"The Climbers"
Jan 21 Clyde Fitch's play "The Climbers" premieres in NYC
Britain Changes its Postage
Jan 22 After 63 years Britain stops sale of Queen Victoria postage stamps series & begins King Edward VII series
- Jan 24 Denmark and the US sign a treaty under which Denmark will sell the Danish West Indies to the USA for $5 million, but the sale will be postponed until 1917
- Jan 24 Emily Hobhouse views the British administrated concentration camp at Bloemfontein for women and children
"Three Sisters"
Jan 31 Anton Chekhov's play "Three Sisters" opens at Moscow Art Theater
- Jan 31 Austro-Hungarian Empire: The Reichsrath, dissolved on September 7, 1900, by Emperor Franz Joseph, reopens after the recent elections sees the defeat of extremists
Boers Conquer Mud River
Jan 31 Boer Generals Jan Smuts and Koos de la Rey conquer Mud river in Transvaal
- Jan 31 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Winnipeg Victorias edge Montreal Shamrocks, 2-1 to sweep challenge series, 2-0
- Feb 2 Female Army Nurse Corps established as a permanent organization
- Feb 2 Mexican government troops are ambushed by Yaqui Indians, 100 killed
Queen Victoria's Funeral
Feb 2 Queen Victoria's funeral takes place in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, England
- Feb 2 The US Congress passes the Army Reorganization Act, placing the minimum number of men under arms at 58,000
- Feb 3 Dutch troops under Gen Van Heutsz conquer Batu Ilië on Sumatra
Franz Joseph I Condemns Nationalists
Feb 4 Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Joseph I, gives a speech condemning the demands of national groups and calls for economic and social reform
Event of Interest
Feb 18 Winston Churchill makes his maiden speech in the British House of Commons.
The Governor's Son
Feb 25 George M. Cohan's 1st Broadway musical "The Governor's Son"opens at the Savoy Theatre, NYC; runs for 32 performances
Event of Interest
Feb 25 US Steel Corporation organized under J. P. Morgan, Sr. through merger of Carnegie Steel Company, Federal Steel Company, and National Steel Company
Boer War Peace Talks
Feb 26 British general Kitchener confers with Boer General Louis Botha about peace conditions, which break down over the question of amnesty for some Boers
- Feb 27 A General Committee of National Liberal Federation meets and adopts a resolution deploring the continuation of the war in South Africa and condemning the British Government's insistence on unconditional surrender by the Boers
- Feb 27 National League Rules Committee for baseball decrees that all fouls are to count as strikes except after two strikes
- Mar 2 Hawaii's first telegraph company opens
- Mar 2 United States Congress passes the Platt amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops
- Mar 3 US Congress creates National Bureau of Standards, in Department of Commerce
- Mar 4 Term of George H. White, last of post-Reconstruction US congressmen, ends
McKinley's Second
Mar 4 William McKinley inaugurated for his 2nd term as US president; Theodore Roosevelt serves as Vice President; his inaugural address is the first to be published in advance
Wilhelm II
Mar 6 In Bremen an assassin attempts to kill Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.
- Mar 11 Cincinnati Enquirer reports Baltimore manager John McGraw signed Cherokee Indian Tokohoma, who is really black 2nd baseman Charlie Grant
- Mar 12 Ground is broken for Boston's 1st AL ballpark (Huntington Ave Grounds)
- Mar 13 Amidst increasing anti-gambling sentiment, wagering on horse racing is banned in San Francisco, CA; Ingleside Race Track closes March 15
- Mar 14 Germany's Chancellor von Bulow declares that the agreement Germany signed with Great Britain in October 1900, to restrain foreign aggression and maintain open trade, does not apply to Manchuria
Van Gogh Paintings Shown
Mar 17 At a show in Paris, 71 Vincent van Gogh's paintings cause a sensation, 11 years after his death
- Mar 17 Free-thinking Democratic League forms in Netherlands
Nellie Melba's Toast
Mar 23 Australian opera star Dame Nellie Melba reveals secret of her now famous toast
- Mar 25 55 die as Rock Island train derailed near Marshalltown, Iowa
First Australian Parliament
Mar 29 Edmund Barton is elected Prime Minister in Australia's first parliamentary election
- Apr 5 Under threats from the Ottoman Turkish Government, Bulgaria is forced to arrest the leaders of the Macedonian Committee
- Apr 7 SDAP demands general voting right, abolishing First Chamber
- Apr 15 1st British motorized burial
- Apr 15 Pope Leo XIII issues an allocution deploring hostile actions against the Roman Catholic Church throughout Europe
Aguinaldo's Proclamation
Apr 19 In the Philippines, recently captured insurgent leader Emilio Aguinaldo issues a proclamation advising his countrymen to end their rebellion and use of peaceful means to work with the US toward independence.
