Timeline 1883-1884
Return to home
1883 Jan 3,
Clement Attlee Britain’s prime minister [1945-1951; head of Labor
Party, was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1883 Jan 4, Benjamin Butler
(1818-1893) began serving as the 33rd governor of Massachusetts and
continued until January 3, 1884.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Butler_%28politician%29)
1883 Jan 10, Fire at uninsured
Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killed 71. General Tom Thumb
of P.T. Barnum fame escaped unhurt.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1883 Jan 13, Fire in circus
Ferroni in Berditschoft, Poland, killed 430.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1883 Jan 16, The U.S. Civil
Service Commission was established. The US Civil Service Reform Act
prohibited federal employees from contributing to political
campaigns.
(AP, 1/16/98)(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)
1883 Jan 30, James Ritty and
John Birch received a U.S. patent for the first cash register.
(AP, 1/30/07)
1883 Feb 7, Eubie Blake,
ragtime composer, pianist (Memories of You), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1883 Feb 8, Louis Waterman
began experiments to invent fountain pen. His invention held ink in
the pen’s barrel.
(MC, 2/8/02)(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1883 Feb 13, Richard Wagner
(b.1813)), revolutionary German composer (Die Walkure), died in
Venice. Composer Leon Stein (d.2002 at 92) later authored "The
Racial Thinking of Richard Wagner." In 2007 Jonathan Carr authored
“The Wagner Clan,” The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and
Infamous Family.
(WSJ, 2/4/99,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner)(Econ, 9/8/07,
p.85)
1883 Feb 16, "Ladies Home
Journal" began publishing.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1883 Feb 17, A. Ashwell
patented a free toilet in London.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1883 Feb 23, Victor Fleming,
director of the movie classics "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the
Wind", was born.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1883 Feb 23, Karl Jaspers,
existentialist philosopher, was born in Oldenburg, Germany.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1883 Feb 23, American
Anti-Vivisection Society was organized in Philadelphia.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1883 Feb 27, Oscar Hammerstein
patented the 1st cigar-rolling machine.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1883 Feb 28, 1st US vaudeville
theater opened in Boston.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1883 Mar 3, Congress authorized
the 1st steel vessels in US navy.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1883 Mar 4, John Gordon
Cashmans began "Vicksburg Evening Post" in Mississippi.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1883 Mar 4, Alexander H.
Stephens (71), Vice President Confederate States, died.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1883 Mar 13, Sergei Degaev (26)
shot and killed Lt. Col. Georgii Sudeikin, security chief of Czar
Alexander III. The 2 men had conspired to undermine both the
government and the Revolutionary People’s Will. Degaev fled Russia
to the US where he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Johns Hopkins
and became the 1st math prof. At the new Univ. of South Dakota,
where he taught until he died in 1921. In 2003 Richard Pipes
authored "The Degaev Affair."
(WSJ, 4/17/03, p.D8)
1883 Mar 14, Karl Marx (64),
German political philosopher (Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital),
died in London.
(AP, 3/14/97)(MC, 3/14/02)
1883 Mar 19, Joseph W.
Stilwell, US general (China), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1883 Mar 19, Jan Matzeliger
invented the 1st machine to manufacture entire shoes.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1883 Mar 23, Faisal I ibn
Hussein ibn Ali, 1st king of Iraq-Syria, was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1883 Mar 24, Long-distance
telephone service was inaugurated between Chicago and New York. [see
Mar 27, 1884]
(AP, 3/23/97)
1883 Mar 30, Jo Davidson,
American sculptor, was born.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1883 Mar 31, 1st performance of
Cesar Franck's "Le Chasseur Maudit."
(MC, 3/31/02)
1883 Apr 1, Aleksander V.
Aleksandrov, Russian composer, conductor, was born.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1883 Apr 1, Lon Chaney
(d.1973), actor know as "man of a thousand faces," (High Noon,
Phantom of Opera), was born.
(HN, 4/1/98)
1883 Apr 12, Imogen Cunningham,
photographer (1965 ASMP award), was born.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1883 Apr 13, Alfred Packer was
convicted of cannibalism. [see Aug, 1873]
(MC, 4/13/02)
1883 Apr 14, Leo Delibes' opera
"Lakme," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1883 Apr 15, Vladimir
Kovalevsky (b.1842), paleontologist, committed suicide. His work had
focused on the evolution of odd-toed and even-toed ungulates. He
also was the first translator of Darwin’s works into Russian.
(NH, 6/96, p.23)
1883 Apr 16, Paul Kruger was
chosen president of Transvaal.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1883 Apr 24, Jaroslav Hasek,
Czech writer (Brave soldier Schweik), was born.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1883 Apr 25, Elsa Maxwell,
writer (Jack Paar Show), was born in Keokuk, Iowa.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1883 May 1, "Buffalo Bill" Cody
put on his 1st Wild West Show.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1883 May 5, Charles Bender, the
only Native American in baseball’s Hall of Fame, was born.
(HN, 5/5/98)
1883 May 9, Spanish philosopher
Jose Ortega y Gasset was born in Madrid.
(AP,
5/9/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_y_Gasset)
1883 May 17, Buffalo Bill
Cody's 1st wild west show premiered in Omaha.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1883 May 17, Lydia Estes
Pinkham, patent-medicine manufacturer, died.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1883 May 18, Walter Gropius
(d.1969), architect and founder of the Bauhaus school of design, was
born in Berlin, Germany. "The human mind is like an umbrella. It
functions best when open."
(V.D.-H.K.p.363)(AP, 10/7/98)(SC, 5/18/02)
1883 May 23, Douglas Fairbanks,
actor, was born in Denver, CO.
(HN, 5/23/98)(MC, 5/23/02)
1883 May 23, The first baseball
game between one-armed and one-legged players was played.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1883 May 24, The Brooklyn
Bridge, hailed as the "eighth wonder of the world," was dedicated by
President Chester Arthur and New York Gov. Grover Cleveland, and
officially opened to traffic. The suspension bridge linking the
boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn became a symbol of America's
progress and ingenuity. The bridge has a span of 1,595 feet with
16-inch steel wire suspension cables fastened to Gothic-style arches
276 feet tall. Civil engineer John Augustus Roebling, inventor of
the steel wire cable and designer of the bridge, was killed in a
construction accident at the outset of construction in 1869. His son
and partner, Washington A. Roebling, supervised the project to its
completion in spite of a debilitating illness. 20 men died during
construction and many suffered from caisson disease, later known as
the bends, while working in pressurized air chambers under the
river.
(HNPD, 5/23/99)(ON, 4/01, p.9)(AP, 5/24/08)
1883 May 26, Mamie Smith, blues
singer, was born.
(HN, 5/26/01)
1883 May 29, William Beatton
Moonie, composer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1883 May 29, Albrecht of
Prussia (73), mistress of John van Rossum, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1883 May 29, WFLC Marianne
princess of Orange-Nassau, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1883 May 30, 12 people were
trampled to death in New York City when a rumor that the recently
opened Brooklyn Bridge was in danger of collapsing triggered a
stampede.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1883 Jun 2, The first baseball
game under electric lights was played in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1883 Jun 2, Chicago's "El"
opened to traffic.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1883 Jun 2, Four gentlemen
departed London on velocipedes and spent the next 2 weeks bicycling
800 miles to John O’Grouts in Scotland.
(ON, 1/00, p.5)
1883 Jun 5, Economist John
Maynard Keynes (d.1946), economist, was born in Cambridge, England.
He developed theories on the causes of prolonged unemployment and
advised wide government expenditures as a counter measure to
deflation and depression. "I do not know which makes a man more
conservative -- to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the
past."
