1888

1888 is a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). In Germany, 1888 is known as the 1888 Year of Three Emperors.

Events

• January 3 – 91cm telescope first used at Lick Observatory
• January 12 ? Blizzards in Dakota and Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska and Texas – 235 dead, many of which were children on their way home from school
• January 24 – Jacob L. Wortman patents the typewriter ribbon.
• January 27 – In Washington, DC the National Geographic Society is founded.
• March 11 – The "Great Blizzard of '88" begins along the eastern seaboard of the United States, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400.
• March 22 – The Football League is formed
• April 11 – The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam is inaugurated.
• May 13 – Brazil abolishes slavery.
• June 19 – In Chicago Republican Convention opens at Auditorium Building. General Benjamin Harrison & Levi Morton will win the nominations.
• August 7 – The body of Martha Tabram was found, a possible murder victim of Jack the Ripper
• August 31 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is perhaps the first of Jack the Ripper's victims.
• September 4 – George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak, and receives a patent for his camera which uses roll film.
• September 6 – Charles Turner becomes the first bowler to take 250 wickets in an English season – a feat since accomplished only by Tom Richardson (twice), J.T. Hearne, Wilfred Rhodes (twice) and Tich Freeman (six times).
• September 8 – In London, the body of Annie Chapman is found. She is generally considered the second victim of Jack the Ripper.
• September 8  – In England the first 6 Football League matches ever were played.
• September 30 – In London, the bodies of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes are found. They are generally considered Jack the Ripper's third and fourth victim respectively.
• October 9 – The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.
• November 6 – U.S. presidential election, 1888: Democrat incumbent Grover Cleveland wins the overall popular vote, but is voted out of office because he loses in the Electoral College to Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison.
• November 9 – In London the body of Mary Jane Kelly is found. She is typically considered the fifth and last of Jack the Ripper's victims. A number of similar murders actually follow, but police attribute them to copycat killers.

• Gramophone patented by Emile Berliner
• Annie Besant organizes a match girl strike
• Slavery abolished in Brazil
• Sarawak and Borneo become British protectorates
• Susan B. Anthony organizes a congress for women's rights in Washington DC
• National library in Athens, Greece
• First railways in China
• Kodak camera increases the popularity of photography as a hobby.
• The first recorded film, Roundhay Garden Scene, is made in Roundhay in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The film is two seconds (4 frames) in length.

Births

January-March

• January 1 – Victor Goldschmidt, Swiss geochemist (d. 1947)
• January 8 – Matt Moore, Irish-born actor (d. 1960)
• January 24 – Vicki Baum, Austrian writer (d. 1960)
• January 24  – Ernst Heinkel, German aircraft designer (d. 1958)
• February 2 – Frederick Lane, Australian swimmer (d. 1969)
• February 17 – Otto Stern, German physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (d. 1969)
• February 19 – José Eustasio Rivera, Colombian writer (d. 1928)
• February 20 – Georges Bernanos, French writer (d. 1948)
• February 25 – John Foster Dulles, United States Secretary of State (d. 1959)
• February 27 – Lotte Lehmann, German singer (d. 1976)
• March 4 – Knute Rockne, American football player and coach (d. 1931)
• March 10 – Barry Fitzgerald, Irish actor (d. 1966)
• March 12 – Vaslav Nijinsky, Ukrainian ballet dancer (d. 1950)
• March 17 – Frank Buck, big game hunter (d. 1950)
• March 26 – Elsa Brändström, Russian nurse (d. 1948)

April-June

• April 4 – Tris Speaker, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1958)
• April 6 – Hans Richter, German filmmaker (d. 1976)
• April 18 – Duffy Lewis, Major League Baseball player (d. 1979)
• April 26 – Anita Loos, American writer (d. 1981)
• April 27 – Florence La Badie, Canadian actress (d. 1917)
• May 10 – Karl Barth, Protestant theologian (d. 1968)
• May 10 – Max Steiner, Austrian-American composer (d. 1971)
• May 11 – Irving Berlin, American composer (d. 1989)
• May 17 – Tich Freeman, English cricketer (d. 1965)
• May 23 – Zack Wheat, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1972)
• May 25 – Miles Malleson, English actor (d. 1969)
• May 27 – Louis Durey, French composer (d. 1979)
• June 3 – Tom Brown, American jazz musician (d. 1958)
• June 6 – Pete Wendling, American composer, pianist, and piano roll recording artist (d. 1974)
• June 9 – Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Australian illustrator (d. 1960)
• June 13 – Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese writer (d. 1935)
• June 24 – Gerrit Rietveld, Dutch architect (d. 1964)

July-October

• July 10 – Giorgio Chirico, Italian painter (d. 1978)
• July 17 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israeli writer (d. 1970)
• July 23 – Raymond Chandler, American novelist (d. 1959)
• August 13 – John Logie Baird, Scottish inventor (d. 1946)
• August 16 – Armand J. Piron, American jazz musician (d. 1943)
• September 5 – Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, President of India (d. 1975)
• September 6 – Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., American politician and father of President John F. Kennedy (d. 1969)
• September 12 – Maurice Chevalier, French singer and actor (d. 1972)
• September 16 – Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Finnish writer (d. 1964)
• September 26 – J. Frank Dobie, American folklorist and journalist (d. 1964)
• September 26 – T. S. Eliot, American-born poet (d. 1965)
• October 7 – Henry A. Wallace, Vice President of the United States (d. 1965)
• October 9 – Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian politician (d. 1938)
• October 16 – Eugene O'Neill, American dramatist (d. 1953)

November-December

• November 15 – Harald Sverdrup, Norwegian scientist (d. 1957)
• November 23 – Harpo Marx, American comedian (d. 1964)
• November 26 – Francisco Canaro, Uruguayan-born violinist and composer (d. 1964)
• November 30 – Ralph Hartley, American electronics researcher and inventor (d. 1970)
• December 4 – King Alexander of Yugoslavia (d. 1934)
• December 19 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (d. 1963)
• December 28 – F.W. Murnau, German film director (d. 1931)

Deaths

• January 19 – Anton de Bary, German biologist (b. 1831)
• January 29 – Edward Lear, British artist and writer (b. 1812)
• February 3 – Henry Maine, British jurist (b. 1822)
• March 6 – Louisa May Alcott, American novelist (b. 1832)
• March 9 – German Emperor Wilhelm I (b. 1797)
• March 12 – Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (b. 1811)
• April 15 – Matthew Arnold, English poet (b. 1822)
• April 15 – Father Damien, Belgian priest (b. 1811)
• June 15 – German Emperor Friedrich III (b. 1840)
• August 9 – Charles Cros, French poet (b. 1831)
• August 23 – Philip Henry Gosse, British scientist (b. 1810)
• August 24 – Rudolf Clausius, German physicist, contributions to thermodynamics (b. 1822)
• October 16 – John Wentworth, Mayor of Chicago (b. 1815)
• December 31 – Samson Raphael Hirsch, German rabbi (b. 1808)