1900 At the turn of the century 51% of the world’s oil came from Azerbaijan.
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A10)
1900 Jan 1, Xavier Cugat, bandleader (married Abbe Lane, Charo), was born in Barcelona, Spain.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1900 Jan 1, A New York editorialist wrote that the 20th century began in the United States with “a sense of euphoria and self-satisfaction, a sure feeling that America is the envy of the world.”
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.70)
1900 Jan 2, US Secretary of State John Hay announced the Open Door Policy to prompt trade with China. This policy rejected efforts to carve up China or restrict its ports.
(AP, 1/2/98)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A12)
1900 Jan 2, Gustave Charpentiers opera "Louise" premiered in Paris. [see Feb 2]
(MC, 1/2/02)
1900 Jan 2, E. Verlinger began manufacturing 7" single-sided records in Montreal.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1900 Jan 5, Dennis Gabor, Hungarian-British physicist, inventor of 3D laser photography, was born. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1971. [see Jan 5]
(HN, 6/5/98)(MC, 1/5/02)
1900 Jan 8, The Boers attacked Ladysmith, but were turned back by General White in South Africa.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1900 Jan 13, To combat Czech nationalism, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary decreed that German would be the language of the imperial army.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1900 Jan 14, The Puccini opera “Tosca” received a mixed reception at its Rome world premiere.
(AP, 1/14/98)
1900 Jan 16, The U.S. Senate consented to the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 by which the UK renounced its rights to the Samoan Islands.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1900 Jan 25, the US 56th Congress refused to seat Brigham H. Roberts, Mormon Democrat from Utah, because of his polygamy.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1900 Jan 27, Hyman Rickover (d.1986), American admiral, was born. He is considered the "father" of America's nuclear navy and the "Father of the Atomic Submarine." "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
(HN, 1/27/99)(AP, 5/5/00)
1900 Jan 27, Foreign diplomats in Peking fear revolt and demanded that the Imperial Government discipline the Boxer Rebels.
(HN, 1/27/99)
1900 Jan 29, The American League, consisting of eight baseball teams, was organized in Philadelphia with teams from Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. [see Feb 2]
(SFC, 7/7/96, Z1 p.5)(AP, 1/29/98)
1900 Jan 31, Scottish peer Sir John Sholto Douglas (56), 8th Marquis of Queensberry, died. He supervised the formulation by John Graham chambers of the rules of boxing, which became known as the Queensberry Rules. In 1895 Irish writer Oscar Wilde had unsuccessfully sued the Marquis for libel following allegations of a homosexual relationship with Queensberry’s son Lord Alfred Douglas, allegations which ultimately led to Wilde’s imprisonment in Reading Gaol, England.
(HC, 2003, p.64)
1900 Feb 2, Gustave Charpentier's opera "Louise" premiered in Paris. [see Jan 2]
(MC, 2/2/02)
1900 Feb 2, Six cities, Boston, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis agreed to form baseball's American League. [see Jan 29]
(HN, 2/2/99)
1900 Feb 4, Jacques Prevert, French poet, screenwriter, was born. His work included “The Visitors of the Evening” and “The Children of Paradise.”
(HN, 2/4/01)
1900 Feb 5, Adlai E. Stevenson II, Illinois governor and American diplomat, was born. He twice lost to Dwight Eisenhower for presidency of the United States. "All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions."
(HN, 2/5/99)(AP, 7/4/99)
1900 Feb 5, The United States and Great Britain signed the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, giving the United States the right to build a canal in Nicaragua but not to fortify it.
(HN, 2/5/99)
1900 Feb 6, President McKinley appointed W.H. Taft commissioner to report on the Philippines.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1900 Feb 6, Battle at Vaalkrans, South Africa (Boers vs. British army).
(MC, 2/6/02)
1900 Feb 8, British General Buller was beaten at Ladysmith, South Africa as the British fled over the Tugela River.
(HN, 2/8/99)
1900 Feb 14, General Roberts invaded South Africa’s Orange Free State with 20,000 British troops.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1900 Feb 15, The British threatened to use natives in the Boer War fight.
(HN, 2/15/98)
1900 Feb 18, Battle at Paardeberg (Boer War), 1,270 British killed or injured.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1900 Feb 22, Sean O’Faolain, Irish short story writer, was born.
(HN, 2/22/01)
1900 Feb 22, Hawaii became a US territory. [see Apr 30]
(MC, 2/22/02)
1900 Feb 23, William Butterfield, architect of the Gothic revival, died.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1900 Feb 28, After a 119-day siege by the Boers, the English defenders of Ladysmith, under General Sir George White were relieved.
(HN, 2/28/98)
1900 Feb 20, J.F. Pickering patented his airship.
(HN, 2/20/99)
1900 Mar 2, Kurt Weill, composer (The Threepenny Opera), Brecht collaborator, was born in Dessau, Germany.
(HN, 3/2/01)(SC, 3/2/02)
1900 Mar 3, US Steel Corporation organized.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1900 Mar 6, Gottlieb Daimler (65), designer of the 1st motorcycle, died.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1900 Mar 9, Aimone, duke of Spoleta-Aosta, Italian king of Croatia (1941-43), was born.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1900 Mar 11, British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (1830-1903) rejected the peace overtures offered from Boer leader Paul Kruger.
