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The following events occurred in March 1900:

March 24, 1900: The last passenger pigeon in the wild is killed
March 7, 1900: The Wilhelm der Grosse becomes the first ship to install wireless radio
March 1, 1900: Samoa becomes a colony of Germany
March 27, 1900: Standard kite patented by William Eddy

March 1, 1900 (Thursday)

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  • The German flag was formally hoisted at Apia, the capital of Samoa, and Wilhelm Solf became the colony's first governor. Chief Mata'afa, who had fought against the Germans, and Chief Tamasese, who had been the puppet ruler during German occupation, reconciled.[1] Mata'afa was named as the paramount chief of the western Samoa colony, although Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm was designated as the Paramount King.[2]
  • The United Kingdom and its subjects celebrated across the world when the news arrived of the relief of the South African fortress Ladysmith. "London went literally mad with joy, and throughout England the scenes witnessed have no parallel in the memories of this generation."[3]

March 2, 1900 (Friday)

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March 3, 1900 (Saturday)

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March 4, 1900 (Sunday)

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  • The first railway service in Nigeria was inaugurated with the opening of a line between Lagos and Ibadan. Built by the British colonial government, the railroad track extended for 122.5 miles (197.1 km) and cost 1,000,000 pounds.[10]
  • Born: Herbert Biberman, American screenwriter and film director, one of the Hollywood Ten blacklisted in the 1950s; in Philadelphia (d. 1971)

March 5, 1900 (Monday)

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March 6, 1900 (Tuesday)

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March 7, 1900 (Wednesday)

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March 8, 1900 (Thursday)

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March 9, 1900 (Friday)

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March 10, 1900 (Saturday)

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March 11, 1900 (Sunday)

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  • Captain Umberto Cagni of Italy, with ten men and 102 dogs, set off from the base camp at Franz Josef Land, established by the Arctic expedition of the Duke of Abruzzi. Cagni's men did not reach the North Pole, but planted the Italian flag at 86–34 N on April 25, closer than anyone had before, before turning back.[27]
  • Religious broadcasting was launched in Elkhart, Indiana, as the Reverend E.H. Gwynne of the First Presbyterian Church, began preaching his sermons by telephone technology. A transmitter, designed by inventors from the Home Telephone Company for the benefit of a crippled parishioner, was placed on the pulpit, "and every word was as distinctly heard as though the listeners were present in the church", a reporter noted.[28]
  • At the Mount Olivet Baptist Church at 53rd Street near Broadway in New York City, Pastor C.T. Walker baptized 184 African Americans at the end of revival services.[29] Nicknamed "the Colored John the Baptist", Walker was originally from Augusta, Georgia, where a school bears his name.[30]

March 12, 1900 (Monday)

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Steyn
 
The Orange Free State flag

March 13, 1900 (Tuesday)

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March 14, 1900 (Wednesday)

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Mendel
 
de Vries
  • At 1:14 in the afternoon at the White House, U.S. President William McKinley signed the Gold Standard Act into law using a gold pen presented to him by U.S. Representative Jesse Overstreet of Indiana, who had sponsored the legislation.[37]
  • Botanist Hugo de Vries submitted a paper to the German journal Comptes Rendus, outlining a rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity. Both de Vries and German botanist Carl Correns had been working independently of each other in 1900 and found Gregor Mendel's 1865 paper on genetics. Correns' paper was completed on April 22. Wrote De Vries, "I draw the conclusion that the law of segregation of hybrids as discovered by Mendel for peas finds very general application in the plant kingdom ... This memoir, very beautiful for its time, has been misunderstood and forgotten."[38]

March 15, 1900 (Thursday)

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  • In Louisburg and Morrisville, North Carolina, an unusual weather phenomenon appeared in the form of black rain that fell from an intensely dark cloud.[39] Professor M.S. Davis of Louisburg College collected a sample of the black rainwater and had it analyzed by chemists at the University of North Carolina. Drs. Baskerville and Weller concluded, in an article in Science magazine, that the rain had a high, and unexplained, concentration of soot.[40] Elsewhere in the nation, 6+12 inches of snow fell in New York City; 8 inches in Washington, D.C., and snow fell in the Deep South in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and north Texas.[41]
  • The Standard Oil Company paid the largest dividend ever distributed up to that time, disbursing to shareholders a total of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) in cash based on $20 a share. The dividend had been declared on February 6, and broke a record of a stock dividend paid by the Pullman car company.[42]

March 16, 1900 (Friday)

