Events
January 1899
*
January 1
** Spanish rule ends in
Cuba, concluding 400 years of the
Spanish Empire in the Americas.
**
Queens and
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...
become administratively part of
New York City.
*
January 2
Events Pre-1600
* 69 – The Roman legions in Germania Superior refuse to swear loyalty to Galba. They rebel and proclaim Vitellius as emperor.
* 366 – The Alemanni cross the frozen Rhine in large numbers, invading the Roman Empi ...
–
**
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
sets up a customs office in
Puerto Alonso
Puerto, a Spanish word meaning ''seaport'', may refer to:
Places
*El Puerto de Santa María, Andalusia, Spain
*Puerto, a seaport town in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines
*Puerto Colombia, Colombia
*Puerto Cumarebo, Venezuela
*Puerto Galera, Orient ...
, leading to the Brazilian settlers there to declare the
Republic of Acre in a revolt against Bolivian authorities.
**The first part of the
Jakarta Kota–Anyer Kidul railway on the island of
Java is opened between Batavia Zuid (
Jakarta Kota) and
Tangerang.
*
January 3
Events Pre-1600
*AD 69, 69 – The Roman legions on the Rhine refuse to declare their allegiance to Galba, instead proclaiming their legate, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor.
* 250 – Emperor Decius orders everyone in the Roman Empire (ex ...
– Hungarian Prime Minister
Dezső Bánffy
Baron Dezső Bánffy de Losonc (28 October 184324 May 1911) was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1895 to 1899.
Biography
The son of Baron Dániel Bánffy and Anna Gyárfás, Dezső Bánffy was born in Kolozs ...
fights an inconclusive duel with his bitter enemy in parliament, Horánszky Nándor.
*
January 4
Events Pre-1600
*46 BC – Julius Caesar fights Titus Labienus in the Battle of Ruspina.
* 871 – Battle of Reading: Æthelred of Wessex and his brother Alfred are defeated by a Danish invasion army.
1601–1900
*1649 – Engli ...
–
**U.S. President
William McKinley's declaration of December 21, 1898, proclaiming a policy of benevolent assimilation of the Philippines as a United States territory, is announced in Manila by the U.S. commander, General
Elwell Otis
Elwell Stephen Otis (March 25, 1838 – October 21, 1909) was a United States Army General officer, general who served in the American Civil War, Indian Wars, the Philippines late in the Spanish–American War and during the Philippine–American ...
, and angers independence activists who had fought against Spanish rule.
**The
American Society of Landscape Architects, still in existence 123 years later, is founded.
*
January 5 – A fierce battle is fought between American troops and Filipino defenders at the town of
Pililla on the island of Luzon. The Filipinos retreat to the mountains at Tanay.
*
January 6
Events Pre-1600
*1066 – Following the death of Edward the Confessor on the previous day, the Witan meets to confirm Harold Godwinson as the new King of England; Harold is crowned the same day, sparking a succession crisis that will eve ...
–
Lord Curzon becomes
Viceroy of India.
*
January 7
Events Pre-1600
*49 BC – The Senate of Rome says that Caesar will be declared a public enemy unless he disbands his army. This prompts the tribunes who support him to flee to Ravenna, where Caesar is waiting.
* 1325 – Alfonso IV ...
– ''
The Lucky Star'', an English
comic opera composed by
Ivan Caryll and produced by the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company premieres at the
Savoy Theatre in London for the first of 143 performances.
*
January 8
Events Pre-1600
* 307 – Emperor Huai of Jin, Jin Huaidi becomes emperor of China in succession to his father, Emperor Hui of Jin, Jin Huidi, despite a challenge from his uncle, Sima Ying.
* 871 – Æthelred I, King of Wessex, Æthel ...
– The
Association football club
SK Rapid Wien is founded in
Vienna.
*
January 9
Events Pre-1600
* 681 – Twelfth Council of Toledo: King Erwig of the Visigoths initiates a council in which he implements diverse measures against the Jews in Spain.
*1127 – Jin–Song Wars: Invading Jurchen soldiers from the J ...
–
**After a
successful revolt against the
Ottoman Empire by the inhabitants of the island of
Crete, the area, which joins Greece, gets its first constitution, with provisions for a provincial legislature with 138 Christian deputies and 50 Muslim deputies.
**
George F. Hoar, a U.S. Senator for Massachusetts, speaks out in the Senate against American expansion into the Philippines. The text of Hoar's is sent by cable to
Hong Kong at a cost of $4,000, and is later cited by Ambassador John Barrett on January 13, 1900, as an incitement to Filipino attacks on U.S. troops.
*
January 10
Events Pre-1600
*49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signalling the start of civil war.
* 9 – The Western Han dynasty ends when Wang Mang claims that the divine Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the dynasty and the be ...
– The
Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity is founded, at
Illinois Wesleyan University in
Bloomington, Illinois
Bloomington is a city and the county seat of McLean County, Illinois, United States. It is adjacent to the town of Normal, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington–Normal metropolitan area. Bloomington ...
.
*
January 11 – The Steel Plate Transferrers' Association, the first labor union for workers skilled in
siderography Siderography is a mechanical process developed by Jacob Perkins in the early 1800s enabling the unlimited reproduction of engraved steel plates. The process enables the transfer of an impression from a steel plate to a steel cylinder in a rolling ...
(the engraving and mass reproduction of steel plates for newspaper printing) is established. After changing its name to the International Association of Siderographers, it had 80 members at its peak. It dissolves in 1991, with only eight members left.
*
January 12 – A massive rescue by the
Lynmouth Lifeboat Station
Lynmouth Lifeboat Station was the base for Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) search and rescue operations at Lynmouth, Devon in England from 1869 until 1944. Its best known action was in 1899 when the lifeboat was taken across Exmoor ...
, using 100 men and requiring the transport of the lifeboat ''Louisa'' over land and then out to sea, succeeds in saving all 18 men aboard. The event is later made famous in the children's book ''The Overland Launch''.
*
January 13
Events Pre-1600
* 27 BC – Octavian transfers the state to the free disposal of the Roman Senate and the people. He receives Spain, Gaul, and Syria as his province for ten years.
* 532 – The Nika riots break out, during the racing ...
– The
Canadian Northern Railway is established, on January 13, 1899
*
January 14
Events Pre-1600
*1236 – King Henry III of England marries Eleanor of Provence.
*1301 – Andrew III of Hungary dies, ending the Árpád dynasty in Hungary.
1601–1900
*1639 – The "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, Fundamenta ...
–
**The
White Star Line ship
RMS ''Oceanic'', at the time the largest British ocean liner up to that time, is launched from the
Irish port of
Belfast in front of over 50,000 people. It will begin its maiden voyage on September 6.
**The British four-masted sailing ship ''Andelana''
capsizes during a storm in
Commencement Bay off the coast of the U.S. state of
Washington, with the loss of all 17 of her crew.
*
January 15
Events Pre-1600
* 69 – Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, beginning a reign of only three months.
* 1541 – King Francis I of France gives Jean-François Roberval a commission to settle the province of ...
– The name of
Puerto Rico is changed by the new U.S. military government to "Porto Rico". It will not be changed back until May 17, 1932.
*
January 16
Events Pre-1600
* 27 BC – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire.
* 378 – General Siyaj K'ak' conquers Tikal, enlarging the domain of King Spear ...
– Eduardo Calceta is appointed as Chief of the Army (''Jefe General'') of the rebel Philippine Republic army by Emilio Aguinaldo.
*
January 17 – The United States takes possession of
Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
*
January 18 – The General Assembly of the U.S. state of
Pennsylvania begins the task of filling the U.S. Senate seat of
Matthew Quay, who had recently resigned after being indicted on criminal charges. After 79 ballots and three months, no candidate has a majority, and the General Assembly refuses to approve the governor's appointment of a successor, and the seat remains vacant for more than two years. The Pennsylvania experience later leads to the
17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution established the direct election of United States senators in each state. The amendment supersedes Article I, Section 3, Clauses 1 and2 of the Constitution, under whi ...
to provide for U.S. Senators to be directly elected by popular vote, rather than by the state legislatures.
*
January 19 –
**The
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is formed (it is disbanded in
1956
Events
January
* January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan.
* January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim ...
).
**Future film producer
Samuel Goldwyn, born in Poland and later a resident of Germany and England, arrives in the United States at the age of sixteen as Szmuel Gelbfisz.
*
January 20
Events Pre-1600
* 250 – Pope Fabian is martyred during the Decian persecution.
* 649 – King Chindasuinth, at the urging of bishop Braulio of Zaragoza, crowns his son Recceswinth as co-ruler of the Visigothic Kingdom.
* 1156 &ndas ...
– The
Schurman Commission is created by U.S. President
William McKinley to study the issue of the American approach to he sovereignty of the Philippines, ceded to the U.S. on December 10 by Spain. The five-man group, chaired by
Cornell University President
Jacob Schurman, later concludes that the Philippines will need to become financially independent before a republic can be created.
*
January 21
**
Opel
Opel Automobile GmbH (), usually shortened to Opel, is a German automobile manufacturer which has been a subsidiary of Stellantis since 16 January 2021. It was owned by the American automaker General Motors from 1929 until 2017 and the PSA Grou ...
Motors opens for business in Germany.
** The
Malolos Constitution is ratified in the
Province of Bulacan by the
Revolutionary Government of the Philippines.
*
January 22
Events Pre-1600
* 613 – Eight-month-old Constantine is crowned as co-emperor (''Caesar'') by his father Heraclius at Constantinople.
* 871 – Battle of Basing: The West Saxons led by King Æthelred I are defeated by the Danelaw Vi ...
– The leaders of six Australian colonies meet in
Melbourne, to discuss the confederation of Australia as a whole.
*
January 23
**
Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (: March 22, 1869February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who is the youngest president of the Philippines (1899–1901) and is recognized as the first president of the Philippine ...
is sworn in, as President of the
First Philippine Republic.
**
Mubarak Al-Sabah
Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah (1837 – 28 November 1915) ( ar, الشيخ مبارك بن صباح الصباح) "the Great" ( ar, مبارك الكبير) was the seventh ruler of the Sheikhdom of Kuwait from 18 May 1896 until his death on 18 Novemb ...
, the emir of
Kuwait, signs the
Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement of 1899 a secret treaty with the British Empire to accept
protectorate status for the Middle Eastern sheikdom in return for British protection of Kuwaiti territory.
** The British
Southern Cross Expedition
The ''Southern Cross'' Expedition, otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition, 1898–1900, was the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, and the forerunner of the more celebrated journeys of Robert Falcon Sc ...
crosses the
Antarctic Circle.
*
January 24 – The
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) is a private medical school with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and additional locations in Suwanee, Georgia (PCOM Georgia) and Moultrie, Georgia (PCOM South Georgia).
Founded ...
, one of the oldest medical schools in the United States, is founded.
*
January 25
Events Pre-1600
* 41 – After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman emperor by the Senate.
* 750 – In the Battle of the Zab, the Abbasid rebels defeat the Umayyad Caliphate, leading to the overthrow of the dynasty ...
– The city of
Ponce, Puerto Rico is saved from disaster by seven firemen and one volunteer civilian who disobey orders and stop
"El Polverin", a fire near the U.S. Army's store of explosive artillery. A
"Monument to the Heroes of El Poverin" is later erected in their honor.
*
January 26 –
**U.S. Representative
George Henry White
George Henry White (December 18, 1852 – December 28, 1918) was an American attorney and politician, elected as a Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district between 1897 and 1901. He later became a banker ...
of
North Carolina, the only African-American in Congress at the time, delivers his first major speech, speaking out against disenfranchisement of black voters and proposing that the number of representatives from a U.S. state should be based on the number of persons of voting age who actually cast ballots, rather than population. "
**German inventor
Karl Ferdinand Braun
Karl Ferdinand Braun (; 6 June 1850 – 20 April 1918) was a German electrical engineer, inventor, physicist and Nobel laureate in physics. Braun contributed significantly to the development of radio and television technology: he shared the ...
, who will later share the 1909
Nobel Prize in Physics with
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...
, receives British Patent No. 1899-1862 for his wireless radio invention "Telegraphy without directly connected wire".
*
January 27
Events Pre-1600
* 98 – Trajan succeeds his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor; under his rule the Roman Empire will reach its maximum extent.
* 945 – The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown and forced to becom ...
–
Camille Jenatzy
Camille Jenatzy (1868, Schaerbeek – 8 December 1913, Habay la Neuve) was a Belgian race car driver. He is known for breaking the land speed record three times and being the first man to break the 100 km/h barrier.
He was nicknamed ''Le ...
of France becomes the first man to drive an automobile more than 80 kilometers per hour, almost breaking the 50 mph barrier when he reaches an unprecedented speed of in his CGA Dogcart racecar. Jenatzy's speed is more than 20% faster than the January 17 mark of set by
Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat.
*
January 28
**At a time when U.S. Senators are elected by the state legislature rather than by ballot, wealthy businessman
William A. Clark is elected U.S. Senator after offering
bribes
Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corru ...
to most of the members. The U.S. Senate refuses to seat him after evidence of the bribery is revealed.
**The
League of Peja
The League of Peja ( sq, Lidhja e Pejës), also known as League of İpek or Besa-Besë (Pledge for a Pledge) between Albanians, was an Albanian political organization established in 1899 in the city of İpek (now Peja), Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Em ...
, organized by
Haxhi Zeka to lobby for a Kosovar Albanian state within the Ottoman Empire, attracts 450 delegates to its first convention, held at the city of
Peja
Peja ( Indefinite Albanian form: ''Pejë'' ) or Peć ( sr-Cyrl, Пећ ) is the fourth largest city of Kosovo and seat of Peja Municipality and Peja District. It is situated in the region of Rugova on the eastern section of the Accursed Mount ...
, now in the Republic of Kosovo.
*
January 29 – A lawyer for the estate of
John W. Keely, an inventor who had persuaded investors in his Keely Motor Company that an automobile could be created that would operate from Keely's "induction resonance motion motor" that had achieved
perpetual motion
Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work infinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, a ...
, reveals that the late Mr. Keely's motor had been a fraud, and that the widow knew nothing of it.
*
January 30
Events Pre-1600
*1018 – Poland and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Peace of Bautzen.
*1287 – King Wareru founds the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and proclaims independence from the Pagan Kingdom.
1601–1900
*1607 – An estimated ...
–
Dimitar Grekov is appointed as
Prime Minister of Bulgaria
The prime minister of Bulgaria ( bg, Министър-председател, Ministar-predsedatel) is the head of government of Bulgaria. They are the leader of a political coalition in the Bulgarian parliament – known as the National Assemb ...
by
King Ferdinand I
Ferdinand I ( es, Fernando I; 10 March 1503 – 25 July 1564) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1556, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia from 1526, and Archduke of Austria from 1521 until his death in 1564.Milan Kruhek: Cetin, grad izbornog sabo ...
, but removed from office less than 10 months later on October 13.
*
January 31 –
Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ ''Tsalagihi Ayeli'' or ᏣᎳᎩᏰᎵ ''Tsalagiyehli''), also known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It ...
voters in the
Indian Territory (later the U.S. state of
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
) approve a proposition to allot Cherokee lands and to dissolve the Cherokee government, but the U.S. Congress never ratifies the results.
February 1899
*
February 1
Events Pre-1600
* 1327 – The teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
* 1411 – The First Peace of Thorn is signed in Thorn (Toruń), Mon ...
–
**
Ranavalona III, who had been the
Queen of Madagascar
This article lists the Imerina monarchs, from the earliest origins of the Merina monarchy until the French conquest of the Merina Kingdom during the Second Madagascar expedition.
Early monarchs in the Merina line
Below is a list of the line of ...
until being deposed on February 28, 1897, is sent into exile by French colonial authorities, along with the rest of the royal family. She departs on the ship ''Yang-Tse'' on a 28-day trip to
Marseilles
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
.
**The
Suntory
(commonly referred to as simply Suntory) is a Japanese multinational brewing and distilling company group. Established in 1899, it is one of the oldest companies in the distribution of alcoholic beverages in Japan, and makes Japanese whisky. Its ...
whisky distiller in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
is opened by Shinjiro Torii in
Osaka as a store selling imported wines.
*
February 2
Events Pre-1600
* 506 – Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths, promulgates the Breviary of Alaric (''Breviarium Alaricianum'' or ''Lex Romana Visigothorum''), a collection of "Roman law".
* 880 – Battle of Lüneburg Heath: King ...
– The participants in the Australian Premiers' Conference, held in
Melbourne, agree that Australia's capital (
Canberra
Canberra ( )
is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
) should be located between Sydney and Melbourne.
*
February 3
Events Pre-1600
* 1112 – Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.
*1451 – Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire.
*1488 – ...
–
Kansas University
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...
's new
college basketball team, coached by the game's inventor, Dr.
James Naismith, plays its first game, and is defeated by the
YMCA team of
Kansas City, Kansas
Kansas City, abbreviated as "KCK", is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas, and the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is an inner suburb of the older and more populous Kansas City, Missouri, after which it is named. As of the ...
, 16 to 5.
*
February 4
Events Pre–1600
* 211 – Following the death of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus at Eboracum (modern York, England) while preparing to lead a campaign against the Caledonians, the empire is left in the control of his two quarrellin ...
–
**The
Philippine–American War
The Philippine–American War or Filipino–American War ( es, Guerra filipina-estadounidense, tl, Digmaang Pilipino–Amerikano), previously referred to as the Philippine Insurrection or the Tagalog Insurgency by the United States, was an arm ...
begins as hostilities break out in Manila.
**
Rudyard Kipling's poem "
The White Man's Burden
"The White Man's Burden" (1899), by Rudyard Kipling, is a poem about the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) that exhorts the United States to assume colonial control of the Filipino people and their country.Hitchens, Christopher. ''Bloo ...
" is first published, appearing in ''
The Times'' of London. A response to the United States occupation of the Philippine Islands, and exhorting members of the
White race
White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view.
Description of populations as " ...
to be responsible for benevolent civilizing of the world's
"non-white" people, the poem is reprinted in ''
The New York Sun'' the next day.
*
February 5
Events Pre-1600
* 62 – Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.
* 1576 – Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours and rejoins the Protestant forces in the French Wars of Religion.
* 1597 – A group of early Japanese Christians ar ...
– The
first major battle of the Philippine–American War concludes with the capture by the U.S. of the
San Juan River Bridge
The San Juan River Bridge (Filipino: ''Tulay ng Ilog San Juan''), also known as Pinaglabanan Bridge, San Juan del Monte Bridge, ''San Juan Bridge'' and the Old Santa Mesa Bridge, is a bridge that connects San Juan and Manila, spanning the San ...
that connects
Manila and
San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John, may refer to:
Places Argentina
* San Juan Province, Argentina
* San Juan, Argentina, the capital of that province
* San Juan, Salta, a village in Iruya, Salta Province
* San Juan (Buenos Aires Underground), ...
. U.S. Army General
Arthur MacArthur Jr.
Arthur MacArthur Jr. (June 2, 1845 – September 5, 1912) was a lieutenant general of the United States Army. He became the military Governor-General of the American-occupied Philippines in 1900; his term ended a year later due to clashes wi ...
directs troops of the U.S. Army Eighth Corps to victory over Filipino troops commanded by General
Antonio Luna. In the two-day battle, 55 U.S. soldiers and 238 Filipino soldiers are killed.