- Apr 24 First game in baseball's American League: Chicago White Stockings win against the Cleveland Blues 8-2, other games rained out
- Apr 25 Erve Beck hits American League's 1st home run
- Apr 25 In last of 9th, Detroit Tigers, trailing by 13-4, score 10 runs to win one of greatest comebacks in baseball (1st game in Detroit)
- Apr 25 New York becomes 1st state requiring automobile license plates ($1 fee)
- Apr 26 Jimmy Collins, having left the Boston Beaneaters (NL), captains and manages his first game for the Boston Americans (loses 10-6 at Baltimore Orioles)
- Apr 28 Cleveland's Bock Baker gives up a record 23 singles as White Sox beat Blues (Cleveland Blues!) 13-1
- Apr 29 Antisemitic riot in Budapest
- May 1 Chicago White Sox outfielder Herm McFarland hits first grand slam in American League history in 19-9 win at home against Detroit; Tigers commit 12 errors
- May 1 Pan-American Exposition opens in Buffalo, New York (runs till 2 November)
- May 3 Fire destroys 1,700 buildings in Jacksonville, Florida
- May 8 A British appointed commission estimates today that some 1,250,000 Indians have died after a severe drought, lasting since 1899
- May 8 In their long-delayed AL home opener, Boston defeats Philadelphia 12-4
- May 9 A financial panic begins in the USA following the struggle between two groups to control the railroads between the Great Lakes and the Pacific
- May 9 Cleveland's Earl Moore no-hits Chicago White Sox 9 inn but loses in 10th 4-2
- May 9 The first Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne, though the first working session will not be until 21 May
- May 12 US President McKinley visits San Francisco
- May 23 Ottawa Mint Act receives Royal Assent
- May 23 US captures leader of Filipino rebels, Emilio Aguinaldo
- May 24 Seventy-eight miners die in the Caerphilly pit disaster in South Wales
- May 28 Laws against phosphor matches enacted (inhibition white phosphorous)
Manru
May 29 Ignacy Jan Paderewski's opera "Manru" has its world premiere in Dresden, Germany
- May 30 Hall of Fame for Great Americans dedicated on NYU campus
- May 31 At the opening of the Greek National Assembly, Prince George, High Commissioner of Crete, asks it to endorse the union of Crete with Greece; the proposal is later rejected
- Jun 2 Benjamin Adams arrested for playing golf on Sunday (NY)
41st British Open
Jun 6 British Open Men's Golf, Muirfield: Scotsman James Braid wins first of 5 Open titles by 3 strokes from Harry Vardon of Jersey
- Jun 9 NY Giants get record 31 hits to beat Cincinnati Reds 25-13
- Jun 11 Cook Islands annexed and proclaimed part of New Zealand
- Jun 12 In Cuba, the constitutional convention - knowing that the USA will not withdraw its troops until does so - adopts the Platt Amendment as part of its constitution
- Jun 17 The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT
Picasso's 1st Exhibition
Jun 24 First exhibition by Pablo Picasso, aged 19, opens in Paris
- Jun 24 Jewish National Fund starts
Butch and Sundance Rob Train
Jul 2 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rob train of $40,000 at Wagner, Montana
1st Governor-General of the Philippines
Jul 4 Former US Federal judge William Howard Taft is installed as the 1st Governor-General of the Philippines, declares an amnesty for all insurgents who take an oath of allegiance
- Jul 12 In Germany a group of 104 aristocrats present a deceleration against dueling, though the tradition will go on
- Jul 12 Striking Canadian salmon fishermen on the Pacific coast, resentful of the non-union Japanese who continue to fish, maroon and imprison 47
- Jul 15 NY Giant Christy Mathewson no-hits St Louis, 5-0
- Jul 16 The Fawcett Commission headed by Millicent Fawcett is established as a result of an outcry against the treatment of Afrikaners in concentration camps during the South African War
- Jul 20 Morocco signs an agreement with France fixing Morocco's frontier with Algeria, a French colony
- Jul 22 British House of Lords, in its role as court, rules trade unions can be sued for actions of its members - in Taff Vale Case
- Jul 22 Serbia reactivates diplomatic relations with Montenegro
O. Henry Released from Prison
Jul 24 Writer O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank
- Jul 25 Emily Hobhouse addresses public meetings in Britain on the concentration camps during the South African War
Dutch History
Jul 31 Abraham Kuyper becomes premier of Netherlands
- Aug 1 Burials within San Francisco City limits prohibited
- Aug 5 Peter O'Connor of Ireland, sets the first officially recognised world long jump record at 24' 11 3/4" in Dublin, Ireland
