1898

Events in 1898 53

• 1809 – 1898 William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) Died 19 May 1898, aged 88 William Ewart Gladstone served four terms as British Prime Minister and was a dominant figure in Victorian politics. He championed Irish Home Rule and liberal reform throughout his career. He died at Hawarden Castle on 19 May 1898.
• 1813 – 1898 Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) Died 15 March 1898, aged 85 Henry Bessemer was an English engineer who invented the Bessemer process, the first inexpensive method for mass-producing steel from molten pig iron. His innovation underpinned the rapid industrial and railway expansion of the late 19th century. He died in London on 15 March 1898.
• 1815 – 1898 Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Died 30 April 1898, aged 83 Otto von Bismarck engineered the unification of Germany and served as its first Chancellor from 1871 to 1890. His alliance system dominated European diplomacy for two decades. He died at his estate in Friedrichsruh on 30 April 1898.
• 1826 – 1898 Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) Died 18 April 1898, aged 72 Gustave Moreau was a French Symbolist painter known for richly detailed mythological and biblical scenes. He taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, mentoring artists including Matisse and Rouault. He died in Paris on 18 April 1898.
• 1832 – 1898 Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) Died 14 January 1898, aged 65 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, writing as Lewis Carroll, was the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. He was also an Oxford mathematician and pioneering photographer. He died of pneumonia at his sisters' home in Guildford on 14 January 1898.
• 1837 – 1898 Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898) Assassinated 10 September 1898, aged 60 Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known as Sisi, was stabbed to death by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni while walking beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Her death shocked European royal courts and made her one of the most romanticized figures of the Habsburg monarchy. She had been Empress consort of Austria and Queen consort of Hungary for over four decades.
• 1842 – 1898 Stephane Mallarme (1842-1898) Died 9 September 1898, aged 56 Stephane Mallarme was a leading French Symbolist poet whose dense, allusive style influenced generations of modern poetry. His major works include L'Apres-midi d'un faune and Un Coup de Des. He died at his home in Valvins on 9 September 1898.
• 1850 – 1898 Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) Died 22 May 1898, aged 48 Edward Bellamy was an American author best known for the utopian novel Looking Backward, which imagined a socialist United States in the year 2000. The book sold millions of copies and inspired political movements advocating economic reform. He died of tuberculosis in Chicopee, Massachusetts, on 22 May 1898.
• 1872 – 1898 Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) Died 16 March 1898, aged 25 Aubrey Beardsley was an English illustrator known for his stark black-and-white Art Nouveau drawings, including illustrations for Oscar Wilde's Salome. He died of tuberculosis in Menton, France, on 16 March 1898, at age 25. His brief career left a lasting influence on graphic design and the aesthetic movement.
• 1898 – 1956 Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) Died 14 August 1956, aged 58 German playwright, poet, and theatre director known for developing epic theatre and plays such as Mother Courage and Her Children and The Threepenny Opera. He returned to East Germany after years of exile from Nazi rule and founded the Berliner Ensemble. He died of a heart attack in East Berlin.
• 1898 – 1963 C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) Died 22 November 1963, aged 64 C.S. Lewis was a British writer and scholar best known for the Chronicles of Narnia children's books and his works of Christian apologetics. He taught at Oxford and Cambridge for most of his career. Like Aldous Huxley, his death was overshadowed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy the same day.
• 1898 – 1970 Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) Died 25 September 1970, aged 72 Erich Maria Remarque, the German-born author of All Quiet on the Western Front, died in Locarno, Switzerland. His novel remains one of the most widely read accounts of the First World War.
• 1898 – 1936 Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) Died 19 August 1936, aged 38 Federico García Lorca was a Spanish poet and playwright whose works include Blood Wedding and Gypsy Ballads. Nationalist forces shot him near Granada in the first weeks of the Civil War. His remains have never been found.
