The World in 1898 the year a penny carried a letter across an empire

Britain ran about 22,000 miles of railway track on an island roughly 600 miles long. Almost every town of any size had a station, and most people lived within a walk of one.

Life back then

News from far away came on paper. In a big city the postman called twice a day, so two people could trade notes and settle their plans before dinner. Anything urgent went by wire instead, priced by the word, which is why people wrote ARRIVE TUESDAY SEND CART. From Christmas Day the penny post carried a letter from Britain to almost any colony on earth for a single coin. Picture postcards were becoming a craze, and a card sent from the seaside could beat its sender home.

The year in 8 events

• 📰Jan 13 Emile Zola prints an open letter, J'Accuse, saying the French army framed Alfred Dreyfus.
• 🕯️Feb 15 The American battleship Maine blows up in Havana harbour. 266 men are lost.
• ⚓May 1 An American squadron destroys the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay.
• 📜Jun 11 China's young emperor orders a sweep of reforms to schools, the army and the government. His aunt, the empress dowager, shuts it all down about a hundred days later.
• 📣Jun 12 Emilio Aguinaldo declares the Philippines independent at Kawit, after 300 years of Spanish rule.
• 🥤Aug 28 A druggist in North Carolina gives his fountain drink the name Pepsi-Cola.
• ⚔️Sep 2 A British and Egyptian army breaks the Mahdist forces at Omdurman in Sudan. Rifles and machine guns kill thousands in a few hours.
• 🔬Dec 26 Marie and Pierre Curie announce a new element and name it radium.

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