Firsts
Ellis Island opens. Rudolf Diesel applies for a patent for the Diesel engine. The Carnegie Steel Company, Liverpool Football Club and Newcastle United F.C. are founded. Abercrombie & Fitch is established. The “Pledge of Allegiance” is first recited by students in U.S. public schools. The Nutcracker ballet with music by Tchaikovsky is premiered. Viruses are discovered by the Russian—Ukrainian biologist Dimitri Ivanovski
Elections
In the USA, Grover Cleveland beats incumbent Benjamin Harrison to win the second of his non-consecutive terms. In the UK, William Ewart Gladstone assumes British premiership as head of the Liberal government. John Thompson becomes Canada’s fourth prime minister.
Upheaval
Homer Plessy is arrested for sitting on the whites-only car in Louisiana, leading to the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson court case. In the Homestead Strike, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton detectives from New York and Chicago results in a fight in which about 10 men are killed. The Dalton Gang, attempting to rob 2 banks in Coffeyville, Kansas, is shot by the townspeople; only Emmett Dalton, with 23 wounds, survives, to spend 14 years in prison.
Births
Charles Atlas, Italian-American strongman and sideshow performer (d. 1972)
Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician (d. 1945)
Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
Eddie Cantor, American actor, singer (d. 1964)
Pinto Colvig, American vaudeville actor, radio actor, newspaper cartoonist, prolific movie voice actor, and circus performer (original voice of Goofy) (d. 1967)
Robert Ritter von Greim, German field marshal (d. 1945)
Oliver Hardy, American comedian and actor (d. 1957)
Mississippi John Hurt, American country blues singer and guitarist (d. 1966)
Robert H. Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials (d. 1954)
Gummo Marx, American actor and comedian (d. 1977)
Mary Pickford, Canadian actress and studio founder (d. 1979)
Basil Rathbone, British actor (d. 1967)
Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), German World War I fighter pilot (d. 1918)
Hal Roach, American film and television producer (d. 1992)
Margaret Rutherford, English actress (d. 1972)
Haile Selassie I, Ethiopian emperor (d. 1975)
Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia (d. 1980)
J. R. R. Tolkien, professor and author of The Lord of the Rings (d. 1973)
César Vallejo, Peruvian poet (d. 1938)
Wendell Willkie, U.S. Republican presidential candidate (d. 1944)
Deaths
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, second in line for the throne of the United Kingdom (b. 1864)
Bahá’u’lláh, Persian founder of the Bahá’à Faith (b. 1817)
Robert Ford, assassin of Jesse James (b. 1862)
Jay Gould, American financier (b. 1836)
Édouard Lalo, French composer (b. 1823)
Werner von Siemens, German inventor and industrialist (b. 1816)
Charles Spurgeon, English preacher (b. 1834)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, British poet (b. 1809)
Louis Vuitton, world-renowned French fashion designer (b. 1821)
Walt Whitman, American poet (b. 1819)