1898

This article is about the year 1898.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1860s  1870s  1880s  – 1890s –  1900s  1910s  1920s
Years:	1895 1896 1897 – 1898 – 1899 1900 1901

1898 in topic:

Humanities

Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Literature – Music

By country

Australia – Brazil - Canada – Denmark - France – Germany – Mexico – Norway - Philippines - Portugal– Russia - South Africa – Spain - Sweden - United Kingdom – United States

Other topics

Rail Transport – Science – Sports

Lists of leaders

Colonial Governors – State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births – Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments – Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1898 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1898 MDCCCXCVIII
Ab urbe condita	2651
Armenian calendar	1347 ԹՎ ՌՅԽԷ
Assyrian calendar	6648
Bahá'í calendar	54–55
Bengali calendar	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) 4594 or 4534     — to — 戊戌年 (Earth Dog) 4595 or 4535
Coptic calendar	1614–1615
Discordian calendar	3064
Ethiopian calendar	1890–1891
Hebrew calendar	5658–5659
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1954–1955
- Shaka Samvat	1820–1821
- Kali Yuga	4999–5000
Holocene calendar	11898
Igbo calendar	898–899
Iranian calendar	1276–1277
Islamic calendar	1315–1316
Japanese calendar	Meiji 31 (明治３１年)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4231
Minguo calendar	14 before ROC 民前14年
Thai solar calendar	2440–2441

1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday (dominical letter D) 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. Note that the Julian day for 1898 is 12 calendar days difference, which continued to be used from 1582 until the complete conversion of the Gregorian calendar was entirely done in 1929.

Events

1898 world map

January–March

• January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York, the world's second largest at this time. 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 12 – The electric car belonging to Henry Lindfield of Brighton runs away on a hill in Purley, London, England, and hits a tree; thus he becomes the world's first fatality from an automobile accident on the public highway.
• February 15 – Spanish–American War: The USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor, Cuba, for reasons never fully established, killing 266 men. This event helps lead the United States to declare war on Spain.

February 15: USS Maine is sunk.

• 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 Sabi Game Reserve in South Africa, the first officially designated game reserve, is created.

April–June

• 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." In the history of women in the military, there are records of female U.S. Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers who enlisted using male pseudonyms, but Oakley's letter represents possibly the earliest political move towards women's rights for combat service in the United States military.
• April 22 – Spanish–American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and the USS Nashville captures a Spanish merchant ship.
• 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).
• April 25: In Essen German company Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk RWE is founded.
• April 26 – An explosion in Santa Cruz, California kills 13 workers at the California Powder Works.
• May 1 – Spanish–American War – Battle of Manila Bay: Commodore Dewey destroys the Spanish squadron. 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 protest in front of the capital control yuan, asking for reform.
• May 7–May 9 – Bava-Beccaris massacre: Hundreds of demonstrators are killed when General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris orders troops to fire on a rally in Milan, Italy (in 1900, King Umberto I of Italy is killed in an act of vengeance for his praise of the shooting).
• May 8 – The first games of the Italian Football League are played.
• May 12 – Bombardment of San Juan, the first major battle of the Puerto Rican Campaign during the Spanish–American War.
• 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.
• May 28 – Secondo Pia takes the first photographs of the Shroud of Turin and discovers that the image on 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 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.
• June 9 – The British government makes a 99 year rent of Hong Kong from China.
• June 12 – Philippine Declaration of Independence: General Emilio Aguinaldo declares the Philippines' independence from Spain.
• June 13 – Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital.
• June 21 – Spanish–American War: The United States captures Guam making it the first U.S. overseas territory.

July–September

• 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 – Joshua Slocum completes a 3-year solo circumnavigation of the world.
• 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.
• July 25 – Spanish–American War: The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins with a landing at Guánica Bay.
• August 12 – Spanish–American War: Hostilities end between American and Spanish forces in Cuba.
• August 20 – Opening of the Gornergrat railway, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat.
• August 23 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.
• 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 – Caleb Bradham names his soft drink Pepsi-Cola.
• September 2 – Battle of Omdurman: British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeat Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, thus establishing British dominance in the Sudan.
• September 10 – Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni assassinates Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary 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.

October–December

• October 1 – The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration 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 in Boston, Massachusetts.
• October 12 – The first town council is established in Mateur (Tunisia).

November 26: blizzard.

