Timeline 1902-1904
Return to home
1902 Jan 1, In
Pasadena the 1st Rose Bowl football game was held and the Univ. of
Michigan beat Stanford 49 to 0. The next Rose Bowl game was held 11
years later.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A20)
1902 cJan 2, It was reported that
the steamer Walla Walla had collided with the French bark Max of Havre
off Cape Mendocino, Ca. The Walla Walla sank immediately with 141
passengers and crew as the Max limped away.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W2)
1902 Jan 4, The French offered to
sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the U.S.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1902 Jan 7, Imperial Court of
China returned to Peking. The Empress Dowager resumed her reign.
(HN, 1/7/01)
1902 Jan 8, Georgy M. Malenkov,
Stalin's successor as head of CPSU, PM (1953-55), was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1902 Jan 9, Rudolph Bing, opera
manager (NY Metropolitan Opera), was born.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1902 Jan 11, Maurice Durufle,
French organist, composer, was born.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1902 Jan 17, Gideon Scheepers,
South Africa Boer leader, was executed.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1902 Jan 18, The Isthmus Canal
Commission in Washington shifted its support to Panama as the canal
site.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1902 Jan 19, The magazine "L'Auto"
announced the new Tour de France.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1902 Jan 28, The Carnegie
Institute was established in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1902 Jan 31, In the US it was tax
freedom day, the day by which citizens met their financial obligations
to the government. By 1999 it had shifted to May 10.
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.7)
1902 Jan 31, A French soccer team
played in England for the first time: Paris lost, 4-0, to Marlow FC.
(HC, 2003, p.64)
1902 Jan, Abdul Aziz (Ibn Saud)
made an assault on Masmak fort and recaptured Riyadh.
(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)(NW, 11/26/01, p.SAS)
1902 Feb 1, Langston Hughes,
African-American poet, was born in Joplin, Mo. His books in-cluded “Way
Down South.”
(HN, 2/1/99)(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.F3)
1902 Feb 1, U.S. Secretary of
State John Hay protested Russian privileges in China as a vio-lation of
the "open door policy."
(HN, 2/1/99)
1902 Feb 1, China's empress
Tzu-hsi forbade binding woman's feet.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1902 Feb 4, Charles Lindbergh
(d.1974), the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic (1927), was
born in Detroit and grew up in Minnesota.
(HN,
2/4/99)(www.charleslindbergh.com/history/index.asp)
1902 Feb 9, Doctor Doyen of Paris,
performed a successful operation on Siamese twins from the Barnum and
Bailey Circus.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1902 Feb 10, Walter Brattain,
physicist, was born. He became one of the inventors of the transistor.
(HN, 2/10/01)
1902 Feb 11, Police beat up
universal suffrage demonstrators in Brussels.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1902 Feb 13, Georges Simenon,
novelist, was born in Belgium.
(HN, 2/13/01)(MC, 2/13/02)
1902 Feb 18, The opera "Hunchback
of Notre Dame" premiered in Monte Carlo.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1902 Feb 19, Kay Boyle, short
story writer ("The White Horses of Vienna"), was born.
(HN, 2/19/01)
1902 Feb 19, Smallpox vaccination
became obligatory in France.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1902 Feb 20, Ansel Adams, American
photographer, was born in San Francisco. He was an American landscape
photographer, especially of western wilderness and mountain panoramas.
In 1996 Mary Street Alinder released her biography "Ansel Adams."
Jonathon Spaulding re-leased his "Ansel Adams and the American
Landscape."
(SFEC, 9/15/96, BR p.4)(HN, 2/20/99)
1902 Feb 21, Dr. Harvey Cushing,
US brain surgeon, performed his 1st brain operation.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1902 Feb 22, A fistfight broke out
in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffered a bloody nose for
accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1902 Feb 27, John Steinbeck
(d.1968), American novelist, was born in Salinas, Ca. He au-thored "The
Grapes of Wrath," "Of Mice and Men" and "The Log from the Sea of
Cortez." "A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his
life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was
it evil? Have I done well—or ill?"
(AP, 6/27/97) (SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.67)(HN,
2/27/99)(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A21)
1902 Feb, Dr. Walter Reed
published his results on yellow fever. He concluded that: "The spread
of yellow fever can be most effectually controlled by measures directed
to the destruc-tion of mosquitoes and the protection of the sick
against the bites of these insects."
(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1902 Mar 3, Isaac D. France van de
Putte (79), Dutch premier (1866), died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1902 Mar 4, The American
Automobile Association was founded in Chicago.
(AP, 3/4/98)(HN, 3/4/98)
1902 Mar 8, Louise Beavers, film
actress, was born.
(HN, 3/8/01)
1902 Mar 8, The 1st performance of
Jean Sibelius' 2nd Symphony.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1902 Mar 9, Edward Durell Stone,
US, architect (US Embassy, New Delhi), was born.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1902 Mar 9, Will Greer, actor
(Grandpa Walton-The Waltons), was born in Frankfort, Ind.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1902 Mar 9, Alma Schindler
(d.1964), daughter of landscape painter Emil Schindler, married
composer Gustav Mahler (d.1911) in Vienna. He immortalized her in the
first movement of his Symphony No. 6, and he dedicated Symphony No. 8
to her. After his death Alma became in-volved with Oskar Kokoschka, who
painted her many times, most notably in "The Tempest" (1914; "Die
Windsbraut"). In August 1915 she married the architect Walter Gropius.
During her lifetime Alma Mahler became friends with numerous celebrated
artists, including the painter Gustav Klimt (who made several portraits
of her), composer Arnold Schoenberg, the writer Gerhart Hauptmann, and
the singer Enrico Caruso. The composer Alban Berg dedicated his opera
Wozzeck (1921) to her. In 1929 she married writer Franz Werfel.
(MC,
3/9/02)(http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/arc/libraries/feuchtwanger/exiles/werfel.html)
1902 Mar 10, The Boers scored
their last victory over the British, capturing British General Methuen
and 200 men.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1902 Mar 17, Bobby Jones was born.
He was the first American golfer to win the U.S. and British
championships in the same year in 1930.
(HN, 3/17/99)
1902 cMar 19, Japan formed an
alliance with England.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)
1902 Mar 20, France and Russia
acknowledged the Anglo-Japanese alliance, but asserted their right to
protect their interests in China and Korea.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1902 Mar 22, Great Britain and
Persia agreed to link Europe and India by telegraph.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1902 Apr 23, Halldór
Laxness, Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic novelist (The Fish Can Sing,
Paradise Reclaimed), was born.
(HN, 4/23/01)
1902 Mar 23, Kálmán
Tisza (71), premier of Hungary (1875-90), died.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1902 Mar 24, Thomas E. Dewey, a
governor of New York (1943-1955) and two-time Republi-can presidential
nominee, was born in Owosso, Mich.
(HN, 3/24/01)(AP, 3/24/02)
1902 Mar 25, Irving W. Colburn
patented a sheet glass drawing machine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1902 Mar 26, Cecil Rhodes (48),
Prime Minister of Cape Colony (1890-96), died. [see Apr 4, 1902]
(SS, 3/26/02)
1902 Mar 29, William Walton,
composer (Troilus and Cressida, Wise Virgins), was born in England.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1902 Mar 30, Roberta Brooke
Russell (d.2007) was born in Portsmouth, NH. In 1953 she married
millionaire Vincent Astor (d.1959) and became a major philanthropist
following his death.
(SFC, 8/14/07, p.B5)
1902 Mar, Henry Ford (38) left the
Detroit Automobile Company and soon found backers for the new Ford
Motor Co., which incorporated in 1903.
(ON, 3/03, p.1)
1928 Oct 2, Clarence Barron
(b.1855), author and president of Dow Jones & Co., died. Hugh
Bancroft (1879-1933) succeeded him as president of Dow Jones.
(www.newsbios.com/newslum/barron.htm)
1902 Apr 2, Thomas L. Talley set
up the first moving picture theater as part of a carnival in Los
Angeles.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.10)(MC, 4/2/02)
1902 Apr 4, British financier
Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will to provide scholarships for
Americans at Oxford University in England. The first scholars were
selected in 1903. In Rhode-sia [later Zimbabwe] after Cecil John
Rhodes, British imperialist, died at age 48 he was buried in a tomb in
the Matopos Hills. He had co-founded De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd.,
and built great railways through southern Africa. "So much to do, and
so little time."
(AP, 4/4/97)(SFC, 12/9/98, p.A25)(WSJ, 12/9/98,
p.A1)(SFEC, 7/2/00, Z1 p.2)
1902 Apr 5, Maurice Ravel's
"Pavane pour une infante defunte," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1902 Apr 7, The Texas Fuel Co. was
founded. It soon changed its name to the Texas Co. and eventually
became Texaco.
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)
1902 Apr 8, Josef Krips, conductor
(London Symph 1954-63), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1902 Apr 10, South African Boers
accepted British terms of surrender.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1902 Apr 11, Wade Hampton (1818),
Confederate Civil War general and post-war governor of South Carolina
(1877-1879), died. In 2008 Rod Andrew Jr. authored Wade Hampton:
Confed-erate Warrior, Conservative Statesman.”
(WSJ, 6/7/08,
p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Hampton_III)
1902 Apr 13, Philippe de
Rothschild, manager (Bordeaux Vineyard), was born in Paris.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1902 Apr 14, Menachem A.
Schneerson, rebee (head of Lubavitcher Jews), was born.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1902 Apr 14, James Cash Penney
(J.C. Penney) opened his first Golden Rule Store for clothes, shoes and
dry goods in Kemmerer, Wyoming. It grew to a chain and was renamed J.C.
Penney in 1913. By 1929 there were 1,395 stores in the chain.
(www.jcpenney.net/company/history/milestn/milestn.htm)(AP, 4/14/97)
1902 Apr 18, Denmark became the
1st country to adopt fingerprinting to identify criminals.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1902 Apr 20, Radium was isolated
as a pure metal by Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the
electrolysis of a pure radium chloride solution. Pierre and Marie Curie
had discov-ered the element in 1898.
(AP, 4/20/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium)
1902 Apr 28, Johan Borgen,
Norwegian novelist, was born.
(HN, 4/28/01)
1902 Apr 28, A revolution broke
out in the Dominican Republic.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1902 Apr 30, Debussy's opera
"Pelleas et Melisande" premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1902 May 1, John Glover (85),
English chemist (production sulfuric acid), died.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1902 May 2, "A Trip To The Moon,"
the 1st science fiction, was film released. The French film "Le Voyage
Dans La Lune" (Voyage to the Moon) was a 14-minute silent film directed
by Geor-ges Melies. It displayed early efforts in trick photography to
show a group of scientists traveling to the moon after being shot from
a giant cannon.
(WSJ, 3/19/98, p.R4)(MC, 5/2/02)
1902 May 3, Walter Slezak, actor
(Bedtime for Bonzo, Inspector General), was born in Vi-enna.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1902 May 5, Bret Harte, American
writer (b.1836), died in England. In 2000 Axel Nissen au-thored "Bret
Harte: Prince and Pauper."
(WUD, 1994, p.648)(SFEC, 9/3/00, BR p.6)(MC, 5/5/02)
1902 May 6, Harry Golden, Jewish
humorist, writer (2 Cents Plain, Only in America), was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 6, Max Ophuls (d.1957),
film director (La Ronde, Lola Montes), was born in the Rhine Valley of
Jewish parents. He made films in Germany, France, Netherlands and the
US.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, DB p.50)(HN, 5/6/01)
1902 May 6, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place."
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 6, British SS Camorta
sank off Rangoon and 739 died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 6, There was a Zulu
assault at Holkrantz, South-Africa.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 8, Mt. Pelee volcano, on
the French Island of Martinique in the east W. Indies, blew its top and
wiped out the town of St. Pierre. A pyroclastic flow killed 29-40
thousand people. In 1972 Jacques Petitjean Roget published a detailed
report on the event. In 2002 Alwyn Scarth authored "La Catastrophe."
(SFC, 8/13/01, p.A4)(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)(NH, 10/02,
p.76)
1902 May 10, Joachim Prinz,
author, Rabbi of Berlin (1926-37), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1902 May 10, David O. Selznick,
film producer (Gone with the Wind, Rebecca), was born in Pittsburgh, Pa.
(HN, 5/10/02)(MC, 5/10/02)
1902 May 12, Heinrich Kirchner,
German sculptor, was born.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1902 May 12, Over 100,000 miners
in northeastern Pennsylvania called a strike and kept the mines closed
all summer. Owners refused arbitration and Pres. Roosevelt intervened.
[see Oct 3]
(LCTH, 10/3/99)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1902 May 15, Richard Daley, mayor
of Chicago through the 1960s and early 1970's, was born.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1902 May 18, Meredith Willson
(Wilson), composer and lyricist (The Music Man), was born in Mason
City, Iowa.
(HN, 5/18/01)(SSFC, 3/14/04, p.D12)
1902 May 20, The United States
ended its three-year military presence in Cuba as the Repub-lic of Cuba
was established under its first elected president, Tomas Estrada Palma.
Theodore Roosevelt had criticized the government’s sluggish withdrawal
of disease-stricken US troops from Cuba.
(HN, 5/20/98)(WSJ, 11/13/98, p.A1)(AP, 5/20/02)
1902 May 21, Marcel Breuer,
Hungarian-born architect, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1902 May 25, Helvi Lemmikke
Leiviska, composer, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1902 May 29, Dutch State Mine law
formed.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1902 May 31, The Boer War ended
between the Boars of South Africa and Great Britain with the Treaty of
Vereeniging. This effectively ended a 3-year uprising by the Boers, led
by Louis Botha, commandant general of the Transvaal forces. Botha was a
signatory at the peace con-ference. The combination of superior fire
power and a brutal war of attrition launched by Lord Kitchener forced
the Boers to give in. Kitchener burned the farms of Africans and Boers
alike and collected as many as a 100,000 women and children in
carelessly run and unhygienic con-centration camps on the open veldt.
Britain annexed Transvaal.
(V.D.-H.K.p.289)(HN, 5/31/99)(SFC, 9/25/99,
p.A21)(MC, 5/31/02) (HNQ, 6/29/02)
1902 May, In Nicaragua the
Momotombo volcano erupted.
(ON, 1/00, p.2)
1902 Jun 2, 2nd statewide
initiative and referendum law was adopted in Oregon.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1902 Jun 6, Jimmie Lunceford,
bandleader, was born.
(HN, 6/6/01)
1902 Jun 9, The 1st Automat
restaurant opened at 818 Chestnut Street, Phila.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1902 Jun 15, Erik H. Erickson,
Danish-born psychologist who wrote "Childhood and Society," was born.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1902 Jun 16, Barbara McClintock,
geneticist (Nobel 1983), was born.
(HN, 6/16/01)(MC, 6/16/02)
1902 Jun 16, George Gaylord
Simpson, paleontologist, was born.
(HN, 6/16/01)
1902 Jun 19, The US Senate voted
in favor of Panama as the canal site. US support for a $40 million
purchase was based on Congressional acceptance for a canal in Panama
rather than Nicaragua, and the acquisition of land to serve as a canal
zone.
(HN, 1/18/99)(ON, 1/00, p.1)
1902 Jun 19, Guy Lombardo
(d.11/5/1977) Canadian bandleader was born in London, On-tario. He
played the sweetest music this side of heaven with his Royal Canadians
and sold over 100 million records.
(DTnet, 6/19/97)
1902 Jun 19, John E E Dalberg,
baron van Acton (69), English historian, died.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1902 Jun 23, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Italy renewed the Triple Alliance for a 12 year
duration.
(HN, 6/23/98)
1902 Jun 26, William P. Lear,
American engineer and industrialist, was born.
(HN, 6/26/01)
1902 Jun 28, John Dillinger, US
bank robber (public enemy #1), was born.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1902 Jun 28, Richard Rodgers
(d.1979), American composer, was born.
(HN, 6/28/01)(SFC, 4/22/02, p.D1)
1902 Jun 28, Congress passed the
Spooner bill, authorizing a canal to be built across the isthmus of
Panama. The US purchased a concession to build Panama canal from French
for $40 million.
(HN, 6/28/98)(MC, 6/28/02)
1902 Jul 1, William Wyler
(d.1981), film director (The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben Hur), was
born.
(HN, 7/1/01)(SFC, 7/8/02, p.D2)
1902 Jul 1, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax."
(MC, 7/1/02)
1902 Jul 2, John J. McGraw became
manager of NY Giants and stayed for 30 years.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1902 Jul 4, Meyer Lansky (d.1983),
mobster (Started numbers), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky)
1902 Jul 4, Pres. Roosevelt
officially ended the Philippine-American War. Estimates for the
civilian people killed ranged from 250,000 to 1 million. Creighton
Miller in 1982 published "Be-nevolent Assimilation," a comprehensive
account of the conflict.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, Z1 p.1,4)(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A6)(PC,
1992, p.642)
1902 Jul 17, Christina E. Stead,
novelist and screenwriter who wrote "The Man Who Loved Women," was born.
(HN, 7/17/98)
1902
Jul 17, Willis Carrier invented modern day air conditioning at the
Sackett-Wilhelms Litho-graphing and Publishing Company in Brooklyn, NY.
Carrier’s invention was used primarily to cool machines, not people. In
1928 the U.S. House of Representatives was air conditioned, fol-lowed
shortly by the Senate, White House and Supreme Court.
(PR Carrier Corp., 7/17/02)
1902 Jul 18, Charles W.J.
Mengelberg, Dutch composer, conductor, was born.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1902 Jul 18, Jessamyn West,
American author (The Friendly Persuasion), was born.
(HN, 7/18/01)
1902 Jul 25, Eric Hoffer (d.1983),
American longshoreman, philosopher and author of "In Our Time," was
born: "Our present addiction to pollsters and forecasters is a symptom
of our chronic uncertainty about the future. ... We watch our experts
read the entrails of statistical ta-bles and graphs the way the
ancients watched their soothsayers read the entrails of a chicken." "It
almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans.
America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it." "We do not
usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those
who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for
allies when we hate."
(AP, 5/21/97)(AP, 10/28/97)(AP, 5/23/98)(HN, 7/25/02)
1902 Jul 28, Kenneth Fearing, poet
and novelist (The Big Clock), was born.
(HN, 7/28/01)
1902 Jul 30, Anti-Jewish rioters
attacked the funeral procession of Rabbi Joseph in NYC.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1902 Aug 3, Ray Block, orchestra
leader (Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason), was born in France.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1902 Aug 3, Habib Bourguiba, 1st
president of Tunisia, was born.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1902 Aug 3, Judson Laire, actor,
singer (Papa-Mama, Adm Broadway Revue), was born in NYC.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1902 Aug 8, Jean Y.Y. Tissot,
French painter, illustrator, died.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1902 Aug 9, Edward VII was crowned
king of England following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.
