User:Mandsford/1900

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1899

The following events occurred in January 1899:

January 1, 1899: Cuba freed from Spanish rule, comes under control of the United States

January 1, 1899 (Sunday)

• Spanish rule ended in Cuba, concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas.
• Queens and Staten Island became administratively part of New York City.
• Born: Jack Beresford, British Olympic rower, gold medalist in 1924, 1932 and 1936; in Chiswick, Middlesex (d. 1977)
• Died: William Hugh Smith, 72, Governor of Alabama during Reconstruction, 1868 to 1870, former Alabama legislator who joined the Union Army

January 2, 1899 (Monday)

• Bolivia set up a customs office in Puerto Alonso, leading to the Brazilian settlers there to declare the Republic of Acre in a revolt against Bolivian authorities.
• The first part of the Jakarta Kota–Anyer Kidul railway on the island of Java was opened between Batavia Zuid (Jakarta Kota) and Tangerang.

January 3, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Hungarian Prime Minister Dezső Bánffy fought an inconclusive duel with his bitter enemy in parliament, Horánszky Nándor.
• Born: Karl Diebitsch, German fashion designer and Nazi SS officer; in Hanover (d. 1985)

January 4, 1899 (Wednesday)

• U.S. President William McKinley's declaration of December 21, 1898, proclaiming a policy of benevolent assimilation of the Philippines as a United States territory, was announced in Manila by the U.S. commander, General Elwell Otis, and angered independence activists who had fought against Spanish rule.
• The American Society of Landscape Architects, still in existence 123 years later, was founded.

January 5, 1899 (Thursday)

• A fierce battle was fought between American troops and Filipino defenders at the town of Pililla on the island of Luzon. The Filipinos retreated to the mountains at Tanay.

January 6, 1899 (Friday)

• Lord Curzon became Viceroy of India.
• Born:
  • Heinrich Nordhoff, German automotive engineer who guided the Volkswagen company after World War II; in Hildesheim, Prussia (d. 1968)
  • Elsie Steele, British supercentenarian who lived to the age of 111 (d. 2010)

January 7, 1899 (Saturday)

• The Lucky Star, an English comic opera composed by Ivan Caryll and produced by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company premiered at the Savoy Theatre in London for the first of 143 performances.
• Born: Francis Poulenc, French composer; in Paris (d. 1963)

January 8, 1899 (Sunday)

• The soccer football club SK Rapid Wien was founded in Vienna.
• Born: S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka, 1956 to 1959; in Colombo (assassinated 1959)

January 9, 1899 (Monday)

• After a successful revolt against the Ottoman Empire by the inhabitants of the island of Crete, the area, which would join Greece, got its first constitution, with provisions for a provincial legislature of 138 Christian deputies and 50 Muslim deputies.
• George F. Hoar, a U.S. Senator for Massachusetts, spoke out in the Senate against American expansion into the Philippines. The text of Hoar's was sent by cable to Hong Kong at a cost of $4,000, and would later be cited by Ambassador John Barrett on January 13, 1900, as an incitement to Filipino attacks on U.S. troops.

January 10, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity was founded, at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois.
• Died:
  • Jonathan B. Turner, 93, U.S. educational reformer and champion of land grant universities, co-founder of the University of Illinois
  • William A. Russell, 67, U.S. Congressman and industrialist who was the first president of the International Paper Company

January 11, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The Steel Plate Transferrers' Association, the first labor union for workers skilled in siderography (the engraving and mass reproduction of steel plates for newspaper printing) was established. After changing its name to the International Association of Siderographers, it would have 80 members at its peak. It would dissolve in 1991, with only eight members left. Stewart, Estelle May (1936). Handbook of American trade-unions: 1936 edition. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. United States Government Printing Office.
• Born: Eva Le Gallienne, English-born American stage actress; in London (d. 1991)

January 12, 1899 (Thursday)

• A massive rescue by the Lynmouth Lifeboat Station, using 100 men and requiring the transport of the lifeboat Louisa over land and then out to sea, succeeded in saving all 18 men aboard. The event would later be made famous in the children's book The Overland Launch.
• Born: Paul Hermann Müller, Swiss chemist who developed dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) as an insecticide, recipient of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine;in Olten, Solothurn canton (d. 1965)

January 13, 1899 (Friday)

• The Canadian Northern Railway was established.
• Died: Nelson Dingley Jr., 66, U.S. politician and Congressman for Maine since 1881, author of the Dingley Act for increased tariffs

January 14, 1899 (Saturday)

• The White Star Line ship RMS Oceanic, at the time the largest British ocean liner up to that time, was launched from the Irish port of Belfast in front of over 50,000 people. It would begin its maiden voyage on September 6.
• The British four-masted sailing ship Andelana capsized during a storm in Commencement Bay off the coast of the U.S. Washington, with the loss of all 17 of her crew.
• Born:
  • Carlos Romulo, Filipino diplomat, President of the United Nations General Assembly; in Camiling, Luzon, U.S. Philippine territory (d. 1985)
  • Fritz Bayerlein, German general; in Würzburg, Bavaria (d. 1970)
• Died: Nubar Pasha, 74, the first Prime Minister of Egypt (1878-79, 1884-88 and 1894-95)

January 15, 1899 (Sunday)

• The name of Puerto Rico was changed by the new U.S. military government to "Porto Rico". It would not be changed back until May 17, 1932.
• Born: Goodman Ace, American actor, comedian and writer; as Goodman Aiskowitz in Kansas City, Missouri (d. 1982)

January 16, 1899 (Monday)

• Eduardo Calceta was appointed as Chief of the Army (Jefe General) of the rebel Philippine Republic army by Emilio Aguinaldo.

January 17, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The United States took possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
• Born:
  • Al Capone, American gangster; in New York City (d. 1947)
  • Nevil Shute, English-born novelist known for the 1957 bestseller On the Beach; in Ealing, Middlesex (d. 1960)
• Died: Jedediah Hotchkiss, 70, American military cartographer for the Confederacy during the American Civil War

January 18, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The General Assembly of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania began the task of filling the U.S. Senate seat of Matthew Quay, who had recently resigned after being indicted on criminal charges. After 79 ballots and three months, no candidate would have a majority, and the General Assembly would refuse to approve the governor's appointment of a successor. The seat would remains vacant for more than two years. The Pennsylvania experience later led to the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to provide for U.S. Senators to be directly elected by popular vote, rather than by the state legislatures.

January 19, 1899 (Thursday)

• The British colony of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was formed. It would be disbanded in 1956.
• Future film producer Szmuel Gelbfisz, born in Poland and later a resident of Germany and England, arrived in the United States at the age of 16. He would later Americanize his name to Samuel Goldwyn, co-founder of the company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

January 20, 1899 (Friday)

• The Schurman Commission was created by U.S. President William McKinley to study the issue of the American approach to he sovereignty of the Philippines, ceded to the U.S. on December 10 by Spain. The five-man group, chaired by Cornell University President Jacob Schurman, later concluded that the Philippines would need to become financially independent before a republic could be created.
• Born: Kenjiro Takayanagi, Japanese engineer who developed the first all-electronic television set using a cathode ray tube; in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture (d. 1990)

January 21, 1899 (Saturday)

• Opel Motors began production in Germany.
• The Malolos Constitution was ratified in the Province of Bulacan by the Revolutionary Government of the Philippines.

January 21: Opel car

• Born:
  • Gyula Mándi, Hungarian footballer who played for the national team 1921 to 1934, then managed the Hungarian national team 1950-1956 and the Israeli national team 1959-1963; in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (d. 1969)
  • John Bodkin Adams, Irish-British physician acquitted of murder; in Randalstown, County Antrim (d. 1983)

January 22, 1899 (Sunday)

• The leaders of the six British colonies on the continent of Australia colonies met in Melbourne, to discuss the confederation of Australia as a whole.

January 23, 1899 (Monday)

• Emilio Aguinaldo was sworn in, as President of the First Philippine Republic.
• [Mubarak Al-Sabah]], the emir of Kuwait, signed the Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement of 1899 a secret treaty with the British Empire to accept protectorate status for the Middle Eastern sheikdom, in return for British protection of Kuwaiti territory.
• The British Southern Cross Expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle.
• Born: Alfred Denning, Baron Denning, English lawyer, judge and Master of the Rolls 1962-1982; in Whitchurch, Hampshire (d. 1999)
• Died: Romualdo Pacheco, 77, the only Hispanic Governor of the U.S. state of California (in 1875)

January 24, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, one of the oldest medical schools in the United States, was founded.

January 25, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The city of Ponce, Puerto Rico was saved from disaster by seven firemen and one volunteer civilian who disobey orders and stop "El Polverin", a fire near the U.S. Army's store of explosive artillery. The "Monument to the Heroes of El Poverin" was later erected in their honor.
• Born: Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian statesman, first President of the United Nations General Assembly 1946-1947; Prime Minister of Belgium 1947-1949; Secretary General of NATO 1957-1961; in Schaerbeek (d. 1972)

January 26, 1899 (Thursday)

• U.S. Representative George Henry White of North Carolina, the only African-American in Congress at the time, delivered his first major speech, speaking out against disenfranchisement of black voters and proposing that the number of representatives from a U.S. state should be based on the number of persons of voting age who actually cast ballots, rather than population. "
• German inventor Karl Ferdinand Braun, who would later share the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi, received British Patent No. 1899-1862 for his wireless radio invention "Telegraphy without directly connected wire".