(HN, 3/11/98)(WUD, 1994, p.1262)
1900 Mar 13, George Seferis (d.1991), Greek poet, was born.
(HN, 3/13/01)
1900 Mar 14, Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act for U.S. currency.
(AP, 3/14/97)(HN, 3/14/98)
1900 Mar 19, [Jean] Frederic Joliot-Curie, French physicist (Nobel 1935), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1900 Mar 19, President McKinley asserted the need for free trade with Puerto Rico.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1900 Mar 21, Paul Kletzki, Polish violinist, composer, conductor, was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1900 Mar 23, Erich Fromm (d.1980), German-American psychologist (Sane Society), was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He wrote "The Sane Society." “Modern man thinks he loses something, time, when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains, except kill it.”
(AP, 4/21/97)(HN, 3/23/99)(SS, 3/23/02)
1900 Mar 24, Mayor Van Wyck of New York broke ground for the New York subway tunnel that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1900 Mar 27, The London Parliament passed the War Loan Act which gave 35 million pounds to the Boer War cause.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1900 Apr 2, Heinrich Besseler, German musicologist, was born.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1900 Apr 4, There was an assassination attempt on Prince of Wales, King Edward VII.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1900 Apr 5, Spencer Tracy (d.1967), film actor (Adam's Rib, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), was born.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, DB p.56,58)(HN, 4/5/01)
1900 Apr 5, An assassination attempt of Prince of Wales in Brussels failed.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1900 Apr 9, British forces routed the Boers at Kroonstadt, South Africa.
(HN, 4/9/98)
1900 Apr 11, US Navy's 1st submarine made its debut.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1900 Apr 14, Salvatore Baccaloni, basso buffo (Barber of Seville, l'Eosir d'Amore) actor (Merry Andrew, Rock-a-Bye Baby), was born in Rome.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1900 Apr 14, Gates opened to the World Fair, the Great Exposition in Paris. For a few months 210 temporary pavilions from different countries and architectural styles lined the Seine. The Exposition Universale included the Exposition Decennale, an art show of painting and sculpture from the previous decade. The first working escalator (patented in 1859), was manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company for the Paris Exposition.
(
http://charon.sfsu.edu/publications/PARISEXPOSITIONS/1900EXPO.html)
(HN, 4/14/98)(WSJ, 2/16/00, p.A14)(HN, 8/9/00)
1900 Apr 16, US Post Office issued its 1st books of postage stamps.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1900 Apr 21, Heinrich Vogl (55), composer, died.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1900 Apr 23, The 1st published use of word "hillbilly" was in the NY Journal.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1900 Apr 24, Elizabeth Goudge, English author, was born.
(HN, 4/24/01)
1900 Apr 25, Wolfgang Pauli, physicist (Nobel 1945), was born in Austria.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1900 Apr 26, Charles Richter, seismologist, was born in Hamilton, Ohio. He developed the Richter Scale for measuring the amplitude of earthquakes.
(440 Int’l. Internet, 4/26/97, p.6)(AP, 4/26/98)
1900 Apr 26, Douglas Sirk (Detlef Sierck), film director, was born. His work included: “Imitation of Life,” “A Time to Love & a Time to Die,” “Tarnished Angels,” “Written on the Wind,” “Magnificent Obsession,” and “First Legion.”
(440 Int’l. Internet, 4/26/97, p.1)
1900 Apr 27, Walter Lantz, cartoonist, creator of Woody Woodpecker, was born.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1900 Apr 30, Hawaii was organized as a U.S. territory. [see Feb 22]
(AP, 4/30/97)
1900 Apr 30, Engineer John Luther "Casey" Jones of the Illinois Central Railroad was killed in a Cannonball Express wreck near Vaughan, Miss., after staying at the controls in an effort to save the passengers.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1900 May 5, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, German composer, conductor (Hassan gewinnt), was born.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1900 May 5, "The Billboard" began weekly publication.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1900 May 8, 250 grave robbers were shot to death.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1900 May 12, Mostly Black fighters in Mafikeng repelled a Boer assault. Col. Robert Baden-Powell, commander of the British troops in Mafikeng, armed black fighters and many died during the 7-month siege.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.D3)
1900 May 13, Jos Panhuysen, author (Pornographer), was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1900 May 17, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's spiritual and revolutionary leader (1979-89), was born.
(HN, 5/17/98)(MC, 5/17/02)
1900 May 18, Sarah Miriam Peale, US portrait painter (General Lafayette-1825), was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1900 May 18, Andrew Putnam Hill, encamped at Slippery Rock with a Subcommittee in the Big Basin of the Santa Cruz Mountains, proposed the formation of an organization to save the Big Basin redwoods. The next day he passed a hat and collected $32. This was the birth of the Sempervirens Club of California. "Save the Redwoods" became its official slogan.
(Ind, 4/24/99, p.5A)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.C1)
1900 May 18, Britain proclaimed a protectorate over kingdom of Tonga.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1900 May 19, Simplon Tunnel opened as the world’s longest railroad tunnel at 12 miles; it linked Italy & Switzerland through the Alps.
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1900 May 22, The Associated Press (founded in 1848) was incorporated in New York as a non-profit news cooperative.
(AP, 5/22/00)
1900 May 23, Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney became the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, thirty-seven years after the Battle of Fort Wagner.
