Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( äl ' fred bern ' härd nōbel ') () ( 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896 ) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer.

* 1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1, 500 years after the original games are banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I.

* 1896 – Closing ceremony of the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, Greece.

* 1896 – Hans List, Austrian inventor and entrepreneur ( d. 1996 )

* 1896 – Reverend Gary Davis, American singer and guitarist ( d. 1972 )

* 1896 – Anglo-Zanzibar War: the shortest war in world history ( 09: 00 to 09: 45 ) between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.

* 1896 – Faina Ranevskaya, Russian actress ( d. 1984 )

* 1844 – James Henry Greathead, English engineer ( d. 1896 )

* 1896 – Erich Hückel, German physicist ( d. 1980 )

* 1896 – Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist ( d. 1980 )

In 1896 England under the captaincy of W G Grace won the series 2 – 1, and this marked the end of England's longest period of Ashes dominance.

* 1896 – Lorenzo Herrera, Venezuelan singer and composer ( d. 1960 )

* 1988 – Jim Jordan, American actor ( b. 1896 )

* 1896 – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, American author ( d. 1953 )

* 1896 – Pat Clayton, English surveyor and explorer ( d. 1962 )

* 1896 – Gerty Cori, Austrian biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate ( d. 1957 )

* 1896 – Catherine Doherty, Russian-Canadian activist ( d. 1985 )

* 1896 – Paul Outerbridge, American photographer ( d. 1958 )

* 1896 – Léon Theremin, Russian inventor, invented the Theremin ( d. 1993 )

* 1896 – Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie discover gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.

* 1896 – Officially recognised date of the Cry of Pugad Lawin, the start of the Philippine Revolution is made in Pugad Lawin ( Quezon City ), in the province of Manila ( actual date and location is disputed ).

* 1896 – Philippine Revolution: After Spanish victory in the Battle of San Juan del Monte, eight provinces in the Philippines are declared under martial law by the Spanish Governor-General Ramón Blanco y Erenas.

* 1850 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer, journalist, and revolutionary ( d. 1896 )

* 1896 – Raymond Massey, Canadian actor ( d. 1983 )

* December 25 – Tristan Tzara, French poet ( b. 1896 )

The greatest triumph of her career came on 26 June 1896, when she sang Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, with Jean de Reszke in his first London Tristan, Louise Meisslinger as Brangäne, David Bispham as Kurwenal, Edouard de Reszke as King Marke, and Luigi Mancinelli conducting.

* January 9 – Carol Benesch, Silesian and Romanian architect ( d. 1896 )

On 17 September 1896, the Sip Channel thus created ( named after the Serbian village on the right bank ) was inaugurated by the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph, the Romanian king Carol I, and the Serbian king Alexander Obrenovich.

Petre S. Aurelian ( 13 December 1833 – 24 January 1909 ) was a Romanian politician who served as a Prime Minister of Romania between 2 December 1896 and 12 April 1897.

Aurelian was elected as member of the Romanian Academy in 1871 and was its president between 1896 and 1897.

He completed the first Romanian translation of Virgil's Aeneid in 1896, and also published a collection of various poems and short stories, Versuri şi proză (" Verses and Prose ").

In 1896, together with Nicolae Vermont, Constantin Artachino, and the art collector, Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești, Stefan Luchian was one of the main founders of Bucharest's Salonul Independenţilor, which was opened in front of the official Salon ( the Romanian equivalent of the Paris Salon ).

* 1896 – André Breton, French poet ( d. 1966 )

Ivar Andreas Aasen ( 5 August 1813 – 23 September 1896 ) was a Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, playwright and poet.

* 1830 – João de Deus, Portuguese poet ( d. 1896 )

* 1896 – Edmund Blunden, English poet, author and critic ( d. 1974 )

* 1896 – Coventry Patmore, British poet ( b. 1823 )

* 1896 – Nima Yooshij, Iranian contemporary poet ( d. 1960 )

* 1896 – Kostas Karyotakis, Greek poet ( d. 1928 )

* May 8 – Uri Zvi Grinberg, Israeli poet and journalist ( b. 1896 )

* March 30 – Paul Verlaine, French poet ( d. 1896 )

* March 24 – William Morris, English poet and artist ( d. 1896 )

The work contains a number of allusions and references to the work of French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud ( 1896 – 1948 ), who exerted a strong influence over Foucualt's thought at the time.

Edmund Charles Blunden, MC ( 1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974 ) was an English poet, author and critic.

André Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966 ) was a French writer and poet.

Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least up until the discovery in 1896 of some poems by his rival Bacchylides, when comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of the poet himself.

Among the major writers of the period were Guo Moruo ( 郭沫若 ) ( 1892 – 1978 ), a poet, historian, essayist, and critic ; Mao Dun ( 茅盾 ) ( 1896 – 1981 ), the first of the novelists to emerge from the " League of Left-Wing Writers " and one whose work reflected the revolutionary struggle and disillusionment of the late 1920s ; satirist and novelist Lao She ( 老舍 ) ( 1899 – 1966 ); and Ba Jin ( 巴金 ) ( 1904 – 2005 ), a novelist whose work was influenced by Ivan Turgenev and other Russian writers.

* March 18-Paul van Ostaijen, Flemish poet ( born 1896 )

* January 20-Edmund Blunden, poet and critic ( born 1896 )

Elmer Rafael Diktonius ( 20 January 1896, Helsinki – 23 September 1961, Kauniainen ) was a Finnish poet and composer, who wrote in both Swedish and in Finnish.

* March 30-Paul Verlaine, lyric poet ( died 1896 )

* March 24-William Morris, English poet and designer ( died 1896 )

* Coventry Patmore, English poet and critic ( 23 July 1823-26 November 1896 )

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud ( 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948 ), was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director.

Jane Francesca Agnes, Lady Wilde ( 27 December 1821 – 3 February 1896 ) ( born Jane Francesca Elgee in Dublin ) was an Irish poet under the pen name " Speranza " and supporter of the nationalist movement ; had a special interest on Irish Fairy Tales, which she helped to gather.