1891

1891 (MDCCCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 1 - Paying of old age pensions begins in Germany
• January 20 - Jim Hogg becomes the first native Texan to be governor of that state.
• January 29 - Liliuokalani proclaimed Queen of Hawaii
• January 31 - The Portuguese republican revolution broke out in the northern city of Porto.
• February 14 - In the FA cup Quarter Final, a goal is deliberately stopped by handball on the goal line. An Indirect free kick is awarded, since the Penalty kick was proposed that year but not implemented. This event probably changed public opinion on the penalty kick, which was seen as 'an Irishman's motion' before. (See William McCrum.)
• March 3 - The International Copyright Act of 1891 was passed by the 51st Congress of the United States of America
• March 9 - 12 - Powerful storm off England's south coast; 14 ships sink
• March 14 - In New Orleans, lynch mob storms the Old Parish Prison and lynches eleven Italians arrested but found innocent for the murder of Police Chief David Hennessey.
• March 17 - The British steamship SS Utopia sinks off the coast of Gibraltar, killing 574.
• April 1 - The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago, Illinois.
• May 1 - Nine killed and thirty wounded when troops fire on workers' May Day demonstration in support of eight-hour workday in Fourmies, France.
• May 5 - The Music Hall in New York (now known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with maestro Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
• May 15 - Roman Catholic Pope Leo XIII issues the encyclical "Rerum Novarum" resulting in the creation of many Christian Democrat Parties throughout Europe.
• May 20 - First public display of Thomas Alva Edison's prototype kinetoscope (shown at Edison's Laboratory for a convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs).
• June 16 - John Abbott becomes Canada's third prime minister.
• June 21 - First long-distance transmission of Alternating current by the Ames power plant near Telluride, Colorado by Lucien and Paul Nunn.
• August 27 - France and Russia conclude defensive alliance.
• October 1 - In California, Stanford University opens its doors
• October 27 - An 8.0 earthquake strikes the village of Utsuzumi in rural Gifu, Japan, killing over 7,000 across the region and creating a 3-meter-tall surface fault that is still visible today
• December 29 - Thomas Edison patents the radio

Unknown dates

• Building of The Trans-Siberian Railroad begins (ends 1917)
• The Brahmin teacher and nationalist, Bal Bangadhar tilak, begins agitation for Indian home Rule
• Civil War in Chile
• Kicking Bear surrenders
• Famine in Russia
• Maria Skłodowska enters Sorbonne University
• New Scotland Yard becomes the HQ of London Metropolitan Police
• Swiss Army Knife
• Eugene Dubois made first discovery of Homo erectus fossils in Dutch colony of Java.
• Winter - James Naismith invents Basketball
• The Tobacco Protest occurs in Iran
• Oba Ovonramwen seizes the throne of Benin
• Auckland University Students' Association founded

Births

• January 7 - Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Renaissance writer (d. 1960)
• January 8 - Walther Bothe, German physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics (d. 1957)
• January 27 - Ilya Ehrenburg, Russian writer (d. 1967)
• February 9 - Ronald Colman, English actor (d. 1958)
• February 11 - J.W. Hearne, English cricketer (d. 1965)
• February 27 - David Sarnoff, Russian-born broadcasting pioneer (d. 1971)
• March 10 - Sam Jaffe, American actor (d. 1984)
• March 19 - Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1974)
• March 29 - Yvan Goll, French lyricist and dramatist (d. 1950)
• April 2 - Max Ernst, German painter (d. 1976)
• April 13 - Nella Larsen, American novelist (d. 1964)
• April 17 - George Adamski, Polish-born UFO traveler (d. 1965)
• April 23 - Sergei Prokofiev, Soviet composer (d. 1953)
• May 7 - Harry McShane, Scottish socialist (d. 1988)
• May 15 - Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian writer (d. 1940)
• May 15 - Fritz Feigl, Austrian-born chemist (d. 1971)
• May 16 - Richard Tauber, Austrian tenor (d. 1948)
• May 18 - Rudolf Carnap, German philosopher (d. 1970)
• May 19 - Oswald Boelcke, German World War I pilot (d. 1916)
• May 22 - Eddie Edwards, American jazz trombonist (d. 1963)
• May 23 - Pär Lagerkvist, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
• May 24 - William F. Albright, American archeologist and Biblical scholar (d. 1971)
• June 9 - Cole Porter, American composer and songwriter (d. 1964)
• June 20 - John A. Costello, second President of Ireland (d. 1976)
• June 21 - Hermann Scherchen, German conductor (d. 1966)
• June 30 - Man Mountain Dean, American professional wrestler (d. 1953)
• July 5 - John Howard Northrop, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
• August 21 - Emiliano Mercado del Toro, American supercentenarian, oldest surviving American veteran of World War I
• September 12 - Pedro Albizu Campos, advocate of Puerto Rican independence (d. 1965)
• September 14 - William F. Friedman, American cryptographer (d. 1969)
• September 16 - Karl Dönitz, President of Germany (d. 1980)
• September 16 - Stephanie von Hohenlohe, Austrian-born German World War II spy (d. 1972)
• September 26 - Charles Munch, French conductor and violinist (d. 1968)
• September 28 - Myrtle Gonzalez, American film and stage actress (d. 1918)
• October 12 - Fumimaro Konoe, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1945)
• October 20 - James Chadwick, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
• October 24 - Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic (d. 1961)
• November 14 - Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1941)
• November 15 - Vincent Astor, American philanthropist (d. 1959)
• November 15 - Erwin Rommel, German field marshal (d. 1944)
• December 9 - Maksim Bahdanovič, Belarusian poet
• December 10 - Nelly Sachs, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)
• December 26 - Henry Miller, American writer (d. 1980)

Deaths

• January 5 - Emma Abbott, American opera singer (b. 1849)
• January 16 - Léo Delibes, French composer (b. 1836)
• January 21 - Calixa Lavallée, Canadian composer (b. 1842)
• March 15 - Théodore de Banville, French writer (b. 1823)
• March 15 - Sir Joseph Bazalgette, English civil engineer (b. 1819)
• March 29 - Georges Seurat, French painter (b. 1859)
• April 7 - P. T. Barnum, American showman (b. 1810)
• April 24 - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Prussian field marshal (b. 1800)
• May 8 - Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Russian-born author and theosophist (b. 1831)
• July 4 - Hannibal Hamlin, Vice President of the United States (b. 1809)
• August 12 - James Russell Lowell, American poet and essayist (b. 1819)
• August 14 - Sarah Childress Polk, First Lady of the United States (b. 1803)
• September 11 - Antero de Quental, Portuguese poet (b. 1842)
• September 15 - Ivan Goncharov, Russian author (b. 1812)
• September 28 - Herman Melville, American novelist (b. 1819)
• October 6 - Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish nationalist leader (b. 1846)
• October 15 - Gilbert Arthur a Beckett, English writer (b. 1837)
• November 10 - Arthur Rimbaud, French poet (b. 1854)
• December 5 - Pedro II, Brazilian deposed emperor (b. 1826)
•  ? - Pierre Lallement, French inventor of the bicycle (b. 1843?)

Fictional events of the year

Sherlock Holmes is believed to have died in the Reichenbach fall with the "Napoleon of crime", Professor James Moriarty.