(SFEM, 1/26/97, p.40)(AP, 8/9/98)
1902 Aug 13, Felix Wankel,
inventory of the rotary engine which bears his name, was born in
Germany.
(HN, 8/13/00)(MC, 8/13/02)
1902 Aug 19, Ogden Nash (d.1971),
American author and humorist, was born in Rye, NY. Vanity, vanity, all
is vanity/ That's any fun at all for humanity. "Winter comes but once a
year, And when it comes it brings the doctor good cheer."
(WUD, 1994 p.951)(AP, 10/24/97)(AP, 12/21/98)(HN,
8/19/00)(MC, 8/19/02)
1902 Aug 22, Leni Riefenstahl,
[Helene Bertha Amalie], actress, Hitler's favorite cinematogra-pher
(Triumph of the Will, Tiefland), was born in Germany.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1902 Aug 22, President Theodore
Roosevelt became the first U.S. chief executive to ride in an
automobile in Hartford, Conn.
(AP, 8/22/97)(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A20)
1902 Aug 22, The Cadillac Company
formed from the Henry Ford Co. when Henry Ford left. Ford formed the
Ford Motor Co. in 1903.
(Wikipedia)
1902 Aug 23, Fanny Farmer, among
the first to emphasize the relationship of diet to health, opened her
School of Cookery in Boston.
(HN, 8/23/00)
1902 Aug 23, Gold was discovered
in Goldfield, Nv., near Tonopah. By 1907 Goldfield grew to 20,000
residents.
(SFC, 8/31/02, p.A2)
1902 Aug 24, Fernand Braudel
(d.1985), French historian, was born. He was one of the most important
historiographers of the 20th century: "History may be divided into
three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears
not to move at all."
(AP, 9/5/97)(DT internet 11/28/97)
1902 Aug 31, Mathilde Wesendonk
(73), German author and poetess, died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1902 Aug, In Japan Mount
Izu-Torishima erupted and left 125 people dead.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)
1902 Fall, Emily Wolcott (b.1866),
writer, began her first term at the Univ. of Michigan in the LSA
program. That fall Michigan beat Ohio State 83-0.
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.12)
1902 Sep 1, The Austro-Hungarian
army was called into the city of Agram to restore the peace as Serbs
and Croats clashed.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1902 Sep 3, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of Illustrious Client."
(MC, 9/3/01)
1902 Sep 12, The Yacolt Fire
burned 238,000 acres in Oregon and Washington and killed 38 people.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)
1902 Sep 17, U.S. troops were sent
to Panama to keep train lines open over the isthmus as Panamanian
nationals struggled for independence from Colombia.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1902 Sep 17, US protested
anti-Semitism in Romania.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1902 Sep 21, Allen Lake was born.
He founded Penguin Books in 1935.
(HN, 9/21/00)
1902 Sep 22, John Houseman,
director, producer and actor, was born in Bucharest, Roma-nia.
(HN, 9/22/00)(MC, 9/22/01)
1902 Sep 22, A long-simmering feud
between the Brooks and McFarland clans erupted into a bloody gunfight
in the railroad town of Spokogee, Indian Territory, which is now
Dustin, Okla-homa. Spokogee had sprung up in the path of the coming
Fort Smith & Western Railroad. The Creek name meant "the exalted,"
or "near to God." The area around Spokogee was home to two feuding
families, the Brookses and McFarlands. Willis B. Brooks, 48, was a
well-known in-habitant of the Dogwood Settlement and one of the
toughest men to be found in Indian Terri-tory. He was a gunfighter from
Alabama, by way of Texas. Jim McFarland, his chief adversary, had the
reputation of being an outlaw and a killer. While the ribbon of steel
inched its way to-ward Spokogee, the long-simmering feud between the
warring families heated up and then erupted into a classic Western
gunfight, settled with gun smoke, blood and lead.
(HNQ, 8/25/01)
1902 Sep 23, John Wesley Powell
(68), US explorer and geologist, died. He led expeditions down the
Green and Colorado rivers (1869 & 1871), through the Grand Canyon
even though he had lost the lower part of his right arm in the Battle
of Shiloh during the Civil War. Powell, a ge-ographer and ethnologist,
held a number of positions after resigning from the army in 1865, many
for government agencies such as director of the U.S. Geographical
Survey. [see 1891] In 2001 Donald Worster authored "A River Running
West: the Life and Times of John Wesley Powell."
(HNQ, 10/13/00)(SSFC, 4/1/01, BR p.6)(MC,
9/23/01)(ON, 5/02, p.5)
1902 Sep 26, Umberto "Albert"
Anastasia, US gangster (fond of being shaved), was born.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1902 Sep 28, Ed Sullivan,
television host, was born. He was also a newspaper columnist and radio
host. "The Ed Sullivan Show" first aired in 1948. His show had
many debut acts including Lewis and Martin, Elvis, the Beatles and the
Rolling Stones. [see Sep 28, 1901]
(MC, 9/28/01)
1902 Sep 28, Emile Zola (b.1840),
novelist (Nana, Germinal, J'accuse), died by asphyxiation in his Paris
apartment at age 62. In 1895 he began taking photographs and took some
7,000 pictures before his death.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.C6)(MC, 9/28/01)
1902 Sep 29, Broadway impresario
David Belasco reopened the Republic Theatre under his own name.
(AP, 9/29/08)
1902 Sep 29, William McGonagall
(b~1825), poet, died in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was mocked by literary
critics and had food thrown at him during public readings. He died
penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave. Critics later awarded
him the "world's worst" label be-cause of the crashing lack of subtlety
in terms of rhyme, imagery, vocabulary or repetition. His most famous
poem is about the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, in which 75 people died.
In 2008 35 broadsheets of his original poems were auctioned for $13,200.
(AFP,
5/16/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall)(WSJ, 5/17/08,
p.A1)
1902 Oct 3,
President Theodore Roosevelt met with miners and coal field operators
in an at-tempt to settle the anthracite coal strike, then in its fifth
month. The country relied on coal to power commerce and industry and
anthracite or "hard coal" was essential for domestic heating.
Pennsylvania miners had left the anthracite fields demanding wage
increases, union recogni-tion, and an eight-hour workday. As winter
approached, public anxiety about fuel shortages and the rising cost of
all coal pushed Roosevelt to take unprecedented action. A presidential
com-mission awarded the workers a 10% wage increase and a shorter work
week. [see May 12]
(LCTH, 10/3/99)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1902 Oct 5, Ray Croc was born. He
founded the McDonald’s hamburger franchise in 1955.
(HN, 10/5/00)
1902 Oct 25, Henry Steele Commager
(d.1998), American historian was born in Pittsburg, Pa. He wrote the
fifty-five volume "Rise of the American Nation."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Steele_Commager)
1902 Oct 25, Santa Maria,
Guatemala, was hit by an earthquake and about 6,000 died.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1902 Oct 26, Beryl Markham,
aviator and writer, was born.
(HN, 10/26/00)
1902 Oct 31, Carlos Drummond de
Andrade, Brazilian poet, journalist and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 10/31/00)
1902 Nov 1, Nordahl Brun Greig,
Norwegian writer, was born. He was a wartime hero during WWII.
(HN, 11/1/00)
1902 Nov 1, Eugen Jochum, German
conductor (Hamburg Orch), was born in Babenhausen, Bavaria.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1902 Nov 5, Strom Thurmond,
(Sen-R-SC, 1955-2003), was born.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1902 Nov 16, A cartoon appeared in
the Washington Star, prompting the Teddy Bear Craze, after President
Teddy Roosevelt refused to kill a captive bear tied up for him to shoot
during a hunting trip to Mississippi.
(HN, 11/16/00)
1902 Nov 17, Lee Strasberg, acting
coach and actor (And Justice for All), was born in Austria.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1902 Nov 17, Eugene Paul Wigner,
Hungarian-born mathematician and physicist, was born. He won the Nobel
Prize in 1963.
(HN, 11/17/00)(MC, 11/17/01)
1902 Nov 18, Brooklyn toymaker
Morris Michton named the teddy bear after Teddy Roose-velt.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1902 Nov 22, Emanuel Feuermann,
cellist (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), was born in Ko-lomea, Galicia.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1902 Nov 22, A fire caused
considerable damage to the unfinished Williamsburg bridge in New York.
(HN, 11/22/98)
1902 Nov 22, Friedrich A. Krupp,
cannon manufacturer, committed suicide.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1902 Nov 23, Dr. Walter Reed (51)
died from a ruptured appendix in Washington DC. His ex-periments in
Cuba had helped prove that yellow fever was transmitted by a
mosquitoes. In 1982 William Bean, MD, authored "Walter Reed."
(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1902 Nov 24, The first Congress of
Professional Photographers convened in Paris.
(HN, 11/24/98)
1902 Nov 25, Franz Lehar's opera
"Wiener Fraueen," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1902 Dec 4, Charles Dow (b.1851),
co-founder of the Wall Street Journal and inventor of the Dow
Industrial averages, died in Brooklyn, NY.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.
R-30)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_H._Dow)
1902 Dec 8, Oliver Wendell Holmes
Jr. became Associate Justice on Supreme Court.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1902 Dec 9, Margaret Hamilton,
character actress, was born in Cleveland, Oh. She became best known as
the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz (1939).
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3146)
1902 Dec 11, Matthias Hohner
(b.1833), German clockmaker and harmonica manufacturer, died. He began
making harmonicas in 1857. Exports to America began in 1862.
(www.eharmonica.net/history.htm)
1902 Dec 13, The Committee of
Imperial Defense held its first meeting in London.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1902 Dec 20, Max Lerner (d.1992),
American columnist (NY Post) and public commentator, was born. His work
included "America as a Civilization."
(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.6)(MC, 12/20/01)
1902 Dec 22, Jacques-Philippe
Leclerc, French WW II hero (liberator of Paris), was born.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1902 Dec 28, Mortimer J. Adler,
American philosopher, educator and writer, was born. He helped design
the "Great Books" program, which popularized the great ideas of Western
civili-zation in 54 volumes.
(HN, 12/28/99)
1902 Charles Lindbergh, US
aviator, was born. In 1998 A. Scott Berg published the biography
"Lindbergh."
(WUD, 1994, p.832)(WSJ, 9/25/98, p.W6)
1902 John Steinbeck, US author,
was born. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1962. His work
included "The Log from the Sea of Cortez." A biography of Steinbeck,
"John Steinbeck" by Catherine Reef, was published in 1996. A CD-ROM
version on "Of Mice and Men" was released in 1995. In 1996 a CD-ROM was
released titled "The Pearl" & "The Red Pony" by Penguin Electronic;
"The Grapes of Wrath" was also planned for release.
(WUD, 1994, p.1392)(SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T8)
1902 Raoul Dufy, fauve artist,
painted "Nude on a Pink Sofa."
(WSJ, 5/4/99, p.A20)
1902 Paul Gauguin created his
painting "Primitive Tales."
(WSJ, 4/12/04, p.D8)
1902 Artist Hamilton King painted
a series of bathing beauties, flag girls, girls in period gowns and
sketches used as cigarette premiums for Turkish Trophies, a brand
produced by the American Tobacco Co. He painted another set in 1913.
(SFC, 2/12/97, z1 p.6)
1902 Gustav Klimt painted
"Portrait of Emilie Flöge."
(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A15)
1902 Monet made his painting
"Waterloo Bridge."
(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.10)
1902 Picasso painted "La Soupe," a
picture of a mother offering a bowl of soup to her daugh-ter. He also
painted "Two Women at a Bar."
(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 2/16/00, p.A14)
1902 Naum Gabo created his
sculpture "Constructed Head No. 2." It was later acquired by Raymond D.
Nasher of Dallas, Texas.
(WSJ, 11/4/03, p.A1)
c1902 Aristide Maillol, sculptor,
began his work "Night." It was completed around 1909.
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.B6)
1902 J.M. Barrie featured Peter
Pan as a minor character in his book “The Little White Bird.”
(USAT, 9/2/04, p.2D)
1902 Anton Chekhov published his
collected works.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, BR p.5)
1902 Joseph Conrad, born in Poland
as Josef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, published his novella "The Heart
of Darkness." It later inspired the film "Apocalypse Now."
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A20)
1902 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
published his book "Hound of the Baskervilles." A 1st edition copy with
dust jacket sold at auction for $131,541 in 1998.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W14)
1902 S.W. Erdnase published "The
Expert at the Card Table." The book revealed secrets be-hind card
tricks and cheating techniques. The real identity of the author was a
mystery.
(WSJ, 8/16/00, p.A1)
1902 Henry James published "The
Wings of the Dove."
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E1)
1902 William James published "The
Varieties of Religious Experience," based on his 1901 Gifford Lectures
at the Univ. of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1999 it was rated the 2nd
best work of non-fiction in the English language by the Modern Library.
(WSJ, 11/11/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)
1902 Rudyard Kipling published
"Just So Stories."
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1902 V.I. Lenin’s What Is To Be
Done? was published and espoused the need for a disci-plined,
centrally-directed revolutionary party. This work, along with several
articles preceding it, comprised Lenin’s most distinctive contributions
to Communist theory. His three key theoretical elements were: that the
workers have no revolutionary consciousness and that their spontane-ous
actions will not lead to revolution; that consciousness must be brought
to workers by intel-lectual leaders; and the revolutionary party must
consist of full-time, disciplined, centrally-directed professionals
capable of acting as one man.
(HNQ, 3/22/99)
1902 Samuel Armstrong Nelson
published his book: "The ABC of Stock Speculation."
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-38)
1902 Euclides da Cunha of Brazil
wrote "Os Sertoes," (The Arid Region), translated into Eng-lish as
"Rebellion in the Backlands," on the 1893-1897 events at Canudos led by
Antonio Con-selheiro.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A14)
1902 "Garden Cities of Tomorrow"
was published. John Papworth and Ebeneezer Howard were already on
record as British theorists for planning new towns.
(Hem., Nov.’95, p.91)
1902 Owen Wister (1860-1938)
authored "The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains." In 1929 Paramount
adopted it into a movie with Walter Huston and Gary Cooper. A TV series
began in 1962.
(AH, 10/02, p.18)
1902 The novel "The Four Feathers"
by A.E.W. Mason, was published. It was set mainly in England and
Ireland over the years 1882-1888 during England’s war in the Sudan and
went on to inspire 7 films.
(SFC, 9/20/02,
p.D1)(http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/books/4feather.htm)
1902 "The Lower Depths," a play by
Maxim Gorky premiered in Moscow.
(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.B1)
1902 In NYC the 21-story Flatiron
Building (Fuller Bldg.) was built on a pie-slice of land at 23rd &
5th Ave. by architect Daniel Burnham with a French Beaux arts-style
facade.
(HT, 5/97, p.24)
1902 Barnum’s Animal Crackers were
1st produced. In 2002 Nabisco planned a 100 year b-day.
(SSFC, 12/2/01, Par p.17)
1902 In Alaska Felix Pedro, an
Italian miner, discovered gold northeast of Chenoa City. Min-ers surged
in from the Fortymile and Klondike goldfields.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.T7)
1902 The Society of American
Magicians was formed at Martinka & Co. Magic supply House in NYC.
The shop later became Flosso-Hornmann Magic.
(SFC, 10/2/03, p.A19)
1902 In Wyoming James Cash Penney
opened his first Golden Rule Store for clothes, shoes and dry goods in
Kemmerer. It grew to a chain and was renamed J.C. Penney in 1913. By
1929 there were 1,395 stores in the chain.
(WSJ, 3/31/98, p.A1)
1902 Ben Willis developed clothing
for his Arctic explorations and founded Willis & Geiger Outfitters.
(NH, 9/96, p.17)
1902 The first Audubon Society
sanctuary was established at Cuthbert Lake, Florida, to pro-tect egrets
and herons from plume hunters.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.12)
1902 Charles Palmer Davis founded
the Weekly Reader to help educate students on current events.
(SSFC, 7/7/02, Par p.8)
1902 In Baltimore Babe Ruth
entered St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys at age 7. He was already
smoking and drinking but was guided to adulthood by Brother Matthias.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.W13)
1902 Goodwill Industries was
founded to help the needy find and keep jobs.
(SSFC, 6/23/02, Par p.12)
1902 Ideals of the Woodcraft
Indians was founded by Ernest Seton.
(HNQ, 7/1/98)
1902 Alfred Stieglitz founded the
Photo-Secession.
(Civilization, July-Aug. 1995, p.40-47)
1902 Ronald Ross (1857-1932), an
English physician, won the Nobel Prize for his work on malaria. His
story is part of the 1997 novel "The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of
Fevers, De-lirium and Discovery" by Amitav Ghosh. In 2003 Fiammetta
Rocco authored "The Miraculous Fever Tree: Malaria and the Quest for a
Cure That Changed the World."
(WUD, 1994, p.1245)(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.8)(WSJ,
8/26/03, p.D5)
1902 Emil Fischer won the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry. He is considered as the founder of the science of
carbohydrate chemistry.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E4)
1902 Pieter Zeeman (b.1865), Dutch
physicist (Zeeman effect), won the Nobel Prize.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1902 President Theodore Roosevelt
said he would intervene in a coal strike: "I knew that this action
would form an evil precedent, and that it was one which I should take
most reluctantly." The strike settled without intervention.
(HNQ, 12/23/02)
1902 The Secret Service assumed
full-time responsibility for protection of the President. Two
operatives were assigned full time to the White House Detail.
(http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/history.shtml)
1902 Oliver Wendell Holmes, a
Harvard Law Professor, was appointed to the US Supreme Court. He served
to 1932.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A20)
1902 The US Newlands Act
established the Bureau of Reclamation and began to enact some of the
ideas of John Wesley Powell concerning control of water resources in 17
western states. Results included the Newlands Irrigation Project in
Nevada’s Fallon area that diverted water from the Carson and Truckee
Rivers to new farmland.
(HFA, ‘96, p.128)(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)(SFC,
12/28/02, p.A20)
1902 Sedona, Arizona, was founded.
It was named after Sedona Schnebly, the daughter of one of the 1st
settlers, wealthy landowner T. Carl Schnebly and his wife.
(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.C6)
1902 Walter and Ella Scott arrived
in Barstow, Ca., using funds from Julian Gerard, a Manhat-tan banker
and mining promoter. Scott had faked a gold mine in Death Valley. In
1904 Scott faked a theft and managed to get more funds from Albert
Mussey Johnson, treasurer of the na-tional Life Insurance Company in
Chicago. Scott admitted his fraud in 1912.
