1895

1895 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events

January

• January 5 - Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

February

• February 14 - First showing of Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnest (St. James' Theatre in London).

March

• March 1 - William L. Wilson is appointed United States Postmaster General
• March 3 - In Munich, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates

April

• April 6 - Oscar Wilde is arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
• April 14 - a major earthquake severely damages Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• April 17 - The Treaty of Shimonoseki (also known as Treaty of Maguan) was signed between China and Japan. This marks the end of the first Sino-Japanese War, and the defeated Qing Empire is forced to renounce its claims on Korea and to concede the southern portion of the Fengtien province, Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands to Japan.

May

• May 25 - Playwright, poet and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "sodomy and gross indecency" and sentenced to serve two years in a London prison.

June

• June 11 - Britain annexes Togoland
• June 28 - Union of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador begins (ends in 1898).

July

• July 15 - Archie MacLaren scores County Championship record innings of 424 for Lancashire against Somerset at Taunton.

August

• August 19 - American frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin, is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
• August 29 - The sport of rugby league is formed at a meeting in the George Hotel, Huddersfield, England.

September

• September 3 - The first professional football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club. (Latrobe won the contest 12-0.).
• September 18 - Booker T. Washington delivers the Atlanta Compromise Speech.

November

• November 5 - George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
• November 8 - Wilhelm Röntgen discovers a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
• November 27 - At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies (he died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 10, 1896).

December

• December 28 - Auguste and Louis Lumiere display their first moving picture film in Paris

Unknown date

• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposes a space elevator
• Most recent major earthquake in the New Madrid Fault Zone
• Grace Chisholm Young, the first woman awarded a doctorate at a German university
• Duck Reach Power Station opens

Births

January-March

• January 1 - J. Edgar Hoover, American Federal Bureau of Investigation director (d. 1972)
• January 15 - Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, Finnish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
• January 21 - Cristobal Balenciaga, Spanish-French couturier (d. 1972)
• January 24 - Eugen Roth, German writer (d. 1976)
• January 30 - Wilhelm Gustloff, German-born Swiss Nazi party leader( d. 1936)
• February 2 - George Halas, American football player, coach, and co-founder of the National Football League (d. 1983)
• February 6 - Babe Ruth, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1948)
• February 11 - Viktor Nikolayevich Trambitsky, composer
• February 14 - Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973)
• February 15 - Earl Thomson, Canadian athlete (d. 1971)
• February 21 - Henrik Carl Peter Dam, Danish biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
• March 3 - Matthew Ridgway, Commander of NATO, United States Army Chief of Staff (d. 1993)
• March 12 - William C. Lee, U.S. general (d. 1948)
• March 17 - Shemp Howard, American actor and comedian (d. 1955)
• March 20 - Robert Benoist, French race car driver and war hero (d. 1944)
• March 29 - Ernst Jünger, German author (d. 1998)
• March 30 - Nikolai Bulganin, Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1975)

April-June

• April 1 - Alberta Hunter, American singer (d. 1984)
• April 3 - Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian composer (d. 1968)
• April 9 - Mance Lipscomb, American popular singer (d. 1976)
• April 15 - Clark McConachy, New Zealand snooker and billiards player (d. 1980)
• April 20 - Emile Christian, American jazz musician (d. 1973)
• April 26 - Nathaniel Kleitman, sleep researcher (d. 1999)
• April 28 - Spencer W. Kimball, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1985)
• April 29 - Malcolm Sargent, English conductor (d. 1967)
• May 6 - Rodolfo Valentino, Italian actor (d. 1926)
• May 8 - Fulton J. Sheen, American Catholic archbishop and television personality (d. 1979)
• May 9 - Richard Bathelmess, actor (d. 1963)
• May 30 - Maurice Tate, English cricketer (d. 1956)
• June 10 - Hattie McDaniel, actress

July-September

• July 8 - Igor Tamm, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
• July 10 - Carl Orff, German composer (d. 1982)
• July 12 - Kirstin Flagstad, Norwegian soprano (d. 1982)
• July 12 - Buckminster Fuller, American architect (d. 1983)
• July 24 - Robert Graves, English writer (d. 1985)
• July 25 - Yvonne Printemps, French singer and actress (d. 1977)
• August 16 - Liane Haid, Austrian actress (d. 2000)
• September 7 - Sir Brian Horrocks, British general (d. 1985)
• September 11 - Vinoba Bhave, Indian religious leader (d. 1982)
• September 29 - J.B. Rhine, American parapsychologist (d. 1980)

October-December

• October 2 - Bud Abbott, American actor (d. 1974)
• October 4 - Buster Keaton, American actor and film director (d. 1966)
• October 8 - King Zog of Albania (d. 1961)
• October 19 - Lewis Mumford, American historian (d. 1990)
• October 21 - Edna Purviance, actress (d. 1958)
• October 22 - Rolf Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician (d. 1980)
• October 25 - Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1969)
• October 31 - Basil Liddell Hart, military historian (d. 1970)
• November 5 - Walter Gieseking, French conductor (d. 1956)
• November 15 - Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and writer (d. 1976)
• November 16 - Paul Hindemith, German composer (d. 1963)
• November 25 - Wilhelm Kempff, German conductor (d. 1991)
• November 29 - Busby Berkeley, American film director and choreographer (d. 1976)
• December 2 - Harriet Cohen, English pianist (d. 1967)
• December 14 - Paul Eluard, French poet (d. 1952)
• December 14 - King George VI of the United Kingdom (d. 1952)
• Tuanku Abdul Rahman ibni Almarhum Tuanku Muhammad, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan and 1st Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia (d. 1960)

Deaths

• January 9 - Aaron Lufkin Dennison, American watchmaker (b. 1812)
• January 10 - Benjamin Godard, French composer (b. 1849)
• February 2 - Archduke Albert, Austrian general (b. 1817)
• February 20 - Frederick Douglass, American ex-slave and author
• March 2 - Berthe Morisot, French painter (b. 1841)
• March 10 - Charles Frederick Worth, English-born couturier (b. 1826)
• May 19 - José Martí, Cuban independence leader (b. 1853)
• May 21 - Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer (b. 1819)
• June 29 - Sir Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist (b. 1825)
• August 5 - Friedrich Engels, German socialist philosopher (b. 1820)
• September 28 - Louis Pasteur, French microbiologist and chemist (b. 1822)
• October 25 - Charles Hallé, German-born pianist and conductor (b. 1819)
• November 27 - Alexandre Dumas, fils, French author and playwright (b. 1824)