• 1898 Nokia enters rubber business Nokia expands into rubber products, establishing the Finnish Rubber Works in 1898 — making galoshes, tyres, raincoats and rubber boots. The iconic Nokia rubber boot becomes a beloved Finnish product still sold today. By the mid-20th century Nokia is a conglomerate of three separate listed companies: Nokia Ab (paper), Finnish Rubber Works and Finnish Cable Works. The cable division will prove the crucial bridge to electronics.
• 1898 – 1959 Preston Sturges (1898-1959) Died 6 August 1959, aged 60 Sturges was an American writer-director whose rapid-fire screwball comedies, including Sullivan's Travels and The Lady Eve, made him one of Hollywood's most acclaimed filmmakers of the early 1940s. He was the first Hollywood screenwriter to also direct his own scripts. His career declined sharply in his later years.
• 1898 – present Renault French automotive pioneer Renault was founded by Louis Renault and quickly became one of France’s most important industrial companies. The brand became known for innovation, motorsport success, compact cars, and major influence on the European automotive industry.
• 1898 – 1967 Rene Magritte (1898-1967) Died 15 August 1967, aged 68 The Belgian surrealist painter, known for works including The Treachery of Images and The Son of Man, died of pancreatic cancer in Brussels. His playful, thought-provoking imagery had a lasting influence on pop art and conceptual art.
• 1898 – 1948 Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) Died 11 February 1948, aged 50 Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet filmmaker behind "Battleship Potemkin" and pioneer of montage editing, died of a heart attack on February 11, 1948. His theories of film editing shaped cinema worldwide. He had been working on the second part of his Ivan the Terrible trilogy at the time of his death.
• 1898 – 1943 Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) Died 13 March 1943, aged 44 Stephen Vincent Benét was an American poet and writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for John Brown's Body, his epic poem of the Civil War, and wrote the short story The Devil and Daniel Webster. He was awarded a second Pulitzer after his death.
• 1898 – 1944 Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944) Died 18 October 1944, aged 46 Austrian-Czech composer who continued to compose while imprisoned in Theresienstadt. He wrote the opera The Emperor of Atlantis there. He was murdered at Auschwitz.
• 1898 – 1935 Wiley Post (1898-1935) Died 15 August 1935, aged 36 Post was the first pilot to fly solo around the world, in 1933, and a pioneer of high-altitude flight and the pressure suit. He died in the Alaska crash that also killed Will Rogers.
• 1898 – 1979 Gracie Fields (1898-1979) English singer and comedian from Rochdale, the biggest British star of the 1930s.
• 1898 Publication of Zola's J'accuse...! Open letter accuses the French army of antisemitism and injustice Novelist Emile Zola published an open letter to the President of France on 13 January 1898, accusing the military of wrongfully convicting Captain Alfred Dreyfus on fabricated evidence. The letter reignited the Dreyfus Affair as a national scandal over antisemitism and military cover-up. Zola was convicted of libel and fled to England to avoid prison.
• 1898 – 1987 Randolph Scott (1898-1987) American actor, the stoic hero of westerns, including a celebrated series with Budd Boetticher.
• 1898 – 1976 Alvar Aalto Master of Modernism World-renowned architect and designer whose work defined Finnish modern architecture.
• 1898 Sinking of USS Maine Explosion in Havana harbor kills 266 US sailors The US Navy battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor on 15 February 1898, killing 266 crew members. American newspapers blamed Spain despite an inconclusive investigation, and the slogan 'Remember the Maine' fueled public support for war. The incident became the immediate trigger for the Spanish-American War two months later.
• 1898 – 1988 Enzo Ferrari Founder of Scuderia Ferrari Motor racing driver and entrepreneur who founded the Ferrari automobile marque.
• 1898 – 1976 Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) Died 8 January 1976, aged 77 Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1949 until his death, succumbed to bladder cancer in Beijing. His death triggered widespread public mourning that erupted into the Tiananmen Incident in April 1976. He had been a central figure in Chinese Communist Party leadership for decades.
• 1898 – 1968 Dorothy Gish (1898-1968) American actress of silent film, sister of Lillian Gish and a star of D. W. Griffith's films.
