1896

1896 (MDCCCXCVI) was a leap year beginning on Wednesday according to the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

• January 4: Utah becomes the 45th state of the United States.
• January 21: In Banfield, the Banfield Atletic Club is born. Originally to compete in Cricket. From 1897 to the present, one of the most prestigious football clubs of the First Division of Argentina.

February

• February 24th or March 1st: In France, physicist Henri Becquerel announced the discovery of a radiation emitted by uranium.
• February 25: Paul de Smet de Naeyer became Prime Minister of Belgium.

March

• 1 March: the Ethiopian troops of Menelik II crush the Italian colonial army in the battle of Adua, which marked the end of Italian imperialism in Africa.
• March 4: Martinus Theunis Steyn becomes president of the Free State of Orange.
• 5 March: in Barcelona the first issue of the newspaper is sold Newsfounded by Rafael Roldós.
• March 9: Responding to the national outrage at the defeat in Adua in Abisinia, the Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns. Subsequently, Abisinia (Ethiopia) would be recognized as an independent State.
• March 31: Tirésias Simon-Sam becomes president of Haiti.

April

• 6-15 April: the first Olympic Games of the modern era are held in Athens.
• April 7th to August 27th: Nansen's Arctic expedition aboard the Fram reaches 86°13.6'N, overcoming the established record and returning to Norway on September 9th as national heroes.
• April 14: in Pinar del Río (Cuba)—in the framework of the Cuban war of independence—the battle of Loma de Tapia begins between the troops of Antonio Maceo (1845-1896) against several Spanish columns under the orders of General Julián Suárez Inclán (1849-1909) and sent by the Spanish governor Valeriano Weyler.
• April 30: in Pinar del Río (Cuba), the forces of General Antonio Maceo beat the Spanish army led by General Julián Suárez Inclán in the fight of Cacarajícara.

May

• 1 May: in the city of Rey (Iran), Mirza Reza Kermaní murders Monarch Naseredín Sha Kayar. His son, Mozaffareddín Shah Qayar, happens.
• May 15: The first film projection of that country is carried out in Spain.

June

• 15 June: on the high seas off the coast of Iwate, Japan, at 19:32 (local time) an earthquake of 8.5. The resulting tsunami hits the coast in the town of Sanriku, reaching 38 meters high, the highest altitude in Japan until the 2011 earthquake. In the town, 22,000 people die and some 9,000 houses are destroyed. The fishermen, about 30 km from the coast, felt nothing, but the next morning they found the coast full of rubble and the bodies of their relatives.

August

• August 19: In Bolivia he assumes the presidency Severo Fernández Alonso by the Conservative Party.
• August 26: In the Philippines the Katipunan rebellion against the Spanish invaders explodes.
• August 27: In Zanzibar, the ships of the British Royal Navy destroy the Beit al Hukum palace in 38 minutes, soldiers invade the country and make it a British colony. It is considered the shortest war in history.
• August 31: In the prefectures of Akita and Iwate there is a strong earthquake of 7.2 that leaves more than 200 dead and 700 wounded.

September

• 27 September (day of San Damián): in the forests of Sandoá (on the east of Paraguay), Paraguayan settlers kill a family of the Aché ethnic group with gunshots and machetazos, and they kidnap a surviving girl, Krÿguí (three years old)—who they baptize Damiana. Anthropologists Hernan F. C. Ten Kate (Netherlands) and Charles de la Hitte (France) are bought to study the "lost link" between monkeys and humans.

October

• October 5: in Guayaquil the Great Fire of Guayaquil begins, also known as the Big Fire. The fire began on the night of 5 October and spread until the evening of 8 October 1896. The fire destroyed approximately half of the city, from the government sector to the beginning of Las Peñas (Guayaquil).

November

• November 3: United States presidential elections of 1896. Democratic President Grover Cleveland loses the primary of his party for re-election. William Jennings Bryan is the Democratic Party candidate and is defeated by Republican William McKinley for a margin of 241 electoral votes compared to 206.
• November 8: Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovers a type of electromagnetic radiation known as X-rays.

