The World in 1893 the year chicago switched on the lights

The fair counted about 27 million admissions between May and October. The country held about 67 million people, so the turnstiles clicked often enough to match two of every five Americans.

Life back then

Chicago spent the summer showing off. The World's Columbian Exposition filled 600 acres beside Lake Michigan with white plaster palaces, and at dusk workers threw the switches on tens of thousands of electric bulbs. Most visitors had never seen a building lit that way, and some stayed on the bridges to watch it happen. Inside were moving walkways, a hall of machines humming on Westinghouse current, and a wheel that carried riders 264 feet up. They went home to much darker streets and talked about it for years.

The year in 8 events

• 🏛️Jan 17 Queen Liliuokalani is forced from the throne of Hawaii by American businessmen backed by US marines.
• ⚙️Feb 23 Rudolf Diesel receives a German patent for the engine that carries his name.
• 🎡May 1 The World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago. President Cleveland presses a key and the electric lights come on.
• 🚆Jun 7 A young Indian lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi is thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg in South Africa for riding in a first class carriage.
• 🕯️Jun 22 The British battleship Victoria sinks after a collision at sea. Hundreds of sailors are lost.
• 🗳️Sep 19 New Zealand gives women the vote, the first country to do so in national elections.
• 🎼Nov 6 Tchaikovsky dies in Saint Petersburg, nine days after conducting his sixth symphony.
• 🗺️Nov 12 British India and Afghanistan agree a border drawn by Mortimer Durand. The line still cuts through Pashtun country today.

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