August 25, 1900: Friedrich Nietzsche dies at age 55August 4, 1900: Troops of the Eight Nation Alliance march toward BeijingAugust 2, 1900: Shah of Persia saved from assassination by his prime ministerAugust 14, 1900: Corporal Titus begins the rescue of diplomats trapped in Beijing
National University, the first private nonsectarian university in the Philippines and the first to instruct students in English in addition to Spanish, was founded in Manila as the Colegio Filipino.[3] It would be renamed Colegio Mercantil and then National Academy before attaining its present name.
Thursday, August 2, 1900
Persia's Vizier Ali Asghar Khan
Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, the Shah of Persia (now Iran), survived an assassination attempt while visiting Paris. The Shah hit the assailant on the head with a cane and his Grand Vizier, Ali Asghar Khan twisted the assassin's wrist and forced the dropping of a pistol.[4] The gunman, identified as Francois Salson, said that he had also tried to assassinate former French PresidentJean Casimir-Perier but that the gun had misfired.[5]
By a margin of 187,217 to 128,285,[6] voters in North Carolina approved an amendment to Article VI of the state constitution, worded specifically to disenfranchise African-American voters. Under section 4, all persons registering to vote were required to pass a literacy test, "But no male person who was on January 1, 1867, or at any time prior thereto, entitled to vote and no lineal descendant of any such person, shall be denied the right to register and vote by reason of his failure to possess the educational qualifications herein proscribed"[7]
Three days of shooting events during the Olympics were staged in Paris, including live pigeon-shooting.[9] Some were retrospectively recognized as Olympic events. Almost 300 pigeons were killed, the format being that the birds were released in front of the shooter and the prize went to whoever shot down as many pigeons as possible before missing two. The event would later be described as "the one and only time in Olympic history when animals were deliberately killed in the name of sport."[10]Léon de Lunden of Belgium won the gold medal by killing 21 birds in flight.
In China, a force of 20,000 soldiers of the Eight-Nation Alliance began their march from Tianjin to Beijing to relieve the besieged envoys in the Chinese capital. The group was composed of 9,000 Japanese, 4,800 Russians, 2,900 Britons, 2,500 Americans, 1,200 French and a few hundred Austrian, German and Italian troops. At the same time, Chinese imperial troops were on their way from Beijing to resist the Allied troops.[11]
Born:
Nabi Tajima, Japanese supercentenarian and the last remaining survivor of the 19th century in Kikai, Kagoshima. She became the oldest person on Earth from September 15, 2017 when the last survivor of the 1800s, Violet Brown of Jamaica, died. Tajima would die on April 21, 2018, aged 117.
In a seven-hour-long battle at Peit-sang, Chinese imperial troops fought against the advancing allied troops. The Allies had an estimated 1,200 killed and wounded, while the Chinese lost 4,000 killed and wounded.[12]
Died:James Augustine Healy, 70, the first African-American Catholic Church bishop, and Bishop of Portland (Maine) since his appointment in 1875 by Pope Pius IX. Healy's father was a white Irish immigrant and plantation owner, while his mother had been an African-American slave of mixed race and he was born in Macon, Georgia. Under the laws of that state, he was regarded as a "Negro". (b. 1830)
The Allied troops routed Chinese defenders at Tsi-nin, clearing the way for the liberation of foreign envoys at Beijing.[12]
Thursday, August 9, 1900
From Constantinople came word of the massacre of 200 men, women and children in the village of Saganik (also called Spagbank) in the Sassun District of Anatolia.[14] Two weeks later, the Ottoman Sultan ordered a committee to investigate the reports.[15]
A plot to kidnap Lord Roberts was foiled as the ringleaders were arrested in Pretoria.[17] Hans Cordua was the only one of the perpetrators to be executed, dying before a firing squad on August 24.
Milton S. Hershey got out of the business of making caramel candy, selling his Lancaster Caramel Company to investor Daniel F. Lafean for one million dollars in cash. Hershey and his attorney, John Snyder, turned down initial offers for a merger, then for $500,000 and finally for $900,000 cash and $100,000 stock before sealing the deal in Providence, Rhode Island, at 11:00 in the morning.[18] With the infusion of capital, The Hershey Company built a factory in Derry Church, Pennsylvania, and created the largest chocolate manufacturer in the United States, with sales of five billion dollars a year by 2007.
Violence broke out on Laysan in the Territory of Hawaii, after the 41 Japanese miners on the small (1.5 by 1 mile) island confronted the four white American managers of Pacific Guano & Fertilizer Company. In response, manager Joseph Spencer pulled two pistols and announced that the first person to step forward would die. When the group charged en masse, Spencer fired away, killing two of the Japanese and wounding three others. The next day, the 39 survivors were arrested and imprisoned on the ship Ceylon, and on August 16, everyone sailed back to Honolulu. Spencer was acquitted after a ten-day trial, and the other men were fired.[20]
The Allies captured Tung-chau, placing them within 13 miles (21 km) of Beijing.[22]
The French destroyerFramee sank after a collision with the battleshipBrennus, during maneuvers off the coast of Portugal, at Cape St. Vincent. The accident occurred when the Framee turned to the right as the French fleet was ordered to turn left. Forty-six of the 60 men on the Framee died, including Captain du Plessix.[23]
As troops from the Eight-Nation Alliance neared Beijing, the Chinese army set up a Krupp cannon to fire down on the foreign legations, in the heaviest attack to that time. A counterattack by guns within the embassy compound killed the Chinese gun crew and halted the attack. The allied force was within 14 miles (23 km), in Tungchow (Tongzhou).[25]
The 20,000-member multinational force arrived at Beijing for the Battle of Peking. The Russian forces attacked the Tung Pien[clarification needed] gate. The 9th and 14th American infantries reached the 30-foot (9.1 m) high Tartar Wall where command asked for a volunteer to scale the structure. CorporalCalvin Pearl Titus, a 20-year-old bugler from Company E, climbed footholds on the wall, found it undefended, and the rest of the force followed, planting the flag at 11:03 a.m. With Japanese and American attackers drawing the Chinese army away from the walled city, a group of Sikh soldiers from the British force were the first to enter Beijing, at 2:45 pm. By 4:00, the 55-day siege of the foreign legations was over, and the next phase was to take the Imperial City and the Forbidden City.[27]
The world's first six-masted ship, the George W. Wells, was launched from Camden, Maine.[29] At 342 feet (104 m) in length and 48 feet (15 m) wide, the Wells was the largest wooden ship in the world at that time.