• 1898 Russia leases Port Arthur from China Convention grants Russia a naval base on the Liaodong Peninsula China and Russia signed a convention on 27 March 1898 leasing Port Arthur and the surrounding Liaodong Peninsula to Russia for 25 years. The lease gave Russia its first warm-water naval base in the Pacific and deepened foreign encroachment on Chinese territory. The arrangement later contributed to tensions that led to the Russo-Japanese War.
• 1898 German Naval Law of 1898 Reichstag approves Tirpitz's plan to build a battle fleet The German Reichstag passed the first Fleet Act on 28 March 1898, championed by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz to build a battleship navy capable of challenging British sea power. It set fixed construction targets for the German fleet over the following years. The law began the Anglo-German naval arms race that preceded the First World War.
• 1898 – 1976 Paul Robeson (1898-1976) Died 23 January 1976, aged 77 Paul Robeson, the American bass-baritone singer, actor and civil rights activist, died in Philadelphia after a long illness. He was famed for his performances of 'Ol' Man River' and for the title role in Othello, and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for his political activism. He remains a landmark figure in African-American cultural history.
• 1898 Spanish-American War United States defeats Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines The United States declared war on Spain on 25 April 1898 after the sinking of the USS Maine, fighting brief campaigns in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Spanish forces surrendered within months, and an armistice was signed on 12 August 1898. The war marked Spain's loss of its remaining major colonies and the emergence of the United States as an imperial power.
• 1898 Battle of Manila Bay US fleet destroys Spain's Pacific squadron On 1 May 1898, Commodore George Dewey's US Navy squadron destroyed the Spanish Pacific fleet in Manila Bay without losing a single American ship. The victory gave the United States control of the Philippines' capital and opened the way for American annexation of the islands. It was one of the most one-sided naval battles in history.
• 1898 – 1978 Golda Meir (1898-1978) Died 8 December 1978, aged 80 Meir served as Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974, the country's first and to date only female head of government. She died in Jerusalem after a long battle with lymphoma.
• 1898 Hundred Days' Reform ends in coup Empress Dowager Cixi halts the Guangxu Emperor's reform program China's Guangxu Emperor launched sweeping modernization reforms on 11 June 1898, covering education, the military and administration. Conservative officials backed Empress Dowager Cixi in a coup on 21 September 1898 that placed the emperor under house arrest and reversed most of the edicts. Several reform leaders were executed and others, including Kang Youwei, fled abroad.
• 1898 Philippine Declaration of Independence Emilio Aguinaldo proclaims independence from Spain Revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo declared the Philippines independent from Spain on 12 June 1898 at Kawit, Cavite. The declaration came amid the Spanish-American War but was not recognized by Spain or the United States, which annexed the islands months later. The date is now celebrated as the Philippines' Independence Day.
• 1898 – 2009 Harry Patch (1898-2009) Died 25 July 2009, aged 111 Patch was the last surviving combat soldier of the First World War to have served in the trenches, having fought at the Battle of Passchendaele. He rarely spoke publicly about the war until his nineties, later becoming a prominent voice for peace. His death was marked by a memorial service at Wells Cathedral.
• 1898 – 1978 Willy Messerschmitt (1898-1978) Died 15 September 1978, aged 80 Messerschmitt was a German aircraft designer whose company produced the Bf 109 and Me 262, mainstays of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. He died in Munich.
• 1898 Battle of San Juan Hill Rough Riders help take the heights above Santiago de Cuba On 1 July 1898, US forces including Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders stormed the fortified heights of San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill near Santiago de Cuba. The costly assault broke Spanish defenses around the city and led to the surrender of the Spanish fleet days later. The battle made Roosevelt a national celebrity.
• 1898 United States annexes Hawaii Newlands Resolution brings the Hawaiian Islands under US control President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution annexing the Republic of Hawaii on 7 July 1898, and formal transfer of sovereignty took place in Honolulu on 12 August 1898. Annexation followed years of lobbying by American planters after the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani. Hawaii became a US territory and later the 50th state.
