December 1899

1899

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December 19, 1899: Death of U.S. Army General Henry Ware Lawton at the Battle of San Mateo

The following events occurred in December 1899:

December 1, 1899 (Friday)

• Born: Tommy Lucchese (born Gaetano Lucchese), Italian-American gangster, boss of the Lucchese crime family; in Palermo, Sicily (d. 1967)
• Died: Ed Gastfield, 34, American professional baseball player

December 2, 1899 (Saturday)

• Philippine–American War – Battle of Tirad Pass ("The Filipino Thermopylae"): General Gregorio del Pilar and his troops guarded the retreat of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo before being wiped out.
• During the new moon, a near-grand conjunction of the classical planets and several binocular Solar System bodies occurred. The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Saturn were all within 15° of each other, with Venus 5° ahead of this conjunction and Jupiter 15° behind. Accompanying the classical planets in this grand conjunction were Uranus (technically visible unaided in pollution-free skies), Ceres and Pallas.
• Rebel Venezuelan General José Manuel Hernández captured the city of Maracaibo in his revolt against Cipriano Castro's government but would only be able to hold it for 16 days.
• Born:
  • John Barbirolli (born Giovanni Battista Barbirolli), English conductor; in London (d. 1970)
  • Ray Morehart, American Major League Baseball player; in Terrell, Texas (d. 1989)
• Died: Gregorio del Pilar, 24, Filipino general, was killed in action.

December 3, 1899 (Sunday)

• Born: Hayato Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan; in Takehara, Hiroshima (d. 1965)

December 4, 1899 (Monday)

• At the first session of the 56th U.S. Congress, David B. Henderson (Republican-Iowa) was elected Speaker of the House. The House refused permission for B. H. Roberts (Democrat-Utah) to take the oath of office as a U.S. Representative, pending investigation of allegations of bigamy.
• Born: Sam Newfield (born Samuel Neufeld), American director of over 250 feature films; in New York City (d. 1964)
• Died: John Simson Woolson, 58, United States district judge for Iowa

December 5, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Germany's cabinet agreed to repeal a Prussian law that had prohibited the creation of political societies or clubs.
• Died:
  • Monroe Hayward, 58, American politician, United States Senator-elect from Nebraska
  • Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet, 80, English sugar merchant and philanthropist, founder of the Tate Galleries

December 6, 1899 (Wednesday)

• A lynch mob in Maysville, Kentucky, forced its way into the county jail to seize an African-American indicted for murder, tortured him and then burned him to death.

December 8, 1899 (Friday)

• Born: John Qualen, Canadian-American character actor (The Grapes of Wrath, His Girl Friday, Casablanca); in Vancouver, British Columbia (d. 1987)
• Died:
  • Eleazer Foster, 58, American lawyer and judge, former Superintendent of Florida Schools
  • Joseph C. Hoagland, 58, American businessman, first president of the Royal Baking Powder Company

December 9, 1899 (Saturday)

• An explosion killed 32 coal miners at the Carbon Hill mines in Carbonado, Washington.
• Born: Jean de Brunhoff, French writer, co-creator of Babar the Elephant; in Paris (d. 1937, tuberculosis)
• Died: James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance, PC, 83, British judge and rose breeder

December 10, 1899 (Sunday)

• Four-month-old Sobhuza II began his 82-year reign as King of Swaziland, on the death of his father, Ngwane V; his grandmother Labotsibeni Mdluli served as queen regent.
• Battle of Stormberg: The British Army made a disastrous attempt to surprise the Boer position in Natal and suffered the loss of 687 officers and men.
• The college fraternity Delta Sigma Phi was founded at the City College of New York, by Charles A. Tonsor Jr. and Meyer Boskey.
• Died: King Ngwane V of Swaziland, 23

December 11, 1899 (Monday)

• Second Boer War: Battle of Magersfontein – Boers defeated British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
• Philippine-American War: Filipino General Tierona surrendered the province of Cagayan to U.S. Navy Captain McCalla of the USS Newark (C-1).
• Born: Joan Stevenson Abbott, Australian World War II army hospital matron; in Brisbane, Queensland (d. 1975)
• Died: Major-General Andrew Wauchope CB CMG, 53, British Army officer, was killed in action at the Battle of Magersfontein.

December 13, 1899 (Wednesday)

• General French routed Boer troops who had been advancing into the Cape Colony toward Noupoort.
• Died:
  • Julius Walker Adams, 87, American civil engineer and railroad engineer
  • Sir George Airey Kirkpatrick KCMG PC QC, 58, Canadian politician, former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
  • Lucius Richard O'Brien RCA, 67, Canadian landscape painter
  • Jasper Packard, 67, American attorney and Civil War veteran, former member of the United States House of Representatives from Indiana

December 14, 1899 (Thursday)

• Walther Hauser was elected President of Switzerland by the Swiss Federal Assembly.
• Born: DeFord Bailey, American country musician; in Smith County, Tennessee (d. 1982)

December 15, 1899 (Friday)

• Battle of Colenso: Britain's General Buller lost 1,097 officers and men in a fight against the Boers in Natal, the third serious British reverse in South Africa in what would become known as the "Black Week".
• The Glasgow School of Art opened its new building, the most notable work of Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
• The Republican National Committee voted to hold its 1900 national convention in Philadelphia, to start on June 19, 1900.
• Born: Harold Abrahams, English track and field athlete, winner of 1 gold medal and 1 silver medal in the 1924 Summer Olympics; in Bedford, Bedfordshire (d. 1978)

December 16, 1899 (Saturday)

• The Association football club A.C. Milan was founded in Italy.
• Born:
  • Noël Coward, English actor, playwright (Blithe Spirit) and composer ("Mad Dogs and Englishmen"); in Teddington, Middlesex (d. 1973)
  • Aleksander Zawadzki, President of Poland; in Będzin, Piotrków Governorate (d. 1964)
• Died: Fred Waterman, 53–54, American professional baseball player

December 17, 1899 (Sunday)

• Died:
  • Bernard Quaritch, 80, German-born British bookseller
  • Frederick Roberts VC, 27, British Army officer, died of wounds received 2 days earlier at the Battle of Colenso.

