1883-1884
1883 Jan 3, Clement Attlee Britain's prime minister
[1945-1951; head of Labor Party, was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1883 Jan 16, The U.S. Civil Service Commission was established. The US
Civil Service Reform Act prohibited federal employees from contributing to
political campaigns.
(AP, 1/16/98)(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)
1883 Feb 23, Victor Fleming, director of the movie classics "The
Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind", was born.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1883 Mar 14, German political philosopher Karl Marx died in London.
(AP, 3/14/97)
1883 Mar 24, Long-distance telephone service was inaugurated between
Chicago and New York.
(AP, 3/23/97)
1883 Mar 30, Jo Davidson, American sculptor, was born.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1883 Apr 1, Lon Chaney (d.1973), actor know as "man of a thousand
faces," (High Noon, Phantom of Opera), was born.
(HN, 4/1/98)
1883 Apr 15, Vladimir Kovalevsky (b.1842), paleontologist, committed
suicide. His work had focused on the evolution of odd-toed and even-toed
ungulates. He also was the first translator of Darwin's works into Russian.
(NH, 6/96, p.23)
1883 May 5, Charles Bender, the only Native American in baseball's
Hall of Fame, was born.
(HN, 5/5/98)
1883 May 23, Douglas Fairbanks, actor, was born.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1883 May 23, The first baseball game between one-armed and one-legged
players was played.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1883 May 24, The Brooklyn Bridge, hailed as the "eighth wonder of
the world," officially opened to traffic. The suspension bridge linking
the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn became a symbol of America's progress
and ingenuity. The bridge has a span of 1,595 feet with 16-inch steel wire
suspension cables fastened to Gothic-style arches 276 feet tall. Civil engineer
John Augustus Roebling, inventor of the steel wire cable and designer of the
bridge, was killed in a construction accident at the outset of construction in
1869. His son and partner, Washington A. Roebling, supervised the project to
its completion in spite of a debilitating illness.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AP,
5/24/97)(HNPD, 5/23/99)
1883 May 30, 12 people were trampled to death in New York City when a
rumor that the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge was in danger of collapsing
triggered a stampede.
(AP, 5/30/97)
1883 Jun 2, The first baseball game under electric lights was played
in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1883 Jun 5, Economist John Maynard Keynes (d.1946), economist, was
born in Cambridge, England. He developed theories on the causes of prolonged
unemployment and advised wide government expenditures as a counter measure to
deflation and depression. "I do not know which makes a man more
conservative -- to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past."
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(AP, 6/5/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(HN, 6/5/99)(AP,
7/29/99)
1883 Jun 16, Both escorted and unescorted ladies were admitted to the
New York Giants' baseball park free of charge.
(HNQ, 12/26/98)
1883 Jul 3, Franz Kafka (d.1924), Czech novelist, author of "The
Metamorphosis," was born in Prague. "The Castle" and "The
Trial," were both published after his death. He died of tuberculosis.
(V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 10/10/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/14/97, p.A11)(HN,
7/3/98)
1883 Jul 4, Rube Goldberg (Ruben Lucius Goldberg, 1883-1970)
cartoonist, was born in San Francisco. He was known for cartoons featuring
absurdly complicated mechanical devices to accomplish absurdly simple tasks.
(WUD, 1994, p.607)(SFEC, 4/5/98, p.A28)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1883 Jul 4, One of the first Wild West shows was performed in North
Platte, Nebraska, and was organized by Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody), who took
the show on the road the following year.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1883 Jul 23, Lord Allanbrooke (d.1963), English soldier, was born.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1883 Jul 29, Benito Mussolini, dictator of Fascist Italy, 1922-1945,
was born.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1883 Aug 8, Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary who occupied Mexico
City three times, was born.
(HN, 8/8/98)
1883 Aug 19, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (d.1971), French
fashion designer, was born: "My friends, there are no friends."
(HN, 8/19/00)(AP, 7/26/99)
1883 Aug 23, Jonathan Wainwright, U.S. general who fought against the
Japanese on Corregidor in the Philippines and was forced to surrender, was
born.
