July 1901


The following events occurred in July 1901:

July 1, 1901 (Monday)

  • The British and Japanese sections of Beijing were formally restored to the control of Imperial China.
  • In Germany, the Versicherungsaufichtsgesetz went into effect, regulating private insurance companies for the first time. The Act, passed on May 12, was modeled on similar provisions in Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, and several individual states in the United States.
  • France's "Law on Associations" took effect, requiring that any associations in France had to be "composed of French citizens without foreign obligations". Championed by Prime Minister Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, the 1901 law had its strongest effect on French members of the Catholic Church, since it had obligations to the Vatican in Rome. "Ultimately," a historian would write, "12,000 Catholic schools were closed, and 50,000 members of religious orders were dispersed."
  • The last issue of Le Moniteur Universel, which had been the official newspaper of the French government from 1789 until 1871, was published. In the thirty years since becoming a private publication, its circulation had gradually declined.
  • In the Lake View section on Chicago's north side, a bolt of lightning killed four men and seven boys who had taken refuge from the rain in a zinc-covered shed near the Robbins Pier. The youngest victim was an 11-year-old boy, while two others were 12 years old.

July 2, 1901 (Tuesday)

  • Coroners' offices reported 225 heat-related deaths in a single day in New York City and its suburbs as temperatures of 98° continued, the day after 96 people there had died from the "hot wave". Fifty deaths each were reported in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The death toll the day before in New York had been 96, and, in the days before air-conditioning, thousands of tenement dwellers "brought their mattresses from inside the houses and camped in the street" and 250 horses died. On July 3, New York lost 188 people, and Philadelphia another 59, even as temperatures began to drop.

July 3, 1901 (Wednesday)

  • American outlaw Kid Curry and the remaining members of The Wild Bunch pulled off a train robbery of the Great Northern Flyer. Curry and Ben Kilpatrick boarded the train at Malta, Montana, as passengers, rode for seven miles, and as the train approached Exeter Switch near the town of Wagner, Logan left his seat, walked to the front of the train, climbed over into the engineer's cab, pulled out his two six-guns, and ordered the men to stop. After it halted, the train was boarded by O. C. "Deaf Charley" Hanks and Laura Bullion, who had been waiting at the switch. Breaking into the express car, they dynamited a safe that was carrying $40,000 worth of bank notes that was being transported to the Montana National Bank in Montana. Some accounts place Butch Cassidy at the scene, while other historians conclude that Cassidy had already departed the United States on a ship bound for Argentina.
  • A district judge in Omaha declined to continue an injunction, and cleared the way for the first ever exhibition the sport of bullfighting in Nebraska, to take place on July 4. Although the filers of the suit cited the state law against animal cruelty, the organizers noted that "the picadores are to be without real lances, the chulos without real banderillos and the matador without a real sword", since the instruments "are to be imitated in soft pine and papier mache." Judge Jacob Fawcett commented that "he was satisfied that the bull fights will not present one-tenth of the brutality that is to be witnessed on a football field."
  • Born:
  • *Ruth Crawford Seeger, American composer, in East Liverpool, Ohio
  • *Thelma Wood, American sculptor, in Kansas

July 4, 1901 (Thursday)

July 5, 1901 (Friday)

  • The French Navy submarine Gustave Zédé stunned the naval world by demonstrating its potential to sneak up upon and sink even the most powerful of surface ships. The occasion was exercises of the French Mediterranean Fleet; the Gustave Zédé traveled 160 miles under its own power, moved undersea into Ajaccio harbor on the island of Corsica, and struck the Fleet's flagship, the Charles Martel, with a dummy torpedo. "The successful 'sinking' of a fully protected battleship by a tiny submarine which could approach its target, deliver a lethal blow and escape without being detected," a historian would write later, "was a watershed in the history of submarines and was an object lesson to the naval planners of all major countries in the changes that were going to be wrought into the future shape of sea power."
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City received its largest contribution up to that time, as the beneficiary of $5,750,000 or more, representing nearly all of the estate of the late Jacob S. Rogers, a locomotive manufacturer and philanthropist. Only $250,000 total was left to eight relatives.
  • Born: Len Lye, New Zealand-American kinetic sculpture artist and filmmaker, in Christchurch

July 6, 1901 (Saturday)

July 7, 1901 (Sunday)

July 8, 1901 (Monday)