January 27, 1899 (Friday)

• Camille Jenatzy of France became the first man to drive an automobile more than 80 kilometers per hour, almost breaking the 50 mph barrier when he reaches an unprecedented speed of 80.35 kilometres per hour (49.93 mph) in his CGA Dogcart racecar. Jenatzy's speed was more than 20% faster than the January 17 mark of 66.65 kilometres per hour (41.41 mph) set by Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat.
• Born: Béla Guttmann, Hungarian-born soccer football coach who survived the Holocaust; in Budapest (d. 1981)

January 28, 1899 (Saturday)

• At a time when U.S. Senators were elected by the state legislature rather than by ballot, wealthy businessman William A. Clark was elected U.S. Senator after offering bribes to most of the members. The U.S. Senate would refuse to seat him after evidence of the bribery was revealed.
• The League of Peja, organized by Haxhi Zeka to lobby for a Kosovar Albanian state within the Ottoman Empire, attracted 450 delegates to its first convention, held at the city of Peja, now in the Republic of Kosovo.

January 29, 1899 (Sunday)

• A lawyer for the estate of John W. Keely, an inventor who had persuaded investors in his Keely Motor Company that an automobile could be created that would operate from Keely's "induction resonance motion motor" that had achieved perpetual motion, revealed that the late Mr. Keely's motor had been a fraud, and that the widow knew nothing of it.
• Born: Antal Páger, Hungarian film actor; in Makó, Austria-Hungary (d. 1986)
• Died: Alfred Sisley, 59, French impressionist landscape painter, died of throat cancer

January 30, 1899 (Monday)

• Dimitar Grekov was appointed as Prime Minister of Bulgaria by King Ferdinand I, but would be removed from office less than 10 months later on October 13.
• Born: Max Theiler, South African virologist, recipient of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his development of a vaccine against yellow fever; in Pretoria, South African Republic (d. 1972)
• Died: Harry Bates, 48, British sculptor

January 31, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Cherokee Nation voters in the Indian Territory (later the U.S. state of Oklahoma) approved a proposition to allot Cherokee lands and to dissolve the Cherokee government, but the U.S. Congress never ratified the results.
• Died: Princess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma, 29, princess consort of Bulgaria, from complications of childbirth

February 1899

The following events occurred in February 1899:

February 1, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Ranavalona III, who had been the Queen of Madagascar until being deposed on February 28, 1897, was sent into exile by French colonial authorities, along with the rest of the royal family. She departed on the ship Yang-Tse on a 28-day trip to Marseilles.
• The Suntory whisky distiller in Japan was opened by Shinjiro Torii in Osaka as a store selling imported wines.

February 2, 1899 (Thursday)

• The participants in the Australian Premiers' Conference, held in Melbourne, agreed that Australia's new capital, Canberra, should be located between Sydney and Melbourne.
• Born: Herbie Faye, American vaudeville, film and TV comedian known for The Phil Silvers Show; in New York City (d. 1980)

February 3, 1899 (Friday)

• Kansas University's new college basketball team, coached by the game's inventor, Dr. James Naismith, played its first game, and was defeated by the YMCA team of Kansas City, Kansas, 16 to 5.
• Born:
  • João Café Filho, President of Brazil 1954-1955; in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte (d. 1970)
  • Lao She (pen name for Shu Qingchun), Chinese novelist and playwright who was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution; in Beijing (committed suicide, 1966)
  • Doris Speed, English TV actress known for her 23-year role as landlady Annie Walker on Coronation Street; in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lancashire (d. 1994)
  • Mildred Trotter, American forensic anthropologist; in Monaca, Pennsylvania (d. 1991)

February 4, 1899 (Saturday)

• The Philippine–American War began as hostilities broke out in Manila.
• Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden" was first published, appearing in The Times of London. A response to the United States occupation of the Philippine Islands, and exhorting members of the White race to be responsible for benevolent civilizing of the world's "non-white" people, the poem was reprinted in The New York Sun the next day.
• Born: Virginia M. Alexander, African-American physician; in Philadelphia (d. 1949)

February 5, 1899 (Sunday)

The first major battle of the Philippine–American War concluded with the capture by the U.S. of the San Juan River Bridge that connects Manila and San Juan. U.S. Army General Arthur MacArthur Jr. led troops of the U.S. Army Eighth Corps to victory over Filipino troops commanded by General Antonio Luna. In the two-day battle, 55 U.S. soldiers and 238 Filipino soldiers were killed.

February 6, 1899 (Monday)

• A peace treaty between the United States and Spain was ratified by the United States Senate by a vote of 57 to 27 to end the Spanish–American War.
• Born: Ramon Novarro, Mexican-born American film actor and leading man; in Durango (d. 1968)
• Died:
  • Leo von Caprivi, 67, Chancellor of Germany 1890 to 1894
  • Prince Alfred of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, 24, German noble who was a grandson of Queen Victoria of the British Empire, and heir to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, died after a brief illness. His father, Duke Alfred, would die 17 months later; the Duchy would be abolished along with the German monarchy in 1918.

February 7, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Elections were held in Greece for the 235 seats of the Hellenic Parliament. Supporters of the late Charilaos Trikoupis won 110 seats, 8 short of a majority, and Trikoupis's successor, Georgios Theotokis broker a government as Prime Minister.

February 8, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Protesting against the government of Russia broke out at Saint Petersburg University and mounted police violently responded to the group, causing a riot.

February 9, 1899 (Thursday)

• The Dodge Commission exonerated the U.S. Department of War from responsibility in the United States Army beef scandal, where meatpacking companies supplied low-grade, putrefied beef to American soldiers during the Spanish American War and caused an unquantified number of cases of food poisoning. While War Secretary Russell Alger was not accused of criminal negligence, the Commission implied that he was incompetent and he was later forced to resign.

February 10, 1899 (Friday)

• U.S. Army troops, supported by bombardment from the warships Charleston and Monandock, defeated Filipino forces in the Battle of Caloocan and got control of the Manila to Dagupan railway. Colonel W. S. Metcalfe would later be accused by some of his men of having ordered the shooting of Filipino soldiers taken prisoner.
• Future U.S. President Herbert Hoover and his fiancée Lou Henry, both 24, were married at her parents' home in Monterey, California, and departed the next day for a 14-month stay in China, where Hoover works as a mining engineer.
• Born: Cevdet Sunay, President of Turkey 1966 to 1973; in Çaykara, Trebizond vilayet, Ottoman Empire (d. 1982)

February 11, 1899 (Saturday)

• The coldest temperature recorded up to that time in the continental United States was set as Fort Logan, Montana records a low of −61 °F (−52 °C).
• Died: Teuku Umar, 44, Indonesian guerrilla leader who led the Acehnese Rebellion against the Netherlands colonial government of the Dutch East Indies, was killed in an ambush.

February 12, 1899 (Sunday)

• The Great Blizzard of 1899 struck the east coast of the United States, causing subzero temperatures as far south as southern Florida for two days and destroying the citrus fruit crop that year.

February 13, 1899 (Monday)

• In New York, the White Star ocean liner SS Germanic, already laden with ice and snow during its voyage from Liverpool, became even more weighed down after disembarking its passengers when the New York City blizzard struck. With 3,600,000 pounds (1,600,000 kg) of added weight, the ship began to list sideways and additional weight entered cargo doors that had been opened for refuelling. Germanic remained on the bottom New York Harbor for more than a week while salvaging goes on, then requ couldrefurbishing for three months, but became operational again.

February 14, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Voting machines were approved by the U.S. Congress, for use in federal elections.

February 15, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The February Manifesto was issued by the Emperor of Russia, decreeing that a veto by the Diet of Finland could be overruled in legislative matters concerning the interest of all Russia, including autonomous Finland. The manifesto was viewed as unconstitutional and a coup d'état by many Finns, who had come to consider their country a separate constitutional state in its own right, in union with the Russian Empire. Furthermore, the manifesto also failed to elaborate the criteria that a law had to meet in order to be considered to concern Russian imperial interests, and not an internal affair of Finland (affairs over which the Diet's authority was supposed to have remained unaltered), leaving it to be decided by the autocratic Emperor. This resulted in Finnish fears that the Diet of Finland could be overruled arbitrarily.
• Born:
  • Gale Sondergaard, American film actress and Academy Award winner (1936 for Anthony Adverse); in Litchfield, Minnesota (d. 1985)
  • Georges Auric, French film score composer; in Lodève, Hérault département (d. 1983)
  • Lillian Bounds Disney, American artist and philanthropist, wife of Walt Disney; in Spalding, Idaho (d. 1997)

February 16, 1899 (Thursday)

• Félix Faure, the President of France since 1895, died of a stroke in his office while engaged in sexual activity with his mistress, Marguerite Steinheil.
• Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur, the first Association football club in Iceland, was established in the island's capital, Reykjavík.