(ON, 3/04, p.7)
1902 The San Francisco Chronicle
Blue Ribbon Cook Book was compiled by Annie R. Greg-ory with assistance
from 1000 homekeepers.
(SFC, 4/4/01, WB p.4)
1902 In SF the Dutch Windmill was
built to pump water to a reservoir on Strawberry Hill in Golden Gate
Park at a cost of $25,000. Quarry Lake (Lily Pond) was designed for
Goldengate Park. It was restored in 1981.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.5)(SFC, 7/29/97,
p.A7)(SFC, 8/13/01, p.A18)(SFC, 6/26/02, p.A18)
1902 In SF A MUNI substation was
built at Turk and Fillmore.
(SFC, 3/16/09, p.B2)
1902 In SF the 12-story building
at One Kearny was built in a French Renaissance style. It was designed
by William Curlett. In 1964 an addition, designed by Charles Moore,
included new circulation systems and bathrooms. In 2009 a 10-story
addition was completed on its other side.
(SFC, 11/10/09, p.E1)
1902 The SF Conservatory of
Flowers received its imperial philodendron from Brazil.
(SFC, 9/16/03, p.A20)
1902 SF banned the sale of
cemetery lots.
(SFC, 4/9/98, p.A21)
1902 Former SF Mayor James Phelan
filed a federal claim "for the water from the Tuolemne River, to be
gathered by damming the mouth of the Hetch Hetchy Valley."
(ON, 7/03, p1)
1902 In the US Oregon became the
first of 23 states to allow voters to place issues on the ballot in the
form of initiatives.
(WSJ, 6/5/96, p.A14)
1902 Artus and Anne Van Briggle
founded the Van Briggle Pottery in Colorado Springs, Colo. Their
Persian Rose glaze was produced from 1946-1968.
(SFC, 9/7/05, p.G9)
1902 In Hawaii Walter Dillingham,
son of Benjamin, took over the Oahu Railway and Land Co, and launched
the Hawaiian Dredging and Construction Co. It later became the
Dillingham Corp.
(SFC, 10/28/98, p.A19)
1902 George Draper Dayton started
a dry goods store in Minneapolis that grew to become the Dayton Hudson
chain. It was renamed Target in 1999. Kenneth Macke (1938-2008) led
Dayton Hudson from 1983 to 1994.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.B7)
1902 The Crooksville China Co. of
Crooksville, Ohio, began operations and continued to 1959. Their
products included the Stinthal China brand name.
(SFC, 8/20/08, p.G4)
1902 The Owen China Co. of
Minerva, Ohio, was founded by Edward J. Owen. It was forced to close
during the Depression in 1932.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1902 National syndication of comic
strips in newspapers originated when Hearst started sell-ing the right
to reproduce his strips in other newspapers.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bqo2r)(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A8)
1902 Train service between New
York and Chicago began. In 1995 Amtrak’s "Broadway Lim-ited" service
made its final run.
(AP, 9/9/00)(MC, 9/9/01)
1902 Henry Leland reorganized
Henry Ford Co. and renamed it Cadillac Motor Co.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(Sky, 9/97, p.97)
1902 The New Jersey Ralston Health
Club run by Webster Edgerley merged with Purina Mills, a food
manufacturer run by Will Danforth, to form the Ralston-Purina Co.
Ralston Breakfast Food had been manufactured by Purina and its success
led to the merger.
(Arch, 5/04, p.32)
1902 In Buffalo, NY, the U.S. Hame
Co. was formed as the result of a consolidation of two 19th century
hame and saddlery manufacturers, the United Hame Co. of Buffalo, NY,
and the Consolidated Hame Co. of Andover, New Hampshire. In 1917 it
changed its name to USHCO and started making chassis for Ford and
Chevrolet trucks.
(www.coachbuilt.com/bui/u/us_body/us_body.htm)(SFC,
8/15/07, p.G7)
1902 Automobile disk brakes were
patented.
(WSJ, 12/6/00, p.A20)
1902 The first motorized buses
were introduced.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1902 Charles R. Debevoise invented
the brassiere, but the market rejected it. No early bra did well until
elastic came out in 1913. [see May 30, 1889]
(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.10)
1902 In Pittsburg, Texas, Rev.
Burrell Cannon (d.1922), itinerant Baptist minister and inven-tor,
built his Ezekial Airship and reportedly flew it for a short distance
at a 12 foot altitude. The craft was destroyed on a rail car while
enroute to the St. Louis World Fair.
(WSJ, 11/20/02, p.A1)
1902 Caleb Bradham launched the
Pepsi-Cola Co. from the backroom of his pharmacy in New Bern, N.C. He
was awarded the Pepsi-Cola trademark in 1903. [see Jun 16, 1903]
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.B2)
1902 Parker Brothers brought table
tennis to the US from Europe.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, Z1 p.8)
1902 Swift and Armour corporations
came to Fort Worth, Texas, to build slaughter houses and meat packing
plants.
(HT, 4/97, p.48)
1902 James Heddon, bee-keeper and
inventor, attached hook and line to wooden plugs in the shape of
minnows, frogs and mice. His lures became prime collector items.
(Hem, 8/95, p.96-97)
1902 The novelty Plato Clock was
patented by Eugene Fitch of NYC. It resembled a lantern based on the
story that Plato used a lantern-shaped clock while "looking for an
honest man."
(SFC, 9/21/98, Z1 p.8)
1902 The Wright Brothers built a
glider based on their new aerodynamics tables. Efficiency was almost
doubled and they made over 1,000 flights at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty
Hawk, NC.
(NPub, 2002, p.6)
1902 The Soufriere volcano erupted
on St. Vincent and 1,680 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)
1902 Albert Bierstadt (b.1830),
German-born American landscape painter, died. Grandiose images were his
trademark.
(WSJ, 1/22/02, p.A18)
1902 Charles Lewis Tiffany
(1812-1902), founder of the Tiffany & Co. jewelry business, died.
His son, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), made his name as an
American painter, stained-glass artist, and glass manufacturer.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(AHD, p.1344)(HN, 2/18/98)(WSJ,
8/4/98, p.A13)
1902 Emile Zola (b.1840), French
novelist, died by asphyxiation in his Paris apartment. In 1895 he began
taking photographs and took some 7,000 pictures before his death.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.C6)
1902 In Australia various
governments met at Corowa on the Murray River, to try to secure their
water supply.
(Econ, 2/23/08, p.60)
1902 Ernst Wahliss purchased
hundreds of original molds of the defunct Imperial and Royal
porcelain Manufactory in Vienna for use in his factory in Turn-Teplitz,
Bohemia. From 1903- 1918 he and his sons produced porcelain with a
“crown” mark and the word Turn above a shield with the initials EW and
the word Vienna.
(SFC, 8/3/05, p.G9)
1902 Arthur Balfour became the
Prime Minister of Great Britain.
(Smith., 5/95, p.122)
1902 The British enacted a law
that froze the number of Irish pubs at the existing level to help
reduce drinking.
(WSJ, 3/17/99, p.A1)
1902 Britain passed a law against
outdoor cremation.
(AP, 7/12/06)
1902 In England the Greenwich Foot
Tunnel, a passageway under the Thames that to the Royal Naval College,
was constructed.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.T9)
1902 Arthur Keen created Guest,
Keen & Nettlefolds Ltd., after acquiring Dowlais Iron in Wales and
Nettlefolds. The company became the worlds largest producer of nails,
nuts and bolts.
(WSJ, 3/16/04, p.A8)
1902 Auguste Escoffier
(1846-1935), French chef, authored “Le Guide Culinaire,” a collection
of some 5,000 recipes.
(Econ, 12/20/08,
p.141)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Escoffier)
1902 In Italy the Campanile in the
Piazza San Marco in Venice collapsed.
(HT, 5/97, p.24)
1902 The African Standard
was inaugurated at the completion of the East African Railway from the
Indian Ocean port of Mombasa to Lake Victoria. It was launched by A.M.
Jeevanjee, a Karachi-born trader. Jeevanjee sold the paper in 1905 to
two British businessmen, who changed the name to the East African
Standard and in 1910 moved its headquarters to Nairobi. A few months
before independence in 1963, the British-based Lonrho Group bought the
news-paper. In 1977, it became a tabloid and the name was changed to
the Standard. In 1995 Lon-rho sold its controlling interest to the
Standard Newspapers Group Limited, a company in which prominent Kenyan
politicians are believed to have considerable interests. The name was
changed back to the East African Standard.
(AP, 11/15/02)
1902 In Malta the 6,000 year-old
Hypogeum, a complex of rock-cut chamber tombs, was dis-covered.
(SFEC, 9/17/00, p.T3)
1902 A massacre by Mexican federal
troops, "the Battle of the Sierra Mazatan," killed about 150 Yaqui men,
women and children. US anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka came upon some of
the bodies while they were still decaying, hacked off the heads with a
machete and boiled them to remove the flesh for his study of Mexico's
"races." He sent the resulting collection to the New York museum. In
2009 Yaqui Indians buried their lost warriors after a two-year effort
to rescue the remains from New York's American Museum of Natural
History.
(AP, 11/17/09)
1902 Senegalese religious leader
Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, Islamic mystic and poet, returned to Touba and
launched one of Senegal's main Muslim brotherhoods, the Mourides. The
broth-erhood went onto an informal, yet highly effective, global
trading system based entirely on trust.
(AP, 4/22/03)(Econ, 9/13/08, p.92)
1902 Saud ibn Abdul-Aziz, son of
ibn-Saud and brother of Faisal was born. He ruled Saudi Arabia from
1953-1964.
(www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/alsaudf.htm)
1902 Thailand annexed 3 southern
provinces, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, that had been part of a Malay
Muslim sultanate called the Kingdom of Pattani.
(SFC, 1/23/04, p.A7)(Econ, 6/4/05, p.40)
1902-1904 Charles Ives composed his "Ragtime Dances."
(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A1)
1902-1932 Doulton pottery in Burslem produced Doulton
Burslem wares. They used a lion and crown as an insignia. They made
bone china from 1928-1957. China was stamped with a num-ber indicating
year of manufacture with "1" representing the year 1928.
(SFC,12/17/97, Z1 p.16)
1902-1975 Frank Day, Native American Maidu painter.
He depicted the customs of his tribe and his work included "Starwoman"
(1975). He made some 200 paintings with tape-recorded interpreta-tions
and stories.
(SFEM, 4/20/97, p.6)
1902-1977 Trevor Bardette (b.Nov 19, d.Nov 28 at 75),
Actor, Wyatt Earp’s Old Man Clanton.
(DTnet, 11/28/97)
1902-1978 Harold Lasswell, American sociologist,
declares that the communication theorist must always answer the
question "Who says what to whom with what effect?"
(V.D.-H.K.p.356)
1902-1984 Jessamyn West, American author: "I seem to
be the only person in the world who doesn’t mind being pitied. If you
love me, pity me."
(AP, 9/18/00)
1902-1989 Sidney Hook, American philosopher and
author. "Tolerance always has limits—it cannot tolerate what is itself
actively intolerant."
(AP, 3/28/97)
1902-1994 Louis Nizer, American lawyer: "A man who
works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and
his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his
brain and his heart is an artist."
(AP, 5/10/99)
1903 Jan 2, President Theodore
Roosevelt closed a post office in Indianola, Mississippi for refusing
to hire a black postmistress.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1903 Jan 2, The first electronic
message was sent across the 2,610 mile Pacific Cable from Honolulu to
SF.
(Ind, 12/26/98, p.5A)
1903 Jan 3, The Bulgarian
government renounced the treaty of commerce tying it to
Austro-Hungarian empire.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1903 Jan 4, Topsy the elephant was
poisoned electrocuted in Luna Park, Coney Island, NYC. The 10-foot
elephant had killed 3 keepers over the last 2 years. Edison used the
opportunity to demonstrate the lethal potential of alternating current,
promoted by rival George Westinghouse.
(Econ, 7/26/03, p.33)(Internet)
1903 Jan 6, George Pardee
(1857-1941), former mayor of Oakland (1893-1895), was inaugu-rated as
governor of California. Pardee served a single term to 1907.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Governors_of_California)(SFC,
1/8/09, p.B1)
1903 Jan 6, Maurice Abravanel,
conductor and composer, was born in Saloniki, Greece.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1903 Jan 7, Alan Napier, actor
(Alfred-Batman), was born in Birmingham, England.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1903 Jan 10, Argentina banned the
importation of American beef, because of sanitation prob-lems.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1903 Jan 11, Alan Patton, South
African novelist who wrote "Cry, the Beloved Country," was born.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1903 Jan 18, Berthold Goldschmidt,
German-British (opera) composer (Beatrice Cenci), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1903 Jan 19, Guglielmo Marconi
broadcast the first transatlantic radio message from his sta-tion
(Marconi Beach) on Cape Cod. It was beamed to King Edward of England
from President Theodore Roosevelt. [see 1901]
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.44)
1903 Jan 19, The new bicycle race,
"Tour de France," began with 60 cyclists competing in a 2,500
kilometer, 19-day race.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(MC, 1/19/02)
1903 Jan 21, International Theater
(Majestic, Park) opened at 5 Columbus Circle in NYC.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1903 Jan 21, Harry Houdini escaped
from police station Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1903 Jan 24, U.S. Secretary of
State John Hay and British Ambassador Herbert created a joint
commission to establish the Alaskan border.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1903 Jan, The American League and
the National League representatives met in Cincinnati and produced the
rough outlines of a deal in which each would maintain independence, but
co-ordinate schedules.
(ON, 6/09, p.12)
1903 Feb 3, Edward F. Adams,
editorial writer for the SF Chronicle, founded the SF Com-monwealth
Club.
(SFC, 2/1/03, p.E4)
1903 Feb 11, Anton Bruckner's 9th
Symphony premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1903 Feb 11, Congress passed the
Expedition Act, giving antitrust cases priority in the courts.
(HN, 2/11/97)
1903 Feb 14, US Congress created
the Department of Commerce and Labor to help stabilize the economy. It
was divided into separate departments of Commerce and Labor in 1913.
(HN, 2/14/98)(AP, 2/14/05)
1903 Feb 15, The 1st Teddy Bear
was introduced in America by Morris & Rose Michtom.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1903 Feb 16, Edgar Bergen, radio
ventriloquist and comedian, was born in Chicago.
(HN, 2/16/01)(MC, 2/16/02)
1903 Feb 16, At Pokegama,
Minnesota, temperatures fell to a record state low of 59 degrees below
zero.
(SFC, 2/16/09, p.D10)
1903 Feb 19, The Austria-Hungary
government decreed a mandatory two year military ser-vice.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1903 Feb 20, Pope Leo XIII
celebrated 25 years as the Pope.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1903 Feb 21, Anais Nin (d.1977),
novelist (Winter of Artifice, House of Incense), was born in Paris:
"People do not live in the present always, at one with it. They live at
all kinds of and man-ners of distance from it, as difficult to measure
as the course of planets. Fears and traumas make their journeys
slanted, peripheral, uneven, evasive."
(AP, 9/7/97)(MC, 2/21/02)
1903 Feb 21, The cornerstone laid
for US army war college in Washington, DC.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1903 Feb 22, The US side of
Niagara Falls ran short of water due to drought.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1903 Feb 22, Hugo Wolf (b.1860),
Austrian composer of Slovene origin, died. He is particu-larly noted
for his German art songs, or Lieder.
(WSJ, 3/27/07,
p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Wolf)
1903 Feb 24, The United States
signed an agreement acquiring a naval station at Guan-tanamo Bay in
Cuba. Pres. Roosevelt leased the site for 2,000 gold coins a year,
about $4,080 in 2002.
(AP, 2/24/98)(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1903 Feb 26, Richard Gatling
(b.1818), American inventor, died. The Gatling gun, an early type of
machine gun, was named after him. In 2008 Julia Keller authored “Mr.
Gatling’s Terrible Marvel.”
(WSJ, 6/3/08,
p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jordan_Gatling)
1903 Mar 1, Leon Bismarck "Bix"
Beiderbecke, jazz cornetist (In a Mist), was born in Iowa. [see Mar 10]
(SC, 3/1/02)
1903 Mar 2, The Martha Washington
Hotel opened for business in New York City. The hotel featured 416
rooms and was the first hotel exclusively for women.
(HC, Internet, 2/3/98)
1903 Mar 3, North Carolina became
the 1st state requiring registration of nurses.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1903 Mar 10, Leon Bismarck "Bix"
Beiderbecke, jazz cornetist and composer, was born. [see Mar 1]
(HN, 3/10/01)
1903 Mar 10, Harry Gammeter of
Cleveland patented a multigraph duplicating machine.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1903 Mar 12, The Czar of Russia
issued a decree providing for nominal freedom of religion throughout
his territory.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1903 Mar 14, The Senate ratified
the Hay-Herran Treaty which guaranteed the U.S. the right to build a
canal at Panama. The treaty promised Colombia $10 million plus $250,000
annually for a zone 6 miles wide.
(HN, 3/14/98)(ON, 1/00, p.2)
1903 Mar 14, The 1st national bird
reservation was established in Sebastian, Florida.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1903 Mar 15, The British completed
the conquest of Nigeria, 500,000 square miles are now controlled by the
United Kingdom.
(HN, 3/15/99)
1903 Mar 19, The U.S. Senate
ratified the Cuban treaty, gaining naval bases in Guantanamo and Bahia
Honda.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1903 Mar 20, Henri Matisse
exhibited at the Salon des Independants.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1903 Mar 22, Niagara Falls ran out
of water because of a drought. [see Feb 22]
(MC, 3/22/02)
1903 Mar 23, The Wright brothers
obtained an airplane patent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1903 Mar 24, Adolf Butenandt,
biochemist (Nobel 1939), was born.
(HN, 3/24/01)(MC, 3/24/02)
1903 Mar 26, American Hotel opened
in Amsterdam.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1903 Mar 28, Rudolf Serkin,
pianist (Marlboro School of Music), was born in Eger, Bohemia.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1903 Mar 29, A regular news
service began between New York and London on Marconi's wireless.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1903 Mar 31, New Zealand aviator
Richard Pearse flew a self-made, bamboo-framed, mono-winged airplane in
Waitohi.
(NW, 3/17/03, p.20)
1903 Mar, Orville and Wilbur
Wright first attempted to file a patent on their Flying Machine. This
patent application, describing only the basic aerodynamics and control
surfaces of the air-craft, not the engine, was turned down by the U.S.
Patent Office for lack of clarity. [see 1906]
(HNQ, 3/19/01)
1903 Apr 6, French Army
Nationalists were revealed for forging documents to guarantee a
conviction for Alfred Dreyfus, an officer accused of giving plans for
France's defense to Ger-many.
