1890 - 1899

The second trend was the growing dissatisfaction of the working class. Europe outlawed the last of the guilds by the middle of the century. Though originally established to protect workers and set standards, the mission of guilds changed over the centuries. As the Industrial Revolution evolved, the Master-Journeyman roles of the guilds became Manager-Laborer. With little protection and growing exploitation, the workers of the world began to assert their needs and push for change. In some cases, the change came through peaceful means. In other cases, the people eventually effected change through revolution.

1890 - Man Ray Born
American surrealist artist Man Ray was born Emmanuel Radnitsky in Philadelphia. Ray also pioneered the use of technology and photography to create photomontages.
http://www.manray-photo.com/html/bio/setbio_gb.html

1890 - How the Other Half Lives
Jacob August Riis, Danish born American journalist and documentary photographer, published How the Other Half Lives, http://www.cis.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html, one of the first books documenting social conditions of poor city residents. Riis worked with New York City police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt to improve living conditions in the city. http://www.idbsu.edu/socwork/dhuff/history/gallery/Gallery-JR/BIO.htm

1891 - Heartfield Born

1891 - Catholic Church Takes Stand On Socialism
Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum Novarum which called for the protection of the working class and condemned socialism. 

1893 - Diesel Engine Invented
French born Rudolf Diesel published Theory and Design of a Rational Heat Engine. This work described the internal combustion engine, which was named after Diesel. Diesel's design was much more efficient than the widely used steam engine. http://www.energy.ca.gov/education/scientists/diesel.html

1893 - Aspirin Invented
Felix Hoffman, German chemist, invented a way to produce the drug acetylsalicylic acid, later known as aspirin. http://pharminfo.com/pubs/msb/aspirin.html

1894 - New Russian Emperor
Nicholas II became emperor of Russia upon the death of his father Alexander III. Nicholas' lack of leadership skills and desire to be a strong autocratic leader helped bring 2 revolutions to Russia in the next 2 decades. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Bridge/1230/Tsar.html

1894 - Dreyfus Affair
Jewish French artillery captain Alfred Dreyfus was found guilty of spying for Germany. After 2 trials and enough evidence to overturn Dreyfus' guilty verdict, the government, the heavily anti-Semitic army, and the Roman Catholic Church upheld the conviction. Protesters (including Émile Zola who wrote J'accuse in response to Dreyfus' condition) eventually voted in a new government in 1899. This government cleared Dreyfus' name and reinstated him in the army with the rank of major. In 1905 legislation separated the church and state. http://www.wfu.edu/~sinclair/dreyfus.htm

1890s - First Comic Strip
The first comic strip were published in the 1890s. http://www.annie20th.com/sg-about-comic-strips.htm

1895 - German Discovered X-rays
Physicist Wilhelm C. Roentgen serendipitously discovered X-rays while studying cathode rays. http://members.tripod.com/~Nevermore/xray.htm

1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer A. Plessy, a man of mixed European and African descent boarded a Louisiana train reserved for whites only. At that time racial segregation was beginning to take hold of the American south. Upon Plessy's arrest he sued the judge presiding over his trial, John H. Ferguson, on the grounds that "separate but equal" accommodations were illegal. The case went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the power of states to separate people by race. This practice then continued in parts of America until the middle of the next century. http://www.multiracial.com/government/plessy.html

1897 - Jewish homeland movement begins
Disillusioned by the Dreyfus Affair and the belief that  Jews could gradually assimilate into Christian Europe, in 1897 Theodor Herzl called a Zionist congress in Switzerland whose members chose Palestine as the site of a Jewish state. At the time Turkey controlled Palestine, and Herzl's negotiations with the somewhat sympathetic Sultan Abd al-Hamid II went nowhere. Herzl could not interest any powerful rulers or figures to support his cause. He died in 1904, nearly a half century before his dream became reality. http://www.israelemb.org/zionism/noframes/herzl.html

1898 - Bertolt Brecht Born

1899 - First Hague Peace Conference
Called by Russia's Nicholas II to reduce arms (mainly because Russia could not afford to develop and maintain enough weapons to remain on par with other countries) and to provide a civil way to conduct warfare, this first of 2 conferences in the Hague, Netherlands attracted leaders from 26 countries. The only lasting result of this conference was the Permanent Court of Arbitration which countries could use to settle disputes. http://www.haguepeace.org/about/bkgnd.html

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