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Bolivia sets up a customs office in Puerto Alonso, leading to the Brazilian settlers there to declare the Republic of Acre in a revolt against Bolivian authorities.
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, and angers independence activists who had fought against Spanish rule.
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.
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.[1]
January 11 – The Steel Plate Transferrers' Association, the first labor union for workers skilled in siderography (the engraving and mass reproduction of steel plates for newspaper printing) is established After changing its name to the International Association of Siderographers, it has 80 members at its peak. It dissolves in 1991, with only eight members left. Stewart, Estelle May (1936). Handbook of American trade-unions: 1936 edition. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. United States Government Printing Office.
January 12 – A massive rescue by the Lynmouth Lifeboat Station, using 100 men and requiring the transport of the lifeboat Louisa over land and then out to sea, succeeds in saving all 18 men aboard.[2] The event is later made famous in the children's book The Overland Launch.
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 Andelanacapsizes during a storm in Commencement Bay off the coast of the U.S. Washington, with the loss of all 17 of her crew.[4]
January 15 – The name of Puerto Rico is changed by the new U.S. military government to "Porto Rico".[5] It will not be changed back until May 17, 1932.
January 16 – Eduardo Calceta is appointed as Chief of the Army (Jefe General) of the rebel Phillipine Republic army by Emilio Aguinaldo.[6]
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 to provide for U.S. Senators to be directly elected by popular vote, rather than by the state legislatures.
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 – 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.
U.S. Representative George Henry White 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. "[7]
January 27 – Camille Jenatzy 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 80.35 kilometres per hour (49.93 mph) in his CGA Dogcart racecar. Jenatzy's speed is more than 20% faster than the January 17 mark of 66.65 kilometres per hour (41.41 mph) set by Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat.
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 to most of the members. The U.S. Senate refuses to seat him after evidence of the bribery is revealed.[9]
The League of Peja, 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, now in the Republic of Kosovo.[10]
January 29 – A lawyer for the estate of John W. Keely, and 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, reveals that the late Mr. Keely's motor had been a fraud, and that the widow knew nothing of it.[11]
January 31 – Cherokee Nation voters in the Indian Territory (later the U.S. state of Oklahoma) approve a proposition to allot Cherokee lands and to dissolve the Cherokee government, but the U.S. Congress never ratifies the results.
Ranavalona III, who had been the Queen of Madagascar 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.[12]
The Suntory whisky distiller in Japan is opened by Shinjiro Torii in Osaka as a store selling imported wines.
February 2 – The participants in the Australian Premiers' Conference, held in Melbourne, agree that Australia's capital (Canberra) should be located between Sydney and Melbourne.
February 5 – The first major battle of the Philippine-American War concludes with the capture by the U.S. of the San Juan River Bridge that connects Manila and San Juan. U.S. Army General Arthur MacArthur Jr. 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.[15]
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.[16]
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.[17]
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.[18]
Future U.S. President Herbert Hoover and his fiancee Lou Henry, both 224, are married at her parents' home in Monterey, California, and depart the next day for a 14-month stay in China, where Hoover works as a mining engineer.
February 11 – The coldest temperature recorded up to that time in the continental United States is set as Fort Logan, Montana records a low of -61 °F (-52 °C).[19]
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 – 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 3,600,000 pounds (1,600,000 kg) 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.[20]
February 15 – The February Manifesto is issued by the Emperor of Russia, decreeing that a veto by the Diet of Finland 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 17 – The research vessel SS Southern Cross, on an Antarctic expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevink, arrives at Cape Adare 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.[21]
February 19 – 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.[22]
February 20 – 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.[23]
Gdadebo II, the Alake of Egba 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 at Northern Ireland. Bound from Scotland to deliver a shipment of coal to Uruguay, it never arrives and is never seen again.[24]
February 23 – In France, Paul Déroulède and Jules Guérin of the right-wing Ligue des Patriotes attempt to persuade General Georges-Gabriel de Pellieux to lead a coup d'etat 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 – 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 Glaubeare placed by the Roman Catholic Church on its Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of banned books.
February 25 – 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.[25]
February 27 – 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 on April 3.[26]
February 28 – 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.[27]
March 1899
March 1 – In Afghanistan, Capt. George Roos-Keppel makes a sudden attack on a predatory band of Chamkannis that have been raiding in the Kurram Valley, and captures 100 prisoners with 3,000 head of cattle.
