Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 seriously injured at Hatfield, Pennsylvania, when a freight train plowed through two cars of a passenger train.[4]
September 3, 1900 (Monday)
The 1899 Hague Convention came into effect, with many of the world's major powers (but not the United States) agreeing to attempt peaceful resolution of international conflicts.[5]
On Labor Day in Charleston, South Carolina, the "Capital City Guards", an African-American regiment of the South Carolina state guard, were giving an exhibition drill at Capital Square, when a group of white men on horseback drove into the black crowd, knocking down a woman and a child. Eight members of the guard chased after the attackers, then attached bayonets to their rifles and charged into the crowd. Although nobody was seriously injured, GovernorMiles Benjamin McSweeney ordered the disbanding of the 14-year-old unit the next day, after finding that the guards had accumulated a large stock of ammunition in their armory.[6]
A 3200-volt power line crossed onto the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Departmentcall box circuit. 16 police officers were electrocuted while attempting to use call boxes. Police Officer John P. Looney and Police Officer Nicholas F. Beckman died the same day; Police Officer Michael Burke would die of his injuries on December 13, 1901.[7][8][9]
Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo set up his headquarters at Palanan, on the eastern side of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. There, he would guide the fight against the American armies until his capture in 1901.[12]
As an alternative to suspending constitutional rights, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary ordered the dissolution of the Abgeordnetenhaus, the elected body of the Reichsrat, Austria's parliament. The legislators were divided along ethnic lines between German and Slavic parties. Following elections in December, the Reichsrath was reconstituted under premierErnest von Koerber. The Diet of Hungary was not affected by the order.[13]
A powerful hurricane hit Galveston, Texas, killing at least 6,000 of the island's 38,000 residents. The storm reached Galveston Island, off the Gulf Coast of Texas, at 2:00 a.m. By noon, the waters were over the bridges to the mainland and flood waters rolled in after 3:00 pm.[14] The anemometer measured the windspeed at 84 miles per hour (135 km/h) before blowing away at 6:15 p.m. At 7:32, the water level suddenly rose 4 feet (1.2 m) as waves rolled in, and within 30 minutes, the water was 8 feet (2.4 m) deep.[15]
September 9, 1900 (Sunday)
The Galveston hurricane ended after the entire island had been under 8 feet (2.4 m) of water. "Without apparent reason", reporter Richard Spillane would write later, "the waters suddenly began to subside at 1:45 a.m. Within twenty minutes they had gone down two feet, and before daylight the streets were practically freed of the flood waters."[14] When the survivors ventured out, the full extent of the storm was realized, with thousands of corpses across the island. By month's end, at least 2,311 bodies had been recovered.[16]
A local militia company, the "Galveston Sharpshooters", began patrolling Galveston, Texas the day after the hurricane had passed on, and began dealing with looters. "On Monday, some men caught looting deserted houses and robbing dead bodies were promptly shot on the spot", it was noted fifty years later, "how many were never learned exactly."[17] One estimate was that there were as many as 250 looters killed, some found "with pockets full of fingers ... sliced off in their haste to procure the rings on them."[18]
Nixey Callahan, pitcher for the Chicago Cubs (at that time, the Chicago Orphans), set a record by giving up 48 hits in back-to-back games, allowing 23 hits in a 14–3 loss to the New York Giants. In his previous start, he had given up 25.[21]
September 12, 1900 (Wednesday)
With the authority to act as a legislature for the Philippines, the five-member Taft Commission enacted its first laws. The first four acts, passed on the same day, appropriated money for road construction, surveys, and the salaries for two new government employees.[22] The work of the five commissioners — William Howard Taft, Henry Idle, Luke Wright, Dean Worcester, and Bernard Moses – is now the responsibility of the 24 Senators and 250 Representatives of the Congress of the Philippines.
Filipino resistance fighters under the command of Colonel Maxio Abad defeated a large American column in the Battle of Pulang Lupa, and captured Captain James Shields.[24]
Dr. Jesse Lazear allowed himself to be bitten by a mosquito at the Las Animas Hospital in Cuba, as he searched for a cure for yellow fever. Five days later, he began to feel ill, and he died on September 25. Dr. Lazear's tragic experiment proved that the disease was spread by mosquitoes, and that the prevention of yellow fever required the eradication of the insects.[25]
A proclamation by the recently annexed Transvaal proclaimed Schalk Willem Burger to be acting president of the South African Republic. President Paul Kruger, who had fled the country, was given a six-month "leave of absence to visit Europe".[27]
Rikken Seiyūkai, or "Friends of Constitutional Government", was founded as Japan's newest political party, with former Prime MinisterItō Hirobumi as its leader. The Seiyukai party won a majority in the elections in October, bringing Ito back into power.[29]
September 16, 1900 (Sunday)
Prince Albert of Saxony, son of the King George, was killed in an accident after a collision with a carriage driven by Prince Miguel of Braganza.
