- Jan 3 Admissions convention meets in Ellensburg, WA, asks for statehood
Nietzsche's Breakdown
Jan 3 German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche suffers a mental breakdown after supposedly witnessing a horse flogging
First Non-segregated US Hospital
Jan 23 Daniel Hale Williams forms the Provident Hospital in Chicago, the first non-segregated hospital in the US
Crown Prince's Suicide Pact
Jan 30 Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in Mayerling in an apparent suicide pact
- Jan 30 Victoria beat NSW after following on (NSW all out 63 needed 76)
- Feb 7 Astronomical Society of Pacific holds 1st meeting in San Francisco
- Feb 8 Flood ravages Dutch coast
- Feb 9 The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is established as a Cabinet-level agency
- Feb 11 Meiji constitution of Japan adopted; 1st Diet convenes in 1890
- Feb 12 Caesar Franck's Symphony in D premieres
The Lady from the Sea
Feb 12 Henrik Ibsen's play "Fruen fra havet" (The Lady from the Sea) premieres in Oslo
- Feb 14 1st train load of fruit (oranges) leaves LA for east
- Feb 22 US President Cleveland signs bill to admit Dakotas, Montana & Washington state to the union
- Mar 2 Kansas passes 1st US antitrust law
- Mar 3 US President Harrison announced the government would open the 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for settlement precisely at noon on April 22
Benjamin Harrison
Mar 4 Benjamin Harrison inaugurated as 23rd US President
- Mar 9 Battle at Gallabat (Metema): Mahdi's beat Abyssinian emperor John IV
- Mar 9 Kansas passes 1st general antitrust law in US
- Mar 12 Battle at Metema (Gallabad): Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV, defeated
- Mar 12 Start of South Africa's 1st Test, v England, Port Elizabeth
- Mar 14 August Strindberg's "Froken Julie" premieres in Copenhagen
- Mar 15 6 US & German warships sunk by a typhoon in Apia harbour, Samoa, 200 die
- Mar 23 The free Woolwich Ferry officially opens in east London
- Mar 25 1st Test Cricket match played at Newlands, Cape Town v England
- Mar 26 English cricketer Johnny Briggs takes 15-26 (7-17 & 8-11) at Newlands as South Africa are all out for 47 with Bernard Tancred not out on 26, then follow-on and are again all out for 43
- Mar 29 51st Grand National: Jockey Tommy Beasley wins his third GN aboard Irish 2-time runner-up Frigate at 8/1
Eiffel Tower Opens
Mar 31 Eiffel Tower officially opens, for dignitaries and an award ceremony, in Paris, France; designed by Gustave Eiffel and built for the Exposition Universelle, at 300m high it retains the record for the tallest man made structure for 41 years
Kodak Film
Apr 6 George Eastman begins selling his Kodak flexible rolled film for the first time
- Apr 22 A 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for white colonial settlement in Oklahoma officially starts at 12pm
- Apr 30 1st US national holiday, on centennial of Washington's inauguration
- May 1 2nd International Congress calls for 1st International Workers Day 1st May 1890 to mark protests in Chicago in 1886
Treaty of Wichale
May 2 Abyssinian Emperor Menelik II and Italy sign Treaty of Wichale
Exposition Universelle
May 15 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris opens with the recently completed Eiffel Tower serving as the entrance arch; the lifts in the tower are not ready, intrepid visitors need to climb 1,710 stairs to get to top
Esclarmonde
May 18 Jules Massenet's opera "Esclarmonde" premieres in Paris
Michelin Tyre Company
May 28 Édouard and André Michelin incorporate the Michelin tyre company
- May 29 August Strindberg's "Hemsoborna" premieres in Copenhagen
- May 31 Johnstown Flood; 2,209 die in Johnston, Pennsylvania when the South Fork Dam, located on the Little Conemaugh River fails
- Jun 3 The Canadian Pacific Railway is completed from coast to coast
- Jun 4 Boston Beaneaters MLB pitcher John Clarkson is first to throw an "immaculate inning" (strikes out 3 batters on 9 pitches) in a 4-2 win over Philadelphia Quakers at South End Grounds
- Jun 6 Great Fire in Seattle destroys 25 downtown blocks
- Jun 8 Cable cars service begins in Los Angeles, California
- Jun 12 88 people are killed in the Armagh rail disaster, Ireland
- Jun 13 2' of snow accumulates in Rawlins, Wyoming
- Jun 13 23rd Belmont: W Hayward aboard Eric wins in 2:47.25
- Jun 15 US National Championship Women's Tennis, Philadelphia Cricket Club: Defending champion Bertha Townsend beats Lida Voorhees 7-5, 6-2
- Jun 22 Louisville Colonels set ML baseball record with 26th consecutive loss
Douglass Minister to Haiti
Jul 1 Frederick Douglass named US Minister to Haiti
- Jul 1 US mint at Carson City, Nevada reopens
- Jul 4 Washington state constitutional convention holds 1st meeting