Guglielmo Marconi 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.[28]
March 5 – George B. Selden sells the rights to his patent for an internal combustion engine to the Electric Vehicle Company, and he and the company then claim a royalty on all automobiles using such an engine.[29]
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, which sends a lifeboat to the rescue.[31]
March 12 – Encinal County, Texas, created on February 1, 1856, near the U.S. city of Laredo on the condition that it would create a county seat, is discontinued and annexed into neighboring Webb County.[33] The largest town in the area, Bruni, has less than 400 people.
March 18 – Phoebe, the ninth-known moon of the planet Saturn 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 21 – The Eden Theatre in La Ciotat, a small city in France near Marseilles, lays a claim to being the first cinema by as brothers Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière present their short film, L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat ("The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat") to 250 spectators surprised. The action film shows a steam train pulling into La Ciotat station, passengers coming out of the cars, and departing passengers climbing on.[36]
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.[37]
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.[37]
March 30 – The British steamer Stella sinks in the English Channel with the loss of 80 people after wrecking against Les Casquets, a group of rocks near the Channel Islands.[37]
Cuba's General Assembly voted to disband the Cuban army and to dissolve to accept U.S. sovereignty.[37]
The German Imperial Navy warship SMS Jaguar, which will be scuttled after losing the 1914 Siege of Tsingtao, begins service.
April 5 – 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, TCL makes an unsuccessful attempt to purchase full rights from King Leopold of Belgium.
April 7 – The Shootout at Wilson Ranch, 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.
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. 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.[37]
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, between striking white union coal miners, and African-Americans hired as strikebreakers by the company.[37] 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.[37]
April 13 – 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 in Australia, but never reaches its destination, wrecking on the reefs at Rottnest Island on July 12.
April 14 – British Army troops in Hong Kongattack the Walled City of Kowloon on orders of colonial Governor Henry Blake, 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.
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 22 – In aid of the Royal Niger Company, the British Army begins an invasion of Esanland, 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.
April 23 – The steamship General Whitney sinks off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida. While everyone on board escapes in lifeboats, one of the boats capsizes, drowning the captain and 16 other crew.
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 River valley in southern China.[39]
April 29 – Camille Jenatzy 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 105.88 kilometres per hour (65.79 mph) at a track at 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 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 have been taken prisoner by the Phillipine republic.[40]
The thoroughbred horse Manuel, ridden by Fred Taral, wins the 25th running of the 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 8 – In the French West African colony of Niger, French Army Captain Paul Voulet carries out the massacre of the Hausa inhabitants of the village of Birni-N'Konni in retaliation for the continued resistance of Queen Sarraounia.
May 11 – Alberto Santos-Dumont attempts the first test flight of his 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.[43]
May 12 – The first trade union for railway employees in Sweden, the Svenska Järnvägsmannaförbundet (Sweden Railworkers' League) is founded. It lasts until 1970, when it merges into a labor union of Swedish government employees.
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.
British troops in the leased Chinese territory of Hong Kong take control of the city of Kowloon.[40]
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, where Philippine Republic president Aguinaldo had moved his capital, but find that the insurgents had already left.
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 12 miles per hour (19 km/h), more than twice the speed limit on Lexington Avenue.[45]
The crew of the Royal Navy ship HMS Narcissus sights a large sea creature estimated to be 150 feet (46 m) 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.[46]
May 22 – The unrecognized República Selvática-- the "Jungle Republic" is proclaimed by Peruvian Army Colonel Emilio Vizcarra in three provinces in Northern Peru located within the Amazon rainforest, Loreto, San Martín and Ucayali.[47] The "republic" is reincorporated into Peru after Vizcarra's death on February 27, 1900.
May 23 – Major General 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.[44]
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.[44]
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.[48]
Rangers F.C., commonly called the Glasgow Rangers and one of the most successful soccer football teams in the Scottish Football League, is incorporated.
May 29 – The Spanish system of courts in the Philippines, closed since the American occupation began, is revived under U.S. sovereignty and regulation.[44]
France's Court of Cassation orders a reopening of the 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.[44]
The United States and Spain resume diplomatic relations, as U.S. President McKinley receives the Duke of Arcos as the new Minister for Spain.[44]
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 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.