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(AP, 6/5/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R20)(HN, 6/5/99)(AP, 7/29/99)
1883 Jun 9, The 1st commercial
electric railway line began operation Chicago.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1883 Jun 11, Frank O. King,
"Gasoline Alley" cartoonist, was born in Cashton, Wisc.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1883 Jun 16, The New York
Gothams admitted both escorted and unescorted ladies to the baseball
park free in the 1st ladies’ day game against the Cleveland Spiders.
NY won, 5-2.
(HNQ, 12/21/01)(AP, 6/16/03)
1883 Jun 24, Victor Francis
Hess, physicist, was born.
(HN, 6/24/01)
1883 Jul 3, Franz Kafka
(d.1924), Czech novelist, author of "The Metamorphosis," was born in
Prague. "The Castle" and "The Trial," were both published after his
death. He died of tuberculosis.
(V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 10/10/96, p.A1)(WSJ,
3/14/97, p.A11)(HN, 7/3/98)
1883 Jul 3, SS Daphne sank on
Clyde River in Scotland and 195 died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1883 Jul 4, Alan Brooke,
English general, was born.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1883 Jul 4, Rube Goldberg
(Ruben Lucius Goldberg, 1883-1970) cartoonist, was born in San
Francisco. He was known for cartoons featuring absurdly complicated
mechanical devices to accomplish absurdly simple tasks.
(WUD, 1994, p.607)(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.A28)(IB,
Internet, 12/7/98)
1883 Jul 4, Maximilian
Oseyevich Shteynberg, composer, was born.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1883 Jul 4, One of the first
Wild West shows was performed in North Platte, Nebraska, and was
organized by Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody), who took the show on
the road the following year.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1883 Jul 9, Adrien Louis Victor
Boieldieu (67), composer, died.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1883 Jul 11, In Cincinnati the
Reform Jewish Seminary held a dinner for its 1st class of rabbis.
The meal gained notoriety for abrogating every rule of kashrut,
except the prohibition against pork.
(WSJ, 7/6/01, p.W11)
1883 Jul 15, Tom Thumb (44),
famous small person (40"), died of a stroke.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1883 Jul 23, Lord Allanbrooke
(d.1963), English soldier, was born.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1883 Jul 24, Matthew Webb
(b.1848), the 1st person to swim the English Channel (1875), drowned
while trying to swim across the Niagara River just below the falls.
(ON, 2/05,
p.12)(www.telfordlife.com/Capt%20Webb.htm)
1883 Jul 25, Alfredo Casella,
composer (La Giara), was born in Turin, Italy.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1883 Jul 27, Albert Franz
Doppler (61), composer, died.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1883 Jul 28, Shocks, triggered
by the volcano Epomeo (Isle of Ischia, Italy), destroyed 1,200
houses at Casamicciola killing 2,000.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1883 Jul 29, Benito Mussolini,
dictator of Fascist Italy (1922-1943), was born.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1883 Aug 19, Gabrielle "Coco"
Chanel (d.1971), French fashion designer, was born: "My friends,
there are no friends."
(HN, 8/19/00)(AP, 7/26/99)
1883 Aug 23, Jonathan
Wainwright, U.S. general who fought against the Japanese on
Corregidor in the Philippines and was forced to surrender, was born.
(HN, 8/23/98)
1883 Aug 26, The island volcano
Krakatoa in Indonesia began erupting with increasingly large
explosions and killed some 36,000 people, both on the island itself
and from the resulting 131-foot tidal waves that obliterated 163
villages on the shores of nearby Java and Sumatra. A book by Ian
Thornton: "Krakatau: The Destruction and Reassembly of an Island
Ecosystem" was published in 1996. [see Aug 27] The history of
hundreds of volcanoes is at a Volcano World Web page:
(www.volcano.und.nodak.edu/vw.html).
(AP, 8/26/97)(Nat. Hist, 3/96, p.6)(HN, 8/26/02)
1883 Aug 27, The island volcano
Krakatoa erupted; the resulting tidal waves in Indonesia's Sunda
Strait claimed some 36,417 lives in Java and Sumatra. In 2003 Simon
Winchester authored Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: Aug 27,
1883." [see Aug 26]
(AP, 8/27/97)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.M2)
1883 Aug 28, John Montgomery
(b.1858) made the first manned, controlled flight in the US in his
"Gull" glider, whose design was inspired by watching birds. The
craft weight 38 pounds and flew to 15 feet for at least 300 feet at
Otay Mesa near San Diego, Ca. In 1911 Montgomery died in a glider
crash.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A23)(SFCM, 2/6/05, p.3)(GenIV,
Winter 04/05)
1883 Aug 29, Seismic sea waves,
created by Krakatoa eruption, created a rise in the English Channel
32 hrs after explosion.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1883 Sep 3, Ivan Turgenev,
Russian writer, died at age 64.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1893 Sep 4, Beatrix Potter
(1866-1943), English author, first told the story of Peter Rabbit in
the form of a "picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of Potter's
former governess. A 2nd illustrated letter the same month later
became “The Tale of Jeremy Fisher.” The “Tale of Peter Rabbit” was
published in 1901.
(HN, 9/4/00)(AP, 9/4/04)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.67)
1883 Sep 6, Lord Birkett,
England, judge (Nuremburg Trials), was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1883 Sep 8, The Northern
Pacific Railway celebrated the completion of its east-west line with
a Gold Spike at Gold Creek in central Montana. Guests included
Frederick Billings, Ulysses S. Grant, and the family of abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Pacific_Railway)
1883 Sep 11, James Goold
Cutler, architect, patented the postal mail chute. The first one was
installed in Rochester N.Y. He later became the mayor of Rochester.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.E4)(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A1)(MC,
9/11/01)
1883 Sep 14, Margaret Higgins
Sanger was born. While not the first in the U.S. advocating the use
of contraceptives, she coined the term "birth control" in 1914. She
was the founder of the birth control movement in the United States
and the National Birth Control League. Wife of an affluent architect
and mother of three, Sanger worked as a visiting nurse on New York’s
Lower East Side, where she witnessed the misery and poverty caused
by uncontrolled fertility. Sanger became a nurse and after moving to
New York City in 1912 became involved in the bohemian society. She
launched Woman Rebel magazine in March 1914. For sending pleas for
birth control through the mails, she was indicted in August 1914
under New York’s 1873 Comstock Act, which classified information
related to contraception as being obscene. She went on to lead a
global movement for birth control and founded the organization that
would later become Planned Parenthood. She died on September 6,
1966.
(HNQ, 6/22/98)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)(HN,
9/14/98)(HNPD, 9/14/98)
1883 Sep 14, A Ukase barred
Yiddish theater in Russia.
(www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=1010)
1883 Sep 17, William Carlos
Williams, poet, playwright, essayist and writer who won a Pulitzer
prize for "Pictures from Breughel and Other Poems," was born.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1883 Sep 21, The 1st direct
US-Brazil telegraph connection was made.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1883 Oct 4, Orient Express made
its 1st run linking Istanbul, Turkey, to Paris by rail.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1883 Oct 17, A.S. Neill,
British headmaster (Summerhill), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1883 Oct 18, The weather
station at the top of Ben Nevis, Scotland, the highest mountain in
Britain, was declared open.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1883 Oct 20, Max Bruch's "Kol
Nidre," 1st performed.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1883 Oct 22, The original
Metropolitan Opera House in New York held its grand opening with a
performance of Gounod's "Faust."
(AP, 10/22/01)
1883 Nov 3, U.S. Supreme Court
declared American Indians to be "dependent aliens."
