1898 - Wikiwand

1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 1898th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 898th year of the 2nd millennium, the 98th year of the 19th century, and the 9th year of the 1890s decade. As of the start of 1898, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Quick Facts

1898 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1898 MDCCCXCVIII
Ab urbe condita	2651
Armenian calendar	1347 ԹՎ ՌՅԽԷ
Assyrian calendar	6648
Baháʼí calendar	54–55
Balinese saka calendar	1819–1820
Bengali calendar	1304–1305
Berber calendar	2848
British Regnal year	61 Vict. 1 – 62 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2442
Burmese calendar	1260
Byzantine calendar	7406–7407
Chinese calendar	丁酉年 (Fire Rooster) 4595 or 4388 — to — 戊戌年 (Earth Dog) 4596 or 4389
Coptic calendar	1614–1615
Discordian calendar	3064
Ethiopian calendar	1890–1891
Hebrew calendar	5658–5659
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1954–1955
- Shaka Samvat	1819–1820
- Kali Yuga	4998–4999
Holocene calendar	11898
Igbo calendar	898–899
Iranian calendar	1276–1277
Islamic calendar	1315–1316
Japanese calendar	Meiji 31 (明治３１年)
Javanese calendar	1827–1828
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4231
Minguo calendar	14 before ROC 民前14年
Nanakshahi calendar	430
Thai solar calendar	2440–2441
Tibetan calendar	མེ་མོ་བྱ་ལོ་ (female Fire-Bird) 2024 or 1643 or 871 — to — ས་ཕོ་ཁྱི་ལོ་ (male Earth-Dog) 2025 or 1644 or 872

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Events

January

January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island.
January 13 – Novelist Émile Zola's open letter to the President of the French Republic on the Dreyfus affair, J'Accuse…!, is published on the front page of the Paris daily newspaper L'Aurore, accusing the government of wrongfully imprisoning Alfred Dreyfus and of antisemitism.

February

February 12 – The automobile belonging to Henry Lindfield of Brighton rolls out of control down a hill in Purley, London, England, and hits a tree; thus he becomes the world's first fatality from an automobile accident on a public highway.^[1]
February 15 – Spanish–American War: The USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana Harbor, Cuba, for reasons never fully established, killing 266 men. The event precipitates the United States' declaration of war on Spain, two months later.
February 15: USS Maine is sunk.
February 23 – Émile Zola is imprisoned in France, after writing J'Accuse…!.

March

March 13 – Vladimir Lenin creates the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Minsk^[2]
March 14 – Association football and sports club BSC Young Boys is established in Bern, Switzerland, as the Fussballclub Young Boys.
March 16 – In Melbourne the representatives of five colonies adopt a constitution, which will become the basis of the Commonwealth of Australia.^[3]
March 24 – Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, becomes the first person to buy an American-built automobile, when he buys a Winton automobile that has been advertised in Scientific American.
March 26 – The Sabie Game Reserve in South Africa is created, as the first officially designated game reserve.

April

April 5 – Annie Oakley promotes the service of women in combat situations, with the United States military. On this day, she writes a letter to President McKinley "offering the government the services of a company of 50 'lady sharpshooters' who would provide their own arms and ammunition should war break out with Spain."^[4]
April 21 – Spanish–American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and the USS Nashville captures a Spanish merchant ship.
April 23 – Spanish–American War: A conference of senior Spanish Navy officers led by naval minister Segismundo Bermejo decide to send Admiral Pascual Cervera's squadron to Cuba and Puerto Rico.
April 25
- Spanish–American War: The United States declares war on Spain; the U.S. Congress announces that a state of war has existed since April 21 (later backdating this one more day to April 20).
- In Essen, German company Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk RWE is founded.^[5]
April 26 – An explosion in Santa Cruz, California, kills 13 workers, at the California Powder Works.^[6]
April 29 – The Paris Auto Show, the first large-scale commercial vehicle exhibition show, is held in Tuileries Garden.^[7]

