1891

Events

January

• January 1
• * A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence.
• *Germany takes formal possession of its new African territories.
• January 4 - The Earl of Zetland issues a declaration regarding the famine in the western counties of Ireland.
• January 5
• *The Australian shearers' strike, that leads indirectly to the foundation of the Australian Labor Party, begins.
• *A fight between the United States and Lakota people breaks out near Pine Ridge agency.
• *A fight between railway strikers and police breaks out at Motherwell, Scotland.
• January 7
• * General Nelson A. Miles' forces surround the Lakota in the Pine Ridge Reservation.
• * The Inter-American Monetary Commission meets in Washington, D.C.
• January 9 - The great shoe strike in Rochester, New York is called off.
• January 10 - In France, the Irish Nationalist leaders hold a conference at Boulogne. The French government promptly takes loan.
• January 11
• *3,000 Lakotas approach Pine Ridge with a view to surrender.
• *In Mahoning Valley, Ohio, sixteen blast furnaces shut down, putting 10,000 men out of work.
• January 12
• *Canada brings suit before the United States Supreme Court in re seizures of vessels in the Bering Sea.
• *St. Mary's Cathedral is dedicated in San Francisco.
• January 14 - Conference of Lakota chiefs with General Miles at Pine Ridge Reservation: the Lakota agree to surrender.
• January 15 - Scottish railway strikers attempt to wreck a train near Greenock, Scotland.
• January 16 - The Chilean Civil War of 1891 breaks out.
• January 19
• *General Miles officially announces the end of the native outbreak and congratulates his troops.
• *A British Royal Navy squadron is ordered to Chile.
• January 20 - Jim Hogg becomes the first native Texan to be governor of that state.
• January 27-May 2 - The Jamaica International Exhibition is held.
• January 29 - Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii.
• January 31 - The Portuguese republican revolution breaks out, in the northern city of Porto.

  February

• February 14 - In the FA Cup quarter final in English Association football, a goal is deliberately stopped by handball on the goal line. An indirect free kick is awarded, since the penalty kick, proposed the previous year by William McCrum, has not yet been implemented. This event probably changes public opinion on the penalty kick, seen previously as an Irishman's motion.
• February 15 - Allmänna Idrottsklubben sports club is founded in Stockholm, Sweden.
• February 21 - Springhill, Nova Scotia suffers a serious mining disaster.
• February 24 - The constitution of the First Brazilian Republic is promulgated.
• February - The Tobacco Protest begins in Iran.

  March

• March 3 - The International Copyright Act of 1891 is passed, by the 51st United States Congress.
• March 5 - 1st Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald wins a 4th consecutive parliamentary victory over the Liberal Party.
• March 9–12 - The Great Blizzard of 1891 in the south and west of England leads to extensive snow drifts and powerful storms off the south coast, with 14 ships sunk, and approximately 220 deaths attributed to the weather conditions.
• March 12 - Djurgårdens IF sports club is founded in Stockholm.
• March 14 - In New Orleans, a lynch mob storms the Old Parish Prison, and lynches 11 Italians arrested but found innocent of the murder of Police Chief David Hennessy.
• March 17 - The British steamship, carrying Italian migrants to New York, sinks in the inner harbor of Gibraltar after collision with the battleship HMS Anson, killing 564.
• March 18 - The London-Paris telephone system officially opens.

  April

• April 1
• * The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago.
• * The London–Paris telephone system is opened to the general public.
• April 5 - Census in the United Kingdom: 15.6 million people live in cities of 20,000 or more in England and Wales, and cities of 20,000 or more account for 54% of the total English population.
• April 12 - The first official game in the Association football league of Argentina is held in Caballito, Buenos Aires.
• April 23 - Chilean Civil War of 1891: Chilean ironclad Blanco Encalada is sunk at the Battle of Caldera Bay by torpedo boats. This is the first ironclad warship lost to a self-propelled torpedo.

  May

• May 1
• * Troops fire on a workers' May Day demonstration in support of the 8-hour workday in Fourmies, France, killing 9 and wounding 30.
• * The first Fascio dei lavoratori is founded by Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida in Catania, Sicily.
• May 5 - The Music Hall in New York has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as guest conductor.
• May 11 - Ōtsu incident: Tsesarevich Nikolay Alexandrovich of Russia survives an assassination attempt while visiting Japan.
• May 15 - Pope Leo XIII issues the encyclical Rerum novarum, on the rights and duties of capital and labor, resulting in the creation of many Christian Democrat parties throughout Europe.
• May 20 - Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope is first displayed at Edison's Laboratory, for a convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs.
• May 31 N.S. - In the Kuperovskaya district of Vladivostok, a grand ceremonial inauguration of construction work on the Trans-Siberian Railway is carried out by the Tsesarevich Nikolay Alexandrovich, and a religious service held.
• May - Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claims to be the Promised Messiah and the Mahdi awaited in Islam.

