever which will become the national march of the United States.source
  • Racing Club de Lyon, a football club in France, is officially founded and becomes a predecessor of Olympique Lyonnais.source

Births

  • May 2 – Helen of Greece and Denmark, Queen Mother of Romania (d. 1982)source
  • August 14 – Albert Ball, British World War I fighter ace, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1917)source
  • August 15 – Gerty Cori, Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1957)source
  • August 17 – Leslie Groves, United States Army general, director of the Manhattan Project (d. 1970)source
  • September 1 – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Indian religious leader, founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (d. 1977)source
  • October 12 – Eugenio Montale, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)source
  • October 22 – Earle Clements, American politician, governor of Kentucky (d. 1985)source
  • November 4 – Carlos P. Garcia, 8th President of the Philippines (d. 1971)source
  • November 14 – Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States (d. 1979)source
  • November 16 – Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (d. 1980)source
  • November 25 – Albertus Soegijapranata, Indonesian Jesuit priest (d. 1963)source
  • December 1 – Georgi Zhukov, Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union (d. 1974)source
  • December 14 – Jimmy Doolittle, American aviation pioneer, World War II United States Army Air Forces general (d. 1993)source
  • December 16 – Anna Anderson, pretender to the Russian throne (d. 1984)source

Deaths

  • January 20 – Prince Henry of Battenberg, Lombardy-born British royal, married to Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (b. 1858)source
  • January 26 – James Edwin Campbell, American educator, school administrator, newspaper editor, poet, and essayist (b. 1867)source
  • April 27 – Sir Henry Parkes, Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales (b. 1815)source
  • April 30 – Hamilton Disston, American industrialist and land developer (b. 1844)source
  • May 1 – Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia, King of Herat (b. 1831)source
  • May 20 – Clara Schumann, German composer, pianist (b. 1819)source
  • July 1 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author (b. 1811)source
  • July 4 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer, journalist (b. 1850)source
  • August 13 – Sir John Everett Millais, British Pre-Raphaelite painter (b. 1829)source
  • October 3 – William Morris, English designer, poet and political activist (b. 1834)source
  • October 6 – Sir James Abbott, British army officer and colonial administrator in India (b. 1807)source
  • October 23 – Columbus Delano, American statesman (b. 1809)source
  • November 22 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., American inventor of the Ferris wheel (b. 1859)source
  • December 30 – José Rizal, national hero of the Philippines (b. 1861)source