*
February 6
Events Pre-1600
* 1579 – The Archdiocese of Manila is made a diocese by a papal bull with Domingo de Salazar being its first bishop.
1601–1900
* 1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland is proclaimed King upon the death of ...
– A peace treaty between the United States and Spain is ratified by the
United States Senate by a vote of 57 to 27 to end the
Spanish–American War.
*
February 7 –
Elections are held in Greece for the 235 seats of the Hellenic Parliament. Supporters of the late
Charilaos Trikoupis win 110 seats, 8 short of a majority, and Trikoupis's successor,
Georgios Theotokis forms a government as Prime Minister.
*
February 8 – Protesting against the government of Russia breaks out at
Saint Petersburg University and mounted police violently respond to the group, causing a riot.
*
February 9 – The
Dodge Commission exonerates the U.S. Department of War from responsibility in the
United States Army beef scandal, where meatpacking companies supplied low-grade, putrefied beef to American soldiers during the Spanish American War and caused an unquantified number of cases of food poisoning. While War Secretary
Russell Alger is not accused of criminal negligence, the Commission implies that he was incompetent and he is later forced to resign.
*
February 10 –
**U.S. Army troops, supported by bombardment from the warships ''Charleston'' and ''Monandock'', defeat Filipino forces in the
Battle of Caloocan and get control of the Manila to Dagupan railway. Colonel W. S. Metcalfe is later accused by some of his men of having ordered the shooting of Filipino soldiers taken prisoner.
**Future U.S. President
Herbert Hoover and his fiancée
Lou Henry, both 24, are married at her parents' home in
Monterey, California
Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bo ...
, and depart the next day for a 14-month stay in China, where Hoover works as a mining engineer.
*
February 11
Events Pre-1600
*660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
* 55 – The death under mysterious circumstances of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman empire, on the eve of his coming ...
– The coldest temperature recorded up to that time in the continental United States is set as
Fort Logan, Montana
Fort Logan and Blockhouse is a site on the National Register of Historic Places located near White Sulphur Springs, Montana. It was added to the Register on October 6, 1970. The blockhouse is all that remains of the fort structures. It was resto ...
records a low of .
*
February 12 – The
Great Blizzard of 1899 strikes the east coast of the United States, causing subzero temperatures as far south as southern
Florida for two days and destroying the citrus fruit crop that year.
*
February 13
Events Pre-1600
* 962 – Emperor Otto I and Pope John XII co-sign the ''Diploma Ottonianum'', recognizing John as ruler of Rome.
*1322 – The central tower of Ely Cathedral falls on the night of 12th–13th.
*1462 – The ...
– In New York, the White Star ocean liner
SS ''Germanic'', already laden with ice and snow during its voyage from Liverpool, becomes even more weighed down after disembarking its passengers when the New York City blizzard strikes. With of added weight, the ship begins to list sideways and additional weight enters cargo doors that had been opened for refuelling. ''Germanic'' remains on the bottom New York Harbor for more than a week while salvaging goes on, then requires refurbishing for three months, but becomes operational again.
*
February 14
Events Pre-1600
* 748 – Abbasid Revolution: The Hashimi rebels under Abu Muslim Khorasani take Merv, capital of the Umayyad province Khorasan, marking the consolidation of the Abbasid revolt.
* 842 – Charles the Bald and Louis ...
–
Voting machines are approved by the
U.S. Congress, for use in federal
elections.
*
February 15
Events Pre-1600
* 438 – Roman emperor Theodosius II publishes the law codex Codex Theodosianus
* 590 – Khosrau II is crowned king of Persia.
* 706 – Byzantine emperor Justinian II has his predecessors Leontios and Tiberi ...
– The
February Manifesto is issued by the
Emperor of Russia
The emperor or empress of all the Russias or All Russia, ''Imperator Vserossiyskiy'', ''Imperatritsa Vserossiyskaya'' (often titled Tsar or Tsarina/Tsaritsa) was the Absolute monarchy, monarch of the Russian Empire.
The title originated in conn ...
, decreeing that a veto by the
Diet of Finland
The Diet of Finland (Finnish ''Suomen maapäivät'', later ''valtiopäivät''; Swedish ''Finlands Lantdagar''), was the legislative assembly of the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1809 to 1906 and the recipient of the powers of the Swedish Riksda ...
may be overruled in legislative matters concerning the interest of all Russia, including
autonomous Finland. The manifesto is viewed as unconstitutional and a coup d'état by many Finns, who have come to consider their country a separate constitutional state in its own right, in union with the Russian Empire. Furthermore, the manifesto also fails to elaborate the criteria that a law has to meet in order to be considered to concern Russian imperial interests, and not an internal affair of Finland (affairs over which the Diet's authority is supposed have remained unaltered), leaving it to be decided by the autocratic Emperor. This results in Finnish fears that the Diet of Finland may be overruled arbitrarily.
*
February 16 –
**
Félix Faure, the
President of France since 1895, dies of a stroke in his office while engaged in sexual activity with his mistress,
Marguerite Steinheil
Marguerite Jeanne "Meg" Japy Steinheil, Baroness Abinger (16 April 1869 – 17 July 1954) was a French woman known for her many love affairs with important men. She was present at the death of President Félix Faure, who was rumored to have ...
.
**
Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur, the first
Association football club in
Iceland, is established in the island's capital,
Reykjavík.
*
February 17
Events Pre-1600
* 1370 – Northern Crusades: Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights meet in the Battle of Rudau.
* 1411 – Following the successful campaigns during the Ottoman Interregnum, Musa Çelebi, one of the sons of ...
– The research vessel
SS ''Southern Cross'', on
an Antarctic expedition led by
Carsten Borchgrevink, arrives at
Cape Adare
Cape Adare is a prominent cape of black basalt forming the northern tip of the Adare Peninsula and the north-easternmost extremity of Victoria Land, East Antarctica.
Description
Marking the north end of Borchgrevink Coast and the west e ...
and begins unloading 90 sledge dogs— the first ever on the continent and two Norwegian
Sámi crewmen,
Per Savio and Ole Must, who become the first humans to spend the night in
Antarctica. Over the next 12 days, the rest of the 31-man crew brings in supplies builds a temporary settlement.
*
February 18 – The National Assembly of France elects a new President to fill out the remainder of the late President Faure's term. Senate President
Émile Loubet wins the vote, 483 to 278, against Prime Minister
Jules Méline
Félix Jules Méline (; 20 May 183821 December 1925) was a French statesman, Prime Minister of France from 1896 to 1898.
Biography
Méline was born at Remiremont. Having taken up law as his profession, he was chosen a deputy in 1872, and in 187 ...
.
*
February 19
Events Pre-1600
* 197 – Emperor Septimius Severus defeats usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum, the bloodiest battle between Roman armies.
* 356 – The anti-paganism policy of Constantius II forbids the worship of pagan ...
– In Venezuela, the former Minister of War, Major General
Ramón Guerra, angry with the reforms of President
Ignacio Andrade, proclaims the state of
Guárico as an independent territory. President Andrade orders General Augusto Lutowsky to crush the rebellion and Guerra flees to Colombia, but later comes back as Minister of War.
*
February 20
Events Pre-1600
*1339 – The Milanese army and the St. George's (San Giorgio) Mercenaries of Lodrisio Visconti clash in the Battle of Parabiago; Visconti is defeated.
*1472 – Orkney and Shetland are pawned by Norway to Scotland ...
– Discussions among members of a joint Anglo-American commission, set up by U.S. President
William McKinley and Canadian Prime Minister
Wilfrid Laurier to resolve the
Alaska boundary dispute, end abruptly after it is clear that the U.S. will not make any concessions. In response, Laurier makes clear that there will be no further concessions with the U.S. in trade.
*
February 21 –
**
Gdadebo II, the
Alake of Egba
Egba Ake, otherwise known as Egba Alake, is one of the five sections of Egbaland, the others being Oke-Ona, Gbagura, the Owu and Ibara (historically, Ibara is part of Yewa, not Egba, although it is located in the present day Abeokuta geographic ...
in what is now southeast Nigeria, signs an agreement with the British Governor of
Lagos Colony to lease lands for construction of a new railway from Aro to
Abeokuta.
**The British freighter
SS ''Jumna'', with the capacity to carry more than 500 people, but hauling a load of coal with minimal crew, is last seen passing
Rathlin Island
Rathlin Island ( ga, Reachlainn, ; Local Irish dialect: ''Reachraidh'', ; Scots: ''Racherie'') is an island and civil parish off the coast of County Antrim (of which it is part) in Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's northernmost point. ...
at Northern Ireland. Bound from
Scotland to deliver a shipment of coal to
Uruguay, it never arrives and is never seen again.
**The
Vicksburg National Military Park is established in Mississippi to preserve the battlefield of the
Battle of Vicksburg that was fought in 1863 during the American Civil War.
*
February 22 –
Convention Hall, which later hosts two national political conventions, opens in
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
with a concert by the band of
John Philip Sousa. The building burns down less than 14 months later.
*
February 23
Events Pre-1600
* 303 – Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.
* 532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I lays the foundation stone of a ...
– In France,
Paul Déroulède
Paul Déroulède (2 September 1846 – 30 January 1914) was a French author and politician, one of the founders of the nationalist League of Patriots.
Early life
Déroulède was born in Paris. He was published first as a poet in the magazine ''R ...
and
Jules Guérin
Jules Guérin (14 September 1860 – 10 February 1910) was a French journalist and anti-Semitic activist. He founded and led the Antisemitic League of France (), an organisation similar to the , and edited the French weekly (Paris, 1896–190 ...
of the right-wing
Ligue des Patriotes
The League of Patriots (french: Ligue des Patriotes) was a French far-right league, founded in 1882 by the nationalist poet Paul Déroulède, historian Henri Martin and politician Félix Faure. The Ligue began as a non-partisan nationalist league ...
attempt to persuade General
Georges-Gabriel de Pellieux
George Gabriel de Pellieux (6 September 1842 – 15 July 1900) was a French army officer who was best known for ignoring evidence during the Dreyfus affair, a scandal in which a Jewish officer was convicted of treason on the basis of a forgery.
Ea ...
to lead a coup d'état during the funeral of the late president Félix Faure in order to overthrow President Loubet. General Pellieux refuses to participate. Later in the year, Déroulède and Guérin are indicted for conspiracy against the government and banished from France.
*
February 24
Events Pre-1600
* 484 – King Huneric of the Vandals replaces Nicene bishops with Arian ones, and banishes some to Corsica.
* 1303 – The English are defeated at the Battle of Roslin, in the First War of Scottish Independence.
* 13 ...
– The works of Catholic priest and theologian
Herman Schell, including the recently published ''Der Katholicismus als Princip des Fortschritts'' and ''Die neue Zeit und der alte Glaube''are placed by the Roman Catholic Church on its
Index Librorum Prohibitorum
The ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' ("List of Prohibited Books") was a list of publications deemed heretical or contrary to morality by the Sacred Congregation of the Index (a former Dicastery of the Roman Curia), and Catholics were forbidden ...
, the list of banned books.
*
February 25
Events Pre-1600
* 138 – Roman emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius as his son, effectively making him his successor.
* 628 – Khosrow II, the last great Shah of the Sasanian Empire (Iran), is overthrown by his son Kavadh II.
...
– In an accident at Grove Hill,
Harrow, London, England, Edwin Sewell becomes the world's first driver of a petrol-driven vehicle to be killed; his passenger, Maj. James Richer, dies of injuries three days later.
*
February 26
Events Pre-1600
*747 BC – According to Ptolemy, the epoch (origin) of the Nabonassar Era began at noon on this date. Historians use this to establish the modern BC chronology for dating historic events.
* 364 – Valentinian I is p ...
–
Dezső Bánffy
Baron Dezső Bánffy de Losonc (28 October 184324 May 1911) was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1895 to 1899.
Biography
The son of Baron Dániel Bánffy and Anna Gyárfás, Dezső Bánffy was born in Kolozs ...
resigns as
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary, at the time a partner in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
, and is succeeded by
Kálmán Széll.
*
February 27
Events Pre-1600
* 380 – Edict of Thessalonica: Emperor Theodosius I and his co-emperors Gratian and Valentinian II declare their wish that all Roman citizens convert to Nicene Christianity.
* 425 – The University of Constantinople ...
– Japanese immigration to
South America, primarily the nation of
Peru, begins as the ship ''Sakura Maru'' departs from
Yokohama with 790 men employed by the Morioka-shokai Sugar Company. The group arrives in
Callao
Callao () is a Peruvian seaside city and Regions of Peru, region on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area. Callao is Peru's chief seaport and home to its main airport, Jorge Chávez International Airport. Callao municipality consists o ...
on April 3.
*
February 28
Events Pre-1600
*202 BC – Liu Bang is enthroned as the Emperor of China, beginning four centuries of rule by the Han dynasty.
* 870 – The Fourth Council of Constantinople closes.
*1525 – Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed on ...
– U.S. President William McKinley approves a law increasing the pension to American Civil War veterans, both Union and Confederate, to $25.00 per month.
March 1899
*
March 1 – In
Afghanistan, Capt.
George Roos-Keppel
Sir George Olaf Roos-Keppel, (7 September 1866 – 11 December 1921) was a British military officer who served in the capacities of Political Agent to the Governor-General in Kurram and Khyber, and later as Chief Commissioner, North West Fron ...
makes a sudden attack on a predatory band of
Chamkanni The Chamkani ( ps, څمکني ''tsamkanī''), also transliterated as Tsamkani or Samkani. In Paktia or Tribal dialect Chamkani is transliterated as Tsekmani or Sekmani, is a Pashtun tribe 4th son of Ghoryakhel confederation. They are mainly based i ...
s that have been raiding in the Kurram Valley, and captures 100 prisoners with 3,000 head of cattle.
*
March 2 –
Mount Rainier National Park is established, in the U.S. state of
Washington.
*
March 3 –
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...
conducts radio beacon experiments on Salisbury Plain in England and notices that radio waves are being reflected back to the transmitter by objects they encounter, one of the early steps in the potential for developing
radar.
*
March 4 –
Cyclone Mahina
Cyclone Mahina was the deadliest cyclone in recorded Australian history, and also likely the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere. Mahina struck Bathurst Bay, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, on 4 March 1899, ...
strikes
Bathurst Bay
Bathurst Bay is a bay in the localities of Lakefield and Starcke in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. In the 19th century it was the base for the pearling fleet. It is now a tourist attraction on Cape York Peninsula in northern Que ...
, Queensland. A 12 meter high wave reaches up to 5 km inland, leaving over 400 dead (the deadliest
natural disaster
A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econ ...
in Australia's history).
*
March 5
Events Pre-1600
* 363 – Roman emperor Julian leaves Antioch with an army of 90,000 to attack the Sasanian Empire, in a campaign which would bring about his own death.
* 1046 – Nasir Khusraw begins the seven-year Middle Eastern ...
–
George B. Selden
George Baldwin Selden (September 14, 1846 – January 17, 1922) was a patent lawyer and inventor who was granted a U.S. patent for an automobile in 1895.Flink, p. 51 ''Probably the most absurd action in the history of patent law was the granting ...
sells the rights to his patent for an internal combustion engine to the
Electric Vehicle Company
Electric Vehicle Company was an American automobile holding company and early pioneering manufacturer of automobiles.
History
The Electric Vehicle Company was founded September 27, 1897 as a holding company of battery-powered electric vehicle ...
, and he and the company then claim a royalty on all automobiles using such an engine.
*
March 6 – German chemist
Felix Hoffmann
Felix Hoffmann (21 January 1868 – 8 February 1946) was a German chemist notable for re-synthesising diamorphine (independently from C.R. Alder Wright who synthesized it 23 years earlier), which was popularized under the Bayer trade name ...
patents
aspirin, and
Bayer
Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...
registers its name as a trademark.
*
March 7
Events Pre-1600
* 161 – Marcus Aurelius and L. Commodus (who changes his name to Lucius Verus) become joint emperors of Rome on the death of Antoninus Pius.
* 1138 – Konrad III von Hohenstaufen was elected king of Germany at Cob ...
– The Provisional Law on the Judiciary is issued in the Philippines to provide for the selection of a Chief Justice.
*
March 8 – The Frankfurter Fußball-Club Victoria von 1899 (predecessor of
Eintracht Frankfurt
Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The team is currently playing in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the Germa ...
Association football club) is founded.
*
March 9 –
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
promulgates its
commercial code, the Shōhō, to take effect on June 16. The Shōhō, as amended applies to Japanese business today.
["Commercial and Corporate Law in Japan", by Harald Baum and Eiji Takahashi, in ''History of Law in Japan Since 1868'' (Brill, 2005) p. 355]
*
March 10 –
**The U.S. state of
Delaware enacts its
general corporation act that makes it the most important jurisdiction in United States corporate law.
**At the
Battle of Balantang
The Battle of Balantang, also known as the Second Battle of Jaro, was a battle fought in the early stages of the Philippine–American War. It was an organized counterattack by Filipino forces on U.S. forces that was executed on March 10, 1899, w ...
, the U.S. Army sustains 400 casualties in an attack by Philippine troops under the command of Pascual Magbanua.
*
March 11 –
**A
wireless distress signal is sent for the first time by a patrol boat to aid the endangered British cruiser ''Elbe''. The Morse code distress signal is heard by the lighthouse near
Ramsgate Lifeboat Station
Ramsgate Lifeboat Station is a Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) station located in the Port of Ramsgate in the English county of Kent. The station is one of the oldest to operate in the British Isles and has launched to many notable ...
, which sends a lifeboat to the rescue.
**
Waldemar Jungner files the patent application for the first
alkaline battery and receives Swedish patent number 11132.
*
March 12
Events Pre-1600
* 538 – Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city to the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius.
* 1088 – Election of Urban II as the 159th Pope of the Cat ...
–
Encinal County, Texas
Encinal County was a former Texas county. Its area is now completely contained in the present Webb County.
History
Encinal County was established on February 1, 1856 and was to consist of the eastern portion of present-day Webb County. The l ...
, created on February 1, 1856, near the U.S. city of
Laredo on the condition that it would create a
county seat, is discontinued and annexed into neighboring
Webb County. The largest town in the area,
Bruni Bruni can refer to:
* Bruni (surname)
* Bruni, Texas
* Bruni (horse), an Irish-bred Thoroughbred racehorse
* Bruni Olympic .380 BBM blank firing revolver
See also
* Bruno (disambiguation)
Bruno may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* ...
, has less than 400 people.
*
March 13 –
Chelan County, Washington
Chelan County (, ) is a List of counties in Washington, county in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 79,074. The county seat and largest city is Wenatchee, Washi ...
is created from
Okanogan and
Kittitas counties for the area around
Wenatchee.
*
March 14
Events Pre-1600
* 1074 – Battle of Mogyoród: Dukes Géza and Ladislaus defeat their cousin Solomon, King of Hungary, forcing him to flee to Hungary's western borderland.
* 1590 – Battle of Ivry: Henry of Navarre and the Huguen ...