  • The House of Lords ruled that the United Kingdom had no jurisdiction in overturning a decision by a foreign court that had acted in accordance with the foreign nation's laws. The case in question involved the 1897 seizure of the British freighter S.S. Baluchistan by the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, and the confiscation of its cargo of 280 cases of rifles and 306 cases of cartridges, being shipped to Persia. Exercising their judiciary power, the Lords concluded that the seizure was legal under the laws of Muscat, which had outlawed the supply of arms to Islamic rebels.
  • An attempt was made to assassinate Reginald Wingate, the British Governor-General of the Sudan, when his train was derailed in Egypt at Damanhur as he approached Alexandria. Wingate was able to escape unharmed, and the saboteurs of the rail line were never found.
  • The Texas Legislature voted an extensive reorganization and reduction of the Texas Rangers state police force, eliminating the "Frontier Battalion" and consolidated the organization into four companies of no more than 21 members. However, the initial budgeting allowed for only eight rangers and a sergeant for each division.
  • My Brilliant Career, the first novel by Australian author Miles Franklin, was first published. In 1979, 25 years after her death, her book would be adapted to a film of the same name.
  • Texas entrepreneur John Henry Kirby chartered the largest lumber manufacturer in the world, Kirby Lumber Company, and one of the largest oil producers in the world at that time, the Houston Oil Company, on the same day. Born: Paul David Devanandan, Indian Christian theologist and pioneer in comparative religion dialogues, in Madras

July 9, 1901 (Tuesday)

July 10, 1901 (Wednesday)

July 11, 1901 (Thursday)

  • Léon Gaumont applied for a patent for the Chronophone, his invention for presenting motion pictures with sound, with a projector and a phonograph being synchronized "by two coupled electrical motors, with the phonograph determining the speed". The system would be demonstrated on November 7, 1902, using three films but was not reliable because vibrations from the cinematograph made the picture move more slowly than the sound.
  • The government of Bolivia entered an agreement with a jointly owned American and British company called the "Bolivian Syndicate", granting tax exemptions, free navigation of rivers, and the right to maintain railroads, electric power plants and a police force in a disputed border area, the Acre territory. The boundaries of the land leased to the Syndicate were its border with Brazil, its border with Peru, and the Abuna River. The agreement would reopen the "Acre War" between Brazil and Bolivia, and on August 8, 1902, the Brazilian Navy would begin turning back any boats on the Amazon River that were traveling to or from Bolivia; the dispute would finally be settled by a treaty on November 17, 1903, with Bolivia relinquishing most of the Acre Territory to Brazil.
  • Seven construction workers and two railroad employees were killed near Conneaut, Pennsylvania when a locomotive and freight cars plunged through a bridge that was under repair. The construction men were reportedly "crushed into shapeless masses".
  • Temperatures across the Midwest and the Deep South went into triple digits in the United States even as the heat wave in the East abated. Columbia, Missouri, the location of the University of Missouri, was at 112°, St. Louis was at 104°, Cincinnati and Louisville at 103°, Wichita, Kansas at 102° and Kansas City and Little Rock, Arkansas were at 101°. Reportedly, grain crops in half of the counties of Kansas were ruined by the heat and drought.

July 12, 1901 (Friday)

July 13, 1901 (Saturday)

July 14, 1901 (Sunday)

July 15, 1901 (Monday)

  • The Edison Manufacturing Company, organized in 1900 by inventor Thomas Edison, attained a monopoly over the production of American motion pictures after a federal court in New York City ruled in its favor in a suit against the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company for patent infringement on Edison's kinetoscope. In advertisements after the decision, the Edison Company bragged "We have won." and noted that the decision "grants Mr. Edison the only right to manufacture motion picture machines and films." Until the decision's reversal on March 2, 1902, films could not be produced or exhibited without approval from Edison.
  • The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers went on a nationwide strike.
  • Albert Sears was arrested for murder after seven years posing as a Miss Annie Eberly and working as a schoolteacher in northwestern Arkansas.
  • Born: Nicola Abbagnano, Italian philosopher

July 16, 1901 (Tuesday)

July 17, 1901 (Wednesday)

July 18, 1901 (Thursday)

  • The Philippine Constabulary, a paramilitary law enforcement unit with American officers and Filipino troops, was established as the "Insular Constabulary" by the Philippine Commission's Act Number 175, for the purpose of having local soldiers take over from the U.S. Army in fighting the remaining insurgents. Most of the Constabulary's members would be recruited from young men who were members of rural peasant tribes The 70 American officers picked for the job began recruiting members of the force on August 8, under the overall command of Brigadier General Henry T. Allen. The force would eventually consist of 6,000 native troops, who would often employ brutal tactics under the direction of the Americans.
  • Earl Russell, a member of the House of Lords, was arraigned before his fellow members and pleaded guilty to charges of bigamy. Though not removed from the Lords, he was sentenced to three months imprisonment at the Hollowell jail. "During his imprisonment," the New-York Tribune noted, "Lord Russell will be allowed his own servants, cook, and other comforts not ordinarily accorded prisoners," though smoking a cigar was not one of the privileges. He would serve his sentence and be released in October.Born: Celesta Geyer, American circus performer billed as the "Dolly Dimples, the World's Most Beautiful Fat Lady", at the Ringling Brothers circus in the 1930s; as Celesta Hermann in Cincinnati. In the early 1950s, Geyer would go on an extreme diet for 14 months after suffering a near-fatal heart attack, and drop to a weight of, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest weight loss. She would operate an art gallery until her death in 1982.Died: Jan ten Brink, Dutch writer

July 19, 1901 (Friday)