(HN, 4/6/99)
1903 Apr 9, Gregory Pincus,
inventor of the birth control pill, was born.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1903 Apr 10, Clare Boothe
Luce (d.1987) was born. She was an author, diplomat, member of
Congress and served as the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. She
allegedly said: "No good deed goes unpunished."
(HN, 4/10/98)(AP, 6/2/99)
1903 Apr 14, Dr. Harry Plotz in
NYC discovered a vaccine against typhoid.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1903 Apr 15, Erich Arendt, writer,
was born.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1903 Apr 15, John Williams, actor
(Niles-Family Affair, Dial M for Murder), was born in Eng-land.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1903 Apr 17, Gregor Piatigorsky,
cellist, was born in Ekaterinoslav, Russia.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1903 Apr 19, Eliot Ness, Treasury
agent, was born. He fought for prohibition in Chicago, Ill.
(HN, 4/19/99)
1903 May 2, Benjamin Spock,
pediatrician, author and activist, was born. His book, "Common Sense of
Baby and Child Care" sold 30 million copies.
(HN, 5/2/99)
1903 May 3, Bing Crosby (d.1977),
singer and actor, was born in Tacoma, Wa. as Harry Lillis. The family
soon moved to Spokane where he grew up. He sang "White Christmas" and
starred in Holiday Inn
(HN, 5/3/99)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.10)
1903 May 5, James Beard (d.1985),
US culinary expert, author (Delights & Prejudices), was born in
Portland, Ore.
(http://members.localnet.com/~jgeorge/jbeard.htm)
1903 May 8, Joseph Desire
Fernandel, comedian (Grand Chef), was born in Marseilles, France.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1903 May 8, Paul Gauguin (b.1848),
French born painter, died at his home on the Marquesas Islands. He was
buried at Atuona on Hiva Oa Island.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)(SSFC, 6/2/02, p.C9)
1903 May 12, Lennox R.F. Berkeley,
British composer (Castaway), was born.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1903 May 13, The Dewey Memorial in
Union Square, San Francisco, was dedicated by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.
Robert Aitken sculpted the 12-foot statue of Victory that stood atop an
83-foot column. Alma deBretteville, later Alma Spreckels, posed as the
model.
(SSFC, 5/11/03, p.D1)
1903 May 17, James "Cool Papa"
Bell, baseball player, was born.
(HN, 5/17/01)
1903 May 19, Dr. Horatio Nelson
Jackson bet $50 that he could cross the US from San Fran-cisco in his
$2,500 Winton touring car. He and his mechanic reached NYC July 26.
(SFC, 6/16/03, p.A1)
1903 May 23, Dr. Horatio Nelson
Jackson set off to cross the US from San Francisco in his $2,500 Winton
touring car with his mechanic Sewell Croker. They reached NYC July 26.
(SFC, 6/16/03, p.A1)(SFC, 6/18/03, p.A23)(ON, 9/04,
p.10)
1903 May 24, Arthur Vineberg,
Canadian heart surgeon, was born.
(HN, 5/24/01)
1903 May 26, Estes Kefauver,
senator from Tennessee, was born. He wanted the Democratic nomination
for president against John Kennedy.
(HN, 5/26/99)
1903 May 26, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of 3 Gables."
(MC, 5/26/02)
1903 May 29, Bob Hope (d.2003), US
comedian, was born as Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, England.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.D5)(AP, 5/29/05)
1903 May 30, Countee Cullen,
American poet, was born.
(HN, 5/30/01)
1903 May 31, It was reported that
the Coast Limited train out of SF plunged down a 50-foot embankment
near Santa Barbara and injured over 40 people with an untold number
killed.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W2)
1903 May, In Britain the House of
Commons passed a resolution urging that Congo natives be governed with
humanity. Also the British consul in the Congo, Roger Casement, was
asked to travel to the interior and report on conditions there.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.8)
1903 Jun 2, Robert Morris Page,
physicist, inventor of pulse radar, was born.
(HN, 6/2/01)
1903 Jun 6, Composer Aram
Khachaturian was born in Tiflis, Russia.
(AP, 6/6/03)
1903 Jun 7, Professor Curie
revealed the discovery of Polonium. [see 1898]
(HN, 6/7/98)
1903 Jun 11, King Alexander and
Queen Draga of Belgrade were assassinated by members of the Serbia
army. Peter Karageorgevic was later elected to replace him.
(HN, 6/11/98)(AP, 6/11/03)
1903 Jun 13, Harold "Red" Grange,
football's Galloping Ghost, was born. He became an All-American
football running back for the University of Illinois and went on to a
professional career in Chicago and New York.
(HN, 6/13/99)
1903 Jun 15, Barney Oldfield
(1878-1946), race car driver, drove a Ford 999 at a record mile per
minute.
(Ind, 10/6/01, 5A)
1903 Jun 16, Ford Motor Co. was
incorporated.
(AP, 6/16/98)
1903 Jun 16, Pepsi Cola company
formed. [see 1902]
(MC, 6/16/02)
1903 Jun 16, Roald Amundsen (31)
departed Christiana (later Oslo), Norway, aboard Gjøa with a
crew of 6 to search for the Northwest Passage. They reached California
in the fall of 1905.
(NG, 6/1988, p.765)(Ind, 4/27/02, 5A)
1903 Jun 17, Joseph-Marie Cassant
(b.1878), a French monk, died. He frequently meditated about Jesus on
the cross. In 2004 he was beatified by Pope John Paul VI.
(AP, 10/3/04)(www.vatican.va/news_services)
1903 Jun 18, 1st transcontinental
auto trip began in SF and arrived in NY 3-months later. [see Jul 26]
(MC, 6/18/02)
1903 Jun 19, Henry Louis Gehrig
(d.6/22/1941) was born in New York City. He became first baseman for
the New York Yankees and started 2,130 games consecutively: HALL OF
FAMER; MVP '36; 7x World Series; .341 avg., 493 HRs; 2,721 hits, 1,990
RBIs. He died of a muscle wasting disease amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis, now known by his name.
(HN, 6/19/99)
1903 Jun 19, The young school
teacher, Benito Mussolini, was placed under investigation by police in
Bern, Switzerland.
(HN, 6/19/98)
1903 Jun 21, Al[bert] Hirschfield,
cartoonist (NINA, NY Times), was born in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1903 Jun 22, John Dillinger, one
of America’s "Most Wanted" gangsters, was born in Indian-apolis,
Indiana.
(YarraNet, 6/22/00)
1903 Jun 22, George White, a black
resident of Delaware, was lynched.
(MC, 6/22/02)
1903 Jun 25, George Orwell
(d.1950), English novelist, essayist and critic, was born in India as
Eric Arthur Blair. He took his pen name in 1932. His books included
"Animal Farm" (1945) and "1984" (1949), which attacked totalitarianism.
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one
that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
(HN, 6/25/99)(AP,
9/23/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell)
1903 Jun 25, Marie Curie announced
her discovery of radium. [see Apr 20, 1902]
(HN, 6/25/01)
1903 Jun 29, The British
government officially protested Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
Mis-sionaries, such as William Sheppard of Virginia, had provided
information that soldiers of Leo-pold’s private army turned over the
right hand of villagers they had killed in order to account for their
used bullets. Leopold’s 19,000 man private army held hostage the wives
of workers to force men to work.
(HN, 6/29/98)(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.7,8)
1903 Jul 1, Amy Johnson, English
aviator, was born.
(HN, 7/1/01)
1903 Jul 1, The 1st Tour de France
bicycle race began.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1903 Jul 2, Lord Alex
Douglas-Home, British PM (1963-64), was born.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1903 Jul 2, Olav V, King of Norway
(1957), was born in England.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1903 Jul 3, The first cable across
the Pacific Ocean was spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and
Manila. Teddy Roosevelt placed the atoll of Midway Island under Navy
supervision. The Commercial Pacific Cable Co. (later AT&T) set
cable across the Pacific via Midway Island and the first around the
world message was sent. The message took 9 minutes to circle the globe.
[see Jul 4]
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.T5)(HN, 7/3/98)
1903 Jul 4, Pacific Cable (SF,
Hawaii, Guam, Philippines) opened. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt opened the
first Pacific communications cable by sending a message around the
world. Roose-velt sent a message around the world, and the message came
back to him in 12 minutes. [see Jul 3]
(Maggio, 98)(HNQ, 7/6/01)
1903 Jul 14, Irving Stone,
biographical novelist, was born.
(HN, 7/14/01)
1903 Jul 17, James Abbott McNeil
Whistler (b.1834), expatriate painter famous for painting his mother
(1872), died.
(www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=652)(ON, 4/03, p.9)
1903 Jul 20, Pope Leo XIII died.
He served 25 years, four months and 17 days.
(AP, 10/15/03)
1903 Jul 21, Dr. Horatio Nelson
Jackson arrived in Cleveland with his mechanic Sewell Croker escorted
by a fleet of new Winton automobiles. They were enroute to NYC from San
Francisco in a $2,500 Winton touring car.
(ON, 9/04, p.10)
1903 Jul 23, The Ford Motor
Company sold its first automobile, the Model A.
(HN, 7/23/98)
1903 Jul 25, The castle on top of
Telegraph Hill (SF, Ca.) closed. [see Jul 26]
(SC, 7/25/02)
1903 Jul 26, Dr. Horatio Nelson
Jackson of Vermont and his mechanic Sewell Croker arrived in NYC
completing the first cross-country automobile trip in 63 days after
leaving SF. On July 26, 2003 Peter Kesling and Charlie Wake completed a
rerun of the original trip.
(WSJ, 7/19/02, p.W9)(WSJ, 5/7/03, p.B1)(SSFC,
7/27/03, p.A2)(ON, 9/04, p.12)
1903 Jul 26, It was reported that
the old castle built by Adolph Sutro on Telegraph Hill, SF, was
destroyed by fire. The German castle on Telegraph Hill had been built
by entrepreneur Frederick Layman.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W2)(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A18)
1903 Aug 4, Cardinal Giuseppe
Sarto of Venice was elected Pope Pius X.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1903 Aug 7, Louis Leakey,
anthropologist, archeologist and paleontologist, was born in Kenya. He
believed that Africa was the cradle of mankind.
(HN, 8/7/98)(Internet)
1903 Aug 14, John Ringling North,
circus director (Ringling Bros), was born in Baraboo, Wisc.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1903 Aug 19, James Gould Cozzens
(d.1978), US novelist, was born in Chicago. His novels included
"Farewell to Cuba" and "Guard of Honor" for which he won a 1949
Pulitzer.
(MC, 8/19/02)(Internet)
1903 Aug 23, William Primrose,
violist (Method for Violin & Viola), was born in Glasgow, Scot-land.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1903 Aug 28, Bruno Bettelheim
(d.1990), Austrian-US psychologist, psychoanalyst and edu-cator, was
born. His book included "Love is not Enough" and "Uses of Enchantment."
(HN, 8/28/98)
1903 Aug 31, Arthur Godfrey, radio
and television personality, was born.
(HN, 8/31/98)
1903 Aug 31, Bernard Lovell, radio
astronomer, founded Jodrell Bank, was born in England.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1903 Sep 8, Between 30,000 and
50,000 Bulgarian men, women and children were massa-cred in Monastir by
Turkish troops seeking to check a threatened Macedonian uprising.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1903 Sep 13, Claudette Colbert
(d.1996), actress, was born in France as Lily Claudette
Chauchoin. She won an Oscar for "It Happened One Night."
(HN, 9/13/00)(www.concise.britannica.com)
1903 Sep 17, Turks destroyed the
town of Kastoria in Bulgaria, killing 10,000 civilians.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1903 Sep 20, It was reported that
a deputy US marshal committed suicide and that 3 SF dep-uty sheriffs
were arrested over bribes paid by the Chinese to sidestep the
anti-Chinese Exclu-sion Act and gain entry into the US.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W2)
1903 Sep 21, The 1st cowboy film,
"Kit Carson," premiered in US.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1903 Sep 22, Italo Marchioni
applied for a patent for pastry cornets to hold ice cream and was
granted the patent on Dec 13, 1903. Ice cream cones were popularized in
the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
(HN, 5/2/98)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(MC, 9/22/01)(SSFC,
10/5/03, p.C3)
1903 Sep 25, Mark Rothko (d.1970),
[Marcus Rothkovich] US émigré painter (Green on Blue),
was born in Dvinsk, Russia, later Daugavpils, Latvia. His family moved
to Portland, Ore. in 1913. His work included "Subway" (1936/1939),
"Street Scene" (1936/1938), "Untitled" (1942), "Untitled" (1942/1943),
"Phalanx of the Mind" (1945), "The Source" (1946), "Sacrificial Moment"
(1946), "Number 18" (1948), and "Untitled" (1945-1946).
(V.D.-H.K.p.362)(SFC,1/21/97, p.B1,2)(AP, 11/11/03)
1903 Sep 29, Greer Garson
(d.1996), Hollywood actress, was born in County Down, Northern Ireland.
[see 1903-1996] She won a best actress Oscar for her role in Mrs.
Miniver (1942), and also starred in Madame Curie (1943), Pride and
Prejudice (1940).
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-5)
1903 Oct 1, The Pittsburgh Pirates
defeated the home team Boston Pilgrims (Red Sox), 7-3, in the first
World Series game. Boston, however, went on to win the series, five
games to three.
(AP, 10/1/03)
1903 Oct 4, Ernst Kaltenbrunner,
Austrian Nazi (SS/SD) and successor to Reinhard Heydrich, was born. He
was hanged in 1946.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1903 Oct 10, Philippe
Bunau-Varilla met with Pres. Roosevelt in Washington and told him that
a group in Panama was planning a rebellion. He asked that the US
prevent any Colombian troops from landing to break the rebellion, but
received no specific answer.
(ON, 1/00, p.2)
1903 Oct 13, Victor Herbert's
"Babes in Toyland," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1903 Oct 13, Boston defeated
Pittsburgh in baseball’s first World Series. In 2003 Roger I. Abrams
authored "The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903;"
Louis P. Masur authored "Autumn Glory: Baseball's First World Series;"
and Bob Ryan authored "When Boston Won the World Series."
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.A8)(HN, 10/13/98)(WSJ, 3/28/03,
p.W9)(SSFC, 6/8/03, p.M6)
1903 Oct 17, Nathanael West,
novelist and screenwriter, was born. His work included "Miss Lonely
Hearts" and "The Day of the Locust."
(HN, 10/17/00)
1903 Oct 18, Ambrose Thibodeaux,
Cajun accordionist, was born.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1903 Oct 19, Vittorio Giannini,
composer, was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1903 Oct 20, The Joint Commission,
set up on January 24 by Great Britain and the United States to
arbitrate the disputed Alaskan boundary, ruled in favor of the United
States. The de-ciding vote was Britain’s, which embittered Canada. The
United States gained ports on the pan-handle coast of Alaska.
(AP, 10/20/97)(HN, 10/20/98)
1903 Oct 22, George Beadle,
American biologist, was born.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1903 Oct 28, Evelyn Waugh
(d.1966), English novelist, was born in London. Waugh served in WWII as
a SAS Commando. He wrote "Decline and Fall" and "Brideshead Revisited."
"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to
read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead."
(AP, 3/29/99)(HN, 10/28/99)(MC, 10/28/01)
1903 Nov 2, The Daily Mirror of
London began operating as the first tabloid newspaper.
(WSJ, 12/29/07,
p.A8)(http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/lofiversion/index.php/t6351.html)
1903 Nov 3, Walker Evans,
photographer, was born.
(HN, 11/3/00)
1903 Nov 3, There was a Revolution
in Panama composed of Panamanian fired departments and some 500
Colombian mercenary troops purchased for some $100,000 by Philippe
Bunau-Varilla’s Panama Canal Company. The US created Panama so that a
canal could be built and maintained
(HFA, '96, p.42)(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A8)(AP, 11/3/97)(ON,
1/00, p.2)
1903 Nov 4, After a one-day coup,
in which an American warship offshore prevented Colum-bia from quelling
the revolt and the only casualty was a Chinese shopkeeper and a donkey,
Pa-nama declared her independence. A jubilant President Theodore
Roosevelt recognized the new republic three days later. The Panama
Canal, a cornerstone of Roosevelt's aggressive foreign policy, was
completed in 10 years.
(HNPD, 11/18/98)(ON, 1/00, p.3)
1903 Nov 6, Panama declared its
independence from Colombia.
(ON, 1/00, p.3)
1903 Nov 7, Konrad Lorenz,
pioneering zoologist, was born.
(HN, 11/7/00)
1903 Nov 7, President Theodore
Roosevelt recognized the new Panama republic.
(HNPD, 11/18/98)(ON, 1/00, p.3)
1903 Nov 9, Gregory Pincus,
inventor (birth control pill), was born.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1903 Nov 12, The Lebaudy brothers
of France set an air-travel distance record of 34 miles in a dirigible.
(HN, 11/12/98)
1903 Nov 15, Eugen d'Albert's
opera "Tiefland," premiered in Prague.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1903 Nov 16, V. Herbert's and H.
Smith's musical "Babette," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1903 Nov 17, Vladimir Lenin’s
efforts to impose his own radical views on the Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party split the Party into two factions, the
Bolsheviks, who supported Lenin, and the Mensheviks. The followers of
the Marxist revolutionary line espoused by V.I. Lenin called themselves
the majority, or Bolsheviks, and referred to their rivals as the
minority, or Mensheviks. The Mensheviks took a less radical position,
seeking cooperation with middle-class parties. The two factions grew
into separate parties, with Bolshevism becoming the strat-egy that led
to the overthrow of Russian czarism and the establishment of soviet
power in the revolutions of 1917. The Bolsheviks renamed themselves the
Russian Communist Party in 1918 and the word Bolshevik was finally
dropped from the official title of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956.
(HN, 11/17/98)(HNQ, 3/17/00)
1903 Nov 18, The Hay-Bunau-Varilla
Treaty was signed, granting the United States a strip of land across
the Isthmus of Panama and the right to build and fortify the Panama
Canal. Build-ing an interoceanic canal was not a new idea at the turn
of the 20th century, but U.S. acquisi-tion of California in 1848 and
territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean after the Spanish-American
War made the canal crucial to American foreign policy. In January 1903,
the Hay-Herran Treaty with Colombia--Panama was a part of
Colombia--would have given the United States the land and the right to
build a canal across Panama, but Colombia refused to ratify the treaty.
Subsequently, Panamanian rebels--encouraged by American agents--rose
against Co-lombia on November 3, 1903. After a one-day coup, in which
an American warship offshore prevented Colombia from quelling the
revolt and the only casualty was a donkey, Panama de-clared her
independence. A jubilant President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the
new republic three days later. The Panama Canal, a cornerstone of
Roosevelt's aggressive foreign policy, was completed in 10 years.
