1896

Events

• January 4 - Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.
• January 5 - An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Röntgen discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
• January 12 - H.L. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph.
• January 18 - The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time.
• February 1 - The opera La Bohème premieres (Turin).
• February 11 - Oscar Wilde's play Salomé premieres in Paris.
• March 1 - With the Battle of Adowa, Ethiopia defended its independence from Italy.
• March 1 - Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity.
• May 1 - Charles Tupper becomes Canada's sixth prime minister.
• May 14 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia crowned in Moscow, in the first coronation ever filmed. One thousand spectators crushed to death in Khodynskoe Fields during coronation celebrations.
• May 18 - The U.S. Supreme Court announces its decision in the infamous case Plessy v. Ferguson.
• May 26 - Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
• May 27 - The East St. Louis Tornado: The 3rd deadlist tornado in U.S. history kills 255 people in St. Louis, Missouri and East Saint Louis, Illinois.
• June 4 - Henry Ford test-drives the first automobile he designed - the Quadricycle (it was also the first automobile he ever drove).
• June 8 ? Fritjof Nansen reaches the Antarctic Circle
• June 15 ? Earthquake and tsunami in Sanriku, Japan, kills 27.000
• July 9 - William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of gold speech.
• July 11 - Wilfrid Laurier becomes Canada's seventh prime minister.
• August 16 - George Carmack discovers gold in the Klondike.
• August 27 - The shortest war in the world - 9.02 - 9.40 between Britain and Zanzibar
• October 3 ? Dalton brothers try to rob two banks but only Emmet Dalton survives the shootout
• November - William McKinley defeats William Jennings Bryan in the U.S. presidential election.

• Nepalese archaeologists rediscover the great stone pillar of Ashoka at Lumbini, using Fa Xian's records.
• Pontifical University of Maynooth is established by decree of the Vatican

Births

• January 2 - Dziga Vertov, filmmaker (d. 1954)
• January 4 - Everett Dirksen, American politician (d. 1969)
• January 12 - Rex Ingram, director and actor (d. 1950)
• January 14 - Martin Niemöller, German theologian and pacifist (d. 1984)
• January 14 - John Dos Passos, author (d. 1970)
• January 23 - Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg (d. 1985)
• February 11 - Else Lasker-Schuler, writer
• February 18 - André Breton, poet, principal theoretician of surrealism (d. 1966)
• March 1 - Dimitri Mitropoulos, Greek conductor, pianist and composer († 1960)
• March 20 - Wilfrid Reid "Wop" May, world war 1 ace
• March 29 - Wilhelm Ackermann, mathematician (d. 1962)
• April 30 - Gary Davis, reverend
• May 11 - Mari Sandoz, writer (d. 1966)
• May 30 - Howard Hawks, director (d. 1977)
• June 19 - Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (d. 1986)
• July 2 - Quirino Cristiani, Argentine animation director (d. 1984)
• July 16 - Trygve Lie, the first United Nations Secretary General (d. 1968)
• August 18 - Jack Pickford, actor, Hollywood's first "bad boy" (d. 1933)
• August 30 - Raymond Massey, actor (d. 1983)
• October 1 - Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1951)
• October 28 - Howard Hanson, composer (d. 1981)
• October 31 - Ethel Waters, singer (d. 1977)
• November 8 - Bucky Harris, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1977)
• November 10 - Jimmy Dykes, Major League Baseball player and manager (d. 1976)
• November 16 - Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (d. 1980)
• December 6 - Ira Gershwin, lyricist (d. 1983)
• December 14 - Jimmy Doolittle, American World War II General (d. 1993)
• December 24 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (d. 1940)

Deaths

• January 4 - Joseph Hubert Reinkens, German Old Catholic bishop (b. 1821)
• January 8 - Paul Verlaine, lyric poet
• May 20 - Clara Schumann, Austrian composer
• August 10 - Otto Lilienthal, aviation pioneer
• August 17 - Bridget Driscoll, world's first automobile fatality
• October 11 - Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer
• October 23 ? Columbus Delano, American statesman
• November 28 - death of George Washington Gale Ferris Jr, Pittsburgh PA - whereabouts of his cremated remains is still a mystery.
• December 10 - Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor of dynamite and creator of the Nobel Prize
• December 30 - José Rizal, national hero of the Philippines

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