(HN, 5/23/99)
1900 May 28, Britain annexed the Orange Free State in South Africa.
(HN, 5/28/98)
1900 May 29, Trademark "Escalator" was registered by Otis Elevator Co.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1900 May 30, It was reported that 9 deaths in Chinatown were caused by Bubonic plague and that 159 policemen had set up a quarantine. In 2003 Marilyn Chase authored “The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco.”
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W2)(SSFC, 1/12/03, p.M2)
1900 May 31, U.S. troops arrived in Peking to help put down Boxer Rebellion.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1900 Jun 5, Dennis Gabor, Hungarian-British physicist, inventor of 3D laser photography, was born. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1971. [see Jan 5]
(HN, 6/5/98)(MC, 1/5/02)
1900 Jun 5, Bill Moyers, American broadcast journalist, was born. He served as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s press secretary. He also made numerous documentaries for the Public Broadcasting System.
(HN, 6/5/99)
1900 Jun 5, Stephen Crane (28), author (Red Badge of Courage), died.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1900 Jun 5, In South Africa, British troops under Lord Roberts seized Pretoria from the Boers.
(HN, 6/5/98)
1900 Jun 7, Boxer rebels cut the rail links between Peking and Tientsin in China.
(HN, 6/7/98)
1900 Jun 11, Lawrence E Spivak, news panelist (Meet the Press), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1900 Jun 12, German Navy Law called for a massive increase in sea power.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1900 Jun 13, China’s Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Chinese Christians erupted into violence. The Boxer Rebellion was a violent, anti-foreign uprising that broke out in reaction to years of foreign interference with Chinese affairs. Led by a Chinese secret society called Yi He Tuan—“the Righteous, Harmonious Fists”—the Boxers were aided by the Empress Dowager Ci Xi and pillaged the countryside, murdering foreigners and Chinese Christians.
(AP, 6/13/97)(HNPD, 6/20/98)
1900 Jun 14, US Congress passed a law granting citizenship to all persons who had been citizens of the Republic of Hawaii at the time of annexation.
(ON, 11/02, p.7)
1900 Jun 17, Martin Bormann, deputy Führer to Hitler, was born.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1900 Jun 18, Empress Douairisre ordered I-Ho-Chuan (the Boxers) to kill all foreigners. [see Jun 21]
(MC, 6/18/02)
1900 Jun 19, Laura Hobson, novelist (Gentleman's Agreement), was born.
(HN, 6/19/01)
1900 Jun 21, General Arthur MacArthur offered amnesty to Filipinos rebelling against American rule.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1900 Jun 21, After the Empress declared war on all foreign powers, the Boxers began a two-month assault on the legations in Beijing. An international force of Japanese, Russian, German, American, British, Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops put down the uprising by August 14. The Boxer Rebellion was a violent, anti-foreign uprising that broke out in reaction to years of foreign interference with Chinese affairs. Led by a Chinese secret society called Yi He Tuan--"the Righteous, Harmonious Fists"--the Boxers were aided by the Empress Dowager Ci Xi and pillaged the countryside, murdering foreigners and Chinese Christians. In 2000 Diana Preston authored “The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China’s War on foreigners That Shook the World in the Summer of 1900.”
(HNPD, 6/21/99)(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.A24)
1900 Jun 25, Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, the last British viceroy of India, was born. He survived World War II only to be killed by an IRA bomb.
(HN, 6/25/99)
1900 Jun 26, The United States announced it would send troops to fight against the Boxer rebellion in China.
(HN, 6/26/98)
1900 Jun 26, A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease yellow fever. Walter Reed (1851-1902), U.S. Army doctor, went to Cuba and verified that yellow fever was caused by a mosquito.
(HN, 9/13/98)(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.B1)(AP, 6/26/97)
1900 Jun 27, Otto E. Passman (Rep-D-La, 1947-77), was born.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1900 Jun 29, Antoine de Saint-Exupery (d.1944), French aviator and writer, was born. In 1970 Curtis Cate published the biography: “Antoine de Saint-Exupery.”
(WUD, 1994, p.1261)(SFEC, 6/15/97, p.A2)(SFEC, 5/28/00, p.A15)(HN, 6/29/01)
1900 Jul 2, Tyrone Guthrie, English theater director, was born.
(HN, 7/2/01)
1900 Jul 2, Count Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August von Zeppelin (1838-1917) made the 1st successful flight of his lighter-than-air ship LZ-1 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The 400 foot craft stayed aloft 17 minutes before it crashed.
(AHM, 1/97)(WSJ, 2/120/00, p.A1)(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1900 Jul 4, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, (Daniel Louis Armstrong, 1900-1971) jazz musician, was born in New Orleans. He was a solo performer on the trumpet; developed a vocal style called "scat singing"; was a band leader, film star and worldwide celebrity; his career spanned five decades. [see Aug 4, 1901] "I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don't treat me right, shame on you."
(HN, 7/4/98)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(AP, 12/1/99)
1900 Jul 9, The Commonwealth of Australia was established by an act of British Parliament, uniting the separate colonies under a federal government.
