The Boer government handed their prisoners over to the British for trial. Jameson was tried in England for leading the raid where the British press and London society inflamed by anti-Boer and anti-German feeling and in a frenzy of jingoism, lionized Jameson and treated him as a hero. Although sentenced to 15 months imprisonment (which he served in Holloway), Jameson was later rewarded by being named Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (1904–08) and ultimately anointed as one of the founders of the Union of South Africa.
The botched raid resulted in repercussions throughout southern Africa and in Europe. In Rhodesia, the departure of so many policemen enabled the Matabele and Mashona peoples to rise up against the Chartered Company, and the rebellion, known as the Second Matabele War, was suppressed only at great cost.
In 1896 Italian inventor Arturo Malignani (1865–1939) patented an evacuation method for mass production, which allowed obtaining economic bulbs lasting 800 hours. The patent was acquired by Edison in 1898.
The first medical X-ray made in the United States was obtained using a discharge tube of Pului's design. In January 1896, on reading of Röntgen's discovery, Frank Austin of Dartmouth College tested all of the discharge tubes in the physics laboratory and found that only the Pului tube produced X-rays.
On 3 February 1896 Gilman Frost, professor of medicine at the college, and his brother Edwin Frost, professor of physics, exposed the wrist of Eddie McCarthy, whom Gilman had treated some weeks earlier for a fracture, to the X-rays and collected the resulting image of the broken bone on gelatin photographic plates obtained from Howard Langill, a local photographer also interested in Röntgen's work.
In March 1896, after hearing of Röntgen's discovery of X-ray and X-ray imaging (radiography), Tesla proceeded to do his own experiments in X-ray imaging, developing a high energy single terminal vacuum tube of his own design that had no target electrode and that worked from the output of the Tesla Coil (the modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is bremsstrahlung or braking radiation). In his research, Tesla devised several experimental setups to produce X-rays. Tesla held that, with his circuits, the "instrument will ... enable one to generate Roentgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus".
Russian bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine successfully protects rabbits against an inoculation of virulent plague microbes, by treating them previously with a subcutaneous injection of a culture of the microbes in broth. The first vaccine for bubonic plague is developed. The rabbits treated in this way become immune to plague. In the next year, Haffkine causes himself to be inoculated with a similar preparation, thus proving in his own person the harmlessness of the fluid. This is considered the first vaccine against bubonic plague.
American inventor Thomas Edison started research soon after Röntgen's discovery and investigated materials' ability to fluoresce when exposed to X-rays, finding that calcium tungstate was the most effective substance. In May 1896 he developed the first mass-produced live imaging device, his "Vitascope", later called the fluoroscope, which became the standard for medical X-ray examinations.
The 1896 Sanriku earthquake was one of the most destructive seismic events in Japanese history. The 8.5 magnitude earthquake occurred at 19:32 (local time) on June 15, 1896, approximately 166 kilometres (103 mi) off the coast of Iwate Prefecture, Honshu. It resulted in two tsunamis which destroyed about 9,000 homes and caused at least 22,000 deaths.
A year before the library's move to its new location, the Joint Library Committee held a session of hearings to assess the condition of the library and plan for its future growth and possible reorganization. Spofford and six experts sent by the American Library Association testified that the library should continue its expansion towards becoming a true national library. Congress more than doubled the library's staff from 42 to 108 based on the hearings, and with the assistance of senators Justin Morrill of Vermont and Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana, and established new administrative units for all aspects of the collection. Congress also strengthened the office of Librarian of Congress to govern the library and make staff appointments, as well as requiring Senate approval for presidential appointees to the position.
After two years at Wilberforce, Du Bois accepted a one-year research job from the University of Pennsylvania as an "assistant in sociology" in the summer of 1896.
In August 1896 Dr. HD. Hawks, a graduate of Columbia College, suffered severe hand and chest burns from an x-ray demonstration. It was reported in Electrical Review and led to many other reports of problems associated with x-rays being sent in to the publication.
Archaeological finds have produced a large number of cauldrons that have since the work of Paul Reinecke in 1896 been identified as having been produced by the Huns. Although typically described as "bronze cauldrons". the cauldrons are often made of copper.
Churchill proceeded to New York City and, in admiration of the United States, wrote to his mother about "what an extraordinary people the Americans are!" With the Hussars, he went to Bombay in October 1896. Based in Bangalore, he was in India for 19 months, visiting Calcutta three times and joining expeditions to Hyderabad and the Northwest Frontier.