February 17, 1899 (Friday)

• The research vessel SS Southern Cross, on an Antarctic expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevink, arrived at Cape Adare and began unloading 90 sledge dogs— the first ever on the continent-- and two Norwegian Sámi crewmen, Per Savio and Ole Must, who became the first humans to spend the night in Antarctica. Over the next 12 days, the rest of the 31-man crew brought in supplies builds a temporary settlement.
• Born:
  • Jibanananda Das, Indian Bengali language poet and novelist; in Barisal, Bengal Province, British India (now Bangladesh) (d. 1954)
  • Leo Najo (Leonardo Alaniz), Mexican-born American baseball player and the first Mexican national signed by a U.S. major league team, as well as one of the original inductees (in 1936) into the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame; in Doctor Coss, Nuevo León (d. 1978)

February 18, 1899 (Saturday)

• The National Assembly of France elected a new President to fill out the remainder of the late President Faure's term. Senate President Émile Loubet won the vote, 483 to 278, against Prime Minister Jules Méline.
• Born: Sir Arthur Bryant, British historian; in Dersingham, Norfolk (d. 1985)
• Died: Sophus Lie, 56, Norwegian mathematician known for the theory of continuous symmetry in differential equations. The Lie group, a differentiable manifold group, is named in his honor.

February 19, 1899 (Sunday)

• In Venezuela, the former Minister of War, Major General Ramón Guerra, angry with the reforms of President Ignacio Andrade, proclaimed the state of Guárico as an independent territory. President Andrade ordered General Augusto Lutowsky to crush the rebellion and Guerra fled to Colombia, but would later come back as Minister of War.
• Born: Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, German and American biodynamic agriculture scientist; in Munich (d. 1961)

February 20, 1899 (Monday)

• Discussions among members of a joint Anglo-American commission, set up by U.S. President William McKinley and Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier to resolve the Alaska boundary dispute, ended abruptly after it was clear that the U.S. would not make any concessions. In response, Laurier made clear that Canada would make no further concessions with the U.S. in trade.

February 21, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Gdadebo II, the Alake of Egba in what was now southeast Nigeria, signed an agreement with the British Governor of Lagos Colony to lease lands for construction of a new railway from Aro to Abeokuta.
• The British freighter SS Jumna, hauling a load of coal with minimal crew, was last seen passing Rathlin Island at Northern Ireland. Bound from Scotland to deliver a shipment of coal to Uruguay, it never arrived and would never seen again.
• The Vicksburg National Military Park was established in Mississippi to preserve the battlefield of the Battle of Vicksburg that was fought in 1863 during the American Civil War.

February 22, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Convention Hall, which would later host two national political conventions, opened in Kansas City, Missouri with a concert by the band of John Philip Sousa. The building would burn down less than 14 months later.
• Born:
  • Joseph Le Brix, French aviator known for making the first airplane flight (on October 15, 1927) across the South Atlantic Ocean as part of his round-the-world flight in 1927 and 1928; in Baden, Morbihan département (killed in plane crash 1931)
  • Margarito Flores García, Mexican Roman Catholic saint, priest and martyr; in Taxco de Alarcón, Guerrero state (killed 1927)
  • Ian Clunies Ross, Australian scientist; in Bathurst, New South Wales (d. 1959)
  • George O'Hara (stage name for George Bolger), American film actor and screenwriter; in New York City (d. 1966)

February 23, 1899 (Thursday)

• In France, Paul Déroulède and Jules Guérin of the right-wing Ligue des Patriotes attempted to persuade General Georges-Gabriel de Pellieux to lead a coup d'état during the funeral of the late president Félix Faure in order to overthrow President Loubet. General Pellieux refused to participate. Later in the year, Déroulède and Guérin would be indicted for conspiracy against the government and banished from France.
• Born: Erich Kästner, German writer of children's books; in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony (d. 1974)
• Died: General Gaëtan de Rochebouët, 85, Prime Minister of France for three weeks in 1877

February 24, 1899 (Friday)

• The works of Catholic priest and theologian Herman Schell, including the recently published Der Katholicismus als Princip des Fortschritts and Die neue Zeit und der alte Glaube were placed by the Roman Catholic Church on its Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of banned books.

February 25, 1899 (Saturday)

• In an accident at Grove Hill, Harrow, London, England, Edwin Sewell became the world's first driver of a gasoline-powered vehicle to be killed. His passenger, Major James Richer, died of injuries three days later.
• Died: Paul Reuter (pen name for Israel Beer Josaphat), 82, German-born British journalist who founded the Reuters news agency in 1851

February 26, 1899 (Sunday)

• Dezső Bánffy resigned as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary, at the time a partner in the "dual monarchy" of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was succeeded by Kálmán Széll.

February 27, 1899 (Monday)

• Japanese immigration to South America, primarily the nation of Peru, began as the ship Sakura Maru departed from Yokohama with 790 men employed by the Morioka-shokai Sugar Company. The group arrived in Callao on April 3.
• Born: Charles Best, American-born Canadian medical scientist and assistant to Frederick Banting in the discovery of insulin; in West Pembroke, Maine (d. 1978)

February 28, 1899 (Tuesday)

• U.S. President William McKinley approved a law increasing the pension to American Civil War veterans, both Union and Confederate, to $25.00 per month.

March 1899

The following events occurred in March 1899:

March 1, 1899 (Wednesday)

• In Afghanistan, Capt. George Roos-Keppel made a sudden attack on a predatory band of Chamkannis that had been raiding in the Kurram Valley, and captures 100 prisoners with 3,000 head of cattle.

March 2, 1899 (Thursday)

• Mount Rainier National Park was established, in the U.S. state of Washington.

March 3, 1899 (Friday)

• Guglielmo Marconi conducted radio beacon experiments on Salisbury Plain in England and noticed that radio waves were being reflected back to the transmitter by objects they encountered, one of the early steps in the potential for developing radar.
• Died: William P. Sprague, 71, U.S. Representative for Ohio 1871-1875

March 4, 1899 (Saturday)

• Cyclone Mahina killed over 400 people in Australia after striking Bathurst Bay in Queensland. A 37 feet (11 m) high wave reached up to 3 miles (4.8 km) inland, claiming most of the lives in the deadliest natural disaster in Australia's history.

March 5, 1899 (Sunday)

• George B. Selden sold the rights to his patent for an internal combustion engine to the Electric Vehicle Company. He and the company then claimed a royalty on all automobiles using such an engine.

March 6, 1899 (Monday)

March 6: Aspirin

• German chemist Felix Hoffmann patented acetylsalicylic acid as a pain releaver under the name "aspirin", and Bayer registered its name as a trademark.
• Died: Victoria Kawēkiu Kaʻiulani Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa Cleghorn, 23, the last heir apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawaii as niece of Queen Liliʻuokalani, died after a short illness.

March 7, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The Provisional Law on the Judiciary was issued in the Philippines to provide for the selection of a Chief Justice.

March 8, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The Frankfurter Fußball-Club Victoria von 1899 (predecessor of Eintracht Frankfurt Association football club) was founded.
• Born:
  • Elmer Keith, American ammunition designer who created the .357 Magnum cartridge, the .44 Magnum cartridge and the .41 Magnum cartridge; in Hardin, Missouri (d. 1984)
  • Eric Linklater, Welsh-born Scotttish poet and children's fiction writer; in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan (d. 1974)

March 9, 1899 (Thursday)

• Japan promulgated its commercial code, the Shōhō, to take effect on June 16. The Shōhō, as amended, applies to Japanese business today.

March 10, 1899 (Friday)

• The U.S. state of Delaware enacted its general corporation act that would make it the most important jurisdiction in United States corporate law.
• At the Battle of Balantang, the U.S. Army sustained 400 casualties in an attack by Philippine troops under the command of Pascual Magbanua.

March 11, 1899 (Saturday)

• A wireless distress signal was sent for the first time by a patrol boat to aid the endangered British cruiser Elbe. The Morse code distress signal was heard by the lighthouse near Ramsgate Lifeboat Station, which sent a lifeboat to the rescue.
• Waldemar Jungner filed the patent application for the first alkaline battery and received Swedish patent number 11132.
• Born: Prince Christian Frederik Franz Michael Carl Valdemar Georg of Denmark, who later became King Frederick IX in 1947 and reigned until his death; at the Sorgenfri Palace in Kongens Lyngby as the son of Crown Prince Christian and grandson of King Frederick VIII (d. 1972)

March 12, 1899 (Sunday)

• Encinal County, Texas, created on February 1, 1856, near the U.S. city of Laredo on the condition that it would create a county seat, was discontinued and annexed into neighboring Webb County. The largest town in the area, Bruni, had less than 400 people.
• Died: Julius Vogel, 64, Premier of New Zealand 1873-1875, and 1876

March 13, 1899 (Monday)

• Chelan County, Washington was created from Okanogan and Kittitas counties for the area around Wenatchee.
• Born: J. H. Van Vleck, American physicist and 1977 Nobel Prize laureate; in Middletown, Connecticut (d. 1980)

March 14, 1899 (Tuesday)

• After a civil war broke out in Samoa between Malietoa Tanumafili I (recognized by Germany, the UK and the U.S.) and rebels who recognized Mata'afa Iosefo as the island's king, the USS Philadelphia takes control of the capital at Apia.
• Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II took direct command of the Imperial Navy.

March 15, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Santa Cruz County was established in the southeast corner of Pima County around the city of Nogales (built across from the border of the larger Mexican city of Nogales, Sonora) in the U.S. territory of Arizona.

March 16, 1899 (Thursday)

• Memorial ceremonies were held for the burial of the late German hero Otto von Bismarck and his wife, Johanna von Puttkamer with their re-interment at the Bismarck Mausoleum, now a tourist attraction at Friedrichsruh in Aumühle. Bismarck, who had died on July 30, had been buried along with his wife at the estate of his home in Varzin, now the city of Warcino in Poland.

