By 1899 the Americans were taking the lead: the Isthmian Canal Commission told Congress that a route through Nicaragua, not Panama, was best for ships Pacific-bound.

ECONOMIST: A man, a plan, a canal—Panama? | The

Cached away for over a century, the world's first color moving pictures have been shown for the first time yesterday, according to the National Media Museum in the UK. The celluloid, shot by inventor Edward Raymond Turner in 1899, was actually in black and white and it was only through a curator's research that its colorful significance was also unearthed.

ENGADGET: World's oldest color film footage discovered in museum archive (video)

'Joyance', an 1899 statue of a boy by Sir William Goscombe John, was cut from the water fountain in Thompson's Park, Canton, Cardiff.

BBC: Stolen statue

Back in 1899, Venezuela accepted the existing border, fixed by arbitration.

ECONOMIST: Oil, rockets and troubled waters