(HN, 8/23/98)
1883 Aug 26, The island volcano Krakatoa in Indonesia began erupting
with increasingly large explosions and killed 36,000 people either on the
island itself or from the resulting tidal waves that inundated nearby shores. A
book by Ian Thornton: "Krakatau: The Destruction and Reassembly of an
Island Ecosystem" was published in 1996. The history of hundreds of volcanoes
is at a Volcano World Web page:
(http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vw.html)
(AP, 8/26/97)(HFA, '96, p.36) (DD-EVTT, p.71)(Nat. Hist, 3/96, p.6)(HN,
8/26/99)
1883 Aug 27, The island volcano Krakatoa erupted; the resulting tidal
waves in Indonesia's Sunda Strait claimed some 36,000 lives in Java and
Sumatra.
(AP, 8/27/97)
1883 Sep 14, Margaret Higgins Sanger was born. While not the first in
the U.S. advocating the use of contraceptives, she coined the term "birth
control" in 1914. She was the founder of the birth control movement in the
United States and the National Birth Control League. Wife of an affluent
architect and mother of three, Sanger worked as a visiting nurse on New York's
Lower East Side, where she witnessed the misery and poverty caused by
uncontrolled fertility. Sanger became a nurse and after moving to New York City
in 1912 became involved in the bohemian society. She launched Woman Rebel
magazine in March 1914. For sending pleas for birth control through the mails,
she was indicted in August 1914 under New York's 1873 Comstock Act, which
classified information related to contraception as being obscene. She went on
to lead a global movement for birth control and founded the organization that
would later become Planned Parenthood. She died on September 6, 1966.
(HNQ, 6/22/98)(SFEM, 6/28/98,
p.39)(HN, 9/14/98)(HNPD, 9/14/98)
1883 Sep 17, William Carlos Williams, poet, playwright, essayist and
writer who won a Pulitzer prize for "Pictures from Brueghel and Other
Poems," was born.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1883 Oct 18, The weather station at the top of Ben Nevis, Scotland,
the highest mountain in Britain, was declared open.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1883 Nov 3, U.S. Supreme Court declared American Indians to be
"dependent aliens."
(HN, 11/3/98)
1883 Nov 3, A poorly trained Egyptian army, led by British General
William Hicks, marched toward El Obeid in the Sudan--straight into a Mahdist
ambush and massacre.
(HN, 11/3/98)
1883 Nov 18, The United States and Canada adopted a system of Standard
Time zones.
(HFA, '96, p.18)(NG,
Mar, 1990, p.115)(AP, 11/18/97)
1883 Dec 15, William A. Hinton, developer of the "Hinton
Test" for diagnosing syphilis, was born.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1883 Dec 22, Arthur Wergs Mitchell, first African-American to be
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was born.
(HN, 12/22/98)
1883 Edward Degas painted "Woman in a Tub."
(WSJ, 2/29/00, p.B16)
1883 Lord Frederick Leighton painted "Kittens."
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.W10)
1883 Claude Monet made a trip to Italy with Cezanne and Renoir and
painted "The Monte Carlo Road."
(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A14)
1883 Tokonami Seisei, self-taught Japanese artist, painted
"Volcano."
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)
1883 Arthur Conan Doyle published his short story "The Captain of
the Pole-Star."
(PacDisc. Spring/'96, p.18)
1883 Jean-Paul Richter published a compilation of Leonardo de Vinci's
notebooks.
(NH, 5/97, p.19)
1883 Anthony Trollope published "An Autobiography." He wrote
harshly about his mother and made her out to be a second-rate writer.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)
1883 Bruckner composed his Seventh Symphony.
(WSJ, 3/5/99, p.W10)
1883 John Philip Sousa premiered his "The Transit of Venus
March" on the 5th anniversary of the death of scientist Joseph Henry.
(WSJ, 12/17/97, p.A20)
1883 The opera "Mazeppa" by Tchaikovsky was completed.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A21)
1883 The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, originally the Minneapolis
Society of Fine Arts, was established. The museum building, designed by the
firm of McKim, Mead and White, opened its doors in 1915. In 1974, the
Japanese architect Kenzo Tange was commissioned to design needed additions to
McKim, Mead and White's neoclassical structure. Now in the 1990s, with finds
from the Institute's New Beginnings Campaign, the museum building is being
renovated, the collections reinstalled, and state-of-the-art technology
introduces to help visitors and members interpret the works of art.
