1898 in the United States

Events from the year 1898 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

President: William McKinley
[Vice President of the United States|President of the United States|Vice President]: Garret Hobart
Chief Justice: Melville Fuller
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Thomas Brackett Reed
Congress: 55th

Events

January–March

January 1 - New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island.
January 8 - Seminole burning: Lynching by burning of two Seminole boys near Maud, Oklahoma; 6 of the lynch mob are convicted and imprisoned, the first successful prosecution of lynching in the Southwest.
February 15 - explodes and sinks in Havana harbor, Cuba, killing 266 men. Popular opinion blames Spain and helps precipitate the Spanish–American War.
February 22 - Naoum Mokarzel establishes Al-Hoda which will become the longest-running Arabic newspaper in the U.S.
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 28 - After an investigation, the U.S. Navy publicly concludes that was sunk by a mine, further pushing sentiment towards war.
March 30 - The 5.8–6.4 Mare Island earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII, causing $350,000 in damage.

April–June

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." In the history of women in the military, there are records of female U.S. Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers who enlisted using male pseudonyms, but Oakley's letter represents possibly the earliest political move towards women's rights for combat service in the United States military.
April 20 - President William McKinley signs a Joint Resolution with Cuba and a declaration of War against Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War. The declaration is accepted five days later.
April 21 – Spanish–American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and captures a Spanish merchant ship.
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.
April 29 – Union Razor Company, which today is known as KA-BAR Knives, founded in Tidioute, Pennsylvania.
May 1 – Spanish–American War – Battle of Manila Bay: Commodore Dewey destroys the Spanish squadron. The first battle of the war, as well as the first battle in the Philippines Campaign.
May 10 – Prescott National Forest is established.
May 12 – Bombardment of San Juan, the first major battle of the Puerto Rico Campaign during the Spanish–American War.
June 1 – The Trans-Mississippi Exposition World's Fair opens in Omaha, Nebraska.

July–September

July 1 – Spanish–American War: Battle of San Juan Hill – American forces capture the San Juan Heights near Santiago de Cuba. Theodore Roosevelt memorably leads the charge of the Rough Riders.
July 3
* Spanish–American War: Battle of Santiago de Cuba – The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Navy's Caribbean Squadron.
* Joshua Slocum completes a 3-year solo circumnavigation of the world.
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 25 – Spanish–American War: The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins with a landing at Guánica Bay.
August 1 - Joseph F. Johnston is reelected the 30th governor of Alabama defeating Gilbert B. Dean.
August 13 – Spanish–American War: Hostilities end between American and Spanish forces in Cuba.

October–December

October 3 – Battle of Sugar Point: Ojibwe tribesmen defeat U.S. government troops in northern Minnesota.
October 6 – The Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity is founded at the New England Conservatory in Boston.
November 10 - The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898: A coup d'état by white supremacists.
November 26 – A 2-day blizzard known as the Portland Gale piles snow in Boston, Massachusetts, and severely impacts the Massachusetts fishing industry and several coastal New England towns.
December 10 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Spanish–American War.
December 23 – Guam transferred to the United States Navy control on December 23, 1898, by Executive Order 108-A from President William McKinley

Undated

H. W. Perlman, American piano manufacturer is founded.
Wakita is founded in the Cherokee Strip, Oklahoma.
As a result of the merger of several small oil companies, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company controls 84% of the United States's oil and most American pipelines.
Henry Adams Consulting Engineers founded by Henry Adams in Baltimore, Maryland.

