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.
The British four-masted sailing ship Andelanacapsizes 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.[3]
January 17 – The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
January 27 – Camille Jenatzy of France becomes the first man to drive an automobile more than 80 kilometers per hour, when he reaches a 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 previous record of 66.65 kilometres per hour (41.41 mph) set by Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat.
January 28 – 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, in the modern-day Republic of Kosovo.[5]
Ranavalona III, who had been the Queen of Madagascar until being deposed on February 28, 1897, is sent into exile by English colonial authorities, along with the rest of the royal family. She departs on a 28-day trip to Marseilles.[6]
The Suntory whisky distiller and worldwide alcoholic and soft drink brand of Japan is established by Shinjiro Torii in Osaka as a store selling imported wines.[7]
February 2 – The participants in the Australian Premiers' Conference agree that Australia's capital (Canberra) should be located between Sydney and Melbourne.
February 10 – U.S. Army troops, supported by bombardment from the warships Charleston and Monadnock, defeat Filipino forces in the Battle of Caloocan and get control of the Manila to Dagupan railway.
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. Guerra flees to Colombia but later comes back as Minister of War.[11]
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.[12]
The British freighter SS Jumna is last seen passing Rathlin Island off Northern Ireland. Bound from Scotland to deliver a shipment of coal to Uruguay with minimal crew, it never arrives and is never seen again.[13]
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, Major James Richer, dies of injuries three days later.[14]
February 27 – Japanese immigration to South America, primarily 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.[15]
March 3 – 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.[16]
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 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 Station") to 250 surprised spectators.[21]
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.[22]
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.[22]
April 4 – Cuba's General Assembly votes to disband the Cuban army and to dissolve to accept U.S. sovereignty.[22]
April 5 – A team of sets out from Northern Rhodesia to explore the minerals of central Africa for the British company Tanganyika Concessions (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 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 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.[22]
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 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.[22]
April 22 – In aid of the Royal Niger Company, the British Army begins an invasion of Esanland, in Nigeria, to halt the resistance of the Esan chiefs still resistant to European rule. After Benin's 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.[24]
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 1 – U.S. Navy Admiral George Dewey reports that 10 officers and crew of the ship USS Yorktown have been taken prisoner by the Philippine republic.[25]
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.[28]
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.[25]
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 have already left.
Jacob German, a 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.[30]
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.[31]
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.[32] 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 has captured 28 towns with a loss of only six men.[29]
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 Canadian city of Saint John, New Brunswick, destroys 150 buildings and renders over 1,000 people homeless.[29]
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.[33]
May 29 – The Spanish system of courts in the Philippines, closed since the American occupation began, is revived under U.S. sovereignty and regulation.[29]
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.[29]
The United States and Spain resume diplomatic relations, as U.S. President McKinley receives the Duke of Arcos as the new Minister for Spain.[29]
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, 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.
June 7 – The Automobile Club of America, the first automobile owners' association in the U.S., 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". It is incorporated on August 15.
Italian 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.[35]
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.[29][37]
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.[38]
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.[46]
June 29 – The mayor of Muskegon, Michigan, James Balbirnie, is assassinated by a disappointed office-seeker, J. W. Tayer, who then kills himself.[41]
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.[41]
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.[48]
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."[50]
July 6 – An assassin attempts to kill Milan Obrenović, 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 Obrenović 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.[51]
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.
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 comprehensive 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.[52]
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.[53]
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.
A white lynch mob in Tallulah, Louisiana carries out the killing of five white Italian shopkeepers from Sicily who have 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.[55]
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.[57]
July 23 – The U.S. capital of Washington, D.C. 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.[58]
July 28 – The All Cubans, a team of professional baseball players from Cuba, begins a barnstorming tour of the U.S. with 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.[62]
August 8 – The San Ciriaco hurricane strikes Puerto Rico, recently annexed by the United States, and leaves 250,000 people homeless.[67] The official death toll is later listed as 3,369 people.[68]
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.[71]
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.[74]
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.[75]
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.[77]
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.[78] After Sir Edmund's death in 1915, his brother Cosmo will have the land auctioned for £6,600.[79][80]
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.[81]
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.[82] 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.[83][84][85]
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.[86]
August 25 – Two convicted murderers, Cyrus A. Brown and Matthew Craig, become the first white men to be legally executed in the modern-day U.S. state of Oklahoma. The two are hanged together at Muskogee in the Creek Nation section of the U.S. Indian Territory.[88]
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."[89]
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.[90]
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.[92]
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.[94]
September 4 – 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.