(MIA, www, 1999)
1883 The Elk Cove Inn in Elk, California, was built.
(SFC, 9/1/96, T3)
1883 In Oakland, Ca. the city engineer, Anthony Chabot, donated the
Chabot Observatory and Science Center to the school district. In 1996 it began
a $51 million, 3-year expansion and move to the Oakland Hills in Joaquin Miller
Park.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A15)
1883 Wente Winery was founded in California.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.E3)
1883 Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt wore her "Electric Light"
gown and stole the show at Alva Vanderbilt's costume party in Newport, Rhode
Island.
(WSJ, 6/6/95, p.A-14)
1883 Joseph Pulitzer assumed command of the New York World newspaper
with a circulation of 15,000. 4 years later it increased to 350,000.
(SFEM, 11/8/98, p.14,16)
1883 Barbed wire that fenced the west at this time was on display at
Oracle Junction, Arizona, and includes Baker's 'Odd Barb.'
(NOHY, 3/90, p.173)
1883 The Supreme Court invalidated the Civil Rights Act passed by
Congress on Mar 1, 1875.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1883 M.H. Lane set up an assembly line to build carts, buggies, wagons
and sleighs at his Michigan Buggy Co. in Kalamazoo, Mich.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.B4)
1883 The railroad companies got together and established standard
railroad time to increase safety and surmount complex scheduling on local
times.
(THC, 12/2/97)
1883 James Goold Cutler took out a patent on office building chutes
for mail. The first one was installed in Rochester N.Y.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.E4)
1883 The W.S. Reed Co. of Leominster, Mass., produced a couple of
cast-iron mechanical banks, that never made it to mass production. One sold at
auction in 1998 for $426,000.
(WSJ, 5/15/98, p.W12)
1883 The factory of the Racine Silver Plate Co. re-opened in Rockford,
Ill and was re-named the Rockford Silver Plate Co. Its factory in Racine had
burned down in 1882.
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1883 John Montgomery (d.1911 in a glider crash) made the first manned,
controlled flight in the US in his "Gull" glider, whose design was
inspired by watching birds.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A23)
1883 William Kitchen Parker (1823-1890), English anatomist and embryologist,
produced an illustrated account of skull development in crocodiles and
alligators.
(NH, 10/96, p.37)
1883 Supply ships failed to arrive at Ellesmere Island in the Canadian
Arctic so Lt. Greely and his 24 men retreated south. Only Greely and six others
survived.
(NG, 6/1988, p.764)
1883 Karl Marx died.
(V.D.-H.K.p.260)
1883 Richard Wagner, German composer, died.
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A20)
1883 In Australia an itinerant boundary rider discovered a silver lode
at Broken Hill in New South Wales.
(Hem., 2/97, p.91)
1883 In Britain Francis Galton developed the questionnaire.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1883 In Chile the Concha y Toro wineries were founded with vines
brought from France.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T9)
1883 In England production of Bretby Art Pottery was begun by Tooth
& Co. in South Derbyshire.
(SFC,10/22/97, Z1 p.7)
1883 Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck adopted the first
compulsory health insurance program on a national scale.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1883 In Italy the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme was built by the Massimo
family in Rome and later converted to an archeological museum.
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)
1883 In Wales the Treorchy Men's Choir was established in the Rhondda
Valley to keep miners out of trouble.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.T5)
1883-1884 In Sudan British officered Egyptian armies were defeated by the
forces of El Mahdi, called Dervishes by the British.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1883-1888 "Chekhov: The Early Stories 1883-1888" was later
translated and published by Patrick Miles and Harvey Pitcher.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, BR p.5)
1883-1931 Khalil Gibran, American poet and artist: "Forgetfulness is a
form of freedom."
(AP, 6/11/00)
1883-1935 Charles Demuth , American painter and illustrator.
(WUD, 1994, p.385)
1883-1936 Charles Dana Gibson created the Gibson Girl illustrations that
were published in Life magazine during this time.
(SFEC, 10/9/96, z1 p.8)
1883-1945 Benito Mussolini, Italian Fascist leader.
(V.D.-H.K.p.309)
1883-1849 Jose Clemente Orozco, Mexican painter, muralist.
(SFC, 4/18/96, E-1)
1883-1950 Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Moravian-born American economist. He
developed theories of capitalist development and business cycles. He emphasized
the importance of entrepreneurs as the drivers of capitalist development and
banks as the providers of credit. He was a leader in econometrics and
statistical inquiry that attempted to fortify the scientific center of
economics.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1883-1955 Jose Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher. "I am I plus my
circumstances." "Living is a constant process of deciding what we are
going to do." "Our firmest convictions are apt to be the most
suspect; they mark our limitations and our bounds. Life is a petty thing unless
it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries."