–
**After
a civil war breaks out in
Samoa between
Malietoa Tanumafili I (recognized by Germany, the UK and the U.S.) and rebels who recognize
Mata'afa Iosefo
Mata'afa Iosefo (1832 – 6 February 1912) was a Paramount Chief of Samoa who was one of the three rival candidates for the kingship of Samoa during colonialism. He was also referred to as Tupua Malietoa To'oa Mata'afa Iosefo. He was crowned the K ...
as the island's king, the
USS ''Philadelphia'' takes control of the capital at
Apia.
**
Germany's
Kaiser Wilhelm II takes direct command of the
Imperial Navy.
*
March 15 –
Santa Cruz County is established in the southeast corner of
Pima County around the city of
Nogales (built across from the border of the larger Mexican city of
Nogales, Sonora) in the U.S. territory of Arizona.
*
March 16 – Memorial ceremonies are held for the burial of the late German hero
Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...
and his wife,
Johanna von Puttkamer with their re-interment at the
Bismarck Mausoleum, now a tourist attraction at
Friedrichsruh in
Aumühle. Bismarck, who had died on July 30, had been buried along with his wife at the estate of his home in Varzin, now the city of
Warcino in
Poland.
*
March 17 – A fire kills 86 people at the
Windsor Hotel in New York City.
*
March 18 –
Phoebe, the ninth-known moon of the planet
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
is discovered by U.S. astronomer
William Pickering from analysis of photographic plates made by a Peruvian observatory seven months earlier, the first discovery of a satellite photographically.
*
March 19 –
**One of the first labor unions for government employees is formed with the organization in
Denmark of the
Copenhagen Municipal Workers' Union
**The Battle of
Taguig takes place in the Philippines as the USS ''Laguna de Bay'' bombards the
Katipunan stronghold.
*
March 20 – At
Sing Sing prison in
Ossining, New York
Ossining may refer to:
* Ossining (town), New York, a town in Westchester County, New York state
*Ossining (village), New York, a village in the town of Ossining
* Ossining High School, a comprehensive public high school in Ossining village
* Ossi ...
,
Martha M. Place
Martha M. Place (September 18, 1849 – March 20, 1899) was an American murderer and the first woman to die in the electric chair. She was Execution (legal), executed on March 20, 1899, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility for the murder of her ste ...
becomes the first woman to be executed in an
electric chair.
*
March 21
Events Pre-1600
* 537 – Siege of Rome: King Vitiges attempts to assault the northern and eastern city walls, but is repulsed at the Praenestine Gate, known as the ''Vivarium'', by the defenders under the Byzantine generals Bessas an ...
– The
Eden Theatre
Village East by Angelika (originally the Louis N. Jaffe Art Theatre, also Village East, and formerly known by several other names) is a movie theater at 189 Second Avenue, on the corner with 12th Street, in the East Village of Manhattan in N ...
in
La Ciotat, a small city in France near
Marseilles
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
, lays a claim to being the first
cinema as brothers
Auguste Lumière and
Louis Lumière
Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 Besançon – 6 June 1948, Bandol) was a French engineer and industrialist who played a key role in the development of photography and cinema.
Early life and education
Lumière was one of four children of ...
present their short film, ''L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat'' ("The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat") to 250 surprised spectators. The action film shows a steam train pulling into
La Ciotat station
Gare de La Ciotat is a railway station serving the town La Ciotat, Bouches-du-Rhône department, southeastern France. It is situated on the Marseille–Ventimiglia railway, and is served by trains between Marseille, Toulon and Hyères. , passengers coming out of the cars, and departing passengers climbing on.
*
March 22 – The coronation of
Malietoa Tanumafili I as King of Samoa takes place. He had become the Malieota of the South Pacific island when his father died on August 22.
[''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'' (June 1899), pp. 539-542]
*
March 23 – The U.S. cruiser USS ''Philadelphia'' and the Royal Navy cruisers HMS ''Porpoise'' and HMS ''Royalist'' bombard rebel-held villages in Samoa after an attack on
Apia.
*
March 24 –
**The U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, acting as arbitrator of a boundary dispute between Argentina and Chile, awards the disputed territory to Chile.
**
George Dewey is made
Admiral of the U.S. Navy.
*
March 25
Events Pre-1600
* 421 – Italian city Venice is founded with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo di Rialto on the islet of Rialto.
* 708 – Pope Constantine becomes the 88th pope. He would be the last pope to vi ...
– The rowing team of
Cambridge University wins the
annual boat race against
Oxford University for the first time in a decade, finishing ahead of Oxford by 3 1⁄4 lengths on the
Thames. Oxford had won the race nine times in a row from 1890 to 1898.
*
March 26 – In the first major action in the Malolos Campaign in the
Philippine–American War
The Philippine–American War or Filipino–American War ( es, Guerra filipina-estadounidense, tl, Digmaang Pilipino–Amerikano), previously referred to as the Philippine Insurrection or the Tagalog Insurgency by the United States, was an arm ...
, 90 Filipino soldiers are killed in the
Battle of the Meycauayan bridge
*
March 27
**
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...
successfully transmits a radio signal across the
English Channel.
** In the
Battle of Marilao River
The Battle of Marilao River was fought on March 27, 1899, in Marilao, Bulacan, Philippines, during the Philippine–American War. It was one of the most celebrated river crossings of the whole war, wherein American forces crossed the Marilao R ...
, Filipino forces under the personal command of
Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (: March 22, 1869February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who is the youngest president of the Philippines (1899–1901) and is recognized as the first president of the Philippine ...
,
President of the Philippines, fail to prevent troops of the
United States Army crossing the river.
*
March 28 –
Alfred Martineau becomes the new
French colonial governor of
French Somaliland
French Somaliland (french: Côte française des Somalis, lit= French Coast of the Somalis so, Xeebta Soomaaliyeed ee Faransiiska) was a French colony in the Horn of Africa. It existed between 1884 and 1967, at which time it became the French Ter ...
in northeast Africa, now the
Republic of Djibouti
*
March 29 – The
First Philippine Republic relocates its capital from
Malolos to
San Isidro, Nueva Ecija
San Isidro, officially the Municipality of San Isidro,( tgl, Bayan ng San Isidro), is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Nueva Ecija, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 54,372 people.
The municipality is bo ...
as the government flees an invasion of U.S. forces.
*
March 30 – The British steamer ''Stella'' sinks in the English Channel with the loss of 80 people after wrecking against
Les Casquets
Les Casquets or (The) Casquets ( ) is a group of rocks eight miles (13 km) northwest of Alderney in the Channel Islands; they are administered by the Bailiwick of Guernsey. The rocks are part of an underwater sandstone ridge. Other parts w ...
, a group of rocks near the Channel Islands.
*
March 31
Events Pre-1600
* 307 – After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine the Great, Constantine marries Fausta, daughter of the retired Roman emperor Maximian.
*1146 – Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at V ...
–
**The United Kingdom announces that it has completed the purchase of rights to occupy the Kingdom of Tonga.
**In the
Philippine–American War
The Philippine–American War or Filipino–American War ( es, Guerra filipina-estadounidense, tl, Digmaang Pilipino–Amerikano), previously referred to as the Philippine Insurrection or the Tagalog Insurgency by the United States, was an arm ...
,
Malolos, capital of the
First Philippine Republic, is
captured by American forces.
April 1899
*
April 1 – The
Second Battle of Vailele
The Second Battle of Vailele was fought during the Second Samoan Civil War in 1899. British, American and Samoan forces loyal to Prince Tanu were defeated by a superior force of Samoan rebels loyal to Mata'afa Iosefo. Fighting occurred at the fo ...
takes place in
Samoa as rebels loyal to King
Mata'afa Iosefo
Mata'afa Iosefo (1832 – 6 February 1912) was a Paramount Chief of Samoa who was one of the three rival candidates for the kingship of Samoa during colonialism. He was also referred to as Tupua Malietoa To'oa Mata'afa Iosefo. He was crowned the K ...
force the retreat of American and British troops assisting Samoans loyal to
Prince Tanumafili.
*
April 2 – The
Hamburg America Line cruise ship
SS ''Graf Waldersee'' begins its maiden voyage.
*
April 3 – The ship ''Sakura Maru'' brings 790
Japanese immigrants
The Japanese diaspora and its individual members, known as Nikkei (日系) or as Nikkeijin (日系人), comprise the Japanese emigrants from Japan (and their descendants) residing in a country outside Japan. Emigration from Japan was recorded a ...
to the
Peruvian port of
Callao
Callao () is a Peruvian seaside city and Regions of Peru, region on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area. Callao is Peru's chief seaport and home to its main airport, Jorge Chávez International Airport. Callao municipality consists o ...
as the first persons from
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
to be accepted to live in
South America.
*
April 4
Events Pre-1600
* 503 BC – Roman consul Agrippa Menenius Lanatus celebrates a triumph for a military victory over the Sabines.
* 190 – Dong Zhuo has his troops evacuate the capital Luoyang and burn it to the ground.
* 611 – ...
–
**Cuba's General Assembly voted to disband the Cuban army and to dissolve to accept U.S. sovereignty.
**The German Imperial Navy warship
SMS ''Jaguar'', which will be scuttled after losing the 1914
Siege of Tsingtao, begins service.
*
April 5
Events Pre-1600
* 823 – Lothair I is crowned King of Italy by Pope Paschal I.
* 919 – The second Fatimid invasion of Egypt begins, when the Fatimid heir-apparent, al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah, sets out from Raqqada at the head of his a ...
– A team of five European geologists and 30 African laborers sets out from Northern Rhodesia to explore the minerals of central Africa for the British company
Tanganyika Concessions, Ltd. (TCL). Discovering that the most valuable copper deposits are in the
Congo Free State
''(Work and Progress)
, national_anthem = Vers l'avenir
, capital = Vivi Boma
, currency = Congo Free State franc
, religion = Catholicism (''de facto'')
, leader1 = Leopo ...
, TCL makes an unsuccessful attempt to purchase full rights from King Leopold of Belgium.
*
April 6 – In an elaborate military ceremony, 336 of the 385 American soldiers killed in the
Spanish–American War are
interred
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
at the
Arlington National Cemetery.
*
April 7 – The
Shootout at Wilson Ranch
The Shootout at Wilson Ranch resulted in the final and most famous hanging in the history of Tombstone, Arizona. On April 7, 1899, the brothers William and Thomas Lee Halderman were confronted by two lawmen at a ranch located in the Chiricahua ...
, the last major gunfight of the
Wild West era in the U.S., takes place in
Tombstone, Arizona. Brothers William Halderman and Thomas Halderman, kill two lawmen. They will later be hanged on November 16, 1900.
*
April 8
Events Pre-1600
* 217 – Roman emperor Caracalla is assassinated and is succeeded by his Praetorian Guard prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus.
* 876 – The Battle of Dayr al-'Aqul saves Baghdad from the Saffarids.
*1139 – Ro ...
– ''
The Victors'', the famous
fight song for
University of Michigan sports, is premiered at
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
by
John Philip Sousa and his band. A student orchestra had played the music three days earlier for a smaller student audience.
*
April 9 –
**In
Uganda,
King Chwa II Kabalega of the
Bunyoro kingdom, a leader of the fight against British colonial occupation, is taken prisoner after being shot in a battle near
Hoima
Hoima is a city in the Western Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Hoima District. It is also the location of the palace of the Omukama of Bunyoro.
Location
Hoima is approximately , by road, nort ...
. Kabalega is exiled to the
Seychelles in the South Pacific ocean and remains there until 1923.
**The Greek ship ''Maria'' sinks after a collision with the British steamer ''Kingswell'' in the Mediterranean and 45 people drown.
**The
Battle of Santa Cruz begins in the Philippines between U.S. Army troops and nationalists of the
First Philippine Republic. After a two day battle, 93 Filipino fighters and one American soldier are dead.
*
April 10 –
Seven people are shot and killed in a gun battle at the Springside Mine at
Pana, Illinois
Pana is a small town in Christian County, Illinois, United States. A small portion is in Shelby County. The population was 5,199 at the 2020 census.
History
The area around Pana was first organized as Stone Coal Precinct in 1845. The county's ...
, between striking white union coal miners, and African-Americans hired as strikebreakers by the company.
Five of the dead are black, including the wife of one of the non-union miners, along with one white miner and a white sheriff's deputy.
*
April 11 – U.S. President William McKinley declares the Spanish-American War to be at an end as the
Treaty of Paris between the U.S. and Spain goes into effect. Ratifications are exchanged between McKinley and French Ambassador
Jules Cambon on behalf of Spain.
Puerto Rico, the
Philippines and
Guam are ceded to the U.S. and
Cuba becomes an American protectorate.
*
April 12 –
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
's President
Severo Fernández
Severo Fernández Alonso Caballero (15 August 1849 in Sucre – 12 August 1925) was a Bolivian lawyer and politician who served as the 24th president of Bolivia from 1896 to 1899 and as the tenth vice president of Bolivia from 1892 to 1896. He ...
is overthrown in a
military coup d'état
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
led by General
José Manuel Pando
José Manuel Inocencio Pando Solares (27 December 1849 – 17 June 1917) was a Bolivian soldier, politician and explorer. He was also the 25th President of Bolivia from 1899 to 1904. During his government, the Acre War (1899-1903) began, in wh ...
.
*
April 13
Events Pre-1600
*1111 – Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
* 1204 – Constantinople falls to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.
1601–1900
*1612 – In one of the epic samurai ...
– The British freighter ''
City of York'' departs from the U.S. port of
San Francisco with a crew of 27 and a cargo of Oregon timber bound for
Fremantle
Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for ...
in Australia, but never reaches its destination, wrecking on the reefs at
Rottnest Island on July 12.
*
April 14 –
British Army troops in
Hong Kong attack
Attack may refer to:
Warfare and combat
* Offensive (military)
* Charge (warfare)
* Attack (fencing)
* Strike (attack)
* Attack (computing)
* Attack aircraft
Books and publishing
* ''The Attack'' (novel), a book
* '' Attack No. 1'', comic an ...
the
Walled City of Kowloon
Kowloon Walled City was an ungoverned and densely populated '' de jure'' Imperial Chinese enclave within the boundaries of Kowloon City, British Hong Kong. Originally a Chinese military fort, the walled city became an enclave after the New ...
on orders of colonial Governor
Henry Blake Henry Blake may refer to:
* Sir Henry Arthur Blake (1840–1918), British colonial administrator and Governor of Hong Kong
* Henry Blake (baseball) (1874–1919), American baseball player
* Henry Blake (lighthouse keeper) (1837–1871), American ...
, based on intelligence that Chinese Imperial Army troops have been stationed behind the walls to subvert Britain's
1898 lease. By April 19, the British commander discovers that the Chinese troops had already departed and that only 150 civilians remain.
*
April 15 – Students at the
University of California, Berkeley steal the
Stanford Axe from
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, yelling at leaders following a baseball game, thus establishing the Axe as a symbol of the rivalry between the schools.
*
April 16 –
**
Voting is held in Spain for the 402 seats of the
Congreso de los Diputados, and the
Conservative Union wins a majority with 233 members.
Voting for the Senate of Spain takes place on April 30.
**Britain formally claims possession of the "
New Territories" as an extension of its lease of Hong Kong to cover the area south of the
Sham Chun River and 230 island in
Kowloon Bay.
*
April 17
Events Pre-1600
*1080 – Harald III of Denmark dies and is succeeded by Canute IV, who would later be the first Dane to be canonized.
*1349 – The rule of the Bavand dynasty in Mazandaran is brought to an end by the murder of Hasan ...
– The
first elections for the 10-member Legislative Council of the British colony of
Southern Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe), limited to European candidates and voters.
*
April 18 – The
Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 goes into effect, creating 32 counties of Ireland (six which would become Northern Ireland) and abolishes the
counties corporate of
Carrickfergus and
Drogheda
Drogheda ( , ; , meaning "bridge at the ford") is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, north of Dublin. It is located on the Dublin–Belfast corridor on the east coast of Ireland, mostly in County Louth ...
.
*
April 19 –
France adds the
Kingdom of Laos
The Kingdom of Laos was a landlocked country in Southeast Asia at the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula. It was bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, North Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...
, a
protectorate since 1893, to the existing colony of
French Indochina.
*
April 20 – The controversial ballet ''
Le Cygne
''Le cygne'', , or ''The Swan'', is the 13th and penultimate movement of ''The Carnival of the Animals'' by Camille Saint-Saëns. Originally scored for solo cello accompanied by two pianos, it has been arranged and transcribed for many instru ...
'', choreographed by
Madame Mariquita and written by
Catulle Mendès
Catulle Mendès (22 May 1841 – 8 February 1909) was a French poet and man of letters.
Early life and career
Of Portuguese Jewish extraction, Mendès was born in Bordeaux. After childhood and adolescence in Toulouse, he arrived in Paris in 185 ...
, premieres at the
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne ...
in
Paris, but is considered by critics to be too sexually explicit.
*
April 21
Events Pre-1600
*753 BC – Romulus founds Rome ( traditional date).
* 43 BC – Battle of Mutina: Mark Antony is again defeated in battle by Aulus Hirtius, who is killed. Antony fails to capture Mutina and Decimus Brutus is murdered ...
– The
nova
A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...
V606 Aquilae
V606 Aquilae was a nova, which lit up in the constellation Aquila in 1899. The brightest reported magnitude for this nova was apparent magnitude 5.5, making it a naked eye object. It was discovered by Williamina Fleming on a photograp ...
is first observed from Earth as seen within the
constellation
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.
The origins of the e ...
Aquila
Aquila may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Aquila'', a series of books by S.P. Somtow
* ''Aquila'', a 1997 book by Andrew Norriss
* ''Aquila'' (children's magazine), a UK-based children's magazine
* ''Aquila'' (journal), an or ...
. It fades within six months.
*
April 22 – In aid of the
Royal Niger Company, the British Army begins an invasion of
Esanland
Esanland ( Esan: ''Otọesan''), or the Edo Central Senatorial District is a cultural region and senatorial district located in south-south Nigeria. It is composed of five Local Government Areas in Edo State. Esanland lies west of the banks of ...
, in southwestern Nigeria, to halt the resistance of the
Esan chiefs still resistant to European rule. After Benin King Ologbosere is overcome, the British attack the kingdom at
Ekpoma
Ekpoma is a town in Edo State, Nigeria. It is the administrative headquarters of the Esan West Local Government Area. Ekpoma lies on the geographical coordinate of latitude .
The town has an official Post Office, and it is home to the Ambrose A ...
.
*
April 23
Events Pre-1600
* 215 BC – A temple is built on the Capitoline Hill dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene.
* 599 – Maya king Uneh Chan of Calakmul attacks rival city-state Palenque in southe ...
– The steamship ''General Whitney'' sinks off the coast of
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine ( ; es, San Agustín ) is a city in the Southeastern United States and the county seat of St. Johns County on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabit ...
. While everyone on board escapes in lifeboats, one of the boats capsizes, drowning the captain and 16 other crew.
*
April 24 – The Scottish ship ''
Loch Sloy'' is wrecked off the coast of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
's
Kangaroo Island, drowning 32 of the 35 people on board.
*
April 25 –
Voting is held for the 169-seat National Assembly in
Bulgaria, and the
Radoslava Party wins a majority.
*
April 26 –
Jean Sibelius's ''
First Symphony'' premieres in
Finland at Helsinki.
* April 27 – In Australia, the Apostolic Church of Queensland receives formal recognition as a religious denomination.