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March 17, 1900 (Saturday)

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Leary
 
Sheldon
  • Richard P. Leary, the American Governor of Guam, issued a proclamation abolishing slavery on the island.[46]
  • American forces, led by Major Henry Hale of the 44th Infantry Battalion, arrived at Tagbilaran and took control of Bohol in the Philippines.[47] The Boholanos resisted American occupation for years thereafter.[48]
  • The Topeka Daily Capital published its final "Sheldon Edition", bringing to a close an experiment that had started on March 13. The publisher of the Capital had challenged author Charles Sheldon to try editing a daily newspaper as Jesus might. Sheldon, the author of In His Steps (and the originator of the question "What would Jesus do?"), edited the paper for five days, emphasizing "good news" stories. During the experiment, the circulation of the Capital increased from about 12,000 to more than 350,000 (with the help of presses in Chicago and New York City). Rather than closing with a Sunday paper, Sheldon published a "Saturday Evening Edition" following the regular morning paper, with instructions that even the news carriers were "to deliver their papers in time to reach home themselves before Sunday", and there was "no news of the world". Sheldon wrote, "The human race can be just as happy and useful and powerful if it does not know every twenty-four hours the news of the wars and the sports and the society events of the world."[49]
  • Born: Alfred Newman, American composer, recipient of nine Academy Awards in a career of creating musical scores for films; in New Haven, Connecticut (d. 1970)

March 18, 1900 (Sunday)

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March 19, 1900 (Monday)

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  • Harry Lauder, celebrated as Scotland's greatest entertainer, made his professional debut at Gatti's Music Hall in London. A former coal miner who entertained his co-workers in the mines, Lauder was encouraged to try out at local talent competition, where he was discovered and signed to a contract. At one time, Lauder was the highest-paid entertainer in the world.[51]
  • The city of Glendora, Mississippi, was founded.
  • Born: Frédéric Joliot-Curie, French physicist, recipient in 1935 of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; in Paris (d. 1958)

March 20, 1900 (Tuesday)

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Secretary Hay

March 21, 1900 (Wednesday)

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  • George C. Hale, Chief of the Kansas City Fire Department and inventor of the Hale tower and the automatic harness, demonstrated the first heat sensitive automatic fire alarm system. The New York Times reported, "When the temperature goes above the maximum fixed for the building, an electric circuit is opened that puts into operation a phonograph which talks into a telephone, telling Fire Headquarters that there is a fire at whatever address the alarm is located."[55]

March 22, 1900 (Thursday)

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  • Anne Rainsford French was awarded a Steam Engineer's License (Locomobile Class), issued by the City of Washington, D.C., making her one of the first, if not the first, women to receive a driver's license. However, Mrs. John Howell Phillips received a license, in Chicago, in late 1899.[56]

March 23, 1900 (Friday)

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  • Dr. Karl Landsteiner's first report on his discovery of a process for classification of the four blood groups under the ABO blood group system (as A, B, AB and O), "Zur Kenntnis der antifermentativen, lytischen und agglutinierenden Wirkungen des Blutserums und der Lymphe" ("Regarding on the knowledge of the antifermentative, lytic and agglutinating effects of the blood serum and the lymph") was published in the Austrian medical journal Centralblatt fur Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde und Infektionskrankheiten.[57] In 1930, Landsteiner would win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contribution to the discovery that made safe blood transfusions possible.
  • At 11:00 in the morning, Arthur Evans began excavation of the site of the Minoan temple at Knossos, Crete.[58]
  • Born: Erich Fromm, German-American psychologist and philosopher; in Frankfurt (d. 1980)

March 24, 1900 (Saturday)

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  • New York Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck broke ground for the underground "rapid transit tunnel" that would become the first part of the New York City Subway, linking Manhattan and Brooklyn. Using a silver spade, Van Wyck started in front of City Hall. "Tunnel day, for as such it will be known", wrote The New York Times, "was a greater day to the people, for it marked a beginning of a system of tunnels in future years and for future generations ..."[59]
  • Fifteen members of the New York City Fire Department fell into a basement full of 10 feet (3.0 m) of water. Captain John J. Grady and Firefighters Peter F. Bowen and William J. Smith drowned.[60]
  • The first workplace smoking ban was issued by the Willis L. Moore, Chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau, the forerunner of the National Weather Service, for all of its offices.[61][62] The Director's Instruction No. 51 declared that "The smoking of cigarettes in the offices of the Weather Bureau is hereby prohibited. Officials in charge of stations will rigidly enforce this order, and will also include in their semiannual confidential reports information as to those of their assistants who smoke cigarettes outside of office hours."[63]
  • U.S. President William McKinley signed the Puerto Rican appropriation bill of $2,095,455.88 after it passed the House 135–87.[64][65]
 