The first labor and management agreement in Denmark is reached between the Danish Federation of Trade Unions and the Danish Employers' Confederation.[95]
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 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.[80]
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 will have almost 30,000 students and 1,100 full time faculty.
September 12 – American 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.
Real estate agent 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.
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.[100]
Captain Alfred Dreyfus is pardoned in France by the Ministry of War.[80] He will be released from prison at Rennes the following day[80] but not fully exonerated until 1906.
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.[102]
The Dominion Line steamer Scotsman sinks in the Strait of Belle Isle in Canada, killing 15 women and children.
Elections are held in Sweden for the 230-seats of the Riksdag (formerly 182 seats). The Lantmanna Party retains majority control.[102]
Following a court-martial in Spain, Admiral 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.[102]
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."[103]
September 25 – A Serbian court sentences 30 people convicted for conspiracy to attempt to assassinate the former King Milan, with the two main leaders being sentenced to death and 10 others getting 20 year prison sentences.[102]
September 27 – Former U.S. President Benjamin Harrison concludes his special assignment of arguing in favor of Britain before the Anglo-Venezuelan arbitration tribunal.[102]
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.
The 1899 Ceram earthquake kills 3,864 people on Seram Island (part of the modern-day Maluku province of Indonesia) through a tsunami 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 29 foot (8.8 m) wave.[105]
In Milwaukee, minor league baseball executive Harry Quinn announces 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).[106]
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 at this time to $4,100,000) and become part of German New Guinea until the end of World War One.[107]
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.[108]
October 2 – The Serbian government ends the state of siege in Belgrade that followed the attempted assassination of Serbia's former King Milan.[102]
October 3 – The boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana (modern-day 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.[109]
October 4 – The South African Republic issues an order to "all White inhabitants" within its protectorate, the 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 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.[110]
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.[111]
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.[113]
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)
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."[115]
Boer troops commanded by 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.
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. South African General Jan Kock is fatally wounded in the battle and dies 10 later while imprisoned at Ladysmith.[116]
October 22 – In Spain, an advertisement runs in the sports magazine Los Deportes, paid for by Swiss immigrant Hans Gamper, announces that Gamper is seeking to create a soccer football team for Barcelona.[117] The organizational meeting takes place at the Sociedad Los Deportes on November 29, attracting 11 players who form Futbol Club Barcelona.
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.[119] 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.
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.[116]
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.[120]
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 a 118-day siege begins on November 2.
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.[123][124] 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.[116] The British defenders will hold the fort without surrendering, despite disease and starvation, until the siege is broken on February 28, 1900 by a force led by British Army General Redvers Buller.
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.
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.[116]
The flash-lamp, the first to use electricity to ignite photographers' 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.
The first British transport of supplemental troops arrives at Cape Town to enter the Second Boer War against the South African Republic.[116]
The Boer attack on Ladysmith is repulsed by British artillery, with the Boers sustaining 800 killed and wounded.[116]
November 10 – At the age of 20, Sir Ranbir Singh is invested with full ruling powers over the 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.[127]
November 11 – The 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.
Philippine Federation President Emilio Aguinaldo 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.
Philippine President Aguinaldo dissolves the remains of the Filipino regular army and moves to a strategy of guerrilla warfare against the U.S. occupational forces.[128]
China's Hunan province opens to foreign trade for the first time.[116]
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 in France at 4:30 in the morning and arrives at 11:00 a.m. on the island of Corsica.
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.[116]
November 17 – "Naval Station, Honolulu" is established by the U.S. Department of the Navy with 85 acres (34 ha) 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 Harvard University college football team, having a record of 10 wins (nine by shutout) and no defeats, hosts its rival, 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 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.
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.[130]
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.[131]
British Lieutenant-General 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.[132]
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 applies the same charges for mail from Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam as are used in the other 46 U.S. states.[133]
November 27 – The Ottoman Empire grants Germany's Deutsche Bank the concession to finance the construction of the Baghdad Railway, following a visit by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Constantinople in 1898 as a guest of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.[136]
The British Army sustains heavy losses (471 casualties) in the Battle of Modder River, which Lord Methuen describes as "one of the hardest and most trying fights in the annals of the British Army", despite routing the Boers.[133]
The Philippine Republic capital at Bayambang surrenders as the government flees the Fourth Cavalry of the U.S. Army.
