1895

Events

January

• January 5 - Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island on what is much later admitted to be a false charge of treason.
• January 6 - The Wilcox rebellion, an attempt led by Robert Wilcox to overthrow the Republic of Hawaii and restore the Kingdom of Hawaii, begins with royalist troops landing at Waikiki Beach in O'ahu and clashing with republican defenders. The rebellion ends after three days and the remaining 190 royalists are taken prisoners of war.
• January 12 - Britain's National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.
• January 13 - First Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Coatit - Italian forces defeat the Ethiopians.
• January 15 - A warehouse fire and dynamite explosion kills 57 people, including 13 firefighters in Butte, Montana in the U.S.
• January 17 - A 6.8 magnitude earthquake strikes northeastern Iran near the town of Quchan and causes at least 1,000 deaths.
• January 21 -
• *The U.S. Supreme Court rules in United States v. E. C. Knight Co. that Congress and the U.S. federal government cannot regulate manufacturing, and dismisses an antitrust lawsuit against American Sugar Refining Company, which controls 98 percent of sugar refining in the United States.
• *The American steamer S.S. Chicora sinks in a storm on Lake Michigan, along with all 21 of its crew and a lone passenger.
• January 24 - An effort to restore the Hawaiian monarchy ends as the former Queen Liliuokalani abdicates and pledges allegiance to the Republic of Hawaii.
• January 31 - The sinking of the German ocean liner SS Elbe kills 334 people on board, 20 minutes after the ship had collided with the British steamer SS Crathie in the North Sea. Only two lifeboats are able to evacuate before the Elbe goes down, and the first lifeboat capsizes when too many passengers attempt to get onboard. A second lifeboat, with 15 members of the crew, four men and a woman, carries the only survivors.

  February

• February 20
• * The gold reserve of the U.S. Treasury is saved when J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds loan $65 million worth of gold to the United States government. The offering of syndicate bonds sells out only 22 minutes after the New York market opens, and just two hours after going on sale in London.
• *Venezuelan crisis of 1895: U.S. President Grover Cleveland signs into law a bill resulting from the proposition of House Resolution 252, by William Lindsay Scruggs and Congressman Leonidas Livingston, to the third session of the 53rd Congress of the United States of America. The bill recommends that Venezuela and Great Britain settle their dispute by arbitration.
• February 24 - The first rebellions of the Cuban War of Independence break out.

  March

• March 3 - In Munich, Germany, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates.
• March 4 - Japanese troops capture Liaoyang and land in Taiwan.
• March 15
• * Bridget Cleary is killed and her body burned in County Tipperary, Ireland, by her husband, Michael; he is subsequently convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter, his defence being a belief that he had killed a changeling left in his wife's place after she had been abducted by fairies.
• * Heian Shrine is completed in Kyoto, Japan.
• March 18 - The world's first gasoline bus route is started in Germany, between Siegen and Netphen.
• March 22 - Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière make what is probably the first presentation of a projected celluloid film moving picture, the 46-second Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, to members of the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale in Paris.
• March 30 - Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine in Germany.

April

• April 6 - Oscar Wilde is arrested in London for "gross indecency", after losing a criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
• April 7 - Nansen's Fram expedition to the Arctic reaches 86°13.6'N, almost 3° beyond the previous Farthest North attained.
• April 14 - A major earthquake severely damages Ljubljana, the capital of Carniola.
• April 17 - The Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed between China and Japan. This marks the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, and the defeated Qing Empire is forced to renounce its claims on Korea, and to concede the southern portion of Fengtian province, Taiwan and the Penghu to Japan. The huge indemnity exacted from China is used to establish the Yawata Iron and Steel Works in Japan.
• April 22 - Gongche Shangshu movement: 603 candidates sign a 10,000-word petition against the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
• April 27 - The unique, historic and picturesque Spiral Bridge is constructed to carry U.S. 61 over the Mississippi River at Hastings, Minnesota. It is demolished in 1951.