Saint Gemma Galgani experiences stigmata in the form of wounds corresponding to those sustained by Jesus Christ during his crucifixion; her family physician concludes that Galgani's stigmata were actually self-inflicted wounds from a sewing needle.[49]
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 13 – The village of Herman, Nebraska, with a population of 319, is destroyed by a tornado and 40 people are killed.[44]
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.
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.[51]
Japan's commercial code, the Sh?h?, goes into effect after having been promulgated on March 9. The Sh?h?, as amended, applies to Japanese business today.[30] 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.[44]
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.
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.[58]
June 29 – The mayor of Muskegon, Michigan, James Balbirnie, is assassinated by a disappointed office-seeker, J. W. Tayer, who then kills himself.[53]
June 30 – Mile-a-Minute Murphy earns his nickname after he becomes the first man to ride a bicycle for one-mile (1.6 km) 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.[53]
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.[60]
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."[62]
July 6 – An assassin attempts to kill Milan Obrenovi?, who had been King of Serbia before abdicating in 1889, and had more recently been appointed by his son, King Alexander, as Commander-in-chief of the Serbian Army. General Obrenovi? is uninjured, but begins a campaign to seek out and arrest the radicals in Serbia.
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.[63]
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 the right to administer commerce there.
July 11 - In Turin in Italy, Giovanni Agnelli and eight investors form the Italian automobile manufacturer F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, the Italian Automobile Manufacturers of Turin), producers of the Fiat motor vehicles.
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, 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.[64]
July 16 – The first soccer football game in El Salvador between two organized teams takes place at the Campo Marte field in Santa Ana, where a local team hosts a team of players from San Salvador. The Santa Ana team wins, 2 to 0.[65]
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.[67]
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.[69]
July 23 – The city of Washington DC retires its short-lived 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.[70]
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
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, when a mob of outraged citizens demolishes an oil rig.[74]
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.[77] On the same day, the collapse of a ferry dock in Mount Desert Island, Maine, drowns 20-people.
August 8 – The San Ciriaco hurricane strikes Puerto Rico, recently annexed by the United States, and leaves 250,000 people homeless. [79] . The official death toll is later listed as 3,369 people.[80]
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 13 – The battle for the Philippine city of Angeles begins when the U.S. Army's VIII Corps, led by Major General Arthur MacArthur Jr., fights Philippine forces led by Brigadier General Maximino Hizon. The U.S. captures the area, the future site of Clark Air Force Base, by August 16.[83]
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.
Western outlaw 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.[86]
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.[87]
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.[88]
August 21 – 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.[89] After Sir Edmund's death in 1915, his brother Cosmo will have the land auctioned for £6,600.[90][91]
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.[92]
In Darien, Georgia, the "Delegal riot" takes place when hundreds of armed African-American residents surround the McIntosh County Jail to prevent the transfer of Henry Delegal, a black man charged with rape, to prevent the possibility of Delegal being lynched.[93] 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.[94][95][96]
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.[97]
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. The two are hanged together at Muskogee in the Creek Nation section of the U.S. Indian Territory[99]
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.[100]
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. 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." [101]
August 28 – At least 512 people are killed when a debris hill from the SumitomoBesshi copper mine at Niihama, Shikoku, Japan, collapses after heavy rain; 122 houses, a smelting factory, hospital and many other facilities are destroyed.[102]
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. [104]
September 8 – Eduardo Romana is inaugurated as the President of Peru. [91]
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. [91]
September 13 – Mackinder, Ollier and Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian (5,199 m or 17,057 ft), the highest peak of Mount Kenya.
September 13 – Henry Bliss is the first person in the United States to be killed in an automobile accident.
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^Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War, 1899-1902 (University Press of Kansas, 2000) p. 52
^Sergei Pushkarev, Self-government and Freedom In Russia (Taylor & Francis, 2019)
^"War Department Investigating Commission", by Joseph Smith, in The War of 1898, and U.S. Interventions, 1898-1934: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Benjamin R. Beede (Taylor & Francis, 1994) pp. 582-584
^"Accuses Kansas Colonel; Lieut. Hall, by Affidavits of Others, Charges W.S. Metcalf with Shooting an Unarmed Prisoner", New York Times, November 21, 1899
^Harry Barnard, Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens (Wayne State University Press, 2002) p. 53
^ ab"Commercial and Corporate Law in Japan", by Harald Baum and Eiji Takahashi, in History of Law in Japan Since 1868 (Brill, 2005) p. 355
^Anne Petrie, The Story of Kent (History Press, 2017)
^"Jungner, Ernst Waldemar", in Innovators in Battery Technology: Profiles of 95 Influential Electrochemists, by Kevin Desmond (McFarland Publishing 2016) p. 116
^Eric L. Mills, Biological Oceanography: An Early History, 1870-1960 (University of Toronto Press, 2012) p.83
^Volkert, Klaus, ed. (2015). David Hilbert: Grundlagen der Geometrie. Springer. p. ix; Grattan-Guinness, Ivor (2005). Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics 1640-1940 Elsevier. p. 713.
