Events
January
January 5 : Röntgen rays .
January 5 : Röntgen X-ray .
January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end as Jameson surrenders to the Boers .[ 1]
January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state .[ 2]
January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports Wilhelm Röntgen 's discovery, last November, of a type of electromagnetic radiation , later known as X-rays .
January 6 – Cecil Rhodes is forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope for his involvement in the Jameson Raid .
January 7 – American culinary expert Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook.
January 12 – H. L. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph.
January 16 – Devonport High School for Boys is founded in Plymouth (England).
January 17 – Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War : British redcoats enter the Ashanti capital, Kumasi , and Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I is deposed.[ 3]
January 28 – Walter Arnold, of East Peckham , Kent , England, is fined 1 shilling for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h) , exceeding the contemporary urban speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h) , the first speeding fine.
July
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.
July 11 – Wilfrid Laurier becomes Canada's seventh prime minister , and the first French-speaker to hold that office.
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.
July 26 – The International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress opens in London.
July 27 – A causeway is opened between the islands of Saaremaa and Muhu in Estonia .
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.
August
August 1 – The Park Seung-jik shop, predecessor of South Korean conglomerate Doosan Group , is founded in Joseon (the kingdom of Korea).[ 13]
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 .[ 14]
August 16 – Keish (often called Skookum Jim Mason), George Carmack , and Dawson Charlie discover gold in the Klondike, Yukon .
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.
August 23 – The Cry of Pugad Lawin initiates the Philippine Revolution .
August 27
August – The 1896 Eastern North America heat wave kills 1,500 people from Chicago, Illinois to Boston, Massachusetts.
Births
January– February
George Burns
Morarji Desai
January 2 – Dziga Vertov , Russian filmmaker (d. 1954 )
January 4
January 8
January 12 – Uberto De Morpurgo , Italian tennis player (d. 1961 )[ 20]
January 14 – John Dos Passos , American author (d. 1970 )[ 21]
January 20 – George Burns , American actor, comedian (d. 1996 )
January 21 – J. Carrol Naish , American character actor (d. 1973 )
January 23 – Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (d. 1985 )[ 22]
January 26 – József Kiss , Austro-Hungarian fighter pilot (d. 1918 )
February 1 – Anastasio Somoza García , 21st President of Nicaragua (d. 1956 )[ 23] [ 24]
February 2 – Ramón Franco , Spanish aviation pioneer (d. 1938 )
February 4 – Friedrich Hund , German physicist (d. 1997 )
February 11 – Claire Myers Owens , American author (d. 1983 )[ 25]
February 18 – Li Linsi , Chinese educator and diplomat (d. 1970 )
February 19 – André Breton , French writer (d. 1966 )[ 26]
February 25 – Heinrich Gontermann , German World War I fighter ace (d. 1917 )
February 28 – Philip Showalter Hench , American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1965 )
February 29
March– April
Ira C. Eaker
Nikolay Semyonov
March 1 – Dimitri Mitropoulos , Greek conductor, pianist and composer (d. 1960 )
March 13 – Field Eugene Kindley , American World War I fighter pilot (d. 1920 )
March 20 – Wop May , Canadian World War I pilot (d. 1952 )
March 22 – Joseph Schildkraut , Austrian-American actor (d. 1964 )
March 29 – Wilhelm Ackermann , German mathematician (d. 1962 )
April 13 – Ira C. Eaker , World War II United States Army Air Forces general (d. 1987 )
April 15
April 17 – Señor Wences , Spanish ventriloquist (d. 1999 )
April 21 – Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer , Dutch war hero, resistance fighter and humanitarian (d. 1978 )
April 26 – Ernst Udet , German World War I fighter ace, Nazi Luftwaffe official (d. 1941 )
April 27 – Rogers Hornsby , American baseball player (d. 1963 )
April 30 – Reverend Gary Davis , American musician (d. 1972 )
May– June
Mark W. Clark
Jorge Alessandri
Walter Cawthorn
Wallis Simpson
May 1
May 2 – Helen of Greece and Denmark , Queen Mother of Romania (d. 1982 )
May 3 – Karl Allmenröder , German World War I fighter pilot (d. 1917 )
May 5 – Kaju Sugiura , Japanese admiral (d. 1945 )
May 19 – Jorge Alessandri , 27th President of Chile (d. 1986 )
May 23 – Andor Jaross , ethnic Hungarian politician (d. 1946 )
May 29 – Luther W. Youngdahl , American politician, Governor of Minnesota from 1947 to 1951, and a United States district judge from 1951 to 1978 (d. 1978 )
May 30 – Howard Hawks , American director (d. 1977 )
May 31 – Ernest Haller , American cinematographer (d. 1974 )
