Modern Era
Great Blizzard of 1888: The Storm That Buried the Northeast
More than 400 people died, New York was cut off for days, and the city accelerated plans to bury its wires and build an underground railway.
Era · c. 1800 – 1945
Modern Era
Industry, science and global conflict: the century and a half that built the modern world.
Modern Era
Meiji Constitution (1889): Japan's First Modern Constitution
Japan became the first constitutional monarchy in East Asia with an elected parliament, though the emperor, his ministers and the military kept wide powers outside its control.
Modern Era
Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company (1889)
The chartered British South Africa Company occupied Mashonaland in 1890 and Matabeleland in 1893, ruling the territories named Rhodesia until 1923-1924.
Modern Era
Russian Flu Pandemic (1889-1890): The First Modern Pandemic
A respiratory pandemic killed an estimated one million people worldwide and showed how fast disease could travel in the age of railways and steamships.
Modern Era
Johnstown Flood (1889): The South Fork Dam Disaster
The dam collapsed and a flood wave destroyed much of Johnstown, killing 2,209 people; the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was never held legally liable.
Modern Era
Wounded Knee Massacre (1890): Tragedy at Pine Ridge
US 7th Cavalry troops killed an estimated 250-300 Lakota, many of them women and children, ending the Ghost Dance crisis and the last major armed conflict of the Plains wars.
Modern Era
Forth Bridge (1890): Scotland's Great Cantilever Railway Bridge
The bridge opened a direct rail route between Edinburgh and the north-east of Scotland and became one of the world's most famous engineering landmarks.
Modern Era
Trans-Siberian Railway (1891-1916): Crossing Russia by Rail
Russia gained a continuous rail link to the Pacific, transforming Siberian settlement, trade and Russian strategy in East Asia.
Modern Era
Hamburg Cholera Epidemic (1892): Robert Koch and Clean Water
About 16,900 people fell ill and some 8,600 died; Hamburg built a sand-filtration plant and reformed its public health system.
Modern Era
Corinth Canal (1893): Cutting Through the Isthmus of Greece
A 6.4 km canal through solid rock separated the Peloponnese from mainland Greece, but proved too narrow for most large ships.
Modern Era
Diesel Engine (1893): Rudolf Diesel's Compression-Ignition Engine
Diesel's compression-ignition engine became the most efficient heat engine of its time and later powered most ships, trucks and locomotives.
Modern Era
First Matabele War (1893): The Fall of Lobengula's Kingdom
The British South Africa Company destroyed the Ndebele kingdom, occupied Bulawayo and opened Matabeleland to white settlement; Lobengula died in flight in early 1894.