(HN, 11/3/98)
1883 Nov 3, Race riots took
place in Danville, Virginia, and 4 blacks were killed.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1883 Nov 3, A poorly trained
Egyptian army, led by British General William Hicks, marched toward
El Obeid in the Sudan--straight into a Mahdist ambush and massacre.
(HN, 11/3/98)
1883 Nov 8, Arnold Edward
Trevor Bax, composer (Farewell My Youth), was born in London,
England.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1883 Nov 11, Ernest Ansermet,
conductor, was born in Vevey, Switzerland.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1883 Nov 18, Antonin Dvorak's
"Hussite Overture," premiered.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1883 Nov 18, The United States
and Canada adopted a system of Standard Time zones. The railroad
companies got together and established standard railroad time to
increase safety and surmount complex scheduling on local times. This
put an end to “God’s time.”
(HFA, '96, p.18)(NG, March 1990, p.115)(AP,
11/18/97)(WSJ, 3/31/05, p.D8)
1883 Nov 18, Wilhelm Siemens,
German-British physicist (steam engine), died.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1883 Nov 26, Sojourner Truth,
former slave and abolitionist, died in Battle Creek, Mich.
(AP, 11/26/08)
1883 Dec 2, Johannes Brahms'
3rd Symphony in F, premiered.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1883 Dec 10, Andrej J.
Vyshinski, Russian lawyer, foreign minister and UN-ambassador, was
born.
(MC, 12/10/01)
1883 Dec 15, William A. Hinton,
developer of the "Hinton Test" for diagnosing syphilis, was born.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1883 Dec 22, Arthur Wergs
Mitchell, first African-American to be elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives, was born.
(HN, 12/22/98)
1883 Anton Webern (d.1945),
Austrian composer, was born.
(WSJ, 2/14/00, p.A20)
1883 Edward Degas painted
"Woman in a Tub."
(WSJ, 2/29/00, p.B16)
1883 Winslow Homer, painter,
moved to the family compound at Prout’s Neck, Maine.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.A18)
1883 Lord Frederick Leighton
painted "Kittens."
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.W10)
1883 Claude Monet made a trip
to Italy with Cezanne and Renoir and painted "The Monte Carlo Road."
(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A14)
1883 Tokonami Seisei,
self-taught Japanese artist, painted "Volcano."
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)
1883 The first Brownie book was
published. Palmer Cox (1840-1924), Canadian illustrator and writer,
created the stories and drawings, which first appeared in 1879. 12
more books followed and in 1891 Cox registered the illustrations
under the new copyright law.
(SFC, 12/26/07,
p.G3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Cox)
1883 Arthur Conan Doyle
published his short story "The Captain of the Pole-Star."
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.18)
1883 Mary Hallock Foote
(b1847), American author and illustrator, published her first novel:
“Led-Horse Claim: A Romance of a Mining Camp,” written while living
in Leadville, Colo.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Hallock_Foote)
1883 Frederick Spencer Oliver
in Yreka, Ca., authored "Dweller on Two Planets," an occult classic
that told the story of the Lemurians, an ancient race who abandoned
their Atlantis-like continent, when it sank beneath the Pacific
Ocean, and formed a mystical brotherhood inside Mount Shasta.
(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.C5)
1883 Jean-Paul Richter
published a compilation of Leonardo de Vinci’s notebooks.
(NH, 5/97, p.19)
1883 Robert Lewis Stevenson
authored “Silverado Squatters.” It covered 2 months of his journey
to Mount St. Helena, Ca., with his wife Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne.
(SSFC, 11/15/09, p.M4)
1883 Anthony Trollope published
"An Autobiography." He wrote harshly about his mother and made her
out to be a second-rate writer.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)
1883 Bruckner composed his
Seventh Symphony.
(WSJ, 3/5/99, p.W10)
1883 John Philip Sousa
premiered his "The Transit of Venus March" on the 5th anniversary of
the death of scientist Joseph Henry.
(WSJ, 12/17/97, p.A20)
1883 The opera "Mazeppa" by
Tchaikovsky was completed.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A21)
1883 The Minneapolis Institute
of Arts, originally the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, was
established. The museum building, designed by the firm of McKim,
Mead and White, opened its doors in 1915. In 1974, the
Japanese architect Kenzo Tange was commissioned to design needed
additions to McKim, Mead and White’s neoclassical structure. Now in
the 1990s, with finds from the Institute’s New Beginnings Campaign,
the museum building is being renovated, the collections reinstalled,
and state-of-the-art technology introduces to help visitors and
members interpret the works of art.
(MIA, www, 1999)
1883 The Elk Cove Inn in Elk,
California, was built.
(SFC, 9/1/96, T3)
1883 In Oakland, Ca. the city
engineer, Anthony Chabot, donated the Chabot Observatory and Science
Center to the school district. In 1996 it began a $51 million,
3-year expansion and move to the Oakland Hills in Joaquin Miller
Park.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A15)
1883 The Salvation Army came to
SF. In 1886 they opened a facility in the Tenderloin.
(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A9)(SFC, 6/28/08, p.B1)
1883 The Brooks and Carey
Saloon opened on Mission Road. It was later renamed the Brooksville
Hotel. Frank Molloy purchased the place from Patrick Brooks in 1929
and renamed it Molloy's.
(Ind, 1/30/98, p.5A)(SSFC, 3/8/09, p.E8)
1883 In San Francisco Army
Major W.A. Jones created a plan to transform the Presidio into a
forested park-like reserve. In 1886 the Army began planting
blue gum eucalyptus to serve as a windbreak on the ridges of the
Presidio.
(SFC, 7/6/04, p.A1)(SFC, 5/25/09, p.A8)
1883 Fr. Joseph Sasia, SJ
(1843-1928) took over as president of St. Ignatius College in San
Francisco.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
c1883 In Iowa the Roseman
Bridge was constructed. It was later featured in the 1995 film "The
Bridges of Madison County."
(SFC, 7/11/03, p.A2)
1883 The Oregon State Hospital
was built in Salem. It was used for the 1975 film “One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest.” In 2004 legislators discovered the cremated remains
of some 3,600 mental patients in corroding copper canisters. In 2008
the main building was scheduled to be torn down and replaced by a
new complex.
(SFC, 7/16/08,
p.A8)(www.oregon.gov/DHS/mentalhealth/osh/main.shtml)
1883 Wente Winery was founded
in California.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.E3)
1883 Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt
wore her "Electric Light" gown and stole the show at Alva
Vanderbilt’s costume party in Newport, Rhode Island.
(WSJ, 6/6/95, p.A-14)
1883 The US Supreme Court ruled
that the Dakota Territory court had no jurisdiction in a case in
which a member of the Lakota nation killed a fellow member on tribal
land. The decision overturned a death sentence and effectively gave
exclusive jurisdiction for crimes to tribes. In 1885 US Congress
passed the Major Crimes Act taking away the tribes’ authority to
prosecute serious crimes such as murder, manslaughter and rape.
(WSJ, 8/13/07, p.A12)
1883 The US Secret Service was
officially acknowledged as a distinct organization within the
Treasury Department.
(http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/history.shtml)
1883 The Supreme Court
invalidated the Civil Rights Act passed by Congress on Mar 1, 1875.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1883 Joseph Pulitzer assumed
command of the New York World newspaper with a circulation of
15,000. 4 years later it increased to 350,000. Pulitzer purchased
the paper from financier Jay Gould.
(SFEM, 11/8/98, p.14,16)(HNQ, 1/29/02)
1883 Barbed wire that fenced
the west at this time was on display at Oracle Junction, Arizona,
and includes Baker’s ‘Odd Barb.’