(V.D.-H.K.p.370)(AP, 3/20/97)(AP, 7/31/97)(AP, 4/3/98)
1883-1955 Ludwig Lewisohn, German-born novelist-critic: "There are
philosophies which are unendurable not because men are cowards, but because
they are men."
(AP, 8/6/99)
1883-1961 Frantisek Drtikol, Czech photographer and painter. He photographed
nudes in the 1920s and then took up painting and mystical religious studies.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.E4)
1883-1963 Elsa Maxwell, American socialite. "Laugh at yourself
first, before anyone else can."
(AP, 4/4/97)
1883-1963 William Carlos Williams, American poet and doctor. "History
must stay open, it is all humanity." William Carlos Williams met Ezra
Pound at the Univ. of Pennsylvania in 1907 and they remained friends and wrote
many letters. "Pound / Williams: Selected Correspondence" was ed. by
Hugh Witemeyer in 1996.
(AP, 9/20/97)(SFC, 6/3/96, BR p.6)
1883-1964 Roy W. Howard, American newspaper publisher: "No date
on the calendar is as important as tomorrow."
(AP, 4/7/97)
1883-1965 Charles Sheeler, American painter. He also did some experimental
photography and the photos were later highly prized. He was among the first to
embrace modernism and participated in the NYC salon of Walter Arensberg.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.C4)(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.4)
1883-1969 Walter Gropius, German-American architect. He founded the Bauhaus.
"The human mind is like an umbrella. It functions best when open."
(V.D.-H.K.p.363)(AP, 10/7/98)
1884 Feb 14, Theodore Roosevelt's wife died 2 days after giving birth
to Alice Lee Roosevelt. His mother, Martha, had died just a few hours earlier.
(SFEC, 9/29/96, Par p.8)(SFEC, 1/18/98, Z1 p.8)
1884 Mar 6, Over 100 suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony, presented
President Chester A. Arthur with a demand that he voice support for female
suffrage.
(HN, 3/6/99)
1884 Mar 12, Mississippi established the first U.S. state college for
women.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1884 Mar 13, Standard Time was adopted throughout the United
States.
(AP, 3/13/97)
1884 Mar 17, John Joseph Montgomery made the first glider flight in
Otay, Calif.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1884 Mar 27, The first long-distance telephone call was made, between
Boston and New York City.
(AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)
1884 Apr 4, Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese Naval commander, was born. He
masterminded the attack on Pearl Harbor.
(HN, 4/4/99)
1884 Apr 24, Otto von Bismarck cabled Cape Town that South Africa had
become a German colony.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1884 May 1, Construction began on the first skyscraper, a 10-story
structure in Chicago built by the Home Insurance Co. of New York.
(AP, 5/1/99)
1884 May 8, Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States, was
born near Lamar, Mo. A history buff, President Harry Truman penned this
description of Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, "Pierce was the best
looking President the White House ever had-but as President he ranks with
Buchanan and Calvin Coolidge." "If there is one basic element in our
Constitution, it is civilian control of the military." He decided to drop
the bomb that ended World War II and sent troops to Korea to halt communist
aggression.
(AP, 5/8/97)(AP, 1/17/99)(HN, 5/8/99)
1884 May 13, The Institute for Electrical & Electronics Engineers
(IEEE) was founded.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1884 Jun 5, Civil War hero General William T. Sherman refused the
Republican presidential nomination, saying, "I will not accept if
nominated and will not serve if elected."
(AP, 6/5/97)
1884 Jun 23, A Chinese Army defeated the French at Bacle, Indochina.
(HN, 6/23/98)
1884 Jun 28, Congress declared Labor Day a legal holiday.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1884 Jul 4, The Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States
in ceremonies at Paris, France. The 225-ton, 152-foot statue was a gift from
France in commemoration of 100 years of American independence. Created by the
French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was installed on Bedloe
Island (now Liberty Island) in New York harbor in 1885. It was dedicated on
October 28, 1886.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1884 Jul 4, 1st US bullfight was held in Dodge City, Ka.
(Maggio, 98)
1884 Aug 5, The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid on
Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.
(THC, 4/10/97)(AP, 8/5/97)
1884 Sep 20, Maxwell Perkins, editor, was born. He was the first to
publish F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.