* April 28 – The United Kingdom and the Russian Empire sign the Anglo-Russian Agreement formalizing their spheres of influence in China, essentially agreeing that Britain will not seek railway concessions north of the Great Wall of China, and Russia will avoid doing the same in the Yangtze, Yangtze River valley in southern China.
* April 29 –
Camille Jenatzy
Camille Jenatzy (1868, Schaerbeek – 8 December 1913, Habay la Neuve) was a Belgian race car driver. He is known for breaking the land speed record three times and being the first man to break the 100 km/h barrier.
He was nicknamed ''Le ...
of Belgium becomes the first person to drive faster than 100 kilometers per hour, powering his electric CITA Number 25 racecar, ''La Jamais Contente'' at at a track at Achères, Yvelines, Achères, near
Paris.
* April 30 – In the Philippines, the U.S. establishes a
protectorate over the Republic of Negros, a semi-independent government for Negros, Negros Island, separate from the rest of the Philippine Islands. The Republic exists until its annexation to the rest of the U.S. territory on April 20, 1901.
May 1899
* May 1 – U.S. Navy Admiral
George Dewey reports that 10 officers and crew of the ship USS Yorktown (PG-1), USS ''Yorktown'' have been taken prisoner by the Philippine republic.
[''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'' (June 1899), pp. 664-669]
* May 2 – The Thailand, Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) cedes its province of Luang Prabang (now Laos) to France.
* May 3 –
**Francisco Silvela becomes the new Prime Minister of Spain after the resignation on March 7 of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, Práxedes Sagasta in the wake of Spain's loss of its overseas territories during the Spanish-American War.
**The Ferencvárosi TC
Association football club is founded in Budapest.
* May 4 –
**The thoroughbred horse Manuel, ridden by Fred Taral, wins the 25th running of the 1899 Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Derby.
**Inventor John Matthias Stroh applies for the patent for his new invention, the "Stroh violin", a stringed musical instrument with an amplifying horn attached. British Patent No. GB9418 is granted on March 24, 1900.
* May 5 – The village of Stirling, Alberta is founded in Canada as a Mormon colony of 30 American settlers from Richfield, Utah, led by Theodore Brandley
* May 6 – The first democratic elections in Philippine history are held in for a municipal government for Baliuag in the province of Bulacan.
* May 7 – The capital of the
First Philippine Republic is moved by President
Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (: March 22, 1869February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who is the youngest president of the Philippines (1899–1901) and is recognized as the first president of the Philippine ...
from Manolos to Angeles City
* May 8 – In the French West African colony of Niger, French Army Captain Voulet–Chanoine Mission, Paul Voulet carries out the massacre of the Hausa people, Hausa inhabitants of the village of Birni-N'Konni in retaliation for the continued resistance of Sarraounia, Queen Sarraounia.
* May 9 – The first KNVB Cup of the Royal Dutch Football Association is won by RAP (football club), RAP Amsterdam in extra time, 1 to 0, over HVV Den Haag.
* May 10 – Finnish farmworker Karl Emil Malmelin kills seven people with an axe at the Simola croft in the village of Klaukkala.
* May 11 – Alberto Santos-Dumont attempts the first test flight of his List of Santos-Dumont aircraft, Airship No. 2, but rain cools the hydrogen during the ship's inflation and a gust of wind blows it into nearby trees, where it is destroyed.
* May 12 – The first trade union for railway employees in Sweden, the Swedish Railway Employees' Union, ''Svenska Järnvägsmannaförbundet'' (Sweden Railworkers' League) is founded. It lasts until 1970, when it merges into a labor union of Swedish government employees.
* May 13 –
**A train wreck near Reading, Pennsylvania kills 28 people and injures 50.
**The Esporte Clube Vitória Association football club is founded in Salvador, Bahia, Salvador, Brazil.
* May 14 – The three time world champion Club Nacional de Football is founded in Montevideo,
Uruguay.
* May 15 – A clue to the fate of the British freighter ''Pelican'', which disappeared in October 1897 along with 40 crew, is found in a message in a bottle that washes ashore at Portage Bay, Alaska.
* May 16 –
**British troops in the leased Chinese territory of Hong Kong take control of the city of Kowloon.
**The last Spaniards remaining in the Philippine Islands, after the cession to the U.S., depart from the island of Basilan.
* May 17 – In the Philippines, U.S. Army troops capture the city of
San Isidro, Nueva Ecija
San Isidro, officially the Municipality of San Isidro,( tgl, Bayan ng San Isidro), is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Nueva Ecija, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 54,372 people.
The municipality is bo ...
, where Philippine Republic president Aguinaldo had moved his capital, but find that the insurgents had already left.
* May 18 – The First Hague Peace Conference is opened in The Hague by Willem de Beaufort, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.
* May 19 – The U.S. Army captures Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost island in the
Philippines.
[''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'' (July 1899)](_blank)
, pp. 25-29
* May 20 –
**Jacob German, a New York City cab driver, becomes the first motor vehicle operator in the U.S. to be arrested for speeding when he is caught driving his electric taxi , more than twice the speed limit on Lexington Avenue.
**The American Physical Society is founded at a meeting at Columbia University in New York by 36 physicists, with a mission ""to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics."
* May 21 –
**The crew of the Royal Navy ship HMS ''Narcissus'' sights a large sea creature estimated to be long in the Mediterranean Sea near Algeria and reports that it propels itself by means of "an immense number of fins", as well as being able to spout water from several points on its body. The creature is not seen again after the lone encounter.
**The town of Porazava, Porosow in
Poland (now Porazava in Belarus) is destroyed by fire.
* May 22 – The unrecognized Jungle Nation, República Selvática— the "Jungle Republic" is proclaimed by Peruvian Army Colonel Emilio Vizcarra in three provinces in Northern Peru located within the Amazon rainforest, Department of Loreto, Loreto, Department of San Martín, San Martín and Department of Ucayali, Ucayali. The "republic" is reincorporated into Peru after Vizcarra's death on February 27, 1900.
* May 23 – Major General Henry Ware Lawton, Henry W. Lawton and his troops arrive in Manolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, after a 120-mile march in 20 days that had captured 28 towns with a loss of only six men.
* May 24 –
**Jules Massenet's ''Cendrillon'', the first opera based on the fairy tale of Cinderella, premieres in
Paris at the theater of the
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne ...
.
**The 80th birthday of Queen Victoria is celebrated throughout the British Empire.
* May 25 –
**Pope Leo XIII issues the encyclical ''Annum sacrum'', declaring 1900 to be a Holy Year and directing Roman Catholic churches worldwide to carry out the consecration of all human beings to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
**A fire in the Candian city of Saint John, New Brunswick, destroys 150 buildings and renders over 1,000 people homeless.
* May 26 – The guns of the British warship HMS ''Scylla'', commanded by Captain Percy Scott, hit their targets 56 out of 70 times after Percy and his crew solve the problem of aiming a ship cannon on rolling seas.
* May 27 –
**Rangers F.C., commonly called the Glasgow Rangers and one of the most successful soccer football teams in the Scottish Football League, is incorporated.
**Maurice Ravel's Shéhérazade (Ravel), Shéhérazade Overture, is given its first public performance,
* May 28 – General Vicente Álvarez (general), Vicente Álvarez forms the short-lived Republic of Zamboanga in the
Philippines on a peninsula on the island of Mindanao. The nation exists until 1903 when it is consolidated by the U.S. to the rest of the Philippine territory.
* May 29 – The Spanish system of courts in the Philippines, closed since the American occupation began, is revived under U.S. sovereignty and regulation.
* May 30 – Female outlaw Pearl Hart robs a stage coach southeast of Globe, Arizona.
* May 31 –
** The Harriman Alaska Expedition is launched.
** Bloemfontein Conference, The Bloemfontein Conference commences between Paul Kruger and Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, Sir Alfred Milner in the Orange Free State, but ends in failure after six days.
June 1899
* June 2 – American outlaws Robert L. Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry A. Longabaugh ("The Sundance Kid") commit their first armed robbery as "Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, The Wild Bunch", stopping a Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Wyoming, with accomplices Harvey Logan and Elzy Lay, and steal more than $30,000 worth of cargo.
* June 3 –
**France's Court of Cassation orders a reopening of the Dreyfus affair, 1894 conviction for treason of French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus after evidence of a wrongful conviction is made public, and directs that Dreyfus be returned to France after five years of imprisonment on Devil's Island off of the coast of South America.
**The United States and Spain resume diplomatic relations, as U.S. President McKinley receives the Duke of Arcos as the new Minister for Spain.
* June 4 – The
President of France,
Émile Loubet, is assaulted at the Longchamp Racecourse while watching the annual Grand Steeplechase. His attacker, Fernand de Christiani, who beats him with a cane while Loubet is sitting in the grandstand. De Christiani receives a four-year prison sentence nine days later.
* June 5 – General
Antonio Luna, Commander of the Philippine Revolutionary Army, is assassinated along with his chief aide, Colonel Paco Román, after being lured to Cabanatuan by President
Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (: March 22, 1869February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who is the youngest president of the Philippines (1899–1901) and is recognized as the first president of the Philippine ...
.
* June 6 – The U.S. military government of the Philippines directs that the 1885 Alien Contract Labor Law, which prohibits the importation of foreign workers into the United States, be applied to bringing persons other than Americans into the Philippines.
* June 7 – The Automobile Club of America is founded by a group of racers attending a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, with a purpose of promoting "the sport of automobilism".
* June 8 –
**The Statue of Frederick Douglass (Rochester, New York), Frederick Douglass Monument, the first statue in the U.S. to memorialize a specific African-American person, in unveiled in Frederick Douglass, Douglass's hometown of Rochester, New York.
**Saint Gemma Galgani experiences stigmata in the form of Five Holy Wounds, wounds corresponding to those sustained by Jesus Christ during his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion; her family physician concludes that Galgani's stigmata were actually self-inflicted wounds from a sewing needle.
* June 9 – American boxer James J. Jeffries wins the world heavyweight boxing championship when he knocks out Cornwall, Cornish-born Bob Fitzsimmons in the 11th round of a bout at Coney Island, New York, Coney Island at Brooklyn, New York.
* June 10 –
**Under the terms of the Samoa Tripartite Convention, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States form a colonial government to administer a
protectorate over the islands of
Samoa, with each nation providing an administrative consul to decide on the island's relations with foreign powers. The government lasts less than nine months, and Germany annexes the western part of Samoa on March 1, 1900, leaving the U.S. to control what is now American Samoa.
**French classical composer Ernest Chausson dies at the age of 44, not long after his career begins to flourish, when his bicycle crashes into a brick wall as he is riding down a hill. The death is ruled to be an accident, although later biographers speculate that Chausson committed suicide.
* June 11 – Pope Leo XIII issues a declaration of the consecration of the entire human race, whether Christian or non-Christian, to the Sacred Heart, Sacred Heart of Jesus. The consecration follows the issuance of his papal encyclical ''Annum sacrum'', declaring 1900 to be a Holy Year and directing all Roman Catholic churches in the world to implement the Prayer of Consecration to the Sacred Heart during the period of June 9 to June 11, 1899. At the time, an estimated 1.6 billion people are on Earth.
* June 12 –
**The 1899 New Richmond tornado, New Richmond tornado completely destroys the town of New Richmond, Wisconsin, killing 117 and injuring more than 200.
**List of Prime Ministers of France, France's Prime Minister Charles Dupuy and his cabinet announce their resignations after losing a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies.
* June 13 – The village of Herman, Nebraska, with a population of 319, is destroyed by a tornado and 40 people are killed.
* June 14 – Hiram M. Hiller Jr., William Henry Furness III and Alfred Craven Harrison Jr. set off on their third research expedition to gather archeological, cultural, zoological, and botanical specimens for museums, with a focus on South Asia and Australia.
* June 15 –
**Sweden's Department of Foreign Affairs hosts a conference for delegates from Germany, Denmark, Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, Russia and Sweden to make agreements on fishing in the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.
**Jardine Cycle & Carriage, Cycle & Carriage, one of the largest companies in Singapore, is founded.
* June 16 –
**
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
's
commercial code, the Shōhō, goes into effect after having been promulgated on March 9. The Shōhō, as amended, applies to Japanese business today.
[ The new code replaces the Kyu-shoho that had come into force on July 1, 1893.
**The United States and Barbados sign a trade treaty.]
* June 17 – David Hilbert creates the modern concept of geometry, with the publication of his book ''Grundlagen der Geometrie'', released on this date at Göttingen.
* June 18 – The Federación Libre de Trabajadores is created in Puerto Rico by anarchists Santiago Iglesias, Ramón Romero Rosa and Eduardo Conde as a Anarchism in Puerto Rico#Anarchists vs. American government, resistance movement against the United States.
* June 19 –
**The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is created in northeast Africa to be as a territory to be administered jointly by Egypt and the United Kingdom, through an Egyptian governor-general appointed with consent of the UK, although in practice it becomes administered as part of the British Empire. The arrangement will continue for more than 50 years until the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 and the granting of independence to the Republic of Sudan in 1956.
**Edward Elgar's ''Enigma Variations'' premieres in London.
* June 20 –
**Voters in the British colony of New South Wales overwhelmingly approve a resolution to join the proposed Federation of Australia.
**The right-wing nationalist movement ''Action Française'' is formed in France
* June 21 –
**"Treaty 8", the most comprehensive of the eleven Numbered Treaties, is signed between the British Crown on behalf of Canada, with various Cree groups of the First Nations in Canada, First Nations (Kapawe'no First Nation, Kapawe'no, Sucker Creek Cree First Nation, Sucker Creek Cree, Driftpile First Nation, Driftpile, Swan River First Nation, Swan River), ceding of land in the northern parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia, as well as a portion of the Northwest Territories, to the Canadian government.
* June 22– Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau forms a new government to become List of Prime Ministers of France, Prime Minister of France
* June 23 –
**William H. Thompkins, Dennis Bell (Medal of Honor), Dennis Bell, Fitz Lee (Medal of Honor), Fitz Lee and George H. Wanton are awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroism in the Spanish–American War during the rescue of a stranded landing party while under enemy fire. The four men, all members of the Buffalo Soldiers of the U.S. Army, become the last African-Americans to be selected for the Medal of Honor for more than half a century.
**The Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) and the Russian Empire sign a Declaration of Jurisdiction, Trade and Navigation at Bangkok.
* June 24 –
**Spain cedes its last Pacific Ocean colonies, the Caroline Islands (now part of the Federated States of Micronesia, Mariana Islands#Spanish exploration and control, the Ladrone islands of Ladrone (now part of the Mariana Islands), and Palau, to Germany.
**The Australia national rugby union team plays its first game, 1899 British Lions tour to Australia, a 13-3 loss to at team representing Great Britain.
* June 25 – Three Denver newspapers publish a story (later proved to be a fabrication) that the Chinese government under the Guangxu Emperor is going to demolish the Great Wall of China.
* June 26 – Joseph Chamberlain, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, sets into motion the Second Boer War after receiving an appeal from the British Cape Colony in South Africa to help British subjects oppressed in the South African Republic, Transvaal Republic. Chamberlain declares "We have reached a critical point in the history of the Empire," and war begins on October 11.
* June 27 –
**The paperclip is patented by Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian inventor.
**A. E. J. Collins, a 13-year-old schoolboy, completes four afternoons of cricket with the highest-ever recorded individual score, 628 not outs. Collins never plays first-class cricket and is killed in action in 1914 during World War One, but his record will stand for 117 years until a 15-year old boy in India, Pranav Dhanawade scores 1,009 not out in 2016.
* June 28 – In Nigeria, British authorities publicly hang King Ologbosere Irabor outside of the courthouse at Benin City, days after he was captured and convicted of ordering the massacre of a party dispatched by the British consul.
* June 29 – The mayor of Muskegon, Michigan, James Balbirnie, is assassinated by a disappointed office-seeker, J. W. Tayer, who then kills himself.[''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'' (August 1899)]
* June 30 – ''Mile-a-Minute Murphy'' earns his nickname after he becomes the first man to ride a bicycle for in under a minute, on Long Island while being paced by a Long Island Railroad engine. Murphy pedals his bike one mile in 57.8 seconds for an average speed of 62.28 miles per hour.
July 1899
* July 1 – The International Council of Nurses is founded in London, at a meeting of the Matron's Council of Great Britain and Ireland.
* July 2 – Pope Leo XIII venerates four missionaries who were executed in Asia as martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church. Jean-Charles Cornay will be canonized as a saint in 1988, while Paul Liu Hanzuo, Peter Lieou and Louis Gabriel Taurin Dufresse will be canonized 100 years after their veneration by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000.
* July 3 – Swiss-born American boxer Frank Erne wins the world lightweight championship by defeating champion Kid Lavigne, George "Kid" Lavigne in a decision after 20 rounds in Buffalo, New York.
* July 4 – The most famous skeleton of a dinosaur ever found intact, a Diplodicus, is discovered at the Sheep Creek Quarry in the western United States near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The expedition team, financed by Andrew Carnegie for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and led by William Harlow Reed, bestows the name "Dippy" on the ''Diplodicus carnegii'', which becomes well known after Carnegie has plaster cast replicas made for donation to museums all over the world. The diplodicus dinosaurs are estimated to have roamed in North America more than 152,000,000 years ago.
* July 5 –
**In Chicago, the first American juvenile justice system, juvenile court in the United States, the Cook County Circuit Court Juvenile Justice Division, hears its first cases with R. S. Tuthill as its judge.
**The 1895 Trade and Navigation agreement between the Japanese and Russian empires goes into effect, with each country was given "a full freedom of ship and cargo entrance to all places, ports, and rivers on the other country's territory."
* July 6 – An assassin attempts to kill Milan I of Serbia, Milan Obrenović, who had been King of Serbia before abdicating in 1889, and had more recently been appointed by his son, Alexander I of Serbia, King Alexander, as Commander-in-chief of the Serbian Army. General Obrenović is uninjured, but begins a campaign to seek out and arrest the radicals in Serbia.
* July 7 – The Great Lakes Group, The Great Lakes Towing Company (GLT), now part of The Great Lakes Group, is incorporated by John D. Rockefeller and William G. Mather to acquire more than 150 tugboats to control shipping in four of the North American Great Lakes (Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Superior) and quickly builds a monopoly on Great Lakes traffic.
* July 8 – In the U.S., the Lorelei Fountain, sculpted by Ernst Herter from white marble, is unveiled in the Bronx in New York City across from the Bronx County Courthouse.
* July 9 – The Latin American Plenary Council, called by Pope Leo XIII on December 25 for the Roman Catholic bishops of lands in Central America and South America to address the question of "how to guard the interests of the Latin race", closes in Rome after six weeks. The bishops agree that Catholics should not "to celebrate with heretics" (specifically, non-Catholics) in religious ceremonies or to attend heretic church services, on pain of excommunication; that every republic in Latin America should have "a truly Catholic University" for education in the "sciences, literature and the good arts"; that missionary work to the Indian populations is "the grave duty of the ecclesiastical as well as civil authority to carry civilization to the tribes that remain faithless"; and that priests should be encouraged to study at the Pius Latin American Seminary in Rome.
* July 10 –
**British colonial authorities in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan give control of the Red Sea port of Suakin to Sudan, after having agreed on January 19 that Egypt would have the right to administer commerce there.