(NOHY, 3/90, p.173)
1883 Charles E. Boles, known as
Black Bart, was caught in SF by a Wells Fargo detective James B.
Hume, who tracked him down using a laundry ticket. Bart spent 50
months in San Quentin for his eight-year string of stagecoach
robberies.
(HN, 8/27/01)(CVG, Vol 16, p.23)
1883 M.H. Lane set up an
assembly line to build carts, buggies, wagons and sleighs at his
Michigan Buggy Co. in Kalamazoo, Mich.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.B4)
1883 The W.S. Reed Co. of
Leominster, Mass., produced a couple of cast-iron mechanical banks,
that never made it to mass production. One sold at auction in 1998
for $426,000.
(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W12)
1883 The factory of the Racine
Silver Plate Co. re-opened in Rockford, Ill and was re-named the
Rockford Silver Plate Co. Its factory in Racine had burned down in
1882.
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1883 William Kitchen Parker
(1823-1890), English anatomist and embryologist, produced an
illustrated account of skull development in crocodiles and
alligators.
(NH, 10/96, p.37)
1883 Haverford College was
founded in Haverford, Pa., by Quakers.
(WSJ, 7/24/03, p.A1)
1883 Supply ships failed to
arrive at Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic so Lt. Greely and
his 24 men retreated south. Only Greely and six others survived.
(NG, 6/1988, p.764)
1883 Edward Jump (b.1832),
French-born painter, committed suicide in Chicago. Jump arrived in
California with the 1852 gold rush and later moved to Washington DC
and NYC where he became well known for his drawings of political and
local issues.
(SFCM, 10/28/01, p.18)
1883 Lydia Estes Pinkham
(b.1819) died. She was in her mid-fifties when economic hardship
forced her and her family to begin selling bottles of a homemade
health remedy. Mrs. Pinkham's tonic, formulated from herbs and 20%
alcohol as a "solvent and preservative," was first sold in 1875 as a
cure for "female complaints."
(HNPD, 6/30/01)(WSJ, 4/23/02, p.D7)
1883 In Australia an itinerant
boundary rider discovered a silver lode at Broken Hill in New South
Wales.
(Hem., 2/97, p.91)
1883 In Britain Francis Galton
developed the questionnaire.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1883 In Chile the Concha y Toro
wineries were founded with vines brought from France.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T9)
1883 Stanleyville (later
Kisangani), Congo, was founded by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the
Anglo-American journalist who tracked down the missionary David
Livingstone in Africa.
(AP, 8/18/03)
1883 In England production of
Bretby Art Pottery was begun by Tooth & Co. in South Derbyshire.
(SFC,10/22/97, Z1 p.7)
1883 Haiti made its final
payment to France of the 1825 "debt," renegotiated in 1838. In 2004
Haiti demanded nearly 22 billion in restitution.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.A1)
1883 Kamehameha Schools were
established under the will of a Hawaiian princess to educate the
children of Hawaii. In 2005 a federal appeals court ruled that
restricting the schools to only native Hawaiians amounts to unlawful
racial discrimination.
(AP, 8/3/05)
1883 Germany under Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck adopted the first compulsory health insurance
program on a national scale.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1883 In Italy the Palazzo
Massimo alle Terme was built by the Massimo family in Rome and later
converted to an archeological museum.
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)
1883 In Venezuela General
Joaquin Crespo, a friend of Antonio Guzman Blanco, was declared
president, and Guzman-Blanco became ambassador to France, living
with great ostentation in Paris. In 1886 he again assumed the
presidency.
(www.famousamericans.net/antonioguzmanblanco/)
1883 In Wales the Treorchy
Men’s Choir was established in the Rhondda Valley to keep miners out
of trouble.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.T5)
1883-1884 In Sudan British officered Egyptian
armies were defeated by the forces of El Mahdi, called Dervishes by
the British.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1883-1888 "Chekhov: The Early Stories 1883-1888"
was later translated and published by Patrick Miles and Harvey
Pitcher.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, BR p.5)
1883-1931 Khalil Gibran, American poet and artist:
"Forgetfulness is a form of freedom."
(AP, 6/11/00)
1883-1935 Charles Demuth , American painter and
illustrator.
(WUD, 1994, p.385)
1883-1936 Charles Dana Gibson created the Gibson
Girl illustrations that were published in Life magazine during this
time.
(SFEC, 10/9/96, z1 p.8)
1883-1945 Benito Mussolini, Italian Fascist
leader.
(V.D.-H.K.p.309)
1883-1849 Jose Clemente Orozco, Mexican painter,
muralist.
(SFC, 4/18/96, E-1)
1883-1950 Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Moravian-born
American economist. He developed theories of capitalist development
and business cycles. He emphasized the importance of entrepreneurs
as the drivers of capitalist development and banks as the providers
of credit. He was a leader in econometrics and statistical inquiry
that attempted to fortify the scientific center of economics.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1883-1955 Jose Ortega y Gasset, Spanish
philosopher. "I am I plus my circumstances." "Living is a constant
process of deciding what we are going to do." "Our firmest
convictions are apt to be the most suspect; they mark our
limitations and our bounds. Life is a petty thing unless it is moved
by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries."
(V.D.-H.K.p.370)(AP, 3/20/97)(AP, 7/31/97)(AP,
4/3/98)
1883-1955 Ludwig Lewisohn, German-born
novelist-critic: "There are philosophies which are unendurable not
because men are cowards, but because they are men."
(AP, 8/6/99)
1883-1961 Frantisek Drtikol, Czech photographer
and painter. He photographed nudes in the 1920s and then took up
painting and mystical religious studies.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.E4)
1883-1963 Elsa Maxwell, American socialite.
"Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can."
(AP, 4/4/97)
1883-1963 William Carlos Williams, American poet
and doctor. "History must stay open, it is all humanity." William
Carlos Williams met Ezra Pound at the Univ. of Pennsylvania in 1907
and they remained friends and wrote many letters. "Pound / Williams:
Selected Correspondence" was ed. by Hugh Witemeyer in 1996.
(AP, 9/20/97)(SFC, 6/3/96, BR p.6)
1883-1964 Roy W. Howard, American newspaper
publisher: "No date on the calendar is as important as tomorrow."
(AP, 4/7/97)
1883-1965 Charles Sheeler, American painter. He
also did some experimental photography and the photos were later
highly prized. He was among the first to embrace modernism and
participated in the NYC salon of Walter Arensberg.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.C4)(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.4)
1884 Jan 6, Gregor Mendel
(b.1822), Austrian botanist and Augustine monk, died at age 61. He
is considered to be the father of genetics.
(NH, 6/01, p.30)(MC, 1/6/02)
1884 Jan 18, General Charles
("Chinese") Gordon departed London for Khartoum.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1884 Jan 19, Jules Massenet's
opera "Manon," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1884 Jan 28, Jean Felix
Piccard, scientist, explorer (balloonist), was born in Switzerland.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1884 Feb 14, Theodore
Roosevelt’s wife died 2 days after giving birth to Alice Lee
Roosevelt. His mother, Martha, had died just a few hours earlier.
(SFEC, 9/29/96, Par p.8)(SFEC, 1/18/98, Z1 p.8)
1884 Feb 18, Police seized all
copies of Tolstoy's "What I Believe In."
(MC, 2/18/02)
1884 Feb 18, General Charles
Gordon arrived in Khartoum to battle the Mahdi and his terrorists.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1884 Feb 19, A series of
tornadoes left an estimated 800 people dead in 7 US states (Miss,
Ala, NC, SC, Tenn., Ky & In).
