4 Prominent people that died in 1901

Alessandro Bassano / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / GFDL

Queen Victoria

(British Monarch)

24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901 (Aged 81)

Born in London, England. Died on the Isle of Wight, England.

Queen Victoria is the second longest-reigning British monarch in history, ruling from 1837, at the age of 18, to 1901. Her brother Leopold was King of the Belgians.

Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. They had nine children, who married into European royalty and nobility, earning Victoria the nickname “the grandmother of Europe”.

Their descendants include Elizabeth II, Prince Philip – Duke of Edinburgh, Harald V of Norway, Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Margrethe II of Denmark, Felipe VI of Spain, and the Emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was her grandson “Willy”.

After her husband’s death in 1861, Victoria went into seclusion for more than 25 years, neglecting many duties, which brought her unpopularity and motivated a republican movement.

During her reign, Britain expanded its imperial reach by doubling in size. This expansion gave rise to the adage, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.”

She re-emerged into public life for her Golden Jubilee in 1887, the celebration of her fiftieth year on the throne.

A whole generation had been raised without ever having seen the face of their Queen.

Victoria was the last of the House of Hanover and gave her name to the Victorian Age. She was succeeded by her son, Edward VII.

Giuseppe Verdi

(Composer)

9 October 1813 – 27 January 1901

Born in Le Rancole, Parma, Italy. Died in Milan, Italy.

Giuseppe Verdi was a renowned Italian composer, known for producing highly successful operas, the most famous being La Traviata, Falstaff and Aida.

Verdi’s works have reportedly been performed more than any other performer’s worldwide.

Elizabeth Jennings Graham

(Activist)

c. 1826 – 5 June 1901 (Aged 75)

Born in New York, she died in New York.

Graham challenged segregation on public transport in 1854, a full 100 years before Rosa Parks.

She won a lawsuit against New York’s Third Avenue Streetcar Company for ejecting her from a streetcar because she was African American.

William McKinley

(US President)

29 January 1843 – 14 September 1901 (Aged 58)

McKinley was the 25th president of the United States. During his tenure, the United States went to war against Spain in 1898.

The result of the war saw the US expanding to have a global empire, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

Following his re-election, McKinley was shaking hands with a crowd of well-wishers at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz shot him at point-blank range, dying a week later.

You can read more about McKinley’s assassination here.