FQ

Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead publish their Principia Mathematica, a gigantic work

Korea becomes a Japanese colony

Nobel Prize in Physics to Van der Waals for the equation of state of gases and liquids

Bertram Boltwood combines information on uranium half-lives and the abundances of lead in uranium to estimate the age of the Earth at 2.2 billion years.

The asteroid Achilles is discovered, exactly at the point where Lagrange had predicted for the Jupiter-Sun-third-body system in his solution to the three-body problem in some special cases. These points, occupied by Trojan asteroids in the case of Jupiter, are now called Lagrangian Points.

French mathematician Pierre Fatou develops Complex Analytical Dynamics, which studies formulas such as x=x^2 + c with complex numbers; the formula under consideration in particular generates the Mandelbrot Set.

Max Weber writes: “The impulse of acquisition, pursuit of gain, of money, of the greatest possible amount of money, has in itself nothing to do with capitalism. (…) One may say that it has been common to all sorts and conditions of men at all

Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure.

The first city electricity network was laid in Modena; the first electric lights were installed in the shop windows of the Portico del Collegio and Via Farini.

Nikola Tesla, a Yugoslavian scientist, patents logic circuits called “gates” or “switches”

John von Neumann is born into a prosperous Jewish family in Budapest. The Austro-Hungarian Empire has just abolished its anti-Semitic laws. But the future scientist will have to see them reinstated by the Germans.

Paris. Eugene Anatole Demarcay isolates europium, a rare earth. Europium is the most reactive of the rare earths, so much so that it must be preserved in oil to prevent it from catching fire. It will be used in Euro banknotes (perhaps because of its

Japanese scientist Jokichi Takamine isolates adrenaline, the first hormone

The United States ends the guerrilla war in the Philippines and imposes its protectorate there.

Queen Victoria dies. The death of Queen Victoria marks the end of an era. Upon her death, most British subjects had known no other monarch: over half a century of reign (the longest in British history), she saw the growth of an empire on which

The Berezovka Mammoth, a complete mammoth specimen with meat in an excellent state of preservation, is discovered and is exhibited at the Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg

George Eastman of Eastman Kodak offers a camera for only $1

The role played by Jews in 20th-century intellectual life—especially in the United States—is truly spectacular and distinctive. They constitute just 0.2% of the world’s population, and 2% of the U.S. population, yet they have won 22% of all Nobel Prizes (awarded in Sweden and Norway),

National football championships are born in Europe and South America

The Ottomans are driven out of the Balkans by rising nationalisms

William Henry Pickering discovers Saturn’s moon Phoebe, with a retrograde and inclined orbit. It is the first moon with an anomalous orbit discovered. It is likely a body captured by Saturn after its formation.

J.J. Thomson shows that the filaments of a light bulb emit electrons: he discovers thermionic emission. By adding an additional electrode, it attracts current through a vacuum or, if negatively charged, repels it. The vacuum tube, invented two decades earlier by Thomas Edison, now finds

Giovanni Agnelli (grandfather of Giovanni Agnelli Jr.) founds the Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (FIAT). Only 100 cars are in circulation in Italy; in France, there are already 5,000.

Nikola Tesla believed he had discovered the planet’s electrical resonant frequency and could use it to produce standing waves. With his equipment, he produced 12,000,000 volts and 1,100 amps via radio and attempted to transmit the electrical power via radio. During his experiments, he observed

Nikola Tesla arrives in Colorado Springs. He stays at the Alta Vista Hotel. He soon identifies a site to build his experimental station: Knob Hill. He will put up a sign that reads: “KEEP OUT: GREAT DANGER! Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” to

Nikola Tesla leaves New York for Colorado. He travels by train and stops in Chicago for one of his famous public demonstrations.

Guglielmo Marconi had the idea of The Big Thing: wireless radio communication between the two sides of the Atlantic. For the undertaking, he hired the famous scientist John A. Fleming in May 1899.

Pierre and Marie Curie received 10 tons of radioactive waste from plechbenda, a uranium ore. It consisted of bags of brown powder mixed with pine needles, a waste already more radioactive than the base ore. It was processed 20 kg at a time in a

United States. President McKinley, after two months of parliamentary debate following the USS Maine incident, sends a 7,000-word message to Congress requesting the use of military force to intervene in the conflict between Cuba and Spain and achieve Cuba’s independence. The House approves the motion

Juventus FC is founded

First census in Russia. 125 million people representing 147 different ethnic groups and languages were counted.