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(MC, 2/19/02)
1884 Feb 26, Leopold II in
Congo signed a British and Portuguese treaty.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1884 Mar 6, Over 100
suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony, presented President Chester A.
Arthur with a demand that he voice support for female suffrage.
(HN, 3/6/99)
1884 Mar 8, The 1st performance
of Edward MacDowell's 2nd Piano suite.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1884 Mar 11, In Sudan Gen.
Gordon learned that the telegraph cable to Cairo had been cut.
Khartoum soldiers killed 5 Mahdists at Halfaya. Mahdist insurgents
in return massacred 150 men from the Khartoum garrison as they were
cutting wood.
(ON, 4/02, p.10)
1884 Mar 12, Mississippi
established the first U.S. state college for women.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1884 Mar 13, US Congress
adopted Eastern Standard Time for the District of Columbia.
(AP, 3/13/07)
1884 Mar 13, Siege of Khartoum,
Sudan, began. Gen. Gordon ordered a counter-attack at Halfaya and
troops rescued some 500 from a Mahdist assault.
(ON, 4/02, p.10)(MC, 3/13/02)
1884 Mar 17, John Joseph
Montgomery made the first glider flight in Otay, Calif.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1884 Mar 19, Alfonse Charles
Renaud de Vilback (54), composer, died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1884 Mar 27, The first
long-distance telephone call was made, between Boston and New York
City. [see Mar 24, 1883]
(AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)
1884 Apr 2, The London prison
for debtors closed.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1884 Apr 4, Isoroku Yamamoto,
Japanese Naval commander, was born. He masterminded the attack on
Pearl Harbor.
(HN, 4/4/99)
1884 Apr 21, Potters Field
reopened as Madison Square Park in NYC.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1884 Apr 22, Thomas Stevens
(b.1853) started the 1st bicycle trip to cross the US from SF. He
later continued around world (2 yrs 9 mos). He purchased a bicycle
with a 50-inch diameter front wheel from Col. Albert Pope of
Hartford, Conn., for $110 the price of a horse and buggy.
(MC, 4/22/02)(ON, 9/03, p.9)
1884 Apr 24, Otto von Bismarck
cabled Cape Town that South Africa had become a German colony.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1884 May 1, Construction began
on the first steel-skeleton skyscraper, a 10-story structure in
Chicago, designed by William Le Baron Jenney and built by the Home
Insurance Co. of New York. It was completed in 1885. It stood 9
stories and had 2 added in 1891.
(HT, 5/97, p.23)(SFEC, 11/22/98, Z1 p.8)(AP,
5/1/99)
1884 May 4, Agnes Fay Morgan,
American nutritionist and biochemist, was born.
(HN, 5/4/01)
1884 May 7, Judah P. Benjamin
(72), confederate minister of War, died.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1884 May 8, Harry S. Truman,
33rd President of the United States (1945-1953), was born near
Lamar, Mo. A history buff, President Harry Truman penned this
description of Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, "Pierce was the
best looking President the White House ever had—but as President he
ranks with Buchanan and Calvin Coolidge." "If there is one basic
element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the
military." He decided to drop the bomb that ended World War II and
sent troops to Korea to halt communist aggression.
(AP, 5/8/97)(AP, 1/17/99)(HN, 5/8/99)
1884 May 12, Bedrich Friedrich
Smetana (60), Czech composer (MaVlast, Bartered Bride), died.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1884 May 13, The Institute for
Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) was founded.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1884 May 13, Cyrus Hall
McCormick (b.1809), the Reaper King, died. His last words were
"work, work work."
(SFC, 1/11/03, p.D6)(MC, 5/13/02)
1884 May 17, Alaska became a US
territory. US Congress did not provide for an Alaskan government
until this year. Administration of the territory was done in
succession by the War Department, the Treasury and the Navy.
(SFEM, 10/31/99, p.26)(MC, 5/17/02)
1884 May 18, Heinrich R.
Göppert, German paleo-botanist, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1884 May 28, Edvard Benes,
premier, president of Czechoslovakia (1921-22, 35-48), was born.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1884 May 29, 1st steam cable
trams started in Highgate.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1884 Jun 5, Dame Ivy
Compton-Burnett, British author, was born.
(HN, 6/5/01)
1884 Jun 5, Civil War hero
General William T. Sherman refused the Republican presidential
nomination, saying, "I will not accept if nominated and will not
serve if elected."
(AP, 6/5/97)
1884 Jun 10, William E. Eldred
of Brooklyn, NY, was granted a US patent for a new way to open and
close the legs of a folding table.
(SFC, 1/30/08, p.G4)
1884 Jun 10, Johann Gustav
Droysen (b.1808), German historian, died in Berlin. His books
included “Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen” (1833), a study of
Alexander the Great.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gustav_Droysen)
1884 Jun 14, John McCormack,
Irish-US singer (Irish folksongs), was born.
(MC, 6/14/02)
1884 Jun 16, America's 1st
roller coaster began operating at Coney Island, NYC. It hit a top
speed of 6 mph.
(MC, 6/16/02)(Econ, 6/28/03, p.30)
1884 Jun 19, Juan Bautista
Alberdi (b.1810), Argentine politician, writer, died in Paris. His
writings inspired Argentina’s 1853 constitution.
(www.taringa.net/posts/21963/Juan-B.-Alberdi---El-Gran-Pensador.html)(Econ,
3/10/07, p.35)
1884 Jun 21, Field Marshal Sir
Claude Auchinleck, British general, was born. He revived the
flagging Eighth Army to go back on the offensive against the German
army under Rommel in the Middle East, but was later replaced.
(Camelot, 6/21/99)
1884 Jun 23, A Chinese Army
defeated the French at Bacle, Indochina.
(HN, 6/23/98)
1884 Jun 27, J. Palisa
discovered asteroid #237, Coelestina.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1884 Jun 28, Congress declared
Labor Day a legal holiday.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1884 Jun, The steamboat Montana
(b.1879) tried to pass under a railroad bridge between the Missouri
towns St. Charles and Bridgeton, just a few miles from where the
river connects with the Mississippi. The boat struck the bridge and
took on water before running aground on the St. Louis County side of
the river. No one was hurt, but the Montana split in half.
(AP, 8/16/05)
1884 Jul 1, Allan Pinkerton
(b.1819) founder of the Pinkerton Agency, died in Chicago. In 1996
James Mackay authored “Allan Pinkerton.”
(http://aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=918)(ON,
7/06, p.12)
1884 Jul 3, The 1st Dow Jones
average included 11 stocks: Chicago & North Western, Union
Pacific Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, Missouri Pacific, Lake
Shore, Louisville & Nashville, New York Central, Pacific Mail,
St. Paul, Western Union, and Northern Pacific preferred.
(SFC, 2/2/06,
p.A13)(www.cftech.com/BrainBank/FINANCE/DowJonesAvgsHist.html)
1884 Jul 4, The Statue of
Liberty was presented to the United States in ceremonies at Paris,
France. The 225-ton, 152-foot statue was a gift from France in
commemoration of 100 years of American independence. Created by the
French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was installed
on Bedloe Island (now Liberty Island) in New York harbor in 1885. It
was dedicated on October 28, 1886.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1884 Jul 4, 1st US bullfight
was held in Dodge City, Ka.
(Maggio, 98)
1884 Jul 5, US Congress
accepted a 2nd Chinese Exclusion Act.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1884 Jul 7, Lion Feuchtwanger,
German philosopher, writer (Jud Suss), was born.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1884 Jul 12, Amadeo Modigliani,
painter and sculptor (Reclining Nude), was born in Italy.
