Publication trends and colonial-era exploration narratives captivated Victorian readers hungry for tales of distant lands.

Vincent van Gogh, confined at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum, painted through a barred window, wrestling with mental collapse only months after severing part of his own ear.

Vincent van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, months after mutilating his ear.

Gustave Eiffel raised the tricolor atop his 1,063-foot iron tower in Paris, then the tallest structure on Earth, built for the World's Fair.

Britain and France sign a convention on April 15 delimiting spheres of influence in the Niger and Senegal river regions, hardening colonial borders across West Africa.

Adolf Hitler was born in a small Austrian border town, the son of a customs official, decades before he would engineer Europe's deadliest catastrophe.

A poorly maintained dam collapsed above Johnstown, Pennsylvania, unleashing 20 million tons of water that killed more than 2,200 people in minutes.

A poorly maintained dam collapsed above Johnstown, Pennsylvania, unleashing 20 million tons of water that killed over 2,200 people in minutes.

The Nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh, launching the first successful movie theater chain and popularizing cheap, mass-market cinema in America.

President Benjamin Harrison signs proclamations admitting both North Dakota and South Dakota as states, deliberately shuffling the documents so no one knows which came first.

Journalist Nellie Bly departed New York to circle the globe in under 80 days, chasing Jules Verne's fictional record for real.

Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca proclaimed Brazil a republic in Rio de Janeiro, ending nearly seven decades of monarchy under Emperor Pedro II.

Gustave Eiffel received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, capping the year his iron tower reshaped the Paris skyline and global engineering ambition.

American inventor and journalist Sara Duncan makes headlines as one of the earliest documented ascents of Paris's newly finished Eiffel Tower by an American woman.