  May

• May 2 - Gongche Shangshu movement: Thousands of Beijing scholars and citizens protest against the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
• May 9 - Thirteen workers are killed by soldiers of the Russian Empire during the Yaroslavl Great Manufacture strike.
• May 18 - The first motor race in Italy is held, on a course from Turin to Asti and back, a total of. Five entrants start the event; only three complete it. It is won by Simone Federman in a four-seat Daimler Omnibus, at an average speed of.
• May 24 - Anti-Japanese officials, led by Tang Jingsong in Taiwan, declare independence from the Qing dynasty, forming the short-lived Republic of Formosa.
• May 25 - R. v. Wilde: Oscar Wilde is convicted in London of "unlawfully committing acts of gross indecency with certain male persons" and given a two years' sentence of hard labour, during which he will write De Profundis.
• May 27 - In re Debs: The Supreme Court of the United States decides that the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, legalizing the military suppression of the Pullman Strike.

  June

• June 5 - The Liberal Revolution begins in Ecuador, making the civil war more intense in the country.
• June 11
• * Britain annexes Tongaland, between Zululand and Mozambique.
• * The Paris–Bordeaux–Paris automobile trial is held.
• June 20 - The Treaty of Amapala establishes the union of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.
• June 21 - The Kiel Canal, connecting the North Sea to the Baltic across the base of the Jutland peninsula in Germany, is officially opened.
• June 28 - The United States Court of Private Land Claims rules that James Reavis's claim to the Barony of Arizona is "wholly fictitious and fraudulent".

  July

• July 10-11 - The Doukhobors' pacifist protests culminate in the "burning of the arms" in the South Caucasus.
• July 15 - Archie MacLaren scores an English County Championship cricket record innings of 424 for Lancashire, against Somerset, at Taunton. This record lasts until 1994.
• July 31 - The Basque Nationalist Party is founded by Sabino Arana.
• July - Oldham Athletic A.F.C. is founded in England.

  August

• August 7 - The Aljaž Tower, a symbol of the Slovenes, is erected on Mount Triglav.
• August 10 - The first ever indoor promenade concert, origin of The Proms, is held at the Queen's Hall in London, opening a series conducted by Henry Wood.
• August 19 - American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
• August 29
• * The Northern Rugby Football Union is formed at a meeting of 21 rugby clubs at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, in the north of England, leading to the creation of the professional sport of rugby league football.
• * The Mat Salleh Rebellion in North Borneo is incited.

  September

• September - Shelbourne F.C. is founded in Dublin, Ireland.
• September 3 - The first professional American football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club.
• September 7 - The first game of what will become known as rugby league football is played in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
• September 18 - Daniel David Palmer performs the first chiropractic spinal adjustment, on Harvey Lillard, whose complaint was partial deafness after an injury.
• September 24–October 3 - the Automobile Club de France sponsors the longest race to date, a event, from Bordeaux to Agen and back. Because it is held in ten stages, it can be considered the first rally. The first three places are taken by two Panhards and a three-wheeler De Dion-Bouton.

  October

• October - Rudyard Kipling publishes the story "Mowgli Leaves the Jungle Forever" in The Cosmopolitan illustrated magazine in the United States, collected in The Second Jungle Book, published in England in November.
• October 1 - French troops capture Antananarivo, Madagascar.
• October 2 - Peiyang University, predecessor of Tianjin University, is founded as an institution of higher education in Qing dynasty China.
• October 8 - Queen Min, queen consort of Joseon, is assassinated at her private residence within Gyeongbokgung Palace by Japanese agents.
• October 10 - The London School of Economics holds its first classes in London, England.
• October 23 - The city of Tainan, last stronghold of the Republic of Formosa, capitulates to the forces of the Empire of Japan, ending the short-lived republic, and beginning the era of Taiwan under Japanese rule.
• October 31 - 1895 Charleston earthquake: A major earthquake occurs near Charleston, Missouri, in the New Madrid Seismic Zone of the midwestern United States. As of 2014, the earthquake risk for the region is being closely monitored.