(HN, 7/12/01)(MC, 7/12/02)
1884 Jul 25, Davidson Black,
doctor of anatomy (identified Peking Man), was born in Canada.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1884 Aug 3, Louis Gruenberg,
composer (Daniel Jazz), was born near Brest Litovsk, Poland.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1884 Aug 4, Thomas Stevens
(1853-1935) arrived in Boston after 104 days from SF in the 1st
bicycle trip to cross the US. He later continued around world (2 yrs
9 mos) on a trip financed with articles for "Outing and the
Wheelman" magazine.
(MC, 4/22/02)(ON, 9/03, p.12)
1884 Aug 5, The cornerstone for
the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe’s Island in New York
Harbor.
(THC, 4/10/97)(AP, 8/5/97)
1884 Aug 12, Frank Swinnerton,
novelist (Summer Storm, Sanctuary), was born in England.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1884 Aug 16, Hugo Gernsback
(d.1967), sci-fi writer, publisher (1960 Hugo), was born in
Luxembourg.
(www.nndb.com/people/381/000045246/)
1884 Aug 26, Earl Biggers,
author ("Charlie Chan" detective series), was born.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1884 Aug 28, The 1st known
photograph of a tornado was made near Howard, SD.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1864 Sep 15, British explorer
John Speke (b.1827) died in England by his gun own during in an
alleged hunting accident. In 2006 W.B. Carnochan authored “The Sad
Story of Burton, Speke, and the Nile; or Was John Hanning Speke a
Cad.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanning_Speke)(WSJ, 5/20/06,
p.P9)
1884 Sep 17, Charles Tomlinson
Griffes, composer (White Peacock), was born in Elmira, NY.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1884 Sep 20, Maxwell Perkins,
editor, was born. He was the first to publish F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.
(HN, 9/20/00)
1884 Sep 20, The Equal Rights
Party was formed during a convention of suffragists in San
Francisco. The convention nominated Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood of
Washington, D.C., for president and Marietta Snow as her running
mate.
(AP, 9/20/97)(MC, 9/20/01)
1884 Oct 4, Damon Runyon,
journalist and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 10/4/00)
1884 Oct 6, The US Naval War
College was established in Newport, R.I.
(AP, 10/6/97)
1884 Oct 11, Anna Eleanor
Roosevelt, the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt and wife of
President Franklin Roosevelt, was born in New York City. Orphaned as
a child, she grew up shy and insecure. She was 1st lady from
1933-1945.
(HN, 10/11/98) (HNPD, 10/11/99)(MC, 10/11/01)
1884 Oct 13, Greenwich was
established as universal time meridian of longitude.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1884 Oct 14, Transparent
paper-strip photographic film was patented by George Eastman. He had
invented a flexible paper-backed film that could be wound on
rollers. To encourage amateur photography and film sales, Eastman
developed a simple black box camera that cost $25 and came already
loaded with a 100-exposure roll of film. When the roll was used up,
the entire No. 1 Kodak camera was shipped back to Eastman's factory
for developing and reloading, at a cost of only $10. Eastman's
photographic improvements proved successful, with 13,000 cameras
sold in 1888. The roll holder was designed by William Hall Walker.
Eastman renamed his corporation the Eastman Dry Plate and Film
Company.
(HN, 7/12/99)(HN, 10/14/00)(ON, 3/05, p.11)
1884 Oct 22, General Charles
Gordon received a letter from Mahdi near Khartoum. British Gen’l.
Charles "Chinese" Gordon was sent to Khartoum to evacuate the
Egyptian garrison. Gordon decided to hold the city against El Mahdi.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(MC, 10/22/01)
1884 Nov 4, Democrat Grover
Cleveland was elected to his first term as president, defeating
Republican James G. Blaine. The reference to the Democratic party as
the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" played a large part in
Republican candidate James Blaine‘s defeat in the election of 1884.
The indiscreet reference made by one of Blaine's supporters has been
credited with causing the Blaine‘s loss of the crucial state of New
York. Blaine lost the popular vote by less than 100,000 and lost New
York by just 1,149, out of a total vote of 1,125,000 cast, to Grover
Cleveland, the first Democrat since Buchanan to win a presidential
election. Cleveland won by a margin of 30,000 votes.
(AP, 11/4/97)(HNQ, 9/13/99)(SFEC, 4/23/00, Z1
p.2)
1884 Prior to his first
election to the presidency in 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland, then
a bachelor, admitted that Republican charges accusing him of
fathering a child as a young man in Buffalo were true. His honesty
helped to calm the issue, despite the popular campaign chant against
him:
"Ma, Ma, where‘s my Pa? Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!"
Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the White House in 1886. He lost
a reelection bid in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, even though he won
the popular vote, but regained the White House in 1892 to serve a
second term as the 24th president.
(HN, 1/19/00)
1884 Nov 8, Hermann Rorschach,
Swiss psychiatrist, was born. He was the inventor of the inkblot
test.
(HN, 11/8/00)
1884 Nov 17, Cops arrested
boxer John L. Sullivan in 2nd round for being "cruel."
(MC, 11/17/01)
1884 Nov 20, Norman Thomas,
socialist and Pres. Candidate 1928-48, was born in Marion, Ohio, and
ran for president in six successive elections beginning in 1928.
(HNQ, 10/21/98)(MC, 11/20/01)
1884 Nov 25, John B. Meyenberg
of St. Louis patented evaporated milk.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1884 Nov, The novel "Ramona" by
Helen Hunt Jackson was published. It was about a love affair between
a half-Indian girl and a Luisea Indian in southern California. It
also served a covert tract on Indian oppression in America. In 1990
Valerie Sherer Mathes published "Helen Hunt Jackson and Her Indian
Reform Legacy." In 1998 Mathes edited: "The Indian Reform Letters of
Helen Hunt Jackson."
(SFEC, 12/20/98, BR p.5)
1884 Dec 2, Ruth Draper,
actress and writer, was born.
(HN, 12/2/00)
1884 Dec 6, Army engineers
completed construction of the Washington monument.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1884 Dec 30, Tojo Hideki,
Japanese Prime Minister during WWII, was born.
(HN, 12/30/98)
1884 Dec 30, Anton Bruckner's
7th Symphony in E, premiered in Leipzig.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1884 Cassilly Adams
(1843-1921), American painter, completed a 9x16 foot painting titled
“Custer’s Last Fight.” It was purchased by Adolphus Busch, president
of Anheuser-Busch, in 1888. Lithographs of a smaller copy of the
work began to be reproduced in 1896. In 1895 Busch donated the work
to the US Seventh Cavalry. It was destroyed by a fire at Fort Bliss,
Texas, in 1946.
(SFC, 12/28/05, p.G5)
1884 Edgar Degas began painting
his series of pastels and oils of dancers. The first was done about
this time and titled "Danseuses."
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)
1884 Stanhope Forbes, English
painter, began "A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach." Completed 1885.
(SFC, 3/31/97, p.E6)
1884 Chauncy Bradley Ives
created his sculpture "Undine."
(SFC, 4/11/01, p.E8)
1884 Claude Monet painted
"Corniche of Monaco."
(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A1)
1884 Claude Monet painted
"Bordighera." It was done on the French Riviera to which he returned
after a visit there with Renoir in late 1883. The paintings were
marked by bold, pure color in contrast to his earlier subdued
pastels.
(DPCP 1984)
1884 Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)
painted the impressionist work "En Bateau sur le Lac de Boulogne."
It was valued in 1998 at $600-800 thousand.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A19)
1884 John Singer Sargent
painted "Madame X." It was a portrait of Mme. Pierre Gautreau. The
painting was initially called monstrous and prompted Sargent to move
from Paris to the US.