May

May 1 – Spanish–American War – Battle of Manila Bay: Commodore Dewey destroys the Spanish squadron, in the first battle of the war, as well as the first battle in the Philippines Campaign.
May 2 – Thousands of Chinese scholars and Beijing citizens seeking reforms protest in front of the capital control yuan.
May 7–9 – Bava Beccaris massacre: Hundreds of demonstrators are killed, when General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris orders troops to fire on a rally in Milan, Italy.
May 8 – The first games of the Italian Football Federation are played, in which Genoa played against Torino.
May 12 – Spanish–American War: The Puerto Rican Campaign begins, with the Bombardment of San Juan.
May 22 – The German Federation football club SV Darmstadt 98 is formed.
May 27 – The territory of Kwang-Chou-Wan is leased by China to France, according to the Treaty of 12 April 1892, as the Territoire de Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, forming part of French Indochina.^[8]
May 28 – Secondo Pia takes the first photographs of the Shroud of Turin and discovers that the image on the Shroud itself appears to be a photographic negative.
The original flag of the Philippines as conceived by General Emilio Aguinaldo. The blue is of a lighter shade than the currently mandated royal blue, the sun has eight points as currently but many more rays and it has a mythical face.

June

June 1 – The Trans-Mississippi Exposition World's Fair opens, in Omaha, Nebraska.
June 7 – William Ramsay and Morris Travers discover neon at their laboratory at University College London, after extracting it from liquid nitrogen.^[9]
June 9 – The British government arranges a 99-year rent of Hong Kong from China.
June 10 – Tuone Udaina, the last known speaker of the Dalmatian language, is killed in an explosion.
June 11 – The Guangxu Emperor announces the creation of what would later become Peking University.^[10]^[11]
June 12 – Philippine Declaration of Independence: After 333 years of Spanish dominance, General Emilio Aguinaldo declares the Philippines' independence from Spain.
June 13 – Yukon Territory is formed in Canada, with Dawson chosen as its capital.
June 19 – Food processing giant Nabisco is founded in New Jersey.^{[page needed]}
June 21 – Spanish–American War: The United States captures Guam, making it the first U.S. overseas territory.
June 28 – Effective date of the Curtis Act of 1898 which will lead to the dissolution of tribal and communal lands in Indian Territory and ultimately the creation of the State of Oklahoma in 1907.

July

July 1 – Spanish–American War: Battle of San Juan Hill – United States troops (including Buffalo Soldiers and Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders) take a strategic position close to Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.
July 3
- Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago de Cuba – The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Navy's Caribbean Squadron.
- American adventurer Joshua Slocum completes a 3-year solo circumnavigation of the world.
July 4 – En route from New York to Le Havre, the ocean liner SS La Bourgogne collides with another ship and sinks off the coast of Sable Island with the loss of 549 lives.
July 7 – The United States annexes the Hawaiian Islands.
July 17 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago Bay. Troops under United States General William R. Shafter take the city of Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.
July 18 – "The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont" first appear in The Wide World Magazine, as its August 1898 issue goes on sale.^[12]
July 25 – Spanish–American War: The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins, with a landing at Guánica Bay.

August

August 12 – Spanish–American War: Hostilities end between American and Spanish forces in Cuba.
August 13 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila – By prior agreement, the Spanish commander surrenders the city of Manila to the United States, in order to keep it out of the hands of Filipino rebels, ending hostilities in the Philippines.
August 20 – The Gornergrat railway opens, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat in Switzerland.
August 21 – Clube de Regatas Vasco da Gama is founded in Rio de Janeiro.
August 23 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.
August 24 – Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes sign the Atoka Agreement, a requirement of the Curtis Act of 1898.
August 25 – 700 Greeks and 15 Englishmen are slaughtered by the Turks in Heraklion, Greece, leading to the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State.
August 28 – American pharmacist Caleb Bradham names his soft drink Pepsi-Cola.

September

September 2 – Battle of Omdurman (Mahdist War): British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeat Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, thus establishing British dominance in the Sudan. 11,000 Sudanese are killed and 1,600 wounded in the battle.^[13]
September 10 – Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni assassinates Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Geneva, as an act of propaganda of the deed.
September 18 – Fashoda Incident: A powerful flotilla of British gunboats arrives at the French-occupied fort of Fashoda on the White Nile, leading to a diplomatic stalemate, until French troops are ordered to withdraw on November 3.
September 21
- Empress Dowager Cixi of China engineers a coup d'état, marking the end of the Hundred Days' Reform; the Guangxu Emperor is arrested.
- Geert Adriaans Boomgaard of Groningen in the Netherlands becomes the world's first validated supercentenarian.

