April 1901


The following events occurred in April 1901:

April 1, 1901 (Monday)

April 2, 1901 (Tuesday)

  • The United Kingdom enacted a law establishing the military court system, with jurisdiction over acts committed by the Boer guerrillas within South Africa during the Second Boer War. Unlike the Special Court that had previously handled serious crimes committed by rebels in British-controlled areas, the military courts, which began hearing cases on April 12, had "unlimited powers of decision and the authority to pass the death sentence". Executions, usually done in public to set an example for would-be rebels, were carried out by hanging or by firing squad.
  • The Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship, a charitable service organization that currently provides assistance to persons within the British Commonwealth, was founded in London by Lady Violet Cecil. Its original vision was "patriotism, belief in racial hierarchy, respect for the monarchy, Christianity and the armed services, and admiration for the past and present British heroes who exemplified those values".
  • The London County Council voted to purchase 225 acres of land in Tottenham, at the cost of $7,500,000, to create cottages to accommodate workingmen's family housing sufficient for 42,000 people.
  • Born: Patrick Buchan-Hepburn, British state leader, first and only Governor-General of the West Indies Federation
  • Died: Will Carver, 32, American outlaw, in a shootout with Sheriff Elijah Briant in Sonora, Texas

April 3, 1901 (Wednesday)

April 4, 1901 (Thursday)

April 5, 1901 (Friday)

April 6, 1901 (Saturday)

April 7, 1901 (Sunday)

April 8, 1901 (Monday)

  • James Chalmers, 59, and Oliver Fellows Tomkins, 28, both Scottish missionaries, went ashore on Goaribari Island in New Guinea with eleven Papuan assistants. After arriving, they were invited by islanders to come into a longhouse, where they were clubbed to death, then eaten, by cannibals. In retaliation, British colonial officials dispatched troops from Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea who killed at least 24 of the tribesmen, then burned the longhouses in the village. In 1903, an expedition would be sent to search for Tomkins's skull, and more villagers would be killed.
  • U.S. President William McKinley and General of the United States|Surgeon General] Dr. Walter Wyman began federal aid to eliminate an outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco, and to see to it "that Chinatown was scrubbed clean"; earlier, the city's Board of Health had proposed a plan to demolish the Chinese-American area of the city and to remove all Chinese residents in the city to detention camps on Angel Island.
  • The British colonial authorities at the Cape Colony announced that beginning on April 12, any new rebellion would be tried under the old common law, and the death penalty applied as necessary.

April 9, 1901 (Tuesday)

April 10, 1901 (Wednesday)

April 11, 1901 (Thursday)

  • Martín Teófilo Delgado, who had formerly been a leader of the Filipino insurgency until he had sworn allegiance to the United States, was appointed the Governor of Iloilo Province.
  • The African-American songwriting and performing team of Bob Cole and Billy Johnson filed for bankruptcy during the fourth season of their musical, A Trip to Coontown. The closing of the show and the bankruptcy caused Cole to part ways with his partner, and "Bob Cole's fame and prestige only increased, while Billy Johnson settled into a less conspicuous career in mainstream vaudeville."
  • Born:
  • * Adriano Olivetti, Italian engineer, designer of the Olivetti typewriters and computers, in Ivrea
  • * Carl Alberg, Swedish yacht designer, in Gothenburg
  • * Glenway Wescott, American novelist, nonfiction author and poet, in Kewaskum, Wisconsin

April 12, 1901 (Friday)