(HN, 7/9/98)
1900 Jul 14, European Allies retook Tientsin, China, from the rebelling Boxers.
(HN, 7/14/98)
1900 Jul 24, Zelda Sayre, writer (Save me the Waltz) was born.
(HN, 7/24/02)
1900 Jul 28, The hamburger was created by Louis Lassing in Connecticut.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1900 Jul 29, Owen Lattimore, writer, was born.
(HN, 7/29/01)
1900 Jul 29, Italian King Humbert I was assassinated by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who had resided in America before returning to Italy to murder the king. The murder was believed to be due to the king’s decision to fire cannon rounds into a crowd of starving peasants and workers that had assembled asking the king for assistance; 100s were killed; Bresci was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to a life of hard labor at Santo Stefano Prison on Ventotene Island. Humbert was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III.
(AP, 7/29/00)(MC, 7/29/02)
1900 Jul, Mount Adatara erupted and left 72 people dead.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)
1900 Aug 3, Ernie Pyle (d.1945), World War II correspondent who wrote about the common soldier, was born. "One of the paradoxes of war is that those in the rear want to get up into the fight, while those in the lines want to get out."
(HN, 8/3/98)(AP, 4/18/99)
1900 Aug 3, John T. Scopes, Tennessee teacher convicted for teaching evolution, was born.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1900 Aug 4, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (d.2002), later known as the Queen Mum (mother of Queen Elizabeth II), was born in Scotland as the daughter of Lord Glamis, who became the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She later became the wife of King George VI.
(SFC, 8/4/00, p.A18)(SFC, 8/5/00, p.A12)(WSJ, 8/10/00, p.A16)(MC, 8/4/02)
1900 Aug 12, Wilhelm Steinitz, Chess champion (1866-1894), died in Prague.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1900 Aug 14, International forces, i.e. European allies, including 2,000 U.S. Marines entered Beijing to put down the Boxer Rebellion, which was aimed at purging China of foreigners and foreign influence.
(HN, 8/14/98)(AP, 8/14/01)(MC, 8/14/02)
1900 Aug 17, Quincy Howe, newscaster (CBS Weekend News), was born in Boston, Mass.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1900 Aug 22, Gabriel Fauré’s opera "Promethee," premiered in Beziers.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1900 Aug 23, Booker T. Washington formed the National Negro Business League in Boston, Massachusetts.
(HN, 8/23/98)
1900 Aug 25, Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (55) died in Weimar, Germany. In 1999 Ronald Taylor translated into English the book "Nietzsche and Wagner" by Joachim Köhler. In 2002 Taylor translated Joachim Kohler’s "Zarathustra’s Secret: The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche." In 2004 Georges Liebert authored "Nietzsche and Music."
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A20)(AP, 8/25/00)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.M5)(WSJ, 1/28/04, p.D6)
1900 Aug 31, British troops overran Johannesburg.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1900 Aug, David Hilbert, a German mathematician, presented a challenge list of 23 equations at a meeting of the Int’l. Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. In 2000 three of the equations still remained unsolved.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A2)(SFEC, 8/27/00, BR p.1)
1900 Sep 1, Richard Arlen, actor (Alice in Wonderland) was born.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1900 Sep 1, Andrei Vlasov, Russian general (Red Army, Wehrmacht), was born.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1900 Sep 7, Taylor Caldwell, novelist, was born.
(HN, 9/7/00)
1900 Sep 8, Claude Pepper, Democratic senator and congressman from Florida, champion of senior citizens rights, was born.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1900 Sep 8, Some 6,000-8,000 people were killed in Galveston by flying debris, collapsing buildings and drowning. The storm let up around midnight, leaving in its wake $30 million in damage and thousands of bodies. Many of the dead had to be hastily dumped in the ocean for fear of spreading disease. Bishop's Palace in Galveston, Texas, remained standing amid piles of rubble after the island city suffered the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history. By nightfall, winds reached 125 mph and the city was under 15 feet of water. The storm battered Galveston for 18 hours. In 1999 Erik Larson published "Isaac's Storm."
(AP, 9/8/97)(HNPD, 9/8/98)(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A2)(WSJ, 9/3/99, p.W8)
1900 Sep 9, James Hilton, British novelist who authored "Lost Horizon" and "Goodbye Mr. Chips," was born. In Lost Horizon he created the imaginary world of "Shangri-La.”
(HN, 9/9/98)
1900 Sep 17, The Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. [See Jul 9, 1900]
(MC, 9/17/01)
1900 Sep 19, President Loubet of France pardoned Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus, twice court-martialed and wrongly convicted of spying for Germany.
(HN, 9/19/98)
1900 Oct 2, William A. ‘Bud’ Abbot, comedian, was born. He was the straight man to Lou Costello.
(HN, 10/2/00)
1900 Oct 3, Thomas Wolfe (d.1938), American author (Look Homeward Angel), was born in Ashville, NC. "All youth is bound to be 'misspent'; there is something in its very nature that makes it so, and that is why all men regret it." "Loneliness ... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man."--From "You Can't Go Home Again.”
(AP, 7/28/97)(AP, 9/18/98)(HN, 10/3/98)
1900 Oct 3, Edward Elgar, Cardinal John Henry Newman's oratorium, premiered in Birmingham.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1900 Oct 7, Heinrich Himmler, chicken farmer who became the head of the German Gestapo in Hitler's Germany, was born. [see Oct 20, 1900]
(HN, 10/7/98)
1900 Oct 8, Maximilian Harden was sentenced to six months in prison for publishing an article critical of the German Kaiser.