March 17, 1899 (Friday)

• A fire killed 86 people at the Windsor Hotel in New York City.

March 18, 1899 (Saturday)

• Phoebe, the ninth-known moon of the planet Saturn was discovered by U.S. astronomer William Pickering from analysis of photographic plates made by a Peruvian observatory seven months earlier, the first discovery of a satellite photographically.
• Died: Othniel Marsh, 67, American paleontologist at Yale University and former President of the National Academy of Sciences; among the dinosaur species named in his honor are Hoplitosaurus marshi, Othnielosaurus consors and the Marshosaurus.

March 19, 1899 (Sunday)

• One of the first labor unions for government employees was formed with the organization in Denmark of the Copenhagen Municipal Workers' Union
• The Battle of Taguig took place in the Philippines as the USS Laguna de Bay bombards the Katipunan stronghold.

March 20, 1899 (Monday)

• At Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York, Martha M. Place became the first woman to be executed in an electric chair.

March 21, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The Eden Theatre in La Ciotat, a small city in France near Marseilles, laid a claim to being the first cinema by as brothers Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière present their short film, L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat ("The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat") to 250 spectators surprised. The action film showed a steam train pulling into La Ciotat station, passengers coming out of the cars, and departing passengers climbing on.
• Born: Panagiotis Pipinelis, Prime Minister of Greece four four months in 1963, later the Foreign Minister 1967 until his death; in Piraeus (d. 1970)

March 22, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The coronation of Malietoa Tanumafili I as King of Samoa took place. He had become the Malieota of the South Pacific island when his father died on August 22.

March 23, 1899 (Thursday)

• The U.S. cruiser USS Philadelphia and the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Porpoise and HMS Royalist bombarded rebel-held villages in Samoa after an attack on Apia.

March 24, 1899 (Friday)

• George Dewey was promoted to the rank of Admiral of the United States Navy, the first and only person to achieve that rank.
• The U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, acting as arbitrator of a boundary dispute between Argentina and Chile, awarded the disputed territory to Chile.
• Born: Dorothy C. Stratton, the first commissioned officer of the United States Coast Guard and the first director of the Coast Guard Women's Reserve, the SPARS; in Brookfield, Missouri (d. 2006)
• Died: Marie Goegg-Pouchoulin, 73, Swiss feminist and founder (in 1868) of the Association internationale des femmes, the first international women's organization

March 25, 1899 (Saturday)

• The rowing team of Cambridge University won the annual boat race against Oxford University for the first time in a decade, finishing ahead of Oxford by 3 1⁄4 lengths on the Thames. Oxford had won the race nine times in a row from 1890 to 1898.

March 26, 1899 (Sunday)

• In the first major action in the Malolos Campaign in the Philippine–American War, 90 Filipino soldiers were killed in the Battle of the Meycauayan bridge
• Born: Burt Munro, New Zealand motorcycle racer and holder of the world speed record (183.59 miles per hour (295.46 km/h)) for an engine less than 1,000 cc, still standing after being set in 1967; in Invercargill (d. 1978)

March 27, 1899 (Monday)

• Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmitted a radio signal across the English Channel.
• In the Battle of Marilao River, Filipino forces under the personal command of Emilio Aguinaldo, President of the Philippines, failed to prevent troops of the United States Army crossing the river.
• Born: Gloria Swanson, American film actress; in Chicago (d. 1983)

March 28, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Alfred Martineau became the new French colonial governor of French Somaliland in northeast Africa, now the Republic of Djibouti
• Born:
  • August A. Busch Jr., American beer brewery magnate who built the Anheuser-Busch company into the world's largest brewery during his term as chairman, 1946 to 1975, owner of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team from 1953 until his death; in St. Louis
  • Harold B. Lee, Mormon elder and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1972 until his death; in Clifton, Idaho (d. 1973)

March 29, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The First Philippine Republic relocated its capital from Malolos to San Isidro, Nueva Ecija as the government fled an invasion of U.S. forces.
• Born:
  • Marshal Lavrentiy Beria, Georgian-born director of the Soviet secret police and briefly (1953) the leader of the U.S.S.R.; in Merkheuli, Kutais Governorate, Russian Empire (executed 1953)
  • James V. Allred, U.S. politician, Governor of Texas 1935-1939, and federal judge from 1949 until his death; in Bowie, Texas (d. 1959)

March 30, 1899 (Thursday)

• The British steamer Stella sank in the English Channel with the loss of 80 people after wrecking against Les Casquets, a group of rocks near the Channel Islands.

March 31, 1899 (Friday)

• The United Kingdom announced that it had completed the purchase of rights to occupy the Kingdom of Tonga.
• In the Philippine–American War, Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, was captured by American forces.

April 1899

April 1, 1899 (Saturday)

• The Second Battle of Vailele took place in Samoa as rebels loyal to King Mata'afa Iosefo forced the retreat of American and British troops who assisting Samoans loyal to Prince Tanumafili.
• Born: Gustavs Celmiņš, Latvian fascist leader, founder of the Pērkonkrusts ("Thunder Cross") organization, later a collaborator during the German Nazi invasion; in Riga, Russian Empire (d. 1968)
• Died: Charles C. Carpenter, 65, U.S. Navy Admiral who commanded the Asiatic Squadron

April 2, 1899 (Sunday)

• The Hamburg America Line cruise ship SS Graf Waldersee began its maiden voyage.

April 3, 1899 (Monday)

• The ship Sakura Maru brought 790 Japanese immigrants to the Peruvian port of Callao as the first persons from Japan to be accepted to live in South America.
• Born: Maria Redaelli-Granoli, Italian supercentenarian, at 113 the oldest person in Europe for four months until her death; in Lombardy (d. 2013)

April 4, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Cuba's General Assembly voted to disband the Cuban army and to accept U.S. sovereignty.
• The German Imperial Navy warship SMS Jaguar, which would be scuttled after losing the 1914 Siege of Tsingtao, began service.

April 5, 1899 (Wednesday)

• A team of five European geologists and 30 African laborers set out from Northern Rhodesia to explore the minerals of central Africa for the British company Tanganyika Concessions, Ltd. (TCL). Discovering that the most valuable copper deposits were in the Congo Free State, TCL made an unsuccessful attempt to purchase full rights from King Leopold of Belgium.
• Born: Elsie Thompson, at 113 the second-oldest living American for three months preceding her death; in Pennsylvania (d. 2013)

April 6, 1899 (Thursday)

• In an elaborate military ceremony, 336 of the 385 American soldiers killed in the Spanish–American War were interred at the Arlington National Cemetery.
• Died: Garret Parry, 52, Irish pipe player and entertainer

April 7, 1899 (Friday)

• The Shootout at Wilson Ranch, the last major gunfight of the Wild West era in the U.S., took place in Tombstone, Arizona. Brothers William Halderman and Thomas Halderman, killed two lawmen. They would later be hanged on November 16, 1900.
• Born: Robert Casadesus, French composer and pianist; in Paris (d. 1972)
• Died: Pieter Rijke, 86, Dutch physicist known for creation of the Rijke tube

April 8, 1899 (Saturday)

• The Victors, the famous fight song for University of Michigan sports, was premiered at Ann Arbor, Michigan by John Philip Sousa and his band. A student orchestra had played the music three days earlier for a smaller student audience.

April 9, 1899 (Sunday)

• In Uganda, King Chwa II Kabalega of the Bunyoro kingdom, a leader of the fight against British colonial occupation, was taken prisoner after being shot in a battle near Hoima. Kabalega was exiled to the Seychelles in the South Pacific ocean and remained there until 1923.
• The Greek ship Maria sank after a collision with the British steamer Kingswell in the Mediterranean and 45 people drowned.
• The Battle of Santa Cruz began in the Philippines between U.S. Army troops and nationalists of the First Philippine Republic. After a two day battle, 93 Filipino fighters and one American soldier were dead.
• Born: General Hans Jeschonnek, Chief of the German General Staff in the Luftwaffe during World War II; in Hohensalza, now Inowrocław in Poland (committed suicide after the bombing of Peenemünde, 1943)

April 10, 1899 (Monday)

• Seven people were shot and killed in a gun battle at the Springside Mine at Pana, Illinois, between striking white union coal miners, and African-Americans hired as strikebreakers by the company. Five of the dead were black, including the wife of one of the non-union miners, along with one white miner and a white sheriff's deputy.

April 11, 1899 (Tuesday)

• U.S. President William McKinley declared the Spanish-American War to be at an end as the Treaty of Paris between the U.S. and Spain went into effect. Ratifications were exchanged between McKinley and French Ambassador Jules Cambon on behalf of Spain. Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam were ceded to the U.S. and Cuba became an American protectorate.
• Born: Percy L. Julian, African-American research chemist who was the first to synthesize hormones from plant sterols, making the way for mass production of progestrone, testosterone, cortisone and physostigmine; in Montgomery, Alabama (d. 1975)
• Died: Lascăr Catargiu, 75, four-time prime minister of Romania between 1866 and 1895

April 12, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Bolivia's President Severo Fernández was overthrown in a military coup d'état led by General José Manuel Pando

April 13, 1899 (Thursday)

• The British freighter City of York departed from the U.S. port of San Francisco with a crew of 27 and a cargo of Oregon timber bound for Fremantle in Australia, but never reached its destination, wrecking on the reefs at Rottnest Island on July 12.

