Spanish–American War
The Maine explodes in Havana, and Spain's empire ends
On 15 February 1898 the US battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbour, and American newspapers demanded war with Spain, which was fighting Cuban rebels. The fighting lasted less than four months, and the Spanish fleet was destroyed off Santiago de Cuba. Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the US, and Cuba gained independence under American tutelage.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1914–1918 World War I — 16 years later
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — 20 years later
- 1920 League of Nations founded — 22 years later
Europe
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — 12 years earlier
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — 9 years earlier
- 1895 Discovery of X-rays — 3 years earlier
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — 7 years later
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — 21 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — 3 years earlier
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — 7 years later
- 1908 Tunguska event — 10 years later
- 1917 October Revolution — 19 years later
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — 19 years later
Middle East
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — 7 years later
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 10 years later
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — 10 years later
- 1915 Armenian genocide — 17 years later
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 18 years later
Africa
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 13 years earlier
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — 13 years earlier
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 12 years earlier
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — 1 year earlier
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — 6 years later
Asia
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 15 years earlier
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 13 years earlier
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — 4 years earlier
- 1894 Yersin identifies the plague bacterium — 4 years earlier
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — 2 years earlier
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 5 years earlier
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 5 years earlier
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 13 years later
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 14 years later
Alive at the time
- Queen Victoria (aged 79)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 70)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 64)
- Thomas Edison (aged 51)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 42)
- Marie Curie (aged 31)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 29)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 28)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 27)
- Winston Churchill (aged 24)