Events January–March January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded in England by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. January 13 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Coatit – Italian forces defeat the Ethiopians. January 17 – Félix Faure is elected President of the French Republic, after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier. February 9 – Mintonette, later known as volleyball, is created by William G. Morgan at Holyoke, Massachusetts. February 11 – The lowest ever UK temperature of is recorded at Braemar, in Aberdeenshire. This record is equalled in 1982, and again in 1995. February 14 – Oscar Wilde's last play, the comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, is first shown at St James's Theatre in London. February 20 The gold reserve of the U.S. Treasury is saved, when J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds loan $65 million worth of gold to the United States government. The offering of syndicate bonds sells out only 22 minutes after the New York market opens, and just two hours after going on sale in London. Venezuelan crisis of 1895: U.S. President Grover Cleveland signs into law a bill resulting from the proposition of House Resolution 252, by William Lindsay Scruggs and Congressman Leonidas Livingston, to the third session of the 53rd Congress of the United States of America. The bill recommends that Venezuela and Great Britain settle their dispute by arbitration. February 25 – The first rebellions of the Cuban War of Independence break out. March 1 – William Lyne Wilson is appointed United States Postmaster General. March 3 – In Munich, Germany, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates. March 4 – Japanese troops capture Liaoyang, and land in Taiwan. March 15 Bridget Cleary is killed and her body burned in County Tipperary, Ireland, by her husband, Michael; he is subsequently convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter, his defence being a belief that he had killed a changeling left in his wife's place after she had been abducted by fairies. Heian Shrine is completed in Kyoto, Japan. March 18 – The first worldwide gasoline bus route is started in Germany, between Siegen and Netphen. March 30 – Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine in Germany. April–June April