January 4 » Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.
May 18 » The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine is constitutional.
May 27 » The F4-strength St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing over $10-million in damage.
June 4 » Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.
July 9 » William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetallism at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
November 1 » A picture showing the bare breasts of a woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time.
Day of death July 10, 1897
The temperature on July 10, 1897 was about 21.5 °C. The airpressure was 77 cm mercury. The atmospheric humidity was 69%. Source: KNMI
April 30 » J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announces his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle, over 1,800 times smaller than a proton (in the atomic nucleus), at a lecture at the Royal Institution in London.
May 26 » Dracula, a Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, is published.
May 26 » The original manuscript of William Bradford's history, "Of Plymouth Plantation" is returned to the Governor of Massachusetts by the Bishop of London after being taken during the American Revolutionary War.
July 2 » British-Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London.
November 1 » The first Library of Congress building opens its doors to the public; the library had previously been housed in the Congressional Reading Room in the U.S. Capitol.
December 6 » London becomes the world's first city to host licensed taxicabs.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Pauline Berens BC, "Local Heritage Book Barger-Compascuum", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/ofb-barger-compascuum/I21491.php : accessed January 29, 2026), "Gerardus Henderikus Westen (1896-1897)".
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