1896

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century 19th century 20th century
Decades:	1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s
Years:	1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899

1896 in various calendars

Gregorian calendar	1896 MDCCCXCVI
Ab urbe condita	2649
Armenian calendar	1345 ԹՎ ՌՅԽԵ
Assyrian calendar	6646
Baháʼí calendar	52–53
Balinese saka calendar	1817–1818
Bengali calendar	1303
Berber calendar	2846
British Regnal year	59 Vict. 1 – 60 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2440
Burmese calendar	1258
Byzantine calendar	7404–7405
Chinese calendar	乙未年 (Wood Goat) 4593 or 4386     — to — 丙申年 (Fire Monkey) 4594 or 4387
Coptic calendar	1612–1613
Discordian calendar	3062
Ethiopian calendar	1888–1889
Hebrew calendar	5656–5657
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1952–1953
- Shaka Samvat	1817–1818
- Kali Yuga	4996–4997
Holocene calendar	11896
Igbo calendar	896–897
Iranian calendar	1274–1275
Islamic calendar	1313–1314
Japanese calendar	Meiji 29 (明治２９年)
Javanese calendar	1825–1826
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4229
Minguo calendar	16 before ROC 民前16年
Nanakshahi calendar	428
Thai solar calendar	2438–2439
Tibetan calendar	阴木羊年 (female Wood-Goat) 2022 or 1641 or 869     — to — 阳火猴年 (male Fire-Monkey) 2023 or 1642 or 870

Year 1896 (MDCCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar and a leap year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

January 5: Roentgen rays.

January 5: Roentgen X-ray.

• January – Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War: British redcoats enter the Ashanti capital, Kumasi, and Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I is deposed.
• January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end, as Jameson surrenders to the Boers.
• January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.
• January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Röntgen has discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
• January 7 – Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook.
• January 12 – H.L. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph.
• January 18 – The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time.
• January 28 – Walter Arnold, of East Peckham, Kent, England, is fined 1 shilling for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h) (exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h)), the first speeding fine.
• February 1 – Puccini's opera La bohème premieres in Turin, Italy.
• February 4 – International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers is established in Pittsburgh.
• February 11 – Oscar Wilde's play Salomé premieres in Paris.
• March 1 – Battle of Adwa: Ethiopia defends its independence from Italy, ending the First Italo-Ethiopian War.
• March 3 – Publication begins of the world's first magazine with an orientation to male homosexuality, Der Eigene, by Adolf Brand in Berlin.
• March 9 – Responding to national outrage at the defeat at Adwa, Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns.
• March 23 – The New York State Legislature passes the Raines Law, restricting Sunday alcoholic beverage sales to hotels.

April–June

• April 3 – The first edition of the Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport is published.
• April 4 – The first known women's basketball game between two colleges is played between Stanford and California.
• April 6 – The opening ceremonies of the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first modern Olympic Games, are held in Athens.
• April 9 – Gustav Koerner: The German-American statesman died in Belleville, Illinois
• April 9 – The National Farm School (later Delaware Valley College) is chartered in Doylestown, PA.
• May 8 – Cricket: Against Warwickshire, Yorkshire sets a still-standing County Championship record when they accumulate an innings total of 887.
• May 18 – Plessy v. Ferguson: The U.S. Supreme Court introduces the "separate but equal" doctrine and upholds racial segregation.
• May 26 – Eleven years after its foundation, a group of 12 purely industrial stocks were chosen to form the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index was composed entirely of industrial shares for the first time.
• May 27 – St. Louis-East St. Louis Tornado: The costliest and third deadliest tornado in U.S. history levels a mile wide swath of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, incurring $2.9 billion (1997 USD) in normalized damages, killing more than 255 and injuring over 1,000 people.
• June 4 – The Ford Quadricycle, the first Ford vehicle ever developed, is completed, eventually leading Henry Ford to build the empire that "put America on wheels".
• June 7 – Mahdist War: British and Egyptian victory at the Battle of Ferkeh.
• June 12 – J. T. Hearne sets a record for the earliest date of taking 100 wickets in cricket (it is equalled by Charlie Parker in 1931).
• June 15 – An earthquake and tsunami in Sanriku, Japan, kills 27,000.