Art and literature

• Paul Cezanne: Card players.
• Auguste Rodin: The Hand of God.
• Arturo Michelena: Miranda in La Carraca.
• H. G. Wells: The island of Dr. Moreau.
• Reuben Darius: Profanous profanes.
• Joaquín Sorolla: Cooking the candle

Music

• Francisco Tárrega: Memories of the Alhambra.
• Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème.
• Aleksandr Skriabin: Concert for piano in minor fa, op. 20.

December

• 1 December: in Mexico, General Porfirio Díaz holds the presidency for the sixth time for the presidential term 1896-1900.

Science and technology

• Henri Poincaré: Probation calculation.
• March 1st: In France, physicist Henri Becquerel discovered a new property of the matter: radioactivity.
• Wilhelm Wundt: Compendium of psychology.
• Jacques Hadamard and Charles-Jean de la Vallée Poussin demonstrate the Theorem of the prime numbers.

Sports

Olympic Games

• 6-15 April: in Athens (Greece) the I Olympic Games of the modern era take place.
  • The Olympic selection of the United States rises in the medallero.

Cycling

• April 19: France celebrates the first edition of the cyclist race Paris-Roubaix.

Football

• January 21: In Banfield, Argentina, the Atlético Banfield Club was founded.
• March 3: the FC Lyn Oslo is founded.
• April 12: In the city of Hannover, Germany, the Hannover 96 was founded.
• May 26: In the city of Oruro (Bolivia), the Oruro Royal Club is founded, the oldest football club in that country.
• 1 August: the FC Zürich was founded in the city of Zurich (Switzerland).
• November 30: In the city of Údine (Italy) the Udinese Calcio football club is founded.
• December 22: In the city of Lima (Peru) the Club Ciclista Lima Association is founded, which is the fourth oldest football club in that country.

Tennis

• Universidad de Estados Unidos:
  • Individual Winner: Elisabeth Moore by United States.
  • Individual winner: Robert Wrenn by United States.

• Wimbledon Championship:
  • Individual Winner: Charlotte Cooper by UK.
  • Individual winner: Harold Mahony by UK.

• French Championship:
  • Individual winner: André Vacherot by France.

Births

January

• 2 January: Dziga Vertov, Russian filmmaker (f. 1954).
• 4 January: André Masson, a French painter (f. 1987).
• 8 January:
  • Manuel Rojas, an Argentine-Chinese writer (f. 1973).
  • Luciano Kulczewski, Chilean architect.
• January 12: Boris Skósyrev, Russian adventurer and "king" of Andorra (f. 1989).
• January 14: John Dos Passos, American novelist and plastic artist (f. 1970).
• January 15: Víctor de la Serna, a Spanish journalist (f. 1958).

February

• February 1: Anastasio Somoza García, politician and dictator of Nicaragua (f. 1956).
• February 2: Kazimierz Kuratowski, Polish mathematician (f. 1980).

Guadalupe Muñoz Sampedro

• 15 February:
  • Celina del Carmen Olea, Argentine supercentenary.
  • Guadalupe Muñoz Sampedro, Spanish actress (f. 1975).
• February 18: André Bretón, French poet (f. 1966).
• February 20: Emil Vodder, Danish doctor (f. 1986).
• February 28: Philip Showalter Hench, American doctor, nobel medical prize in 1950 (f. 1965).

March

• March 26: Manuel de Castro, Uruguayan writer (f. 1970).

April

• April 8: Yip Harburg, American lyricist, song Over the rainbow (f. 1981).

May

• May 3: Raúl Contreras, poet, playwright and Salvadoran diplomat (f. 1973).
• 18 May: Brock Chisholm, Canadian psychiatrist, Director-General of WHO between 1948 and 1953 (f. 1971).
• May 19: Jorge Alessandri, Chilean President (f. 1986).
• May 25: Andrea Gutiérrez Cahuana, Peruvian supercentenary (f. 2020).
• May 30: Howard Hawks, American producer and filmmaker (f. 1977).

