1888

Decades: 1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s - 1880s - 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s

Years: 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 - 1888 - 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893

Events

• January 3 - 91cm telescope first used at Lick Observatory
• 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 English Football League is formed
• April 11 - The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam is inaugurated.
• May 13 - Brazil abolishes slavery.
• 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 8 - In London, the body of Annie Chapman is found. She is considered the second victim of Jack The Ripper.
• September 30 - In London, the bodies of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes are found. They are 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 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

Births

• January 24 - Vicki Baum, writer (+ 1960)
• January 24 - Ernst Heinkel, aircraft designer (+ 1958)
• February 2 - Frederick Lane, Australian swimmer
• February 17 - Otto Stern, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics 1943 (+ 1969)
• February 25 - John Foster Dulles, United States Secretary of State (+ 1959)
• February 27 - Lotte Lehmann, singer (+ 1976)
• March 4 - Knute Kenneth Rockne, American football player
• March 12 - Vaslav Nijinsky, Ukrainian ballet dancer
• March 17 - Frank Buck, "big game" hunter (+ 1950)
• March 26 - Elsa Brändström, "The Angel of Siberia"
• April 4 - Tris Speaker, Baseball Hall of Famer (+ 1958)
• April 6 - Hans Richter, German filmmaker
• April 26 - Anita Loos, writer (+ 1981)
• April 27 - Florence La Badie, pioneer actress (+ 1917)
• May 10 - Max Steiner, composer (+ 1971)
• May 11 - Irving Berlin, composer (+ 1989)
• May 23 - Zack Wheat, Baseball Hall of Famer (+ 1972)
• May 25 - Miles Malleson, actor (+ 1969)
• May 27 - Louis Durey, composer, member of Les Six (+ 1979)
• May 28 - Jim Thorpe, American sportsman
• June 6 - Pete Wendling, American composer, pianist, and piano roll recording artist
• June 24 - Gerrit Rietveld, Dutch architect
• July 10 - Giorgio Chirico, painter (+ 1978)
• August 13 - John Logie Baird, first demonstrated the television
• September 26 - T. S. Eliot, American/British poet
• October 7 - Henry A. Wallace, vice president of the United States
• October 9 - Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian politician
• October 16 - Eugene O'Neill, American dramatist
• November 23 - Harpo Marx, comedian, The Marx Brothers (+ 1964)
• December 4 - King Alexander I of Yugoslavia
• December 28 - F.W. Murnau, German director
• March 10 - Barry Fitzgerald, actor (+ 1966)
• Irving Berlin, American composer
• Raymond Chandler, American novelist
• Maurice Chevalier, French actor
• Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Australian illustrator
• Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese writer
• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Indian philosopher
• Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Finnish writer
• Max Steiner, Austrian film maker
• Harald Sverdrup, Norwegian scientist

Deaths

• January 29 - Edward Lear, British artist and writer
• February 3 - Henry Maine, British jurist
• March 6 - Louisa May Alcott, American novelist
• March 9 - German Emperor Wilhelm I
• April 15 - Father Damien, Belgian priest
• June 15 - German Emperor Friedrich III
• October 16 - John Wentworth, mayor of Chicago, United States
• Anton de Bary, German biologist
• Henry Bergh, founder of American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• Charles Cros, French poet
• Philip Henry Gosse, British scientist

Referenced By