**The Allegan (meteorite), Allegan meteorite, a H chondrite crashes to Earth and lands in Allegan County, Michigan, southwestern Michigan's Allegan County in the U.S.
* July 11 – In Turin in Italy, Giovanni Agnelli and eight investors form the Italian automobile manufacturer Fiat Automobiles, F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, the Italian Automobile Manufacturers of Turin), producers of the Fiat motor vehicles.
* July 12 – The British freight ship '' City of York'' sinks after striking reefs at Rottnest Island, off the coast of Western Australia, due to a misunderstanding of signal flare fired from Wadjemup Lighthouse, the island's lighthouse. The ship, which was nearing the end of a 90-day voyage from the U.S. ( San Francisco) to Fremantle, Western Australia, evacuates its 26 crew in two lifeboats, but one of the boats overturns and 11 men, including Captain Phillip Jones, drown.
* July 13 – A tornado kills 13 people in the U.S. village of Herman, Nebraska.
* July 14 – The first Republic of Acre is declared by former Spanish journalist Luis Gálvez Rodríguez de Arias in the Amazon jungle in South America, and lasts for nine months.
* July 15 –
**Japan's first comprhensive copyright law takes effect and, on the same day, Japan agrees to join the Berne Convention on respect of copyright laws of other nations.
**General Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (: March 22, 1869February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who is the youngest president of the Philippines (1899–1901) and is recognized as the first president of the Philippine ...
, who has commanded the Filipino resistance against the Spanish government, informs the U.S. Army General Thomas M. Anderson that he intends to assume authority for the Philippine Islands in areas conquered by the Filipinos from the Spaniards.
* July 16 – The first soccer football game in El Salvador between two organized teams takes place at the Campo Marte field in Santa Ana, El Salvador, Santa Ana, where a local team hosts a team of players from San Salvador. The Santa Ana team wins, 2 to 0.
* July 17
** NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.
** In the Battle of Togbao, the French Henri Bretonnet, Bretonnet–Solomon Braun, Braun mission is destroyed, in the North African kingdom of Chad, by the warlord Rabih az-Zubayr.
** The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation takes effect, ending extraterritoriality and the unequal status of Japan in foreign commerce.
* July 18 – The patent for the first sofa bed (a foldable bed frame that can be stored under the cushions of a couch) is taken out by African-American inventor Leonard C. Bailey. He receives U.S. Patent No. 629,286 on June 2, 1900.
* July 19 – U.S. Secretary of War Russell A. Alger submits his resignation at the request of U.S. President McKinley, following public outrage over the United States Army beef scandal, in which the War Department purchased tainted beef for soldiers during the Spanish-American War.
* July 20 – A white lynch mob in Tallulah, Louisiana carries out the killing of five white Italian shopkeepers from Sicily who had opened stores in the town to sell produce and meat, after accusations that the Sicilians were driving the American stores out of business. None of the suspects in the lynching are prosecuted.
* July 21 – The Newsboys' strike of 1899, Newsboys' strike takes place, when the Newsies of New York go on strike (until August 2).[''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'' (September 1899) pp. 277-280]
* July 22 – The torture and lynching of Frank Embree takes place in the town of Fayette, Missouri, after Embree, a black 19-year-old man, is accused by a mob of raping a white 14-year-old girl. Shortly after Embree has received 100 lashes from a whip, a photographer takes Embree's photo, followed by another one after Embree's hanging.
* July 23 – The city of Washington DC retires its short-lived Cable car (railway), cable car system, the day after Columbia Railway Company converts exclusively to electric powered cars
* July 24 – In the first trade treaty signed by the U.S. after the passage of the Dingley Act, which authorizes the U.S. President to negotiate reductions of tariffs up to 20% if the other side does the same, France and the United States sign an agreement for a 20% reduction of France's existing tariffs on 635 of 654 specific items, in return for the U.S. reduction between 5% and 20% of duty fees on 126 items.
* July 25 – France's Minister of War levies out punishments against officers who participated in the Dreyfus affair, removing General Georges-Gabriel de Pellieux
George Gabriel de Pellieux (6 September 1842 – 15 July 1900) was a French army officer who was best known for ignoring evidence during the Dreyfus affair, a scandal in which a Jewish officer was convicted of treason on the basis of a forgery.
Ea ...
from his duties as Military Governor of Paris, and removing General Oscar de Négrier from the War Council.
* July 26 – The List of presidents of the Dominican Republic, President of the Dominican Republic, dictator Ulises Heureaux, is assassinated during a visit to the city of Moca, Dominican Republic, Moca. Vice President Wenceslao Figuereo succeeds to the office.[
* July 27 – Gold is discovered in Nome, Alaska, leading to the Nome Gold Rush.
* July 28 – The All Cubans, a team of professional baseball players from Cuba, begins a barnstorming tour of games against white and black teams, starting with a 12-4 win over a local team at Weehawken, New Jersey
* July 29 – The first international Peace Conference ends, with the signing of the First Hague Convention.
* July 30 – The Harriman Alaska Expedition ends successfully.
* July 31 – Duke of York Island (Antarctica), Duke of York Island, outside Antarctica, is discovered by explorer Carsten Borchgrevink and the British ]Southern Cross Expedition
The ''Southern Cross'' Expedition, otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition, 1898–1900, was the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, and the forerunner of the more celebrated journeys of Robert Falcon Sc ...
.
August 1899
* August 1 – 1899 Carrabelle hurricane, A hurricane destroys all but nine homes in the small U.S. town of Carrabelle, Florida
* August 2 – The first attack on an offshore oil installation in the United States takes place off the coast of Santa Barbara, California near Montecito, California, Montecito, when a mob of outraged citizens demolishes an oil rig.
* August 3 – The John Marshall Law School (Chicago), John Marshall Law School is founded in Chicago.
* August 4 – Japan rescinds its policy of extraterritoriality privileges to western nations that had operated consular courts to try cases against western nationals under western law. The British Court for Japan closes at the end of the year.
* August 5 – Automotive mechanic Henry Ford, with the help of 12 investors, incorporates the Detroit Automobile Company. While the company will fail after 17 months, it establishes Detroit, Michigan, as the site for U.S. car manufacturing and the mistakes learned help Ford have more success with the Ford Motor Company.
* August 6 – Near Stratford, Connecticut, 36 people are killed when a trolley falls off of a trestle and lands upside down in a pond 40 feet below. On the same day, the collapse of a ferry dock in Mount Desert Island, Maine, drowns 20-people.
* August 7 –
**The retrial of French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus opens at Rennes.
**Governance of the island of Guam, under the administration of the United States Department of the Navy, begins with USS Richard P. Leary#Namesake, Admiral Richard P. Leary as the first U.S. Naval Governor.
* August 8 – The 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane, San Ciriaco hurricane strikes Puerto Rico, recently annexed by the United States, and leaves 250,000 people homeless. The official death toll is later listed as 3,369 people.
* August 9 – The Seats for Shop Assistants Act 1899 is given royal assent in the United Kingdom, providing, for the first time, a respite for workers required to remain standing for long periods of time.
* August 10 – Marshall Taylor, Marshall "Major" Taylor wins the world professional cycling championship in Montreal, securing his place as the first African American world champion in any sport.
* August 11 – The "Black Heavyweight Championship" of boxing is won by Frank Childs in a six-round win over Klondike (boxer), Klondike Haynes.
* August 12 – South African Republic General Jan Smuts makes a final initiative to avert the outbreak of what will become the Second Boer War with Britain, meeting in Pretoria with the British charge d'affaires, Conyngham Greene.
* August 13 – The battle for the Philippine city of Angeles City, Angeles begins when the U.S. Army's VIII Corps, led by Major General Arthur MacArthur Jr.
Arthur MacArthur Jr. (June 2, 1845 – September 5, 1912) was a lieutenant general of the United States Army. He became the military Governor-General of the American-occupied Philippines in 1900; his term ended a year later due to clashes wi ...
, fights Philippine forces led by Brigadier General Maximino Hizon. The U.S. captures the area, the future site of Clark Air Base, Clark Air Force Base, by August 16.
* August 14 – French attorney Fernand Labori is wounded in an assassination attempt while serving as the defense lawyer for in the retrial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
* August 15 – The Automobile Club of America, first automobile owners association in the U.S., is incorporated.
* August 16 –
**Hobson City, Alabama, the oldest exclusively African American municipality in the United States, is incorporated in Calhoun County, Alabama, Calhoun County with a population of 400 black residents. As of 2020, the town remains 92% African American. At the time, only two other "all black" towns exist in the U.S., Lincolnville, South Carolina and Princeton, North Carolina.
**Western outlaw Tom Ketchum, Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum is badly wounded in a poorly-planned attempt to commit a train robbery by himself. He is captured the next day, has an arm amputated, and is executed in a poorly-planned hanging in 1901.
* August 17 –
**Emperor Gojong of Korea issues the 9-article International Declaration declaring that, as "the great emperor of Korea", he has "infinite military authority" as well as absolute power to enact laws.
**The 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane, San Ciriaco hurricane makes landfall in North Carolina's Outer Banks, completely destroying the town of Diamond City, North Carolina, Diamond City.
* August 18 –
**An explosion at a coal mine in Wales kills 25 miners.[
**Rasmus Midgett of the United States Life-Saving Service single-handedly saves the 10 surviving crew of the freighter SS ''Priscilla''
* August 19 – A bill to construct the proposed Dortmund-Rhine Canal in Germany, supported by Kaiser Wilhelm II, failed overwhelmingly in the lower house of parliament, with 225 against and only 147 in favor.
* August 20 – The Kiram–Bates Treaty is signed in the Philippines by Jamalul Kiram II, Sultan of Sulu, and U.S. Army Brigadier General John C. Bates, with U.S. forces recognizing the autonomy of local governments in the Sulu Archipelago (within the Mindanao island group) in return for the Sultan's assistance in suppressing attacks on U.S. forces.
* August 21 – Sir Edmund Antrobus, 4th Baronet, Sir Edmund Antrobus, owner of the land on Salisbury Plain upon which Stonehenge stands in England, offers to sell the land to the British government for £125,000. After Sir Edmund's death in 1915, his brother Cosmo will have the land auctioned for £6,600.][''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'']
(October 1899) pp. 407-410
* August 22 – The earliest major motorcycle race in the U.S. takes place at the Harford Avenue Colosseum in Baltimore, Maryland, with three teams of motor-powered tandem bicycles competing. The team of Henri Fournier and Charles Henshaw wins the race.
* August 23 –
**In Darien, Georgia, the "Delegal riot" takes place when hundreds of armed African-American residents surround the McIntosh County, Georgia, McIntosh County Jail to prevent the transfer of Henry Delegal, a black man charged with rape, to prevent the possibility of Delegal being lynched. The Georgia State militia is sent in to disband the rioters (21 of whom are convicted of inciting a riot) and to oversee Delegal's safe transfer. Delegal is later acquitted of the rape charge.
**The first ship-to-shore test of a wireless radio transmission is made from the U.S. lightship ''LV 70'' with the sending of Morse code signals to a receiving station near San Francisco. The tests are made over 17 days with the ship also sending carrier pigeons to carry the message transmitted in order to verify the accuracy of the transmission.
* August 24 – France's Minister of Commerce, Alexandre Millerand, decrees a change in regulations to extend the right to workers' compensation to cover all profit-making establishments.
* August 25 – Two convicted murderers, Cyrus A. Brown and Matthew Craig, become the first white men to be legally executed in what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
. The two are hanged together at Muskogee, Oklahoma, Muskogee in the Creek Nation section of the U.S. Indian Territory
* August 26 – The largest ship in the world, the White Star ocean liner RMS ''Oceanic'', is delivered to Liverpool from the shipyards in Belfast, 11 days before its maiden voyage scheduled for September 6.
* August 27 – U.S. engineers, aided by local Sudanese workers, complete the installation of the prefabricated Atbara railroad bridge over the Nile River near Khartoum after outbidding British construction companies, marking a turning point in British leadership worldwide in construction. Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, Lord Kitchener, commander of the British Army force in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, remarks at the ceremony, "... as Englishmen failed, I am delighted that our cousins across the Atlantic stepped in. This bridge is due to their energy, ability and power to turn out work of magnitude in less time than anybody else. I congratulate the Americans on their success in the erection of a bridge in the heart to Africa."
* August 28 – At least 512 people are killed when a debris hill from the Sumitomo Besshi copper mine at Niihama, Shikoku, Japan, collapses after heavy rain; 122 houses, a smelting factory, hospital and many other facilities are destroyed.
* August 29 – General Juan Isidro Jimenes, whose ship had stopped in Cuba while he was on his way to Santo Domingo to become the new President of the Dominican Republic, is arrested by order of U.S. Military Governor Leonard Wood after coming ashore at Santiago de Cuba. Jimenes would soon be released and would become the President on November 15, 1899.
* August 30 – After taking over the second-largest city in the Dominican Republic, Santiago de los Caballeros, revolutionists proclaim Horacio Vásquez as the Central American nation's President in rebel-controlled territory. At the same time in the capital at Santo Domingo, President Wenceslao Figuereo steps down after only five weeks in office and prepares to leave the city as the rebels approach.
* August 31 – The Olympique de Marseille association football club is founded in France.
September 1899
* September 1 – The ''National Theatre (Oslo), Nationaltheatret'', Norway's national theater, is inaugurated
* September 2 – In the Battle of Karari at Sudan between the British Army, led by Lord Kitchener, and Sudanese troops commanded by the Mahdi Khalifa Abdullah, 11,000 Sudanese are killed and 1,600 wounded.
* September 3 – 1899 Yakutat Bay earthquakes, An 8.2 magnitude earthquake shakes the area around Yakutat Bay in Alaska.
* September 4 – Thomas Brackett Reed, Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, resigns his seat in Congress and the Speaker's office in protest over U.S. President McKinley's support of war with Spain.
* September 5 –
**The first labor and management agreement in Denmark is reached between the Danish Federation of Trade Unions and the Danish Employers' Confederation.
**General Horacio Vasquez, leader of a revolution against the Dominican Republic's President Wenceslao Figuereo, arrives at the capital, Santo Domingo and forms a provisional government.
* September 6 – The White Star Line's transatlantic crossing, transatlantic ocean liner sails on her maiden voyage. At 17,272 gross register tons and , she is the largest ship afloat, following scrapping of the a decade earlier.
* September 7 – The first parade of automobiles in U.S. history takes place at Newport, Rhode Island.
* September 8 – Eduardo Romana is inaugurated as the President of Peru.[
* September 9 – In the retrial of his court-martial, French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus is again found guilty of treason and sentenced to serve the remaining 10 years of his prison sentence on Devils Island.][
* September 10 - A week after an 8.2 magnitude quake strikes Alaska, 1899 Yakutat Bay earthquakes, a stronger, 8.5 magnitude earthquake shakes Yakutat Bay.
* September 11 – Northern Arizona University is founded in Flagstaff in the Arizona Territory of the United States, as Northern Arizona Normal School, with 23 students and two professors. More than a century later, the university has almost 30,000 students and 1,100 full time faculty.
* September 12 – American boxer Terry McGovern (boxer), Terry McGovern wins the world bantamweight title by knocking out British boxer Pedlar Palmer in the first round at the Westchester Athletic Club in New York.
* September 13 –
**Real estate agent Death of Henry H. Bliss, Henry Bliss is struck by an electric-powered taxicab and fatally injured after stepping off of a trolley at the intersection of West 74th Street and Central Park West in New York City, becoming the first person in the U.S. to killed by an automobile.
**Halford Mackinder, Cesar Ollier and Josef Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian, at (), the highest peak of Mount Kenya.
**The French Army invades the Sultanate of Zinder in Niger and kills the ruler, Amadou Kouran Daga.
* September 14 – General Cipriano Castro defeats the Venezuelan Army at the battle of Tocuyito and prepares to march to Caracas to overthrow President Ignacio Andrade.
* September 15 – Preparing for an attack on Britain's Cape Colony in South Africa from the neighboring South African Republic, Transvaal Republic, British Army Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, Robert Baden-Powell arrives at the border town of Mafeking and begins recruiting volunteers and stockpiling munitions to prepare for Siege of Mafeking, an attack and siege.
* September 16 – In the second annual 1899 VFL Grand Final championship game of the Victorian Football League, defending champ Fitzroy Football Club, Fitzroy narrowly retains the title over Sydney Swans, South Melbourne, 27 to 26.
* September 17 – The strange career of Australian bandit John Francis Peggotty, a diminutive holdup man said to have ridden on an ostrich, ends in the town of Meningie, South Australia when Peggotty's intended victim shoots both the bandit and the ostrich. The body of the ostrich is found, but Peggotty is never seen again.]
* September 18 –
**Rail transport in South Korea, Rail transport is inaugurated in Korea with the opening of the Gyeongin Railway from Incheon (at the time called Chemulp'o) to Yeongdeungpo District, Yeongdeungpo (a town located across the Han River from Seoul).
**Scott Joplin's ''Maple Leaf Rag'' is registered for copyright, as ragtime music enjoys mainstream popularity in the United States.
* September 19 –
**Alfred Dreyfus is pardoned in France by the French Ministry of War.[
**The patent for the first water meter is granted to Edwin Ford, the water superintendent for Hartford City, Indiana.
* September 20 – Captain Alfred Dreyfus is released from prison at Rennes.][
* September 21 –
**A special session of the Orange Free State's parliament, the ''Volksraad'', meets at Bloemfontein in South Africa to discuss war with the British Empire. At the same time, three British transports depart from Bombay in India with troops to the Cape Colony in South Africa.][''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'']
(November 1899) pp. 537-540
**The Dominion Line steamer ''Scotsman'' sinks in the Strait of Belle Isle in Canada, killing 15 women and children.
* September 22 –
**1899 Swedish general election, Elections are held in Sweden for the 230-seats of the Riksdag (formerly 182 seats). The Lantmanna Party retains majority control.[
**Following a court-martial in Spain, Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón, Patricio Montojo, who had surrendered the Philippines to U.S. Admiral George Dewey to end the Spanish–American War, is relieved of all commands and placed on the reserve list.][
* September 23 – Austria's Chancellor, Franz, Prince of Thun and Hohenstein, Prince Franz von Thun, and his cabinet of ministers all resign.][
* September 24 – A crowd of several thousand men in London disrupts an anti-war demonstration in Trafalgar Square and shouts down the Peace Association speakers as well as hurling "decayed apples and eggs and other missiles."
* September 25 – A Serbian court sentences 30 people convicted for conspiracy to attempt to assassinate the former Milan I of Serbia, King Milan, with the two main leaders being sentenced to death, and 10 others getting 20 year prison sentences.][
* September 26 – General Manuel Guzman Alvarez of the Venezuelan Sucre (state), state of Sucre joins with General Cipriano Castro in a revolt against the Venezuelan government.][
* September 27 – Former U.S. President Benjamin Harrison concludes his special assignment of arguing in favor of Britain before the Anglo-Venezuelan arbitration tribunal.][
* September 28 –
**Austrian auto designer Ferdinand Porsche attracts worldwide attention when his first car, the Porsche P1, wins the Berlin Road Race with such speed that he crosses the finish line 18 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.
