Opened
On 10 December, Egypt's new Aswan Dam is unveiled 950 kilometres (590 miles) south of Cairo. The 40 metre (130ft) high Aswan Dam, designed to control the Nile flood waters, is 2 kilometres (1.25 miles) long -- the result of four years labour by 11,000 workers.

Banned
The binding of women's feet was banned by imperial decree in China on 1 February.

Women's political groups were banned in Germany on 5 May by the Prussian Government.

Surrendered
The Boers in South Africa surrendered to the British on 10 April.

Published
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories. Helen Keller, The Story of My Life.

Bestsellers
Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Banned
The binding of women's feet was banned by imperial decree in China on 1 February.

The Flat Iron building -- whose construction New Yorkers have been observing attentively for some years -- was finally completed this year in New York City. Other skyscrapers may be bigger, but none symbolises the daring of modern architecture better than this 20-storey limestine wedge with its six new Otis elavators. Its remarkable shape, a slender triangle, fills an odd plot of land where Broadway joins Fifth Avenue, at 23rd Street.

Rumours abound of strange wind patterns caused by its triangular form -- a young merssenger boy is said to have been blown off the pavement and killed. But the building's grand profile, likened to "a ship sailing up the avenue", is sure to make it one of New York's most popular landmarks.