Timeline 1900
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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 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 1, In Chicago Ada and
Minna Everleigh opened their Everleigh Club, a high-end brothel. They
closed operations in 1911.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P8)
1900 Feb 2, Gustave Charpentier's
opera "Louise" premiered in Paris. [see Jan 2]
(MC, 2/2/02)
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, California pioneer
John Bidwell (b.1819), founder of Chico, Ca. died. In 2003 Michael
Jerome Gillis and Michael Magliari authored “John Bidwell and
California: The Life and Writings of a Pioneer, (1841-1900).”
(SFC, 4/21/07,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bidwell)
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.
During the expo Rudolf Diesel demonstrated an engine that ran on peanut
oil.
(http://tinyurl.com/hbldt)(WSJ, 2/16/00, p.A14)(HN,
8/9/00)(Econ, 5/14/05, p.71)
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
(1985), seismologist, was born in Hamilton, Ohio. He developed the
Richter Scale for measuring the amplitude of earthquakes.
(AP,
4/26/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Francis_Richter)
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 14, The Olympic games
opened in Paris, held as part of the 1900 World's Fair.
(AP, 5/14/07)
1900 May 17, Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini (d.1989), Iran's spiritual and revolutionary leader (1979-89),
was born.
(HN,
5/17/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini)
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 25, President William
McKinley signed the Lacey Act of 1900, or more commonly The Lacey Act,
16 U.S.C. § 3371–3378. It banned the illegal commercial
transportation of wildlife. The conservation law was introduced by Iowa
Rep. John F. Lacey. It has been amended several times. The most
significant times were in 1969, 1981, and in 1989.
(Econ, 9/12/09,
p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_Act)
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 May 31, Chicago’s
Northwestern Elevated began operations, and Charles T. Yerkes, its
chief visionary was present to see his project come to fruition.
(www.chicago-l.org/figures/yerkes/)
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, 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 11, Belle Boyd (b.1844),
former Confederate spy, died in Wisconsin. Her 1865 autobiography was
titled “Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison.” In 1944 Louis Sigaud authored
“Belle Boyd: Confederate Spy.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Boyd)(ON, 4/10,
p.3)(http://tinyurl.com/27holn6)
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 9, Queen Victoria signed
The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, uniting 6 separate
colonies under a federal government, effective Jan 1, 1901.
(HN, 7/9/98)(www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/as__indx.html)
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 (b.1844) 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)(WSJ, 1/28/07,
p.P10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_I_of_Italy)
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, Louis "Satchmo"
Armstrong, (Daniel Louis Armstrong, d.1971) jazz trumpet player, was
born in New Orleans. He developed a vocal style called "scat singing";
was a band leader, film star and worldwide celebrity; his career
spanned five decades. His autobiography “Satchmo” was published in
1954. "I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don't treat me
right, shame on you." Laurence Bergreen in 1997 wrote a biography
titled: "Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life."
(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.4)(AP,
12/1/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong)
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 and some 3,600
buildings were destroyed. Reports of the storm failed to reach
Galveston because the US Weather Service had temporarily banned the
cable transmission of Cuban weather reports. 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)(SFC, 9/22/05, p.A17)
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 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 1, Oldham, England,
announced that Winston Churchill had won the election as the town's
second MP, beginning Churchill's long career in the House of Commons.
(www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=304)
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. Their
first glider was a biplane that soared for 300 feet.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(NPub, 2002, p.5)
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 2, John Hossack (b.1841),
an Iowa farmer and a prosperous citizen of Warren County, was killed in
his bed from two blows with an ax. His wife was accused of the murder.
In 1927 Susan Gaspell (1876-1948), American novelist and playwright,
authored “A Jury of Her Peers,” a short story based on his murder trial.
(Econ, 2/21/09,
p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Jury_of_Her_Peers)
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 Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947),
French artist, painted "Siesta."
(WSJ, 6/24/98,
p.A16)(www.abcgallery.com/B/bonnard/bonnardbio.html)
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 In Philadelphia, Pa., the
8-million, 110-room Lynnewood Hall, home to the uber-wealthy Widener
family, was completed. It came to be called "the last of the American
Versailles." French landscape architect Jacques Greber designed the
formal French gardens, which were graced by his brother Henri-Louis
Greber's fountain of bronze and marble statuary. P.A.B. Widener's son,
Joseph, died there in 1943 and the younger generation deemed the
property too large to maintain. Much of the acreage was sold to
developers and the opulent furnishings were auctioned. In 1952, the
Rev. Carl McIntire of Collingswood, N.J., a controversial
fundamentalist preacher, bought the property for $190,000 and
established a Christian seminary. In 1993 New York physician Richard
Sei-Oung Yoon, a former student of McIntire and one-time chancellor of
the cash-strapped seminary, bought its mortgage for $1.6 million with
plans of establishing his own church there.
