Philosopher Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, in which he argued that dreams are a coded expression of repressed sexual desires.

United States. Elmer Sperry sells all his patents on electric cars, which he had focused on after unsuccessfully trying to acquire George Selden’s powerful patent on internal combustion engines.

There are 1.508 million people in the world

Energy source: Oil (Carbon/Hydrogen ratio: 1/2)

Canada. Luigi Zarossi, an immigrant from Italy, after getting rich with the first Chain Letter, was forced to flee to Mexico, but not before teaching the trick to the enterprising Romagnol Carlo Ponzi, later Charles Ponzi, who even managed to patent the “Ponzi scheme.”

At 17, Robert Goddard, when he took refuge in his cherry tree near his home in Worcester, Massachusetts, imagined spaceships landing on Mars. When he came down from the tree, he was a different person: he would dedicate the rest of his life to building rockets and would celebrate Anniversary Day every year, October 19th, under his cherry tree. In 1938, the tree was uprooted. Goddard was living in New Mexico and wrote in his diary: “Cherry tree down—have to carry on alone.”

Hilbert: Axiomization of Geometry

American Francis Lechner invents the ball bearing

MC Escher

Pierre Curie wrote the letters Po for polonium in the laboratory log, a name given in honor of Marie’s beloved homeland, Poland. However, the element was still linked to bismuth and barium in plechbenda, a uranium mineral, in which they would eventually find radium in 1902, but only by starting with enormous quantities (10 tons) of plechbenda. Marie and Pierre Curie thus identified an element 300 times more radioactive than uranium, an element that would be used by the Soviets on two Lunokhods on the Moon (a third also worked at Chernobyl), and, alas, also for other less noble uses by the Soviet and then Russian KGB.

Aluminum is worth about one hundredth of silver. In 1855, when an industrial process was first developed to extract it from bauxite, it cost 12 times as much as silver. The use and diffusion of aluminum went from specific to common and finally banal, a process that took millennia for iron and copper.

China. The Boxer Rebellion begins. They are devoted to an ancient form of mysticism and believe they are magically invulnerable to firearms. The Boxers are so called because of their skill in martial arts. They unleash a violent campaign against foreigners and symbols of Western culture. The revolt will continue for over two years.

The Philippines proclaims independence. After 300 years of Spanish rule, Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo proclaims his country’s independence during the Spanish-American War. With the support of the United States, Aguinaldo quickly expelled the Spanish and established Asia’s first democratic republic, which lasted only until the US took control in late 1898. In February 1899, Aguinaldo started a revolt. The conflict lasted three years. In 1901, Aguinaldo was taken prisoner, and in 1902, the revolt was put down. The Philippines became independent in 1946 with the end of World War II and the Japanese occupation.

William Ramsay, professor of Chemistry at University College London, discovers xenon, or the alien. Among those who were skeptical of this plethora of new elements that would create a whole new column in the Table of Elements was Mendeleev himself. They would only be convinced in 1900.

Havana, Cuba (a Spanish possession). The American battleship USS Maine, anchored in the harbor, suddenly explodes and quickly sinks. Some of the sailors are rescued by the nearby, mighty Spanish ship Alfonso XII. In all, 85 sailors are saved, and 265 lose their lives. Admiral Charles Dwight Sigbee realizes that his report on the incident has the potential to spark conflict with Spain, given the already tense relations over Cuba, which has a strong independence movement and is sympathetic to the Americans. On the other hand, he is obviously reluctant to admit an accidental explosion, possibly due to negligence. He therefore leaves the matter pending, citing friction with Spanish sailors the previous evening on the Alfonso XII anchored opposite, and citing the excellent discipline on board. He thus leaves the decision to wage war to the political authorities. After long discussions, they decide to wage war with Spain. It would later be discovered, by scientific expeditions a century later, that the Maine had probably exploded from the inside due to accumulated gases.

Leo Szilard was born in Budapest, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The first skyscraper is built in New York: the Manhattan Life Insurance Building on Broadway.

Royal Institution, London. Physicist Thomson, in evening dress, recreates a series of experiments at the periodic Friday Evening Discourse event. These events were designed to publicly showcase the latest scientific discoveries and drew huge crowds each time.

H.G. Wells writes The Plattner Story, in which the protagonist finds himself living in a universe with Möbius strip geometry, so that when he walks in one direction he finds himself with inverted symmetry, including his internal organs.

The Times reports the news of a “Benin Disaster”: a British delegation in Benin is attacked and some of its members killed. In response, the British organize a punitive expedition that exiles the Oba Regent and creates the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The loot includes ivory, jewels, and hundreds of statues and large worked brass plaques. The arrival of these artifacts in Europe will change the perception of African civilizations, previously thought to be backward and incapable of such fine artistic works. Several of these enormous brass plaques (larger than an A3 sheet of paper) show the Oba with his warriors meeting European visitors.

Ronald Ross contracted malaria while in Ooty, India. Transferred to Secunderabad, he discovered the presence of malaria in a species of mosquito, the Anopheles. Following the hypothesis of his mentor, Sir Patrick Manson, he managed to find malaria in a mosquito that had bitten Hussain Khan, who was suffering from malaria. He would win the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1902. To prove his theory, Patrick Manson infected his own son (who fortunately recovered after a dose of quinine C20H24N2O2).

The Niagara Power Plant begins transmitting power to Buffalo using three-phase AC, using the Westinghouse-Tesla solution. Within the following decade, the same electrical power will also reach New York. A similar solution will soon be adopted on the Canadian side of the Falls. Following the success of the operation, all American and European utilities will switch to three-phase AC, which has now become the global standard.