A passenger pigeon

March 25, 1900 (Sunday)

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March 26, 1900 (Monday)

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  • On the Greek site of Knossos, the excavations directed by archaeologist Arthur Evans found the first figurines of people that dated back to the Neolithic era in Greece, small statues from the Minoan civilization from more than 5,000 years earlier.[69]
  • The "stamp book" was introduced to American customers after Third Assistant Postmaster General Edwin C. Madden had, "after considerable experiment", devised a convenient way for buying large quantities of stamps for later use, with several perforated sheets of six stamps each between paper covers.[70] Similar stamp books had been introduced in Luxembourg in 1895 and Sweden in 1898.[71]
 
Rabbi Wise

March 27, 1900 (Tuesday)

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General Joubert
  • As British forces prepared to advance on Pretoria, South Africa's greatest general, Piet Joubert, died of peritonitis at the age of 68.[74]
  • Queen Victoria received delegates at Windsor Castle from the British colonies in Australia to discuss the Australian Commonwealth Bill in preparation for federation and an independent state and voiced her disagreement with the word "commonwealth". "She found the title obnoxious to her", wrote one author, "She had an ingrained dislike for the word 'Commonwealth,' which she identified with Oliver Cromwell and his Republican form of government." The Queen's suggestion was that the new nation be called the "Dominion of Australia", similar to the title of the Canadian state. The assembled delegates persuaded the Queen that the word "commonwealth" had other meanings beyond those associated with Oliver Cromwell, and she reluctantly dropped further objections, giving her full support for Australian independence.[75]
 
William Eddy with his kite

March 28, 1900 (Wednesday)

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  • The War of the Golden Stool was triggered in the British Gold Coast colony (modern-day Ghana) after Colonial Governor Frederick Mitchell Hodgson offended a gathering of the chiefs of the Ashanti Empire. In Kumasi, Governor Hodgson demanded the Golden Stool, the most sacred relic of the Asante nation. After summoning the chiefs, Governor Hodgson refused to sit at the chair provided and demanded "Why did you not take the opportunity of my coming to Kumasi to bring the Golden Stool and give it to me to sit upon?" War broke out and Hodgson and his party barely escaped with their lives.[78]
  • In Calcutta, the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon addressed the British governing council and announced that nearly 5,000,000 victims of famine were now receiving relief. Curzon stated that the cost was 525 "lacs of rupees". The value of 52,500,000 rupees was equivalent to £3,500,000 at the time.[79]

March 29, 1900 (Thursday)

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March 30, 1900 (Friday)

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  • Legislation took effect in France, reducing the workday for women and children from 12 hours to 11 hours. The law provided further that on April 1, 1902, the workday would go to 1012 hours and to ten hours by April 1, 1904.[81]
  • Died: Father Leonardo Murialdo, 71, founder of the Congregation of Saint Joseph (b. 1828). He would be canonized by Pope Paul VI on May 3, 1970.[82]

March 31, 1900 (Saturday)