October

October 1 – The Vienna University of Economics and Business is founded, under the name K.u.K. Exportakademie.
October 3 – Battle of Sugar Point: Ojibwe tribesmen defeat U.S. government troops, in northern Minnesota.
October 6 – The Sinfonia Club, later to become the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity, is founded at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston by Ossian Everett Mills.
October 15 – The Fork Union Military Academy is founded, in Fork Union, Virginia.^[14]
October 21 – General Leonard Wood, the U.S. military governor of Cuba, issues a proclamation guaranteeing personal rights to the Cuban people.^[15]
October 22 – In a race riot near Harperville, Mississippi in the U.S., 14 African-Americans and one white person are killed.^[15]
October 23 – An anarchist, suspected of plotting the assassination of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, is arrested in Egypt at Alexandria.^[15]
October 24 –
- The last Spanish soldiers in Puerto Rico, led by General Ortega, depart on ships to return to Spain.^[15]
- U.S. President William McKinley extends the deadline for all Spanish troops to leave Cuba. Set to expire on December 1, the last day to depart is extended to January 1, 1899.^[15]
- Chinese soldiers attack a party of British engineers at the Marco Polo Bridge on the Beijing to Hankou railway.^[15]
October 26 –
- A collision between two Japanese steamers at sea kills 60 Japanese sailors.^[15]
- The U.S. begins the release and repatriation of Spanish Navy sailors who had been taken as prisoners of war in the Philippines, and sends them back to Spain.^[15]
October 27 – The Court of Cassation in Paris hears arguments from lawyers regarding a new trial in the Dreyfus case.^[15] The Court grants the request on October 29.
October 29 –
- France's Court of Cassation grants a rehearing on the Dreyfus case.^[15]
- Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and his wife arrive at Jerusalem in Ottoman-ruled Palestine and visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.^[15]
October 30 – The Imperial Russian government announces that the leaders of the world's major nations have accepted the invitation of the Tsar to take part in a proposed conference on disarmament.^[15]
October 31 –
- The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, is dedicated after the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire presents the area, said to be the site of the Virgin Mary's home, to Germany's Roman Catholics.^[15]
- Count Ōkuma Shigenobu, Japan's Prime Minister, announces his resignation along with that of his cabinet of ministers.^[15]

November

November 1 – Charles Dupuy forms a new government as Prime Minister of France following the resignation of Henri Brisson.^[15]
November 3 – With increasing violence threatened by rebels in China, the Russian fleet at Port Arthur and the British warships at Wei-Hai-Wei are readied for battle.^[15]
November 5 –
- Negros Revolution: Filipinos on the island of Negros revolt against Spanish rule and establish the short-lived Republic of Negros.^[15]
- In China, an admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy and 40 sailors are denied permission by the Chinese government to proceed from Tientsin to Beijing.
- In the U.S., the collapse of a theater under construction in Detroit kills 11 workmen.^[15]
November 6 – The Japanese ambassador to China meets with the Emperor and the Empress Dowager at Beijing.^[15]
November 7 – The final meeting of the Cuban Assembly of the República de Cuba en Armas, which had been founded in 1895 during the Cuban War of Independence, is called to order by General Calixto García in the city of Santa Cruz del Sur. Domingo Méndez Capote is elected as president of the assembly.
November 8 –
- Elections are held in the U.S. for all 357 seats in the House of Representatives, as well as for the governors and state legislature of 25 of the 45 states. With 179 needed for a majority, the Republican Party maintains control with 187 seats, despite losing 19; the Democratic party gains 37 to reach 124 seats; the Populist party losses all but five of its 22 seats, and the other 4 seats are controlled by smaller parties. Among Governors elected are Theodore Roosevelt as Governor of the state of New York.^[15]
- Count Yamagata Aritomo forms a new government as Prime Minister of Japan.^[15]
November 9 – In the U.S., the racial violence in Phoenix, South Carolina, comes to an end after 12 African-Americans had been lynched.^[15]
November 10 –
- The Wilmington insurrection of 1898 begins as a coup d'état by the white Democratic Party of the U.S. state of North Carolina against the Republican Mayor of Wilmington. On the first day, a building housing a negro newspaper is burned and eight African Americans are killed.^[15]
- The new United Central American States, a merger of El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, places its capital in the Nicaraguan city of Chinandega.^[15]
- Bartolomé Masó, the President of the República de Cuba en Armas that had been founded during the Cuban War of Independence, resigns.^[15]
November 11 – In Wilmington, negro leaders and white republicans are forced to leave the city by new government.^[15]
November 12 – The Earl of Minto takes office as the new Governor General of Canada.^[15]
November 17 – Fighting begins in Pana, Illinois, between striking white coal miners and black miners hired to replace them.^[15]
November 18 – The wreck of the ship Atalanta off the coast of the U.S. state of Oregon kills 28 of the 30 crew aboard.^[15]
November 19 – In U.S. college football, Harvard University defeats Yale University, 17 to 0, to close the season unbeaten.^[15]
November 21 – At the Paris conference to end the Spanish-American War, the U.S. commissioners offer $20,000,000 for purchase of the Philippines from Spain.^[16]
November 24 – Italy sends an ultimatum to the Sultan of Morocco concerning treatment of Italian residents.^[16]
November 26 –
- General Ramón Blanco resigns as the spanish Governor-General of Cuba and is replaced by General Adolfo Jiménez Castellanos.^[16]
- A two-day blizzard known as the Portland Gale piles snow in Boston, severely impacting the Massachusetts fishing industry and several coastal New England towns.^[16]
- The U.S. Marines arrive on USS Boston at Tientsin in China in order to guard the American legation at Beijing.^[16]
November 27 – All 115 people aboard the American steamer SS Portland are killed when the ship founders off of the caost of Cape Cod.^[16]
November 28 –The Spanish peace commissioners in Paris announce that they accept the offer of the U.S. to purchase the Philippines.^[16]
November 30 – The United Central American States, a merger of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, is formally dissolved after the government was unable to suppress a revolution in San Salvador.^[16]

