Best Documentary Movies of 1898

The festive start and disastrous aftermath of the launch of the H.M.S. Albion.

The film documents the launch of HMS Albion at Blackwall on the 21st of June, 1898—an event that was witnessed by 30,000 onlookers, 37 of whom lost their lives when the jetty upon which they were standing became washed away by the resultant swell.

A review of engineers at the Longchamp parade, filmed by the Lumière brothers.

Four men of different ranks play a game of tetherball on a ship's deck.

The Switchback Railway was the forerunner of the roller coaster. Passengers sit in a small car which trundles up a swooping railway track then performs a 180 degree turn at its summit before swooping back down on a parallel track.

During the Alaska gold rush, one way to reach the Klondike was over the Chilkoot Pass. A stationary camera is placed to see a ways down the curving trail. A pack train comes into view and passes in front of us, led by a man on horseback. Eight loaded mules follow, then another cowboy on horseback and a man walking, then eight more laden mules, another cowboy, then nine more mules, a cowboy, and still the pack train stretches as far as the eye can see. A solitary man watches from atop a hillock. (IMDb)

A “phantom ride” taken from the buffers of an engine on the London and South West Railway through the Ilfracombe area: the reservoirs, Morthroe, Ilfracombe Incline and station.

On Saturday morning, August 20, 1898, six grim battleships of Admiral Sampson's Squadron sailed into New York Harbor and up the Hudson to receive a welcome from the people and to fire a salute of victory in sight of the tomb of the great soldier-hero of another war [Ulysses Grant].

Film produced by William K. Dickson’s British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.