Ongoing

Births

January 1 - Tony DeMarco, dancer
January 7 - Robert LeGendre, pentathlete and dentist
January 18 - Margaret Irving, actress
January 23 - Randolph Scott, film actor
February 2 - Billy Costello, voice actor, the original voice of Popeye
February 3 - Lil Hardin Armstrong, African American jazz musician
February 5 - Sidney Fields, actor
February 6 - Melvin B. Tolson, African American Modernist poet, educator, columnist, trade unionist and politician
February 10 - Robert Keith, actor
February 15 - Bud Geary, actor
February 26 - Blue Washington, actor and Negro league baseball player
February 27 - Otto Hulett, actor
March 3 - Thomas R. Underwood, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1951 to 1952
March 4 - Robert Schmertz, folk musician and architect
March 10 - Cy Kendall, actor
March 15 - Gardner Dow, college football player
April 1 - William James Sidis, child prodigy
April 3 - George Jessel, comedic entertainer
April 9 - Paul Robeson, African American bass singer and civil rights activist
April 15 - Marian Driscoll Jordan, actress
April 20 - Sidney Lanfield, film director
May 5
* Elsie Eaves, civil engineer
* Blind Willie McTell, African American blues singer/guitarist
May 14 - Betty Farrington, actress
May 23 - Daisy Bacon, magazine editor and writer
May 27 - Lee Garmes, cinematographer
June 6 - Walter Abel, actor
June 18 - Dink Trout, actor
June 19 - James Joseph Sweeney, first Catholic Bishop of Honolulu from 1941
June 21 - Donald C. Peattie, botanist and author
June 25 - Buddy Roosevelt, actor and stunt performer
June 28 - Louis King, film director
July 1 - Charles Hartmann, jazz trombonist
July 2
* George Folsey, cinematographer
* Anthony McAuliffe, general
July 4 - Johnny Lee, singer, dancer, and actor
July 5 - Richard P. Condie, conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
July 6 - Bill Amos, college football player and coach
July 9 - Al Bedner, American football player
July 10 - Theodore Miller Edison, businessman, inventor, and environmentalist
July 14
* Happy Chandler, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1955 to 1959
* John Twist, screenwriter
July 17
* Berenice Abbott, photographer
* George Robert Vincent, sound recording pioneer
July 21 - Sara Carter, country music singer, musician, and songwriter
July 22
* Stephen Vincent Benét, poet and fiction writer
* Alexander Calder, sculptor and artist
July 23 - Walter L. Morgan, banker
July 28 - Lawrence Gray, actor
July 31 - Ken Harris, animator
August 2 - Glenn Tryon, actor, screenwriter, and film director
August 5 - Lewis R. Foster, film director and screenwriter
August 12 - Kenneth Hawks, film director
August 17 - Dewey Robinson, actor
August 25 - Van Nest Polglase, art director, design department head at RKO Pictures
August 26 - Peggy Guggenheim, art collector
August 28 - Malcolm Cowley, novelist, poet, literary critic and journalist
September 8 - Queenie Smith, actress
September 9 - Styles Bridges, U.S. Senator from New Hampshire from 1937 to 1961
September 10
* Katharine Alexander, actress
* Waldo Semon, inventor
September 16- Helen Palmer writer and first wife of Dr.Seuss
September 26 - George Gershwin, composer
October 3 - Morgan Farley, actor
October 7 - Joe Giard, baseball player
October 16 - William O. Douglas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 to 1975
November 4 - Joe Dougherty, first voice of Porky Pig
November 13 - Wallace F. Bennett, U.S. Senator from Utah from 1951 to 1974
November 16 - Warren Sturgis McCulloch, neurophysiologist and cybernetician
November 17 - William A. Blakley, U.S. Senator from Texas in 1961
November 29 - Rod La Rocque, actor
December 3 - Monte Collins, actor and screenwriter
December 5 - Grace Moore, operatic soprano
December 9
* Emmett Kelly, clown
* Clarine Seymour, actress
December 14 - Lillian Randolph, African American actress and singer
December 24 - Baby Dodds, African American jazz drummer
December 27 - Hilda Vaughn, actress

Deaths

January 3 – Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Confederate brigadier general, Texas governor and president of Texas A&M University
January 7 – Joseph O'Dwyer, physician
February 17 – Frances Willard, educator, temperance reformer and women's suffragist
March 6 – Hugh J. Jewett, politician and president of the Erie Railroad from 1874 to 1884.
March 17 – Blanche Bruce, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1875 to 1881
March 18 – Matilda Joslyn Gage, feminist
May 22 – Edward Bellamy, novelist
July 8 – Soapy Smith, con artist and gangster
July 11 – Omar D. Conger, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1881 to 1887
July 17 – John Stuart Williams, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1879 to 1885
September 2 – Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
September 14 – William Seward Burroughs I, inventor of the adding machine
September 21 – William W. Eaton, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1875 to 1881
September 26 – Fanny Davenport, actress
September 28 – Thomas F. Bayard, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1869 to 1885 and Secretary of State from 1885 to 1889
October 12 – John M. Forbes, merchant, philanthropist and abolitionist, president of the Michigan Central and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroads
October 13 – Christian Dancel, German-born inventor
October 31 – Joseph R. West, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1871 to 1877
November 8 – Robert Franklin Armfield, U.S. Representative from North Carolina
November 19 – Don Carlos Buell, United States Army officer who fought in the Seminole War, the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War
December 15 – Calvin S. Brice, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1891 to 1897
December 18 – Thomas W. Osborn, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1868 to 1873