  June

• June 1 - The Johnstown Inclined Plane opens in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
• June 15 - Minas Gerais was granted in 1891.
• June 21 - The first long-distance transmission of alternating current is made, from the Ames power plant near Telluride, Colorado, by Lucien and Paul Nunn.
• June 25 - Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes appears in The Strand Magazine for the first time, in the issue dated July.

• June - The clipper ship Cromdale is completed. She is the last fully rigged ship built for the Australian wool trade.

  July

• July 30 - The Springboks rugby union team of South Africa play their first international test match against the Lions team of the British Isles, and lose by 4–0.

  August

• August 5 - The first American Express traveler's cheque is cashed.
• August 27 - France and Russia conclude a defensive alliance.

  September

• September 14 - The first penalty kick is awarded in an Association football match: John Heath scores it for Wolverhampton Wanderers in England.
• September 18 - The Chilean Civil War of 1891 ends with the suicide of deposed President José Manuel Balmaceda and victory for the Congressional party, beginning the country's Parliamentary Era.
• September 22 - The first hydropower plant of Finland is commissioned along the Tammerkoski rapids in Tampere, Pirkanmaa.
• September 28 - Club Atlético Peñarol is founded in Montevideo, under the name of the CURCC.
• September 29 - Thyssen, predecessor of the Thyssen Krupp worldwide conglomerate, is founded in Duisburg, Germany.

  October

• October 1
• * Stanford University in California opens its doors.File:Stanford University Quad Memorial Church.JPG|thumb|110px|right| October 1 Stanford University opens its doors.
• * Skansen is established as the world's first open-air museum by Artur Hazelius, on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden.
• October 28 - The 8.0 Mino–Owari earthquake strikes the Gifu region of Japan. This oblique-slip event kills over 7,200, injures more than 17,000, and creates fault scarps that still remain visible.
• October 30 - A predecessor of personal care brand in Japan and Asia, Lion Corporation, is founded as Kobayashi Tomijirō Shōten.
• October - Eugène Dubois finds the first fragmentary bones of Pithecanthropus erectus, or "Java Man", at Trinil on the Solo River.

  November

• November 11 - Jindandao Incident: The Chinese Juu Uda League in Inner Mongolia massacres tens of thousands of Mongols, before being suppressed by government troops in late December.
• November 28 - The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is organized in St. Louis, Missouri.

  December

• December 17 - Drexel University is inaugurated as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in Philadelphia.
• December 22 - Asteroid 323 Brucia becomes the first asteroid discovered using photography.

  Date unknown

• Brahmin teacher and nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak begins agitation for Indian Home Rule.
• James Naismith invents basketball in the United States.
• Seattle University is established as the Immaculate Conception school.
• Nikola Tesla invents the Tesla coil.
• Michelin patents the removable pneumatic bicycle tire.
• Production of the Swiss Army Knife by Victorinox begins.
• Philips founded in Eindhoven, Netherlands, for the production of carbon-filament lamps and other electro-technical products.
• New Mexico Military Institute is founded in Roswell, New Mexico Territory.

  Births

January–March

• January 1 - Charles Bickford, American actor
• January 7 - Zora Neale Hurston, African-American writer, anthropologist, ethnographer
• January 8 - Walther Bothe, German physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics
• January 13 - Miguel Pro, Mexican Jesuit priest, martyr and blessed
• January 15 - Ray Chapman, American baseball player
• January 22
• *Antonio Gramsci, Italian Communist writer, politician
• *Bruno Loerzer, German aviator, air force general
• January 23
• * Marjorie Maynard, British artist and farmer
• * Pavlo Tychyna, Ukrainian poet, translator, publicist, public activist, academician, and statesman.
• January 24 - Walter Model, German field marshal
• January 27 - Ilya Ehrenburg, Russian writer
• February 1 - Shigeru Fukudome, Japanese admiral
• February 2 - Antonio Segni, Italian politician, 34th Prime Minister of Italy, 4th President of the Italian Republic
• February 9 - Ronald Colman, English actor
• February 13 - Grant Wood, American painter
• February 17 - Abraham Fraenkel, German-born Israeli mathematician, recipient of the Israel Prize
• February 21 - Seán Heuston, Irish rebel
• February 27 - David Sarnoff, Russian-born American broadcasting pioneer
• March 3 - Fritz Rumey, German World War I fighter ace
• March 9 - José P. Laurel, 3rd President of the Philippines
• March 10 - Sam Jaffe, American actor
• March 16 - Patsy Gallacher, Irish footballer
• March 19 - Earl Warren, American politician and Chief Justice of the United States
• March 24 - Rudolf Berthold, German fighter pilot
• March 29 - Yvan Goll, French lyricist, dramatist