1891

Events in 1891 42

• 1800 – 1891 George Bancroft (1800-1891) Died 17 January 1891, aged 90 American historian and statesman, author of the multi-volume History of the United States. He served as US Secretary of the Navy and helped establish the US Naval Academy. His historical writing shaped 19th-century American national identity.
• 1810 – 1891 P.T. Barnum (1810-1891) Died 7 April 1891, aged 80 American showman and businessman who founded the circus that later became Barnum & Bailey. He built his fame on elaborate hoaxes, curiosities, and traveling exhibitions. His name became synonymous with American-style mass entertainment.
• 1815 – 1891 John A. Macdonald (1815-1891) Died 6 June 1891, aged 76 First Prime Minister of Canada and a principal architect of Canadian Confederation in 1867. He served multiple terms in office and oversaw construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He died in office shortly after winning his final general election.
• 1819 – 1891 Herman Melville (1819-1891) Died 28 September 1891, aged 72 American novelist and poet best known for Moby-Dick, a work largely ignored in his lifetime. He died in relative obscurity as a customs inspector in New York. A 20th-century critical revival later established him as one of America's greatest writers.
• 1819 – 1891 James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) Died 12 August 1891, aged 72 American poet, essayist, and diplomat who edited the Atlantic Monthly and North American Review. He served as US minister to Spain and later to Britain. His satirical verse and criticism made him a leading literary figure of his era.
• 1820 – 1891 William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) Died 14 February 1891, aged 71 American Union general famous for his destructive March to the Sea during the Civil War, which helped break the Confederacy's capacity to fight. He later served as Commanding General of the US Army. His scorched-earth tactics made him one of the most controversial commanders of the war.
• 1823 – 1891 Edouard Lalo (1823-1891) Died 22 April 1891, aged 68 French composer best known for the Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra. His chamber and orchestral works helped revive French interest in instrumental music after decades of operatic dominance. He also composed the ballet Namouna and the opera Le roi d'Ys.
• 1823 – 1891 Leopold Kronecker (1823-1891) Died 29 December 1891, aged 68 German mathematician known for foundational work in number theory and algebra. He held constructivist views on mathematics, famously remarking that "God made the integers, all else is the work of man." His disputes with Georg Cantor over set theory shaped debates in mathematical foundations.
• 1831 – 1891 Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) Died 8 May 1891, aged 59 Russian-born occultist who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She authored Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, blending Eastern religious ideas with Western esotericism. Her writings shaped much of modern alternative spirituality.
• 1836 – 1891 David Kalakaua (1836-1891) Died 20 January 1891, aged 54 Last king of the Kingdom of Hawaii, nicknamed the "Merrie Monarch" for reviving traditional Hawaiian culture including hula and chant. He died in San Francisco while seeking medical treatment. His sister Liliuokalani succeeded him as monarch.
• 1846 – 1891 Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) Died 6 October 1891, aged 45 Irish nationalist leader who led the Irish Parliamentary Party and campaigned for Home Rule. His political career collapsed after a divorce scandal split the nationalist movement. He remains a defining figure in the history of Irish nationalism.
• 1854 – 1891 Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) Died 10 November 1891, aged 37 French poet whose work, including A Season in Hell and Illuminations, profoundly influenced Symbolist and later modernist literature. He abandoned writing as a young man to travel and trade in Africa and the Middle East. He died in Marseille after his leg was amputated due to illness.
• 1859 – 1891 Georges Seurat Pointillism · France Georges Seurat (December 2, 1859 – March 29, 1891) was a French Post-Impressionist who invented Pointillism — applying tiny dots of pure colour that blend optically. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte is his masterpiece. He died at 31.
• 1891 – 1964 Cole Porter (1891-1964) Died 15 October 1964, aged 73 Porter was an American composer and songwriter known for witty, sophisticated musicals and standards including "Anything Goes" and "Night and Day". His work remained a staple of American popular song for decades.
• 1891 – 1974 Earl Warren (1891-1974) Died 9 July 1974, aged 83 Earl Warren served as Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969, presiding over landmark rulings including Brown v. Board of Education. He also chaired the commission that investigated the assassination of President Kennedy.
• 1891 – 1942 Edith Stein (1891-1942) Died 9 August 1942, aged 50 Edith Stein was a German philosopher, a student of Edmund Husserl, who converted from Judaism to Catholicism and became a Carmelite nun. She was arrested in the Netherlands and murdered at Auschwitz. Pope John Paul II canonised her in 1998 as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
• 1891 – 1944 Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) Died 14 October 1944, aged 52 German field marshal known as the Desert Fox for his command of the Afrika Korps in North Africa. He later commanded forces defending the Atlantic Wall in Normandy. Implicated in the 20 July plot, he was forced to take poison in exchange for protection for his family.
• 1891 – 1951 Fanny Brice (1891-1951) Died 29 May 1951, aged 59 Brice was an American comedienne and singer best known for her work in the Ziegfeld Follies and as the radio character Baby Snooks. Her life later formed the basis of the musical and film Funny Girl. She died in Los Angeles after a cerebral hemorrhage.
• 1891 – 1941 Frederick Banting (1891-1941) Died 21 February 1941, aged 49 Frederick Banting was a Canadian physician who co-discovered insulin and shared the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was killed when his plane crashed in Newfoundland.
• 1891 – 1938 Genrikh Yagoda (1891-1938) Died 15 March 1938, aged 46 Yagoda headed the NKVD during the first Moscow show trials. He was himself convicted in the Trial of the Twenty-One and shot.
• 1891 – 1942 Grant Wood (1891-1942) Died 12 February 1942, aged 50 Grant Wood was an American painter and a leader of the Regionalist movement, which depicted the rural Midwest. His 1930 painting American Gothic is among the most recognised images in American art. He died of pancreatic cancer in Iowa City.