(HNPD, 11/18/98)(ON, 1/00, p.3)
1903 Nov 19, Carrie Nation
attempted to address Senate.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1903 Nov 20, In Cheyenne, Wyoming,
42-year-old hired gunman and stock detective Tom Horn was hanged for
the 1901 murder of Willie Nickell (14). Horn had made a controversial
confession to U.S. Deputy Marshal Joseph S. LeFors that was pivotal in
the conviction.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1903 Nov 23, Singer Enrico Caruso
made his American debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York,
appearing as the Duke of Mantua in "Rigoletto."
(AP, 11/23/97)
1903 Nov 24, Clyde Coleman of NYC
patented an automobile electric starter.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1903 Nov 25, In San Francisco
Alexander Garnett shot and killed Major J.W. McClung at the Palace
Hotel apartment of Mrs. Lillian Hitchcock Coit. Coit soon left the city
and spent the next 6 years in Paris. Garnett was convicted and
sentenced to 15 years at San Quentin, but only be-gan serving time in
1909 following an appeal and restoration of records due to the 1906
fire.
(SSFC, 9/13/09, DB p.46)
1903 Nov 29, Inquiry into U.S.
Postal Service demonstrated the government had lost millions in fraud.
(HN, 11/29/98)
1903 Dec 1, "The Great Train
Robbery," the 1st Western film, was released. Edwin S. Porter, a
cameraman for Thomas Edison’s production company, revived flagging
interest in motion pic-tures with the 12-minute movie that introduced
three great American traditions—editing, the chase scene and the
Western. Prior to Porter’s landmark movie, moving pictures were
non-narrative, with one long shot recording an actual event. The Great
Train Robbery, with a series of 14 scenes of bandits robbing a railway
station and ultimately paying the price for their mis-deeds, developed
multiple plot lines simultaneously by cutting and splicing film.
Moviegoers screamed when the scene of an outlaw shooting directly into
the camera was shown.
(HNPD, 9/11/98)(MC, 12/1/01)
1903 Dec 4, Alfred Leslie Rowse
(d. 10/3/97), Shakespeare scholar and authority on Tudor England, was
born in St. Austell, England. He authored 90 volumes of history, poetry
and biog-raphy. His best seller was "A Cornish Childhood." He asserted
that the "Dark Lady" in Shake-speare’s sonnets was the Italian poet
Emilis Bassano Lanier.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D10)(MC, 12/4/01)
1903 Dec 8, Zoltan Szekely,
composer, was born.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1903 Dec 8, Samuel P. Langley’s
man-carrying Great Aerodrome collapsed right after takeoff from a
houseboat on the Potomac River.
(www.nasm.si.edu/research/arch/findaids/langley/langley_sec_6.html)
1903 Dec 8, Herbert Spencer
(b.1820), English philosopher, died. He was later considered to be the
father of Social Darwinism. He is best known for coining the phrase
"survival of the fit-test," which he did in “Principles of Biology”
(1864).
(WSJ, 1/9/09,
p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer)
1903 Dec 9, The Norwegian
parliament voted unanimously for female suffrage.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1903 Dec 10, Mary Norton, English
children's author, was born. Her work included "Bedknobs and
Broomsticks."
(HN, 12/10/00)
1903 Dec 13, Italo Marconi
received a patent for the ice cream cone in NJ. [see Sep 22, 1903]
(MC, 12/13/01)(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.C3)
1903 Dec 14, William Ennis became
the 1st cop to die in electric chair.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1903 Dec 15, The British
Parliament placed a 15-year ban on whale fishing in Norway.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1903 Dec 17, Erskine Caldwell,
U.S. novelist, was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright brothers'
Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina. The brothers were the sons of a Dayton, Ohio, bishop
(Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright made the first powered,
controlled and sustained flight. Orville, lying prone at the plane's
controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in 12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside
Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne to keep the wing from dragging
in the sand. Four sustained flights were made on this day. The 4th
flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The momentous events of that day
received little press attention, since the reticent Wright brothers
feared their ideas would be stolen by rival aviators. It was not until
1908, after making many refinements to their flying machine, that the
Wrights embarked on a series of public demonstrations that finally
earned them worldwide acclaim. A one-hour PBS documentary covered their
life as part of "The American Experience."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD,
12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99,
p.B8)
1903 Dec 19, The Williamsburg
suspension bridge opened between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1903 Dec 28, John Von Neuman,
Hungarian-born mathematician, was born. He gave to the mathematics
community the new axiomatic foundation for set theory and high-speed
calcula-tions.
(HN, 12/28/99)
1903 Dec 30, The Iraquois Theater
Fire of Chicago killed 602 people. Matinee patrons for "Mr Bluebeard"
panicked despite efforts by comedian Eddie Foy (47) to calm the crowd.
In 2003 Anthony P. Hatch authored "Tinder Box," an account of the fire.
(HFA, '96, p.70)(AP, 12/30/97)(PCh, 1992,
p.652)(WSJ, 3/28/03, p.W9)
1903 Zora Neale Hurston (d.1960),
black author, was born.
(SFC, 4/5/96, p.D-1)(SFC, 12/13/96, p.C8)
1903 The Burlington Magazine, a
journal of art history, was founded in Britain. In 2003 Mi-chael Levy
edited "The Burlington Magazine: A Centenary Anthology," with articles
by a roster of legendary art historians.
(WSJ, 5/29/03, p.D8)
1903 George Gustav Heye, NY
banker, began collecting American Indian cultural material.
(Hem, Mar. 95, p.19)
1903 The Salon d’Automne in France
featured the post-Impressionist, Fauves, and the avant-garde artists of
the late 19th century. [see 1905]
(Calg. Glen., 1996)
1903 The Shanameh by Firdawsi as
commissioned by Shah Tahmasp in the 1520s was transferred to the Baron
de Rothschild. In 1959 it was transferred to A.A. Houghton of the
Corn-ing Glass family.
(WSJ, p. A-18, 10-13-94)
1903 Picasso painted the "Seated
Woman," a gouache from his Blue Period. He also painted "La Vie."
(WSJ, 12/30/94, A-6)(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A12)
1903 Picasso painted "Angel
Fernandez de Soto," a portrait of a sneering, dissolute youth, a bar
pal of the artist in Barcelona, Spain. The painting was to go on
auction and expected to fetch as much as $10 mil. The painting sold for
29.2 mil on 5/8/95.
(WSJ, 4/27/95, p.C-1)(WSJ, 5/9/95, p.B-6)
1903 Alfred Stieglitz published
the first edition of "Camera Work," which included the quote: Followers
manage to make of the footpaths of great men a wide road."
(WSJ, 1/28/99, p.A16)
1903 Mary Austin published her
account of the high desert: "The Land of Little Rain."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., ‘95, p.77)
1903 Robert Erskine Childers
(1870-1922), British author, wrote his spy novel “The Riddle of the
Sands.” The Irish nationalist was executed by the authorities of the
nascent Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War.
(Econ, 6/6/09,
p.81)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riddle_of_the_Sands)
1903 W.E.B. Du Bois published "The
Souls of Black Folk," in which he asked “How does it feel to be a
problem?”
(WSJ, 4/29/03, A16)(SSFC, 10/30/05, p.M3)
1903 Sven Hedn published "Central
Asia and Tibet."
(NH, 5/96, p.68)
1903 Henry James (1843-1916),
England-born US novelist, writer and critic, authored his novel “the
Ambassadors.”
(WSJ, 10/25/08, p.W8)
1903 Helen Keller published her
book "The Story of My Life." It was later named one of the 100 most
important books of the 20th century by the NY Public Library.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.3)
1903 Mary Roberts Rinehart,
mystery writer, published 45 stories in her first year of writing.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.B3)
1903 Frederick R. Swift authored
"Florida Fancy."
(AM, 7/00, p.56)
1903 W.C. Handy met a guitar
player at a railroad station in Tutwiler, Mississippi, who pressed a
knife a the strings of his guitar and sang "Goin where the Southern
cross’ the Dog."
(NH, 9/96, p.53)
1903 In NYC the Manhattan Bridge
opened.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T4)
1903 The New Amsterdam Theater on
42nd St. in New York City, home of the legendary Ziegfeld Follies, was
constructed by Herts and Tallant. It was renovated in 1997 for $34
million by the Walt Disney Co.
(WSJ, 4/3/97, p.A16)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E1)
1903 The Gardner Museum was built
at the edge of the muddy Fens. Isabella Stewart Gard-ner (d.1924)
decreed that no changes be made to her museum.
(WSJ, 2/5/97, p.A16)
1903 The New York Stock Exchange
(NYSE) opened its first building at 10 Broad St.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.D2)
1903 Du Pont established the
Experimental Station for research in Wilmington.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R46)
1903 Former outlaws Cole Younger
and Frank James teamed up to tour Tennessee in their own Wild West Show.
(SFC, 12/29/96, zone 1 p.2)
1903 In Detroit the Gem Theater
was constructed. In 1997 the 2,750 ton building was moved 5 blocks
through downtown to make room for a new ballpark. It set a new record
as the heavi-est building moved.
(SFC,10/23/97, p.A17)
1903 The Scripps Institute of
Oceanography was founded in the boathouse of the Hotel Del Coronado in
San Diego, Ca.
(SFEC,10/19/97, p.A17)
1903 The Greenlawn cemetery, also
called Old Fellows Cemetery, was established in Lawn-dale (Colma), Ca.
(GTP, 1973, p.45)(www.colmahistory.org/History.htm)
1903 Hollywood High School was
built. In 1991 principal Jeanne Hon conceived of a school museum for
memorabilia.
(WSJ, 3/5/96, p. A-12)
1903 An allegorical sculpture
honoring Pres. McKinley showed a figure holding a palm branch in one
hand and a sword in the other was erected in Golden Gate Park.
(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A20)
1903 The Merchants Exchange
Building at 465 California St. was designed by Willis Polk.
(SFC, 4/7/97, p.E3)
1903 In SF the Mercantile Building
at Third and Mission was completed.
(SFC, 8/1/08, p.A12)
1903 Some Noe Valley homes were
built astride the former Precita Creek.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.A1)
1903 Construction began on the new
Mary’s Help Hospital on Guerrero St. but was 1906 earthquake pushed
back the opening to 1912.
(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1903 The hot fudge sundae was
first served.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.E3)
1903 J.L. Kraft started a cheese
business. In 2005 Kraft was the largest food company in the US and
spent some $90 million annually on advertising directly to children.
(WSJ, 10/31/05, p.A1)
1903 Flinders Petrie was awarded
the Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal for Archeological Achievement from the
Univ. of Pennsylvania for his work in Egypt.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.19)
1903 Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927),
Swedish scientist, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
(http://tinyurl.com/lxu4w)
1903 Bjornstjerne Martinus
Bjornson won the Nobel Prize in literature.
(SFC, 10/10/01, p.B8)
1903 Randal Cremer (b.1838),
British trade unionist, pacifist, won the Nobel Prize.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1903 Pierre and Marie Curie won
the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of radioactivity.
(SSFC, 11/28/04, p.4)
1903 Pres. Theodore Roosevelt set
aside the 5 acres of Pelican Island off the east coast of Florida to
protect pelicans and other birds from hunters. This began the wildlife
refuge system that grew to 537 national wildlife refuges in 2001.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A2)
1903 There was a stock market
panic this year as Pres. Teddy Roosevelt began to establish himself as
the first great "trust buster."
(SFC,10/27/97, p.B2)
1903 Hawaii’s popularly elected
territorial legislature first petitioned to become a state and repeated
the request at least 17 times. [see 1919]
(HNQ, 2/23/02)
1903 The first Crayolas were red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown and black. [2nd source says
1902]
(SFEC, 10/4/98, Z1 p.8)(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.10)
1903 King C. Gillette replaced the
cut-throat razor with his safety razor blade.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.111)
1903 Henry Ford incorporated the
Ford Motor Co. and sold the first Model A.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1903 F. Stuart Foote founded the
Imperial Furniture Co. in Grand Rapids, Mich. The company was sold in
1954.
(SFC, 12/26/07, p.G3)
1903 William Harley and the 3
Davidson brothers: Arthur (20), Walter and William (21), started out in
a Milwaukee basement to produce their first motorized bike. In 1999
Brock Yates published "Outlaw Machine: Harley-Davidson and the Search
for the American Soul."
(WSJ, 5/28/99, p.W6)(NW, 7/22/02, p.60)
1903 Buick Motors was established.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1903 The Red Spot Paint &
Varnish Co. was established in Evansville, Ind.
(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A1)
1903 The Buffalo Pottery Company
opened in Buffalo. It was established by the Larkin Co., a soap
manufacturer, to make premiums for its customers.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)
1903 The Hearst Corp. launched its
first magazine, Motor.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1903 The Postal car was equipped
with a heater.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1903 The 1st trolley with an
electric 3rd rail was installed in Scranton, Pa.
(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.B8)
1903 Walter Sutton, American
cytologist, suggested that the Mendelian elements of heredity lay on
the chromosomes.
(NH, 6/01, p.32)
1903 Major silver and gold
deposits were found at Goldfield, Nevada.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, DB p.67)
1903 John Muir influenced the
conservation policy of President Theodore Roosevelt during a 1903
camping trip to Yosemite. Naturalist and forest conservation advocate,
Muir was largely responsible for the establishment of national parks
such as Sequoia and Yosemite. After graduating from the University of
Wisconsin, Scottish immigrant Muir worked on mechanical in-ventions,
but when an industrial accident blinded him in one eye, he abandoned
that career and devoted himself to nature. As early as 1876, Muir
encouraged the federal government to estab-lish a forest conservation
program. The Sequoia and Yosemite parks were created in 1890 and two
eloquent articles by Muir swayed public opinion in favor of federally
protected national for-ests.
(HNPD, 1/2/99)
1903 Andrew Carnegie donated $1.5
million for the construction of 2 dozen libraries in Phila-delphia,
Pennsylvania.
(Econ, 2/14/09, p.40)
1903 The Adirondack Fire in NY
state burned some 637,000 acres.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)
1903 Frederick Law Olmsted, the
architect of Central Park in NYC, died at the McLean Asy-lum in
Waverly, Mass. In 1999 Witold Rybczynski authored the biography: "A
Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America In the
Nineteenth Century." Olmsted’s hand ap-pears in such places as:
Brooklyn's Prospect Park, Boston's Back Bay Fens, Louisville's park
system, Detroit's Belle Isle, Montreal's Mount Royal, Buffalo's parks,
Chicago's Riverside, Oak-land's Mountain View, Washington's Capitol
grounds, and the Stanford Univ. campus.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W5)(WSJ, 5/26/99, p.A20)
1903 Camille Pissarro (b.1830),
French impressionist born in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, died.
(WSJ, 1/14/97, p.A16)(Hem., 1/97, p.124)(WUD, 1994,
p.1097)
1903 Herbert Spencer (b.1820),
English philosopher, died. His work included "Social Statics" in which
he coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" and described social
inequality as a natu-ral outgrowth of competition.
(WSJ, 2/1/00, p.B1)(WUD, 1994, p.1368)
1903 In Belarus Jews made history
by being the first to resist a pogrom, defending 26 syna-gogues and
prayer houses.
(AP, 4/12/08)
1903 In Belgium Congo Samuel
Verner, an American missionary and explorer, purchased Ota Benga, a
young pigmy enslaved by another tribe. He was under contract to the St.
Louis Fair to bring several Pygmies to America for a living display of
the stages of evolution. After the fair Benga ended up at the Bronx
Zoological Park where he was displayed with monkeys. In 1910 Benga
moved to a Baptist seminary in Lynchburg, Va. In 1916 Benga committed
suicide.
(WSJ, 2/6/06, p.B1)
1903 In England the National Art
Collections Fund, the leading independent art charity, was founded.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.4)
1903 In England a skeleton of a
man, 9,000 years old, was discovered in the underground caves at
Cheddar, 130 miles west of London.
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A8)
1903 In France Count Hallez
d’Arros founded his Society of Heraldic Faience of Pierrefonds. The
society’s pottery used a “P” and “H” mark and became well-known for its
crystalline glazes.
(SFC, 10/19/05, p.G2)
1903 The Gresham Palace Hotel was
completed in Budapest, Hungary.
(Sm, 3/06, p.81)
1903 In India 110 the five-star
Taj Mahal Palace and Tower was built in Bombay (later Mum-bai).
(AP, 11/27/08)
1903 English Col. Francis
Younghusband (1863-1942) marched off from Darjeeling, India, with 1,000
British and Indian soldiers, 7,000 mules and 4,000 yaks to invade Tibet.
(SSFC, 7/15/07,
p.G5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Younghusband)
1903 Rasputin, the Russian monk
and confidant of the Romanovs, came to St. Petersburg as an ascetic
holy man and claimed to be inspired by visions of the Virgin Mary.
(WSJ, 3/25/96, p.A-15)
1903 The Kishinev pogrom in
Odessa, Russia set Vladimir Jabotinsky afire with the Jewish cause and
placed him on a Zionist path. His biography: "Lone Wolf" by Shmuel Katz
was pub-lished in Hebrew in 1993 and in English in 1996.
(WSJ, 4/22/96, p.A-20)
1903 In Russia Nicholas
Kornilowisch discovered microscopic structure in insect muscle tis-sue
in amber.
(PacDis, Winter/’97, p.12)
1903-1906 The United Shoe Manufacturing Plant was
built. It was pioneering reinforced concrete structure in Beverly,
Mass., devised by the engineer Ernest L. Ransome. He patented a way to
embed twisted square iron rods in concrete.
(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A16)
1903-1907 William Randolph Hearst served two terms in
Congress.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1903-1909 In SF infantry barracks were built on Ruger
St. in the Presidio to provide quarters for troops being shipped to
cover the US expansion into the Pacific.
(G, Spring/98, p.5)
1903-1966 Michael O’Donovan (aka Frank O’Connor),
Irish writer, was born in Cork. His work in-cluded "The Big Fellow:
Michael Collins & The Irish Revolution."
(SFEM, 5/24/98, p.11)
1903-1968 Tallulah Bankhead, American actress: "The
only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live
my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner."
(AP, 5/28/97)
1903-1972 Joseph Cornell, a homebody artist. He made
elaborate shadow boxes often using astro-nomical themes. Three of his
works are owned by the Whitney Museum of American Art. His work
included "Soap Bubble Set" (1936), and "Garbo: The Crystal Mask"
(c1939-40). In 1997 Deborah Soloman wrote "Utopia Parkway: The Life and
Work of Joseph Cornell."
