1885
British general Charles G. “Chinese” Gordon killed at Khartoum in Egyptian Sudan.
World’s first skyscraper built in Chicago.
1886
Bombing at Haymarket Square, Chicago, kills seven policemen and injures many others. Eight alleged anarchists accused—three imprisoned, one commits suicide, four hanged. (In 1893, Illinois governor Altgeld, critical of trial, pardons three survivors.)
Statue of Liberty dedicated.
Geronimo, Apache Indian chief, surrenders.
1887
Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet.
1888
Historic March blizzard in northeast U.S.—many perish, property damage exceeds $25 million.
George Eastman’s box camera (the Kodak).
J. B. Dunlop invents pneumatic tire.
Jack the Ripper murders in London.
1889
Indian Territory in Oklahoma opened to settlement.
Thousands die in Johnstown, Pa. flood.
Eiffel Tower built for the Paris exposition.
Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
1890
Congress votes to pass Sherman Antitrust Act.
Sioux chief Sitting Bull arrested and killed by police on Pine Ridge reservation,
two weeks later, U.S. troops kill over 200
Sioux at Battle of Wounded Knee Ghost Dance Tragedy.
1892
Battle between steel strikers and Pinkerton guards at Homestead, Pa.; union defeated after militia intervenes.
Diesel engine patented.
1893
Kate Sheppard leading member of the New Zealand Women’s Suffrage movement, New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant women the vote.
1894
In France, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus convicted on false treason charge (pardoned in 1906).
In U.S., Jacob S. Coxey of Ohio leads “Coxey’s Army” of unemployed on Washington.
Eugene V. Debs calls general strike of rail workers to support Pullman Company strikers; strike broken, Debs jailed for six months.
Edison’s kinetoscope given first public showing in New York City.
1895
X-rays discovered by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen.
Auguste and Louis Lumière Lumière first screened their motion pictures for a public, paying audience. at a café in Paris.
1896
Alfred Nobel’s will establishes prizes for peace, science, and literature.
Marconi receives first wireless patent in Britain.
William Jennings Bryan delivers “Cross of Gold” speech at Democratic Convention in Chicago.
First modern Olympic games held in Athens, Greece.
1898
Chinese “Boxers,” anti-foreign organization, established. They stage uprisings against Europeans in 1900.
U.S. and other Western troops relieve Peking legations. U.S.
Battleship Maine is sunk in Havana Harbor. Spanish-American Warbegins.
U.S. destroys Spanish fleet near Santiago, Cuba.
Dewey’s flagship, the cruiser Olympia, arriving in Manila.
The USS Brooklyn leads the American squadron to victory over the Spanish off Santiago de Cuba.
Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium and polonium.