1891 Timeline

Culture

Ragtime is all the rage. Jazz (though it wasn't called this until after 1917) was in its earliest infancy in New Orleans.

Marie Eugene Dubois discovered 'Javaman,' now known as Homo erectus.

Founded in 1891, The Japan Society is founded to promote Anglo-Japanese relations.

Guy de Maupassant goes insane after writing novels, plays, 300 short stories.

Croquet and bicycle racing were new crazes. Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith, a Massachusetts Y.M.C.A. instructor.

Morrison (Des Moines) devises the first functional U.S. electric car, claims it can do 22 kph.

In 1891 Jesse W. Reno created a moving stairway that elevated passengers on a conveyor belt at a 25degree angle. The invention is later shown at the Paris Exposition of 1900, where it is first called the escalator. The escalator as we know it was re-designed by Charles Seeberger in 1900.

Pavlova joins Imperial Theatre 1891

4 July 1891
Phineas T. Barnum, Circus owner, dies aged 80.

Gauguin settles in Tahiti.

Sergei Prokofiev is born.

In Holland the first practical submarine is invented. "The first to use a combination of battery power and internal combustion engines."

Impressionist Claude Monet paints his famous 'Haystacks'.

Enrico Caruso began serious training for his voice.

The first 'telephoto lens' is attached to the camera. Also, photographers can load camera film in daylight, not just in a darkroom.

1891: Harry Houdini became professional magician.

1891 Irish Literary Society of London founded at house of W.B.Yeats.

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel is born near Ulm, Germany. He later becomes known as the "Desert Fox" for commanding the North African campaign in world war two.

Henry Miller 1891-1980, American Author

Henrik Ibsen wrote The Master Builder

1891: Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler

W L Judson invents the zipper

1891 George Bartholomew placed the first concrete street in the USA in Bellefontaine, Ohio, USA. It still exists.

Georges Seurat, French Impressionist painter and founder of ' Pointilism', dies.

Bronislava Nijinska born in Russia

Cole Porter, song writer, is born in 1891

Electric oven - Carpenter Electric Heating Manufacturing Co. 1891

The first true automobile (not carriage with motor) is invented by René Panhard and Emile Lavassor, France, 1891.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducts part of the first concert in brand-new Carnegie Hall.

Max Ernst, German painter is born. He was later to become a leader of 'irrationality in art' and originator of the realist faction of the Surrealist movement.

Events

United States
President Benjamin Harrison of was in power at the time Term of office 1889-93.
He was born in 1833. Died 1901.
Harrison was a protectionist who favoured high tariffs. This was exemplified by his nurturing of the McKinley Tariff of 1890, which imposed high import duties to protect American corporations but had the effect of jacking up prices--a stand that would cost him heavily among the voters.

January 16, 1891
In The USA the Sioux surrendered. This was the last major Indian conflict, and like all the others it ended in defeat for the Indians.

March 24th & April 15th
Anglo-Italian agreements over Abysinia.

April 1st 1891
Brazil adopts a new constitution.

3rd April
Bulgarian Finance Minister is shot and assasinated in Sofia.
*B&R 1891.

April 9th 1891
Pan German League founded.

Chilean civil war 1891
Mont. Express & Radnor Times, 16.6.91 report "...of civil war in Chile. 20,000 engaged, an estimated 3,000 dead..."

17th April
150 Jews arrested in the Jewish quarter of Moscow. Jews in and around St Petersburg and Moscow without legal status or authorisation are rigourously rounded up and expelled by police.
*B&R 1891.

May 31st 1891
The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway begins.

August 27th 1891
Franco-Russian Alliance

Montgomeryshire Express & Radnor Times, June onwards
"Great damage was caused on Sunday morning in Lombardy, Verona, Venetia, and part of Tuscany by an earthquake. At Marcenego three persons were killed."

Mont. Express & Radnor Times, 1.9.91
"Terrible Earthquake in Japan. Despatches have been received at New York giving details of the recent terrible earthquake in Japan. . . .The lowest computation gives the number of deaths as 24,000, but it is probable that this will prove far below the actual total."

Mont. Express & Radnor Times, 3.11.91
Papal encyclical on the condition of the working classes.

Famine in Russia.
It affected between fourteen to twenty million people, of which 375,000 to 400,000 died, mostly of disease.

November 1891
Brazil's President, Deodoro da Fonseca, dissolves the new Brazilian Congress which leads to rebellions. He soon resigns in favour of Vice President Peixoto.

Australian demands for Trade protection and unification

U.S. Protectionism.
American Government passed the McKinley Tariff to promote home industries.

Germany implements the world's first public old-age pension system, proposed by Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, who left office a year earlier.

First Arab protests against Zionist settlements in Palestine.

Ghandi starts to practice law in India.

An international agreement on copyright.

Jomo Kenyatta is born.
He became a leader of the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya in 1953. Later he became Prime Minister, and then President in 1964.

American Express issues travellers cheques.

The first international phone call via submarine cable, London - Paris.

Exiles from the Ottoman Empire, called Young Turks, meet in Geneva. The Young Turks later become the architects of Turkish nationalist movement.

The Anglo-Portuguese convention in 1891. To many politicians and entrepreneurs, this effectively ended the hope of further British expansion on the African continent.

Boer trek in South Africa - some 20,000 reported to be on the move.