(WSJ, 12/26/95, p. A-13)(SFEC, 4/27/97, BR p.9)
1903-1974 Cyril Connolly, British critic: "We fear
something before we hate it. A child who fears noises becomes a man who
hates noise."
(AP, 6/16/00)
1903-1975 Walker Evans, American photographer, became
famous for his pictures of the Great Depression.
(WSJ, 3/31/00, p.W16)
1903-1981 Harry Lewis Golden, American author,
editor and publisher: "The imperceptible process of age has a point
which, once passed, cannot be retraced. I knew I had passed that point
and was getting old the day I noticed that all the cops looked so
young."
(AP, 10/10/97)
1903-1986 Candido Jacuzzi was an Italian immigrant
who manufactured hydraulic pumps. He adopted a pump to create a hydro
massage for his son who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. This
started the hot tub business.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, Z1 p.8)
1903-1988 Alan Paton, South African author: "The
tragedy is not that things are broken. The trag-edy is that they are
not mended again."
(AP, 7/7/98)
1903-1990 Malcolm Muggeridge, British author and
commentator: "It is only believers in the Fall of Man who can really
appreciate how funny men are."
(AP, 6/11/99)
1904 Jan 2, U.S. Marines were sent
to Santo Domingo to aid the government against rebel forces.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1904 Jan 2, James Longstreet (82),
Confederate general, died.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1904 Jan 4, The US Supreme Court,
in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and
could enter the US freely; however, the court stopped short of
declaring them US citizens.
(AP, 1/4/08)
1904 Jan 5, American Marines
arrived in Seoul, Korea to guard U.S. legation there.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1904 Jan 6, A Japanese railway in
Korea refused to transport Russian troops.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1904 Jan 7, The Marconi
International Marine Communication Company, Limited, of London
announced that the telegraphed letters “C-Q-D” would serve as a
maritime distress call. It was later replaced by “S-O-S”.
(AP, 1/7/07)
1904 Jan 8, Pope Pius X banned low
cut dresses in the presence of churchmen.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1904 Jan 9, George Balanchine,
dancer, choreographer, ballet producer, was born. [see Jan 22]
(MC, 1/9/02)
1904 Jan 10, Ray Bolger, actor,
dancer (Scarecrow-Wizard of Oz), was born in Dorchester, Mass.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1904 Jan 11, British troops
massacred 1,000 dervishes in Somaliland.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1904 Jan 12, Anxious Germans
opened fire on Ovaherero at Okahandja. The Herero people of Southwest
Africa (Namibia) had risen in rebellion against German colonial rule.
The deadly Deutsche Schutzruppe “peacekeeping regiment” quelled the
tribes. They eventually annihilated 75% of the Herero and Nama peoples.
In 1981 Jon M. Bridgeman authored “The Revolt of the Hereros.”
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.E5)
1904 Jan 18, Henri-Georges Adam,
French etcher, painter, sculptor (Grand Nude), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1904 Jan 18, Cary Grant (d.1986),
U.S. actor, was born in England. He was famous for his roles in "Gunga
Din," "Bringing Up Baby," "The Philadelphia Story" and "North by
Northwest."
(HN, 1/18/99)(MC, 1/18/02)
1904 Jan 19, James Winston Watts,
surgical developer (Frontal Lobotomy), was born.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1904 Jan 19, A team of oil
drillers led by George Reynolds and funded by English millionaire
William Knox D’Arcy, struck oil at Chiah Surkh, Persia, but by March
the volume dwindled to an unprofitable trickle.
(ON, 8/08, p.2)
1904 Jan 22, George Balanchine,
composer, choreographer, was born. [see Jan 9]
(MC, 1/22/02)
1904 Jan 25, J.M. Synge's "Riders
to the Sea," premiered in Dublin. [see Feb 25]
(MC, 1/25/02)
1904 Jan 25, Two-hundred (179)
coal miners were entombed in an explosion in Cheswick, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 1/25/99)(MC, 1/25/02)
1904 Jan 27, Willie Vanderbilt
(1878-1944) reached 92.3 mph in his new German motorcar at the Daytona
Beach Road Course at Ormond Beach, Florida, establishing a new land
speed re-cord. He was the 2nd child and first son of William Kissam
Vanderbilt and Alva Erskine Smith.
(Econ, 12/22/07,
p.122)(www.racechase.com/ftopic254.html)
1904 Jan 29, The 1st athletic
letters were given to the Univ. of Chicago football team.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1904 Feb 1, S.J. (Sidney)
Perelman, author, humorist (Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, One Touch
of Venus, Strictly from Hunger, Westward Ha!) was born in Brooklyn.
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)(MC, 2/1/02)
1904 Feb 1, Enrico Caruso recorded
his first sides for Victor Records. He did ten songs in the session ...
for $4,000.
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1904 Feb 3, Colombian troops
clashed with U.S. Marines in Panama.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1904 Feb 4, MacKinlay Kantor,
novelist (Andersonville), was born in Webster City, Iowa.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1904 Feb 4, Russia offered Korea
to Japan and defended its right to occupy Manchuria.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1904 Feb 5, The American
occupation of Cuba ended.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1904 Feb 6, Japan's foreign
minister severed all ties with Russia, citing delaying tactics in
ne-gotiations over Manchuria.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1904 Feb 7, A fire in Baltimore
raged for about 30 hours and destroyed more than 1,500 buildings over
80 blocks. The fired caused an estimated $80 million in damages.
(AP, 2/7/97)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A23)(MC, 2/7/02)
1904 Feb 8, The Russo-Japanese War
began. In a surprise attack at Port Arthur, Korea, the Japanese
disabled seven Russian warships. During the war, Russia suffered a
series of stun-ning defeats to Japan; the fighting ended with an
agreement mediated by President Theodore Roosevelt, who went on to win
the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
(HN, 2/7/97)(AP, 2/8/04)
1904 Feb 9, Japanese troops landed
near Seoul, Korea, after disabling two Russian cruisers.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1904 Feb 10, Russia and Japan
declared war on each other.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1904 Feb 11, President Theodore
Roosevelt proclaimed strict neutrality for the U.S. in the
Russo-Japanese War.
(HN, 2/11/97)
1904 Feb 14, The "Missouri Kid"
was captured in Kansas.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1904 Feb 16, George Keenan, U.S.
diplomat, was born in Milwaukee. He became a historian and proposed the
policy of "containment" for dealing with the Soviet Union.
(HN, 2/16/99)
1904 Feb 17, The original two-act
version of Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly" was poorly
received during its world premiere at La Scala, Milan.
(AP, 2/17/08)
1904 Feb 20, Alexei Kosygin,
Soviet Premier, was born.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1904 Feb 23, William Shirer, was
born. He was a CBS broadcaster and wrote "The Rise and Fall of the
Third Reich."
(HN, 2/23/99)
1904 Feb 23, US acquired control
of the Panama Canal Zone for $10 million.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1904 Feb 23, Japan guaranteed
Korean sovereignty in exchange for military assistance.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1904 Feb 25, J.M. Synge's play
"Riders to the Sea" opened in Dublin. [see Jan 25]
(HN, 2/25/01)
1904 Feb 27, James T. Farrell
(d.1979), author (Young Lonigan), was born. In 2004 Robert K. Landers
authored "The Life and Times of James T. Farrell."
(HN, 2/27/01)(SFC, 2/26/04, p.E1)
1904 Feb 28, Vincent d'Indy's 2nd
Symphony in B premiered.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1904 Feb 29, Jimmy Dorsey
(d.1957), orchestra leader, was born in Shenandoah, Pa.
(HN, 2/29/00)(AP, 2/29/04)
1904 Mar 1, Glenn Miller
(d.1944), big band leader of the 1930s and 1940s, was born in Clarinda,
Iowa.
(AP, 3/1/04)
1904 Mar 2, Henry Dreyfuss,
industrial designer of everything from telephones to the interior of
the Boeing 707, was born.
(HN, 3/2/01)
1904 Mar 2, Theodor Seuss Geisel
[Dr. Seuss] was born in Springfield, Mass. He was the Pulitzer
Prize-winning author of "The Cat in the Hat," "Green Eggs and Ham,"
"The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" and other children's books.
(HC, Internet, 2/3/98)(HN, 3/2/99)(SSFC, 5/26/02,
Par p.8)
1904 Mar 2, "Official Playing
Rules of Professional Base Ball Clubs" was adopted.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1904 Mar 2, Gabriele d'Annunzio's
"La figlia di Iorio" premiered in Milan.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1904 Mar 4, George Gamow, nuclear
physicist, cosmologist, writer (1, 2, 3...'infinity'), was born.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1904 Mar 4, Ding Ling, Chinese
writer and women's rights activist, was born.
(HN, 3/4/01)
1904 Mar 4, Russian troops began
to retreat toward the Manchurian border as 100,000 Japa-nese advanced
in Korea.
(HN, 3/4/98)
1904 Mar 7, Reinhard Heydrich,
German SS Leader and Architect of the "final solution," was born.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1904 Mar 7, The Japanese bombed
the Russian town of Vladivostok.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1904 Mar 8, The Bundestag in
Germany lifted the ban on the Jesuit order of priests.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1904 Mar 15, Three hundred
Russians were killed as the Japanese shelled Port Arthur in Ko-rea.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1904 Mar 19, John J. Sirica, U.S.
Federal Judge, ruled on Watergate issues, was born.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1904 Mar 20, B.F. Skinner,
American psychologist, was born.
(HN, 3/20/01)
1904 Mar 22, The first color
photograph was published in the London Daily Illustrated Mirror.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1904 Mar 24, Vice Adm. Tojo sank
seven Russian ships as the Japanese strengthened their blockade of Port
Arthur.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1904 Mar 26, Joseph Campbell,
folklorist and writer, was born.
(HN, 3/26/01)
1904 Apr 3, Iron Eyes Cody, actor
(Black Gold, Ernest Goes to Camp), was born in Tulsa, OK.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1904 Apr 13, In Pensacola, Fl., an
explosion on the US battleship Missouri killed 29 men and injured 5
men, of whom 2 died later.
(SFC, 4/15/06, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/6hkedu)
1904 Apr 14, Sir John Gielgud,
actor, was born.
(HN, 4/14/98)
1904 Apr 14, George Bernard Shaw's
"Candide," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1904/5 Apr 15, Arshile Gorky
(d.1948), artist, was born as Vostanig Adoian of Armenian parents in
Eastern Turkey. He came to the US in 1920 and assumed a new name in
admiration of Rus-sian writer Maxim Gorky.
(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A20)(HN, 4/15/01)
1904 Apr 16, Lily Pons, soprano
diva, was born in Draguignan, France.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1904 Apr 19, Much of Toronto was
destroyed by fire.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1904 Apr 22, J. Robert
Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan (Atomic-bomb) Project, was born.
(HN, 4/22/98)
1904 Apr 23, The American Academy
of Arts and Letters was founded.
(AP, 4/23/04)
1904 Apr 24, Willem de Kooning
(d.1997), abstract impressionist artist, was born in Rotter-dam.
(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A1,6,E1)(HN, 4/24/01)
1904 Apr 24, Friedrich Siemens
(77), German industrialist, died.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1904 Apr 26, William "Count"
Basie, jazz pianist (Policy Man, Blazing Saddles), was born. [see Aug
21]
(MC, 4/26/02)
1904 Apr 27, Cecil Day-Lewis,
Irish poet, father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, was born.
(HN, 4/27/01)
1904 Apr 30, At 1:06 p.m.
President Theodore Roosevelt officially opened the St. Louis World’s
Fair commemorating the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Although
the Fair was originally scheduled to open in 1903, the opening was
delayed for a year while the elaborate fairgrounds were completed.
Visitors were awed by 142 miles of exhibits shown in palatial
build-ings like Festival Hall the centerpiece of the fair boasting an
auditorium seating 3,500 and the largest pipe organ in the world. Other
wonders seen at the St. Louis World’s Fair were the Lib-erty Bell, ice
cream cones. Food vendors, Arnold Fornachou (ice cream) and Ernest
Hamwi (sweet, rolled wafers), collaborated for the ice cream cones. In
1903 Italo Marconi received a patent for pastry cornets to hold ice
cream. Charles Menches sold ice cream at the fair and an anonymous
Syrian sold the zalabia pastry in the next booth.
(HN, 5/2/98)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(SFC, 6/24/00, p.B3)
1904 Apr 30, The St. Louis World’s
Fair popularized the all-American hamburger. The fair lasted 7 months
and inspired the phrase "Meet Me in St. Louis." Cass Gilbert designed
the art museum in Foret park, the only building left over from the
fair. At the Louisiana Purchase Expo-sition the temperatures in St.
Louis soared and hot-tea vendor Richard Blechynden began pour-ing his
tea over ice thus the invention of iced-tea. The fair popularized
sausage in a bun, the hot dog with prepared mustard and the ice cream
cone.
(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 11/17/96, Par
p.19)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 4/19/98, Z1 p.8)(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.C3)
1904 Although invented in Waco,
Texas in the 1880s, Dr Pepper first received national expo-sure at the
St. Louis World's Fair.
(HNQ, 10/25/00)
1904 May 1, Antonin Dvorak
(b.1841), Czech composer (Slavonic Dances, New World Sym-phony), died
at age 62. He spent 1892-1895 in the US as an honored guest. In 2002
Michael B. Beckerman authored "New Worlds of Dvorak: Searching in
America for the Composer’s Inner Life."
(MC, 5/1/02)(SSFC, 1/19/03, p.M5)
1904 May 4, The United States took
over construction of the Panama Canal.
(AP, 5/4/08)
1904 May 5, Denton True Young (Cy
Young) of the Boston Red Sox pitched the American League's first
perfect game as the Boston Red Sox defeated the Philadelphia Athletics,
3-0.
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A23)(AP, 5/5/04)
1904 May 8, U.S. Marines landed in
Tangier to protect the Belgian legation.
(HN, 5/8/98)
1904 May 10, Henry Morton Stanley
(b.1841 as John Rowlands), Welsh-born British explorer, died in London.
In 2007 Tim Jeal authored “Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa’s
Greatest Explorer.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley)(Econ, 3/17/07, p.90)
1904 May 11, Andrew Carnegie
donated $1.5M to build a peace palace.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1904 May 11, Salvador Dali
(d.1989), surrealist painter, was born in Figueres, Spain.
(HN, 5/11/98)(WSJ, 1/25/99, p.A16)(SFEC, 7/16/00,
p.T4)
1904 May 14, The first Olympic
games to be held in the United States opened in St. Louis. Some 1,500
athletes competed from 13 countries. The US won 80 of 100 gold medals.
At the Olympics the game of golf was played for the last time due to
lack of general appeal. The 3rd modern Olympics were held at the St.
Louis World’s Fair. A separate competition was held for “uncivilized
tribes” in what was billed as “Anthropology Days.”
(SFC, 7/14/96, Par p.4)(AP, 5/14/97)(WSJ, 7/23/96,
p.A6)(PCh, 1992, p.658)(WSJ, 8/11/04, p.B1)
1904 May 17, Maurice Ravel's
"Sheherezad," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1904 May 18, Jacob K. Javits, US
Senator-R-NY, was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1904 May 18, Brigand Raizuli
kidnapped American Ion H. Perdicaris in Morocco.
(HN, 5/18/98)
1904 May 21, Fats Waller (d.1943),
[Thomas Wright], jazz singer, composer (Ain't Misbe-havin'), was born
in NYC.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1904 May 25, Kurt George Hugo
Thomas, composer, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1904 May 29, Robert Knox,
bacteriologist, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1904 Jun 2, Johnny Weissmuller,
American gold-winning Olympic swimmer (1924), was born. He portrayed
Tarzan in the movies.
(HN, 6/2/99)(SC, 6/2/02)
1904 Jun 3, Charles R. Drew
(d.1950), American black surgeon, was born. He invented blood plasma
banks. He helped develop methods to preserve blood plasma and protested
the US Army’s policy of segregating donated blood by race. While
working on his doctorate at Colum-bia University, Drew researched ways
to use and preserve blood plasma for use in transfusion. He quickly
became a leading authority on "blood banks" and oversaw programs in the
U.S. and Britain in the early years of World War II. He left this
enterprise when the armed forces insisted on storing the blood plasma
of blacks and whites separately. Taking jobs at Howard University and
Freedman's Hospital in Washington, DC, he worked as an educator until
his untimely death in a car accident in 1950.
(SFC,11/12/97, p.A3)(HN, 6/3/00)(HNQ, 2/7/01)
1904 Jun 4, Alvah Bessie,
screenwriter and novelist, was born.
(HN, 6/4/01)
1904 Jun 6, The National
Tuberculosis Association was organized in Atlantic City, NJ.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1904 Jun 8, U.S. Marines landed in
Tangiers, Morocco, to protect U.S. citizens.
(HN, 6/8/99)
1904 Jun 11, German General Lothar
von Trotha arrived in SW Africa (later Namibia) to take over from the
colonial Governor, Theodor Leutwein, the direction of a campaign to
quell a na-tive uprising.
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)
1904 Jun 15, A fire erupted aboard
the steamboat General Slocum, owned by the Knicker-bocker Steamboat
Co., in New York City’s East River and some 1,021 people died. The ship
carried a congregation of a German church on its annual picnic. Capt.
William van Schaick (1837-1927) was convicted of manslaughter and
sentenced to 10 years in Sing Sing. He was pardoned by Pres. Taft in
1911.
(AP, 6/15/97)(www.newyorkhistory.info)(ON, 2/06, p.9)
1904 Jun 16, Bloomsday. The 1922
novel “Ulysses” by James Joyce was set on this day. It charts the
wanderings of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus among Dublin streets
and beaches, museums and galleries, pubs and brothels through the ebb
and tide of their memories and emotions. The "same day that the
penniless and Myopic Jimmy Joyce (22) first walked out with the
redheaded chambermaid Nora Barnacle," (20) who became his Molly Bloom.
In 1988 Brenda Maddox authored "Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom."
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C6)(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.7)(AP,
6/14/04)
1904 Jun 17, Ralph Bellamy, actor
(Air Mail, Dive Bomber, Trading Places, Sunrise at Cam-pobello, Winds
of War, War and Remembrance), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1904 Jun 26, Peter Lorre, actor,
was born. He starred in Casablanca and "M."
(HN, 6/26/99)
1904 Jun 27, The 2nd Fastnet
Lighthouse was completed off of southwest Ireland.
(www.cil.ie/flat_areaEQLlighthousesAMPLighthouseIDEQL18_entry.html)(Econ,
12/20/08, p.98)
1904 Jun 28, Blind-deaf student
Helen Keller graduated with honors from Radcliffe College. [See Sep 1]
(AP, 6/28/04)
1904 Jun 29, In Indonesia Mount
Lewotobi on Flores Island erupted.
