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).
April 6 » In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I.
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.
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.
December 30 » Canadian ice hockey player Ernie McLea scores the first hat-trick in Stanley Cup play, and the Cup-winning goal as the Montreal Victorias defeat the Winnipeg Victorias 6–5.
Christening day January 13, 1897
The temperature on January 13, 1897 was about -2.2 °C. The airpressure was 75 cm mercury. The atmospheric humidity was 100%. Source: KNMI
February 1 » Shinhan Bank, the oldest bank in South Korea, opens in Seoul.
February 28 » Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch of Madagascar, is deposed by a French military force.
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.
June 16 » A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Gert Esterhuizen, "Family tree Eric Esterhuizen", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-eric-esterhuizen/I9765.php : accessed February 21, 2026), "Robert Finlay PRETORIUS (1896-????)".
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