^ abcdeThe American Monthly Review of Reviews (August 1899)
^"Lee, Fitz", in African American War Heroes, ed. by James B. Martin (ABC-CLIO, 2014) p. 105
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^A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 1450-1990: A Documentary Sourcebook (Eerdmans Publishing, 2007) pp. 366-367
^Dean C. Worcester, The Philippines Past and Present (Macmillan Company 1914, reprinted by Outlook Verlag 2018) p. 86
^Gomez, Omar. "Historia" [History] (in Spanish). El Balon Cusctatleco. Retrieved 2011.
^Henning, Joseph M. (2000). Outposts of Civilization: Race, Religion, and the Formative Years of American-Japanese Relations. New York University Press. p. 134.
^ abcThe American Monthly Review of Reviews (September 1899) pp. 277-280
^Courtney Baker, Humane Insight: Looking at Images of African American Suffering and Death p. 55
^David A. Lake, Power, Protection, and Free Trade: International Sources of U.S. Commercial Strategy, 1887-1939 (Cornell University Press, 2018) p. 130
^"French Officers Punished-- Gens. Pellieux and de Negrier and Capt. Villaneuve in Disgrace", The New York Times, July 26, 1899, p. 1
^Berton, Pierre (1972). Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899. Anchor Canada.
^C. E. Borchgrevink, First on the Antarctic Continent: Being an Account of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1898-1900 (London: George Newnes, Ltd., 1901)
^Shashi Shekhar Prasad Singh, Offshore Operations and Engineering (CRC Press, 2019) p. 8-29
^Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 (Columbia University Press, 2005) p. 553
^David Brock Katz, General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa, 1914-1917 (Casemate Publishers, 2022) p.14
^"Luzon Campaigns", by Jerry Keenan and Spencer C. Tucker, in The Encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO, 2009)
^Helen G. Edmonds, Black Faces in High Places: Negroes in Government (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971) p. 231
^"No White Men in These Towns-- Hobson City, Ala., Lincolnville, S.C., and Princeton, N.C., for Negroes Only", The New York Times, August 20, 1899, p. 7
^R. Michael Wilson, Great Train Robberies of the Old West (TwoDot Publishing, 2006) p. 135
^"Korean International", in Encyclopedia of Korean Culture] [?(Korea International)] (in Korean)
^"Cabinet Crisis in Germany", The New York Times, August 20, 1899, p. 7
^"Stonehenge Offered for Sale-- The Owner Asks the British Government £125,000 for the Ruin", The New York Times, August 22, 1899, p. 1
^ abcdeThe American Monthly Review of Reviews (October 1899) pp. 407-410
^R.K. Keating, Velodrome Racing and the Rise of the Motorcycle (McFarland, 2021) p. 222
^Benjamin Brawley, A Social History of The American Negro (Outlook Verlag, 2019) p. 282
^"Lynching Is Part of the Religion of Our People: Faith in the Christian South", by Donald G. Mathews in Religion in the American South: Protestants and Others in History and Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) pp. 175-176
^"Race Trouble in Georgia-- Darien Abandoned by Negroes, Who Are Massing in a Swamp", The New York Times, August 26, 1899, p. 2
^"Troops Round Up Negroes", The New York Times, August 27, 1899, p. 5
^Betty S. Veronico, Images of America: Lighthouses of the Bay Area (Arcadia Publishing, 2008) p. 34
^Leslie Derfler, Alexandre Millerand: The Socialist Years (De Gruyter, 2018) p. 207
^"White Men Hanged in Indian Territory", The New York Times, August 26, 1899, p. 2
^"The Oceanic at Liverpool-- Largest Vessel in the World to Start for Here Sept. 6.", The New York Times, August 27, 1899, p. 19