- Aug 6 Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation
- Aug 9 34-35°N/98-99°W open for US colonization
- Aug 10 Chicago White Sox Frank Isbell strands record 11 teammate base runners
- Aug 12 Boer General Kritzinger driven out of Cape colony
- Aug 14 SS Islander hits iceberg near Alaska & sinks killing 70
- Aug 14 The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead in his Number 21
- Aug 15 Arch Rock, a danger to San Francisco Bay shipping, blasted with 30 tons of nitro
- Aug 15 Great Britain issues a proclamation calling on the Boers to surrender by 15 September or face banishment and confiscation of their property
- Aug 17 The Royal Titles Act adds the words 'and the British Dominions beyond the Seas' to the monarch's style
- Aug 20 The Fawcett Commission visits Mafeking concentration camp in Cape Colony
- Aug 21 Baltimore Orioles pitcher Joe McGinnity is suspended from MLB for punching & spitting on umpire Tom Connolly in previous day's 5-2 loss to Detroit Tigers; lifetime suspension reduced to 12 days
- Aug 22 Cadillac Motor Company is founded
- Aug 30 English engineer Hubert Cecil Booth patents the powered vacuum cleaner
- Sep 1 Construction begins on NY Stock Exchange
National Duties
Sep 2 Theodore Roosevelt advises "Speak softly and carry a big stick" in an address to the Minnesota State Fair, entitled "National Duties"
- Sep 3 General Jan Smuts enters Kiba Drift on the first Boer raid into Cape Colony
- Sep 5 National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, better known as Minor League Baseball is formed at the Leland Hotel in Chicago
- Sep 6 US President William McKinley is shot by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in New York
- Sep 7 The Peace of Peking puts an end to the Boxer Rebellion in China
- Sep 12 Arabs attack Gedara Palestine
- Sep 14 Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the youngest man to serve as US President, after William McKinley finally dies after an anarchist shoots him in Buffalo
- Sep 16 Alturas, California, is incorporated as the only city in Modoc County
Gauguin in the Marquesas
Sep 16 French painter Paul Gauguin settles in Atuona in the Marquesas Islands
Battle of Blood River Port
Sep 17 Battle of Blood River Port: Boer commandos led by Louis Botha defeat a British Mounted Infantry force commanded by Major Hubert Gough
- Sep 19 11 baseball games canceled due to funeral of President William McKinley
- Sep 26 Boer General Botha fails to capture Fort Itala in Natal
- Sep 26 Great Britain annexes the Ashanti Kingdom and places it under the governor of the Gold Coast (Ghana)
- Sep 28 Guerrilla's assault unarmed US soldiers at breakfast in Balangiga, Philippines, 44 killed; the abandoned town is burned in retalliation
- Oct 2 First Royal Navy submarine launched at Barrow-in-Furness
- Oct 4 Charlie Barr skippered Columbia (US) beats Shamrock II (UK), 3-0 on New York City Harbour in 11th America's Cup yachting challenge series
- Oct 12 Theodore Roosevelt renames the "Executive Mansion" as "The White House"
- Oct 14 Justin Huntly McCarthy's "If I were King" premieres in NYC
- Oct 16 Baron Hayashi of Japan begins negotiations in London to make an alliance with the British and strengthen Japan's position against Russians
Booker T. Washington's Presidential Dinner
Oct 16 Booker T. Washington and his family are invited to dine at the White House with Teddy and Edith Roosevelt, prompting condemnation from the South
Pomp & Circumstance March
Oct 19 Edward Elgar's "Pomp & Circumstance March" premieres in Liverpool, England
- Oct 24 First woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel (Anna Taylor)
- Oct 25 Joseph Chamberlain, British Colonial Affairs Secretary, makes an anti-German speech in Edinburgh; when word reaches Germany leads to widespread agitation against the British and breakdown of negotiations for Anglo-German alliance
- Oct 26 First recorded use of "getaway car" occurs after holding up a shop in Paris
Nocturnes
Oct 27 1st complete performance of Claude Debussy's orchestral composition "Nocturnes" by the Lamoureux Orchestra conducted by Camille Chevillard, in Paris, France
- Oct 29 In Amherst, Massachusetts, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine
- Oct 30 The Second Boer War: Battle at Bakenlaagte - British Army Lieutenant-Colonel Benson's rear guard is overwhelmed by Boer General Botha's troops
- Nov 1 Sigma Phi Epsilon, the largest national male collegiate fraternity is established at Richmond College, in Richmond, VA.
