Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century
Decades: 1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s - 1880s - 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s
Years: 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 - 1888 - 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893
1888 is called the
Year of Three Emperors in
Germany.
Events
Births
- January 24 - Vicki Baum[?], writer (+ 1960)
- January 24 - Ernst Heinkel, aircraft designer (+ 1958)
- February 17 - Otto Stern[?], physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics 1943 (+ 1969)
- February 25 - John Foster Duller[?], United States Secretary of State (+ 1959)
- February 27 - Lotte Lehmann[?], singer (+ 1976)
- March 4 - Knute Kenneth Rockne, American football player
- March 12 - Vaslav Nijinsky, Ukrainian ballet dancer
- March 17 - Frank Buck[?], "big game" hunter (+ 1950)
- March 26 - Elsa Brändström, "The Angel of Siberia"
- April 4 - Tris Speaker, Baseball Hall of Famer (+ 1958)
- April 6 - Hans Richter, German filmmaker
- April 26 - Anita Loos[?], writer (+ 1981)
- April 27 - Florence La Badie, pioneer actress (+ 1917)
- May 10 - Max Steiner, composer (+ 1971)
- May 11 - Irving Berlin, composer (+ 1989)
- May 23 - Zack Wheat[?], Baseball Hall of Famer (+ 1972)
- May 25 - Miles Malleson, actor (+ 1969)
- May 27 - Louis Durey, composer, member of Les Six (+ 1979)
- May 28 - Jim Thorpe, American sportsman
- June 24 - Gerrit Rietveld, Dutch architect
- July 10 - Giorgio Chirico, painter (+ 1978)
- August 13 - John Logie Baird, first demonstrated the television
- September 26 - T. S. Eliot, American/British poet
- October 7 - Henry A. Wallace, vice president of the United States
- October 9 - Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian politician
- October 16 - Eugene O'Neill, American dramatist
- November 23 - Harpo Marx, comedian, The Marx Brothers (+ 1964)
- December 4 - King Alexander I of Yugoslavia[?]
- December 28 - F.W. Murnau, German director
- March 10 - Barry Fitzgerald, actor (+ 1966)
- Irving Berlin, American composer
- Raymond Chandler, American novelist
- Maurice Chevalier, French actor
- Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Australian illustrator
- Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese writer
- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Indian philosopher
- Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Finnish writer
- Max Steiner, Austrian film maker
- Harald Sverdrup, Norwegian scientist
Deaths
- January 29 - Edward Lear, British artist and writer
- February 3 - Henry Maine, British jurist
- March 6 - Louisa May Alcott, American novelist
- March 9 - German Emperor Wilhelm I
- April 15 - Father Damien, Belgian priest
- June 15 - German Emperor Friedrich III
- October 16 - John Wentworth, mayor of Chicago, United States
- Anton de Bary, German biologist
- Henry Bergh, founder of American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
- Charles Cros, French poet
- Philip Henry Gosse, British scientist