A picture of the restored Panathenaic Stadium, the site of the 1896 Summer Olympics

• June 23 – Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier defeats Charles Tupper during Canadian federal elections for the 8th Canadian Parliament to become the first francophone Prime Minister of Canada.
• June 28 – Thomas Edison makes first twerk video

July–September

• July 9 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of gold speech at the Democratic National Convention, which nominates him for President of the United States.
• July 11 – Wilfrid Laurier becomes Canada's seventh prime minister and the first French-speaker to hold that office.
• July 21 – In Washington, D.C., in response to a "call to confer" issued by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin to all women of color, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs is organized.
• July 26 – International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress opens in London.
• July 27 – A causeway is opened between the islands of Saaremaa and Muhu in Estonia.
• July 30 – Atlantic City rail crash: Shortly after 6:30 pm, at a crossing just west of Atlantic City, New Jersey, two trains collide, crushing five loaded passenger coaches, killing fifty and seriously injuring approximately sixty.
• August
  • The Philippine Revolution erupts.
  • An extraordinary heat wave affects the northeastern United States.
• August 16 – Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie discover gold in the Klondike, Yukon.
• August 17 – Bridget Driscoll is run over by a Benz car in the grounds of The Crystal Palace, London, the world's first motoring fatality.
• August 27
  • The shortest war in recorded history, the Anglo-Zanzibar War, starts at 9 in the morning and lasts for 45 minutes of shelling.
  • Britain establishes a Protectorate over Ashanti concluding the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War.
• September 15 – The Crash at Crush train wreck stunt is held in Texas.
• September 22 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.

October–December

• October 30 – Augusta, KY: The Augusta High School cornerstone is laid, marking the end of the Augusta Methodist College.
• November 3 – U.S. presidential election, 1896: Republican William McKinley defeats William Jennings Bryan.
• November 30 –
  • The Udinese Calcio is founded.
  • 'St. Augustine Monster': A large carcass, later postulated to be the remains of a gigantic octopus, is found washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida.
• December 10 – The premiere of Alfred Jarry's absurdist play Ubu Roi in Paris causes a near-riot.
• December 14 – The Glasgow Subway, the third-oldest underground metro system in the world, opens.
• December 25 (Christmas Day) – John Philip Sousa composes his magnum opus, the Stars and Stripes Forever.
• December 30 – Jose Rizal, Filipino scholar and poet, is executed by Spanish authorities in the Philippines.

Date unknown

• Nepalese archaeologists rediscover the great stone pillar of Ashoka at Lumbini, using Fa Xian's records.
• The Pontifical University of Maynooth is established by decree of the Vatican.
• France establishes an administrative post in Abengourou, Côte d'Ivoire.
• The New York Telephone Company is formed.
• The United States Republican Party is realigned.
• Construction of the Uganda Railway starts.
• Founding of
  • Clarkson University (in Potsdam, New York)
  • Devonport High School for Boys (in Plymouth UK)
• Pleasure Beach Blackpool, a popular English theme park (Britain's Biggest Tourist Attraction), is founded by Alderman William George Bean.

Births

January–March

• January 2 – Dziga Vertov, Russian filmmaker (d. 1954)
• January 4
  • Everett Dirksen, American politician (d. 1969)
  • André Masson, French artist (d. 1987)
• January 8 – Arthur Ford, American psychic spiritual medium, clairaudient (d. 1971)
• January 12 – Rex Ingram, Irish director and actor (d. 1950)
• January 14
  • John Dos Passos, American author (d. 1970)
• January 18 – C. M. Eddy, Jr., American author (d. 1967)
• January 20 – George Burns, American comedian (d. 1996)
• January 23 – Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (d. 1985)
• January 26 – József Kiss, Austro-Hungarian fighter pilot (d. 1918)
• February 16 – Eugénie Blanchard French supercentenarian (d. 2010)
• February 18 – André Breton, French writer (d. 1966)
• February 23 – Herbert Weichmann, German politician and mayor of Hamburg (d. 1983)
• February 25 – Heinrich Gontermann, German World War I fighter ace (d. 1917)
• February 28 – Philip Showalter Hench, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1965)
• February 29 – Morarji Desai, Indian politician (d. 1995)
• March 1
  • Dimitris Mitropoulos, Greek conductor, pianist, and composer (d. 1960)
  • Moriz Seeler, German writer, poet, film producer, and man of the theatre (d. 1942)
• March 4 – Lucia Lauria, Italian supercentenarian (d. 2009)
• March 20 – Wilfrid Reid "Wop" May, Canadian World War I pilot (d. 1952)
• March 29 – Wilhelm Ackermann, German mathematician (d. 1962)
• March 31 – Florrie Baldwin, British supercentenarian (d. 2010)

