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.