January 28 » Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, becomes the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined one shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8mph (13km/h), thereby exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2mph (3.2km/h).
March 1 » Henri Becquerel discovers radioactive decay.
March 2 » The Battle of Adwa: The Italian Army defeated by the Ethiopian Army in Adwa, Tigray, Ethiopia.
May 18 » Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II results in the deaths of 1,389 people.
August 30 » Philippine Revolution: After Spanish victory in the Battle of San Juan del Monte, eight provinces in the Philippines are declared under martial law by the Spanish Governor-General Ramón Blanco y Erenas.
December 30 » Filipino patriot and reform advocate José Rizal is executed by a Spanish firing squad in Manila.
Day of death April 18, 1897
The temperature on April 18, 1897 was about 8.2 °C. The airpressure was 76 cm mercury. The atmospheric humidity was 70%. Source: KNMI
January 31 » Czechoslav Trade Union Association is founded in Prague.
June 22 » British colonial officers Charles Walter Rand and Lt. Charles Egerton Ayerst are assassinated in Pune, Maharashtra, India by the Chapekar brothers and Mahadeo Vinayak Ranade, who are later caught and hanged.
July 26 » Anglo-Afghan War: The Pashtun fakir Saidullah leads an army of more than 10,000 to begin a siege of the British garrison in the Malakand Agency of the North West Frontier Province of India.
August 31 » Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.
September 1 » The Tremont Street Subway in Boston opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.
December 9 » Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper La Fronde in Paris.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: J Eijsermans, "Eijsermans family tree", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-eijsermans/I496198.php : accessed January 27, 2026), "Martinus Cornelus van der Laak (1896-1897)".
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