**New Zealand's parliament approves a proposal to send troops to support Britain's Cape Colony in South Africa, while the Orange Free State parliament votes to support the South African Republic (the Transvaal), as Second Boer War, war between the British and the Dutch appears imminent.][
* September 29 – The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) is founded in the U.S. by Spanish–American War veteran James C. Putnam as the American Veterans of Foreign Service.
* September 30 –
**A 1899 Ceram earthquake, tsunami kills 3,864 people on Seram Island (now part of the Maluku province of Indonesia) after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake strikes at 1:42 in the morning local time. According to a subsequent investigation, the villages of Paulohy-Samasuru and Mani, with a combined population of 2,400 people, are swept away by a wave.
**In Milwaukee, minor league baseball executive Harry Quinn announces History of the American League, an 8-team rival to baseball's 12-team National League, the "American Baseball Association" with an eastern division (New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington) and a western division (Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Detroit).
]
October 1899
* October 1 –
**Possession of the Mariana Islands in the South Pacific Ocean is formally transferred from Spain to Germany, which purchased the archipelago (with the exception of Guam) from Spain for 837,500 German gold marks (equivalent in 1899 to $4,100,000), and become part of German New Guinea until the end of World War One.
**Felipe Agoncillo, dispatched by the Philippine Revolutionary government to lobby for independence, meets in Washington with U.S. President McKinley and his attempt to be part of peace talks between the United States and Spain is rejected.
* October 2 – The Serbian government ends the state of siege in Belgrade that followed the attempted assassination of Serbia's former King Milan.[
* October 3 – The boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana (now Guyana) is resolved by a binding award from the International Tribunal of Arbitration of five neutral jurists agreed upon by the United Kingdom and the United Venezuelan States.
* October 4 – The South African Republic issues an order to "all White inhabitants" within its protectorate, the Eswatini, Kingdom of Swaziland, to evacuate the area, with the exception of property owners eligible for active military service. British subjects inside Swaziland are evicted and escorted to the border with the Portuguese East African colony of Mozambique
* October 5 – The 7,000 Zulu people, Zulu mineworkers in the Witwatersrand of the South African Republic are assembled by mine recruiter John Sidney Marwick at Johannesburg so that they can be transported home before war breaks out with Britain.
* October 6 – The War Office of the UK alerts the administrators of the 79,000-man British Army Reserve to prepare for drafting of soldiers in preparation for war in South Africa.
* October 7 – U.S. President William McKinley, Canada's Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier and Mexico's Foreign Minister Ignacio Mariscal are hosted at the U.S. city of Chicago for its Autumn Festival.
* October 8 – The South African Republic (ZAR) telegraphs a three-day ultimatum to the U.K., demanding an arbitration of issues and a pullback of troops from the borders between the ZAR and the adjoining Cape Colony, Natal and Bechuanaland by October 11.
* October 9 – The Hanover Congress (1899), Hanover Congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany begins in Hanover and lasts until October 14.
* October 10 – The French Sudan in west Africa is divided into two smaller administrative units, Middle Niger (which later becomes the nations of Niger and Gambia) and Upper Senegal (which becomes the nations of Senegal and Mali)
* October 11 – In South Africa, the Second Boer War between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the South African Republic, Transvaal and Orange Free State begins as the Boers invade the British colony of Natal.
* October 12 – The Sultan of Turkey issues a decree promising reforms to the persecution of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.][
* October 13 – The Second Boer War extends into the British Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana as the siege of Mafeking begins.
* October 14 – The Boer invasion of the Cape Colony begins with the Siege of Kimberley, siege of Kimberley, Northern Cape, Kimberley.
* October 15 – French Army officer Ferdinand de Béhagle is put to death by Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, prompting a French expedition to be led against Rabih.
* October 16 – ''A Chinese Honeymoon'', the first musical theatre, musical to run for more than 1,000 performances, is performed for the first time, making its debut at the Theatre Royal in Hanley, Staffordshire before moving to London.
* October 17 – The Thousand Days' War (''La Guerra de los Mil Días'') begins in the South American nation in Colombia as Colombian Liberal Party soldiers led by General Rafael Uribe Uribe, with the support of aid from Venezuela, begin a fight against the government of National Party president Manuel Antonio Sanclemente. The war will continue for 1,130 days until November 21, 1902.
* October 18 – The Boxer Rebellion begins in China as the Battle of Senluo Temple is fought in China's Shandong province between more than 4,000 Imperial Chinese Army troops and at least 1,000 rebels from the Boxers (group), Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists.
* October 19 –
**In Worcester, Massachusetts, 17-year-old Robert H. Goddard receives his inspiration to develop the first rocket capable of reaching outer space, after viewing his yard from high in a tree and imagining "how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if sent up from the meadow at my feet."
**Boer troops commanded by Johannes Hermanus Michiel Kock, Johannes Kock capture the railway station in the British Natal colony town of Elandslaagte and cut the telegraph line between the British Army headquarters at Ladysmith and the British station at Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal, Dundee.
* October 20 – In the first major clash of the Second Boer War, the Battle of Talana Hill (near Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal, Dundee, Natal), the British Army drives the Boers from a hilltop position, but with heavy casualties, including their commanding general Sir Penn Symons.
* October 21 – The Battle of Elandslaagte is fought in Britain's Natal colony as the British Army recaptures the railway station from Boers, then proceeds toward the fortress of Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, Ladysmith. South African General Johannes Hermanus Michiel Kock, Jan Kock is fatally wounded in the battle and dies 10 later while imprisoned at Ladysmith.][''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'']
(December 1899) pp. 662-666
* October 22 – In Spain, an advertisement runs in the sports magazine ''Los Deportes'', paid for by Swiss immigrant History of FC Barcelona#Beginnings of Football Club Barcelona (1899–1922), Hans Gamper, announces that Gamper is seeking to create a soccer football team for Barcelona. The organizational meeting takes place at the Sociedad Los Deportes on November 29, attracting 11 players who form FC Barcelona, Futbol Club Barcelona.
* October 23 –
**The Philippine Independent Church is formed at a conference in Paniqui for the purpose of separating from the Roman Catholic Church.
**The Empire of Austria holds its first automobile race. It is won in Vienna by Baron Theodor von Liebig, driving an NW Rennzweier car.
* October 24 –
**The sinking of the ship ''Cisneros'' by the Colombian Navy warship ''Hércules'' drowns more than 200 Liberal rebels during the Battle of Magdalena River in northern Colombia.
**President Steyn of the South African Republic proclaims the annexation of the northern portion of the Cape Colony above the Vaal River.[
* October 25 –
**]José Manuel Pando
José Manuel Inocencio Pando Solares (27 December 1849 – 17 June 1917) was a Bolivian soldier, politician and explorer. He was also the 25th President of Bolivia from 1899 to 1904. During his government, the Acre War (1899-1903) began, in wh ...
, a member of the Federal Government Junta of Bolivia, 1899, three-member junta that has governed Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
since April 12, becomes the new President of Bolivia, president.
**Tui Manuʻa Elisala, Elisara Alaalamua is installed as the new Tui Manuʻa or Paramount Chief of the Samoan Islands, Samoan island of Taʻū.
* October 26 –
**Indirect fire, a shooting technique based on calculating azimuth and inclination to aim a weapon at an enemy that cannot be hit by direct fire, is used for the first time in battle. British gunners in the Second Boer War, using the techniques developed by Russian Lieutenant Colonel K. G. Guk, fire a cannon on a high trajectory toward the Boer Army, with the objective of having the shell coming down on the enemy.
**1899 Swiss federal election, Voting takes place in Switzerland for the 147-member National Council.
**The foundering of the British steamer ''Zurich'' off of the coast of Norway kills 16 of the 17 crew aboard, with only the captain surviving.[
* October 27 – Louise Masset, an unmarried mother, murders her 3-year old son in a bathroom at the Dalston Junction railway station in London. She will be found guilty on December 18 and hanged at Newgate Prison three weeks later on January 9.
* October 28 – The History of Eswatini, Swaziland Commando unit of the South African Republic Army, with 200 burghers, attacks and burns the British police post at Kwaliweni during the Second Boer War. Warned by Swaziland's King Ngwane V, the 20 policemen are able to evacuate the post office and flee to Ingwavuma, which the Commandos attack next.
* October 29 – The Battle of Kouno ends after two days in French Equatorial Africa at the village of Kouno, near Sarh, Fort-Archambault in what is now Chad, as French Army Captain Émile Gentil leads a force of 344 troops against a much larger force of 2,700 Sudanese Arabs, led by the warlord Rabih az-Zubayr. Gentil routs the Sudanese, but at the cost of 46 deaths and more than 100 wounded.
* October 30 – In a key engagement in the Second Boer War, the Battle of Ladysmith begins as British troops at the Ladysmith fort in the colony of Natal attempt to make a preemptive strike against a larger force of South African Republic and Orange Free State troops that is gradually surrounding the fort. After sustaining 400 casualties and having 800 men captured, the British retreat back to the fort where Siege of Ladysmith, a 118-day siege begins on November 2.
* October 31 – The House of Commons of the United Kingdom unveils the statue of Oliver Cromwell, Westminster, statue of Oliver Cromwell, commissioned in honor of the former Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.
]
November 1899
* November 1 – A spokesman for the White House announces that U.S. Vice President Garret Hobart will not return to public life and reveals that Hobart has serious health problems. Hobart had retired to his home in Paterson, New Jersey, shortly after having been assigned the duty of telling War Secretary Russell Alger to resign. On November 21, Hobart becomes the fourth U.S. Vice President to die in office.
* November 2 – The siege of Ladysmith begins in Britain's Natal colony in South Africa, as armies of the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and the Orange Free State) cut telegraph lines connecting Ladysmith to the British colony, and try over the next 118 days to starve out the British force.[ The British defenders will hold the fort without surrendering, despite disease and starvation, until the Relief of Ladysmith, siege is broken on February 28, 1900 by a force led by British Army General Redvers Buller.
* November 3 – The first championship boxing bout to be filmed for motion pictures is fought between challenger Tom Sharkey and heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries. Jeffries wins in 25 rounds at an indoor arena at Coney Island, New York, with American Mutoscope and Biograph filming the action.
* November 4 – The Alpha Sigma Tau sorority, which has chapters at 83 colleges and universities in the U.S. as of 2022, is founded in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
* November 5 –
**The U.S. Army, commanded by Major General Arthur MacArthur, wins the battle to capture the Philippine Republic's capital at Angeles City, after nearly three months of fighting that began on August 10. It also captures the Philippine stronghold of Magalang, which had been defended by Major General Servillano Aquino.
**The Belgian Antarctic Expedition, led by Adrien de Gerlache, is concluded as RV Belgica (1884), RV ''Belgica'' sails into Antwerp harbor.
* November 6 –
**The first Packard luxury automobile is produced at company's plant in Warren, Ohio.
**The first Broadway theatre, Broadway play based on Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes debuts at the Garrick Theatre (New York City), Garrick Theater as a production of William Gillette.
**The Boers begin the shelling of the British settlement at Mafeking.][
* November 7 –
**The flash-lamp, the first to use electricity to ignite photographers' Flash (photography)#Flash-lamp/Flash powder, magnesium flash powder, is awarded as U.S. patent 636,492 to Joshua Lionel Cohen. While flash powder had been in use since 1887, the ignition was more dangerous because it had to be performed manually.
**Representatives of the U.S., the UK and Germany sign a treaty in Washington for arbitration of Samoa's claims for damages, with King Oscar of Sweden and Norway agreeing to become the neutral arbitrator.][
* November 8 – The Wildlife Conservation Society, New York Zoological Society opens the Bronx Zoo, Bronx Zoological Park to the public, in New York City.
* November 9 –
**The first British transport of supplemental troops arrives at Cape Town to enter the Second Boer War against the South African Republic.][
**The Boer attack on Ladysmith is repulsed by the British artillery, with the Boers sustaining 800 killed and wounded.][
* November 10 – At the age of 20, Sir Ranbir Singh is invested with full ruling powers over the Jind State, princely state of Jind in British India, after having ascended the throne as Maharaja of Jind on March 7, 1877, at the age of 8.
* November 11 – The Battle of San Jacinto (1899), Battle of San Jacinto is fought in the Philippines, with the U.S. 33rd Volunteer Infantry forcing Philippine Army General Manuel Tinio's troops to retreat. The battle demonstrates the limitations to the heavy, wheel-mounted Gatling gun, in uneven territory.
* November 12 –
**Philippine Federation President ]Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (: March 22, 1869February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who is the youngest president of the Philippines (1899–1901) and is recognized as the first president of the Philippine ...
abolishes the federal government system in the Philippines as the U.S. Army makes further incursions into Filipino-controlled territory, and moves his capital to Bayambang.
**The city of Puerto Cabello in Venezuela surrenders to General Cipriano Castro after heavy fighting.[
* November 13 –
**Philippine President Aguinaldo dissolves the remains of the Filipino regular army and moves to a strategy of Asymmetric warfare#Philippine–American War, guerrilla warfare against the U.S. occupational forces.
**China's Hunan province opens to foreign trade for the first time.][
**In Colombia's Thousand Days' War, the Battle of Bucaramanga (1899), Battle of Bucaramanga ends with a victory over the Colombian Army against an attack by Liberal Party rebels, who suffer 1,000 killed and 500 wounded.
* November 14 – The first aerial crossing of the Mediterranean Sea is made by Louis Capazza and Alphonse Fondère in Capazza's balloon ''Gabizos''. The group departs ]Marseilles
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
in France at 4:30 in the morning and arrives at 11:00 a.m. on the island of Corsica.
* November 15 – The American Line's becomes the first ocean liner to report her imminent arrival by wireless telegraphy, when Guglielmo Marconi, Marconi's station at The Needles contacts her off the coast of England.
* November 16 – A British Army train carrying troops is wrecked in South Africa near Estcourt by the Boers, and 56 men are taken prisoner, including war correspondent Winston Churchill.[
* November 17 – "Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Naval Station, Honolulu" is established by the U.S. Department of the Navy with on the island of Oahu in the recently annexed Territory of Hawaii. With construction and dredging over the next 12 years, the strategic base is later named for its location on Pearl Harbor.
* November 18 – On the final game of its season, the 1899 Harvard Crimson football team, Harvard University college football team, having a record of 10 wins (nine by shutout) and no defeats, hosts its rival, 1899 Yale Bulldogs football team, Yale University (7-1-0), and plays to a scoreless tie before 35,000 fans. Although Harvard's 1899 streak of defeating every opponent is ended by the tie, the Crimson team will later be selected retroactively (and recognized by the NCAA Record Book) as the 1899 mythical national champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation.
* November 19 – In the Second Boer War, the Boers redeploy 4,000 of the 8,000 troops assigned to the Siege of Mafeking, because of the heavy resistance by the British defenders.
* November 20 –
**Aston Villa F.C. and the Orange Free State national soccer football team play a friendly match despite the ongoing Second Boer War between the United Kingdom and the Orange Free State. The Orange Free State had been touring Britain at the time that the War broke out. Aston Villa wins, 7 to 4.
**Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II and his family arrive in London at the invitation of Queen Victoria's government, and are greeted by cheering crowds.
**British Lieutenant-General John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, John French arrives at the Colesberg in the Cape Colony front to coordinate the defense of the British colonies in South Africa against the Boer attack and conducts a series of distracting maneuvers that succeed in preventing the South African Republic from attempting an invasion of the Cape Colony.
* November 21 – The Boers cut off all telegraph lines and seized the railway connecting Estcourt to the rest of the Cape Colony.][''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'']
(January 1900) pp. 23-26
* November 22 – American serial killer Martin Stickles kills his first random victim, shooting a former neighbor, William B. Shanklin, then burning down Shanklin's house.
* November 23 – The U.S. Department of the Post Office applied the same charges for mail from Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam as were used in the other 46 U.S. states.[
* November 24 – Eleonora de Cisneros, the first American-trained opera singer in the U.S., makes her debut for the Metropolitan Opera company, appearing as Rossweisse at the Met's production of Wagner's ''Die Walküre'' in Chicago.
* November 25 – The Battle of Umm Diwaykarat, a decisive British and Egyptian victory ends the Mahdist War in the Sudan, as the Khalifa of Sudan, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, is killed. The Sudanese sustain 1,000 casualties, while the Anglo-Egyptian force commanded by General Reginald Wingate has three killed and 23 wounded.
* November 26 – 1899 Portuguese legislative election, Elections are held in the Kingdom of Portugal for the 138 seats of the Chamber of Deputies of Portugal (1822–1910), Câmara dos Senhores Deputados. Prime Minister José Luciano de Castro's Progressive Party (Portugal), Partido Progressista increases its majority, winning 91 of the seats.
* November 27 – The Ottoman Empire grants Germany's Deutsche Bank the concession to finance the construction of the Berlin–Baghdad railway, Baghdad Railway, following a visit by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Constantinople in 1898 as a guest of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
* November 28 –
**The British Army sustains heavy losses (471 casualties) in the Battle of Modder River, which Paul Methuen, 3rd Baron Methuen, Lord Methuen describes as "one of the hardest and most trying fights in the annals of the British Army", despite routing the Boers.][
**The Philippine Republic capital at Bayambang surrenders as the government flees the Fourth Cavalry of the U.S. Army.
* November 29 – The FC Barcelona association football (soccer) club is founded in Spain.
* November 30 –
**The first women to serve, in uniform, in the armed forces of any nation began service as part of the Canadian Army, Canadian Militia Expeditionary Force to Cape Town to serve in the Boer War. Georgina Pope, Georgina Fane Pope and three other women are enlisted as army nurses. As Patrick Robertson notes, "There was nothing new about female nurses serving in the military; they had done so in numerous campaigns since the Revolutionary War, but in every instance as civilian auxiliaries."
**The British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, makes a controversial public speech at Leicester proposing ""a new Triple Alliance between the Teutonic race and the two great trans-Atlantic branches of the Anglo-Saxon race which would become a potent influence on the future of the world," with the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany agreeing to work together.
]
December 1899
* December 2
** Philippine–American War
The Philippine–American War or Filipino–American War ( es, Guerra filipina-estadounidense, tl, Digmaang Pilipino–Amerikano), previously referred to as the Philippine Insurrection or the Tagalog Insurgency by the United States, was an arm ...
– Battle of Tirad Pass ("The Filipino Thermopylae"): General Gregorio del Pilar and his troops are able to guard the retreat of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (: March 22, 1869February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, statesman, and military leader who is the youngest president of the Philippines (1899–1901) and is recognized as the first president of the Philippine ...
, before being wiped out.
** During the new moon, a near-grand conjunction (astronomy), conjunction of the classical planets and several binoculars, binocular Solar System bodies occur. The Sun, Moon, Mercury (planet), Mercury, Mars and Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
are all within 15° of each other, with Venus 5° ahead of this conjunction and Jupiter 15° behind. Accompanying the classical planets in this grand conjunction are Uranus (technically visible unaided in air pollution, pollution-free skies), Ceres (dwarf planet), Ceres and 2 Pallas, Pallas.