April 14, 1899 (Friday)

• British Army troops in Hong Kong attacked the Walled City of Kowloon on orders of colonial Governor Henry Blake, based on intelligence that Chinese Imperial Army troops had been stationed behind the walls to subvert Britain's 1898 lease. By April 19, the British commander discovered that the Chinese troops had already departed and that only 150 civilians remained.

April 15, 1899 (Saturday)

• Students at the University of California, Berkeley stole the Stanford Axe from Stanford University, yelling at leaders following a baseball game, thus establishing the Axe as a symbol of the rivalry between the schools.

April 16, 1899 (Sunday)

• Voting was held in Spain for the 402 seats of the Congreso de los Diputados, and the Conservative Union won a majority with 233 members. Voting for the Senate of Spain took place on April 30.
• Britain formally claimed possession of the "New Territories" as an extension of its lease of Hong Kong to cover the area south of the Sham Chun River and 230 island in Kowloon Bay.
• Born: Osman Achmatowicz, Polish chemist; in Bergaliszkach (d. 1988)
• Died: Emilio Jacinto, 23, Filipino poet and revolutionary; from malaria

April 17, 1899 (Monday)

• The first elections for the 10-member Legislative Council of the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), limited to European candidates and voters.

April 18, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 went into effect, creating 32 counties of Ireland (six which would become Northern Ireland) and abolished the counties corporate of Carrickfergus and Drogheda.

April 19, 1899 (Wednesday)

• France added Kingdom of Laos, a protectorate since 1893, to the existing colony of French Indochina.
• Born: George O'Brien, American silent film leading man; in San Francisco (d. 1985)

April 20, 1899 (Thursday)

• The controversial ballet Le Cygne, choreographed by Madame Mariquita and written by Catulle Mendès, premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, but was considered by critics to be too sexually explicit.
• Born: Alan McLeod, Canadian war hero and pilot; in Stonewall, Manitoba (died of influenza, 1918)

April 21, 1899 (Friday)

• The nova V606 Aquilae was first observed from Earth as seen within the constellation Aquila. It faded from view within six months.

April 22, 1899 (Saturday)

• In aid of the Royal Niger Company, the British Army began an invasion of Esanland, in southwestern Nigeria, to halt the resistance of the Esan chiefs still resistant to European rule. After Benin King Ologbosere was overcome, the British attacked the kingdom at Ekpoma.
• Born: Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born American writer known for Lolita; in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire (d. 1977)
• Died:
  • Sir John Mowbray, 1st Baronet, 83, British MP and Father of the House of Commons since 1898 (b. 1815)
  • Johann Köler, 73, Estonian painter who led the "Estonian national awakening" in art

April 23, 1899 (Sunday)

• The steamship General Whitney sank off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida. While everyone on board escaped in lifeboats, one of the boats capsized, drowning the captain and 16 other crew.
• Born: Bertil Ohlin, Swedish economist, 1977 Nobel Prize laureate; in Klippan, Scania (d. 1979)

April 24, 1899 (Monday)

• The Scottish ship Loch Sloy was wrecked off the coast of Australia's Kangaroo Island, drowning 32 of the 35 people on board.
• Born: Oscar Zariski, Russian-born American mathematician; in Kobrin, Russian Empire (now in Belarus) (d. 1986)
• Died: Richard J. Oglesby, 74, U.S. politician, three-time Governor of Illinois for whom the town of Oglesby, Illinois is named

April 25, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Voting was held for the 169-seat National Assembly in Bulgaria, and the Radoslava Party won a majority.

April 26, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Jean Sibelius's First Symphony premiered in Finland at Helsingfors (now Helsinki).
• Born: Sir John Nicoll, British colonial governor of Singapore, 1952-1955, and colonial secretary of Hong Kong, 1949-1952; in Wimbledon Common, London (d. 1981)
• Died: Count Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart, 75, Minister-President of Austria during 1871

April 27, 1899 (Thursday)

• In Australia, the Apostolic Church of Queensland received formal recognition as a religious denomination.
• Born: Walter Lantz, American animator known for creating "Woody Woodpecker"; in New Rochelle, New York (d. 1994)

April 28, 1899 (Friday)

• The United Kingdom and the Russian Empire signed the Anglo-Russian Agreement formalizing their spheres of influence in China, essentially agreeing that Britain would not seek railway concessions north of the Great Wall of China, and Russia would avoid doing the same in the Yangtze River valley in southern China.

April 29, 1899 (Saturday)

• Camille Jenatzy of Belgium became the first person to drive faster than 100 kilometers per hour, powering his electric CITA Number 25 racecar, La Jamais Contente at 105.88 kilometres per hour (65.79 mph) at a track at Achères, near Paris.
• Born:
  • Duke Ellington (Edward Kennedy Ellington), African-American jazz musician and bandleader; in Washington, DC (d. 1974)
  • Mary Petty, American illustrator; in Hampton, New Jersey (d. 1976)

April 30, 1899 (Sunday)

• In the Philippines, the U.S. established a protectorate over the Republic of Negros, a semi-independent government for Negros Island, separate from the rest of the Philippine Islands. The Republic would exist until its annexation to the rest of the U.S. territory on April 20, 1901.
• Died: Lewis Baker, 66, U.S. politician and diplomat who served as the U.S. Minister to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua from 1893 to 1897; from anemia

May 1, 1899 (Monday)

• U.S. Navy Admiral George Dewey reported that 10 officers and crew of the ship USS Yorktown been taken prisoner by the Philippine republic.

May 2, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) ceded its province of Luang Prabang (now Laos) to France.
• Died: Henry B. Hyde, 65, insurance company executive and founder of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States

May 3, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Francisco Silvela became the new Prime Minister of Spain after the resignation on March 7 of Práxedes Sagasta in the wake of Spain's loss of its overseas territories during the Spanish-American War.
• The Ferencvárosi TC Association football club was founded in Budapest.
• Born: Aline MacMahon, American stage and film actress known for Dragon Seed; in McKeesport, Pennsylvania (d. 1991)

May 4, 1899 (Thursday)

• The thoroughbred horse Manuel, ridden by Fred Taral, won the 25th running of the Kentucky Derby.
• Inventor John Matthias Stroh applied for the patent for his new invention, the "Stroh violin", a stringed musical instrument with an amplifying horn attached. British Patent No. GB9418 was granted on March 24, 1900.

May 5, 1899 (Friday)

• The village of Stirling, Alberta was founded in Canada as a Mormon colony of 30 American settlers from Richfield, Utah, led by Theodore Brandley.

May 6, 1899 (Saturday)

• The first democratic elections in Philippine history were held, for a municipal government for Baliuag in the province of Bulacan.
• Born: Billy Cotton, English band leader; in Westminster (d. 1969)

May 7, 1899 (Sunday)

• The capital of the First Philippine Republic was moved by President Emilio Aguinaldo from Manolos to Angeles City

May 8, 1899 (Monday)

• In the French West African colony of Niger, French Army Captain Paul Voulet carried out the massacre of the Hausa inhabitants of the village of Birni-N'Konni in retaliation for the continued resistance of Queen Sarraounia.
• Born:
  • Friedrich Hayek, Austrian economist and 1974 Nobel Prize laureate; in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (d. 1992)
  • Arthur Q. Bryan, American comedian and radio actor who was Dr. Gamble on Fibber McGee and Molly; in New York City (d. 1959)
• Died:
  • William Lawrence, 79, U.S. Representative who helped in creating the U.S. Department of Justice and creating the American Red Cross
  • General Manning Force, 74, American Civil War officer and recipient of the Army Medal of Honor for heroism during the war

May 9, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The first KNVB Cup of the Royal Dutch Football Association was won by RAP Amsterdam in extra time, 1 to 0, over HVV Den Haag.

May 10, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Finnish farmworker Karl Emil Malmelin killed seven people with an axe at the Simola croft in the village of Klaukkala.
• Born: Fred Astaire, American dancer, actor and singer on stage and in film; as Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska (d. 1987)

May 11, 1899 (Thursday)

• Alberto Santos-Dumont attempted the first test flight of his Airship No. 2, but rain cooled the hydrogen during the ship's inflation and a gust of wind blew it into nearby trees, where it was destroyed.
• Died: William Porcher Miles, 76, American politician and secessionist, one of several U.S. Congressmen (1857-1860) who left to become a member of the Confederate House of Representatives during the American Civil War

May 12, 1899 (Friday)

• The first trade union for railway employees in Sweden, the Svenska Järnvägsmannaförbundet (Sweden Railworkers' League) was founded. It would last until its 1970 mergers into a labor union of Swedish government employees.
• Born: Indra Devi, Latvian-born India and U.S. yoga instructor who brought yoga to China and the U.S.; as Evgeniya Peterson in Riga, Livonia Governate, Russian Empire (d. 2002)
• Died:
  • Henry Becque, 62, French dramatist
  • Roswell P. Flower, 63, U.S. politician, Governor of New York 1892-1894

May 13, 1899 (Saturday)

• A train wreck near Reading, Pennsylvania killed 28 people and injured 50.
• The Esporte Clube Vitória Association football club was founded in Salvador, Brazil.

May 14, 1899 (Sunday)

• The three time world champion Club Nacional de Football was founded in Montevideo, Uruguay.