• October 15 The Fork Union Military Academy is founded, in Fork Union, Virginia.
• October 31 – Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, is dedicated.
• November 26 – A 2-day blizzard known as the Portland Gale piles snow in Boston, Massachusetts, and severely impacts the Massachusetts fishing industry and several coastal New England towns.
• 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 workers have been killed by the lions.
• December 10 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Spanish–American War.
• December 26 – Marie and Pierre Curie announce discovery of a substance they call radium.
• December 29 (December 17 Old Style) – Moscow Art Theatre production of The Seagull by Anton Chekhov opens.

Unknown dates

• North Petherton becomes the first town in England to install Acetylene lighting.
• John Jacob Abel isolates epinephrine (adrenaline).
• Wakita is founded in the Cherokee Strip, Oklahoma.
• Wilhelm van Berkel invents the Berkel meat slicer, the first meat slicer, in Rotterdam.
• As a result of the merger of several small oil companies, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company controls 84% of the USA's oil and most American pipelines.
• Henry Adams Consulting Engineers founded by Henry Adams (mechanical engineer) in Baltimore, Maryland. The firm is still in business to this day. (1898–Present)

Births

January–March

Sergei Eisenstein

Bertolt Brecht

Leó Szilárd

Enzo Ferrari

• January 9 – Gracie Fields, British singer, actress and comedienne (d. 1979)
• January 16 – Margaret Booth, American film editor (d. 2002)
• January 21 – Ahmad Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia (d. 1930)
• January 22 – Elazar Shach, Haredi rabbi (d. 2001)
• January 23
  • Sergei Eisenstein, Russian film director (d. 1948)
  • Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Colombian politician (d. 1948)
• January 25 – Hymie Weiss, American gangster (d. 1926)
• January 26 – Katarzyna Kobro, Russian sculptor (d. 1951)
• February 1 – Leila Denmark, American pediatrician and supercentenarian (d. 2012)
• February 3 – Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect (d. 1976)
• February 10
  • Bertolt Brecht, German writer (d. 1956)
  • Joseph Kessel, French journalist and author (d. 1979)
• February 11 – Leó Szilárd, Hungarian-American physicist (d. 1964)
• February 12
  • Wallace Ford, British actor (d. 1966)
  • Roy Harris, American composer (d. 1979)
• February 14
  • Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, Argentine writer, journalist, essayist and poet (d. 1959)
  • Fritz Zwicky, Swiss physicist and astronomer (d. 1974)
• February 15 – Allen Woodring, American runner (d. 1982)
• February 18
  • Enzo Ferrari, Italian race car driver and automobile manufacturer (d. 1988)
  • Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rican poet, journalist and politician (d. 1980)
• February 20 – Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, Russian inventor (d. 1978)
• February 24 – Kurt Tank, German aeronautical engineer (d. 1983)
• February 28 – Hugh O'Flaherty, Irish Catholic priest (d. 1963)
• March 3 – Emil Artin, Austrian mathematician (d. 1962)
• March 4 – Georges Dumézil, French philologist (d. 1940)
• March 5 – Misao Okawa, Japanese supercentenarian (d. 2015)
• March 11 – Dorothy Gish, American actress (d. 1968)
• March 14 – Arnold Chikobava, Georgian linguist (d. 1985)
• March 21 – Paul Alfred Weiss, Austrian biologist (d. 1989)
• March 23 – Erich Bey, German admiral (d. 1943)
• March 25 – Marcelle Narbonne, French supercentenarian, oldest European living person (d. 2012)
• March 31 – Hermann van Pels, German-Dutch father of Peter van Pels, housemate of Anne Frank (d. 1944)

