The year in history
1897
Someone born in 1897 turns 129 in 2026
1897 (MDCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1897th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 897th year of the 2nd millennium, the 97th year of the 19th century, and the 8th year of the 1890s decade. As of the start of 1897, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
What happened in 1897
The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City.
The Czechoslovak Trade Union Association is founded in Prague.
San Diego State University is founded.
Representatives of the Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation and U.S. Dawes Commission sign the Atoka Agreement, which becomes an important precursor for creating the State of Oklahoma.
The Stars and Stripes Forever, an American patriotic march by John Philip Sousa, is performed for the first time.
On Decoration Day (later Memorial Day) the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial is dedicated in Boston. The bronze bas relief by Augustus St. Gaudens depicts the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment of black Civil War soldiers.
Writer Jack London sails to join the Klondike Gold Rush, where he will write his first successful stories.
Thomas Edison is granted a patent for the Kinetoscope, a precursor of the movie projector.
Francis P. Church responds (anonymously) to a letter to the editor of The Sun (New York City) that is known as the famous "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" letter.
USS Baltimore (Cruiser # 3, later CM-1) is recommissioned, since 1890, for several months of duty in the Hawaiian Islands.
The comic strip The Katzenjammer Kids debuts in the New York Journal.
Karl Lueger becomes mayor of Vienna.
Famous people born in 1897
Marion Davies
American actress (d. 1961)
January 3 →
Hasso von Manteuffel
German general, politician (d. 1978)
January 14 →
Ludwig Erhard
Chancellor of Germany (d. 1977)
February 4 →
Celia Lovsky
Austrian-born American actress (d. 1979)
February 21 →
Lefty O'Doul
American baseball player, restaurateur (d. 1969)
March 4 →
Wilhelm Reich
Austrian psychotherapist (d. 1957)
March 24 →
Herbert Lumsden
British general (d. 1945)
April 8 →
Vivienne Segal
American actress (d. 1992)
April 19 →
Eddie Eagan
American boxer, bobsledder (d. 1967)
April 26 →
Sidney Bechet
American-born jazz saxophonist (d. 1959)
May 14 →
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Austrian composer (d. 1957)
May 29 →
John G. Bennett
British mathematician (d. 1974)
June 8 →
Georg Wittig
German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
June 16 →
Viola Dana
American actress (d. 1987)
June 26 →
Bull Connor
American civil rights opponent (d. 1973)
July 11 →
José Nucete Sardi
Venezuelan historian and diplomat (d. 1972)
August 4 →
Hersch Lauterpacht
Ukrainian-born international lawyer (d. 1960)
August 16 →
Otto Strasser
German Nazi politician (d. 1974)
September 10 →
Frank O'Connor
American actor, rancher, and painter (d. 1979)
September 22 →
Louis Aragon
French author (d. 1982)
October 3 →
Joseph Goebbels
German Nazi propagandist (d. 1945)
October 29 →
Sir Sacheverell Sitwell
Bt, English author (d. 1988)
November 15 →
Robert Accard
French footballer (d. 1971)
November 26 →
Margaret Chase Smith
American politician, U.S. Senator from Maine ( d. 1995 )
December 14 →