1890

1880 < 1881 < 1882 < 1883 < 1884 < 1885 < 1886 <1887 < 1888 < 1889 < 1890 > 1891 > 1892 > 1893 > 1894 > 1895 > 1896 > 1897 > 1898 > 1899 > 1900

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File:Decade.png ( 1890s: )     1890 link
Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Otto von Bismarck.
year 1890

Events

January–March

• January 1 - The Kingdom of Italy establishes Eritrea as its colony, in the Horn of Africa.
  • The United Mine Workers of America is founded.
• February 9 – The Weather Bureau is established, within the United States Department of Agriculture.
• March 1 - Léon Bourgeois succeeds Jean Antoine Ernest Constans, as French Minister of the Interior.
• March 20 – Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Otto von Bismarck.

April–June

• April 14 – At the First International Conference of American States, in Washington D.C., The Commercial Bureau of the American Republics is founded.
• May 1 – A coordinated series of mass rallies and one-day strikes is held throughout many cities and mining towns, in Europe and North America, to demand an eight-hour workday.

• June 16 – Royal Dutch Petroleum, as predecessor of Royal Dutch Shell, a major energy product and sales on worldwide, that founded in Netherlands.

July–September

• July 1
  • Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty: Britain cedes the Heligoland islands (in the German Bight) to Germany, in return for protectorates over Wituland and the Sultanate of Zanzibar (the islands of Pemba and Unguja) in east Africa.
  • 1890 Japanese general election: In the first general election for the House of Representatives of Japan, about 5% of the adult male population elect a lower house of the Diet of Japan, in accordance with the new Meiji Constitution of 1889.
• August – Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Alexander III meet at Narva.
• September 12 – Salisbury, Rhodesia is founded.

October–December

• November 23 – King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir, and his daughter Princess Wilhelmina becomes Queen, causing the end of the personal union of thrones with Luxembourg (which requires a male heir) so that Adolphe, Duke of Nassau becomes Grand Duke of Luxembourg.
• November 29
  • The Meiji Constitution goes into effect in Japan, and its first Diet convenes.
• December 29 – Wounded Knee Massacre: At Wounded Knee, South Dakota, a Native American camp, the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment tries to disperse the non-violent "Ghost-Dance" which was promised to usher in a new era of power and freedom to Native Americans but is feared as a potential rallying tool for violent rebellion by some in the U.S. government. Shooting begins, and 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 troops are killed; about 150 flee the scene. This is the last tribe to be defeated and confined to a reservation as well as the beginning of the decline of both the American Indian Wars and the American frontier.

Date unknown

• William II of Prussia opposes Bismarck's attempt to renew the law outlawing the Social Democratic Party.
• American geostrategist Alfred Thayer Mahan publishes his influential book The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783.
• Francis Galton announces a statistical demonstration of the uniqueness and classifiability of individual human fingerprints.