The first women to serve, in uniform, in the armed forces of any nation begins service as part of the Canadian Militia Expeditionary Force to Cape Town to serve in the Boer War. Georgina Fane Pope and three other women are enlisted as army nurses. "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."[138]
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.[139]
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.[133]
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.[133]
December 5 – Germany's cabinet agrees to repeal a Prussian law that had prohibited the creation of political societies or clubs.[133]
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.[133]
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.[133]
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 this "Black Week".[133]
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.[133]
U.S. Army General Lawton is killed by a Filipino sniper near San Mateo on Luzon island.[133]
Stock prices fall drastically at the New York exchanges and the Produce Exchange Trust Company fails.[133]
December 19 – New York City's clearinghouse banks pool together a $10,000,000 loan fund to prevent further failures of companies.[133]
December 20 – The U.S. government arrests nine customs officials in Havana on charges of collusion to defraud the government.[141]
More than 40 schoolchildren from Belgium drown in the capsizing of a boat near the French town of Frelinghien on the River Lys that serves a boundary between Belgium and France.[141]
December 29 – The British Royal Navy cruiser HMS Magicienne seizes the German steamer, Bundesroth at Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa (modern-day 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.[141]
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.[141]
The German government and Kaiser Wilhelm II declare that the 20th century will begin on January 1, 1900.[141] In most of the world, however, December 31, 1899 is not the last day of the 19th century, which also includes the year 1900.
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)
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^Henning, Joseph M. (2000). Outposts of Civilization: Race, Religion, and the Formative Years of American-Japanese Relations. New York University Press. p. 134.
^ abThe 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
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^C. E. Borchgrevink, First on the Antarctic Continent: Being an Account of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1898-1900 (London: George Newnes, Ltd., 1901)
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^"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
^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
^"Serious Anti-Boer Riot in London; Thousands of Men Assemble and Prevent Anti-War Meeting", The New York Times, September 25, 1899, p. 1
^Herbert M. Mason Jr., VFW: Our First Century (Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, 1999) p. 29
^Dr. R. D. M. Verbeek, Kort verslag over de aarden zeebeving op Ceram, den 30sten september 1899 (Brief Report on the Earthquake and Seaquake on Ceram, September 30th, 1899) (Batavia Landsdrukkerij, 1900) p. 1–11
^"The New Baseball Circuit— President Quin Announces the Association Teams", The New York Times, October 1, 1899, p. 11
^"Pacific Islands", in The Statesman's Year-Book for the Year 1946 (Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1946) p. 1057
^Gregg Jones, Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream (Penguin Publishing Group, 2012) p. 108
^Cedric L Joseph, Anglo-American Diplomacy and the Reopening of the Guyana-Venezuela Boundary Controversy, 1961-1966 (Trafford Publishing, 2008)
^Roger Webster, The Illustrated at the Fireside: True Southern African Stories (Spearhead, 2003) pp. 46-47
^Peter L. Fishback, The British Army Reference for Ulysses Scholars (F.F. Simulations 2020) p. 139
^"M'Kinley Now Chicago's Guest; His Cabinet With Him; Reception Committes Escort the Nation's Chief, Minister Mariscal and Premier Laurier", The Chicago Sunday Tribune, October 8, 1899, p. 1
^Winston Groom, The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II (National Geographic Society, 2018) p. 50
^Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising(University of California Press, 1987) p. 250
^Milton Lehman, Robert H. Goddard: Pioneer of Space Research (Da Capo Press, 1988) p. 16
^"Neutrality compromised: Swaziland and the Anglo-Boer War, 1899 - 1902", by Huw M. Jones, South African Military History Journal (October 1999)
^Émile Gentil, La chute de l'empire de Rabah (reprinted by Hachette Press, 1971) pp. 574–584
^"Condition of Mr. Hobart: Vice President Will Not Again Resume His Political Duties", The New York Times, November 1, 1899, p. 1
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^"Jeffries Won the Fight; Decision Awarded on Points in the Twenty-fifth Round", The New York Times, November 4, 1899, p. 3
^James M. Flammang, 100 Years of the American Auto: Millennium Edition (Publications International, 1899) p. 19
^Indian States A Biographical, Historical, and Administrative Survey (Asian Educational Services, 1922) p. 412
^Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War, 1899–1902 (University Press of Kansas, 2000) pp. 186-187
^Guillermo Plazas Olarte, La Guerra Civil de los Mil Días: Estudio Militar (The 1000-days Civil War: A Military Study) (Academia Boyacense de Historia, 1985) p. 54
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^Miranda Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011) p.223
^André Wessels, The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902): White man’s war, black man’s war, traumatic war (Sun Media, 2010) p.46
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^Edward Mead Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway: A Study in Imperialism (Macmillan, 1923) p. 455
^Patrick Robertson, Robertson's Book of Firsts: Who Did What for the First Time (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011)
^German Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow criticizes the idea, along with newspapers in all three nations. Paul Ham, 1914: The Year the World Ended (Random House Australia, 1914) p. 74