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References

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  1. ^ "Germany in Samoa". The New York Times. March 15, 1900. p. 7.
  2. ^ "Tutuila (U.S.)". The Atlantic Monthly. 1904. p. 213.
  3. ^ "All England is Rejoicing; Ladysmith is Now Relieved; Butler Reaches Beleaguered Town at Last". The Atlanta Constitution. March 2, 1900. p. 1.
  4. ^ "Nebraska Beats Kansas", Nebraska State Journal, March 3, 1900, p. 3; Media Guide (Kansas Jayhawks basketball)
  5. ^ "One Magical Century: The Story of Illinois High School Basketball" Archived 2010-06-21 at the Wayback Machine, by Patrick C. Heston
  6. ^ "Congressman Epes Dead", The New York Times, March 3, 1900, p. 1
  7. ^ Seibert, Jeffrey W. (2002). I Done My Duty: The Complete Story of the Assassination of President McKinley. Heritage Books. p. 41.
  8. ^ Schneider, Russell (2005). The Cleveland Indians Encyclopedia. Sports Publishing LLC. pp. 10–11.
  9. ^ "Sheriff James T. Cooley, Chilton County Sheriff's Office, Alabama". The Officer Down Memorial Page, Inc. Archived from the original on 7 September 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  10. ^ Geary, William Nevill Montgomerie (1965). Nigeria Under British Rule. Routledge. p. 64.
  11. ^ a b Gorton Carruth, et al., eds., The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates (Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1962) p. 389
  12. ^ "Bronx Community College website". Archived from the original on 2014-06-07. Retrieved 2016-02-29.
  13. ^ "Warships Sent South", The New York Times, March 6, 1900, p. 1
  14. ^ "'Sapho' Stopped by the Police". The New York Times. March 6, 1900. p. 1.
  15. ^ "A Purveyor of Rarities Is Back in Business", by Alvin Klein, The New York Times, June 29, 1997 [dead link]
  16. ^ Virgil Anson Lewis, History and Government of West Virginia (American Book Company, 1904) pp. 266–67
  17. ^ "The Gold Standard Act of 1900", The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1901 p. 191
  18. ^ Annual Register of World Events, p. 7
  19. ^ "Messages From a Vessel". The New York Times. March 8, 1900. p. 1.
  20. ^ Müller, Stephan (2005). International Ice Hockey Encyclopaedia: 1904–2005. Books on Demand. p. 465.
  21. ^ "News of the Week", Public Opinion, March 15, 1900, p. 347
  22. ^ "Congressional Notes", The New York Times, March 9, 1900, p1; A Biographical Congressional Directory, 1774–1903 (GPO 1903), p. 356
  23. ^ "London Gives Way to Exultation", The Atlanta Constitution, March 9, 1900, p. 1 (repeated 3/9/00, Register p. 8)
  24. ^ "Debs and Harriman Make the Ticket", The Atlanta Constitution, March 10, 1900, p. 1
  25. ^ Alexander Kelly McClure, "Abe" Lincoln's Yarns and Stories (Western W. Wilson, 1901), p. 512; "National Lincoln Monument – Illinois 1869" Archived 2007-12-11 at the Wayback Machine
  26. ^ "Kentucky Suspects Held in Lexington", The New York Times, March 11, 1900, p. 1
  27. ^ Fergus Fleming, Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole (Grove Press, 2001), pp. 320–22
  28. ^ "Preaching by Telephone", The New York Times, March 12, 1900, p. 1
  29. ^ "Colored Converts Baptized", The New York Times, March 12, 1900, p. 12
  30. ^ "Colored John the Baptist", The Atlanta Constitution, March 12, 1900, p. 1
  31. ^ "British Occupy Bloemfontein", The New York Times, March 15, 1900, p. 1
  32. ^ "House Ousts a Democrat", The New York Times, March 13, 1900, p. 7
  33. ^ A Biographical Congressional Directory, 1774–1903 (GPO, 1903) p. 892
  34. ^ "Gold Standard Bill Passes the House", The New York Times, March 14, 1900, p1
  35. ^ "Bloemfontein Surrenders; Robert's Entry Triumphal", The Atlanta Constitution, March 15, 1900, p1
  36. ^ "British Occupy Bloemfontein", The New York Times, March 14, 1900, p. 1
  37. ^ "Gold Now the Standard". The New York Times. March 15, 1900. p. 1.
  38. ^ Schwartz, James (2008). In Pursuit of the Gene: From Darwin to DNA. Harvard University Press. p. 107.
  39. ^ Jerome Clark and John Clark, Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America (ABC-CLIO, 2005), p. 241
  40. ^ "Black Rain in North Carolina", Science, June 27, 1902, p. 1034
  41. ^ "Snow, Sleet, and Hail in March", The New York Times, March 16, 1900, p. 1
  42. ^ "Oil Dividends of $20,000,000; Standard Pays Largest Dividend Known", Daily Iowa Capital, March 16, 1900, p. 1
  43. ^ The Manual of Statistics: Stock Exchange Hand-book (Financial News Association, 1912) p. 363
  44. ^ "Warship To Go to China", The New York Times, March 17, 1900, p1
