The World in 1895, the Year of Fortnightly’s Beginning

Government

Italians defeated by Abyssinians at Amba Alagi

Premier Stefan Stambulov assassinated.

China vs. Japan

For a period of 50 years, 1894-1945, China was involved in conflicts with Japan. In 1895, China at end of Chinese-Japanese war, ceded Korea, Taiwan, and other areas. The Queen of Korea was assassinated with Japanese help.

A new struggle, led by José Marti, culminated in the Spanish-American war

In 1889, Menelik II, supported by Italy, instituted a strong rule. Claiming that Menelik had agreed to the establishment of a protectorate, Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1895 but was decisively defeated at Aduwa (1896).

France

The Third Republic president 1894--95 Felix Faure

Great Britain

Great Britain and International Affairs

The government’s attention was almost entirely absorbed by events abroad ¾ the Venezuela Boundary dispute with the United States, the Armenian Massacres, the Greco-Turkish War, the South African problem which culminated later in the Boer War.

Prime Ministers

William Grenville, 1894-1895

Marquess of Salisbury, 1895-1902

Lord Randolph Churchill died on January 24th, 1895.

Rhodesia

British South Africa Company territory south of Zambezi becomes Rhodesia

Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital, Volume 3 (posthumously.)

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was deeply influenced by his brother Aleksandr, who was executed in 1887 for plotting to kill the czar. Lenin abandoned the law to devote himself to Marxist study and agitation among workers, and was arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1895.

In 1895 Sir Leander Starr Jameson led the unauthorized Jameson Raid into the Boer colony of the Transvaal, an act that helped to precipitate the South African War.

Armenians massacred

Over the demarcation between Venezuela and British Guiana (now Guyana), caused tension between Great Britain and the U.S. in the 19th cent. The dispute was intensified in 1841, when gold was discovered in the border area, but the British refused arbitration. In 1887, Venezuela cut diplomatic ties with Great Britain. In 1895, Pres. Cleveland declared that the United States had a duty to determine the boundary and would resist British aggression beyond that line. The British recognized this broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine

The Canadian government, which acquired the Yukon from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1870, first administered it as part of the Northwest Territories and made it a separate district in 1895.

Bottle machine invented by Owens

Disaster

Notable shipwrecks

Jan. 30--Elbe; German steamer sank in collision with British steamer Craithie in North Sea; 332.

Mar. 11--Reina Regenta; Spanish cruiser foundered near Gibraltar; 400.

Inventions

Motion-picture camera

Invention of Auguste & Louis Lumiere

Rocket reaction propulsion

Konstantin Isiolkovski formulated the principle

Telegraphy

Guglielmo, Marchese Marconi, Italian physicist sent (1895) long-wave signals over a distance of more than a mile - invention of radio telegraphy.

X ray

Discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Roentgen

Arts

Music

Antonín Dvorák

The Bohemian composer of "From The New World", an American folk theme, wrote in Harper’s New Monthly of the weaknesses and strengths for developing a flourishing musical tradition in America.

Strauss, Richard, composer

Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (1895)

Thus Spake Zarathustra (1895)

Tchaikovsky

Swan Lake

Architecture

Westminster Cathedral

Foundation stone laid by Cardinal Vaughan

Art Nouveau. Predominate style

Literature

Hilaire Belloc

Verses and Sonnets

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane at age 23 published "The Red Badge of Courage," based on one battle of the Civil War.

Sigmund Freud

Studies in Hysteria

Karl Marx

Das Kapital, vol 3

Sinkiewicz

Quo Vadis

Wells

The Time Machine

Yeats

Poems

Dance

Tchaikovsky

Swan Lake ballet in St. Petersburg - first complete performance

Drama

Wilde, Oscar, playwright

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

Film

First public film show, in Paris at the Hotel Scribe.

Painting

Eugène Delacroix, Journal, 1895

The first virtue of a painting is to be a feast for the eyes.

Literature

Gelett Burgess

I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.
The Purple Cow [1895]

Thomas Hardy

The fundamental error of their matrimonial union; that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling.
Jude the Obscure [1895]

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and critic

After 1895, as drama critic for the Saturday Review, he won readers to Ibsen.

H(Herbert) G(George) Wells, English author and social thinker

Having taught biology, he wrote fantastic and pseudoscientific novels like The Time Machine (1895)

Oscar [Fingal O'Flahertie Wills] Wilde

Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
The Importance of Being Earnest [1895]

Oscar Wilde’s libel action

Against the Marquis of Queensbury, unsuccessful

Joseph Conrad

Almayer’s Folly

Crane, Stephen, novelist

The Red Badge of Courage (1895), a remarkable account of a young CIVIL WAR soldier.

Sigmund Freud

Studien uber Hysterie

Sienkiewicz

Quo Vadis

News

Kiel Canal, Germany opened

Notable Ocean Passages by Ships

(5/18 - 5/24), Ship (Br.) Lucania from Sandy Hook to Queenstown
Distance 2897. Hrs. 5. Min. 11. 40. Speed 22.00 knots.

Sport

Chess, world champion

Emanuel Lasker, Germany 1894-1921

Olympic Games

First Modern Olympic Games

After fifteen centuries, the first modern Olympic games began in Athens, Greece, with the small team of Americans winning 9 of the 12 events.

Motto of summer Olympics

"Citius, Altius, Fortius." Latin, meaning "faster, higher, braver," or the modern interpretation "swifter, higher, stronger". The motto was coined by Father Didon, a French educator, in 1895.

Lawn tennis champion

Peter Lathham of Great Britain