Rioting broke out in New York City on Eighth Avenue, between 30th and 42nd Streets, following the August 12 stabbing death of Robert Thorpe of the New York City Police Department. When a black man caused an altercation outside the home where Thorpe's body lay, fighting broke out and mobs of white men were soon pulling black people off streetcars and beating them. By 10:30, the violence seemed under control, and then a revolver was fired from inside a house on 41st Street. "This seemed a signal for the riot to begin again," noted The New York Times, "for crowds began to appear as if by magic."[31]
Thursday, August 16, 1900
A German excavation at the Tel Amran ibn Ali, near the Babylonian temple at Etemenanki (near modern Al Hillah, Iraq), German excavators unearthed a glazed amphora with 10,000 coins dating from the 7th century BC.[32]
Friday, August 17, 1900
The Allied troops entered the "Forbidden City", the section of Beijing that housed the Imperial quarters and was off limits even to most Chinese citizens. The Empress Dowager Cixi had fled the city to the Shensi province, 600 miles (970 km) to the south.[33]
Lieutenant General Gribsky, military governor of the Amur province, had published the annexation of Manchurian territory to Russia, by decree of August 12. "All the region of Manchuria occupied by our troops is henceforth withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Chinese authorities and subordinated entirely to our authority and laws," the proclamation began, adding that the Tranz-Zeya territory and the Aigun and Sakhalin settlements would be Russian territory.[34]
Bolivian troops crushed a secession attempt in the "Republic of Acre". Bolivian ambassador Fernando e Guachalla confirmed rumors of a succession on November 29, with revolution starting in December 1899 under "a Spaniard named Galvez" (journalist Luis Gálvez Rodríguez de Arias) who returned to Madrid after three or four months, and was replaced by Rodriguez Arles of Brazil, which formally crushed the rebellion.[38]
The sarcophagus of Emperor Conrad of the Holy Roman Empire was opened and his body photographed, confirming that he was long-bearded and exceptionally tall — 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m).[50]
Friday, August 24, 1900
Transvaal Army Lieutenant Hans Cordua was executed by firing squad, three days after having been found guilty of a conspiracy to kidnap the British commander, Lord Roberts.[51]
The Chicago Coliseum, a state of the art arena with seats for 10,000 people, was dedicated in conjunction with the opening of the convention of the Grand Army of the Republic. U.S. President William McKinley had been scheduled to address the assembled veterans, but cancelled because of crises in Asia.[56] The Coliseum, which hosted conventions, rock concerts and sports, closed in 1971 and was demolished in 1982. The same day, millions of white butterflies fluttered into downtown Chicago. The New York Times headline the next day was "Chicago Pretty at Last".[57]
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, 55, died in Weimar, Germany, eleven years after going insane. The "Father of Modern Atheism" was buried at a graveyard at his family church.[58]
The "unidentified French coxswain" became the youngest Olympic medalist in history, helping the team of François Brandt and Roelof Klein win the first gold medal ever for the Netherlands. After the original coxswain, Hermanus Brockmann, proved to be so heavy that he was slowing the pair down, the Dutchmen located a boy who could serve as the third person on the team. The identity of the young man, estimated to be 10 years old, has remained a mystery, but a photograph of him was published by Brandt in a 1926 book.[59][60]
A group of thunderstorms passed over Cape Verde and then began the process of coalescence and a westward drift along the trade winds. By September 5, the storms had become a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, and on September 8, struck Galveston, Texas, for the worst natural disaster in American history.[62]
Gaetano Bresci, who had assassinated Italy's King Umberto a month earlier, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment after a one-day-long trial. Bresci was found dead in his cell on May 22, 1901, an apparent suicide.[65]
Thursday, August 30, 1900
Former world heavyweight boxing champion "Gentleman Jim" Corbett had his final prizefight, knocking out Kid McCoy in the fifth round of a bout at Madison Square Garden.[66] McCoy admitted later that he had been paid $5,000 to throw the fight, although Corbett said later that he had been paid to throw the fight as well.[67]
^Jooste, Graham (2002). Innocent Blood: Executions During the Anglo-Boer War. New Africa Books. pp. 179–180.
^Abramson, Albert (1987). The History of Television, 1880 to 1941. McFarland & Company. p. 23., quoted in Parsons, Patrick (2008). Blue Skies: A History of Cable Television. Temple University Press. p. 23.