A battle at Similoan, Philippines involved 90 American troops confronting 1,000 Filipinos. Resulting casualties included 24 Americans killed, 5 missing, 9 wounded.[30]
September 17, 1900 (Monday)
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria issued the Proclamation of the Commonwealth of Australia, stating "We do hereby declare that on and after the first day of January One thousand nine hundred and one the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of The Commonwealth of Australia."[31]
The largest walkout in American history, up to that time, began as 112,000 anthracite coal miners left their workplaces in the mines of Pennsylvania.[32] The strike ended on October 17.
Li Hongzhang was accepted by the Allied powers as the representative of China for peace negotiations following the Boxer Rebellion, and arrived at Tianjin to begin work.[40]
Born:
Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, Mauritian state leader, founder of the nation of Mauritius and the nation's first prime minister (1968 to 1982) and later the Governor-General (1983 to 1985); in Belle Rive (now Kewal Nagur), British Mauritius (d. 1985)
The coal miners' strike had its first casualties, as the sheriff of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and his posse fired into a mob of strikers at Shenandoah. A man and a little girl were killed and six people were wounded, and units of the Pennsylvania National Guard were sent out to stop the violence.[44]
Died:Lewis Sayre, 80, pioneering orthopedic surgeon who invented the process of using plaster casts to treat spinal injuries (b. 1820)
William Marsh Rice, multimillionaire and benefactor of Rice University, was found dead at his New York City apartment.[46] Although it appeared at the time that he had died in his sleep at the age of 84, Mr. Rice's lawyer, Albert T. Patrick, tried to cash $250,000 worth of checks the next day. Eventually, it was established that Rice's valet had administered chloroform to Rice at Patrick's direction. Patrick was convicted of the murder in 1901. As he sat on death row at New York'sSing Sing prison, Patrick's sentence was commuted to life in 1906, and he was pardoned in 1912.[47]
One of Spain's greatest generals, Arsenio Martínez Campos, died at Zarauz, Spain. The New York Times eulogized, "Many have said that if the Spanish Government had retained Gen. Campos as Captain General of Cuba ... the Maine would not have been blown up and Spain would not stand to-day stripped of her ancient colonies."[48]
September 24, 1900 (Monday)
A tornado swept through Morristown, Minnesota, dropping a barn upon Gatseke's Saloon, where 16 people had taken refuge. Eight were crushed in the collapse of the saloon, including a candidate for the state legislature.[49]
The tunnel through the Cascade Range in Oregon was completed after three years and five million dollars.[53]
September 27, 1900 (Thursday)
The Republic Theatre opened at 209 West 42nd Street in New York City, with the production of Sag Harbor, starring Lionel Barrymore. Later renamed the Victory Theater, the playhouse is now the New Victory Theater.[54]
The United States Department of War received a cable from GeneralArthur MacArthur Jr. with the worst news to that time from the war in the Philippines. Fifty-one men from Company F of the 29th Volunteer Infantry, under the command of Captain Devereaux Shields, had apparently been taken prisoner by the Filipino resistance, along with the gunboat Villalobos. "There is scarcely a doubt that the entire party has been captured with many killed and wounded", MacArthur cabled, "Shields among the latter."[55] The prisoners were later released on October 15, with Captain Shields and 48 men having survived.[56]
Charles E. Bedell, the main steelwork engineer of the new Williamsburg Bridge in New York City, fell 85 feet (26 m) from the Brooklyn end of the bridge while trying to avoid a derrick boom that was swinging toward him. He died about an hour later at the Eastern District Hospital after an ambulance surgeon from St. Catharine's Hospital refused to transport him by ambulance without a $5 payment.[57]
September 29, 1900 (Saturday)
Rudolf Steiner began work on his book about anthroposophy, Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age, selecting "the first Michaelmas Day of the new age of light", following the end of the 5,000-year-long dark age of Kali Yuga.