June 1 – Sydney Kyte , British bandleader (d. 1981)[ 27]
June 2 – Nubar Gulbenkian , Ottoman-born Armenian-British oil trader, socialite and intelligence operative (d. 1972 )
June 6
June 7
June 11 – Walter Cawthorn , Australian spymaster (d. 1970 )
June 19 – Wallis Simpson , American-born Duchess of Windsor (d. 1986 )
June 23 – Francisco Malabo Beosá , Equatoguinean royalty (d. 2001 )
June 29 – Boris Podolsky , Russian-American physicist (d. 1966 )
July– August
Thomas Playford IV
Trygve Lie
Jean Piaget
Gerty Cori
July 2 – Quirino Cristiani , Argentine animated film director (d. 1984 )
July 4 – Mao Dun , Chinese novelist, cultural critic, and Minister of Culture (d. 1981 )[ 28]
July 5 – Thomas Playford IV , South Australian politician (d. 1981 )
July 16
July 17 – Dumitru Dămăceanu , Romanian general and politician (d. 1978 )
July 18 – Patrick O'Boyle , American Roman Catholic prelate (d. 1987 )
July 19 – Stafford L. Warren , American physician and radiologist; inventor of the mammogram (d. 1981 )
July 28 – Barbara La Marr , American silent actress (d. 1926 )
August 7 – Ernesto Lecuona , Cuban pianist, composer (d. 1963 )[ 29]
August 8 – Sivananda , Indian yoga teacher (unverified self-claimed date) (d. 2025 )
August 9
August 10 – Walter Lang , American film director (d. 1972 )
August 13 – Rudolf Schmundt , German general (d. 1944 )
August 14 – Albert Ball , British World War I fighter ace, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1917 )
August 15 – Gerty Cori , Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1957 )
August 17 – Leslie Groves , United States Army general, director of the Manhattan Project (d. 1970 )[ 30]
August 18 – Jack Pickford , Canadian-born American actor, film director, and producer (d. 1933 )
August 27 – Léon Theremin , Russian inventor (d. 1993 )
August 28 – Arthur Calwell , Australian politician (d. 1973 )
August 30 – Raymond Massey , Canadian-born American actor (d. 1983 )
September– October
Adele Astaire
F. Scott Fitzgerald
September 1 – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada , Indian religious leader, founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (d. 1977 )
September 4 – Antonin Artaud , French stage actor, director (d. 1948 )[ 31]
September 10 – Adele Astaire , American dancer (d. 1981 )
September 14 – José Mojica , Mexican Franciscan friar, tenor and film actor (d. 1974 )
September 21 – Walter Breuning , American supercentenarian , sixth-oldest verified man in history (d. 2011 )
September 22 – Uri Zvi Greenberg , Israeli poet and journalist (d. 1981 )[ 32]
September 24 – F. Scott Fitzgerald , American writer (d. 1940 )[ 33]
September 25 – Sandro Pertini , President of Italy (d. 1990 )
September 30 – Jolie Gabor , Hungarian-American entrepreneur, jeweler and memoirist (d. 1997 )
October 1 – Abraham Sofaer , Burmese-born British actor (d. 1988 )
October 7 – Paulino Alcántara , Filipino-Spanish soccer player (d. 1964 )
October 12 – Eugenio Montale , Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981 )[ 34]
October 14 – Bud Flanagan , British entertainer, comedian (d. 1968 )
October 22 – Earle Clements , American politician, governor of Kentucky (d. 1985 )
October 28 – Howard Hanson , American composer (d. 1981 )[ 35]
October 30 – Ruth Gordon , American actress, screenwriter, and playwright (d. 1985 )
October 31 – Ethel Waters , American singer, actress (d. 1977 )
November– December
Carlos P. Garcia
Jimmy Doolittle
November 4
November 8 – Marie Prevost , Canadian-born American actress (d. 1937 )
November 10
November 13 – Nobusuke Kishi , Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1987 )
November 14 – Mamie Eisenhower , First Lady of the United States (d. 1979 )
November 15 – Giovanni Ancillotto , Italian World War I flying ace (d. 1924 )
November 16
November 17 – Lev Vygotsky , Russian psychologist (d. 1934 )
November 23 – Klement Gottwald , Czechoslovak communist politician (d. 1953 )
November 25
November 26 – Manuel A. Odría , 79th President of Peru (d. 1974 )
November 28 – Lilia Skala , Austrian-American actress (d. 1994 )
December 1 – Georgi Zhukov , Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union (d. 1974 )
December 2 – Alfons Tracki , German-Albanian priest (martyred 1946 )
December 5 – Carl Ferdinand Cori , Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1984 )
December 6
December 12 – Vasily Gordov , Soviet general (d. 1950 )
December 14 – Jimmy Doolittle , American aviation pioneer, World War II United States Army Air Forces general (d. 1993 )
December 15 – Miles Dempsey , British general (d. 1969 )
December 16 – Anna Anderson , pretender to the Russian throne (d. 1984 )
December 23 – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa , Italian writer (d. 1957 )[ 37]
December 27 –
December 28 – Roger Sessions , American composer (d. 1985 )
December 29 – David Alfaro Siqueiros , Mexican muralist (d. 1974 )[ 39]
Deaths
January– March
January 4 – Joseph Hubert Reinkens , German Old Catholic bishop (b. 1821 )
