General
Population: 1.49 Billion*
- Entertainment: Art includes Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" and "The Yellow Chair" and cuts off ear, James Ensor "The Entrance of Christ into Brussels",
Toulouse-Lautrec paints "Place Chichy"
Music includes Gilbert and Sullivan, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov,
Writers include Maurice Barres, Edward Bellamy, Kipling, Maupassant, Quiller-Couch, Mark Rutherford, Verlaine, Zola, AW Pinero, Oscar Wilde,
Georges Courteling, Theodor Fontaine, Bernard Bosanquet, James Martineau writes "The Study of Religion"
- Science: GJ Romanes writes about mental evolution in man
Heinrich Hertz and Oliver Lodge independently identify radio waves as belonging to same family as light waves
- Sports: Football League founded
Lawn Tennis Association founded
- Technology: Nikola Tesla invents induction electrical motor
Emile Berliner invents flat-disc recording
JB Dunlop invents pneumatic tire
Eastman makes hand-held camera
John Dunlop fits air-filled tire to a bicycle for a softer ride
- Deaths: Author Theodor Storm, Economist FW Raiffeisen, Botanist Heinrich de Barry, Louisa May Alcott, Writer EP Roe,
Artisst Anton Mauve, Explorer NM Przhevalski, (Kaiser) William I, Author Matthew Arnold,
Africa
- General: Drought at horn of AFR for 5 years
- Egypt: Suez Canal convention
Ruins of Ikhnaton's city discovered - Cuneiform tablets discovered in Egypt detailing reign of Ikhnaton
- Matabele: (South Africa/Rhodesia) King Lobengula accepts British protection and grants Cecil Rhodes mining rights - amalgamated Kimberley diamond companies
Americas
- Brazil: Princess-Regent Isabel abolishes slavery
- Panama: de Lesseps canal attempt from 1880 fails and kills 20,000 while graft, disease and earthquakes end attempt – Americans will try again under T Roosevelt after 1901
- Venezuela: End of rule of Antonio Guzman
Asia
- India: Deadliest hailstorm on record hits Moradabad region - baseball-sized stones kill 250
- Japan: Creation of new legal code
Bandaisan erupts
- Philippines: Mt Mayon erupts
- Sarawak: (Malaysia) Becomes British protectorate
Europe
- Austria-Hungary: Gustav Mahler becomes musical director of Budapest opera
Aeronautical Exhibition in Vienna
- Belgium: First beauty pagent held in town of Spa
- France: General Boulanger retired from French army and elected to French Chamber of Deputies
- Germany: William I and son Frederick II dies (cancer)
Kaiser William II reigns until 1918 - Hohenzollern Dynasty
Karl Benz creates first retail car
- Great Britain: "Jack the Ripper" murders six women in London - first victim found - One possibility is Montague John Druitt whose body was found that year – the killing stopped
"Financial Times" in London published
- Greenland: Fridjof Nansen leans an exploration party across Greenland on snowshoes
Middle East
Pacific
President:
Pres: Grover Cleveland
Pres: Benjamin Henry Harrison elected over Grover Cleveland
General
- Entertainment: Annie Oakley performs on Vaudeville but shooting wasn't popular
- Finance: James Bryce writes about the American Commonwealth
- Natives: Dawes Act authorizes president to terminate native American governments
- Politics: "Australian" (secret) ballot adopted
- Science: US National Geographic Society founded
East
- General: Over 400 people die as eastern snowstorm hits - known as Blizzard of '88 - New York City shut down
"Great White Hurricane" temperatures 10.7 degrees Fahrenheit
TB, pneumonia and diarrhea follow blizzard
Hurricane produces tornadoes in Chesapeake Bay
- Massachusetts: Late season hurricane hits Nantucket and Cape Cod, up to Nova Scotia
- New York: Steam introduced under the streets to prevent subway and utilities from freezing
Midwest
- General: "Schoolhouse Blizzard" kills 235 in North and South Dakota
South
West and Pacific
President
Pres: Quorum of the Twelve - Wilford Woodruff president
Membership: 180,294
Temples: 3
- Manti Utah
Other
- Church Board of Education sends letters to each Stake to establish academies. 35 created.
- First authorized missionaries to Samoa
- Cleveland gives anti-polygamy speech - pledges to stamp out polygamy
- Mormons are treated less harshly, and so turn themselves in
1888 