- Nov 5 Debut concert of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Emil Młynarski; program features Zygmunt Stojowski's Symphony in D minor (Op. 21)
- Nov 7 A French fleet seizes the customs house on the Turkish-ruled island of Mytilene after Turks refuse to settle France's indemnity claims for losses suffered by French subjects in 1896
- Nov 8 Bloody clashes take place in Athens following the translation of the Gospels into demotic Greek
Jeux d'eau
Nov 11 Maurice Ravel's piano composition "Jeux d'eau" premieres
- Nov 13 Caister Lifeboat Disaster claims lives of nine lifeboat men off the coast of Norfolk, England
Jefferies vs. Ruhlin
Nov 15 James J. Jeffries TKOs Gus Ruhlin in 6 for heavyweight boxing title in San Francisco
Grisélidis
Nov 20 Dramatic opera "Grisélidis" by Jules Massenet, Armand Silvestre and Eugène Morand premieres the Opéra-Comique in Paris, France
Feuersnot
Nov 21 Richard Strauss' opera "Feuersnot" premieres in Dresden
- Nov 26 Italy and Britain sign an agreement fixing the frontier between their colonies of Eritrea and Sudan in East Africa
Der rote Hahn
Nov 27 Gerhart Hauptmann's play "Der rote Hahn" premieres in Berlin
- Nov 27 Prince Ito of Japan comes to St Petersburg hoping to get the Russians to grant Japan concessions in Korea, but later drops this goal and decides to make an alliance with Britain
- Nov 27 U.S. Army War College is established in Washington, D.C.
Mahler's 4th Symphony
Nov 28 Gustav Mahler conducts premiere of his 4th Symphony in G, at Kaim-Saal concert hall in Maxvorstadt, Munich, Germany to mixed reviews
- Nov 29 East 182nd Street in the Bronx is paved & opened
Gillette
Dec 2 King C. Gillette begins selling safety razor blades
- Dec 3 At the MLB meeting, the Milwaukee Brewers franchise is officially dropped from the American League and replaced by the St. Louis Browns
- Dec 4 Anne Russell's play "'Girl and the judge" premieres in New York
- Dec 10 First Nobel Peace Prizes awarded, first recipients Red Cross founder Jean Henri Dunant and peace activist Frederic Passy
Röntgen's Nobel for X-Rays
Dec 10 First Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Wilhelm Röntgen for his discovery of X-rays
First Transatlantic Radio Signal
Dec 12 Guglielmo Marconi sends the first transatlantic radio signal, from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, Canada
- Dec 14 1st table tennis tournament is held at the London Royal Aquarium
- Dec 16 Boer General Kritzinger captured
- Dec 24 Private companies allowed to use the word "postcard" in the US. Previously they were labelled "Private Mailing Cards" and known as "souvenir cards".
- Dec 25 Battle at Tweefontein: British force camped on a hill is surprised by a Boer attack at 2am
- Dec 31 In the first election under their new constitution, Cuba elects a Congress and their first president, Tomas Estrada Palma
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