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.
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.
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 March 12, 1897
The temperature on March 12, 1897 was about 4.6 °C. The airpressure was 75 cm mercury. The atmospheric humidity was 94%. Source: KNMI
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.
August 2 » Anglo-Afghan War: The Siege of Malakand ends when a relief column is able to reach the British garrison in the Malakand states.
August 10 » German chemist Felix Hoffmann discovers an improved way of synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin).
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.
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.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Hans Weening, "Family tree Weening", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-weening/I132200.php : accessed October 17, 2026), "Jelle Spoelstra (1896-1897)".
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