(HN, 10/8/98)
1900 Oct 10, Helen Brown (later Helen Hayes, d.1993), American actress, was born in Washington, D.C. Her Tony Awards include: Best Dramatic Actress in 1947 for "Happy Birthday", and again in 1958 for "Time Remembered". Her talents were recognized on movie screens (Hayes appeared in films as early as 1927) as she received an Academy Award for Best Actress for her first major role: "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" in 1931, and forty years later for Best Supporting Actress in "Airport." “The truth (is) that there is only one terminal dignity— love. And the story of a love is not important—what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.”
(HN, 10/10/98)(AP, 10/10/00)(MC, 10/10/01)
1900 Oct 10, Fred Holland Day exhibited his work at the London Exhibition under the auspices of the Royal Photographic Society.
(Civilization, July-Aug. 1995, p.40-47)
1900 Oct 15, Boston’s Symphony Hall, one of the world's most highly regarded concert halls, was inaugurated. It was the 1st to be built in known conformity with acoustical laws described by Harvard physicist Wallace Sabine.
(
www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/BSO.htm)(WSJ, 4/24/02, p.D9)
1900 Oct 20, Wayne Morse, (Sen-R/D-Ore), was born.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1900 Oct 20, Heinrich Himmler, head of SS, was born. [see Oct 7, 1900]
(MC, 10/20/01)
1900 Oct 26, After 4 years of work the 1st section of NY subway opened. [see Feb 26, 1870]
(MC, 10/26/01)
1900 Oct, The Wright Brothers began active flying experiments at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)
1900 Nov 3, The first automobile show in the United States opened at Madison Square Garden in New York under the auspices of the Automobile Club of America.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(AP, 11/3/97)
1900 Nov 6, President McKinley was re-elected, beating Democrat William Jennings Bryan.
(AP, 11/6/97)(HN, 11/6/98)
1900 Nov 7, Heinrich Himmler, Head of the Nazi SS and organizer of extermination camps in Eastern Europe, was born.
(HN, 11/7/98)
1900 Nov 7, Efrem Kurtz, conductor (Houston Symph 1948-54), was born in St Petersburg, Russia.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1900 Nov 8, Margaret Mitchell (d.1949), American writer, was born. She found success in her first and only novel, “Gone With the Wind.”
(HN, 11/8/00)
1900 Nov 8, Albert Friedrich Frey-Wyssling, Swiss botanist and molecular biology pioneer, was born.
(HN, 11/8/00)
1900 Nov 8, Theodore Dreiser’s first novel “Sister Carrie” was published by Doubleday, but was recalled from stores shortly due to public sentiment.
(HN, 11/8/00)
1900 Nov 9, Russia completed its occupation of Manchuria.
(HN, 11/9/98)
1900 Nov 12, A World Fair, the Great Exposition in Paris, closed. 50 million visitors attended the fair, which included Art Nouveau architecture, furniture, jewelry, ceramics, posters, glass, textiles, and metalwork. Jewelry by René Lalique was also exhibited at the fair. [see Apr 14]
(
www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/exhibit_fair.shtm)
1900 Nov 14, Aaron Copeland (d.1990), American composer, was born. His works included "Billy the Kidd," "Appalachian Spring" and "Fanfare for the Common Man."
(DrEE, 9/28/96, p.1)(HN, 11/14/99)
1900 Nov 18, Dr. Howard Thurman, theologian and first African American to hold a full time position at Boston University, was born.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1900 Nov 19, Anna Seghers, [Netty Radvanyi-Reiling], German author (7th Cross), was born.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1900 Nov 22, Sir Arthur Sullivan (b.1842), English composer, died. His operas included “H.M.S. Pinafore,” “Iolanthe,” “Patience,” “The Pirates of Penzance,” “Princess Ida,” “The Mikado,” “Trial by Jury,” and “The Yeoman of the Guard.”
(WSJ, 11/22/00, p.A20)
1900 Nov 25, Helen Gahagan Douglas, Nixon's 1st opponent, (Rep-D-Ca), was born.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1900 Nov 29, Mildred Elizabeth Sisk, the infamous American-born Axis Sally, was born. She broadcast propaganda for Radio Berlin from Nazi Germany to Allied troops during the Second World War.
(HN, 11/29/98)
1900 Nov 30, The French government denounced the British government and declared sympathy for the Boers.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1900 Nov 30, A German engineer patented front-wheel drive for automobiles.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1900 Nov 30, Irish author Oscar Wilde (b.1856) died in a Paris hotel room after saying of the room's wallpaper: "One of us had to go." In 2000 “the Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde,” edited by Merlin Holland, Wilde’s grandson, was published
(V.D.-H.K.p.279)(AP, 11/30/97)(HN, 11/30/00)(SFC, 12/1/00, p.C12)
1900 Nov, Henry Ford’s Detroit Automobile Company failed. It was revived in 1901 as the Henry Ford Co.
(
http://home.planet.nl/~nagte017/Cadillactext001.html)
1900 Dec 1, Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to meet with Boer leader Paul Kruger in Berlin.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1900 Dec 4, The French National Assembly, successor to the States-General, rejected Nationalist General Mercier’s proposal to plan an invasion of England.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1900 Dec 9, The Russian Czar rejected Paul Kruger’s pleas for aid to the Boers in South Africa against the British.
