The Anglo-Zanzibar War
The shortest war in history: under an hour
On 25 August 1896 the Sultan of Zanzibar died and Khalid bin Barghash took the throne without the British consul's approval. Britain issued an ultimatum; when it expired at 9 a.m. on 27 August, its ships shelled the palace. The war lasted 38 to 45 minutes, the shortest on record.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1914–1918 World War I — 18 years later
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — 22 years later
- 1920 League of Nations founded — 24 years later
Europe
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — 10 years earlier
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — 7 years earlier
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — 1 year earlier
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — 9 years later
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — 23 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — 1 year earlier
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — 9 years later
- 1908 Tunguska event — 12 years later
- 1917 October Revolution — 21 years later
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — 21 years later
Middle East
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — 9 years later
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 12 years later
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — 12 years later
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — 19 years later
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 20 years later
Asia
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 13 years earlier
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 11 years earlier
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — 2 years earlier
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — 2 years earlier
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — same year
Americas
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — 20 years earlier
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 17 years earlier
- 1888 Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil — 8 years earlier
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — 7 years later
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — 18 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 3 years earlier
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 3 years earlier
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 15 years later
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 16 years later
Alive at the time
- Queen Victoria (aged 77)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 68)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 62)
- Thomas Edison (aged 49)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 40)
- Marie Curie (aged 29)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 27)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 26)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 25)
- Winston Churchill (aged 22)