May 15, 1899 (Monday)

• A clue to the fate of the British freighter Pelican, which disappeared in October 1897 along with 40 crew, was found in a message in a bottle that washed ashore at Portage Bay in the U.S. state of Washington.
• Born: General Jean Étienne Valluy, French Army officer who was commander of Army of France troops in French Indochina during the fight against the Viet Minh; in Rive-de-Gier, Loire département (d. 1970)

May 16, 1899 (Tuesday)

• British troops in the leased Chinese territory of Hong Kong took control of the city of Kowloon.
• The last Spaniards remaining in the Philippine Islands, after the cession to the U.S., departed from the island of Basilan.
• Died:
  • William Nast, German-born religious leader and founder of the German Methodist Church in the U.S.
  • Francisque Sarcey, 71, French journalist and stage critic

May 17, 1899 (Wednesday)

• In the Philippines, U.S. Army troops captured the city of San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, where Philippine Republic president Aguinaldo had moved his capital, but found that the insurgents had already left.
• Born: Carmen de Icaza, 8th Baroness of Claret, Spanish journalist and novelist known for the bestseller Cristina Guzman, profesora de idiomas; in Madrid (d. 1979)

May 18, 1899 (Thursday)

• The First Hague Peace Conference was opened in The Hague by Willem de Beaufort, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.
• Born: Ronald Armstrong-Jones, British barrister and legal expert; in Ilford, Essex (d. 1966)

May 19, 1899 (Friday)

• The U.S. Army captured Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost island in the Philippines.
• Died: Charles R. Buckalew, 77, U.S. Senator 1863-1869 and U.S. Representative 1887-1891, American politician and diplomat, ambasador to Ecuador 1858-1861

May 20, 1899 (Saturday)

• Jacob German, a New York City cab driver, became the first motor vehicle operator in the U.S. to be arrested for speeding when he was caught driving his electric taxi 12 miles per hour (19 km/h), more than twice the speed limit on Lexington Avenue.
• The American Physical Society was founded at a meeting at Columbia University in New York by 36 physicists, with a mission "to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics."
• Born: John Marshall Harlan II, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1955 until his death; in Chicago

May 21, 1899 (Sunday)

• The crew of the Royal Navy ship HMS Narcissus sighted a large sea creature estimated to be 150 feet (46 m) long in the Mediterranean Sea near Algeria and reported that it propelled itself by means of "an immense number of fins", as well as being able to spout water from several points on its body. The creature was not seen again after the lone encounter.
• The town of Porosow in Poland (now Porazava in Belarus) was destroyed by fire.

May 22, 1899 (Monday)

• The unrecognized República Selvática— the "Jungle Republic"-- was proclaimed by Peruvian Army Colonel Emilio Vizcarra in three provinces in Northern Peru located within the Amazon rainforest, Loreto, San Martín and Ucayali. The "republic" would be reincorporated into Peru after Vizcarra's death on February 27, 1900.

May 23, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Major General Henry W. Lawton and his troops arrived in Manolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, after a 120-mile march in 20 days that had captured 28 towns with a loss of only six men.
• Born: Jeralean Talley, American supercentenarian who was recognized as the oldest living person in the world from April 6 to June 17 of 2015, dying 25 days after her 116th birthday; in Montrose, Georgia

May 24, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Jules Massenet's Cendrillon, the first opera based on the fairy tale of Cinderella, premiered in Paris at the theater of the Opéra-Comique.
• The 80th birthday of Queen Victoria was celebrated throughout the British Empire.
• Born:
  • Suzanne Lenglen, French tennis player who won eight Grand Slam singles tennis titles (including six victories at Wimbledon 1919 to 1923, and 1925) and eight 13 titles in double and mixed doubles for the same period; in Paris (died of anemia, 1938)
  • Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet; in Churulia, Bengal Province, British India (now in Bangladesh) (d. 1976)
• Died: Sir William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher, 83, British jurist, Lord Justice of Appeal, 1876 to 1897, the having been the chief of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales (Master of the Rolls) 1883 to 1897

May 25, 1899 (Thursday)

• Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Annum sacrum, declaring 1900 to be a Holy Year and directing Roman Catholic churches worldwide to carry out the consecration of all human beings to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
• A fire in the Canadian city of Saint John, New Brunswick, destroyed 150 buildings and rendered over 1,000 people homeless.
• Died: Emilio Castelar y Ripoll, 66, President of the First Spanish Republic from for four months in 1873

May 26, 1899 (Friday)

• The guns of the British warship HMS Scylla, commanded by Captain Percy Scott, hit their targets 56 out of 70 times after Scott and his crew solved the problem of aiming a ship cannon on rolling seas.

May 27, 1899 (Saturday)

• Rangers F.C., commonly called the Glasgow Rangers and one of the most successful soccer football teams in the Scottish Football League, was incorporated.
• Maurice Ravel's Shéhérazade Overture, was given its first public performance,

May 28, 1899 (Sunday)

• General Vicente Álvarez formed the short-lived Republic of Zamboanga in the Philippines on a peninsula on the island of Mindanao. The nation would exist until 1903 when it would be consolidated by the U.S. to the rest of the Philippine territory.

May 29, 1899 (Monday)

• The Spanish system of courts in the Philippines, closed since the American occupation began, was revived under U.S. sovereignty and regulation.

May 30, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Female outlaw Pearl Hart robbed a stage coach 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Globe, Arizona.
• Born: Irving Thalberg, American film producer of more than 400 movies and Academy Award winner known for Mutiny on the Bounty, Grand Hotel, The Broadway Melody; in Brooklyn, New York City (died of pneumonia, 1936)

May 31, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The Harriman Alaska Expedition was launched.

June 1899

June 1, 1899 (Thursday)

• The Bloemfontein Conference commenced between Paul Kruger and Sir Alfred Milner in the Orange Free State, but ended in failure after six days.
• Born: Edward Charles Titchmarsh, British mathematician; in Newbury, Berkshire (d. 1963)

June 2, 1899 (Friday)

• American outlaws Robert L. Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry A. Longabaugh ("The Sundance Kid") committed their first armed robbery as "The Wild Bunch", stopping aUnion Pacific train near Wilcox, Wyoming, with accomplices Harvey Logan and Elzy Lay, and stole more than $30,000 worth of cargo.
• Born: Lotte Reiniger, German-born silhouette animator; in Charlottenburg (d. 1981)

June 3, 1899 (Saturday)

• France's Court of Cassation ordered a reopening of the 1894 conviction for treason of French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus after evidence of a wrongful conviction was made public, and directed that Dreyfus be returned to France after five years of imprisonment on Devil's Island off of the coast of South America.
• The United States and Spain resumed diplomatic relations, as U.S. President McKinley received the Duke of Arcos as the new Minister for Spain.
• Born: Georg von Békésy, Hungarian biophysicist, recipient of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; in Budapest (d. 1972)
• Died: Johann Strauss, 73, Austrian dance music composer known for the waltz tune The Blue Danube, and writer of hundreds of dance melodies for waltzes, polkas and quadrilles

June 4, 1899 (Sunday)

• The President of France, Émile Loubet, was assaulted at the Longchamp Racecourse while watching the annual Grand Steeplechase. His attacker, Fernand de Christiani, beat him with a cane while Loubet was sitting in the grandstand. De Christiani received a four-year prison sentence nine days later.
• Born: "Doc" Barker, American criminal, son of Ma Barker and member of the Barker-Karpis Gang; in Aurora, Missouri (killed in escape from prison, 1939)

June 5, 1899 (Monday)

• General Antonio Luna, Commander of the Philippine Revolutionary Army, was assassinated along with his chief aide, Colonel Paco Román, after being lured to Cabanatuan by President Emilio Aguinaldo.

June 6, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The U.S. military government of the Philippines directed that the 1885 Alien Contract Labor Law, which prohibited the importation of foreign workers into the United States, be applied to bringing persons other than Americans into the Philippines.

June 7, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The Automobile Club of America was founded by a group of racers attending a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, with a purpose of promoting "the sport of automobilism".
• Died: Augustin Daly, 60, influential U.S. stage director, producer and theater manager

June 8, 1899 (Thursday)

• The Frederick Douglass Monument, the first statue in the U.S. to memorialize a specific African-American person, was unveiled in Douglass's hometown of Rochester, New York.
• Saint Gemma Galgani experienced stigmata in the form of wounds corresponding to those sustained by Jesus Christ during his crucifixion. Her family physician concluded that Galgani's stigmata were actually self-inflicted wounds from a sewing needle.

June 9, 1899 (Friday)

• American boxer James J. Jeffries won the world heavyweight boxing championship when he knocked out Cornish-born Bob Fitzsimmons in the 11th round of a bout at Coney Island at Brooklyn, New York.
• Born: Signe Amundsen, Norwegian operatic soprano (d. 1987)

June 10, 1899 (Saturday)

• Under the terms of the Samoa Tripartite Convention, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States formed a colonial government to administer a protectorate over the islands of Samoa, with each nation providing an administrative consul to decide on the island's relations with foreign powers. The government would last less than nine months, and Germany annexed the western part of Samoa on March 1, 1900, leaving the U.S. to control what was now American Samoa.
• Died: French classical composer Ernest Chausson, 44, was killed not long after his career began to flourish, when his bicycle crashed into a brick wall as he was riding down a hill. The death was ruled to be an accident, although later biographers would speculate that Chausson committed suicide.

