The World in 1891 the year the wires went up over main street

Russia set out to build a railway roughly 5,700 miles long. A train that never stopped and held 40 miles an hour would need six days to cross it.

Life back then

City streets smelled of horses. A pair of them dragged a streetcar along iron rails, worked a few hours, then handed over to a fresh pair, and a sickness in the stables could shut a whole line down. Then the poles and wires went up. An electric trolley moved faster, climbed hills that beat the horses, and let builders put up streets of new houses a few miles past the old edge of town. Riders paid a nickel, watched the sparks overhead, and argued about whether the thing was safe.

The year in 8 events

• 🕯️Feb 21 An explosion in the coal mines at Springhill, Nova Scotia kills more than 120 men and boys.
• ☎️Mar 18 A telephone line between London and Paris opens. Callers speak across the Channel for the first time.
• 🎻May 5 Carnegie Hall opens in New York, with Tchaikovsky as a guest conductor.
• 🚂May 31 Work begins on the Trans-Siberian Railway, meant to link Moscow with the Pacific coast.
• ⚡Jun 21 A plant at Telluride, Colorado sends alternating current a few miles down a wire to a mine.
• ⚽Sep 14 The first penalty kick is given in a football match, under a rule agreed that summer.
• 🕯️Oct 28 A severe earthquake shakes central Japan. Thousands of people die and whole villages fall.
• 🏀Dec 21 Students at a gym in Springfield, Massachusetts play the first game of basketball, shooting at peach baskets nailed to a balcony.

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