| 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. |
| 1898 | USA [fiction] | The US writer Stephen Crane publishes his The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure, which includes, along with the title story, ‘A Bride Comes to Yellow Sky’. |
| 1898 | USA [fiction] | The US writer Henry James publishes his story The Turn of the Screw. |
| 1898 | USA [food and drink] | US pharmacist Caleb Bradham produces a drink as a rival to Coca-Cola, calling it Pepsi Cola. |
| 1898 | USA [food and drink] | Cornflakes are introduced in the USA by John Harvey and William Keith Kellogg and manufactured by the Sanitas Nut Food Co., based in Battle Creek, Michigan. |
| 1898 | France [chemistry] | French chemists Pierre Curie and Marie Curie discover the radioactive elements polonium (atomic number 84) and radium (atomic number 88). Radium is discovered in pitchblende and is the first element to be discovered radiochemically. |
| 1898 | Netherlands [medicine] | Martinus Willem Beijerinck identifies the first virus; it is the cause of tobacco mosaic disease. |
| 1898 | USA [orchestral music] | The US composer Charles Ives completes his Symphony No. 1. |
| 1898 | France [painting] | The French artist Odilon Redon paints The Cyclops. |
| 1898 | Germany [physics] | German physicist Wilhelm Wien discovers the proton. He also discovers that a magnetic field can deflect a beam of charged particles. His discovery lays the foundations of mass spectroscopy. |
| 1898 | Russian Empire [plays] | A revised version of the 1896 play Chayka/The Seagull by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov is performed in Moscow, Russia. Directed by Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky, this is the first production of the Moscow Art Theatre. |
| 1898 | USA [ships and shipping] | The submarine Argonaut travels 1,280 km/800 mi from Norfolk, Virginia, to New York City. It is the first time a submarine has navigated extensively in the open ocean. |
| 1898 | UK [shops and shopping] | The first escalator in Britain is installed, in the Harrod's department store. |
| 13 January 1898 | France [anti-Semitism] | French novelist Emile Zola publishes his ‘J'accuse!’/‘I Accuse!’, an open letter to the French president protesting that Alfred Dreyfus is the victim of an anti-Semitic plot. |
| 14 January 1898 | England [births and deaths] | Lewis Carroll (pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), English novelist who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), dies in Guildford, Surrey, England (65). |
| 23 January 1898 | Latvia, Russia [births and deaths] | Sergey Mikhaylovich Eisenstein, Russian film director, born in Riga, Latvia (–1948). |
| 10 February 1898 | Germany [births and deaths] | Bertolt Brecht, German poet and playwright, born in Augsburg, Germany (–1956). |
| 15 February 1898 | USA, Cuba, Spain [political events] | The US warship Maine explodes in Havana harbour, killing 269 US Navy personnel. Despite a lack of evidence, Americans overwhelmingly blame Spain for the incident and begin to agitate for war. |
| 28 March 1898 | Germany [legislation] | The first German Navy Bill is introduced by Alfred von Tirpitz and begins the expansion of the German navy and competition with Britain's naval power. |
| 19 May 1898 | Wales [births and deaths] | William Ewart Gladstone, prime minister of Britain 1868–74, 1880–85, 1886, and 1892–94, a Liberal, dies in Hawarden, Flintshire, Wales (88). |
| 7 June 1898 | Austria-Hungary [births and deaths] | Imre Nagy, independent communist and premier of Hungary 1953–55 who tries to gain Hungary's independence from the Soviet Union, born in Kaposvár, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (–1958). |
| 11 June - 16 September 1898 | China [law and government] | Emperor Guangxu initiates China's ‘hundred days of reform’ under the guidance of Kang Youwei in response to the interest being shown in China by the Western powers. |
| 30 July 1898 | German Empire [births and deaths] | Otto von Bismarck, founder and first chancellor of the German Empire 1871–90, dies in Hamburg, Germany (83). |
| 12 August 1898 | Pacific, USA [colonization] | The islands of Hawaii are annexed to the USA. |
| 2 September 1898 | Sudan, UK [wars] | General Horatio Kitchener defeats the dervishes at the Battle of Omdurman as his British force advances across the Sudan. |
| 21 September 1898 | China [law and government] | Dowager Empress Zi Xi of China seizes power and revokes the reforms of Emperor Guangxu. |
| 26 September 1898 | USA [births and deaths] | George Gershwin, US composer and songwriter of Broadway musicals, born in Brooklyn, New York (–1937). |
| 2 December 1898 | Pacific, USA, UK, Germany [political events] | The USA, Britain, and Germany sign the Samoan Partition Treaty, dividing the Samoan Islands between the three signatories. |
| 10 December 1898 | USA, SPAIN, CUBA, PHILIPPINES [treaties] | The USA and Spain sign the Treaty of Paris, in which Spain cedes Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and also the Philippines (which is yet to be conquered) for $20 million, thus ending the Spanish–American War. |
