1898

Events

January

• January 1 - New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island.
• January 13 - Novelist Émile Zola's open letter to the President of the French Republic on the Dreyfus affair, J'Accuse…!, is published on the front page of the Paris daily newspaper L'Aurore, accusing the government of wrongfully imprisoning Alfred Dreyfus and of antisemitism.

  February

• February 12 - The automobile belonging to Henry Lindfield of Brighton rolls out of control down a hill in Purley, London, England, and hits a tree; thus he becomes the world's first fatality from an automobile accident on a public highway.
• February 15 - Spanish–American War: The explodes and sinks in Havana Harbor, Cuba, for reasons never fully established, killing 266 men. The event precipitates the United States' declaration of war on Spain, two months later.
• February 23 - Émile Zola is imprisoned in France, after writing J'Accuse…!.

  March

• March 13 - Vladimir Lenin creates the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Minsk
• March 14 - Association football and sports club BSC Young Boys is established in Bern, Switzerland, as the Fussballclub Young Boys.
• March 16 - In Melbourne the representatives of five colonies adopt a constitution, which will become the basis of the Commonwealth of Australia.
• March 24 - Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, becomes the first person to buy an American-built automobile, when he buys a Winton automobile that has been advertised in Scientific American.
• March 26 - The Sabie Game Reserve in South Africa is created, as the first officially designated game reserve.

  April

• April 5 - Annie Oakley promotes the service of women in combat situations, with the United States military. On this day, she writes a letter to President McKinley "offering the government the services of a company of 50 'lady sharpshooters' who would provide their own arms and ammunition should war break out with Spain."
• April 21 - Spanish–American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and the captures a Spanish merchant ship.
• April 23 - Spanish–American War: A conference of senior Spanish Navy officers led by naval minister Segismundo Bermejo decide to send Admiral Pascual Cervera's squadron to Cuba and Puerto Rico.
• April 25
• * Spanish–American War: The United States declares war on Spain; the U.S. Congress announces that a state of war has existed since April 21.
• * In Essen, German company italic=no RWE is founded.
• April 26 - An explosion in Santa Cruz, California, kills 13 workers, at the California Powder Works.
• April 29 - The Paris Auto Show, the first large-scale commercial vehicle exhibition show, is held in Tuileries Garden.

  May

• May 1 - Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila Bay - Commodore Dewey destroys the Spanish squadron, in the first battle of the war, as well as the first battle in the Philippines Campaign.
• May 2 - Thousands of Chinese scholars and Beijing citizens seeking reforms protest in front of the capital control yuan.
• May 7-9 - Bava Beccaris massacre: Hundreds of demonstrators are killed, when General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris orders troops to fire on a rally in Milan, Italy.
• May 8 - The first games of the Italian Football Federation are played, in which Genoa play against Torino.
• May 12 - Spanish–American War: The Puerto Rican Campaign begins with the Bombardment of San Juan.
• May 22 - The German Federation football club SV Darmstadt 98 is formed.
• May 27 - The territory of Guangzhouwan is leased by China to France, according to the Treaty of 12 April 1892, as the Territoire de Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, forming part of French Indochina.
• May 28 - Secondo Pia takes the first photographs of the Shroud of Turin and discovers that the image on the Shroud itself appears to be a photographic negative.

  June

• June 1 - The Trans-Mississippi Exposition World's Fair opens, in Omaha, Nebraska.
• June 7 - William Ramsay and Morris Travers discover neon at their laboratory at University College London, after extracting it from liquid nitrogen.
• June 9 - The British government arranges a 99-year rent of Hong Kong from China.
• June 10 - Tuone Udaina, the last known speaker of the Dalmatian language, is killed in an explosion.
• June 11 - The Guangxu Emperor announces the creation of what would later become Peking University.
• June 12 - Philippine Declaration of Independence: After 333 years of Spanish dominance, General Emilio Aguinaldo declares the Philippines' independence from Spain.
• June 13 - Yukon Territory is formed in Canada, with Dawson chosen as its capital.
• June 19 - Food processing giant Nabisco is founded in Chicago by merger as the National Biscuit Company.
• June 21 - Spanish–American War: The United States captures Guam, making it the first overseas territory of the U.S.
• June 28 - Effective date of the Curtis Act of 1898 which will lead to the dissolution of tribal and communal lands in Indian Territory and ultimately the creation of the State of Oklahoma in 1907.