April–June

• April 1 – William James Sidis, American mathematician (d. 1944)
• April 2 – Harindranath Chattopadhyay, Indian poet, actor and politician (d. 1990)
• April 3 – George Jessel, American comedian (d. 1981)
• April 4 – Agnes Ayres, American actress (d. 1940)
• April 6 – Jeanne Hébuterne, French painter (d. 1920)
• April 26
  • Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)
  • John Grierson, Scottish documentary filmmaker (d. 1972)
• May 3 – Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1978)
• May 5
  • Blind Willie McTell, American singer (d. 1959)
  • Elsie Eaves, American civil engineer (d. 1983)
• May 6 – Konrad Henlein, Sudeten German Nazi leader (d. 1945)
• May 13
  • Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah, King of Malaysia (d. 1960)
  • Justin Tuveri, Italian veteran of the First World War (d. 2007)
• May 15 – Arletty, French model and actress (d. 1992)
• May 16
  • Tamara de Lempicka, Art Deco painter (d. 1980)
  • Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese film director (d. 1956)
• May 17 – Alfred Joseph Casson, Canadian painter (d. 1992)
• May 19 – Julius Evola, Italian philosopher (d. 1974)
• May 21 – Armand Hammer, American entrepreneur and art collector (d. 1990)
• May 23 – Scott O'Dell, American author (d. 1989)
• May 24 – Helen B. Taussig, American cardiologist (d. 1986)
• May 31 – Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, American clergyman (d. 1993)
• June 2 – Marie-Thérèse Bardet, French supercentenarian, oldest European living person (d. 2012)
• June 3 – Stuart H. Ingersoll, American admiral (d. 1983)
• June 4 – Harry Crosby, American publisher and poet (d. 1929)
• June 5
  • Federico García Lorca, Spanish poet (d. 1936)
  • Guy La Chambre, French politician (d. 1975)
• June 6 – Ninette de Valois, Irish dancer and founder of The Royal Ballet, London (d. 2001)
• June 10 – Virginia Valli, American film actress (d. 1968)
• June 17
  • M. C. Escher, Dutch artist (d. 1972)
  • Harry Patch, British WWI soldier, last Tommy Atkins (d. 2009)
• June 22 – Erich Maria Remarque, German writer (d. 1970)
• June 26 – Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer and manufacturer (d. 1978)

July–September

George Gershwin

• July 2 – Gen Paul, French artist (d. 1975)
• July 3 – Donald Healey, English motor engineer and race car driver (d. 1988)
• July 4 – Gertrude Weaver, American supercentenarian (d. 2015)
• July 6 – Hanns Eisler, German composer (d. 1962)
• July 7 – Maria Nunes da Silva Portuguese supercentenarian (d. 2011)
  • Arnold Horween, Harvard Crimson and NFL football player (d. 1985)
• July 14 – Youssef Wahbi, Egyptian actor and film director (d. 1982)
• July 17
  • Berenice Abbott, American photographer (d. 1991)
  • George Robert Vincent, American sound recording pioneer (d. 1985)
• July 22
  • Stephen Vincent Benét, American writer (d. 1943)
  • Alexander Calder, American artist (d. 1976)
• July 28 – Lawrence Gray, American actor (d. 1970)
• July 29 – Isidor Isaac Rabi, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
• July 30 – Henry Moore, English sculptor (d. 1986)
• August 15 – Jan Brzechwa, Polish poet (d. 1966)
• August 18 – Lance Sharkey, Australian Communist Leader (d. 1967)
• August 20 – Leopold Infeld, Polish physicist (d. 1968)
• August 26 – Peggy Guggenheim, American art collector (d. 1979)
• August 29 – Preston Sturges, American director and writer (d. 1959)
• August 30 – Shirley Booth, American actress (d. 1992)
• September 10 – Bessie Love, American actress (d. 1986)
• September 13 – Roger Désormière, French conductor (d. 1963)
• September 19 – Giuseppe Saragat, former President of Italy (d. 1988)
• September 22 – Katharine Alexander, American actress (d. 1981)
• September 24 – Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1968)
• September 25 – Robert Brackman, American artist (d. 1980)
• September 26 – George Gershwin, American composer (d. 1937)
• September 29 – Trofim Lysenko, Russian biologist (d. 1976)
• September 30
  • Renée Adorée, French actress (d. 1933)
  • Princess Charlotte of Monaco (d. 1977)