April–June

• April 13 – Ira C. Eaker, World War II United States Army Air Forces general (d. 1987)
• April 15 – Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov, Russian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
• April 21 – Ralph Hungerford, 33rd Governor of American Samoa (d. 1977)
• April 26 – Ernst Udet, German World War I fighter ace and Nazi Luftwaffe official (d. 1941)
• April 27 – Rogers Hornsby, American baseball player (d. 1963)
• April 30
  • Hans List, Austrian founder of the AVL List (d. 1996)
  • Gary Davis, American musician (d. 1972)
• May 1 – Mark W. Clark, American general (d. 1984)
• May 3 – Karl Allmenröder, German World War I fighter pilot (d. 1917)
• May 7 – John Dunville, British Army officer in World War I (d. 1917)
• May 30 – Howard Hawks, American director (d. 1977)
• June 6
  • Henry Allingham, British World War I veteran and world's oldest man (d. 2009)
  • Italo Balbo, Italian Fascist leader (d. 1940)
• June 7
  • Robert S. Mulliken, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
  • Douglas Campbell, American World War I flying ace (d. 1990)
  • Hope Summers, American actress (d. 1979)
• June 19 – Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (d. 1986)
• June 25 – S. Pararajasingam, Ceylon Tamil landed proprietor and politician

July–September

• July 2 – Quirino Cristiani, Argentine animated film director (d. 1984)
• July 9 – Maria Gomes Valentim, Brazilian supercentenarian (d. 2011)
• July 10 – Maurice Zbriger, Canadian violinist, composer and conductor (d. 1981)
• July 13 – Mordecai Ardon, Israeli painter (d. 1992)
• July 16 – Trygve Lie, Norway-born United Nations Secretary General (d. 1968)
• July 27 – Henri Longchambon, French politician (d. 1969)
• August 9
  • Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist (d. 1980)
  • Leonide Massine, Russian ballet dancer and choreographer (d. 1979)
• August 12 – Ejner Federspiel, Danish actor (d. 1981)
• August 14 – Albert Ball, British World War I fighter ace, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1917)
• August 15
  • Gerty Cori, Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1957)
  • Paul Outerbridge, American photographer (d. 1958)
• August 18 – Jack Pickford, American actor (d. 1933)
• August 22 – W. E. Lawrence, American actor (d. 1947)
• August 26 – Besse Cooper, American supercentenarian; last known surviving person born in 1896 (d. 2012)
• August 27 – Léon Theremin, Russian inventor (d. 1993)
• August 30 – Raymond Massey, Canadian-born American actor (d. 1983)
• September 1 – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Indian founder of the Hare Krishna movement (d. 1977)
• September 4 – Antonin Artaud, Theatre Practitioner, Director and Actor (d. 1948)
• September 14 – Fray José de Guadalupe Mojica, Mexican Franciscan friar and former tenor and film actor (d. 1974)
• September 21 – Walter Breuning, American supercentenarian; last known surviving male born in 1896 (d. 2011)
• September 22 – Uri Zvi Grinberg, Israeli poet and journalist (d. 1981)
• September 24 – F. Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (d. 1940)
• September 25 – Sandro Pertini, former President of Italy (d. 1990)
• September 30 – Jolie Gabor, Hungarian-American entrepreneur, jeweler, and memoirist (d. 1997)