(HN, 9/20/00)
1884 Sep 20, The Equal Rights Party was formed during a convention of
suffragists in San Francisco. The convention nominated Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood
of Washington, D.C., for president.
(AP, 9/20/97)
1884 Oct 4, Damon Runyon, journalist and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 10/4/00)
1884 Oct 6, The US Naval War College was established in Newport, R.I.
(AP, 10/6/97)
1884 Oct 11, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the niece of President Theodore
Roosevelt and wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, was born in New York City.
Orphaned as a child, she grew up shy and insecure.
(HN, 10/11/98)(HNPD, 10/11/99)
1884 Oct 14, Transparent paper-strip photographic film was patented by
George Eastman. He had invented a flexible paper-backed film that could be
wound on rollers. To encourage amateur photography and film sales, Eastman
developed a simple black box camera that cost $25 and came already loaded with a
100-exposure roll of film. When the roll was used up, the entire No. 1 Kodak
camera was shipped back to Eastman's factory for developing and reloading, at a
cost of only $10. Eastman's photographic improvements proved successful, with
13,000 cameras sold in 1888.
(HN, 7/12/99)(HN, 10/14/00)
1884 Oct 20, Bela Lugosi, Hungarian-born film actor, was born. He is
famous for his portrayal of Count Dracula (1931).
(HN, 10/20/00)
1884 Nov 4, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected to his first term as
president, defeating Republican James G. Blaine. The reference to the
Democratic party as the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" played
a large part in Republican candidate James Blaine's defeat in the election of
1884. The indiscreet reference made by one of Blaine"s supporters has been
credited with causing the Blaine's loss of the crucial state of New York.
Blaine lost the popular vote by less than 100,000 and lost New York by just
1,149, out of a total vote of 1,125,000 cast, to Grover Cleveland, the first
Democrat since Buchanan to win a presidential election. Cleveland won by a
margin of 30,000 votes.
(AP, 11/4/97)(HNQ, 9/13/99)(SFEC, 4/23/00, Z1 p.2)
1884 Prior to his first election to the presidency in 1884, Democrat
Grover Cleveland, then a bachelor, admitted that Republican charges accusing
him of fathering a child as a young man in Buffalo were true. His honesty
helped to calm the issue, despite the popular campaign chant against him:
"Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!"
Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the White House in 1886. He lost a
reelection bid in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, even though he won the popular
vote, but regained the White House in 1892 to serve a second term as the 24th
president.
(HN, 1/19/00)
1884 Nov 8, Hermann Rorshach, Swiss psychiatrist, was born. He was the
inventor of the inkblot test.
(HN, 11/8/00)
1884 Nov 20, Norman Thomas was born in Marion and ran for president in
six successive elections beginning in 1928.
(HNQ, 10/21/98)
1884 Nov, The novel "Ramona" by Helen Hunt Jackson was
published. It was about a love affair between a half-Indian girl and a Luisea
Indian in southern California. It also served a covert tract on Indian
oppression in America. In 1990 Valerie Sherer Mathes published "Helen Hunt
Jackson and Her Indian Reform Legacy." In 1998 Mathes edited: "The
Indian Reform Letters of Helen Hunt Jackson."
(SFEC, 12/20/98, BR p.5)
1884 Dec 2, Ruth Draper, actress and writer, was born.
(HN, 12/2/00)
1884 Dec 6, Army engineers completed construction of the Washington
monument.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1884 Dec 30, Tojo Hideki, Japanese Prime Minister during WWII, was
born.
(HN, 12/30/98)
1884[1985] Edgar Degas began painting his series of pastels and oils of
dancers. The first was done about this time and titled "Danseuses."
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)
1884 Stanhope Forbes, English painter, began "A Fish Sale on a
Cornish Beach." Completed 1885.
(SFC, 3/31/97, p.E6)
1884 Claude Monet painted "Corniche of Monaco."
(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A1)
1884 Claude Monet painted "Bordighera." It was done on the
French Riviera to which he returned after a visit there with Renoir in late
1883. The paintings were marked by bold, pure color in contrast to his earlier
subdued pastels.
(DPCP 1984)
1884 Berthe Morisot painted the impressionist work "En Bateau sur
le Lac de Boulogne." It was valued in 1998 at $600-800 thousand.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A19)
1884 John Singer Sargent painted "Madame X." It was a portrait
of Mme. Pierre Gautreau. The painting was initially called monstrous and
prompted Sargent to move from Paris to the US.
