1884 Archives | HISTORY

February 1, 1884: The first portion, or fascicle, of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, is published. Today, the OED is the definitive authority on the meaning, pronunciation and history of over half a million English words, past and present

Future President Theodore Roosevelt’s wife and mother die, only hours apart, on February 14, 1884.

Isoroku Yamamoto, perhaps Japan’s greatest strategist and the officer who would contrive the surprise air attack on U.S. naval forces at Pearl Harbor, is born on April 4, 1884.

On May 8, 1884, Harry S. Truman is born in Lamar, Missouri. The son of a farmer, Truman could not afford to go to college. He joined the army at the relatively advanced age of 33 in 1916 to fight in World War I. After the war, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City. When that business went bankrupt in 1922, he entered Missouri politics. Truman went on to serve in the U.S. Senate from 1934 until he was chosen as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s third vice president in 1945; it was during his Senate terms that he developed a reputation for honesty and integrity.

On June 16, 1884, the first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York. Known as a switchback railway, it was the brainchild of LaMarcus Thompson, traveled approximately six miles per hour and cost a nickel to ride. The new entertainment was an instant success and by the turn of the century there were hundreds of roller coasters around the country.

In a ceremony held in Paris on July 4, 1884, the completed Statue of Liberty is formally presented to the U.S. ambassador as a commemoration of the friendship between France and the United States.

On December 6, 1884, in Washington, D.C., workers place a nine-inch aluminum pyramid inscribed with "Laus Deo," meaning praise (be) to God, atop a tower of white marble, completing the construction of an impressive monument to the city’s namesake and the nation’s first president, George Washington.

A central player in the violent Lincoln County War of 1878-81, the cattleman John Chisum dies at Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Hideki Tojo, prime minister of Japan during the war, is born in Tokyo.