The 1890s (pronounced "eighteen-nineties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1890, and ended on December 31, 1899. In the United States, the 1890s were marked by a severe economic depression sparked by the Panic of 1893. This economic crisis would help bring about the end of the so-called "Gilded Age", and coincided with numerous industrial strikes in the industrial workforce. From 1926 the period was sometimes referred to as the "Mauve Decade", because William Henry Perkin's aniline dye (discovered in London in 1856) allowed the widespread use of that color in fashion in the late 1850s and early 1860s. In France the 1890s formed the core of the so-called Belle Époque. In the British Empire the 1890s epitomised the late Victorian period. Map Politics and wars Wars First Franco-Dahomean War (1890) Second Franco-Dahomean War (1892–1894) First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) First Italo-Ethiopian War (1895–1896) Greco-Turkish War (1897) Spanish–American War (1898) Philippine–American War (1899–1902) Second Boer War (1899–1902) Wars and Conflicts 1890: Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota. On December 29, 1890, 365 troops of the US 7th Cavalry, supported by four Hotchkiss guns, surrounded an encampment of Miniconjou (Lakota) and Hunkpapa Sioux (Lakota) near Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. The Army had orders to escort the Sioux to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. One day earlier, the Sioux had been cornered and agreed to turn themselves in at the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota. They were the last of the Sioux to do so. In the process of disarming the Sioux, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote could not hear the order to give up his rifle and was reluctant to do so. A scuffle over Black Coyote's rifle escalated into an all-out battle, with those few Sioux warriors who still had weapons shooting at the 7th Cavalry, and the 7th Cavalry opening fire indiscriminately from all sides, killing men, women, and children, as well as some of their own fellow troopers. The 7th Cavalry quickly suppressed the Sioux fire, and the surviving Sioux fled, but US cavalrymen pursued and killed many who were unarmed. By the time it was over, about 146 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux had been killed. Twenty-five troopers also died, some believed to have been the victims of friendly fire as the shooting took place at point-blank range in chaotic conditions. Around 150 Lakota