1890s

Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century

Decades: 1860s 1870s 1880s - 1890s - 1900s 1910s 1920s

Years: 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899

Events and trends

Technology

• Early commercial production of automobiles.

Science

• Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity
• Discovery of x-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen
• Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius and US geologist Thomas Crowder Chamberlain independently come to the conclusion that burning fossil fuels might cause global warming due to CO2 emissions

War, peace and politics

• Second Boer War
• Spanish-American War
• Split in Irish nationalism over Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell's affair with a fellow MP's wife, Kitty O'Shea
• The New Imperialism

Culture, religion

• Motion pictures
• Ragtime music
• Accession of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in the world's first ever filmed coronation

Others

World Leaders

• Emperor Franz Josef (Austria-Hungary)
• Kaiser Wilhelm II (Germany)
• Chancellor Leo von Caprivi (Germany)
• King Umberto I (Italy)
• Pope Leo XIII
• Czar Alexander III (Russia)
• Czar Nicholas II (Russia)
• Queen Victoria (United Kingdom)
• Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (United Kingdom)
• Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (United Kingdom)
• Prime Minister Lord Rosebery (United Kingdom)
• President Benjamin Harrison (United States)
• President Grover Cleveland (United States)
• President William McKinley (United States)

Important People

• Thomas A. Edison

Entertainers

• Adelina Patti
• George W. Johnson
• Justin Smith
• Jonathan Booth

Books about the 1890s

• The Mauve Decade, by Thomas Beer (1926)