(WSJ, 2/23/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W16)
1884 Georges Seurat, French
artist, painted "Bathers at Asnieres." He also began his 7x10 foot
painting “Study for A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte.” The work
was completed in 1886 and heralded as a milestone of art theory.
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.A44)(WSJ, 7/20/04, p.A1)(SFC,
9/24/10, p.F5)
1884 The Salon des independents
in France had no jury and gave no prizes, but all the entries were
exhibited. This salon marked the last formal exhibition of
Impressionist paintings.
(Calg. Glen., 1996)
1884 Charles Eliot, president
of Harvard, captured the prevailing impatience with the
old-fashioned curriculum: Are our men being educated for the work of
the twentieth century of the seventeenth."
(WSJ, 1/28/02, p.A13)
1884 During a lecture tour
together, Southern writer George Washington Cable and Samuel Clemens
were billed as the "Twins of Genius." Clemens, who used the pen name
Mark Twain, joined the popular Southern local-colorist writer Cable
in a 15-week lecture tour of the Northeast. Clemens later wrote of
Cable, "With his platform talent he was able to fatigue a corpse."
(HNQ, 3/9/99)
1884 Helen Hunt Jackson wrote
her novel "Ramona."
(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)
1884 Henry James (1843-1916)
wrote his novella “The Author of Beltraffio.”
(WSJ, 7/8/06, p.P8)
1884 Albert T. Morgan (d.1922),
a Union veteran who settled in Yazoo, Miss., authored his memoir
“Yazoo: On the Picket Line of Freedom in the South: A Personal
Narrative.” He later became a Mississippi state senator.
(WSJ, 2/9/08,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_T._Morgan)
1884 Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903), English philosopher, authored his libertarian bible:
“The Man versus the State.”
(Econ, 3/19/11, SR p.18)
1884 Mark Twain published his
classic “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P8)
1884 The Leo Delibe ballet
"Coppelia" was revised in St. Petersburg by Marius Petipa, the
Franco-Russian genius of ballet.
(WSJ, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1884 The New York Metropolitan
Opera embarked on its first post-season national train tour, and
began playing poker to pass the time.
(WSJ, 1/5/98, p.A1)
1884 The B&O's
passenger-car roundhouse was built in Baltimore. It was the largest
circular industrial building in the world. It was later turned into
a museum.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)(WSJ, 11/23/04, p.D11)
1884 Barbed wire that fenced
the west is on display at Oracle Junction, Arizona, and includes
Sunderland ‘Kink.’
(NOHY, 3/90, p.173)
1884 The first Veteran’s Home
in California was built in Yountville (Napa Ct.).
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-15)
1884 Elisha Babcock and H.L.
Story decided to build a resort hotel on a flat peninsula in San
Diego Bay. They built the Hotel del Coronado in 11 months and the
town of Coronado grew up around it.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.T6)
1884 In SF Sts. Peter and Paul
Church was built in North Beach at the corner of Grant and Filbert.
It was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and rebuilt in 1924 on
Washington Square.
(SSFC, 5/17/09, DB p.50)
1884 A Victorian mansion was
built on the corner of Bush and Jones streets. It perished in the
1906 fire but a replica, the Carter House, was built by the Carter
Family in Eureka, Ca.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T5)
1884 Patrick William Riordan
succeeded Archbishop Alemany as Archbishop of SF and served until
1914.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A22)
1884 A block-long, brick
machine shop building was built on Third St. and Illinois.
(SFEC, 12/12/04, p.10)
1884 Hibernia Bank was founded
in SF.
(SFC, 3/25/05, p.F2)
1884 An amusement area in SF
named Ocean Beach Pavilion began.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F1)
1884 In SF, Ca., Adolph
Spreckels, son of sugar-baron Claus Spreckels, attempted to kill
Michael de Young due to a Chronicle story that accused his father of
swindling shareholders. Spreckles was acquitted.
(SFC, 8/15/05, p.C5)
1884 The Arctic Oil Works
opened at the foot of Sixteenth and Illinois Street in Mission Bay.
It was one of the largest whale processing factories in the world
and the building was one of the very first reinforced concrete
structures in the United States. It was built by Ernest Ransome.
(http://tinyurl.com/2vznaq)
1884 British interests
purchased half the California operations of Lazar Freres and this
led to the establishment of the London, Paris and American Bank.
This ultimately became part of Crocker National Bank and then Wells
Fargo.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.D1)
1884 The population of SF was
about 225,000 people.
(SFEM, 3/2/97, p.10)
1884 John Parrot, SF
millionaire banker and merchant, died.
(Ind, 11/24/01, 5A)
1884 H.W. Mudgett, alias H.H.
Holmes, graduated from the Univ. of Michigan Medical School. He went
on to build a large home in Chicago that came to be known as
Nightmare Castle for its secret passages, trapdoors, chutes, and
underground laboratories. Homes-Mudgett slew 20-30 victims,
including several wives, young ladies and their husbands. He sold
skeletons to medical schools.
(MT, 6/95, P.10)
1884 Philosopher John Dewey
came to teach at the U of M.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.19)
1884 The Grolier Club was
founded to promote "enthusiasm for books and the books arts."
(WSJ, 11/30/99, p.A24)
1884 Hillerich & Bradsby,
makers of the Louisville Slugger bats, was founded.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, p.T8)
1884 Pitcher Charles Radbourn,
"Ol Hoss," led his team, the Providence Grays, to baseball’s
National League pennant.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, BR p.11)
1884 Moses Fleetwood Walker, a
black man, played 42 games for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the
American Association.
(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.A1)
1884 A US Federal Court forbade
wives of Chinese laborers from entering America and perpetuated a
Chinese bachelor society.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1884 A federal judge ruled that
hydraulic mining must stop destroying the land.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)
1884 David King Udall, the
Mormon bishop in St. Johns, Arizona, was indicted on charges of
unlawful cohabitation. He was never convicted, because his second
wife lived in another town, and prosecutors could not locate her to
compel testimony against him.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_King_Udall)
1884 Frederick Douglass, Negro
abolitionist, was lambasted when he married a white woman (32) from
Germany. In 2000 Maria Diedrich authored "Love Across Color Lines:
Ottilie Assing & Frederick Douglass."
(SFEC, 11/17/96, BR p.5)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Par p.8)
1884 Former Yankee Hill
Marshall Willie Kennard worked as the bodyguard of Barney Ford (aka
the Black Baron of Colorado), a wealthy Denver businessman and
former slave.
(WW, 12/96)
1884 In Dayton, Ohio, John H.
Patterson founded the National Cash Register Company (NCR), maker of
the first mechanical cash registers. In 1974 the company changed its
name to NCR Corp. From 1991 to 1996 it was part of AT&T.
(www.ncr.com/history/history.htm)(SFC, 5/21/08,
p.G7)
1884 Herman Hollerith, a
German-American, found a way to store information through holes on
cards.
(WSJ, 3/21/00, p.A20)
1884 The first pea whistle was
dubbed the Acme Thunderer and was made by J. Hudson & Co.
(Whistles) Ltd. in Birmingham, England.
(WSJ, 3/30/00, p.A1)
1884 The colony of Rugby,
Tennessee, had 350 residents. Thomas Hughes (1822-96), English
novelist, reformer, jurist, and author of "John Brown’s School
Days," had purchased 75,000 acres in rural Tennessee and founded the
colony of Rugby. It was a school for the younger children of
England’s wealthy families who were not eligible to inherit family
estates. It was meant to teach farming and other useful skills.
(WUD, 1994, p.691)
1884 Alexander Winton came to
Cleveland from Scotland and became a successful bicycle
manufacturer.
