1894January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire. January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United States. January 9 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts. February 12 French anarchist Émile Henry sets off a bomb in a Paris café, killing one person and wounding twenty.
1892In Samoa, this was the only leap year spanned to 367 days as July 4 repeated. This means that the International Date Line was drawn from the east of the country to go west. January 1 – Ellis Island begins accommodating immigrants to the United States. February 1 – The historic Enterprise Bar and Grill is established in Rico, Colorado. February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies for a patent, on his compression ignition engine (the Diesel engine). February 29 – St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated as a town.
1891January 1 A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence. Germany takes formal possession of its new African territories. January 4 – The Earl of Zetland issues a declaration regarding the famine in the western counties of Ireland. January 5 The Australian shearers' strike, that leads indirectly to the foundation of the Australian Labor Party, begins. A fight between the United States and Indians breaks out near Pine Ridge agency.
1879January 1 – The Specie Resumption Act takes effect. The United States Note is valued the same as gold, for the first time since the American Civil War. January 11 – The Anglo-Zulu War begins. January 22 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Isandlwana: A force of 1,200 British soldiers is wiped out by over 20,000 Zulu warriors. January 23 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Rorke's Drift: Following the previous day's defeat, a smaller British force of 140 successfully repels an attack by 4,000 Zulus.
1895January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded in England by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. January 13 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Coatit – Italian forces defeat the Ethiopians. January 17 – Félix Faure is elected President of the French Republic, after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier.
1899January 1 Spanish rule ends in Cuba, concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Queens and Staten Island become administratively part of New York City. January 2 Bolivia sets up a customs office in Puerto Alonso, leading to the Brazilian settlers there to declare the Republic of Acre in a revolt against Bolivian authorities. The first part of the Jakarta Kota–Anyer Kidul railway on the island of Java is opened between Batavia Zuid (Jakarta Kota) and Tangerang.
1900As of March 1 (O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 (O.S. February 15), 2100. The year 1900 also marked the Year of the Rat on the Chinese calendar. January 1900 January 2 – U.S. Secretary of State John Hay announces the Open Door Policy, to promote American trade with China. January 3 – The United States Census estimates the country's population to be about 70 million people.
1889January 1 The total solar eclipse of January 1, 1889 is seen over parts of California and Nevada. Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka experiences a vision, leading to the start of the Ghost Dance movement in the Dakotas. January 4 – An Act to Regulate Appointments in the Marine Hospital Service of the United States is signed by President Grover Cleveland. It establishes a Commissioned Corps of officers, as a predecessor to the modern-day U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. January 5 – Preston North End F.
1918This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January 1918 January – 1918 flu pandemic: The "Spanish flu" (influenza) is first observed in Haskell County, Kansas. January 4 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Soviet Russia, Sweden, Germany and France. January 9 – Battle of Bear Valley: U.
1903January 1903 January 1 – Edward VII is proclaimed Emperor of India. January 4 – Topsy, a female Asian circus elephant, is killed by electrocution at Luna Park, Coney Island, New York City. January 19 – The first west–east transatlantic radio broadcast is made from the United States to England (the first east–west broadcast having been made in 1901). January 17 – 13 days after Topsy's death, the Edison Manufacturing Company released the short, black-and-white, silent documentary film Electrocuting an Elephant, showing the footage of Topsy's electrocution.
