1890

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1881–1890	USA, UK [statistics and demography]	Emigration to the USA is 807,357 from Britain and 655,482 from Ireland.
1885–1890	South Africa [astronomy]	British astronomer David Gill photographs over 450,000 stars of 11th magnitude or brighter in the southern hemisphere, in South Africa.
1889–1890	World [plagues and epidemics]	A pandemic of influenza, called the Russian flu, seeps the world. Beginning in Russia, it then spreads to the rest of Europe, China, and North America by 1890. It kills nearly 250,000 people in Europe and about 500,000 people worldwide.
1890	USA [poetry]	Poems, a selection of the poems of the US writer Emily Dickinson, who died in 1886, is published posthumously. Although she wrote over 1,000 poems, only six were published in her lifetime, all without her permission.
1890	USA [consumer products]	The National Carbon Co. launches Ever Ready batteries in the USA, the first dry-cell battery to be made commercially.
1890	UK [railways]	The City and South London Railway's ‘tube’ railway line opens. The world's first electric underground railway, the 4.8 km/3 mi line runs beneath the River Thames. Fares cost two pence.
1890	USA [technology]	US inventor and statistician Herman Hollerith uses punched cards to automate counting the US census. The holes, which represent numerical data, are sorted and tabulated by an electric machine, the forerunner of modern computers. In 1896 Hollerith forms the Tabulating Machine Company, which later changes its name to International Business Machines (IBM).
1890	England [thought and scholarship]	The English evangelist leader William Booth publishes In Darkest England and the Way Out.
1890	Scotland [thought and scholarship]	The Scottish anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer publishes the first volume of his 12-volume The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, which details the cults, legends, myths, and rites of the world's peoples. The final volume appears in 1915.
1890	USA [astronomy]	The first version of the Henry Draper Star Catalogue is published. Produced by astronomers at Harvard College Observatory, it lists the position, magnitude, and type of over 10,000 stars, and begins the alphabetical system of naming stars according to temperature. Subsequent editions increase the listing to 400,000 stars.
1890	Russian Empire [ballet]	A new version of the ballet Spyashchaya krasavitsa/The Sleeping Beauty by the Russian composer Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky is first performed, in St Petersburg, Russia. The choreography is by the French choreographer Marius Petipa.
c. 1890	UK [clothing and fashion]	Bloomers, invented in the USA in around 1850 by women's rights advocate Amelia Bloomer, become fashionable in Britain as more women take up cycling.
1890	Norway [fiction]	The Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun (pseudonym of Knut Pederson) publishes his novel Sult/Hunger.
1890	Russia [fiction]	The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy publishes his story Kreitserova sonata/The Kreutzer Sonata.
1890	France [fiction]	The French writer Emile Zola publishes his novel La Bête humaine/The Human Beast.
1890	USA [economic conditions]	It is estimated that 1% of the US population holds more than half of the nation's wealth.
1890	USA [legislation]	The US Congress passes the McKinley Tariff Act, raising tariffs to record heights.
1890	USA [motor vehicles]	US inventor John William Lambert builds the first automobile in the USA to be powered by an internal combustion engine: a single-cylinder, three-wheeled vehicle which he tests in 1891 at Ohio City, Ohio, achieving a speed of 24 kph/15 mph.
1890	Germany [orchestral music]	The German composer Richard Strauss completes his symphonic poem Tod und Verklärung/Death and Transfiguration.
1890	France [painting]	The French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec paints Dance at the Moulin Rouge.
10 February 1890	USA [law and government]	The US government opens 11 million acres of South Dakota land, formerly under the possession of the Sioux, to settlement.
20 March 1890	Germany [law and government]	Otto von Bismarck is dismissed by the new emperor Wilhelm II and Leo, Count von Caprivi, becomes German chancellor.
24 May 1890	Africa, Belgium, UK [treaties]	By the Mackinnon Treaty between King Leopold II of Belgium and the British East Africa Company, the latter recognizes Leopold's rights on the west bank of the Upper Nile in return for territory near Lake Tanganyika.
18 June 1890	Germany, Russian Empire [treaties]	Germany allows the lapse of former chancellor Otto von Bismarck's Reinsurance Treaty with Russia of June 1887, despite Russian attempts to open negotiations for a renewal.
1 July 1890	UK, Germany, Africa [treaties]	Under an Anglo-German convention, Britain exchanges the North Sea island of Heligoland for Zanzibar and Pemba in East Africa.
29 July 1890	Netherlands, France [births and deaths]	Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter whose work inspired the expressionists, dies in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, France (37).
1 October 1890	Germany [legislation]	The German antisocialist law of 1878 proscribing the Social Democratic Party (SPD) expires and is not renewed.
2 October 1890	USA [births and deaths]	Groucho Marx (born Julius Marx), US comedian of stage, film, radio, and television along with two of his brothers, Harpo and Chico, born in New York City (–1977).
14 October 1890	USA [births and deaths]	Dwight David Eisenhower, thirty-fourth president of the USA 1953–61, a Republican, born in Denison, Texas (–1969).
22 November 1890	France [births and deaths]	Charles de Gaulle, French general and president of France 1958–69, born in Lille, France (–1970).
23 November 1890	Luxembourg, Netherlands [political events]	On the death of William III and the accession of Queen Wilhelmina, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is separated from the Netherlands.
5 December 1890	Austria, USA [births and deaths]	Fritz Lang, Austrian-born US film director who makes Metropolis, born in Vienna, Austria (–1976).
10 December 1890	USA [wars]	US Army troops capture Sioux chief Sitting Bull, who resists the white settlement of South Dakota.
18 December 1890	Uganda, UK [colonization]	Sir Frederick Lugard occupies Uganda for the British East Africa Company.