(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A9)
1904 Jul 5, Ernst Mayr, biologist,
was born in Germany. He emigrated to the US in 1931. Mayr helped define
the concept of species as a group of interbreeding populations. He
helped found the modern evolutionary synthesis with Theodosius
Dobzhansky, Julian Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson, that brought
together a genetic understanding of how species adopt to their
environment.
(NH, 5/97, p.8)(SFC, 7/5/04, p.A6)
1904 Jul 12, Pablo Neruda
(d.1973), Chilean poet and political activist (Residence on Earth-Nobel
1971), was born as Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile.
(HN, 7/12/01)(SFC, 7/15/04, p.E11)
1904 Jul 14, Isaac Singer (1991),
Polish-born American author (Enemies-Nobel 1978), was born. "God is the
sum of all possibilities." "When you betray somebody else, you also
betray yourself."
(AP, 3/30/97)(AP, 6/4/99)(HN, 7/14/01)(MC, 7/14/02)
1904 Jul 15, Dorothy Fields,
songwriter, was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1904 Jul 15, Anton Pavlovich
Chekhov (44), Russian writer (Uncle Vanya), died of tuberculo-sis.
Chekhov wrote his play "The Cherry Orchard" in this year. In 1998
Donald Rayfield pub-lished "Anton Chekhov: A Life." An assay of his
plays was written by Maurice Vallency: "The Breaking string." Vladimir
Nabokov examined his short stories in "Lectures on Russian
Litera-ture." In 1988 V.S. Pritchett wrote a biography. In 1998 Philip
Callow published "Chekhov: The Hidden Ground," and Donald Rayfield
published "Anton Chekhov: A Life." In 1999 Peter Con-stantine
translated and published "Undiscovered Chekhov: Thirty-Eight New
Stories."
(WUD, 1994, p.252)(WSJ, 11/5/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 3/9/98,
p.A16)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.8)(SFEC, 2/14/99, BR p.6)(MC, 7/15/02)
1904 Jul 18, Hiram Washington
Hayden (b.1820), American inventor, died in Massachusetts. In 1851 he
had patented a design for brass kettles.
(SFC, 6/11/08, p.G3)(http://tinyurl.com/5trd82)
1904 Jul 21, After 13 years, the
4,607-mile Trans-Siberian railway was completed. [see Jul 31]
(MC, 7/21/02)
1904 Jul 23, By some accounts, the
ice cream cone was invented by Charles E. Menches during the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. [see Sep 22, 1903]
(AP, 7/23/99)
1904 Jul 31, The Trans-Siberian
railroad connecting the Ural mountains with Russia’s Pacific coast, was
completed. [see Jul 21]
(HN, 7/31/98)
1904 Aug 6, The Japanese army in
Korea surrounded a Russian army retreating to Manchu-ria.
(HN, 8/6/98)
1904 Aug 7, Ralph Bunche (d.1971),
US diplomat and the first African-American Nobel Prize winner (1950),
was born. "There are no warlike peoples- just warlike leaders."
(HN, 8/7/98)(AP, 12/7/99)(MC, 8/7/02)
1904 Aug 9, Friedrich Ratzel (59),
German social-geographer (Lebensraum), died.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1904 Aug 10, Angelo G. Roncalli,
later Pope John XXIII, became a priest.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1904 Aug 10, Dutch newspaper Volk
fired gay journalist Jacob de Cock.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1904 Aug 11, German General Lothar
von Trotha defeated the Hereros tribe near Waterberg, South Africa.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1904 Aug 12, Aleksei N. Romanov,
son of tsar Nicolas II, was born.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1904 Aug 14, The cattle-herding
Hereros, a tribe of Southwest Africa (later Namibia), became the first
genocide victims of the 20th century. Kaiser Wilhelm II had sent
General Lothar von Trotha to put down a Herero uprising along with the
groups of rebellious Khoikhoi. Trotha drove the Hereros into the desert
and then issued a formal "extermination order" (Schrecklichkeit)
au-thorizing the slaughter of all who refused to surrender. Out of some
80,000 Hereros, 60,000 died in the desert. Of the 15,000 who
surrendered, half of those died in prison camps. Some 9,000 escaped to
neighboring countries. In 2004 a senior German government official
apolo-gized for the genocide during a ceremony in Namibia marking the
100th anniversary of the up-rising. In 2005 a German minister
acknowledged violence by German colonial powers and ad-mitted that
following uprisings, the surviving Herero, Nama and Damara were
interned in camps and put to forced labor of such brutality that many
did not survive.
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)(HNPD, 4/14/99)(AP,
8/14/04)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.E5)
1904 Aug 16, NYC began building
the Grand Central Station.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1904 Aug 18, [Francis] Max Factor
(d.1996), cosmetics manufacturer (Max Factor), was born. His father,
Max Factor (d.1938), was born in Lodz, Russia, in 1877 and came to the
US with his family in 1902.
(MC, 8/18/02)(Internet)
1904 Aug 20, Dublin’s Abbey
Theatre was founded, an outgrowth of the Irish Literary Theatre founded
in 1899 by William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory.
(HN, 8/20/00)
1904 Aug 21, William "Count"
Basie, American band leader and composer, was born. [see Apr 26]
(HN, 8/21/98)
1904 Aug 22, Deng Xiaoping
(d.1997), Chinese leader from 1977 to 1987, was born in Si-chuan
province. He held nominal leadership position until his death.
(HN, 8/22/00)(AP, 8/22/04)
1904 Aug 24, In the field battle
at Liaoyang, China, some 200,000 Japanese faced 150,000 Russians. The
Japanese defeated the Russians in October.
(MC, 8/24/02)(PC, 1992, p.654)
1904 Aug 26, Christopher
Isherwood, English novelist and playwright, was born. He wrote "Goodbye
to Berlin" (Berlin Stories), the inspiration for the play "I am a
Camera" and the musi-cal and film "Cabaret." [1906 also given as birth
year]
(WUD, 1994 p.755)(HN, 8/26/00)
1904 Aug 29, Werner
Forssman, German urologist, was born. He was the first to catheterize
his own heart and won a Nobel prize in 1956.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1904 Sep 1, Helen Keller with the
faithful help of teacher Annie Mansfield Sullivan, graduated cum laude
from Radcliffe College at age 24. This accomplishment was particularly
remarkable because Keller had lost both sight and hearing at age 2
after contracting scarlet fever. Sullivan, who broke through Helen’s
childhood isolation to teach her Braille and sign language,
accom-panied Helen to every class at Radcliffe, spelling lectures and
books into her hand. After graduation, Keller embarked on a career of
writing on behalf of woman suffrage, socialism and the rights of the
handicapped. Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, 32 years after the
death of her beloved teacher, Annie Sullivan.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.3)(HNPD, 9/3/98)
1904 Sep 2, Set Svanholm, tenor
(Met Opera and London Convent Garden), was born in Vesteras, Sweden.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1904 Sep 4, Dali Lama signed a
treaty allowing British commerce in Tibet.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1904 Sep 9, Mounted police were
1st used in NYC.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1904 Sep 11, The battleship
Connecticut, launched in New York, introduced a new era in na-val
construction.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1904 Sep 15, Wilbur Wright made
his 1st controlled half-circle while in flight with Flyer II. On Sep 20
he flew a full circle for the first time.
(http://tinyurl.com/pkwd37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer_II)
1904 Sep 19, Bergen Baldwin Evans
(d.1978), American educator and author who wrote the "Dictionary of
Contemporary American Usage," was born in Ohio. "Freedom of speech and
freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there
is no freedom of thought without doubt."
(AP, 8/11/98)(HN, 9/19/98)(MC, 9/19/01)
1904 Sep 19, Gen. Nogi's assault
on Port Arthur: 16,000 Japanese casualties.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1904 Sep 20, Orville and Wilbur
Wright flew a circle in their Flyer II.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1904 Sep 21, Exiled Nez Perce
leader Chief Joseph died in Washington state reportedly of a "broken
heart." In 1984 “Chief Joseph’s Own Story” was published.
(HN, 9/21/98)(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A13)
1904 Sep 24, Sixty-two died and
120 were injured in head-on train collision in Tennessee.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1904 Sep 25, A New York City
police officer ordered a female passenger in an automobile on Fifth
Avenue to stop smoking a cigarette. A male companion was arrested and
later fined two dollars for "abusing" the officer.
(AP, 9/25/98)
1904 Sep 26, GB Shaw's "How He
Lied to Her Husband," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1904 Sep 26, Lafcadio Hearn
(b.1850), Greece-born, Irish-American travel writer, died in Ja-pan. He
moved to Japan in 1890 and is especially well-known for his collections
of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as “Kwaidan: Stories and
Studies of Strange Things” (1904). In 2009 Christopher Benfey edited
“Lafcadio Hearn: American Writings.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn)
1904 Sep 28, A woman was placed
under arrest for smoking a cigarette on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
(HN, 9/28/98)
1904 Oct 1, Vladimir Horowitz,
Russian-born American virtuoso pianist, was born in Kiev, Ukraine.
(HN, 10/1/98)(MC, 10/1/01)
1904 Oct, 1, Forty orphans (aged
2-6), shipped west in the company of nuns by a New York Foundling
Hospital, arrived at the Arizona copper mining towns of Clifton and
Morenci. Anglo townspeople opposed their adoption by Mexican American
citizens, terrorized the adopting families and took some of the
children for themselves. In 1999 Linda Gordon authored "The Great
Arizona Orphan Abduction;" Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith authored
"Frontier Children," which described the "orphan train" plan to
transport poor city-bred children to a healthier life out west.
(SFEC, 1/9/00, Par p.6)
1904 Oct 2, Graham Greene
(d.1991), British author, was born. His work included "The Power and
the Glory," "The Heart of the Matter" and "Ministry of Fear," which was
made into a 1940s movie by Fritz Lang. "I didn't invent the world I
write about- it's all true." In 2004 Norman sherry concluded his
3-volume biography: “The Life of Graham Greene.”
(SFEC,10/26/97, DB p.44)(AP, 4/3/00)(HN,
10/2/00)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.E1)
1904 Oct 2, General Lothar von
Trotha: “I, the great General of the German soldiers, send this letter
to the Herero people (SW Africa-Namibia). The Herero are no longer
German sub-jects... The Herero nation must...leave the country. If they
do not leave, I will force them out with the Groot Rohr (cannon). Every
Herero, armed or unarmed...will be shot dead within the German borders.
I will no longer accept women and children, but will force them back to
their people or shoot at them.”
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)
1904 Oct 4, 1st day of NYC subway,
350,000 people rode the 9.1 mile tracks. [see Oct 24, 27]
(MC, 10/4/01)
1904 Oct 4, Frederic Auguste
Bertholdi, French sculptor (Statue of Liberty), died.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1904 Oct 8, James Joyce and Nora
Barnacle left together for Switzerland for a job in a Berlitz school
that never materialized. They continued on to Pola and then to Trieste
where he wrote most of "The Dubliners."
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.69)
1904 Oct 13, Sigmund Freud's "The
Interpretation of Dreams" was published.
(HN, 10/13/00)
1904 Oct 16, The Russian Baltic
fleet under Rear-Admiral Zinovi Rozhestvensky departed to lift the
Japanese blockade at Port Arthur, Manchuria.
(ON, 5/04, p.6)
1904 Oct 17, Amadeo Peter Giannini
(d.1949) founded the Bank of Italy, the predecessor to the Bank of
America, on the Montgomery block in SF.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.B4)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1904 Oct 18, A.J. Liebling
(d.1963), American journalist and author, was born. "People eve-rywhere
confuse/ What they read in newspapers with news."
(AP, 4/12/97)(HN, 10/18/00)
1904 Oct 18, Mahler's 5th symphony
premiered in Cologne.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1904 Oct 20, Bolivia and Chile
signed a treaty ending the War of the Pacific. The treaty rec-ognized
Chile's possession of Bolivia's nitrate-rich coastal province of
Antofagasta, but provided for construction of a railway to link La Paz,
Bolivia, to Arica on the coast.
(HN, 10/20/98)(Econ, 12/6/03, p.34)
1904 Oct 21, Panamanians clashed
with U.S. Marines in Panama in a brief uprising.
(HN, 10/21/98)
1904 Oct 22, The Russian Baltic
fleet mistakenly fired on British fishing ships near Dogger Bank
killing 2 fishermen. The fleet was in fear of Japanese torpedo boats.
(ON, 5/04, p.7)
1904 Oct 24, Moss Hart (d.1961),
American playwright, director and librettist, was born in NY.
(WUD, 1994, p.648)(AP, 8/18/98)(HN, 10/24/00)
1904 Oct 24, The 1st NY subway
opened. [see Oct 4, 27]
(MC, 10/24/01)
1904 Oct 27, The first rapid
transit subway, the IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit), was inaugu-rated
in New York City. It ran from the Brooklyn Bridge uptown to Broadway at
145th Street with a fare of one nickel. [see Oct 4, 24]
(AP, 10/27/97)(HN, 10/27/98)
1904 Oct 28, The St. Louis,
Missouri, police tried a new investigation method—fingerprints.
(HN, 10/28/98)
1904 Nov 1, George Bernard Shaw's
"John Bull's Other Island," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1904 Nov 4, Harvard Stadium became
the 1st stadium built specifically for football.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1904 Nov 8, Theodore Roosevelt (R)
defeated Alton B. Parker (D) in US presidential elec-tions. Roosevelt
had succeeded the assassinated William McKinley.
(HN, 11/6/98)(AP, 11/8/04)
1904 Nov 9, 1st airplane flight to
last more than 5 minutes.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1904 Nov 11, Alger Hiss, State
Department official who hid papers in a pumpkin, was born.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1904 Nov 11, The Harcourt Building
in Boston, which housed the new photography studio of Fred Holland Day,
burns down. He lost decades of work and a priceless collection of other
peo-ple’s work.
(Civilization, July-Aug. 1995, p.40-47)
1904 Nov 15, King C. Gillette
patented his Gillette razor blade.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1904 Nov 17, Isamu Noguchi,
sculptor (1963 Fine Arts Medal), was born.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1904 Nov 17, George Cohan's
musical "Little Johnny Jones," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1904 Nov 21, Coleman Hawkins, jazz
saxophonist, was born.
(HN, 11/21/00)
1904 Nov 21, Motorized omnibuses
replaced horse-drawn cars in Paris.
(HN, 11/21/98)
1904 Nov 23, Russo-German talks
broke down because of Russia's insistence to consult France.
(HN, 11/23/98)
1904 Nov 27, A German colonial
army defeated Hottentots at Warmbad in Southwest Africa (later
Namibia).
(HN, 11/27/98)
1904 Nov 28, Nancy Mitford,
English author (Love in a Cold Climate), was born. The eldest of 7
Mitford children was born to Lord and Lady Redesdale. In 2001 Mary S.
Lovell authored "The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family." Jessica
Mitford, author of "The American Way of Death" (1963) died in 1996.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M1)(MC, 11/28/01)
1907 Nov 28, Alberto Moravia,
Italian novelist, novelist, was born. His work included "The
Conformist" and "Conjugal Love."
(HN, 11/28/00)
1904 Nov 28, The pivotal capture
by the Japanese of 203 Meter Hill overlooking Port Arthur occurred
during the bloodiest battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. The
battle of No-vember 28-December 5, 1904, resulted in Japanese forces
taking the strategic 203 Meter Hill, allowing them to bombard and sink
the Russian fleet in the harbor at Port Arthur. Russia
sur-rendered the city of Port Arthur to Japan on January 1, 1905.
(HNQ, 9/20/99)
1904 Dec 1, The Louisiana Purchase
Exposition in St. Louis closed after seven months and some 20 million
visitors.
(AP, 12/1/04)
1904 Dec 5, Japanese destroyed
Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Korea.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1904 Dec 6, Theodore Roosevelt
confirmed the Monroe-doctrine (Roosevelt Corollary).
(MC, 12/6/01)
1904 Dec 9, Von Schlieffen order
von Trotha to pardon all Ovaherero, after tens of thousands had
perished in the desert, except those who were "directly guilty
and the leaders.”
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)
1904 Dec 10, Charles M. Schwab
incorporated a revamped Bethlehem Steel. As president of US Steel he
had acquired the Pennsylvania steel maker in 1901. Schwab resigned his
position at US Steel to run Bethlehem Steel. In 2008 Kenneth Warren
authored “Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America.”
(WSJ, 10/8/08, p.A15)
1904 Dec 16, Japanese warships
quit Port Arthur in order to cut off the Russian Baltic fleet’s advance.
(HN, 12/16/98)
1904 Dec 18, George Stevens,
American director (Alice Adams, Penny Serenade), was born.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1904 Dec 24, Herbert D Riley, US
vice-admiral (WW II, Guadalcanal, Okinawa), was born.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1904 Dec 24, German SW Africa
abolished the slavery of young children.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1904 Dec 27, Duke of York Theatre
opened in London with the 1st performance “Peter Pan: The Boy Who
Wouldn't Grow Up,” a dream-play written by J.M. Barrie.
(SFC, 1/10/04,
p.D1)(www.amrep.org/past/peter/peter1.html)
1904 Dec 28, Farmers in Georgia
burned two million bales of cotton to prop up falling prices.
(HN, 12/28/98)
1904 Dec 28, The 1st daily
wireless weather forecasts were published in London.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1904 Dec 30, Dmitri B. Kabalevsky,
composer, was born in St Petersburg, Russia.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1904 Dec 31, Nathan Milstein,
concert violinist, was born in Odessa, Russia.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1904 Alexandrina Maria da Costa of
Portugal (d.1955) was born. She became a lay Salesian cooperator and
according to the Vatican lived the last 13 years of her life eating
only the bread and wine of Communion. She was beatified in 2004.
(AP, 4/25/04)
1904 Paul Cezanne, French painter,
declared that he wanted "to do Poussin over from na-ture," by which he
meant that he hoped to transport Poussin’s ancient gods and lucid
geome-tries into a breezy impressionist outdoors. Cezanne began his
painting "Nature Morte: Rideau a Fleur et Fruits," (Still Life with
Flowered Curtain and Fruit). In 1997 it sold for $50 million to Ronald
Lauder, chairman of Estee Lauder Int’l. Cezanne completed his oil on
canvas "Fillette a la Poupee."
(WSJ, 2/26/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 1/31/97, p.B1)(SFC,
3/31/01, p.E12)
1904 Matisse painted his
pointillist "Luxe, Calme et Volupte."