(F, 10/7/96, p.66)
1884 Episcopalian Rev. Endicott
Peabody founded the Groton School in Massachusetts. He was backed by
affluent figures of the time, such as the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks,
the Rev. William A. Lawrence, William Crowninshield Endicott, J.P.
Morgan, and his father, Samuel Endicott Peabody. Peabody received
pledges of $39,000 for the construction of a schoolhouse, if an
additional $40,000 could be raised as an endowment.
(WSJ, 1/6/07,
p.P13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groton_School)
1884 The color tartrazine
yellow, one of the 1st synthetic pigments, was patented. In 2002
Philip Ball authored "Bright Earth," a chronicle of how colors
evolved through art and science (history of color).
(WSJ, 3/15/02, p.W8)
1884 Leland Stanford Jr. (15)
died of typhus. His death moved the Stanfords to found Stanford
Univ.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.A15)
1884 Some 500 Blackfeet Indians
in Montana died during the winter from starvation. Reservation agent
John Young kept rations on hand for the white people.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, Par p.7)
1884 Ushuaia was founded in
southern Argentina as a remote penal colony.
(SSFC, 4/30/06, p.G5)
1884 Greenwich, site of the
Royal Observatory, was urged by the US and Brittain for
international adoption as the site for the Prime Meridian, zero
degrees longitude at a meeting in Washington D.C. Jerusalem and
Paris were also proposed. The French did not acknowledge Greenwich
until 1914. Global time zones were also established.
(NG, Mar, 1990, p. 113-115)
1884 In England part 1 of the
Oxford English Dictionary, compiled under the direction of James
Murray, was published.
(ON, 11/05, p.6)
1884 Hiram Stevens Maxim went
to London and developed the first true machine gun.
(V.D.-H.K.p.267)
1884 Horatio Phillips of
England designed a wing with a curved airfoil shape.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1884 In Canada the Quebec City
Armory was built. It was famous for having the largest suspended
wood ceiling in Canada. In 2008 it was destroyed by fire.
(SFC, 4/5/08, p.A2)
1884 Metis leaders in
Saskatchewan found Louis Riel in Montana and convinced him to set up
another provisional government.
(Reuters, 11/22/02)
1884 Joseph Burr Tyrell led the
first expedition for the Geological Survey of Canada to Alberta,
Canada where rich deposits of dinosaur remains were found along the
Red Deer River.
(CFA, ‘96, p.62)
1884 Chile established a
marital code the included a prohibition of divorce. A divorce law
was passed in 2004.
(WSJ, 10/5/04, p.A1)
1884 In Denmark the Alexander
Nevski church was built in Copenhagen on a request by Czarina Maria
Feodorovna, the Danish-born mother of Nicholas II.
(AP, 1/20/10)
1884 French artist Paul
Philippoteaux (1846-1923) and team of 20 created in Paris the
massive Cyclorama painting titled “The Battle of Gettysburg.” It was
originally 377 feet in circumference. They then shipped it to the
US, where it was first displayed in Boston. The US National Park
Service acquired it in 1942. In 2008 a 5-year, $15 million
restoration project was completed and it was reopened to the public
at the Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pa.
(SSFC, 9/28/08,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Philippoteaux)
1884 The Berlin Conference drew
up borders for African countries.
(SFC, 1/27/97, p.A19)(NH, 6/97, p.42)
1884 Germany under Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck adopted a national workman's compensation program.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1884 Ottmar Mergenthaler
(1854-1899) of Germany invented the Linotype machine that produced
newspaper type. It was used until it was replaced by computers. In
1886 the Chicago Tribune began using the Linotype.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A21)(ON, 7/00, p.5)
1884 Robert Koch, German
microbiologist, rediscovered, isolated and cultured the cholera
bacillus, Vibrio cholerae. Italian anatomist Fillipo Pacini
discovered the bacillus in 1854, but did not prove that it caused
cholera.
(ON, 5/05, p.10)
1884 In India Dabur India Ltd.
was established by a doctor who prescribed mintleaf remedies to cure
stomach aches. It later became the largest company in ayurvedic
medicine.
(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.B9D)
1884 The Gaelic Athletic
Association was founded in Ireland to promote traditional Irish
sports.
(Econ, 8/6/05, p.45)
1884 Kanehiro Takaki linked the
Japanese sailor’s diet of polished rice to the disease beriberi. He
found that the addition of mild and vegetables to their diet
eliminated the disease.
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.4)
1884 In Italy Sotirio
Boulgaris, a Greek immigrant, founded Bulgari, a silver-jewelry
shop, on Rome’s Via Sistina. He had descended from a family of Greek
silversmiths. By 1996 there were 54 stores worldwide.
(SFEM,7/28/96, p.32)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.81)
1884 Rinaldo Piaggio founded
Piaggio, an Italian company that went on to make ships, airplanes
and helicopters. After World War II developed the Vespa scooter and
transformed itself into a pure scooter-maker.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.64)
1884 Southwest Africa (later
Namibia) was made a German protectorate.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.T4)(SFEC, 4/30/00,
p.T4)
1884 Russia’s Czar Alexander
III commissioned jeweler Carl Gustavovich Faberge (1846-1920) to
make an Easter egg for the Empress. She received the 1st egg Easter
Sunday in 1885 and the tradition continued to 1917. In 2008 Toby
Faber authored “Faberge’s Eggs: The Extraordinary Story of the
Masterpieces That Outlived and Empire.”
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.M2)(WSJ,
10/5/08, p.A17)
1884 Spain annexed the coastal
area of Western Sahara.
(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A12)
1884 English explorers Everhard
Im Thurn and Harry Perkins became the 1st Westerners to reach the
9,200 summit of Roraima in Venezuela.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.C5)
1884-1933 Sara Teasdale, American author and
poet: "I found more joy in sorrow / Than you could find in joy." "No
one worth possessing can be quite possessed."
(AP, 9/21/97)(AP, 12/18/97)
1884-1946 Damon Runyan, American writer: "You can
keep the things of bronze and stone and give me one man to remember
me just once a year."
(AP, 12/20/99)
1884-1959 Max Beckmann, artist. He was a European
modernist painter of extreme pessimism.
(SFC, 6/11/99, p.C3)
1884-1962 Eleanor Roosevelt, American first lady:
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in
which you really stop to look fear in the face. ... You must do the
thing you think you cannot do."
(AP, 1/6/98)
1884-1963 Phyllis Bottome, English author: "There
is nothing final about a mistake, except its being taken as final."
"Nothing ever really sets human nature free, but self-control."
(AP, 5/25/98)(AP, 3/299)
1884-1963 Frank R. Paul, illustrator. His work
included a scene from "War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells.
(WSJ, 5/30/00, p.A24)
1884-1963 Charles Seymour, American educator and
historian: "We shall seek the truth and endure the consequences."
(AP, 9/8/99)
1884-1966 Georges Duhamel, French author: "If
anyone tells you something strange about the world, something you
had never heard before, do not laugh but listen attentively; make
him repeat it, make him explain it; no doubt there is something
there worth taking hold of."
(AP, 4/20/97)
1884-1979 Florida Scott-Maxwell, American writer
and psychologist: "Life is a tragic mystery. We are pierced and
driven by laws we only half understand, we find that the lesson we
learn again and again is that of accepting heroic helplessness."
(AP, 9/2/97)
1884-1984 The Fort Rosencrans National Cemetery
near San Diego with 65,000 veterans, some from the Mexican War, ran
out of room after 100 years.
(AAM, 3/96, p.53)
Go to 1885 - 1886