1890January 1 - The Kingdom of Italy establishes Eritrea as its colony in the Horn of Africa. January 2 The steamship Persia is wrecked off Corsica; 130 lives are lost. Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer in the White House. January 11 – 1890 British Ultimatum: The United Kingdom demands Portugal withdraw its forces from the land between the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola (most of present-day Zimbabwe and Zambia). January 15 – Ballet The Sleeping Beauty, with music by Tchaikovsky, is premiered at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St.
1886January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885. January 5–9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is published in New York and London. January 16 – A resolution is passed in the German Parliament to condemn the Prussian deportations, the politically motivated mass expulsion of ethnic Poles and Jews from Prussia, initiated by Otto von Bismarck.
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.
1898January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island. January 13 – Novelist Émile Zola's open letter to the President of the French Republic on the Dreyfus affair, J'Accuse...!, is published on the front page of the Paris daily newspaper L'Aurore, accusing the government of wrongfully imprisoning Alfred Dreyfus and of antisemitism.
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.
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.
1884January 4 – The Fabian Society is founded in London. January 5 – Gilbert and Sullivan's Princess Ida premières at the Savoy Theatre, London. January 18 – William Price attempts to cremate his dead baby son, Iesu Grist, in Wales. Later tried and acquitted on the grounds that cremation is not contrary to English law, he is thus able to carry out the ceremony (the first in the United Kingdom in modern times) on March 14, setting a legal precedent. February 1 – A New English Dictionary on historical principles, part 1 (edited by James A.
1901January 1901 January 1 The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton becomes the first Prime Minister of Australia. Nigeria becomes a British protectorate. January 9 – Lord Kitchener reports that Christiaan de Wet has shot one of the "peace" envoys, and flogged two more, who had gone to his commando to ask the Burgher citizens of South Africa to halt fighting.
1905As the second year of the massive Russo-Japanese War begins, more than 100,000 die in the largest world battles of that era, and the war chaos leads to the 1905 Russian Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia (Shostakovich's 11th Symphony is subtitled The Year 1905 to commemorate this) and the start of Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland. Canada and the U.S. expand west, with the Alberta and Saskatchewan provinces and the founding of Las Vegas.
1883January 4 – Life magazine is founded in Los Angeles, California, United States. January 10 – A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, kills 73 people. January 16 – The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States civil service, is passed. January 19 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires begins service in Roselle, New Jersey, United States, installed by Thomas Edison. February – The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi is first published complete in book form, in Italy.