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A20)
1904 Claude Monet painted "Water
Lilies." The work was acquired by art-dealer Paul Rosen-berg and then
stolen by the Nazis and put into the collection of Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop. After the war it reverted to the French
government. In 1998 the Rosenberg family again laid claim.
(SFC, 12/1/98, p.A2)
1904 Picasso painted the "Christ
of Montmartre" in watercolor and the "Portrait of James Sa-barte"
during his Blue Period. He also did "The Couple."
(WSJ, 12/30/94, A-6)(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)(SFC,
3/29/97, p.E1)
1904 John Singer Sargent painted
"An Artist in His Studio," which showed his friend Ambro-glio Raffele.
(WSJ, 2/23/99, p.A20)
1904 Jack London worked as a war
correspondent in the Russo-Japanese War. London was among the
contingent of reporters representing the Hearst newspapers. He was on
his first news assignment and had no experience as a reporter, but the
28-year-old writer had already received world acclaim for his novel
"The Call of the Wild" and other stories about the 1897 Klondike gold
rush.
(HNQ, 12/14/99)
1904 George Bernard Shaw wrote his
play "John Bull’s Other Island," a study of the Irish problem.
(WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A13)
1904 G.K. Chesterton authored his
novel "The Napoleon of Notting Hill."
(NW, 8/20/01, p.56)
1904 Joseph Conrad wrote his novel
"Nostromo."
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.C1)
1904 Black cowboy, Deadwood Dick,
wrote his autobiography.
(Hem., 5/97, p.18)
1904 Ernst Haeckel published
"Kunstformen," one hundred lithographic plates that included depictions
of single-celled organisms, plants and animals.
(NH, 12/98, p.58)
1904 Hermann Hesse (26) published
his first novel, "Peter Camenzind." in 1904 when he was 26. The
story of an unsuccessful and dissipated writer was
(iUniv. 7/2/00)
1904 Clarence E. Mulford created
Hopalong Cassidy, a cowboy-hero who appeared in a se-ries of popular
stories and novels. In print, the character appears as a rude,
rough-talking "ga-loot". Beginning in 1935, the character, played by
William Boyd, was transformed into the clean-cut hero of a series of 66
immensely popular films, only a few of which were based on Mulford's
works.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopalong_Cassidy)
1904 Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936),
writer, political philosopher and lecturer, muckraking au-thor
published "The Shame of the Cities." He was hailed as an "American
Socrates" because he raised rather than answered questions and jolted
his audiences into awareness. He was a leader of the form of journalism
that won the sobriquet "muckraking" from Theodore Roosevelt. Steffens
sought to reveal the shortcomings of the popular dogmas that equated
economic suc-cess with moral worth and national progress with
individual self-interest.
(HNQ, 10/4/98)
1904 Ida Tarbell (1857-1944),
journalist, published the 2-volume "History of the Standard Oil
Company." It revealed the illegal means used by John D. Rockefeller to
gain a monopoly and control oil prices and began as a series in
McClure's Magazine in 1902. This led to a federal in-vestigation and
the 1911 order by the Supreme Court for the breakup of Standard Oil.
(WSJ, 12/15/98, p.B1)(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)(HNQ,
6/22/00)
1904 Max Weber (1864-1920), German
sociologist and political economist, authored "The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism." Weber wrote "the modern man is in general,
even with the best will, unable to give religious ideas a significance
for culture and national character which they deserve." Weber visited
the US in this year.
(WSJ, 6/14/95, p.A-14)(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A11)(WSJ,
11/13/02, p.D10)
1904 Edith Wharton wrote "Italian
Villas and Their Gardens."
(WSJ, 12/9/97, p.A20)
1904 Isadora Duncan performed at
the Bayreuth Festival at the invitation of Cosima Wagner. She danced in
the Act 1 orgy of Wagner's "Tannhauser."
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E3)
1904 Leos Janacek composed his
realist opera "Jenufa."
(WSJ, 5/19/98, p.A20)
1904 Frank Lloyd Wright designed
the Larkin Building in Buffalo, NY. It was demolished in 1950. His
Darwin Martin house was built in this year for an official of the
Larkin company.
(WSJ, 8/20/03, p.D12)
1904 In Chicago Orchestra Hall was
built.
(WSJ, 10/9/97, p.A16)
1904 Near Chicago the Ravinia
Festival was founded as a high-class amusement park de-signed to
increase ridership for a railroad company. It became a center for
summertime opera but folded during the depression in 1931. It re-opened
in 1936 as the summer home of the Chi-cago Symphony Orchestra.
(WSJ, 8/17/98, p.A12)
1904 In NYC the New York Times
moved into a new building at Longacre Square. Publisher Adolph Ochs
persuaded the mayor to rename the intersection Times Square.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, Z1 p.8)(ON, 6/07, p.12)
1904 The Jewish Museum of NYC was
founded and housed at the Jewish Theological Semi-nary on 122nd St. and
Broadway. In 1944 Frieda Schiff Warburg gave her chateau-style man-sion
at 1109 Fifth to the museum, which re-opened there in 1947.
(WSJ, 7/6/04, p.D5)
1904 In San Francisco the St.
Francis Hotel overlooking Union Square was built based on an H-shaped
design plan by Bliss and Faville. A third wing was soon added and a 4th
wing came in 1913. In 1972 a multi-story modern tower, designed by
William L. Pereira Assoc., was added.
(SFEM,11/23/97, p.24)
1904 The reference here depicts a
map of Detroit neighborhoods in 1904 by ethnicity.
(www.edcopublishing.com/activities/MOM55_57.pdf)
1904 Silas Farmer, historiographer
of the City of Detroit, created an Industrial Map of Detroit.
(www.famousamericans.net/johnfarmercartographer/)
1904 The Irish Abbey Theater
opened. John Millington Synge had his plays performed there and in the
same year met with James Joyce in Paris.
(WSJ, 12/6/95, p.A-18)
1904 The Victorian Gardens Inn in
Elk, California, started as a sheep ranch on Mallow Creek.
(SFC, 9/1/96, T3)
1904 The Woodlawn Memorial Park
non-denominational cemetery was established in Lawn-dale (Colma), Ca.
(www.colmahistory.org/History.htm)
1904 Mary McLeod Bethune, a black
American, founded Bethune-Cookman College.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR p.5)
1904 The National Association for
the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis was founded. It later became
the American Lung Association.
(WSJ, 4/14/99, p.A1)
1904 Alexander Graham Bell,
scientist and inventor, escorted the remains of James Smith-son,
founder of the Smithsonian Institution, to the United States for
interment in the original Smithsonian building. Smithson was an
English scientist who bequeathed his entire estate to the United States
to found an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge,
to be named the Smithsonian Institution. Smithson, who had the mineral
smithsonite (carbonate of zinc) named for him, was born in 1765 and
died in 1829.
(HNQ, 6/26/99)
1904 Arthur Eliot, a Boston
publisher, began distributing price quotes on unlisted US stocks. In
1913 he joined with a competitor to form the National Quotation Bureau.
Their quotes were distributed on pink sheets of paper and came to be
called the Pink Sheets.
(WSJ, 12/17/05, p.B6)
1904 Englishman Edmund Morel
journeyed to the US and encouraged the formation of an American Congo
Reform Association. Its first president was Dr. G. Stanley Hall,
president of Clark Univ.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.11)
1904 A tea merchant began to send
sales samples in little muslim sacks that customers put whole into hot
water and started the tea bag phenomena.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.E4)
1904 Sun Manufacturing moved from
Greenfield, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio, and manufactured coffee mills
there until about 1920.
(SFC, 2/7/07, p.G7)
1904 The Riverside County
Courthouse was built. It was designed by Franklin Pierce Burn-ham and
inspired by the beaux arts movement.
(SFC, 4/13/02, p.A17)
1904 A power plant was built on
Eureka’s Humboldt Bay shore.
(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.C10)
1904 In Marin the West Point Inn
on Mount Tamalpais was built as a stopover for passengers on the old
Bolinas stagecoach.
(SFEC, 6/28/98, p.T4)(SFC, 6/25/04, p.F8)
1904 Pope Pius X gave papal
permission for Los Angeles to construct a Cathedral. The per-mit was
not made use of until 1997 with the planned construction of Our Lady of
the Angels.
(SFC, 2/18/96, p.A11)
1904 California’s Wells Fargo
merged with the Nevada Bank, owned by Isaias Hellman, mak-ing it one of
the West’s largest financial institutions.
(SSFC, 11/30/08, Books p.3)
1904 Radio PH of the De Forest
Wireless Telegraph Company began broadcasting from the Old Palace Hotel
in SF.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A14)
1904 Big Basin State Park was
opened to campers.
(Ind, 4/24/99, p.5A)
1904 Samuel Sebastiani purchased a
winery in Sonoma.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.CA1)
1904 California’s population was
around 1.4 million. 14% of US homes had a bathtub, 8% had telephones
and the total number of US cars was around 8,000.
(SFC, 6/25/04, p.F8)
1904 Mary Ellen Pleasant ("Mammy")
died after years of work on the Underground Railroad and in civil
rights.
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A15,18)
1904 Israel Waldbaum began selling
butter and eggs in Brooklyn, New York. By the 1980s the operation had
grown to 140 supermarkets and was sold to A&P.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.C6)
1904 Ivan P. Pavlov (d.1936),
Russian physiologist, won the Nobel Prize.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1904 The Roosevelt Corollary
transformed the Monroe Doctrine from one of nonintervention by European
powers in Western Hemispheric affairs to one of intervention by the
U.S. Reflect-ing Roosevelt's "Big Stick" philosophy, the president
stated in 1904: "Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a
general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as
elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation,
and in the Western hemi-sphere the adherence of the United States to
the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly,
in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of
an international police power."
(HNQ, 1/4/99)
1904 Alton B. Parker, aka "the
Sphinx" or "the Mummy" or "the enigma from New York," ran as a Democrat
against Theodore Roosevelt.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.E8)
1904 Silas Swallow was the US
presidential candidate for the Prohibition Party. The Anti-Saloon
League spearheaded 20th-century prohibitionism and invented modern
interest-group politics.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.E3)(WSJ, 10/5/98, p.A28)
1904 American Tobacco merged with
its holding company, Continental Tobacco Co.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)
1904 The Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Car
Co. was formed. It would later become Chrysler Corp.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1904 Charles S. Rolls became the
selling agent for cars made by F. Henry Royce.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1904 Cleveland Cap Screw
introduced the first two-piece engine valve production process based a
design by welder Charles Thompson.
(F, 10/7/96, p.66)
1904 Otto H.L. Wernicke joined his
Michigan furniture business with the Ohio Globe Files Co. to form the
Globe-Wernicke Co. Around 1905 Wernicke Furniture purchased the Fred
Macey Furniture Co. and began making stackable bookcases.
Globe-Wernicke sued Macey in 1906 for using its patents. After years of
litigation Globe lost.
(SFC, 8/9/06, p.G3)
1904 Uranium became recognized as
an energy source.
(WSJ, 3/18/05, p.C1)
1904 A fast-spreading fungus was
discovered that almost wiped out the American chestnut trees, which
could grow to a height of 100 feet and a diameter of 8 feet or more. In
2006 a sur-viving stand was found near Warm Springs, Georgia.
(AP, 5/19/06)
1904 Henri Poincare, French
mathematician, posited a problem in topology that in 2000 be-came one
of 7 “millennium prize problems.” In 2003 a solution was proposed by
Dr. Grigori Perelman of Russia. In 2006 a 328-page book was published
that explained Perelman’s 22 page solution.
(WSJ, 7/21/06, p.A9)
1904 R.H. Curtis, British
astronomer, proved that the brighter component of Castor is a binary
star with a period of 9 days.
(SCTS, p.163)
1904 The Berringer Crater was
discovered and understood to be a meteor impact crater dated back
25-50,000 years. The crater is ¾ of a mile wide and 640 feet
deep and is estimated to have resulted from a meteor of about 100 feet
in diameter.
(TMP, KCTS, 1987)
1904 The Weerdinge Couple, 2 men,
were found in a Holland bog and dated from 160BC – 220AD.
(AM, 7/97, p.66)
1904 After a mine disaster near
Pittsburgh killed 178 people, industrialist Andrew Carnegie established
a fund to honor rescuers known as the Carnegie Hero Fund.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.C-8)(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.B1)
1904 Luigi Palma di Cesnola,
American Consul to Cyprus (1865) and artifact collector, died. In 1971
Elizabeth McFadden authored her Cesnola biography: "The Glitter and the
Gold." In 2000 Anna G. Marangou authored "The Consul Luigi Palma di
Cesnola (1832-1904): Life and Deeds."
(AM, 7/00, p.60)
1904 Nez Perce Chief Joseph died,
reportedly of a broken heart.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A13)
1904 Agnes Wilson (b.1832),
painter, died. She arrived in SF with the gold Rush in 1850 and taught
painting to her son, Charles Theller Wilson (b.1855). Agnes is
California’s earliest know woman artist.
(SFCM, 10/28/01, p.20)
1904 In Australia the first
regional art gallery in New South Wales was built at Broken Hill.
(Hem., 2/97, p.94)
1904 The London Symphony Orchestra
was formed.
(Econ, 2/28/04, p.82)
1904 William and Gilbert Foyle
founded Foyle's bookstore. They began by selling their text-books after
failing the entrance exam for the civil service.
(SFC, 6/11/99, p.D6)
1904 In England the Grand Pier
opened at Weston-super-Mare on the northern Somerset coast and
stretched a quarter of a mile (400 meters) into the Bristol Channel.
The theatre pavil-ion on the Grand Pier was destroyed by fire in 1930
and rebuilt, opening three years later. In 2008 another fire destroyed
the pier.
(AFP, 7/28/08)
1904 The Congo Reform Association
was born following the return of Roger Casement from the Congo and his
meeting with Edmund Morel.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.9)
1904 The British Rover Motor Car
Company was founded.
(SSFC, 11/22/09, p.H1)
1904 Christopher Dresser (b.1834),
English designer, died. In 1876 he became the 1st Euro-pean designer to
visit Japan.
(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.D4)
1904 Canada's North West Mounted
Police force was renamed the Royal North West Mounted Police by King
Edward VII. With the incorporation of the federal organization called
the Dominion Police in 1920, the name Royal Canadian Mounted Police was
adopted.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HNQ, 5/5/98)
1904 In Victoria, British
Columbia, Jennie Butchart began a garden of peas and roses. The garden
grew to 55 acres of flower beds and became world famous.
(SSFC, 5/30/04, p.D7)
1904 In Denmark a new law forced
the people to stick with the names they had, as opposed to the previous
system where people where named after their fathers first name.
(WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A1)
1904 Denmark and Sweden issued the
first Christmas seals to raise money to fight tuberculo-sis.
(SFEC, 12/13/98, Z1 p.10)
1904 Ernesto Schiaparelli, Italian
Egyptologist, discovered the tomb of Queen Nefertari, wife of Ramses
II, in the sands of Luxor’s Valley of the Queens. The 3,000 year old
tomb is later re-stored and opened to the public on 11/4/95.
(V. Sun, 11/3/95, p.A-20)
1904 In Germany the O&M
Hausser toy company was founded in Ludwigsberg. They used they
"Elastolin" trade name for small composition figures that included
soldiers of various coun-tries.
(SFC, 1/13/99, Z1 p.6)
1904 In Guatemala the Postal Code
created the General Administration of Mail and Tele-graphs (GAMT). The
system grew to become very inefficient and in the 1980s private
delivery businesses began to spring up.
(WSJ, 6/5/98, p.A15)
1904 Iceland won home rule.
(DrEE, 1/4/97, p.4)
1904 In Italy Prince Piero Ginori
Conti invented the first geothermal power plant in 1904, at the
Larderello dry steam field.
(Econ, 12/20/08,
p.70)(http://geothermal.marin.org/geopresentation/sld050.htm)
1904 In Japan Nippon Toki Kaisha
Ltd. began manufacturing Noritake porcelain.
(SFC, 3/3/99, Z1 p.4)(SFC, 11/9/05, p.G9)
1904 Panama adopted the US dollar
as its currency.
(WSJ, 1/18/98, p.A1)
1904 The eastern Samoan islands
became territories of the United States and later became known as
American Samoa. The western islands became known as Western Samoa
(later the Independent State of Samoa), passing from German control to
New Zealand in 1914. New Zea-land administered Western Samoa under the
auspices of the League of Nations and then as a UN trusteeship until
independence in 1962. Western Samoa was the first Pacific Island
country to gain its independence.
(www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/1842.htm)
1904 In South Africa Soweto (an
acronym for southwest townships) was established as a separate,
African-only district.
(SFEC, 7/19/98, p.T4)
1904 In Thailand the Siam Society,
a bastion of Thai culture, was founded.
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)
1904-1905 Japan goes to war against Russia.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)
1904-1911 Leonard Sidney Woolf (1880-1969) served in
the Ceylon Civil Service. He later authored “The Village in the
Jungle,” a novel based on his time in Sri Lanka. In 2006 Victoria
Glendinning authored “Leonard Woolf: A Life.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Woolf)(Econ,
9/16/06, p.93)
1904-1911 In Kenya a deal between the British and the
Masai forced the pastoral people from their land in the western Rift
Valley.
(WSJ, 1/30/08, p.A18)
1904-1967 J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist:
"In some sort of crude sense which no vul-garity, no humor, no
overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and
this is a knowledge which they cannot lose." "As long as men are free
to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what
they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress."
(AP, 7/16/97)(AP, 1/26/98)
1904-1968 George Gamow, physicist and writer. He
popularized the idea of The Big Bang.
(V.D.-H.K.p.335)
1904-1971 Margaret Bourke-White, American
photojournalist: "A burning purpose attracts others who are drawn along
with it and help fulfill it."
(AP, 5/18/98)
1904-1972 Betty Smith, American author: "I can never
give a 'yes' or a 'no.' I don't believe every-thing in life can be
settled by a monosyllable."
(AP, 2/19/99)
1904-1980 Cecil Beaton, English fashion photographer
and costume designer: "The truly fashion-able are beyond fashion."
(AP, 7/5/00)
1904-1980 Louis Kronenberger, American author: "The
trouble with our age is all signposts and no destination."
(AP, 4/27/99)
1904-1984 Reverend Karl Rahner, Austrian theologian:
"The theological problem today is to find the art of drawing religion
out of a man, not pumping it into him."
(AP, 6/26/99)
1904-1990 Marya Mannes, American critic: "An American
who can make money, invoke God, and be no better than his neighbor, has
nothing to fear but truth itself."
(AP, 11/13/99)
1904-1993 William L. Shirer, American author and
journalist: "History must speak for itself. A histo-rian is content if
he has been able to shed more light."
(AP, 1/10/98)
Go to 1905-1907