  July

• July 1 - Spanish–American War: Battle of San Juan Hill - United States troops take a strategic position close to Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.
• July 3
• * Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago de Cuba - The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Navy's Caribbean Squadron.
• * American adventurer Joshua Slocum completes a 3-year solo circumnavigation of the world.
• July 4 - En route from New York to Le Havre, the ocean liner collides with another ship and sinks off the coast of Sable Island with the loss of 549 lives.
• July 7 - The United States annexes the Hawaiian Islands.
• July 17 - Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago Bay. Troops under United States General William R. Shafter take the city of Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.
• July 18 - "The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont" first appear in The Wide World Magazine, as its August 1898 issue goes on sale.
• July 25 - Spanish–American War: The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins, with a landing at Guánica Bay.

  August

• August 12 - Spanish–American War: Hostilities end between American and Spanish forces in Cuba.
• August 13 - Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila - By prior agreement, the Spanish commander surrenders the city of Manila to the United States, in order to keep it out of the hands of Filipino rebels, ending hostilities in the Philippines.
• August 20 - The Gornergrat railway opens, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat in Switzerland.
• August 21 - Clube de Regatas Vasco da Gama is founded in Rio de Janeiro.
• August 23 - The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.
• August 24 - Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes sign the Atoka Agreement, a requirement of the Curtis Act of 1898.
• August 25 - 700 Greeks and 15 Englishmen are slaughtered by the Turks in Heraklion, Greece, leading to the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State.
• August 28 - American pharmacist Caleb Bradham names his soft drink Pepsi-Cola.

  September

• September 2 - Battle of Omdurman : British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeat Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, thus establishing British dominance in the Sudan. 11,000 Sudanese are killed and 1,600 wounded in the battle.
• September 10 - Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni assassinates Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Geneva, as an act of propaganda of the deed.
• September 18 - Fashoda Incident: A powerful flotilla of British gunboats arrives at the French-occupied fort of Fashoda on the White Nile, leading to a diplomatic stalemate, until French troops are ordered to withdraw on November 3.
• September 21
• * Empress Dowager Cixi of China engineers a coup d'état, marking the end of the Hundred Days' Reform; the Guangxu Emperor is arrested.
• * Geert Adriaans Boomgaard of Groningen in the Netherlands becomes the world's first validated supercentenarian.

  October

• October 1 - The Vienna University of Economics and Business is founded, under the name Imperial and royal.
• October 3 - Battle of Sugar Point: Ojibwe tribesmen defeat U.S. government troops, in northern Minnesota.
• October 6 - The Sinfonia Club, later to become the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity, is founded at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston by Ossian Everett Mills.
• October 15 - The Fork Union Military Academy is founded, in Fork Union, Virginia.
• October 21 - General Leonard Wood, the U.S. military governor of Cuba, issues a proclamation guaranteeing personal rights to the Cuban people.
• October 22 - In a race riot near Harperville, Mississippi in the U.S., 14 African-Americans and one white person are killed.
• October 23 - An anarchist, suspected of plotting the assassination of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, is arrested in Egypt at Alexandria.
• October 24 -
• *The last Spanish soldiers in Puerto Rico, led by General Ortega, depart on ships to return to Spain.
• *U.S. President William McKinley extends the deadline for all Spanish troops to leave Cuba. Set to expire on December 1, the last day to depart is extended to January 1, 1899.
• *Chinese soldiers attack a party of British engineers at the Marco Polo Bridge on the Beijing to Hankou railway.
• October 26 -
• *A collision between two Japanese steamers at sea kills 60 Japanese sailors.
• *The U.S. begins the release and repatriation of Spanish Navy sailors who had been taken as prisoners of war in the Philippines, and sends them back to Spain.
• October 27 - The Court of Cassation in Paris hears arguments from lawyers regarding a new trial in the Dreyfus case. The Court grants the request on October 29.
• October 29 -
• *France's Court of Cassation grants a rehearing on the Dreyfus case.
• *Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and his wife arrive at Jerusalem in Ottoman-ruled Palestine and visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• October 30 - The Imperial Russian government announces that the leaders of the world's major nations have accepted the invitation of the Tsar to take part in a proposed conference on disarmament.
• October 31 -
• *The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, is dedicated after the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire presents the area, said to be the site of the Virgin Mary's home, to Germany's Roman Catholics.
• *Count Ōkuma Shigenobu, Japan's Prime Minister, announces his resignation along with that of his cabinet of ministers.