Providence State Fair, Rhode Island. Two electric cars, capable of averaging 15.5 mph, beat two gasoline-powered Duryeas in the first-ever car race held in the United States.

London. Guglielmo Marconi receives several business proposals. Engineers Frank Wynne and David Urquhart ask him to join them, acquiring a 40% stake in the company, where they would handle marketing, with no risk to him. Then the powerful Chief Engineer of the General Post Office,

Cuba (Spanish possession). Spain sends 220,285 soldiers overseas to quell a revolt of 30,000 Cubans. This is the largest military force to cross the Atlantic until the Normandy landings. The Cuban revolt is temporarily quelled, but continues for years as a guerrilla war.

The algebraist Elie Cartan completes the work of the German Wilhelm Killing, classifying all the continuous simple groups (for example the Lie groups): there are 4 families of classical groups and 5 exceptional groups of dimension 78, 133, 248, 52, 14

H.G. Wells writes The Time Machine, in which he discusses time as a fourth dimension. The concept had already been introduced by Jean d’Alambert in his 1754 article “Dimension.” Wells’s novel is set in England in the year 802701.

Scottish physicist Charles C. T. R. Wilson, from the summit of Mount Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles, took meteorological measurements for two weeks to study clouds and their formation. Upon returning to Cambridge, he conducted several confirmatory experiments. He then realized that

Australia. Irishman Patrick Hannan and two other traveling companions set up camp in a makeshift site because one of their horses had lost its shoe. They discover a gold deposit so rich that they collect nuggets from the ground. They apply for an official concession,

The uninhabited island of Trindade or Trinidad (an uninhabited island less than 10 square kilometers in the South Atlantic, east of Brazil; not to be confused with Trinidad in the Caribbean) was claimed by James Harden-Hickey of San Francisco, who declared it a military dictatorship

Westinghouse wins the contract to build and install the first two AC generators at Niagara Falls. Banker Edward Dean Adams (formerly head of the Cataract Construction Company in Niagara) of the International Niagara Commission also awards General Electric the contract to build the 20-mile (33

Chicago World’s Fair, also known as the Columbian Exposition. The contract for the fair’s electricity was won by Westinghouse, and thus, for the first time, it was alternated, as desired by Tesla, who collaborated with Westinghouse.

The zipper was invented by the American Whitcomb Judson, and later perfected in 1906 by the Swede Sundback.

US Navy mathematician Hill finds remarkable mathematical trick to simplify lunar orbit calculations

Henri Poincare’ revises his thesis in Acta Mathematica: the solar system is stable and introduces the notion of dynamic chaos.

Claude Monet paints cathedrals and water lilies

Henri Poincare’ wins Weierstrass Prize: The solar system is stable

Meucci died in poverty on Staten Island, New York, while his court case against Bell was still pending.

Wilhelm II, grandson of Wilhelm I, becomes Kaiser: the seeds of the Holocaust that will mark the history of the 20th century are planted; Friederich II, father of Wilhelm II, had been designated as Wilhelm I’s successor but was poorly treated for a mild but

Construction begins on Fort Duamont at Verdun

Druggist John Pomberton sells the first glass of Coca-Cola at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in downtown Atlanta. He serves nine drinks a day for his first year. John Styth Pemberton’s original recipe for Coca-Cola is said to have included coca leaves.

Thomas Alva Edison goes on a trip to upstate New York and New Hampshire with 19-year-old Mina Miller and four other companions. Mina will become Thomas Edison’s wife there the following year.

In 1885, the United States placed a 3-kg pyramid of the precious metal (aluminum) on the obelisk dedicated to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate the nation’s wealth (it would be worth a few euros today). The value of 3 kg of aluminum at the time would

Thomas Alva Edison was granted US Patent 251,545 for his electrolytic meter, which measured electricity without a coil and requiring no power supply. It allowed those wishing to tax electricity to measure it reliably and inexpensively, thus opening up enormous commercial prospects. Thomas Alva Edison

Egypt. Nationalists rebel against British rule and unilaterally cancel all foreign debt. Queen Victoria disagrees and sends a military force to reestablish control of Egypt, which will remain British until World War II.