June 11, 1899 (Sunday)

• Pope Leo XIII issued a declaration of the consecration of the entire human race, whether Christian or non-Christian, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The consecration followed the issuance of his papal encyclical Annum sacrum, declaring 1900 to be a Holy Year and directing all Roman Catholic churches in the world to implement the Prayer of Consecration to the Sacred Heart during the period of June 9 to June 11, 1899. At the time, an estimated 1.6 billion people were on Earth.
• Born: Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese novelist, recipient of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature; in Osaka (d. 1972)

June 12, 1899 (Monday)

• The New Richmond tornado completely destroyed the town of New Richmond, Wisconsin, killing 117 people and injuring more than 200.
• France's Prime Minister Charles Dupuy and his cabinet announced their resignations after losing a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies.
• Born: Fritz Lipmann, German-born American biochemist, recipient of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad in Russia) (d. 1986)

June 13, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The village of Herman, Nebraska, with a population of 319, was destroyed by a tornado and 40 people were killed.
• Born: Carlos Chávez, Mexican composer; in Popotla district of Mexico City (d. 1978)

June 14, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Hiram M. Hiller Jr., William Henry Furness III and Alfred Craven Harrison Jr. set off on their third research expedition to gather archeological, cultural, zoological, and botanical specimens for museums, with a focus on South Asia and Australia.

June 15, 1899 (Thursday)

• Sweden's Department of Foreign Affairs hosted a conference for delegates from Germany, Denmark, Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, Russia and Sweden to make agreements on fishing in the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.
• Cycle & Carriage, one of the largest companies in Singapore, was founded.

June 16, 1899 (Friday)

• Japan's commercial code, the Shōhō, went into effect after having been promulgated on March 9. The Shōhō, as amended, applies to Japanese business today. The new code replaced the Kyu-shoho that had come into force on July 1, 1893.
• The United States and Barbados signed a trade treaty.
• Born: Helen Traubel, American soprano; in St. Louis (d. 1972)

June 17, 1899 (Saturday)

• David Hilbert created the modern concept of geometry, with the publication of his book Grundlagen der Geometrie, released on this date at Göttingen.

June 18, 1899 (Sunday)

• The Federación Libre de Trabajadores was created in Puerto Rico by anarchists Santiago Iglesias, Ramón Romero Rosa and Eduardo Conde as a resistance movement against the United States.

June 19, 1899 (Monday)

• The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was created in northeast Africa to be as a territory to be administered jointly by Egypt and the United Kingdom, through an Egyptian governor-general appointed with consent of the UK, although in practice it became administered as part of the British Empire. The arrangement would continue for more than 50 years until the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 and the granting of independence to the Republic of Sudan in 1956.
• Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations premiered in London.
• Died: Lorenzo Danford, 69, U.S. Representative since 1895, formerly Representative from 1873-1879

June 20, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Voters in the British colony of New South Wales overwhelmingly approved a resolution to join the proposed Federation of Australia.
• The right-wing nationalist movement Action Française was formed in France.

June 21, 1899 (Wednesday)

• "Treaty 8", the most comprehensive of the eleven Numbered Treaties, was signed between the British Crown on behalf of Canada, with various Cree groups of the First Nations (Kapawe'no, Sucker Creek Cree, Driftpile, Swan River), ceding 320,000 square miles (830,000 km²) of land in the northern parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia, as well as a portion of the Northwest Territories, to the Canadian government.

June 22, 1899 (Thursday)

• Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau formed a new government to become Prime Minister of France

June 23, 1899 (Friday)

• William H. Thompkins, Dennis Bell, Fitz Lee and George H. Wanton were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroism in Spanish–American War during the rescue of a stranded landing party while under enemy fire. The four men, all members of the Buffalo Soldiers of the U.S. Army, became the last African-Americans to be selected for the Medal of Honor for more than half a century.
• The Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) and the Russian Empire signed a Declaration of Jurisdiction, Trade and Navigation at Bangkok.
• Died: Henry B. Plant, 79, American transportation entrepreneur who founded the Plant System of railways in southern Georgia and the Plant Steamship Line of steamships

June 24, 1899 (Saturday)

• Spain ceded its last Pacific Ocean colonies, the Caroline Islands (now part of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Ladrone islands of Ladrone (now part of the Mariana Islands), and Palau, to Germany.
• The Australia national rugby union team played its first game, a 13-3 loss to at team representing Great Britain.
• Born: Bruce Marshall, Scottish author of nonfiction and fiction; in Edinburgh (d. 1987)
• Died: Kapi'olani, 64, Queen Consort of Hawaii 1874-1891 and widow of King Kalakaua

June 25, 1899 (Sunday)

• Three Denver newspapers published a story (later proved to be a fabrication) that the Chinese government under the Guangxu Emperor was going to demolish the Great Wall of China.
• Born: Arthur Tracy, Ukrainian-born American vocalist who gained fame on stage, film and radio as "The Street Singer"; as Abba Avrom Tracovutsky in Kamenetz-Podolsky (d. 1997)

June 26, 1899 (Monday)

• Joseph Chamberlain, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, set into motion the Second Boer War after receiving an appeal from the British Cape Colony in South Africa to help British subjects oppressed in the Transvaal Republic. Chamberlain declared "We have reached a critical point in the history of the Empire," and war began on October 11.
• Born: Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, Russian princess and daughter of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II (killed by Bolsheviks, 1918)

June 27, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The paperclip was patented by Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian inventor.
• A. E. J. Collins, a 13-year-old schoolboy, completed four afternoons of cricket with the highest-ever recorded individual score, 628 not outs. Collins would never play first-class cricket, being killed in action in 1914 during World War One, but his record would stand for 117 years until a 15-year old boy in India, Pranav Dhanawade, would score 1,009 not out in 2016.
• Born: Juan Trippe, American aviation pioneer who founded Pan American World Airways; in Sea Bright, New Jersey (d. 1899)

June 28, 1899 (Wednesday)

• In Nigeria, British authorities publicly hanged King Ologbosere Irabor outside of the courthouse at Benin City, days after he was captured and convicted of ordering the massacre of a party dispatched by the British consul.

June 29, 1899 (Thursday)

• The mayor of Muskegon, Michigan, James Balbirnie, was assassinated by a disappointed office-seeker, J. W. Tayer, who then killed himself.
• Born: Edward Twining, British colonial administrator who served as the Governor of North Borneo (1946-1949) and of Governor of Tanganyika (1949-1958); in Westminster (d. 1967)

June 30, 1899 (Friday)

• Mile-a-Minute Murphy earned his nickname after he became the first man to ride a bicycle for one-mile (1.6 km) in under a minute. Murphy accomplished his feat on Long Island of the U.S. state of New York while being paced by a Long Island Railroad engine, pedaling his bike one mile in 57.8 seconds for an average speed of 62.28 miles per hour.
• Born: Madge Bellamy, American stage actress and silent film leading lady; in Hillsboro, Texas (d. 1990)
• Died: E. D. E. N. Southworth (Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth), 79, popular American novelist known for The Hidden Hand and the creation of the heroine Capitola Black

July 1899

July 1, 1899 (Saturday)

• The International Council of Nurses was founded in London, at a meeting of the Matron's Council of Great Britain and Ireland.
• Born:
  • Charles Laughton, English-born American stage, film actor; Scarborough, North Yorkshire (d. 1962)
  • Konstantinos Tsatsos, President of Greece 1975-1980; in Athens (d. 1987)
  • Thomas A. Dorsey, American musician; in Villa Rica, Georgia (d. 1993)
• Died: Sir William Flower, 67, English surgeon, comparative anatomist and curator of the Natural History Museum, London

July 2, 1899 (Sunday)

• Pope Leo XIII venerated four missionaries who were executed in Asia as martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church. Jean-Charles Cornay would be canonized as a saint in 1988, while Paul Liu Hanzuo, Peter Lieou and Louis Gabriel Taurin Dufresse would be canonized 100 years after their veneration by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000.
• Died: General Horatio Wright, 79, American engineer, U.S. Army officer in the American Civil War, Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (b. 1820)

July 3, 1899 (Monday)

• Swiss-born American boxer Frank Erne won the world lightweight championship by defeating champion George "Kid" Lavigne in a decision after 20 rounds in Buffalo, New York.