** Rebel Venezuelan General Jose Manuel Hernandez captures the city of Maracaibo in his revolt against Cipriano Castro's government, but is only able to hold it for 15 days.[
* December 4 – As the 56th U.S. Congress holds its first session, David B. Henderson (Republican-Iowa) is elected Speaker of the House. The House refuses permission for Brigham H. Roberts (Democrat-Utah) to take the oath of office as a U.S. Representative, pending investigation of allegations of bigamy.][
* December 5 – Germany's cabinet agrees to repeal a Prussian law that had prohibited the creation of political societies or clubs.][
* December 6 – A lynch mob in Maysville, Kentucky forces its way into the county jail to seize an African-American indicted for murder, tortures him and then burns him to death.][
* December 9 – An explosion kills 32 coal miners at the Carbon Hill mines in Carbonado, Washington.][
* December 10
** Four-month-old Sobhuza II begins his 82-year reign as King of Swaziland, on the death of his father, Ngwane V; his grandmother Labotsibeni Mdluli serves as queen regent.
** Battle of Stormberg: The British Army makes a disastrous attempt to surprise the Boer position in Natal and suffers the loss of 687 officers and men.][
** The college fraternity Delta Sigma Phi is founded at the City College of New York, by Charles A. Tonsor Jr. and Meyer Boskey.
* December 11 –
**Second Boer War – Battle of Magersfontein: Boers defeat British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
**Philippine-American War: Filipino General Tierona surrenders the province of Cagayan to U.S. Navy Captain McCalla of the USS ''Newark''.][
* December 13 – General French routs Boer troops that had been advancing into the Cape Colony toward Noupoort.][
* December 14 – Walther Hauser is elected President of Switzerland by the Swiss Federal Assembly.][
* December 15 –
**Battle of Colenso: Britain's General Buller loses 1,097 officers and men in a fight against the Boers in Natal, the third serious British reverse in South Africa in a week.][
**Glasgow School of Art opens its new building, the most notable work of Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
**The Republican National Committee votes to hold its 1900 national convention in Philadelphia, to start on June 19, 1900.][
* December 16 – The Association football club A.C. Milan is founded in Italy.
* December 18 –
**The British War Office sends Lord Roberts to South Africa to become the new commander of British forces in the Second Boer War, with Lord Kitchener to be second in command, and announces that 100,000 additional men will be sent.][
**U.S. Army General Lawton is killed by a Filipino sniper near San Mateo on Luzon island.][
**Stock prices fall drastically at the New York exchanges and the Produce Exchange Trust Company fails.][
* December 19 – New York City's clearinghouse banks pool together a $10,000,000 loan fund to prevent further failures of companies.][
* December 20 – The U.S. government arrests nine customs officials in Havana on charges of collusion to defraud the government.][''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'']
(February 1900) pp. 153-157
* December 21 – U.S. Army General Leonard Wood arrives in Havana to become the new Governor-General of Cuba.[
* December 22 –
** More than 40 schoolchildren from Belgium drown in the capsizing of a boat near the French town of Frelinghien on the Lys (river), River Lys that serves a boundary between Belgium and France.][
** A fire kills 16 children in Quincy, Illinois.][
* December 23 –
**Forty coal miners are killed in an explosion near Brownsville, Pennsylvania.][
**Sir Reginald Wingate is appointed as the new British Governor-General of the Sudan, Governor-General of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.][
* December 24 – The wreck of the British steamship ''Ariosto'' off the coast of Hatteras, North Carolina in the U.S. drowns 21 of the crew.][
* December 26 – Pinnacle Rock, a balancing rock in Cumberland Gap on the Tennessee and Kentucky border in the U.S., falls down.
* December 28 – The bodies of the officers and men killed on the 1898 explosion of the battleship USS Maine (1889), USS ''Maine'' are reinterred at the Arlington National Cemetery.][
* December 29 – The British Royal Navy cruiser HMS ''Magicienne'' seizes the German steamer, ''Bundesroth'' in Delagoa Bay at Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) on grounds that German officers and men are being brought to supplement the Boer Army. The ''Bundesroth'' is then escorted to Durban in Britain's Natal Colony.][
* December 30 – General Wood completes the appointment of a cabinet of ministers composed of Cuban residents, with Diego Tamayo, Luis Esterez, Juan B. Hernandez, Enrique Varona, Jose R. Villaton and Ruiz Rivera taking office.][
* December 31
** The last day of the 1890s takes place, and the German government and Kaiser Wilhelm II declare that the 20th century will begin on January 1, 1900.][ In most of the world, however, December 31, 1899 is not the last day of the 19th century, which also includes the year 1900.
** December 31, 1899 is day zero for dates in Microsoft Excel, similar to January 1970, January 1, 1970 being day zero for Unix time. This is to ensure backwards compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3, which had a bug misinterpreting 1900 as a leap year.
]
Date unknown
* Ferdinand Zeppelin builds the first successful airship.
* The significance of Chinese oracle bones is discovered.
* The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the town of Manteo, North Carolina, Manteo, which was originally laid out as the Dare County, North Carolina, Dare County seat in 1870.
* Riro Kāinga, Riro, last of the Kings of Easter Island, on a visit to Valparaíso, Chile, dies either from alcohol poisoning, or an assassination plot by the Chilean government.
* Oxo (food), Oxo Bouillon cube, beef stock cubes are introduced, by Liebig's Extract of Meat Company.
* Alfred R. Tucker becomes Bishop of Uganda.
* The German company ''Miele'' is founded.
* Torii Shoten, predecessor of Suntory
(commonly referred to as simply Suntory) is a Japanese multinational brewing and distilling company group. Established in 1899, it is one of the oldest companies in the distribution of alcoholic beverages in Japan, and makes Japanese whisky. Its ...
, a worldwide alcoholic drink and Soft drink, soft drink brand, was founded in Osaka, Japan.
* Giros-Loucheur Group, predecessor of Vinci SA, Vinci, a worldwide construction and infrastructure industry, founded in France.
* Timken Roller Bearing Company, predecessor of worldwide parts brand, Timken Company, Timken was founded in Missouri, United States.
*The 1899–1923 cholera pandemic occur in the Europe, Asia and Africa (Old World), right behind the 1846–1860 cholera pandemic in Russia
Births
January
* January 1 – Jack Beresford, British Olympic rower (d. 1977)
* January 3
Events Pre-1600
*AD 69, 69 – The Roman legions on the Rhine refuse to declare their allegiance to Galba, instead proclaiming their legate, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor.
* 250 – Emperor Decius orders everyone in the Roman Empire (ex ...
– Karl Diebitsch, German fashion designer (1985)
* January 6
Events Pre-1600
*1066 – Following the death of Edward the Confessor on the previous day, the Witan meets to confirm Harold Godwinson as the new King of England; Harold is crowned the same day, sparking a succession crisis that will eve ...
** Alphonse Castex, French rugby union player (d. 1969)
** Heinrich Nordhoff, German automotive engineer (d. 1968)
** Elsie Steele, British supercentenarian (d. 2010)
* January 7
Events Pre-1600
*49 BC – The Senate of Rome says that Caesar will be declared a public enemy unless he disbands his army. This prompts the tribunes who support him to flee to Ravenna, where Caesar is waiting.
* 1325 – Alfonso IV ...
– Francis Poulenc, French composer (d. 1963)
* January 8
Events Pre-1600
* 307 – Emperor Huai of Jin, Jin Huaidi becomes emperor of China in succession to his father, Emperor Hui of Jin, Jin Huidi, despite a challenge from his uncle, Sima Ying.
* 871 – Æthelred I, King of Wessex, Æthel ...
– S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, 4th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (d. 1959)
* January 11 – Eva Le Gallienne, English actress (d. 1991)
* January 12 – Paul Hermann Müller, Swiss chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1965)
* January 14
Events Pre-1600
*1236 – King Henry III of England marries Eleanor of Provence.
*1301 – Andrew III of Hungary dies, ending the Árpád dynasty in Hungary.
1601–1900
*1639 – The "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, Fundamenta ...
** Fritz Bayerlein, German general (d. 1970)
** Carlos Romulo, Filipino diplomat (d. 1985)
* January 15
Events Pre-1600
* 69 – Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, beginning a reign of only three months.
* 1541 – King Francis I of France gives Jean-François Roberval a commission to settle the province of ...
– Goodman Ace, American actor, comedian and writer (d. 1982)
* January 17
** Al Capone, American gangster (d. 1947)
** Nevil Shute, English-born novelist (d. 1960)
* January 20
Events Pre-1600
* 250 – Pope Fabian is martyred during the Decian persecution.
* 649 – King Chindasuinth, at the urging of bishop Braulio of Zaragoza, crowns his son Recceswinth as co-ruler of the Visigothic Kingdom.
* 1156 &ndas ...
– Kenjiro Takayanagi, Japanese television development pioneer (d. 1990)
* January 21
** Gyula Mándi, Hungarian footballer and manager (d. 1969)
** John Bodkin Adams, British physician acquitted of murder (d. 1983)
* January 23 – Alfred Denning, Baron Denning, English lawyer, judge and Master of the Rolls (d. 1999)
* January 25
Events Pre-1600
* 41 – After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman emperor by the Senate.
* 750 – In the Battle of the Zab, the Abbasid rebels defeat the Umayyad Caliphate, leading to the overthrow of the dynasty ...
– Paul-Henri Spaak, 31st Prime Minister of Belgium and international statesman (d. 1972)
* January 27
Events Pre-1600
* 98 – Trajan succeeds his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor; under his rule the Roman Empire will reach its maximum extent.
* 945 – The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown and forced to becom ...
– Béla Guttmann, Hungarian-born Association football coach (d. 1981)
* January 29 – Antal Páger (actor), Antal Páger, Hungarian actor (d. 1986)
* January 30
Events Pre-1600
*1018 – Poland and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Peace of Bautzen.
*1287 – King Wareru founds the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and proclaims independence from the Pagan Kingdom.
1601–1900
*1607 – An estimated ...
– Max Theiler, South African virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1972)
February
* February 2
Events Pre-1600
* 506 – Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths, promulgates the Breviary of Alaric (''Breviarium Alaricianum'' or ''Lex Romana Visigothorum''), a collection of "Roman law".
* 880 – Battle of Lüneburg Heath: King ...
– Herbie Faye, American actor (d. 1980)
* February 3
Events Pre-1600
* 1112 – Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.
*1451 – Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire.
*1488 – ...
** Café Filho, 18th President of Brazil (d. 1970)
** Lao She, Chinese author (d. 1966)
** Doris Speed, British actress (d. 1994)
** Mildred Trotter, American forensic anthropologist (d. 1991)
* February 4
Events Pre–1600
* 211 – Following the death of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus at Eboracum (modern York, England) while preparing to lead a campaign against the Caledonians, the empire is left in the control of his two quarrellin ...
– Virginia M. Alexander, African-American physician (d. 1949)
* February 6
Events Pre-1600
* 1579 – The Archdiocese of Manila is made a diocese by a papal bull with Domingo de Salazar being its first bishop.
1601–1900
* 1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland is proclaimed King upon the death of ...
– Ramon Novarro, Mexican-born American actor (d. 1968)
* February 7 – Earl Whitehill, American baseball player (d. 1954)
* February 10 – Cevdet Sunay, 5th President of Turkey (d. 1982)
* February 15
Events Pre-1600
* 438 – Roman emperor Theodosius II publishes the law codex Codex Theodosianus
* 590 – Khosrau II is crowned king of Persia.
* 706 – Byzantine emperor Justinian II has his predecessors Leontios and Tiberi ...
** Georges Auric, French composer (d. 1983)
** Lillian Disney, American artist (d. 1997)
** Gale Sondergaard, American actress (d. 1985)
* February 17
Events Pre-1600
* 1370 – Northern Crusades: Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights meet in the Battle of Rudau.
* 1411 – Following the successful campaigns during the Ottoman Interregnum, Musa Çelebi, one of the sons of ...
** Jibanananda Das, Indian poet, writer, novelist and essayist in Bengali language, Bengali (d. 1954)
** Leo Najo, American baseball player (d. 1978)
* February 18 – Arthur Bryant, Sir Arthur Bryant, British historian (d. 1985)
* February 19
Events Pre-1600
* 197 – Emperor Septimius Severus defeats usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum, the bloodiest battle between Roman armies.
* 356 – The anti-paganism policy of Constantius II forbids the worship of pagan ...
– Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, German scientist (d. 1961)
* February 22
** Joseph Le Brix, French aviator, naval officer (d. 1931)
** Margarito Flores García, Mexican Roman Catholic priest, martyr and saint (d. 1927)
** George O'Hara (actor), George O'Hara, American actor (d. 1966)
** Ian Clunies Ross, Australian scientist (d. 1959)
** Dechko Uzunov, Bulgarian painter (d. 1986)
* February 23
Events Pre-1600
* 303 – Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.
* 532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I lays the foundation stone of a ...
– Erich Kästner, German writer (d. 1974)
* February 24
Events Pre-1600
* 484 – King Huneric of the Vandals replaces Nicene bishops with Arian ones, and banishes some to Corsica.
* 1303 – The English are defeated at the Battle of Roslin, in the First War of Scottish Independence.
* 13 ...
– Mikhail Gromov (military), Mikhail Gromov, Soviet aviator (d. 1985)
* February 26
Events Pre-1600
*747 BC – According to Ptolemy, the epoch (origin) of the Nabonassar Era began at noon on this date. Historians use this to establish the modern BC chronology for dating historic events.
* 364 – Valentinian I is p ...
** Alec Campbell, Australian WWI soldier, last Australian Gallipoli veteran (d. 2002)
** Max Petitpierre, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1994)
* February 27
Events Pre-1600
* 380 – Edict of Thessalonica: Emperor Theodosius I and his co-emperors Gratian and Valentinian II declare their wish that all Roman citizens convert to Nicene Christianity.
* 425 – The University of Constantinople ...
– Charles Herbert Best, Charles Best, Canadian medical scientist (d. 1978)
March
* March 4 – Harry R. Wellman, University of California president (d. 1997)
* March 8
** Eric Linklater, American author (d. 1974)
** Elmer Keith, American rancher, author, and firearms enthusiast (d. 1984)
* March 11 – King Frederick IX of Denmark (d. 1972)
* March 13 – John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, American physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1980)
* March 18 – Jean Goldkette, French-born musician (d. 1962)
* March 21
Events Pre-1600
* 537 – Siege of Rome: King Vitiges attempts to assault the northern and eastern city walls, but is repulsed at the Praenestine Gate, known as the ''Vivarium'', by the defenders under the Byzantine generals Bessas an ...
– Panagiotis Pipinelis, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1970)
* March 24 – Dorothy C. Stratton, American director of the SPARS during World War II (d. 2006)
* March 25
Events Pre-1600
* 421 – Italian city Venice is founded with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo di Rialto on the islet of Rialto.
* 708 – Pope Constantine becomes the 88th pope. He would be the last pope to vi ...
- Burt Munro, New Zealand motorcycle racer (d. 1978)
* March 27 – Gloria Swanson, American actress (d. 1983)
* March 28
** August Anheuser Busch Jr., American founder of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery Company (d. 1989)
** Harold B. Lee, 11th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1973)
* March 29
**James V. Allred, American politician, 33rd Governor of Texas (d. 1959)
**Lavrentiy Beria, Soviet official (d. 1953)
April
* April 1 – Gustavs Celmiņš, Latvian fascist leader (d. 1968)
* April 3 – Maria Redaelli-Granoli, Italian supercentenarian, oldest person in Europe (d. 2013)
* April 4
Events Pre-1600
* 503 BC – Roman consul Agrippa Menenius Lanatus celebrates a triumph for a military victory over the Sabines.
* 190 – Dong Zhuo has his troops evacuate the capital Luoyang and burn it to the ground.
* 611 – ...
– Hillel Oppenheimer, German-born Israeli botanist (d. 1971)
* April 5
Events Pre-1600
* 823 – Lothair I is crowned King of Italy by Pope Paschal I.
* 919 – The second Fatimid invasion of Egypt begins, when the Fatimid heir-apparent, al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah, sets out from Raqqada at the head of his a ...
**Nicolae Cambrea, Romanian general (d. 1976)
**Elsie Thompson, American supercentenarian (d. 2013)
* April 7 – Robert Casadesus, French pianist (d. 1972)
* April 9 – Hans Jeschonnek, German general (d. 1943)
* April 16 – Osman Achmatowicz, Polish chemist (d. 1988)
* April 19 – George O'Brien (actor), George O'Brien, American actor (d. 1985)
* April 20 – Alan Arnett McLeod, Canadian soldier (d. 1918)
* April 21
Events Pre-1600
*753 BC – Romulus founds Rome ( traditional date).
* 43 BC – Battle of Mutina: Mark Antony is again defeated in battle by Aulus Hirtius, who is killed. Antony fails to capture Mutina and Decimus Brutus is murdered ...
– Percy Lavon Julian, American scientist (d. 1975)
* April 22 – Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born American writer (d. 1977)
* April 23
Events Pre-1600
* 215 BC – A temple is built on the Capitoline Hill dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene.
* 599 – Maya king Uneh Chan of Calakmul attacks rival city-state Palenque in southe ...