  45. ^ "The Nashville Goes to Taku", The New York Times, June 10, 1900, p. 1
  46. ^ "News of the Week", Public Opinion, March 22, 1900, p. 379
  47. ^ Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1900, p. 414
  48. ^ Joseph Cummins, History's Great Untold Stories: Obscure Events of Lasting Importance (Murdoch Books, 2006) p. 139
  49. ^ Judith Mitchell Buddenbaum and Debra L. Mason, Readings on Religion as News (Blackwell Publishing, 2000) p. 155
  50. ^ Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald McNeilly, Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, (Routledge, 2007) p. 385
  51. ^ "Sir Harry Lauder, MP3 Music Download at eMusic". Archived from the original on 2008-04-21. Retrieved 2008-12-26.
  52. ^ Thomas H. Lee, Planar Microwave Engineering: A Practical Guide to Theory, Measurement, and Circuits (Cambridge University Press, 2004) p. 34
  53. ^ ""Tesla's Wireless Energy... For the 21st Century!!!"". Archived from the original on 2009-01-06. Retrieved 2008-12-26.
  54. ^ "The 'Open Door' Letters", The New York Times, March 28, 1900, p. 7; E.A. Benians, The Cambridge History of the British Empire, pp. 326–327
  55. ^ "Automatic Fire Alarm", The New York Times, March 22, 1900, p. 1
  56. ^ Bakken, Gordon Morris; Farrington, Brenda (2003). Encyclopedia of Women in the American West. SAGE. pp. 106–07.
  57. ^ Landsteiner, Karl (1900). "Zur Kenntnis der antifermentativen, lytischen und agglutinierenden Wirkungen des Blutserums und der Lymphe". Zbl f. Bakt. 27:357–362
  58. ^ Ann Cynthia Brown, Arthur Evans and the Palace of Minos, (Ashmolean Museum, 1983) p. 37
  59. ^ "Rapid Transit Tunnel Begun". The New York Times. March 25, 1900. p. 2.
  60. ^ "Line of Duty". NYC Fire Wire. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
  61. ^ "Draws Line at Cigarettes". Nebraska State Journal. March 26, 1900. p. 1.
  62. ^ Tate, Cassandra (2000). Cigarette Wars: The Triumph of "the Little White Slaver". Oxford University Press US. pp. 31–32, 373.
  63. ^ Glantz, Michael. "Smoke-Free Zones: An American Innovation?". FragileEcologies.com. Archived from the original on 2008-11-21.
  64. ^ "Paper now has the signature of Mr. M'Kinley". The Atlanta Constitution. March 25, 1900. p. 2.
  65. ^ World Almanac 1901. p. 93.
  66. ^ Moores, Lew (March 24, 2000). "Passenger pigeon met demise 100 years ago". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Archived from the original on 15 May 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
  67. ^ Blechman, Andrew D. (2007). Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird. University of Queensland Press. p. 117.
  68. ^ Harry W. Laidler, Social-Economic Movements, pp. 586–587
  69. ^ "A Feminist Boomerang: The Great Goddess of Greek Prehistory", by Lauren E. Talalay, in Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. by Mark Golden and Peter Toohey (Edinburgh University Press, 2019) p. 311
  70. ^ Louis Melius, The American Postal Service: A History of the Postal Service from the Earliest Times (Good Press, 2019)
  71. ^ Russell Bennett and James Watson, Philatelic Terms Illustrated (Stanley Gibbons Publications, 1978)
  72. ^ "Dr. Isaac M. Wise Dead". The New York Times. March 27, 1900. p. 1.
  73. ^ May, Max Benjamin (1916). Isaac Mayer Wise: The Founder of American Judaism; a Biography. G. P. Putnam. p. 392.
  74. ^ "The Advance on Pretoria Begins"; "Joubert Dies At Pretoria", The New York Times, March 25, 1900, p. 3
  75. ^ Lee, Sidney (1904). Queen Victoria: A Biography. Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 547–48.
  76. ^ Eden, Maxwell (2002). The Magnificent Book of Kites: Explorations in Design, Construction, Enjoyment & Flight. Sterling Publishing Company. p. 149.
  77. ^ "New Departments Created". The Atlanta Constitution. March 28, 1900. p. 1.
  78. ^ Jeyes, Samuel Henry (1903). Mr. Chamberlain: His Life and Public Career. Sands & Co. pp. 587–588.
  79. ^ "Cost of Famine Relief in India". The New York Times. March 23, 1900. p. 6.
  80. ^ "Delagoa Railroad Award", The New York Times, March 30, 1900, p. 1
  81. ^ Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of New York (State of New York, 1901), p. 139
  82. ^ Butler's Lives of the Saints (Continuum International Publishing Group) pp. 280–82
  83. ^ Brown, Ann Cynthia (1983). Arthur Evans and the Palace of Minos. Ashmolean Museum. p. 54.
  84. ^ "Linear B". Archived from the original on 2009-02-18. Retrieved 2008-12-26.
  85. ^ Pankenham, Thomas (1979). The Boer War. Random House. pp. 414–16.