July 20, 1901 (Saturday)

July 21, 1901 (Sunday)

  • American astronomer Edward Charles Pickering photographed the spectrum of a streak of lightning and announced a discovery that proved to be an incorrect conclusion. Pickering, who made many valuable contributions to the field, concluded "that not only are the chemical elements so-called compounds, but that hydrogen itself, instead of being a single element, seemed to be a composite."
  • The New York Times published a front-page story, "Mosquitoes as Firebugs", that warned that attempts to eradicate the mosquito population in South Orange, New Jersey, had resulted in new dangers. Starting in 1892, Leland Howard of the United States Department of Agriculture had launched a campaign to kill mosquito larvae by putting crude oil on bodies of water. In addition to polluting the water, killing fish and injuring domestic and wild animals, the oil stopped larvae, but caused some of the existing mosquitoes to thrive, and some of the "Jersey Skeeters" that had built a resistance had enough oil on and in their bodies to become flammable. The Times reported that "blazing mosquitoes" that had somehow continued to fly after encountering an ignition source "have set fire to curtains and draperies before the insects were consumed."
  • Born: Albert H. Gordon, American businessman and philanthropist who lived to the age of 107, in North Scituate, Massachusetts

July 22, 1901 (Monday)

July 23, 1901 (Tuesday)

July 24, 1901 (Wednesday)

  • American author William Sidney Porter, who would write under the pen name of O. Henry was released from the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio after serving three years of a five-year sentence for embezzlement from the First National Bank in Austin, Texas. In 1902, he would move to New York City and begin the most prolific phase of his writing career, including a new short story every week for the New York World Sunday Magazine supplement. Literary critic Guy Davenport offers the theory of Porter that "The pseudonym that he began to write under in prison is constructed from the Oh of Ohio and the en and ry in penitentiary."
  • The American battleship USS Kearsarge inadvertently fired an armed shell at the city of Newport, Rhode Island and struck the Newport City Hall. The ship had been performing a routine gunnery drill and was firing toward the shore, when the officers realized that a live shell had been inadvertently loaded in with the dummy ammunition used for such tests. "The shell hit one of the great, granite blocks of the second story" of the Hall, a report noted the next day, "within fifteen inches of an open window where people were standing, making a hole an inch deep, glanced against the stone balcony, then took another direction, passing up Bull Street until it struck a tree, where it tore off a branch several inches in diameter and burst into fragments." Half an hour after the shot was fired, two officers arrived and determined that the fragments were those of a one-pound shell. Remarkably, nobody was injured even though the streets had been filled with people when the shot hit shortly after 5:00 in the afternoon.
  • General Zurbano, a holdout in the Philippine resistance to American rule, surrendered to the United States Army in Tayabas Province on Luzon, along with 518 troops and 29 of his officers.
  • Born: Mabel Albertson, American actress

July 25, 1901 (Thursday)

July 26, 1901 (Friday)

  • Former Senator Carlos Rangel Garbiras led an invasion from Colombia into Venezuela with 4,000 fellow Venezuelan exiles supplemented by Colombian troops, in an attempt to overthrow the government of Venezuelan President Cipriano Castro. Diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela would be severed on December 16.
  • The Duke of York, who was nine years away from becoming King George V of the United Kingdom, finished his tour of the newly independent nation of Australia, departing from Fremantle with the Duchess of York and the royal entourage to return to Britain. "It was a spectacular visit," an author would note later, "setting the seal of royal approval on the fledgling nation. It also gave Australians, on the other side of the world from mother England, powerful assurance of their valued place in the Empire."
  • RMS Celtic, the largest ship in the world, departed Liverpool on its maiden voyage. The first of a new generation of ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, the Celtic was the first ship that could carry a tonnage of more than 20,000 tons, and was the first ship to exceed in length.
  • At 6:00 p.m., registration closed for the drawing for lots in Oklahoma Territory. At El Reno, 3,850 appeared on the final day, and the final total of registrants ended at 136,315. At Lawton, the total number was 30,691 as 532 people showed up. Drawing would begin on July 29.
  • The town of Simpsonville, South Carolina, which had had a population of 195 people in the 1900 U.S. Census, was incorporated. Within 100 years, it would have more than 14,000 residents and by 2016, its population would be 100 times larger than what it had been at the time of its founding.
  • United States Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long ordered a court of inquiry to examine the conduct of Rear Admiral Winfield Scott Schley during the Spanish–American War, after Schley had requested the investigation in order to be cleared of rumors of wrongdoing.

July 27, 1901 (Saturday)

July 28, 1901 (Sunday)

July 29, 1901 (Monday)

July 30, 1901 (Tuesday)

  • The last German troops were withdrawn from China, with the exception of 25 people assigned to govern the German Embassy in Beijing.
  • By a vote of 109 to 23, the Alabama constitutional convention began the first of its measures to disenfranchise African Americans from voting. The "grandfather clause" limited the right to register to vote to those persons whose ancestors were war veterans.

July 31, 1901 (Wednesday)