December 18, 1899 (Monday)

• The British War Office sent 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 announced that 100,000 additional men would be sent as the British death toll rose to 7630.
• Stock prices fell drastically at the New York exchanges and the Produce Exchange Trust Company failed.
• Born: Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian author and philosopher; in Tromsø (d. 1990)
• Died: Fred Truax, 30–31, American professional baseball player

December 19, 1899 (Tuesday)

• New York City's clearinghouse banks pooled together a $10,000,000 loan fund to prevent further failures of companies.
• Born: Martin Luther King Sr. (born Michael King), American Baptist pastor, missionary, and early figure in the civil rights movement; in Stockbridge, Georgia (d. 1984)
• Died: Henry Ware Lawton, 56, United States Army major general and Medal of Honor recipient, was killed by a Filipino sniper at the Battle of San Mateo on Luzon.

December 20, 1899 (Wednesday)

• The U.S. government arrested nine customs officials in Havana on charges of collusion to defraud the government.
• Born:
  • Finn Ronne, Norwegian-American explorer; in Horten (d. 1980)
  • John Sparkman, American politician, member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate from Alabama; near Hartselle, Alabama (d. 1985)

December 21, 1899 (Thursday)

• U.S. Army General Leonard Wood arrived in Havana to become the new Governor-General of Cuba.
• Died: Charles Lamoureux, 65, French conductor and violinist

December 22, 1899 (Friday)

• More than 40 schoolchildren from Belgium drowned in the capsizing of a boat near the French town of Frelinghien on the River Lys that serves as boundary between Belgium and France.
• A fire killed 16 children in Quincy, Illinois.
• Died:
  • Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, 74, British landowner and politician
  • Dwight L. Moody, 62, American evangelist and publisher
  • Pascual Ortega Portales, 60, Chilean painter

December 23, 1899 (Saturday)

• Forty coal miners were killed in an explosion near Brownsville, Pennsylvania.
• Sir Reginald Wingate was appointed as the new British Governor-General of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
• Died: Dorman Bridgman Eaton, 76, American lawyer instrumental in federal Civil Service reform

December 24, 1899 (Sunday)

• At the Vatican, Pope Leo XIII opened the Holy Door at Saint Peter's Basilica, inaugurating the Jubilee year of 1900.
• The wreck of the British steamship Ariosto off the coast of Hatteras, North Carolina, in the U.S. drowned 21 of the crew.

December 25, 1899 (Monday)

• Born:
  • Humphrey Bogart, American actor (Casablanca, The African Queen); in New York City (d. 1957)
  • Frank Ferguson, American character actor known for the TV series My Friend Flicka; in Ferndale, California (d. 1978)
• Died: Elliott Coues, 57, American ornithologist

December 26, 1899 (Tuesday)

• Pinnacle Rock, a balancing rock in Cumberland Gap on the Tennessee and Kentucky border in the U.S., fell down.

December 27, 1899 (Wednesday)

• Died: Harry Escombe PC, 61, South African statesman, former prime minister of the Colony of Natal

December 28, 1899 (Thursday)

• The bodies of the officers and men killed in the 1898 explosion of the battleship USS Maine were reinterred at the Arlington National Cemetery.
• Born: Eugeniusz Bodo, Polish film actor (His Excellency, The Shop Assistant, Pieśniarz Warszawy), director and producer (birthplace uncertain) (d. 1943 in Soviet Gulag)

December 29, 1899 (Friday)

• The British Royal Navy cruiser HMS Magicienne seized the German steamer, Bundesroth, at Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa (modern-day Mozambique), on grounds that German officers and men were being brought to supplement the Boer Army. The Bundesroth was then escorted to Durban in Britain's Natal Colony.
• Born: Nie Rongzhen, Chinese Communist military leader; in Jiangjin, Chongqing (d. 1992)
• Died: Sylvester Malone, 78, Irish-born American Roman Catholic priest

December 30, 1899 (Saturday)

• General Wood completed 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.
• According to an account first published in a Canadian newspaper in 1942, at midnight on 30 December the passenger and cargo liner SS Warrimoo positioned herself at the intersection of the Equator and the 180th meridian in such a manner that the ship was simultaneously located in the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Hemispheres, in both summer and winter, and in both the 19th and 20th centuries (counting 1900 as the first year of the 20th century). However, the navigation technology of that era would likely not have allowed the Warrimoo to position herself with such precision. Snopes rates this story as "Unproven".
• Died:
  • Eugène Bertrand, 65, French comedian, theatre managing director and opera house director
  • Sir James Paget, 1st Baronet FRS HFRSE, 85, English surgeon and pathologist

December 31, 1899 (Sunday)

• The German government and Kaiser Wilhelm II declared that the 20th century would begin on January 1, 1900. In most of the world, however, December 31, 1899, was not the last day of the 19th century, which also included the year 1900.
• Retrospectively, day zero for dates in Microsoft Excel (similar to January 1, 1970 being day zero for Unix time). This is to ensure backwards compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3, which had a bug misinterpreting 1900 as a leap year.
• Died:
  • Jane Mitchel, 79, Irish nationalist
  • Carl Millöcker, 57, Viennese composer and conductor
  • Manuel Carrillo Tablas, 77, Mexican philanthropist and mayor of Orizaba