• 1898 Curies discover radium and polonium Marie and Pierre Curie identify two new radioactive elements Working with pitchblende ore, Marie and Pierre Curie announced the discovery of polonium on 18 July 1898 and radium on 26 December 1898. Their work established radioactivity as a property of atoms rather than a chemical reaction, launching the field of nuclear physics. Marie Curie later won Nobel Prizes in both physics and chemistry for this research.
• 1898 – 1979 Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) Died 29 July 1979, aged 81 German-American philosopher Herbert Marcuse, a leading theorist of the Frankfurt School whose writing influenced the New Left and 1960s student movements, died in Starnberg, West Germany. His books One-Dimensional Man and Eros and Civilization shaped radical political thought in Europe and the United States. He died on 29 July 1979.
• 1898 – 1976 Alexander Calder (1898-1976) Died 11 November 1976, aged 78 Alexander Calder, the American sculptor credited with inventing the mobile as an art form, died in New York City. His large-scale stabiles and hanging mobiles became fixtures in public spaces and museums worldwide. He had exhibited a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum earlier that same year.
• 1898 – 1988 Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898-1988) Died 11 January 1988, aged 89 Isidor Isaac Rabi was an Austrian-born American physicist who won the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance. His work laid the foundation for MRI technology and atomic clocks. He also advised the US government on nuclear policy after World War II.
• 1898 – 1986 Henry Moore (1898-1986) Died 31 August 1986, aged 88 British sculptor renowned for large abstract bronze forms often inspired by the human figure and landscape. His public works are displayed in cities around the world, and he was among the most celebrated sculptors of the twentieth century. He died at his home in Hertfordshire, England.
• 1898 Renamed Pepsi-Cola New name trademarked — August 28, 1898 On August 28, 1898, Caleb Bradham renamed his drink "Pepsi-Cola" — "Pepsi" from the digestive enzyme pepsin (and dyspepsia), "Cola" from the kola nuts in the recipe. The first Pepsi logo was also introduced. Bradham believed the drink aided digestion and boosted energy.
• 1898 – 1992 Shirley Booth (1898-1992) Died 16 October 1992, aged 94 Shirley Booth was an American actress who won both an Academy Award and a Tony Award for her role in "Come Back, Little Sheba." She later became widely known to television audiences as the title character in the sitcom "Hazel." Her career spanned stage, film, radio, and television.
• 1898 Battle of Omdurman Anglo-Egyptian force crushes the Mahdist army in Sudan On 2 September 1898, General Herbert Kitchener's Anglo-Egyptian army defeated the Mahdist forces of Abdullah al-Taashi outside Omdurman, Sudan. Superior artillery and machine guns inflicted overwhelming casualties on the Mahdist ranks. The victory completed Britain's reconquest of Sudan and avenged the death of General Gordon in 1885.
• 1898 Fashoda Incident British and French forces face off in Sudan over colonial claims British and French expeditions under Kitchener and Jean-Baptiste Marchand met at Fashoda on the White Nile in September 1898, each claiming the territory for their empire. The standoff brought Britain and France close to war before France ordered Marchand's withdrawal on 3 November 1898. The crisis marked the effective end of French ambitions in the Nile valley.
• 1898 – 1995 Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995) Died 24 August 1995, aged 96 Alfred Eisenstaedt was a German-American photojournalist for Life magazine best known for his photograph of a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on V-J Day. Over a career spanning decades, he photographed numerous political and cultural figures. His work helped define the golden age of American photojournalism.
• 1898 Treaty of Paris ends the Spanish-American War Spain cedes Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris on 10 December 1898, ending the Spanish-American War. Spain relinquished Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States for $20 million. The treaty ended nearly four centuries of Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and Pacific.
• 1898 – 1990 Irene Dunne (1898-1990) American actress and singer, equally at home in musicals, melodramas and screwball comedy, with five Oscar nominations.