The World in 1894 the year the olympics were still only an idea

Blackpool Tower opened in May, 518 feet of iron standing over a seaside town. That is about half the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which had gone up five years earlier.

Life back then

A holiday for a working family meant one day at the sea. Northern mill towns shut down for a week each summer, and the excursion trains ran to the coast so full that people stood in the corridors. Blackpool put up a new landmark that May. The Blackpool Tower was raised by local men who had come home from Paris talking about Gustave Eiffel, and a lift carried visitors to the top. Below it were brass bands, donkey rides on the sand and a fortune teller in a booth.

The year in 8 events

• 🥤Mar 12 Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time. Until now it was poured only at soda fountains.
• 🚂May 11 Workers walk out of the Pullman railcar plant near Chicago. The strike spreads to rail lines across the country.
• 🏅Jun 23 Delegates meeting in Paris set up the International Olympic Committee and agree to revive the Games.
• 🌉Jun 30 Tower Bridge opens across the Thames in London. Its roadway lifts in two halves to let tall ships pass.
• ⚔️Aug 1 China and Japan declare war on each other over control of Korea.
• 🕯️Sep 1 A firestorm sweeps through Hinckley, Minnesota. More than 400 people die.
• 🚢Sep 17 Japan's new navy wrecks China's main fleet at the mouth of the Yalu River. China loses five warships in an afternoon.
• ⚖️Dec 22 A French court convicts army officer Alfred Dreyfus of spying. The case splits the country for years.

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