(HN, 12/9/01)
1900 Dec 14, Max Planck (1858-1947), German physicist, presented the quantum theory at the Physics Society in Berlin. Planck, demonstrated that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter. Planck was rewarded the Nobel Prize (1918) in Physics for his work on blackbody radiation.
(HN, 12/14/98)(MC, 12/14/01)
1900 Dec 16, V.S. Pritchett (d.1997), English writer, was born in Ipswich. The first volume of his autobiography was called “A Cab at the Door.”
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A21)
1900 Dec 17, Ellis Island immigration center re-opened following an 1897 fire.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T10)
1900 Dec 19, The British Parliament voted amnesty for all involved in the army treason trial known as the Dreyfus Affair.
(HN, 12/19/98)
1900 Dec 23, The Federal Party, which recognized American sovereignty, was formed in the Philippines.
(HN, 12/23/98)
1900 Dec 27, Militant prohibitionist and temperance agitator Carry Nation, (Carrie Nation), first used a hatchet to carry out her public smashings of a bar, at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kan. As a result, the hatchet soon became the symbol of her crusade against alcohol. Born in Kentucky, Nation‘s first husband died of alcoholism and her second marriage ended in divorce. She was often arrested, fined and jailed for her actions. She published the Smasher in Topeka. Advertisers boycotted and the paper failed.
(AP, 12/27/97)(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)(HNQ, 10/17/99)
1900 Aaron Copland (d.1990), composer, was born. In 1999 Howard Pollack published Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man."
(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A20)
1900 Elmo Roper, polster, was born. He was the first to apply market research skills to measure public opinion.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E3)
1900 In France Pierre Bonnard painted “Siesta.”
(WSJ, 6/24/98, p.A16)
1900 Childe Hassan painted his “Late Afternoon, New York, Winter.”
(WSJ, 6/6/95, p.A-14)
1900 Picasso painted "Moilin de la Galette."
(WSJ, 2/16/00, p.A14)
1900 In Russia Apollinarius Vaznetsov painted a view of workmen building the 12th century wooden ramparts of the Kremlin.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.31)
1900 Vlaminck painted “The Bar.”
(WSJ, 5/30/00, p.A24)
1900 Mary Austin (d.1934) wrote her classic “The Land of Little Rain” in the town of Independence in Inyo County, Ca. Her work included 30 published books
(SFEC, 5/7/00, p.T6)
1900 Frank Baum published “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Baum, a playwright and former chicken farmer wrote his Oz book in 1899.
(WSJ, 5/22/97, p.A13)(SFEC, 11/8/98, DB p.5)
1900 Willa Cather published “Eric Hermannson’s Soul” in Cosmopolitan. In 1998 an opera based on the story was composed by Libby Larson with libretto by Chas Rader-Shieber. It was commissioned to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Omaha Opera.
(WSJ, 11/30/98, p.A20)
1900 Charles Chesnutt (b.1858), African-American writer, authored his novel “The House Behind the Cedars.”
(HN, 6/20/01)(WSJ, 1/22/02, p.A11)
1900 Edith Wharton wrote seven successful stories and her novel, “The Valley of Decision.”
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.71)
1900 Freud published his “Interpretation of Dreams.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.293)
1900 Cecil B. DeMille began working on plays with his older brother William, enjoying moderate success for 12 years.
(HNPD, 8/12/98)
1900 The opera "Louise" by Gustave Charpentier, about a Parisien seamstress, was the first new opera of the century.
(SFC, 9/15/99, p.B1)
1900 Edward Elgar put music to the poem “The Dream of Gerontius” by Cardinal John Henry Newman, the English convert to Catholicism.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, A20)
1900 The Dallas Symphony Orchestra was founded.
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A20)
1900 The 110-mile White Pass & Yukon narrow-gauge railroad from Skagway to Whitehorse, the Alaska-British Columbia border, was completed.
(SFEC,11/16/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.T3)
1900 The Victory Theater was built on 42nd St between 7th and 8th, i.e. Broadway in NYC by Oscar Hammerstein, the grandfather of the well-known lyricist. In the 1930s it became Minskys, the famous burlesque house. It was restored in the 1990s and used for children’s theater productions.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-16)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E1)
1900 The construction of the rococo City Hall in Philadelphia was completed. The architect was John McArthur Jr.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.T1)
1900 The first Santas of the Salvation Army stepped into the streets and were initially arrested as public nuisances.
(SFC, 6/19/99, p.B7)
1900 A group of hobos from Chicago began convening on an annual basis in Britt, Iowa. They called themselves Tourists Union No. 63. In 1933 the Britt Chamber of Commerce began sponsoring their annual National Hobo Convention.
(SFC, 1/26/04, p.B4)
1900 At the Olympics a Belgian sharpshooter killed 21 live pigeons. The event was abolished shortly thereafter. Separately the game of croquet was featured for the first and last time.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A6)
1900 At the turn of the 20th century, small-town photographers in the Midwest and West turned out thousands of "larger than life" postcards. Produced by piecing together parts from several photographs, shooting the whole and printing it on postcard paper, the cards were early efforts at trick photography. The postcards humorously promoted the fruitfulness of rural life.