– Bertil Ohlin, Swedish economist, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
* April 24 – Oscar Zariski, Russian mathematician (d. 1986)
* April 26 – John Fearns Nicoll, British colonial governor (d. 1981)
* April 27 – Walter Lantz, American animator, creator of Woody Woodpecker (d. 1994)
* April 29
** Duke Ellington, African-American jazz musician, bandleader (d. 1974)
** Mary Petty, American illustrator (d. 1976)
May
* May 3 – Aline MacMahon, American actress (d. 1991)
* May 6 – Billy Cotton, British entertainer, bandleader (d. 1969)
* May 8
** Arthur Q. Bryan, American actor, voice actor, comedian and radio personality (d. 1959)
** Friedrich Hayek, Austrian economist, Nobel Prize in Economics, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1992)
* May 10
** Fred Astaire, American singer, dancer, and actor (d. 1987)
** Dimitri Tiomkin, Ukrainian-born composer (d. 1979)
* May 12 – Indra Devi, Baltic-born yogi, and actress (d. 2002)
* May 15 – Jean-Étienne Valluy, French general (d. 1970)
* May 17 – Carmen de Icaza, Spanish writer (d. 1979)
* May 18 – Ronald Armstrong-Jones, Welsh barrister (d. 1966)
* May 20 – John Marshall Harlan II, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1971)
* May 23 – Jeralean Talley, American supercentenarian (d. 2015)
* May 24
** Suzanne Lenglen, French tennis player (d. 1938)
** Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bangladeshi national poet (d. 1976)
* May 26 – Ruth Bird, English historian and schoolteacher. (d. 1987)
* May 30 – Irving Thalberg, American film producer (d. 1936)
June
* June 1 – Edward Charles Titchmarsh, British mathematician (d. 1963)
* June 2 – Lotte Reiniger, German-born silhouette animator (d. 1981)
* June 3 – Georg von Békésy, Hungarian biophysicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1972)
* June 4 – Arthur Barker, American criminal, son of Ma Barker (d. 1939)
* June 9 – Signe Amundsen, Norwegian operatic soprano (d. 1987)
* June 11 – Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1972)
* June 12 – Fritz Albert Lipmann, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1986)
* June 13 – Carlos Chávez, Mexican composer (d. 1978)
* June 16 – Helen Traubel, American soprano (d. 1972)
* June 18 – John Warburton (actor), John Warburton, British actor (d. 1981)
* June 24 – Bruce Marshall, Scottish writer (d. 1987)
* June 25 – Arthur Tracy, American singer (d. 1997)
* June 26
** Odus Mitchell, American football player and coach (d. 1989)
** Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (d. 1918)
* June 27 – Juan Trippe, American airline pioneer, entrepreneur (d. 1981)
* June 29 – Edward Twining, British diplomat, Governor of North Borneo and of Tanganyika (d. 1967)
* June 30
** Madge Bellamy, American actress (d. 1990)
** Harry Shields, American jazz clarinettist (d. 1971)
July
* July 1
** Thomas A. Dorsey, American musician (d. 1993)
** Charles Laughton, English-American stage, film actor (d. 1962)
** Konstantinos Tsatsos, President of Greece (d. 1987)
* July 4 – Austin Warren (scholar), Austin Warren, American literary critic, author, and professor of English (d. 1986)
* July 5 – Marcel Achard, French playwright, scriptwriter (d. 1974)
* July 6 – Susannah Mushatt Jones, American supercentenarian, Last remaining American born in the 19th century (d. 2016)
* July 7
** George Cukor, American film director (d. 1983)
** Jesse Wallace, American naval officer, 29th Governor of American Samoa (d. 1961)
* July 10 – John Gilbert (actor), John Gilbert, American actor (d. 1936)
* July 11
**E. B. White, American writer (d. 1985)
**Frank R. Walker, American admiral (d. 1976)
* July 12 – E. D. Nixon, African-American civil rights leader and union organizer (d. 1987)
* July 15 – Seán Lemass, Taoiseach of Ireland (d. 1971)
* July 16 – Božidar Jakac, Slovene Expressionist, Realist and Symbolist painter, printmaker, art teacher, photographer and filmmaker (d. 1989)
* July 17 – James Cagney, American actor and dancer (d. 1986)
* July 18 – Floyd Stahl, American collegiate athletic coach (d. 1996)
* July 20 – Paul Christoph Mangelsdorf, American botanist and agronomist (d. 1989)
* July 21
** Hart Crane, American poet (suicide 1932)
** Ernest Hemingway, American author, journalist (suicide 1961)
* July 22 – King Sobhuza II of Swaziland (d. 1982)
* July 23 – Gustav Heinemann, President of West Germany (d. 1976)
* July 24 – Chief Dan George, Canadian actor, writer and tribal chief of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation (d. 1981)
* July 29
** Walter Beall, American baseball player (d. 1959)
** Alice Terry, American film actress (d. 1987)
August
* August 1 – Kamala Nehru, Spouse of Prime Minister of India (d. 1936)
* August 4 – Ezra Taft Benson, 13th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1994)
* August 9
** Paul Kelly (actor), Paul Kelly, American stage, film actor (d. 1956
Events
January
* January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan.
* January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim ...
)
** P. L. Travers, Australian-born British actress, journalist and author (d. 1996)
* August 13 – Alfred Hitchcock, British-born American film director (d. 1980)
* August 14 – Alma Reville, English screenwriter and film editor, wife of director Alfred Hitchcock (d. 1982)
* August 16 – Glenn Strange, American actor (d. 1973)
* August 17 – Janet Lewis, American novelist and poet (d. 1998)
* August 19 – Colleen Moore, American actress (d. 1988)
* August 24
** Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (d. 1986)
** Albert Claude, Belgian biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1983)
* August 26 – Rufino Tamayo, Mexican painter (d. 1991)
* August 27
** C. S. Forester, English novelist (d. 1966)
** Byron Foulger, American actor (d. 1970)
* August 28
** Charles Boyer, French actor (d. 1978)
* Béla Guttmann, Hungarian footballer and coach (d. 1981)
* Vernon Huber, American rear admiral; 36th Governor of American Samoa (d. 1967)
* August 29 – Lyman Lemnitzer, American general (d. 1988)
* August 30 – Ray Arcel, American boxing trainer (d. 1994)
* August 31 – Boots Adams, American business magnate, president of Phillips Petroleum Company (d. 1975)
September
* September 1
**Andrei Platonovich Klimentov, Russian-born Soviet writer (d. 1951)
**Takuma Nishimura, Japanese general (d. 1951)
* September 3 – Macfarlane Burnet, Australian biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1985)
* September 8 – May McAvoy, American actress and singer (d. 1984)
* September 9
** Brassaï, French photographer (d. 1984)
** Waite Hoyt, American baseball player (d. 1984)
* September 11 – Jimmie Davis, American politician and musician, Governor of Louisiana (d. 2000)
* September 13 – Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Romanian fascist politician, leader of the Iron Guard (d. 1938)
* September 17 – Harold Bennett, British actor (d. 1981)
* September 18 – Ida Kamińska, Polish-Jewish actress, playwright, and translator (d. 1980)
* September 21 – Frederick Coutts, 8th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1986)
* September 23 – Tom C. Clark, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1977)
* September 24 – Bessie Braddock, British politician (d. 1970)
October
* October 1 – Ernest Haycox, American writer (d. 1950)
* October 3 – Gertrude Berg, American actress (d. 1966)
* October 4
** Franz Jonas, President of Austria (d. 1974)
** Trinidad Roxas, First Ladies and Gentlemen of the Philippines, 5th First Lady of the Philippines (d. 1995)
* October 5 – George, Duke of Mecklenburg, head of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1963)
* October 9 – Bruce Catton, American Civil War historian, Pulitzer Prize winner (1954) (d. 1978)
* October 19 – Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan writer, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
* October 20 – Evelyn Brent, American actress (d. 1975)
* October 22 – Nikolay Bogolyubov (actor), Nikolay Bogolyubov, Soviet and Russian actor (d. 1980)
* October 24
** Burr Shafer, American cartoonist (d. 1965)
** László Bíró, Hungarian inventor of the ballpoint pen (d. 1985)
* October 29 – Akim Tamiroff, Armenian actor (d. 1972)
* October 30 – Katarina Marinič, Slovenian supercentenarian (d. 2010)
November
* November 5 – Forrest Lewis, American actor (d. 1977)
* November 6 – Feng Zhanhai, Chinese military leader, government official (d. 1963)
* November 7
** Yitzhak Lamdan, Russian-born Israeli poet, columnist (d. 1954)
** Stanisław Swianiewicz, Polish economist and historian (d. 1997)
* November 11 – Pat O'Brien (actor), Pat O'Brien, American actor (d. 1983)
* November 13
** Vera Caspary, American screenwriter, novelist, playwright (d. 1987)
** Iskander Mirza, 1st president of Pakistan (d. 1969)
* November 15 – Avdy Andresson, Estonian Minister of War in Exile (d. 1990)
* November 17 – Douglas Shearer, American film sound engineer (d. 1971)
* November 18 – Eugene Ormandy, Hungarian-American conductor (d. 1985)
* November 19 – Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, Shia Ayatollah (d. 1992)
* November 21 – Jobyna Ralston, American actress (d. 1967)
* November 22
** Gualtiero De Angelis, Italian actor and voice actor (d. 1980)
** Hoagy Carmichael, American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader (d. 1981)
* November 23 – Manuel dos Reis Machado, Brazilian martial arts master (d. 1974)
* November 24 – Soraya Tarzi, Afghan feminist, queen (d. 1968)
* November 26
** Mona Bruns, American stage, film, radio, and television actress (d. 2000)
** Richard Hauptmann, German murderer of Charles Lindbergh Jr. (d. 1936)
** Maurice Rose, American general (d. 1945)
* November 29 – Emma Morano, Italian supercentenarian, oldest Italian ever, last surviving person born in the 1800s (d. 2017)
December
* December 1 – Gaetano Lucchese, American gangster, boss of the Lucchese crime family (d. 1967)
* December 2
** John Barbirolli, English conductor (d. 1970)
** Ray Morehart, American baseball player (d. 1989)
* December 3 – Hayato Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1965)
* December 4 – Sam Newfield, American film director (d. 1964)
* December 8 – John Qualen, Canadian-American actor (d. 1987)
* December 9 – Jean de Brunhoff, French writer (d. 1937)
* December 11 – Joan Stevenson Abbott , Australian World War II army hospital matron (d. 1975)
* December 14 – DeFord Bailey, American country musician (d. 1982)
* December 15 – Harold Abrahams, British athlete (d. 1978)
* December 16
** Noël Coward, English actor, playwright, and composer (d. 1973)
** Aleksander Zawadzki, former President of Poland (d. 1964)
* December 18 – Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian author and philosopher (d. 1990)
* December 19 – Martin Luther King Sr., American Baptist pastor, missionary, and early figure in the civil rights movement (d. 1984)
* December 20
**Finn Ronne, Norwegian-American explorer (d. 1980)
**John Sparkman, American politician (d. 1985)
* December 25
** Humphrey Bogart, American actor (d. 1957)
** Frank Ferguson, American actor (d. 1978)
* December 28 – Eugeniusz Bodo, Polish actor (d. 1943)
* December 29 – Nie Rongzhen, Chinese Communist military leader (d. 1992)
* December 31 – Friedrich Panse, German psychiatrist (d. 1973)
Date unknown
* Otto Klemperer (physicist), Otto Klemperer, German physicist (d. 1987)
* Nureddine Rifai, 25th Prime Minister of Lebanon (d. 1980)
Deaths
January–February
* January 1 – William Hugh Smith, 72, Governor of Alabama during Reconstruction, 1868 to 1870, former Alabama legislator who joined the Union Army
* January 10
Events Pre-1600
*49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signalling the start of civil war.
* 9 – The Western Han dynasty ends when Wang Mang claims that the divine Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the dynasty and the be ...
–
**Jonathan Baldwin Turner, Jonathan B. Turner, 93, U.S. educational reformer and champion of land grant universities, co-founder of the University of Illinois
**William A. Russell (Massachusetts politician), William A. Russell, 67, U.S. Congressman and industrialist who was the first president of the International Paper Company
* January 13
Events Pre-1600
* 27 BC – Octavian transfers the state to the free disposal of the Roman Senate and the people. He receives Spain, Gaul, and Syria as his province for ten years.
* 532 – The Nika riots break out, during the racing ...
– Nelson Dingley Jr., 66, U.S. politician and Congressman for Maine since 1881, author of the Dingley Act for increased tariffs
* January 14
Events Pre-1600
*1236 – King Henry III of England marries Eleanor of Provence.
*1301 – Andrew III of Hungary dies, ending the Árpád dynasty in Hungary.
1601–1900
*1639 – The "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, Fundamenta ...
– Nubar Pasha, 74, the first Prime Minister of Egypt (1878–79, 1884–88 and 1894–95)
* January 17 – Jedediah Hotchkiss, 70, American military cartographer for the Confederacy during the American Civil War
* January 23 – Romualdo Pacheco, 77, the only Hispanic Governor of California, Governor of the U.S. state of California (in 1875); (b. 1831)
* January 29 – Alfred Sisley, 59, French impressionism, impressionist landscape painter, died of throat cancer (b. 1839)
* January 30
Events Pre-1600
*1018 – Poland and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Peace of Bautzen.
*1287 – King Wareru founds the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and proclaims independence from the Pagan Kingdom.
1601–1900
*1607 – An estimated ...
–Harry Bates (sculptor), Harry Bates, 48, British sculptor (b. 1850)
* January 31 – Princess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma, 29, princess consort of Bulgaria, from complications of childbirth (b. 1870)
* February 6
Events Pre-1600
* 1579 – The Archdiocese of Manila is made a diocese by a papal bull with Domingo de Salazar being its first bishop.
1601–1900
* 1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland is proclaimed King upon the death of ...
** Leo von Caprivi, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1831)
** Alfred, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (b. 1874)
* February 11
Events Pre-1600
*660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
* 55 – The death under mysterious circumstances of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman empire, on the eve of his coming ...
– Teuku Umar, Leader of Acehnese Rebellion (b. 1854)
* February 16 – Félix Faure, President of France (b. 1841)
* February 18 – Sophus Lie, Norwegian mathematician; see Lie group.(b. 1842)
* February 23
Events Pre-1600
* 303 – Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.
* 532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I lays the foundation stone of a ...
– Gaëtan de Rochebouët, Prime Minister of France (b. 1813)
* February 25
Events Pre-1600
* 138 – Roman emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius as his son, effectively making him his successor.
* 628 – Khosrow II, the last great Shah of the Sasanian Empire (Iran), is overthrown by his son Kavadh II.
...
– Paul Reuter, German-born news agency founder (b. 1816)
March–April
* March 3 – William P. Sprague, American politician from Ohio (b. 1827)
* March 6 – Princess Kaʻiulani, last monarch of Hawaii (b. 1875)
* March 12
Events Pre-1600
* 538 – Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city to the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius.
* 1088 – Election of Urban II as the 159th Pope of the Cat ...
– Julius Vogel, Sir Julius Vogel, Premier of New Zealand (b. 1835)
* March 18 – Othniel Charles Marsh, American palaeontologist (b. 1831)
* March 20 – Martha M. Place
Martha M. Place (September 18, 1849 – March 20, 1899) was an American murderer and the first woman to die in the electric chair. She was Execution (legal), executed on March 20, 1899, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility for the murder of her ste ...
, American murderer, first woman executed in the electric chair (b. 1849)
* March 24 – Marie Goegg-Pouchoulin, Swiss national, international women's rights activist, pacifist (b. 1826)
* April 1 – Charles C. Carpenter (admiral), Charles C. Carpenter, American admiral (b. 1834)
* April 5
Events Pre-1600
* 823 – Lothair I is crowned King of Italy by Pope Paschal I.
* 919 – The second Fatimid invasion of Egypt begins, when the Fatimid heir-apparent, al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah, sets out from Raqqada at the head of his a ...
– T. E. Ellis, Welsh politician (b. 1859)
* April 6 – Garret Barry (piper), Garret Parry, Irish piper (b. 1847)
* April 7 – Pieter Rijke, Dutch physicist (b. 1812)
* April 11 – Lascăr Catargiu, 4-time prime minister of Romania (b. 1823)
* April 16 – Emilio Jacinto, Filipino poet, revolutionary (b. 1875)
* April 22 –
**Sir John Mowbray, 1st Baronet, British MP and Father of the House of Commons since 1898 (b. 1815)
**Johann Köler, Estonian painter (b. 1826)
* April 24 – Richard J. Oglesby, U.S. politician, three-time Governor of Illinois for whom the town of Oglesby, Illinois is named (b. 1824)
* April 26 – Count Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart, Minister-President of Austria, 1871 (b. 1824)
* April 30 – Lewis Baker (politician), Lewis Baker, U.S. politician and diplomat (b. 1832)
May–June
* May 16 – William Nast (Methodist), William Nast, German-born religious leader and founder of the German Methodist Church in the U.S. (b. 1807)
* May 19 – Charles R. Buckalew, American politician and diplomat (b. 1821)
* May 24 – William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher, British law lord (b. 1817)
* May 25 – Emilio Castelar y Ripoll, President of the First Spanish Republic (b. 1832)
* June 3 – Johann Strauss II, Johann Strauss Jr., Austrian composer (b. 1825)
* June 4 – Eugenio Beltrami, Italian mathematician (b. 1835)
* June 5 – Antonio Luna, Filipino general (assassinated) (b. 1866)
* June 7 – Augustin Daly, American theatrical impresario, playwright (b. 1838)
* June 10 – Ernest Chausson, French composer (b. 1855)
July–August
* July 1 – William Henry Flower, Sir William Flower, British museum curator and surgeon (b. 1831)
* July 2 – General Horatio Wright, 79, American engineer, U.S. Army officer in the American Civil War, Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (b. 1820)
* July 4 – Alexander Armstrong (Royal Navy officer), Sir Alexander Armstrong, 81, Irish-born physician, Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer (b. 1818)
* July 10 –
**Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia, 28, Tsarevich and heir to the throne of Russia as younger brother of Nicholas II (b. 1871)
**Albert Grévy, French statesman and List of French governors of Algeria, Governor-General of Algeria 1879-1881 (b. 1823)
* July 16 –
**Margaretta Riley, British botanist (b. 1804)
**William Preston Johnston, 68, American college administrator and first president of Tulane University (b. 1831)
* July 18 – Horatio Alger Jr., American writer (b. 1832)
* July 20 – Frances Laughton Mace, American poet (b. 1836)
* July 21 – Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician (b. 1833)
* July 27 – Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa, German chess-master (b. 1818)
* August 4 – Karl, Freiherr von Prel, German philosopher (b. 1839)
* August 9
** Edward Frankland, Sir Edward Frankland, British chemist (b. 1825)
** Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia, Russian Grand Duke, younger brother of Nicholas II of Russia (b. 1871)
* August 16 – Robert Bunsen, German chemist (b. 1811)
September–October
* September 2 – Ernest Renshaw, British tennis player (b. 1861)
* September 12 – Cornelius Vanderbilt II, American railway magnate (b. 1843)
* September 13 – Sarah Warren Keeler, American educator of the deaf-mute (b. 1844)
* September 17 – Charles Alfred Pillsbury, American industrialist (b. 1842)
* September 28 – Giovanni Segantini, Italian painter (b. 1858)
* October 2
** Emma Hardinge Britten, British writer (b. 1823)
** Percy Pilcher, British aviation pioneer, glider pilot (b. 1866)
* October 7 – Deodato Arellano, Filipino Propagandist (b. 1844)
* October 14
** Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy Waterston, American diarist (b. 1812)
**Nicolai Hanson, Norwegian zoologist and Antarctic explorer (b. 1870)
* October 22 – Ella Hoag Brockway Avann, American educator (b. 1853)
* October 23 – Penn Symons, Sir Penn Symons, British general (died of wounds) (b. 1843)
* October 25 – Grant Allen, Canadian science writer and novelist (b. 1848)
* October 30
** Arthur Blomfield, Sir Arthur Blomfield, British architect (b. 1829)
** William Henry Webb, American industrialist, philanthropist (b. 1816)
* October 31 – Anton Berindei, Wallachian-born Romanian general and politician (b. 1838)
November–December
* November 16
** Vincas Kudirka, Lithuanian doctor, poet, and national hero (b. 1858)
** Julius Hermann Moritz Busch, German publicist (b. 1821)
* November 21 – Garret Hobart, List of Vice Presidents of the United States, 24th Vice President of the United States (b. 1844)
* November 23 – Thomas Henry Ismay, British owner of the White Star Line (b. 1837)
* November 24 – Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, Sudanese political, religious leader (killed in battle) (b. 1846)
* November 28 – Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione (b. 1837)
* December 2 – Gregorio del Pilar, Filipino general (killed in battle) (b. 1875)
* December 10 – King Ngwane V of Swaziland (b. 1876)
* December 19 – Henry Ware Lawton, American general (killed in action) (b. 1843)
* December 22
** Pascual Ortega Portales Chilean painter (b.1839)
** Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist (b. 1837)
** Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, British landowner and politician (b. 1825)
* December 30
**Eugène Bertrand, 65, French comedian and opera house director (b. 1834)
* December 31
** Jane Mitchel, Irish nationalist (b. c. 1820)
** Carl Millocker, 57, Viennese composer (b. 1842)
** Manuel Carrillo Tablas, 77, Mexican philanthropist and mayor of Orizaba (b. 1822)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:1899
1899,