The Great Blizzard of 1888 pummeled the northeastern United States, burying New York, New Jersey and parts of New England under as much as 60 inches of snow. Whipped by sustained winds of 45 miles an hour, New York City staggered under 21 inches of snow – the second-largest amount in the city’s history.

Among the year’s other big stories:

• For the second time in 12 years, the candidate who lost the popular vote won the U.S. presidency. President Grover Cleveland outpolled Benjamin Harrison by 100,000 votes, but Harrison got more electoral votes and won the election.
• Congress created the U.S. Department of Labor.
• A killer known as Jack the Ripper terrorized the East End of London during a three-month period, cutting the throats of at least five prostitutes and surgically removing organs from some of their bodies. He was never caught.
• Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh cut off his left ear.
• Wilhelm the Second became emperor – or Kaiser – of Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm presided over Germany’s defeat in the Great War, now known as World War One, and lived to see a second World War before his death in 1941.
• George Eastman received a patent for his Kodak box camera. Eastman’s roll film was the basis for the invention of motion picture film in 1888.
• The National Geographic Society was organized in Washington, D.C. and published the first issue of its now-iconic magazine.

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