(HNPD, 6/24/99)
1900 Robert LeRoy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (aka Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and their Wild Bunch went to Fort Worth after their last holdup of the First National Bank at Winnemucca, Nevada. They posed for pictures at John Swartz’s photo studio.
(HT, 4/97, p.45)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)
1900 The Hawaiian language was officially banned from government offices in Hawaii, and was only allowed to be taught in schools as a foreign language.
(Wired, 8/95, p.90)
c1900 The Ordonez cannon was brought back from the Philippines to the Presidio in SF as a trophy of war. It had been manufactured in Spain and was initially captured by the Filipinos from the Spanish army. It suffered a direct hit from US forces in an engagement near Subic Bay.
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.A15,16)
1900 The US Navy commissioned its first submarine, the USS Holland, for $150,000. It was named after the Irish inventor John Holland. His first sub was the Fenian Ram, paid for by Irish rebels hoping to challenge British control of the seas.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, zone 1, p.6)(WSJ, 4/28/00, p.W17)
c1900 James J. Hill, a turn of the century robber baron, planned to consolidate the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific Railroads. His efforts were blocked by anti-trust regulation and gave Teddy Roosevelt his reputation as a trust buster. In 1996 Dr. Michael Malone authored “James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest.”
(WSJ, 10/1/98, p.B6)
1900 Harvey Firestone founded the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A22)
1900 Joshua Lionel Cowen (1877-1965), inventor, along with some partners founded Lionel Corp in NYC. Operation were later based outside Detroit and Lionel grew to become the world’s largest toy maker in the 1950s. [see 1901]
(WSJ, 11/17/04, p.B1)(
www.fact-index.com/j/jo/joshua_lionel_cowen.html)
1900 Ellsworth M. Statler, hotel man, advertised “A room with a bath for a dollar and a half.”
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.E3)
1900 Louis Bachelier (1870-1946), financial economist, wrote a dissertation in Paris, "Theorie de la Spéculation." This and his subsequent work (esp. 1906, 1913) anticipated much of what was to become standard fare in financial theory: efficient market hypothesis, random walk of financial market prices, Brownian motion and martingales. He was a student of French mathematician Henri Poincare.
(WSJ, 7/16/03, p.D8)
1900 Max Planck suggested that energy is not exchanged in a continuous flow but by individual packets, or quanta; energy moved not like a river but like raindrops. Planck promulgated his Planck’s constant h, to solve problems in quantum mechanics.
(NG, May 1985, p.642)(NH, 11/1/04, p.24)
1900 Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian living in Germany, invented the paper clip.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1900 William L. Murphy of Stockton, Ca., designed a folding bed for his SF apartment and applied for a patent. [see 1909]
(SFC, 8/19/98, Z1 p.7)
1900 Einstein graduated with a degree in mathematics.
(V.D.-H.K.p.325)
1900 About 16,000 Indians remained in all of California.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1900 The population of the world again doubled from what it was in 1800 to more than 1600 million.
(V.D.-H.K.p.168)
1900 Major silver and gold deposits were found at Tonopoh, Nevada.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)
1900 In the US tuberculosis killed 150,000 people.
(WSJ, 4/14/99, p.A1)
1900 Efforts to eradiate plague in Honolulu led to planned fires, one of which got out of control and burned Chinatown. In 2004 James C. Mohr authored “Plague and Fire: Battling Black Death and the 1900 Burning of Honolulu’s Chinatown.”
(SSFC, 12/19/04, p.E2)
c1900 Florida’s wineries were wiped out by Pierce’s disease. Growers then switched to orange trees.
(SFC,11/22/97, p.D4)
c1900 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote numerous articles and pamphlets in defense of British concentration camps during the Boer War, for which he was knighted.
(SFC, 9/5/98, p.E3)
c1900 Charles Spearman, an English psychologist, hypothesized the g factor as a measure of smartness based on correlations on how people performed on tests of different mental abilities. He invented a mathematical technique called factor analysis to measure the factor dubbed g, for general. In 1998 Arthur R. Jenson published “The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability.”
(WSJ, 6/2/98, p.A20)
1900 Clarence Warner and “Tarantula Jack” Smith staked a claim for copper in Alaska. They later sold it to Stephen Birch, who found financial backing for a company that eventually became Kennecott Copper.
(AH, 10/01, HT p.30)
1900 Sir Arthur Evans excavated at the Minoan palace of Cnossos [Knossos] and discovered Greek writings known as Linear B dated to 1400 BC. In 1956 Michael Ventris (d.1956) and John Chadwick (d.1998 at 78) published a translation of the script as “Documents in Mycenaean Greek.”
(SFC, 12/8/98, p.B6)
1900 Stephen Crane, American writer, died of tuberculosis at age 28. He authored 5 novels. In 1998 Linda H. Davis published the biography “Badge of Courage.” In the early 1890s Crane lived in the Bowery area of New York City and, resulting from his firsthand observation of poverty in the slums, he wrote Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), a book considered shocking at the time. Crane covered the Greco-Turkish War in 1897 and the Spanish-American War in 1898 as a news correspondent. His later short-story collections, such as “The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure” (1898), are recognized as masterpieces of the form.