Thomas Alva Edison leaves Menlo Park, New Jersey, and settles with his family at 72 Fifth Avenue in New York. That same day, Samuel Insull arrives from England to manage Edison’s rather dire finances, as he was almost childlike when it came to money.

Three kings of the financial world, John Pierpot Morgan, Egisto Fabbri, and Jacob C. Rogers, visit Thomas Alva Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey. J.P. Morgan’s formidable lobbying power helps curb the tax greed of Mayor William Grace, who settles for a flat rate of

Thomas Alva Edison moves his headquarters from Menlo Park, New Jersey, to Manhattan, New York.

Nails are manufactured with steam engines; the cost of nails drops dramatically

special train arrives in Menlo Park from Thomas Alva Edison with a large concourse of municipal dignitaries. The Kentucky bourbon and cigars are ready. So are the 200 streetlights with filament bulbs along the avenue. Even the gas superintendent (gas lamps were the alternative), Stephen

South Africa: The British are massacred by the Zulus in the Battle of Islandluana.

Japan annexes the Ryuku Islands, which extend for hundreds of kilometers south of the Japanese mainland.

The German philosopher Gottlob Frege, after moving from Wismar on the Baltic coast to Jena and then to Göttingen, published Begriffsschrift (Ideography). This was a new symbolism for clarifying logical relationships, still used in propositional calculus. Modern mathematical logic was born.

Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovers Samarium, which will be used in permanent magnets for brushless motors, lights for projectors, lasers, and nuclear reactors.

Thomas Alva Edison was so desperate for new words to refer to his inventions (he had 1,093 patents) that he ordered his bookseller to provide him with a copy of the etymological glossary of words of Greek origin. His collaborator, Charles Batchelorin, jokingly signed himself

Scottish engineer John Rennie invents the clutch

The Englishman Samuel Fox invented the umbrella with a metal frame that allowed it to close

An iguanodon skeleton was found in Belgium (it is one of the first dinosaurs discovered and studied)

Unification of Germany at the end of the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War: Paris falls, France is demoralized and bankrupt from the war lost to Germany.

Japan. After lengthy negotiations, four daimyo, who had inspired the Meiji Restoration, were persuaded to donate part of their lands in Edo (present-day Tokyo) to the Emperor. The imperial attitude changed completely: the Emperor, during his 45-year reign, made 102 trips outside Tokyo, to the

US buys Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million

The Third War of Independence ends: after its proclamation, the Kingdom of Italy sought to complete territorial unification through the conquest of Veneto (held by Austria) and Papal Lazio. With the Third War of Independence (June 20–August 23, 1866), Veneto was acquired: Italy exploited the

Third Battle of Vicksburg. The third assault by General Grant’s Federal armies against the impregnable defenses of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River takes place. Ships with curious or catchy names are consumed before the fort’s ramparts: the Indianola, the Queen of the West, the Albatross,

Japan. A 28-year-old English merchant, Charles Richardson, is attacked by a Satsuma warrior in the street for failing to show proper respect during a procession, and left to bleed to death.

The Union war fleet under Captain David Glasgow Ferragut opened fire on the fortifications of New Orleans. It had 302 cannons to counter the Confederate 166 guns, but they were much better protected by the earthworks. In four days of bombardment, it hurled 16,800 shells

Genoa. The city finally surrenders to Piedmontese troops led by La Marmora and Govone. The occupation is followed by looting, with the usual corollary of rape and violence. An American ship, stationed in the port of Genoa, takes 450 of the most compromised Genoese into

Milan. Austrian General Rath leads a battalion of grenadiers, and as he passes the Osteria di San Carlino, the wife of the innkeeper Costantino Beretta throws a flowerpot, which hits the general squarely in the head, knocking him off his horse. The general’s wound causes

Milan. 1,158 Argand kerosene lamps illuminate the city streets.

The American War of Independence ends; American casualties reach 4,435.

After the Great Fire of 1666, London became the largest European city with 750,000 inhabitants (in the UK there are 7.5 million); Amsterdam, however, remained the main commercial center for a few more years.