June

• 6 June: Italo Balbo, an Italian politician (f. 1940).
• June 11: Juan L. Ortiz, writer and Argentine poet (f. 1978).

July

Quirino Cristiani

• 2 July: Quirino Cristiani, cartoonist and director of Argentine animation (f. 1984).
• July 14: Buenaventura Durruti, a Spanish anarchist revolutionary and trade unionist (f. 1936).
• July 16: Trygve Lie, Norwegian politician (f. 1968).
• July 19: A. J. Cronin, British novelist (f. 1981).
• July 20: Eunice Sanborn, American supercentennial (f. 2011).
• July 28: Barbara La Marr, actress, cabaret artist and American screenwriter (f. 1926).

August

• August 9: Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist (f. 1980).
• August 10: Walter Lang, American filmmaker (f. 1972).
• August 12: Lino Enea Spilimbergo, Argentinean artist (f. 1964).
• August 26: Besse Cooper, U.S. Supercentenary (f. 2012).

September

• 1 September: Bhaktivedanta Swami, Indian Hindu religious, founder of the Hare Krishna (f. 1977).
• 4 September: Antonin Artaud, French poet and playwright (f. 1948).
• September 24: F. Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (f. 1940).

Irene Bernasconi

• 25 September:
  • Irene Bernasconi, Argentine marine biologist (f. 1989).
  • Sandro Pertini, politician and Italian president (f. 1990).

October

• October 3: Gerardo Diego, Spanish poet (f. 1987).
• 7 October: Paulino Alcántara, Spanish footballer (f. 1964).
• 11 October: Roman Jakobson, linguist, phenologist and theorist of Russian literature (f. 1982).
• October 12: Eugenio Montale, Italian poet, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975 (f. 1981).
• 15 October: Célestin Freinet, French pedagogue (f. 1966).
• 17 October: Román Románov, Russian prince.
• October 18: Frederick Hollander, German composer (f. 1976).

David Alfaro Siqueiros

• October 30: Kostas Karyotakis, Greek poet (f. 1928).
• October 31: the Petiso Orejudo (Cayetano Santos Godino), a serial killer Argentine child (f. 1944).

November

• 17 November: Lev Vygotsky, a Belarusian psychologist (f. 1934).

December

• 1 December: Gueorgui Zhúkov, Soviet military (f. 1974).
• 14 December: James H. Doolittle, American military (f. 1993).
• 23 December: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Italian writer (f. 1957).
• December 29: David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican painter (f. 1974).

Deaths

January

• January 8: Paul Verlaine, French Symbolist poet (n. 1844).
• January 20: Enrique de Battenberg (n. 1858).
• 25 January: Vicente Palmaroli González Spanish painter dedicated to the historical genre (n. 1834).
• January 27: Enrique de Ossó and Cervelló, a Spanish priest and saint (n. 1840).

March

• March 22: Isabel Burton, British writer and translator (n.1831).
• March 26: Rafaela Rimbau, Spanish actress (n. 1819).

May

• 1 May: Nasereddin Sah Kayar, king of Persia (n. 1831).
• May 20: Clara Wieck, German composer and pianist (n. 1819).
• May 23: José Asunción Silva, a Colombian poet (n. 1865).

July

• 1 July: Leandro N. Alem, an Argentine politician (n. 1842).
• July 13: Friedrich Kekulé, German chemical (n. 1829).
• 16 July: Edmond de Goncourt, French writer (n. 1822).

October

• October 3: William Morris, painter, sketch artist and British writer (n. 1834).
• 11 October: Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer and organist (n. 1824).

November

• 14 November: Italo Campanini, Italian tenor (n. 1845).

December

• December 7: Antonio Maceo Grajales, Cuban military (n. 1845).
• December 7: Francisco Gómez Toro, Cuban military (n. 1876).
• December 10: Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor (n. 1833).
• December 30: José Rizal, doctor, writer and Philippine national hero (n. 1861).