Wimbledon Women's Tennis
Jul 6 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Blanche Bingley-Hillyard beats Lena Rice 4-6, 8-6, 6-4
Sullivan vs. Kilrain
Jul 8 John L. Sullivan successfully defends last officially sanctioned, bare-knuckle world heavyweight prizefighting championship; Jake Kilrain's trainer throws in towel after 75 x 1-minute rounds near Hattiesburg, Mississippi
- Jul 8 Wall Street Journal begins publishing
- Jul 8 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: William Renshaw wins his 7th Wimbledon singles title; beats twin brother Ernest Renshaw 6-4, 6-1, 3-6, 6-0
- Jul 11 Tijuana in Mexico becomes a city
- Aug 10 Dan Rylands patents screw cap
- Aug 13 William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut patents the coin-operated telephone
- Aug 23 1st ship-to-shore wireless message ("Sherman is sighted") received in the US from Lightship No. 70 to a coastal receiving station at Cliff House in San Francisco
- Aug 29 1st American International professional lawn tennis contest (Newport, Rhode Island)
Joule, Watt and Quadrant Adopted
Aug 31 Second International Electrical Congress adopts the joule as unit of energy (after James Prescott Joule), the watt as unit of power (after James Watt) and the quadrant as unit of electrical inductance (later renamed henry)
- Sep 3 US National Championship Men's Tennis, Newport R.I.: Defending champion Henry Slocum defeats Quincy Shaw 6-3, 6-1, 4-6, 6-2
- Sep 5 German Christine Hardt patents the first modern brassiere
- Sep 6 King Kabaka Mwanga of Buganda resigns
- Sep 23 Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda
- Sep 24 Alexander Dey patents dial time recorder
- Sep 28 The first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defines the length of a meter as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice
- Oct 1 Dutch soccer club HFC Haarlem is founded; National champions 1946; bankrupt in 2010; merge with HFC Kennemerland, new club Haarlem Kennemerland
- Oct 1 Washington voters adopt state constitution in referendum
- Oct 2 1st Pan American conference (Washington, D.C.)
- Oct 2 In Colorado, Nicholas Creede strikes it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American Old West.
- Oct 6 famed cabaret Moulin Rouge opens (as the Jardin de Paris) at the foot of the Montmartre hills in Paris, France
- Oct 6 First known ascent of the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, by German climber Hans Meyer and Austrian Ludwig Purtscheller
- Oct 10 Barnard College is founded in New York City after Columbia University refuses to accept women
- Oct 15 Amsterdam Central Station officially opens
- Oct 18 First all-NYC "World Championship" Baseball Series; New York Giants (NL) play Brooklyn Bridegrooms (AA); Giants go on to win series, 6-3
Before Dawn
Oct 20 Gerhart Hauptmann's play "Vor Sonnenaufgang" (Before Dawn) premieres in Berlin to a scandalous reception
Event of Interest
Oct 29 Queen Victoria grants Cecil Rhodes rights to Zambezia
- Oct 29 Stanley Park dedicated in Vancouver, British Columbia
- Oct 31 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris closes after 32 million visitors
- Nov 2 North Dakota becomes 39th & South Dakota becomes 40th state in the United States
- Nov 3 Chaplain Ariëns founds first Roman Catholic Workers group
- Nov 3 Menelik II is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia at the Church of Mary on Mount Entoto
- Nov 4 Players League begins, declaring independence from baseball's NL
- Nov 5 Louisa Woosley first women to be ordained as a minister in any Presbyterian denomination (US Cumberland Presbyterian Church).
- Nov 8 Montana admitted as 41st state of the Union
- Nov 11 British Open Men's Golf, Musselburgh Links: Willie Park Jr wins his second Open title; beats Andrew Kirkaldy by 5 in 36-hole playoff
- Nov 11 Washington admitted as 42nd state of USA
Nellie Bly
Nov 14 New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) begins her attempt to surpass fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg by traveling around the world in under 80 days. She succeeds, finishing the trip in 72 days, 6 hours
Mahler's 1st Symphony
Nov 20 Gustav Mahler premieres his 1st Symphony at the Vigadó Concert Hall, Budapest, Hungary; it is not well received and he revises it several times before publishing 9 years later
The Gondoliers
Dec 7 W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's comic opera "The Gondoliers" premieres at the Savoy Theatre, London
Chicago Auditorium Dedicated
Dec 9 US President Benjamin Harrison dedicates the Chicago Auditorium, designed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, then largest building in the US
Authors
Dictators
Explorers
Outlaws
Queens
Spies