  • The United States proposed to the other foreign powers in China that the Chinese indemnity for damages from the Boxer Rebellion be cut by one-half.
  • Cuba's constitutional convention voted, 18–10, to oppose the terms of the Platt Amendment for the islands independence from the United States.
  • The American Institute of Electrical Engineers held what it called a "Conversazione" at Columbia University in New York, "an exhibition of various electrical appliances that had been recently invented, or the models of which had been improved of late", demonstrating 32 different experiments to 400 guests, including Thomas Edison. Nikola Tesla, the most prominent of the group, transmitted wave vibrations from an electric oscillator "which were to be discharged in various parts of the room". In another experiment by Tesla, "Sparks leaped six feet in all directions" from a "huge flat coil ten feet high... in the front of the room". Peter Cooper Hewitt explained his newly invented mercury-vapor lamp, where "a gas is used as the illuminating medium instead of a film... current is transmitted to the mercury direct, and not by means of the usual coil, for which reason less power is needed to produce the same amount of light." The New York Times noted what Hewitt noted was "a disadvantage" that needed to be worked on, in that "A most peculiar colored light is emitted from the tubes. It is half purple, half green," and that "everybody who came into the room had his or her features so distorted that the skin of the face appeared to be covered all over with ghastly, violet-colored eruptions... The lips that came under the light seemed purplish gray. The pupils of the eye... assumed a greenish tinge." In showing his newly patented "facsimile picture telegraph", Herbert R. Palmer explained how "halftone pictures, sketches, handwriting, and the like can be transmitted over long distances, employing ordinary telegraph circuits", then sent "a life-sized portrait of President William Rainey Harper of the University of Chicago" over the wires to Chicago, by a forerunner of the fax machine, to the Quadrangle Club. At the same time, Harper began receiving "a similar picture of Seth Low" that had been sent from Chicago to New York City. M. R. Hutchinson demonstrated the "akouphone", which he "described as a microtelephonic instrument... to reproduce and largely intensify sounds and still preserve their quality", transmitted to the "akoulalion", a set of ear pieces, "intended to make the deaf hear". An administrator "of the New York Institute of the Deaf and Dumb brought eight of the deafest boys in the institution" to try the new system "with only partial success".
  • The Great Comet of 1901, visible from the Southern Hemisphere, was first observed by an astronomer with the surname Viscara, at an observatory near Paysandú, Uruguay.
  • Born: Leo Ginzburg, Polish-Russian conductor and pianist, in Warsaw
  • Died: George Q. Cannon, 74, First Counselor in the First Presidency in the [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] for four Presidents, starting in 1873 when selected by Brigham Young; also a Church Apostle since 1860 and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on three occasions

April 13, 1901 (Saturday)

April 14, 1901 (Sunday)

  • Cen Chunxuan, a British-educated Chinese official who would later lead a rebellion against the central government of China, became the new Governor of the Shanxi Province and began implementing major reforms.
  • The Imperial government of China signed a contract with Japan to set up a police academy in Beijing.
  • The government of Korea passed a law applying the death penalty for anyone convicted of the smoking of opium.
  • Anti-government protests continued throughout the Russian Empire, and 1,500 demonstrators were arrested during a demonstration in the Ukrainian city of Odessa.
  • The state of South Carolina declared that it would stop paying the federal tax on liquor, on the ground that as the sole authorized wholesale and retail seller of liquor in the state, its exercise of its sovereign power rendered it immune to regulation by the United States. The U.S. soon filed suit, and the U.S. Supreme Court would reject the state's argument in a 6–3 decision in South Carolina v. United States in 1905.
  • The Texas Fuel Company began the practice of uncapping an oil well for members of the general public, as a means of impressing prospective investors. Passengers from 26 train coaches were treated to a demonstration where a well was "opened up and permitted to flow a 6-inch stream of oil 120 feet into the air", then closed after a few minutes. The exhibition was impressive, but also "fraught with danger to life and property" because of the lack of precautions against explosions and fire, such as not smoking near a producing well or pool of oil.
  • Born: Józef Wojaczek, Polish Roman Catholic Priest; in Neustadt, Upper Silesia, German Empire

April 15, 1901 (Monday)

April 16, 1901 (Tuesday)

  • British colonial authorities in the Cape Colony town of Richmond supplied rifles and ammunition to coloured residents who had volunteered to guard the town against a repeat of the Boer attack in February, creating the first armed Coloured Defence Force.
  • Jōkichi Takamine was granted the trademark "Adrenalin" for the synthesized "glandular extractive product" that he had created at Parke, Davis & Company as a pure duplicate of the hormone produced by the adrenal gland. Over time, the U.S. trademark for what is also known as "epinephrine" became generic and is now more commonly spelled "adrenaline".
  • Representatives of the occupying nations in Imperial China agreed to the recommendation of Minister Komura of Japan and Mr. Rockhill of the United States to require China to abolish its foreign ministry, the Zongli Yamen, and replace it with a new "Board of Foreign Affairs", referred to as the Waiwubu. An historian would later note that "as the course of subsequent events made clear, the Waiwubu was as ineffective in the establishment of good relations between China and the outside world as the Zongli Yamen had been." Another reform that the foreign nations implemented, as a condition for withdrawal of their troops, was the ceremony for meetings by the ambassadors with the imperial government; "Ministers will be conveyed in imperial chairs to the palace, where they will be received in the hall in which the Emperor entertains imperial Princes".
  • Mail carriers in the United States would now be allowed to wear lighter clothing while making their rounds during the summertime, by an order signed by Charles Emory Smith, the United States Postmaster General. Previously, the carriers were required to wear their heavy uniform coats and vests, regardless of the weather. Under the new rule, "During the heated term postmasters may permit letter carriers to wear a neat shirtwaist or loose-fitting blouse, instead of coat and vest, the same to be made of light gray chambray gingham, light gray cheviot, or other light gray washable material; to be worn with turn-down collar, dark tie, and a neat belt; all to be uniform at each office."
  • Died:
  • * H.A. Rowland, 52, American astrophysicist who perfected the diffraction grating for spectroscopic analysis
  • * James Knibbs, 73, English-American inventor who created in 1859 the first pressure valve for fire engines that could allow multiple hoses and more effective firefighting.