Mexico's first penitentiary and correctional facility was opened at San Lazaro, northeast of Mexico City, as the most modern detention facility in the nation up to that time, and with a goal of rehabilitation of the inmates.[59]
At Obuasi in what is now the African nation of Ghana, the last great battle of the Ashanti War took place, with a spear-wielding force of hundreds of Ashanti tribesmen fighting against the bayonets and machine guns of Britain's ColonelJames Willcocks. At the end of the day, hundreds of Ashanti warriors had been killed.[60]
^"India's Great Famine", New York Times, September 5, 1900
^B. Lanne, Histoire politique du Tchad de 1945 à 1958, (Karthala, 1998), pp. 11–12
^Cecilio D. Duka, Struggle For Freedom: A Textbook on Philippine History (Rex Bookstore, 2008), p. 191
^"Austria-Hungary". The International Year Book (1901). Dodd, Mead & Company. 1901. pp. 83–86.
^ ab"The Wrecking of Galveston". The New York Times. September 11, 1900. p. 1.
^Greene, Casey Edward; Kelly, Shelly Henley (2002). Through a Night of Horrors: Voices from the 1900 Galveston Storm. Texas A&M University Press. pp. 12–13.
^Samwer, Karl; et al. (1905). Nouveau recueil général de traités et autres actes relatifs aux rapports de droit international [New general collection of treaties and other acts relating to international law relations] (in French). Librarie Dieterich. pp. 641–642.
^Reports of the Taft Philippine Commission. United States Government Printing Office. 1901. pp. 245–246.
^"New Swedish Premier Appointed". The New York Times. September 13, 1900. p. 14.
^Cecilio D. Duka, Struggle For Freedom: A Textbook on Philippine History (Rex Bookstore, 2008), p. 192
^Report of the Surgeon-General of the Army to the Secretary of War for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1900 (G.P.O. 1901), p. 187
^Thomas C. Parramore, First to Fly: North Carolina and the Beginnings of Aviation (UNC Press, 2003), p. 66
^"Diary for September", The Review of Reviews (October 15, 1900), p. 326
^United States Naval Institute Proceedings (April 1919), p. 507
^David S. Spencer, "Some Thoughts on the Political Development of the Japanese People", The Journal of International Relations (January 1920) p. 325
^The Statistician and Economist (1901–1902) (L.P. McCarty, 1902), p. 380
^William Harrison Moore, The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia (G. Partridge & Co., 1902), pp. 367; Ernest Scott, A Short History of Australia (Kessinger Publishing, 2004), p. 251
^The Statistician and Economist (1901–1902) (L.P. McCarty, 1902), p. 380
^William Thaddeus Sexton, Soldiers in the Sun: An Adventure in Imperialism (READ BOOKS, 2007), pp. 249–251
^John B. Curtis, "Illinois", Outlook for the Blind (July 1907)
^Floyd Conner, Baseball's Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of the National Pastime's Outrageous Offenders, Lucky Bounces, and Other Oddities (Sterling Publishing Company, 2006), p. 336
^Carruth, Gorton; et al., eds. (1962). The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. p. 388.
^Elizabeth Gibson, It Happened in Nevada (Globe Pequot, 2001), pp. 49–50
^Robert Dick, Mercedes and Auto Racing in the Belle Epoque, 1895–1915 (McFarland, 2005), pp. 44–45
^"Blood Flows in Shenandoah". Salt Lake Tribune. September 22, 1900. p. 1.
^Stefan Gates, Gastronaut: Adventures in Food for the Romantic, the Foolhardy, and the Brave (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006), p. 30
^"Murdered Man's Estate Founds Great University", The New York Times, February 25, 1912
^Edmund Pearson, "The Firm of Patrick and Jones" pp. 146–185, in The Mammoth Book of Murder and Science (Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2000); Martin Friedland, The Death of Old Man Rice: A True Story of Criminal Justice in America (NYU Press, 1996)
^"Marshal Campos Dead", New York Times, September 24, 1900, p. 1
^"Killed in a Tornado", Salt Lake Tribune, September 25, 1900, p. 1
^Neal Bascomb, Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007), p40
^George Etsujiro Uyehara, The Political Development of Japan 1867–1909 (READ BOOKS, 2006), p. 244
^Joscelyn Godwin, "The Creation of a Universal System", in Alexandria I: The Journal of Western Cosmological Traditions (Red Wheel/Weiser, 1991), p. 247
^The Statistician and Economist (1901–1902) (L.P. McCarty, 1902), p. 380
