Year 1897 (MDCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).
Events of 1897
January - March
April - June
- June 1 - American miners strike begins. The strike successfully establishes the United Mine Workers Union and bring about the 8-hour work day to mines.
- June 2 - Mark Twain, responding to rumors that he is dead, is quoted by the New York Journal as saying, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."
- June 12 - World's first Fingerprint Bureau opens in Calcutta (now Kolkata) India after the Council of the Governor General approved a committee report that fingerprints should be used for classification of criminal records.
- June 22 - Queen Victoria celebrates her Diamond Jubilee.
July - September
October - December
- October 2 - The first issue is published of the radical paper Tocsin.
- October 6 - Ethiopia uses tricolore flag: green is for the land, yellow for peace, and red is symbolic of strength.
- October 12 - The USS Baltimore (Cruiser # 3, later CM-1) is recommissioned, since 1890, for several months of duty in the Hawaiian Islands.
- October 13 - The HMS Canopus (1898), a pre-Dreadnought battleship of the British Royal Navy, is launched at Portsmouth, England (will be deployed widely in World War I).
- December 9 - First issue of the feminist newspaper La Fronde is published by Marguerite Durand.
- December 28 - The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.
- December 30 - Natal annexes Zululand.
Undated
Births
January - June
- January 3 - Marion Davies, American actress (d. 1961)
- January 21 - René Iché, French sculptor (d. 1954)
- January 23
- January 28 - Ivan Stedeford, British Industrialist (d. 1975)
- February 4 - Ludwig Erhard, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1977)
- February 7 - Quincy Porter, American composer (d. 1966)
- February 10
- February 21 - Elizabeth Harrison, daughter of President Benjamin Harrison (d. 1955)
- February 27
- March 1 - Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith (d. 1957)
- March 4 - Lefty O'Doul, American baseball player and restaurateur (d. 1969)
- March 5 - Set Persson, Swedish communist politician (d. 1960)
- March 15 - Jackson Scholz, American sprinter (d. 1986)
- March 16 - Flora Eldershaw, Australian novelist, critic, and historian (d. 1956)
- March 20 - (claimed birthdate) Ruby Muhammad, African Americans' rights activist
- March 24 - Wilhelm Reich, Austrian psychotherapist (d. 1957)
- March 28 - Sepp Herberger, German football coach (d. 1977)
- April 1 - Nita Naldi, American film actress (d. 1961)
- April 7 - Walter Winchell, American broadcast journalist (d. 1972)
- April 9 - John B. Gambling, American radio talk-show host (d. 1974)
- April 17 - Thornton Wilder, American dramatist (d. 1975)
- April 19
- April 21 - Aiden Wilson Tozer, American Protestant pastor (d. 1963)
- April 23 - Lester B. Pearson, Prime Minister of Canada, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1972)
- April 25 - Mary, Princess Royal of England (d. 1965)
- April 26
- May 2 - J. Fred Coots, American songwriter (d. 1985)
- May 14 - Sidney Bechet, American musician (d. 1959)
- May 17 - Odd Hassel, Norwegian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
- May 18 - Frank Capra, American producer, director, and writer (d. 1991)
- May 19 - Frank Luke, American World War I pilot (d. 1918)
- May 21 - Nikola Avramov, Bulgarian painter (d. 1945)
- May 27 - John Cockcroft, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)
- May 29
- June 7 - George Szell, Hungarian conductor (d. 1970)
- June 12 - Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1977)
- June 13 - Paavo Nurmi, Finnish runner (d. 1973)
- June 16 - Georg Wittig, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
- June 19
- June 22 - Edmund A. Chester, American Broadcaster and journalist (d. 1973)
July - December
- July 7 - Mikhail Kovalyov, Soviet Military officer, colonel-general (d. 1967)
- July 20 - Tadeus Reichstein, Polish-born chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1996)
- July 24 - Amelia Earhart, American aviator (d. 1937 - presumed)
- July 29 - Sir Neil Ritchie, British WWII general (d. 1983)
- August 2 - Max Weber, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 1974)
- August 5 - Aksel Larsen, Danish politician (d. 1972)
- August 10 - John Galbreath, American businessman (d. 1988)
- August 28 - Charles Boyer, French actor (d. 1978)
- September 1 - Andy Kennedy, Northern Irish footballer (d. 1963)
- September 8 - Jimmie Rodgers, American singer (d. 1933)
- September 12 - Irene Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 1956)
- September 17 - Earl Webb, American baseball player (d. 1965)
- September 23 - Walter Pidgeon, Canadian actor (d. 1984)
- September 25 - William Faulkner, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)
- September 26
- October 2 - Bud Abbott, American actor (d. 1974)
- October 3 - Louis Aragon, French author (d. 1982)
- October 15 - Johannes Sikkar, Estonian statesman (d. 1960)
- October 20 - Yi Un, Korean Crown Prince (d. 1970)
- October 29 - Joseph Goebbels, German Nazi propagandist (d. 1945)
- November 9
- November 15 - Sacheverell Sitwell, English author (d. 1988)
- November 17 - Frank Fay, American actor (d. 1961)
- November 18 - Patrick Blackett, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
- November 23 - Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Bengali author (d. 1999)
- November 24 - Lucky Luciano, Sicilian-American mafia boss (d. 1962)
- November 30 - Virginia Henderson, American nurse theorist (d. 1996)
- December 18 - Fletcher Henderson, American musician (d. 1952)
- December 30 - Alfredo Bracchi, Italian author (d. 1976)
Deaths
January-June
- February 4 - Major Charles Bendire, U.S. Army captain and ornithologist (b. 1836)
- February 19 - Karl Weierstrass, German mathematician (b. 1815)
- March 11 - Henry Drummond, Scottish evangelical writer and lecturer (b. 1851)
- March 19 - Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie, Irish-born traveler (b. 1810)
- April 1 - Jandamarra, Aborigine who led armed insurrections against white settlement in Australia.
- April 3 - Johannes Brahms, German composer (b. 1833)
- April 10 - Friedrich Franz III, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (b. 1851)
- May 4 - Duchess Sophie Charlotte in Bavaria (b. 1847)
- May 7 - Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale (b. 1822)
- May 10 - Andrés Bonifacio, Filipino revolutionary (b. 1863)
- May 23 - Pusapati Ananda Gajapati Raju, Indian rajah (b. 1850)
July-December
- August 8 - Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Spanish politician and historian (b. 1828)
- September 9
- September 21 - Wilhelm Wattenbach, German historian (b. 1819)
- September 27 - Charles Denis Bourbaki, French military leader (b. 1816)
- September 30 - St Thérèse de Lisieux, French Catholic saint (b. 1873)
- October 9 - Jan Heemskerk, prime minister of the Netherlands (b. 1818)
- October 29 - Henry George, American economist (b. 1839)
- November - Francisco Gonzalo Marin, Cuban poet and freedom fighter (b. 1863)
- November 3 - Thomas Lanier Clingman, American "Prince of Politicians" (b. 1812)
- November 17 - George Hendric Houghton, American Protestant Episcopal clergyman (b. 1820)
- November 18 - Henry Doulton, English pottery manufacturer (b. 1820)
- November 19 - William Seymour Tyler, American educator and historian (b. 1810)
- November 20 - Ernest Giles, Australian explorer (b. 1835)
- December 17 - Alphonse Daudet, French writer (b. 1840)
- December 28 - William Corby, American Catholic priest (b. 1833)
- date unknown - Owon, Korean painter (b. 1843)
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