April 17, 1901 (Wednesday)

April 18, 1901 (Thursday)

April 19, 1901 (Friday)

  • Emilio Aguinaldo, formerly commander of the Philippine resistance, signed a manifesto calling on all of his followers to give up the fight against the American occupation, declaring that "a complete termination of hostilities and lasting peace are not only desirable, but absolutely essential to the welfare of the Philippine Islands," and added that "The country has declared unmistakably in favor of peace; so be it. Enough of blood; enough of tears and desolation... By acknowledging and accepting the sovereignty of the United States throughout this entire archipelago, as now do without any reservations whatsoever, I believe that I am serving thee, my beloved country. May happiness be thine!"
  • Texas Governor Joseph D. Sayers signed a bill that provided that all state taxes collected for 1901 and 1902 from residents of the city of Galveston, Texas would be transferred directly to the city so that it could raise its grade to protect against further flood damage from hurricanes. On September 8, 1900 more than 6,000 people on Galveston Island had been killed by a hurricane.
  • Anti-British newspaper publishers were given jail sentences as punishment for incitement against the British presence in South Africa, with the editors of One Land and the South African News getting 12 months imprisonment, and those of the Worcester Advertiser and Het Oozen to six months.
  • Died: Alfred Horatio Belo, 61, American businessman and journalist

April 20, 1901 (Saturday)

April 21, 1901 (Sunday)

  • Senator Aníbal Zañartu formed a new government in Chile, agreeing to become the new Minister of the Interior, a post at the time similar to the work of a prime minister in a parliamentary republic. He assembled a cabinet of ministers, and ending a crisis that had operated since March 18.
  • A boiler explosion killed 27 crewmen on the Ottoman Navy Nâsır class torpedo boat Seham while the ship was in the outer harbor of Beirut.

April 22, 1901 (Monday)

  • The Imperial government of China issued its first edict of reform since the end of the Boxer Rebellion, abolishing the Privy Council that had previously governed the nation in the name of the Emperor, and creating the new "General Board of State Affairs", composed of three Manchu members and three Chinese. Yikuang was president, and the other members were including Li Hongzhang, Yung Lu, Kun Kang, Wang Wen Shao, and Lu Chuan Lin. Two viceroys, Li Kun Yih and Zhang Zhidong, were made assistant members.
  • A 2,000 man force of French and German troops, accompanied by local Christians, attacked Chinese troops at the Niangzi Pass and the Guguan Pass that led through the Taihang Mountains separating the Shanxi province from the imperial capital in the Hebei province and Beijing.
  • Ameer Ben Ali, an Algerian Arab who had been in prison for almost ten years after being wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1891 murder of Carrie Brown in a New York City hotel, was released after evidence was found that exonerated him.
  • In a featherweight boxing bout at the National Sporting Club in London, Murray Livingston of New York City was fighting, as Billy Smith, against Jack Roberts for the nine-stone championship of England. Smith was knocked out, but suffered a fatal injury when he struck his head while falling. A prosecutor indicted Roberts and nine other members of the Club for "feloniously killing and slaying", but conceded at the trial that he was seeking to outlaw boxing rather than to punish the defendants. The jury would conclude that since Smith's death was accidental and happened in a properly regulated boxing contest, the defendants were not guilty. The landmark decision would lead to a police policy to keep order among the crowds, and to presume that properly organized boxing matches were legal.
  • Died: William Stubbs, 75, English historian and University of Oxford scholar

April 23, 1901 (Tuesday)

  • Work began in the Philippines for the recovery of the remains of hundreds of American servicemen and civilians who had been killed or who had died while away from home. David H. Rhodes, the Superintendent of the U.S. Burial and Disinterment Corps arrived on the ship El Cano along with his team of 14 morticians, embalmers and grave diggers, and bringing "shovels, pickaxes, spades, screwdrivers, hammers, white lead, disinfectants, and twelve hundred metallic California caskets and wooden shipping crates." During the first expedition of the El Cano, 716 sets of remains were shipped back home to the United States.
  • German and Chinese armies battled in the Shanxi Province near the Great Wall of China. The Chinese Army was turned back, but the Germans sustained 30 casualties.
  • Voters in the U.S. Alabama overwhelmingly approved a call for a new state constitution that would disenfranchise African Americans, by a margin of 70,305 to 45,505, which included many black voters. In Lowndes County, where more than 80% of the registered voters were black, the call for a constitutional convention was supported by 3,226 of 3,564 votes, and in Dallas County, future site of the Selma March but 80% black at the time, the support was 5,668 to 200.