December

December 1 –
- President Alfaro of Ecuador suspends the govnerment and assumes a dictatorship over the South American nation.^[16]
- The French government decrees a ban on imports of fruit and plants from the United States.^[16]
December 2 – The French Chamber of Deputies declines to endorse the policies of Prime Minister Charles Dupuy, with the vote failing 228 to 243.^[16]
- President Alfaro of Ecuador suspends the govnerment and assumes a dictatorship over the South American nation.^[16]
December 3 – The Republic of Nicaragua issues a decree announcing its return to sovereignty as a separate nation after its union with El Salvador and Honduras collapses.^[16]
December 4 –
- President Zelaya of Nicaragua appoints a new cabinet free of ministers from El Salvador or Honduras.^[16]
- The wreck of the British steamer SS Clan Drummond in the Bay of Biscay kills 37 people on board.^[16]
December 5 – A fire at a factory in the Russian city of Vilana (now Vilnius in Lithuania) kills 15 women and girls, most of whom die after jumping from the windows.^[16]
December 6 – The Chancellor of Germany opens the new session of the Reichstag and asks for an increase in the budget for the German Army.^[16]
December 9 – The first of the two Tsavo Man-Eaters is shot by John Henry Patterson; the second is killed 3 weeks later, after 135 railway construction workers have been killed by the lions.
December 10 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Spanish–American War.
December 12 – The French Chamber of Deputies voes 403 to 78 in favor of the Depuy government.^[16]
December 15 –
- A warrant issued in Paris for the arrest of Count Ferdinand Esterhazy in connection with the Dreyfus case.^[16]
- A new President of the Swiss Confederation is elected.^[16]
- The French Chamber of Deputies votes to extend a loan of 200,000,000 francs for the construction of railroads in French Indochina.^[16]
December 18 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the first official land speed record in an automobile, averaging 63.15 km/h (39.24 mph) over 1 km (0.62 mi) in France.
December 21 – Prince George of Greece arrives in Crete as its High Commissioner, and is escorted by the flagships of four nations.^[17]
December 25 – Penny postage goes into effect throughout the British Empire, setting the cost of mailing a letter to most British colonies at one pence. Rates remain the same for mail to Australia, New Zealand and the Cape Colony.^[17]
December 26 – Marie and Pierre Curie announce the discovery of an element that they name radium.^[17]
December 27 – The French government delivers its secret dossier on the Dreyfus case to the Court of Cassation.^[17]
December 28 – The Swiss village of Airolo is buried in an avalanche.^[17]
December 29 –
- The Moscow Art Theatre production of The Seagull by Anton Chekhov opens.^[18]
- King Umberto of Italy commutes the sentences of all prisoners who had been given the death penalty.^[17]
December 31 –
- Chief Justice Chambers of the Samoan Supreme Court rules that Malietoa Tanus is entitled to become King of Samoa, and holds that Mataafa is barred by the Treaty of Berlin.^[17]
- French serial killer Joseph Vacher is executed at Bourg-en-Bresse.^[19]