January 5 – Charlie Bassett , American sheriff (b. 1847 )
January 8 – Paul Verlaine , French lyric poet (b. 1844 )[ 40]
January 15 – Mathew Brady , American photographer (b. 1822 )
January 18 – Charles Floquet , Prime Minister of France (b. 1828 )
January 20 – Prince Henry of Battenberg , Lombardy-born British royal, married to Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (b. 1858 )
January 26 – James Edwin Campbell , American educator, school administrator, newspaper editor, poet, and essayist (b. 1867)[ 41]
February 7 – William Hayden English , American politician (b. 1822 )
February 25 – Joseph P. Fyffe , American admiral (b. 1832 )
March 12 – Carlo Alberto Racchia , Italian admiral and politician (b. 1833 )[ 42]
March 30 – Charilaos Trikoupis , 7-time prime minister of Greece (b. 1832 )
April– June
Clara Schumann
April 9 – Gustav Koerner , German-American statesman (b. 1809 )
April 27 – Sir Henry Parkes , Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales (b. 1815 )
April 30 – Hamilton Disston , American industrialist and land developer (b. 1844 )
May 1 – Naser al-Din Shah Qajar , Shah of Persia, King of Herat (b. 1831 )
May 7 – H. H. Holmes , American serial killer (executed) (b. 1861 )
May 10 – Antti Ahlström , Finnish industrialist, founder of Ahlstrom (b. 1827 )
May 13 – Nora Perry , American newspaper correspondent (b. 1831 )
May 17 – Muhammad Al-Sabah , emir of Kuwait (b. 1831 )
May 18 – Daniel Pollen , 9th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1813 )
May 19 – Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria , father of Archduke Ferdinand (b. 1833 )
May 20 – Clara Schumann , German composer, pianist (b. 1819 )
May 24 – Luigi Federico Menabrea , Italian soldier, statesman (b. 1809 )
May 25 – Franz Kuhn von Kuhnenfeld , Austrian general and politician (b. 1817 )[ 43]
June 13 – Alpheus Felch , American politician, governor and senator from Michigan (b. 1804 )
June 19 – Louis Brière de l'Isle , French general (b. 1827 )
July– September
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Otto Lilienthal
July 1 – Harriet Beecher Stowe , American author (b. 1811 )[ 44]
July 4 – Marcelo H. del Pilar , Filipino writer, journalist (b. 1850 )
July 11 – Ernst Curtius , German historian (b. 1814 )[ 45]
July 13 – August Kekulé , German chemist (b. 1829 )
July 16 – Edmond de Goncourt , French writer, co-founder of the Académie Goncourt (b. 1822 )[ 46]
July 19 – Abraham H. Cannon , American Mormon apostle (b. 1859 )
August 10 – Otto Lilienthal , German aviation pioneer (b. 1848 )
August 12 – Sir Harry Burnett Lumsden , British army general (b. 1821 )
August 13 – Sir John Everett Millais , British Pre-Raphaelite painter (b. 1829 )
August 17 – Bridget Driscoll , early British automobile fatality (b. c. 1851 )
August 18 – Richard Avenarius , German-Swiss philosopher (b. 1843 )
August 25 – Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini of Zanzibar (b. 1857 )
September 18 – Hippolyte Fizeau , French physicist (b. 1819 )
September 22 – Pavlos Kalligas , Greek jurist, politician (b. 1814 )
September 23 – Ivar Aasen , Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, playwright, and poet (b. 1813 )[ 47]
September 24 – Louis Gerhard De Geer , 1st Prime Minister of Sweden (b. 1818 )
October– December
Margaret Eleanor Parker
Alfred Nobel
Jose Rizal
October 3 – William Morris , English designer, poet and political activist (b. 1834 )[ 48]
October 6 – Sir James Abbott , British army officer and colonial administrator in India (b. 1807 )
October 7 – Louis-Jules Trochu , French general and politician, 26th Prime Minister of France (b. 1815 )
October 8 – George du Maurier , French-born British cartoonist and writer (b. 1834 )[ 49]
October 10 – Ferdinand von Mueller , German-born Australian botanist (b. 1825 )
October 11
October 12 – Christian Emil Krag-Juel-Vind-Frijs , Prime Minister of Denmark (b. 1817 )
October 19 – Emmy Rappe , Swedish nursing pioneer (b. 1835 )
October 21 – James Henry Greathead , British engineer and inventor (b. 1844 )
October 23 – Columbus Delano , American statesman (b. 1809 )
October 26 – Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour , French statesman (b. 1827 )
October 30 – Carol Benesch , Silesian and Romanian architect (b. 1822 )
November – Margaret Eleanor Parker , English social activist; first president of the British Women's Temperance Association (b. 1827 )
November 12 – Joseph James Cheeseman , Liberian politician, 12th President of Liberia (b. 1843 )
November 16 – Josip Šokčević , Croatian viceroy (b. 1811 )
November 22 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. , American inventor of the Ferris wheel (b. 1859 )
November 23 – Ichiyō Higuchi , Japanese poet and novelist (b. 1872 )[ 50]
November 26
December 10 – Alfred Nobel , Swedish inventor of dynamite, creator of the Nobel Prize (b. 1833 )[ 52]
December 29
December 30 – José Rizal , national hero of the Philippines (b. 1861 )
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