April 24, 1901 (Wednesday)

Thursday, April 25, 1901 (Thursday)

  • New York became the first state of the United States to require license plates, as Governor Benjamin Odell signed a bill requiring all automobiles to be registered with the Secretary of State's office. The bill, sponsored by Assemblyman George W. Doughty, had been suggested by the Automobile Club of America, and also set a uniform speed limit of eight miles an hour within cities and villages, and as much as 15 miles an hour on highways in rural locations.
  • German engineer Richard Fiedler was granted the first patent for the flamethrower, which he described as Verfahren zur Erzeugung grosser Flammenwassen.
  • An explosion and fire at a chemical factory in the city of Griesheim,, Germany, killed 25 people and severely injured more than 150. At about 4:00 in the afternoon, a small fire ignited containers of picric acid into a fiery blaze that then exploded 18 cylinders of smokeless powder.
  • In their very first Major League Baseball game, the Detroit Tigers set a record that continues to stand more than a century later, with the biggest ninth-inning comeback in MLB history. Going into the final inning of the game, the Tigers were losing to the original AL Milwaukee Brewers, 13–4, but team captain Jimmy "Doc" Casey made the first hit for what would become a ten run rally and a 14–13 win.
  • Erve Beck of the Cleveland Blues hit the first home run in American League history, in a 7–3 loss to the host Chicago White Stockings.
  • The British Army ordered that all householders in occupied territory in South Africa would be required to display signs identifying the names of the persons living inside.
  • Oil executive and multimillionaire Henry Flagler succeeded in getting the state of Florida to pass a bill that would allow him to divorce his wife of 20 years, Ida, so that he could marry his mistress, Mary Lily Kenan, whom he would marry on August 24. Under the terms of the bill, which had been introduced only 16 days earlier after Flagler's lobbying of legislators, incurable insanity for at least four years was made a ground for divorce.
  • Italian polar explorer Umberto Cagni was forced to turn back, after only 44 days, from his attempt to become the first person to reach the North Pole, but managed to plant the Italian flag further north than any previous explorer. Reaching a latitude of 86° 34′ N, Cagni, who had set off from Russia's Franz Josef Land on March 11, was able to get 20 miles closer to the Pole than Fridtjof Nansen of Norway had done on April 7, 1895.

April 26, 1901 (Friday)

  • Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum, 37, a train robber and member of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, was hanged at 1:21 p.m. in Clayton, New Mexico. Ketchum is better remembered for his gruesome execution. Union County Sheriff Solome Garcia had never performed a hanging before, misjudged the length of the drop and used a rope that was too thin. Ketchum was decapitated by the force of his 215 pound frame and the quick tightening of the rope, and his body, separated from his head, reportedly "alighted squarely upon its feet, stood for a moment, swayed and fell"
  • The Engineering Standards Committee of the United Kingdom held its first meeting, with a goal of reducing the number of different measurements for British products. The Committee's first achievement was to reduce the number of different gauges for streetcar rails from 75 to only five, and the variety of structural steel sections from 175 different sizes to 113, lowering the costs of manufacturing and warehousing steel products. The entity would later change its name to the British Standards Institution, and is known as the BSI Group.
  • Died: Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson, 36, African-American physician who became the first woman of any race licensed to practice medicine in the state of Alabama

April 27, 1901 (Saturday)

April 28, 1901 (Sunday)

  • General Miguel Malvar took over as the new commander of the Philippine resistance after the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo.
  • In Algeria, the village of Marguerite, with more than 150 French settlers and located about 50 miles from Algiers, was attacked by a force of 400 Berber rebels, and most of the inhabitants were massacred.
  • The building housing the New York Stock Exchange at 10 Broad Street was closed, 20 years after the opening of an expanded location that had been designed by architect James Renwick Jr. Over the next two years, the NYSE occupied space in the New York Produce Exchange on 2 Broadway until its current location at 11 Wall Street could be constructed. The exchange would move to its current location on April 23, 1903.
  • Died: Paule Mink, 61, French feminist and activist

April 29, 1901 (Monday)

April 30, 1901 (Tuesday)