October–December

• October 7 – Paulino Alcántara, Philippine-Spanish soccer player (d. 1964)
• October 12 – Eugenio Montale, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
• October 27 – Edith Brown, R.M.S. Titanic survivor (d. 1997)
• October 28 – Howard Hanson, American composer (d. 1981)
• October 31 – Ethel Waters, American singer and actress (d. 1977)
• November 4 – Carlos P. Garcia, president of the Philippines (d. 1971)
• November 8 – Bucky Harris, American baseball player (d. 1977)
• November 10 – Jimmy Dykes, American baseball player and manager (d. 1976)
• November 13 – Nobusuke Kishi, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1987)
• November 14 – Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States (d. 1979)
• November 16 – Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (d. 1980)
• November 17 – Lev Vygotsky, Russian psychologist (d. 1934)
• November 23
  • Venere Pizzinato, Italian supercentenarian and oldest living person in Europe (d. 2011)
  • Klement Gottwald, Czechoslovakian Communist Politician (d. 1953)
• November 25 – Virgil Thomson, American composer and critic (d. 1989)
• December 5 – Carl Ferdinand Cori, Austrian-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1984)
• December 6 – Ira Gershwin, American lyricist (d. 1983)
• December 8 – Christl Mardayn, German actress (d. 1976)
• December 14 – Jimmy Doolittle, American aviation pioneer and World War II United States Army Air Forces general (d. 1993)
• December 16 – Anna Anderson, Pretender to the Russian throne (d. 1984)
• December 21 – Leroy Robertson, American composer (d. 1971)
• December 27 – Louis Bromfield, American writer (d. 1956)
• December 28 – Roger Sessions, American composer (d. 1985)

Date unknown

• Lawrence Riley, American playwright and screen writer (d. 1974)

Deaths

January–June

• January 4 – Joseph Hubert Reinkens, German Old Catholic bishop (b. 1821)
• January 6 – Thomas W. Knox, American author and journalist (b. 1835)
• January 8 – Paul Verlaine, French lyric poet (b. 1844)
• January 15 – Mathew Brady, American photographer (b. 1822)
• January 20 – Prince Henry of Battenberg, British royal, married to Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (b. 1858)
• February 25 – Joseph P. Fyffe, American admiral (b. 1832)
• May 1 – Naser ad-Din Qajar, Shah of Persia, King of Herat (b. 1831)
• May 7 – Herman Webster Mudgett, American serial killer (b. 1860)
• May 10 – Antti Ahlström, Finnish industrialist and founder of Ahlstrom (b. 1827)
• May 17 – Muhammad Al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait (b. 1831)
• May 19 – Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria, father of Archduke Ferdinand (b. 1833)
• May 20 – Clara Schumann, German composer (b. 1819)
• May 24 – Federico Luigi, Conte Menabrea, Italian soldier and statesman (b. 1809)
• June 12 – Thomas P. Leathers, American steamboat captain (b. 1816)

July–December

• July 1 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author (b. 1811)
• July 4 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer and journalist (b. 1850)
• July 16 – Edmond de Goncourt, French writer and co-founder of the Académie Goncourt (b. 1822)
• July 19 – Abraham H. Cannon, American Mormon apostle (b. 1859)
• August 10 – Otto Lilienthal, German aviation pioneer (b. 1848)
• August 17 – Bridget Driscoll, early British automobile fatality (b. c. 1852)
• August 25 – Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini of Zanzibar (b. 1857)
• September 18 – Hippolyte Fizeau, French physicist (b. 1819)
• September 22 – Pavlos Kalligas, Greek jurist and politician (b. 1814)
• October 8 – George du Maurier, French-born British cartoonist and writer (b. 1834)
• October 11
  • Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer (b. 1824)
  • Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1829)
• October 21 – James Henry Greathead, British engineer and inventor (b. 1844)
• October 23 – Columbus Delano, American statesman (b. 1809)
• October 30 – Carol Benesch, Silesian and Romanian architect (b. 1822)
• November 16 – Josip Šokčević, Croatian viceroy (b. 1811)
• November 22 – George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., inventor of the Ferris wheel (b. 1859)
• December 10 – Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor of dynamite and creator of the Nobel Prize (b. 1833)
• December 30 – José Rizal, national hero of the Philippines (b. 1861)