October–December

Karl Ziegler

• October 6 – Arthur G. Jones-Williams, British aviator (d. 1929)
• October 7 – Joe Giard, American baseball player (d. 1956)
• October 10
  • Lilly Daché, French milliner (d. 1989)
  • Marie-Pierre Kœnig, French general and politician (d. 1970)
• October 15 – Boughera El Ouafi, Algerian athlete (d. 1959)
• October 18 – Lotte Lenya, Austrian actress and singer (d. 1981)
• October 22 – Dámaso Alonso, Spanish poet (d. 1990)
• November 4 – Joe Dougherty, first voice of Porky Pig (d. 1978)
• November 8 – Marie Prevost, Canadian actress (d. 1937)
• November 12 – Leon Štukelj, Slovene gymnast (d. 1999)
• November 17 – Maurice Journeau, French composer (d. 1999)
• November 18 – Joris Ivens, Dutch director (d. 1989)
• November 19 – Arthur R. von Hippel, German-born physicist (d. 2003)
• November 21 – René Magritte, Belgian artist (d. 1967)
• November 24 – Liu Shaoqi, President of the People's Republic of China (d. 1969)
• November 25 – Debaki Bose, Indian actor, director and writer (d. 1971)
• November 26 – Karl Ziegler, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
• November 29 – C. S. Lewis, British author (d. 1963)
• November 30 – Firpo Marberry, American baseball pitcher (d. 1976)
• December 2 – Indra Lal Roy, Indian World War I pilot (d. 1918)
• December 5 – Clarine Seymour, American actress (d. 1920)
• December 6 – Alfred Eisenstaedt, American photojournalist (d. 1995)
• December 11 – Benno Mengele, Austrian electrical engineer (d. 1971)
• December 14 – Lillian Randolph, American actress and singer (d. 1980)
• December 19 – Zheng Zhenduo, Chinese author and translator (d. 1958)
• December 20 – Irene Dunne, American actress (d. 1990)
• December 24 – Baby Dodds, American jazz drummer (d. 1959)
• December 30 – Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer and actress (d. 1975)
• December 31 – István Dobi, former Hungarian leader (d. 1968)

Date unknown

• W. E. Butler, British occultist (d. 1978)
• Maria Klenova, Russian marine geologist (d. 1976)
• I. K. Taimni, Indian chemist (d. 1978)

Deaths

January–June

Lewis Carroll

William Ewart Gladstone

• January 3 – Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Confederate brigadier general, Texas governor, and president of Texas A&M University (b.1838)
• January 14 – Lewis Carroll, British writer, mathematician (Alice in Wonderland) (b. 1832)
• January 16 – Charles Pelham Villiers, longest-serving MP in the British House of Commons (b. 1802)
• January 18 – Henry George Lidell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford (b. 1811)
• February 16 – Thomas Bracken, author of the official national anthem of New Zealand (God Defend New Zealand) (b. 1843)
• March 1 – George Bruce Malleson, Indian officer and author (b. 1825)
• March 6 – Andrei Alexandrovich Popov, Russian admiral (b. 1821)
• March 10 – George Müller, Prussian evangelist and founder of the Ashley Down orphanage (b. 1805)
• March 15 – Henry Bessemer, British engineer and inventor (b. 1813)
• March 16 – Aubrey Beardsley, British artist (b. 1872)
• March 18 – Matilda Joslyn Gage, American feminist (b. 1826)
• March 27 – Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Indian university founder (b. 1817)
• April 15 – Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui, Maori military leader
• April 18 – Gustave Moreau, French painter (b. 1826)
• May 6 – Sotirios Sotiropoulos, Greek economist and politician (b. 1831)
• May 19 – William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1809)

July–December

Otto von Bismarck

Theodor Fontane

• July 1 – Siegfried Marcus, Austrian automobile pioneer (b. 1831)
• July 5 – Richard Pankhurst, (b. 1834)
• July 12 – Louis-François Richer Laflèche, Roman Catholic Bishop of Trois-Rivières, Native American missionary (b. 1818)
• July 30 – Otto von Bismarck, German statesman (b. 1815)
• August 8 – Eugène Boudin, French painter (b. 1824)
• September 2 – Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1807)
• September 5 – Sarah Emma Edmonds, Canadian nurse and spy (b. 1841)
• September 9 – Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet (b. 1842)
• September 10 – Elisabeth of Bavaria, empress consort of Austria, queen consort of Hungary (assassinated) (b. 1837)
• September 16 – Ramón Emeterio Betances, Puerto Rican politician, medical doctor and diplomat (b. 1827)
• September 20 – Theodor Fontane, German writer (b. 1819)
• September 26 – Fanny Davenport, American actress (b. 1850)
• September 28 – Tan Sitong, Chinese revolutionary (executed) (b. 1865)
• September 29 – Louise of Hesse-Kassel, German princess, Queen Consort of Christian IX of Denmark (b. 1817)
• October 24 – Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, French painter (b. 1824)
• November 2 – George Goyder, surveyor-general of South Australia (b. 1826)
• November 20 – Sir John Fowler, British civil engineer (b. 1817)
• December 24 – Charbel Makhluf, Lebanese monk (b. 1828)

References

• Morro Castle (fortress) downloadable videos. ( needs Flash)
• view of USS Indiana (BB-1) (needs Flash)
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• view of Tampa, Florida (needs Flash)
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• view of Daiquirí after the United States invasion of Cuba in the Spanish–American War (needs Flash)
• view of Major General Shafter (needs Flash)
• view of Santiago (needs Flash)