July 4, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The most famous skeleton of a dinosaur ever found intact, a Diplodicus, was discovered at the Sheep Creek Quarry in the western United States near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The expedition team, financed by Andrew Carnegie for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and led by William Harlow Reed, bestowed the name "Dippy" on the Diplodicus carnegii, which would become well-known after Carnegie had plaster casts made for distribution to museums around the world..
• Born: Austin Warren, American literary critic, author, and professor of English; in Waltham, Massachusetts (d. 1986)
• Died: Sir Alexander Armstrong, 81, Irish-born physician, Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer (b. 1818)

July 5, 1899 (Wednesday)

• In Chicago, the first juvenile court in the United States, the Cook County Circuit Court Juvenile Justice Division, heard its first cases with R. S. Tuthill as its judge.
• The 1895 Trade and Navigation agreement between the Japanese and Russian empires went into effect, with each country given "a full freedom of ship and cargo entrance to all places, ports, and rivers on the other country's territory."
• Born: Marcel Achard, French playwright, scriptwriter; in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône département (d. 1974)

July 6, 1899 (Thursday)

• An assassin attempted to kill Milan Obrenović, who had been King of Serbia before abdicating in 1889, and had more recently been appointed by his son, King Alexander, as Commander-in-chief of the Serbian Army. General Obrenović was uninjured, but built a campaign to seek out and arrest the radicals in Serbia.
• Born: Susannah Mushatt Jones, American supercentenarian and the last surviving American born in the 19th century; in Lowndes County, Alabama (d. 2016)

July 7, 1899 (Friday)

• The Great Lakes Towing Company (GLT), now part of The Great Lakes Group, was incorporated by John D. Rockefeller and William G. Mather to acquire more than 150 tugboats to control shipping in four of the North American Great Lakes (Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Superior) and quickly built a monopoly on Great Lakes traffic.
• Born: George Cukor, American film director and producer; Academy Award winner for directing My Fair Lady, also known for directing Little Women, The Philadelphia Story and Born Yesterday; in New York City, (d. 1983)

July 8, 1899 (Saturday)

• In the U.S., the Lorelei Fountain, sculpted by Ernst Herter from white marble, was unveiled in the Bronx in New York City across from the Bronx County Courthouse.

July 9, 1899 (Sunday)

• The Latin American Plenary Council, called by Pope Leo XIII on December 25 for the Roman Catholic bishops of lands in Central America and South America to address the question of "how to guard the interests of the Latin race", closes in Rome after six weeks. The bishops agreed that Catholics should not "celebrate with heretics" (specifically, non-Catholics) in religious ceremonies or attend heretic church services, on pain of excommunication; that every republic in Latin America should have "a truly Catholic University" for education in the "sciences, literature and the good arts"; that missionary work to the Indian populations was "the grave duty of the ecclesiastical as well as civil authority to carry civilization to the tribes that remain faithless"; and that priests should be encouraged to study at the Pius Latin American Seminary in Rome.

July 10, 1899 (Monday)

• British colonial authorities in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan gave control of the Red Sea port of Suakin to Sudan, after having agreed on January 19 that Egypt would have the right to administer commerce there.
• The Allegan meteorite, a 50 pounds (23 kg) H chondrite crashed to Earth and landed in southwestern Michigan's Allegan County in the U.S.
• Born: John Gilbert, American actor and popular silent movie star (died of heart attack, 1936)
• Died:
  • Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia, 28, Tsarevich and heir to the throne of Russia as younger brother of Tsar Nicholas II, died of an apparent cerebral hemorrhage
  • Albert Grévy, 75, French statesman and Governor-General of Algeria 1879-1881

July 11, 1899 (Tuesday)

• In Turin in Italy, Giovanni Agnelli and eight investors formed the Italian automobile manufacturer F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, the Italian Automobile Manufacturers of Turin), producers of the Fiat motor vehicles.
• Born: E. B. White, American writer of children's books, known for Charlotte's Web and for Stuart Little; in Mount Vernon, New York (d. 1985)

July 12, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The British freight ship City of York sank after striking reefs at Rottnest Island, off the coast of Western Australia, due to a misunderstanding of signal flare fired from the island's lighthouse. The ship, which was nearing the end of a 90-day voyage from the U.S. (San Francisco) to Fremantle, Western Australia, evacuated its 26 crew in two lifeboats, but one of the boats overturned and 11 men, including Captain Phillip Jones, drowned.
• Born: E. D. Nixon, African-American civil rights leader and union organizer; in Montgomery, Alabama (d. 1987)

July 13, 1899 (Thursday)

• A tornado killed 13 people in the U.S. village of Herman, Nebraska.

July 14, 1899 (Friday)

• The first Republic of Acre was declared by former Spanish journalist Luis Gálvez Rodríguez de Arias in the Amazon jungle in South America, and would last for nine months.

July 15, 1899 (Saturday)

• Japan's first comprhensive copyright law formed effect and, on the same day, Japan agreed to join the Berne Convention on respect of copyright laws of other nations.
• General Emilio Aguinaldo, who had commanded the Filipino resistance against the Spanish government, informed the U.S. Army General Thomas M. Anderson that he intended to assume authority for the Philippine Islands in areas conquered by the Filipinos from the Spaniards.
• Born: Seán Lemass, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland, 1959-1966; in Ballybrack, Dublin (d. 1971)

July 16, 1899 (Sunday)

• The first soccer football game in El Salvador between two organized teams took place at the Campo Marte field in Santa Ana, where a local team hosted a team of players from San Salvador. The Santa Ana team wins, 2 to 0.
• Born: Božidar Jakac, Slovene Expressionist, Realist and Symbolist painter, printmaker, art teacher, photographer and filmmaker; in Rudolfovo, Austria-Hungary (now Novo Mesto, Slovenia) (d. 1989)
• Died:

July 17, 1899 (Monday)

• NEC Corporation was organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.
• In the Battle of Togbao, the French Bretonnet–Braun mission was destroyed, in the North African kingdom of Chad, by the warlord Rabih az-Zubayr.
• The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation took effect, ending extraterritoriality and the unequal status of Japan in foreign commerce.
• Born: James Cagney, American actor and dancer known for The Public Enemy, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Mister Roberts; in New York City (d. 1986)

July 18, 1899 (Tuesday)

• The patent for the first sofa bed (a foldable bed frame that can be stored under the cushions of a couch) was taken out by African-American inventor Leonard C. Bailey. He received U.S. Patent No. 629,286 on June 2, 1900.
• Died: Horatio Alger, 67, American author of novels for young adults known for his regular theme of "rags-to-riches" of teenage boys who became wealthy through luck or through hard work

July 19, 1899 (Wednesday)

• U.S. Secretary of War Russell A. Alger resigned at the request of U.S. President McKinley, following public outrage over the United States Army beef scandal, in which the War Department purchased tainted beef for soldiers during the Spanish-American War.

July 20, 1899 (Thursday)

• A white lynch mob in Tallulah, Louisiana carried out the killing of five white Italian shopkeepers from Sicily who had opened stores in the town to sell produce and meat, after accusations that the Sicilians were driving the American stores out of business. None of the suspects in the lynching were prosecuted.
• Born: Paul Mangelsdorf, American botanist and agronomist; in Atchison, Kansas (d. 1989)
• Died: Frances Laughton Mace, 63, American poet (b. 1836)

July 21, 1899 (Friday)

• The Newsboys' strike took place, when the Newsies of New York went on strike (until August 2).
• Born:
  • Ernest Hemingway, American author and journalist known for The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea; committed (suicide 1961)
  • Hart Crane, American poet; in Garrettsville, Ohio (committed suicide, 1932)
• Died: Robert G. Ingersoll, 65, American philosopher and lawyer nicknamed "The Great Agnostic" as a leading proponent of agnosticism

July 22, 1899 (Saturday)

• The torture and lynching of Frank Embree took place in the town of Fayette, Missouri, after Embree, a black 19-year-old man, was accused by a mob of raping a white 14-year-old girl. Shortly after Embree had received 100 lashes from a whip, a photographer took Embree's photo, followed by another one after Embree's hanging.
• Born: King Sobhuza II of Swaziland, Paramount Chief of the Swazi people 1899 to 1968, King 1968-1982; in Zombodze (d. 1982)

July 23, 1899 (Sunday)

• The city of Washington DC retired its short-lived cable car system, the day after Columbia Railway Company converted exclusively to electric powered cars.
• Born: Gustav Heinemann, President of West Germany 1969 to 1974; in Schweim, Prussia (d. 1976)

July 24, 1899 (Monday)

• In the first trade treaty signed by the U.S. after the passage of the Dingley Act, which authorized the U.S. President to negotiate reductions of tariffs up to 20% if the other side did the same, France and the United States signed an agreement for a 20% reduction of France's existing tariffs on 635 of 654 specific items, in return for the U.S. reduction between 5% and 20% of duty fees on 126 items.
• Born: Chief Dan George, Canadian First Nations film actor, writer and tribal chief of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, known for Little Big Man and The Outlaw Josey Wales; as Geswanouth Slahoot in Tsleil-Waututh, British Columbia (d. 1981)

July 25, 1899 (Tuesday)

• France's Minister of War levied out punishments against officers who participated in the Dreyfus affair, removing General Georges-Gabriel de Pellieux from his duties as Military Governor of Paris, and removing General Oscar de Négrier from the War Council.

July 26, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The President of the Dominican Republic, dictator Ulises Heureaux, was assassinated during a visit to the city of Moca. Vice President Wenceslao Figuereo succeeded to the office.

July 27, 1899 (Thursday)

• Gold was discovered in Nome, Alaska, leading to the Nome Gold Rush.

July 28, 1899 (Friday)

• The All Cubans, a team of professional baseball players from Cuba, began a barnstorming tour of games against white and black teams, starting with a 12-4 win over a local team at Weehawken, New Jersey.

July 29, 1899 (Saturday)

• The first international Peace Conference ended, with the signing of the First Hague Convention.
• Born: Alice Terry (stage name for Alice Taaffe), American film actress; in Vincennes, Indiana (d. 1987)

July 30, 1899 (Sunday)

• The Harriman Alaska Expedition ended successfully.

July 31, 1899 (Monday)

• Duke of York Island, outside Antarctica, was discovered by explorer Carsten Borchgrevink and the British Southern Cross Expedition.