(AP, 7/26/10)
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 Paul P. Harris met attorney
Bob Frank for dinner in a well-off neighborhood on the North Side of
Chicago. They took a walk around the area and stopped at shops along
the way. Harris was impressed by how Frank had made friends with many
of the shopkeepers. Eventually, Harris persuaded other local
businessmen to meet and discuss forming a club for commercial trade,
community, and fellowship. His vision laid the foundation for the
Rotary of today.
(www.rotary.org/en/AboutUs/History/paulharris/Pages/ridefault.aspx)
1900 Charles Comiskey, manager of
the National League’s Cincinnati Reds, bought the Western League’s St.
Paul team and moved it to Chicago as the White Stockings.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)
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 San Clemente was built and
the 1st mayor, Ole Hanson, planned to make it look like a Greek fishing
village.
(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.T6)
c1900 Abbot Kinney bought some
marshland outside of Los Angeles and created a Venice of the West with
dredged canals, boardwalks and piers.
(SFEM, 6/18/00, p.8)
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 Frenchman Georges de Latour
founded Beaulieu Vineyard near Rutherford in Napa Valley Ca.
(SFC, 10/10/08, p.F3)
1900 The Auto Club of California
was spawned by a meeting of 11 "automobilists" at the SF Cliff House.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A17,20)
1900 Rose Hill cemetery closed on
Mount Diablo, Ca., as the nearby coal mining town closed down. The
oldest grave there dated to 1865. The area later became part of the
Black Diamond Mines Regional Park in Antioch.
(SFC, 9/8/09, p.C5)
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 Frank Doernbecher (d.1921)
founded Doernbecher Manufacturing in Portland, Oregon. The company was
eventually taken over by Barker Furniture.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.G2)
1900 Harvey Firestone founded the
Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A22)
1900 Frank Brownell, creator of
Eastman’s Kodak camera, designed the Brownie camera.
(ON, 3/05, p.12)
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. Bachelier’s insights later underpinned
the Black-Scholes option pricing model.
(WSJ, 7/16/03, p.D8)(Econ, 12/19/09, p.130)
1900 Frederick Weyerhaeuser, a
German immigrant, and 15 partners purchased 900,000 acres of land from
a railway company in Washington state.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.30)
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 Nickel-cadmium battery cells
were developed about this time.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
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 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)
1900 In Britain employees of the
Taff Vale Railway Co. in South Wales greased the tracks and cut
telegraph wires during a bitter strike. In 1901 the House of Lords
ruled that their union could be sued for damaging the company. The
shock to the union movement inspired the Labour Party and a 1906 Trade
Disputes Act.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.60)
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)
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 The Lohner-Porsche was
introduced at the World’s Fair in Paris. The hybrid car relied on
batteries and a generator to produce electricity for its motors.
Ferdinand Porsche working for Jacob Lohner in Vienna put electric
motors into the hubs of the wheels of the Lohner-Porsche.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.78)
1900 Greeks from the island of
Kefalonia began to migrate to Manchuria after 1900 and flourished in
the liquor and property business. Their world collapsed in 12949 when
the Communists took power.
(Econ, 8/23/08, p.52)
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)
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 The Nobel Foundation was
established in Sweden in accord with the will of Alfred Nobel.
(ON, 4/07, p.7)
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 US Colonel Leonard Wood served as governor
of Cuba. He cleaned up unsanitary conditions and supported medical
investigations that tied yellow fever and malaria to mosquitoes.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.D12)
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)
1900-1910 In the early 1900s A.C. Williams Co. of
Ravenna, Ohio, became the world’s largest producer of toys and still
banks. The company had started out manufacturing stoves and tools.
(SFC, 3/1/06, p.G7)
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)
1900-1914 In 2008 Phillip Blom authored “The Vertigo
Years: Europe 1900-1914.”
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.102)
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)
1900-1947 This period of India’s history is covered
in the 2007 book “Indian summer: The Secret History of the End of an
Empire,” by Alex von Tunzelmann.
(SSFC, 8/12/07, p.M3)
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)
1900-2000 This period in French history was covered
by British Historian Rod Kedward in his 2005 work: “La Vie en Bleu:
France and the French Since 1900.”
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.73)
Go to 1901