(WSJ, 8/6/98, p.A13)(HNQ, 11/16/98)
1900 Jose Eca de Queiroz, Portuguese novelist, died. His novels included an 1875 satire about a priest struggling with his vows of celibacy. It was made into a Mexican film "El Crimen del Padre Amaro" (The Crime of Father Amaro) in 2002.
(AP, 8/9/02)
1900 John Ruskin (b.1819), Victorian art critic and social commentator, died. He was considered in his time a colossus of esthetic, moral and social wisdom. In 1985 Tim Hilton authored “John Ruskin: The Early Years.” In 2000 Tim Hilton authored “John Ruskin: The Later Years.”
(WSJ, 5/12/00, p.A24)
1900 In Australia Helena Rubinstein (b.1871 in Cracow) opened a beauty shop and sold a cold cream developed a Hungarian chemist and relative, Jacob Lykusky.
(SFEM, 8/23/98, p.29)
c1900 Wang Yuanlu, a Chinese monk, discovered a set of manuscripts in the Mogao caves near Dunhuang in Gansu province. The “Library Cave” contained as many as 50,000 items, mostly Buddhist documents, from 400-1000AD.
(AM, 7/00, p.72)
1900 As artillery shells crashed around their house during the siege of Tientsin, Lou Hoover played solitaire. She and new husband Herbert Hoover had moved there after their wedding in 1899. Herbert had been engaged as the Director General of the Department of Mines of the Chinese Government. News from China during the Boxer Rebellion was bleak, and one New York newspaper had reported their deaths and printed obituaries.
(HNQ, 11/27/02)
1900 In India the Maharajah of Patiala, Sir Bhupinder Singh, ascended the throne of Patiala at the age of 8. Patiala was a prominent Sikh state in northwestern India. He was known for his jeweled sarpech, a turban ornament.
(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.W16)
1900 Nepalese were recruited into Bhutan as loggers.
(WSJ, 3/6/97, p.A8)
1900s In California Bay Area oil companies used the copper ore and later pyrite from Iron Mountain to produce sulfuric acid for use in the oil refining process.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A13)
1900s The Blue Rider movement of expressionist painting centered in Munich in the early 1900s.
(HNQ, 1/26/00)
1900-1902 Lord Herbert Horatio Kitchener created concentration camps in South Africa where hundreds of thousands of Boer women, children and old men were herded. An estimated 16,000 died in the camps.
(WSJ, 2/27/00, p.A24)
1900-1914 Vincent Cronin, historian, depicts this period in Paris, France, in his book: Paris on the Eve, 1900-1914.
(WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)
1900-1920 Eugene V. Debs (d.1926) ran for president five separate times on the Socialist ticket, twice earning close to a million votes. [see 1926]
(HNQ, 11/1/00)
1900-1933 The first volume of “A History of the Twentieth Century” by Sir Martin Gilbert was published in 1997.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, Par. p.6)
1900-1948 Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, American writer: "Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold." "By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long passed which determined the future."
(AP, 11/24/97)(AP, 1/25/99)
1900-1948 H.L. Mencken, Baltimore newspaperman, chronicled the meetings of both US political parties over this period.
(Hem, 8/96, p.84)
1900-1949 The “Letters of Heirich and Thomas Mann” of this period were translated to English and published in 1998.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR p.6)
1900-1950 “American Popular Song: The Great Innovators,” 1900-1950, was written by Alec Wilder.
(WSJ, 6/28/96, p.A7)
1900-1950 In 1999 Barbara Haskell, a curator at the Whitney Museum, authored "The American Century Art and Culture 1900-1950."
(WSJ, 4/23/99, W9C)
1900-1959 George Antheil, composer, was born in New Jersey.
(WSJ, 4/23/98, p.A16)
1900-1969 John Mason Brown, American essayist: “Reasoning with a child is fine, if you can reach the child’s reason without destroying your own.”
(AP, 2/27/01)
1900-1973 Maria Martins, Brazilian sculptor. She was portrayed in a 1934 painting by Marcel Duchamp “Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas.”
(SFC, 5/2/00, p.D1)
1900-1976 Richard Hughes, Welsh author and dramatist: “Middle age snuffs out more talent than ever wars or sudden deaths do.”
(AP, 8/1/98)
1900-1977 Edward Dahlberg, American author and critic: "The people who think they are happy should rummage through their dreams." "It takes a long time to understand nothing."
(AP, 12/10/98)(AP, 4/28/99)
1900-1980 Helen Gahagan Douglas, U.S. representative: “In trying to make something new, half the undertaking lies in discovering whether it can be done. Once it has been established that it can, duplication is inevitable.”
(AP, 6/15/98)
1900-1986 The history of Jerusalem over this period is covered by Martin Gilbert in his book: “Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century.”
(SFC, 10/18/96, C8)
1900-1988 Louise Nevelson, Russian-American artist: “I never liked the middle ground—the most boring place in the world.” "What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable."
(AP, 7/25/97)(AP, 5/5/99)
1900-1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian leader.
(V.D.-H.K.p.311)
1900-1993 Marion “Joe” Carstairs, cross-dressing heiress of the Standard Oil fortune, bought and settled on the Caribbean island of Whale Cay in 1933. In 1998 Kate Summerscale published her biography: “The Queen of Whale Cay.”
(SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.9)
).