(WSJ, 2/23/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W16)
1884 Georges Seurat, French artist, painted "Bathers at
Asnieres."
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.A44)
1884 During a lecture tour together, Southern writer George Washington
Cable and Samuel Clemens were billed as the "Twins of Genius."
Clemens, who used the pen name Mark Twain, joined the popular Southern
local-colorist writer Cable in a 15-week lecture tour of the Northeast. Clemens
later wrote of Cable, "With his platform talent he was able to fatigue a
corpse."
(HNQ, 3/9/99)
1884 Helen Hunt Jackson wrote her novel "Ramona."
(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)
1884 The Leo Delibe ballet "Coppelia" was revised in St.
Petersburg by Marius Petipa, the Franco-Russian genius of ballet.
(WSJ, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1884 The New York Metropolitan Opera embarked on its first post-season
national train tour, and began playing poker to pass the time.
(WSJ, 1/5/98, p.A1)
1884 Elisha Babcock and H.L. Story decided to build a resort hotel on
a flat peninsula in San Diego Bay. They built the Hotel del Coronado in 11
months and the town of Coronado grew up around it.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.T6)
1884 H.W. Mudgett, alias H.H. Holmes, graduated from the Univ. of
Michigan Medical School. He went on to build a large home in Chicago that came
to be known as Nightmare Castle for its secret passages, trapdoors, chutes, and
underground laboratories. Homes-Mudgett slew 20-30 victims, including several
wives, young ladies and their husbands. He sold skeletons to medical schools.
(MT, 6/95, P.10)
1884 A Victorian mansion was built on the corner of Bush and Jones
streets in SF. It perished in the 1906 fire but a replica, the Carter House,
was built by the Carter Family in Eureka, Ca.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T5)
1884 The first Veteran's Home in California was built in Yountville
(Napa Ct.).
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-15)
1884 Barbed wire that fenced the west is on display at Oracle Junction,
Arizona, and includes Sunderland 'Kink.'
(NOHY, 3/90, p.173)
1884 The Grolier Club was founded to promote "enthusiasm for
books and the books arts."
(WSJ, 11/30/99, p.A24)
1884 Hillerich & Bradsby, makers of the Louisville Slugger bats,
was founded.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, p.T8)
1884 Pitcher Charles Radbourn, "Ol Hoss," led his team, the
Providence Grays, to baseball's National League pennant.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, BR p.11)
1884 The Berlin Conference drew up borders for African countries.
(SFC, 1/27/97, p.A19)(NH, 6/97, p.42)
1884 A US Federal Court forbade wives of Chinese laborers from
entering America and perpetuated a Chinese bachelor society.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1884 A federal judge ruled that hydraulic mining must stop destroying the
land.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)
1884 Frederick Douglass, Negro abolitionist, was lambasted when he
married a white woman (32) from Germany. In 2000 Maria Diedrich authored
"Love Across Color Lines: Ottilie Assing & Frederick Douglass."
(SFEC, 11/17/96, BR p.5)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Par p.8)
1884 Former Yankee Hill Marshall Willie Kennard worked as the
bodyguard of Barney Ford (aka the Black Baron of Colorado), a wealthy Denver
businessman and former slave.
(WW, 12/96)
1884 British interests purchased half the California operations of
Lazar Freres and this led to the establishment of the London, Paris and
American Bank. This ultimately became part of Crocker National Bank and then
Wells Fargo.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.D1)
1884 The first pea whistle was dubbed the Acme Thunderer and was made
by J. Hudson & Co. (Whistles) Ltd. in Birmingham, England.
(WSJ, 3/30/00, p.A1)
1884 The colony of Rugby, Tennessee, had 350 residents. Thomas Hughes
(1822-96), English novelist, reformer, jurist, and author of "John Brown's
School Days," had purchased 75,000 acres in rural Tennessee and founded
the colony of Rugby. It was a school for the younger children of England's
wealthy families who were not eligible to inherit family estates. It was meant
to teach farming and other useful skills.
(WUD, 1994, p.691)
1884 Alexander Winton came to Cleveland from Scotland and became a
successful bicycle manufacturer.