• 1891 – 1974 James Chadwick (1891-1974) Died 24 July 1974, aged 82 James Chadwick was a British physicist who discovered the neutron in 1932, earning the Nobel Prize in Physics. He later led the British contribution to the Manhattan Project.
• 1891 – 1940 Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) Died 10 March 1940, aged 48 Russian writer and playwright whose novel "The Master and Margarita" was published only in the 1960s, long after his death. Much of his work was banned in his lifetime. He died of kidney disease in Moscow.
• 1891 – 1938 Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) Died 27 December 1938, aged 47 Mandelstam was one of the greatest Russian poets of the twentieth century. He was arrested for an epigram mocking Stalin and died in a transit camp near Vladivostok.
• 1891 Otto Lilienthal begins glider flights Pioneering manned gliding experiments near Berlin German engineer Otto Lilienthal began the glider experiments near Berlin that made him the first person to achieve repeated, well-documented, successful gliding flights. His methodical approach influenced later aviation pioneers, including the Wright brothers. He would make nearly two thousand flights before his death in a glider crash in 1896.
• 1891 – present Swiss Army Knife Victorinox Karl Elsener began supplying the Swiss Army with knives, creating a global icon of versatility.
• 1891 – 1960 Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) Died 28 January 1960, aged 69 American author and anthropologist celebrated for Their Eyes Were Watching God and her documentation of African American folklore. She died in poverty in Florida and was later recognized as a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance.
• 1891 Chilean Civil War Congress defeats President Balmaceda Congressional forces rebelled against President Jose Manuel Balmaceda over a constitutional dispute concerning executive power. The war ended with the rebels' victory at the Battle of Placilla and Balmaceda's suicide days after leaving office. The conflict reshaped Chile's political system toward a parliamentary-style republic.
• 1891 Liliuokalani becomes Queen of Hawaii Succession after King Kalakaua's death Liliuokalani ascended to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawaii following the death of her brother, King Kalakaua. She became the first and only reigning queen of Hawaii. Her attempts to restore royal authority would lead to her overthrow two years later.
• 1891 – 1958 Ronald Colman (1891-1958) English actor with a celebrated voice, star of Lost Horizon, A Tale of Two Cities and A Double Life.
• 1891 Chace Act signed United States extends copyright to foreign authors The United States enacted the International Copyright Act, known as the Chace Act, extending limited copyright protection to foreign authors for the first time. It required foreign works to be manufactured in the US to qualify for protection. The law marked a step toward American participation in international copyright norms.
• 1891 New Orleans lynchings Mob killing of Italian immigrants A mob in New Orleans lynched eleven Italian immigrants after a jury acquitted several of them in the murder of police chief David Hennessy. The killings strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Italy, which briefly recalled its ambassador. It remains one of the largest mass lynchings in American history.
• 1891 – 1953 Sergei Prokofiev Soviet modernist composer Russian composer of Peter and the Wolf, Romeo and Juliet ballet, and five piano concertos. A titan of Soviet music who walked the line between modernism and accessibility.
• 1891 Carnegie Hall opens New York concert hall inaugurated Carnegie Hall opened in New York City with a five-day music festival that included a guest appearance by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie funded the venue's construction. It became one of the most prestigious concert halls in the world.
• 1891 Otsu incident Attack on the Russian tsarevich in Japan Japanese policeman Tsuda Sanzo attacked and wounded Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia during his state visit to Japan, in the town of Otsu. Emperor Meiji personally visited the injured heir to apologize, and Japan feared Russian retaliation. The affair became a major test of Japan's judicial independence from imperial interference.
• 1891 Rerum Novarum issued Papal encyclical on labor and capital Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum Novarum, addressing the condition of workers under industrial capitalism. It affirmed rights to fair wages, safe conditions, and unionization while rejecting socialism. The document became the founding text of modern Catholic social teaching.
• 1891 Trans-Siberian Railway construction begins Tsarevich Nicholas lays the foundation stone Construction began on the Trans-Siberian Railway, a rail line intended to connect European Russia with its Pacific coast. Tsarevich Nicholas laid the foundation stone at Vladivostok. The railway would eventually stretch over 9,000 kilometers and take more than two decades to complete.
• 1891 French Championships 1891 — first edition Men: H. Briggs First French Championships held at the Stade Français. Open only to French club members. Won by British player H. Briggs, who was a member of the French Stade Français club.
• 1891 – 1973 Joe E. Brown (1891-1973) American comedian with a famously wide mouth, remembered for the last line of Some Like It Hot.
• 1891 Java Man discovered Eugene Dubois finds early human fossil Dutch physician Eugene Dubois unearthed a skullcap near Trinil on the island of Java, later classified as Pithecanthropus erectus. The find, now known as Java Man, provided some of the first fossil evidence for human evolution outside Europe. It fueled international debate over the origins of humankind.
• 1891 Lauffen-Frankfurt long-distance AC transmission First major demonstration of high-voltage three-phase power Engineers demonstrated the first long-distance transmission of high-voltage three-phase alternating current, sending power roughly 175 kilometers from Lauffen am Neckar to the International Electrotechnical Exhibition in Frankfurt. The successful trial proved that alternating current could economically transmit power over long distances. It helped settle the "war of currents" in favor of AC for large-scale grids.
• 1891 Basketball invented James Naismith devises a new indoor sport Physical education instructor James Naismith devised basketball at a YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts, to give students an indoor winter sport. The first game used peach baskets as goals and a soccer ball. The sport spread rapidly through YMCAs and schools worldwide.