1884
Berlin Conference Opens
At Bismarck's invitation, fourteen European powers and the United States sat down in a Berlin drawing room with a map of Africa and not a single African. Over three months they laid down rules for "effective occupation" and carved the continent into spheres. The Scramble for Africa, already running, was now formalized.
Huckleberry Finn Finished
Mark Twain put the finishing touches on his novel about a white boy and a runaway enslaved man drifting down the Mississippi on a raft. It would be called the great American novel by Hemingway; it would be banned from school libraries by every generation since. Its vernacular was a revolution. Its racial discomfort, a feature.
Greenwich Prime Meridian
The International Meridian Conference in Washington, after some French sulking, adopted the line running through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich as the zero of longitude and the basis of world time. Railways, telegraphs, and shipping had made a unified time necessary. The British Empire, conveniently, got it. France abstained from the final vote and continued using the Paris meridian on its charts for another twenty-seven years.
Germany Claims Colonies
Bismarck, long skeptical of colonies, suddenly declared German protectorates over Togo, Cameroon, South West Africa, and German East Africa within a few months. The Iron Chancellor had always said he had his map of Africa in Europe. In 1884 he decided the Europeans, too, needed pieces of the real map. The scramble had a German latecomer.
Nietzsche's Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche, living in rented rooms in Sils-Maria and increasingly alone, finished the third part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra - his strange, aphoristic hymn to the superman, eternal recurrence, and the death of God. It sold almost no copies. Four years later he would collapse in a Turin street, embracing a horse. The twentieth century had found an unwilling prophet.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1884?
Saeculum lists 5 curated events from 1884. The most significant is Berlin Conference Opens: At Bismarck's invitation, fourteen European powers and the United States sat down in a Berlin drawing room with a map of Africa and not a single African.
What era was 1884 part of?
1884 falls within the Industrial Age (1801-1900). Steam, empire, and the unmaking of the old order.
Which regions saw notable events in 1884?
The curated events from 1884 span Africa, North America and Europe.