(F, 10/7/96, p.66)
1884 Philosopher John Dewey came to teach at the U of M.
(MT, Fall. '97, p.19)
1884 Leland Stanford Jr. (15) died of typhus. His death moved the
Stanfords to found Stanford Univ.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.A15)
1884 Joseph Burr Tyrell led the first expedition for the Geological
Survey of Canada to Alberta, Canada where rich deposits of dinosaur remains
were found along the Red Deer River.
(CFA, '96, p.62)
1884 Greenwich, site of the Royal Observatory, was urged by the US and
Brittain for international adoption as the site for the Prime Meridian, zero
degrees longitude at a meeting in Washington D.C. Jerusalem and Paris were also
proposed. The French did not acknowledge Greenwich until 1914. Global time
zones were also established.
(NG, Mar, 1990, p. 113-115)
1884 Hiram Stevens Maxim went to London and developed the first true
machine gun.
(V.D.-H.K.p.267)
1884 Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854-1899) of Germany invented the Linotype
machine that produced newspaper type. It was used until it was replaced by
computers. In 1886 the Chicago Tribune began using the Linotype.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A21)(ON, 7/00, p.5)
1884 The Salon des independents in France had no jury and gave no
prizes, but all the entries were exhibited. This salon marked the last formal
exhibition of Impressionist paintings.
(Calg. Glen., 1996)
1884 Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck adopted a national
workman's compensation program.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1884 In India Dabur India Ltd. was established by a doctor who
prescribed mintleaf remedies to cure stomach aches. It later became the largest
company in ayurvedic medicine.
(WSJ, 12/27/99, p.B9D)
1884 Kanehiro Takaki linked the Japanese sailor's diet of polished
rice to the disease beriberi. He found that the addition of mild and vegetables
to their diet eliminated the disease.
(MT, Fall '96, p.4)
1884 In Italy Sotirio Boulgaris founded Bulgari, a silver-jewelry
shop, on Rome's Via Sistina. He had descended from a family of Greek
silversmiths. By 1996 there were 54 stores worldwide.
(SFEM,7/28/96, p.32)
1884 In Russia Czar Alexander III commissioned jeweler Carl Faberge to
make an Easter egg for the Empress.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1884 Spain annexed the coastal area of Western Sahara.
(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A12)
1884 In Sudan British Gen'l. Charles "Chinese" Gordon was
sent to Khartoum to evacuate the Egyptian garrison. Gordon decided to hold the
city against El Mahdi.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1884-1886 In France Georges Seurat painted "Sunday Afternoon on the
Island of La Grande Jatte." The work was heralded as a milestone of art
theory.
(DPCP 1984)
1884-1933 Sara Teasdale, American author and poet: "I found more
joy in sorrow / Than you could find in joy." "No one worth possessing
can be quite possessed."
(AP, 9/21/97)(AP, 12/18/97)
1884-1946 Damon Runyan, American writer: "You can keep the things of
bronze and stone and give me one man to remember me just once a year."
(AP, 12/20/99)
1884-1959 Max Beckmann, artist. He was a European modernist painter of
extreme pessimism.
(SFC, 6/11/99, p.C3)
1884-1962 Eleanor Roosevelt, American first lady: "You gain
strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop
to look fear in the face. ... You must do the thing you think you cannot
do."
(AP, 1/6/98)
1884-1963 Phyllis Bottome, English author: "There is nothing
final about a mistake, except its being taken as final." "Nothing
ever really sets human nature free, but self-control."
(AP, 5/25/98)(AP, 3/299)
1884-1963 Frank R. Paul, illustrator. His work included a scene from
"War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells.
(WSJ, 5/30/00, p.A24)
1884-1963 Charles Seymour, American educator and historian: "We shall
seek the truth and endure the consequences."
(AP, 9/8/99)
1884-1966 Georges Duhamel, French author: "If anyone tells you
something strange about the world, something you had never heard before, do not
laugh but listen attentively; make him repeat it, make him explain it; no doubt
there is something there worth taking hold of."
(AP, 4/20/97)
1884-1979 Florida Scott-Maxwell, American writer and psychologist:
"Life is a tragic mystery. We are pierced and driven by laws we only half
understand, we find that the lesson we learn again and again is that of
accepting heroic helplessness."
(AP, 9/2/97)
1884-1984 The Fort Rosencrans National Cemetery near San Diego with 65,000
veterans, some from the Mexican War, ran out of room after 100 years.
(AAM, 3/96, p.53)