US Army troops kill hundreds of Lakota people, many of them women and children, at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
The United States defeats Spain, gaining Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, while Cuba is freed from Spanish rule.
After Spain cedes the Philippines to the United States, forces of the Philippine Republic fight American rule but are defeated.
Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory produces a carbon-filament incandescent lamp long-lasting enough for practical use.
Guglielmo Marconi reports receiving a radio signal in Newfoundland transmitted from Cornwall across the Atlantic.
At Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers make the first controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight.
Three days after receiving his patent, Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call to his assistant Thomas Watson.