Charles Fort: A Fortean Chronology, 1898.

The year of 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar.

January

• January 1: New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island.
• January 13: Emile Zola publishes J'Accuse a letter accusing the French government of anti-Semitism and wrongfully placing Alfred Dreyfus in jail.
• January 16: Dr Espin reports that he has seen something like a cloud in the constellation of Perseus. (Books380)
• January 22: A Viziadrug, India, during a total eclipse of the sun an unknown body is seen between Venus and Mars. (Books489)
• January 24: Dr Espin again in Perseus reports that he has seen something like a cloud, dimming and discolouring stars shining through it. (Books380)

February

• February 15: Spanish-American War: The USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor, Cuba for then unknown reasons, killing 266 men. This event helps lead the United States to declare war on Spain.

March

• March 24: Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania becomes the first person to buy an American-built automobile when he buys a Winton automobile that had been advertised in Scientific American.
• March 26: The Sabi Game Reserve in South Africa, the first officially designated game reserve, is created.

April

• April 22: Spanish-American War, The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and the USS Nashville captures a Spanish merchant ship.
• April 25: Spanish-American War, The United States declares war on Spain; the U.S. Congress announces that a state of war has existed since April 21 (later backdating this one more day to April 20).

May

• May 1: Spanish-American War, Battle of Manila Bay: Commodore Dewey destroys the Spanish squadron.
• May 2: Thousands of Chinese scholars and Beijing citizens protest in front of the Capital Control Yuan, asking for reform.
• May 7-9: Bava-Beccaris massacre, Hundreds of demonstrators are killed when General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris orders troops to fire on a rally in Milan, Italy (in 1900, King Umberto I of Italy is killed in an act of vengeance for his praise of the shooting).
• May 8: The first games of the Italian Football League are played.
• May 28: Secondo Pia takes the first photographs of the Shroud of Turin and discovers that the image on Shroud itself appears to be a photographic negative.

June

• June 1: The Trans-Mississippi Exposition World's Fair opens in Omaha, Nebraska.
• June 12: Philippine Declaration of Independence, General Emilio Aguinaldo declares the Philippines' independence from Spain.
• June 13: Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital.

July

• July 1: A Sedberg a red object is seen in the sky, it looked like the red part of a rainbow, about 10 degrees long. (Books302)
• July 3: Joshua Slocum completes a 3-year solo circumnavigation of the world.
• July 7: The United States annexes the Hawaiian Islands.
• July 17: Spanish-American War, Battle of Santiago Bay - Troops under United States General William R. Shafter take the city of Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.
• July 25: Spanish-American War, The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins with a landing at Guánica Bay.

August

• August 12: Spanish-American War, Hostilities end between American and Spanish forces in Cuba.
• August 20: Opening of the Gornergratbahn railway, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat.
• August 25: 700 Greeks and 15 Englishmen are slaughtered by the Turks in Heraklion, Greece, leading to the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State.
• August 28: Caleb Bradham names his soft drink Pepsi-Cola.

September

• September 2: The Battle of Omdurman, British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeat Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, thus establishing British dominance in the Sudan.
• September 4: At Lille in France a red object is seen in the sky. (Books486) 
• September 10: Luigi Lucheni assassinates Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary.
• September 18: Fashoda incident, A diplomatic dispute between France and the United Kingdom ends in victory for the British.
• September 21: Empress Dowager Cixi of China engineers a coup d'etat, marking the end of the Hundred Days' Reform; the Guangxu Emperor is arrested.

October

• October 1: The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name K.U.K. Exportakademie.
• October 3: Battle of Sugar Point, Ojibwe tribesmen defeat U.S. government troops in northern Minnesota.
• October 6: The Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity (then the Sinfonia Club) is founded at the New England Conservatory in Boston.

November

• November 24: Spider-web-like substances fall upon Montgomery, Alabama. (Books62)
• November 26: A two day blizzard known as the Portland Gale piles snow in Boston, Massachusetts, and severely impacts the Massachusetts fishing industry and several coastal New England towns.

December

• December 9: The first of the two Tsavo maneaters is shot by John Henry Patterson; the second is killed 3 weeks later, after 135 workers had been killed.
• December 10: The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Spanish-American War.
• December 26: Marie and Pierre Curie announce discovery of a substance they call radium.