August 1902

August 1, 1902 (Friday)

• The Mount Kembla Mine disaster at Wollongong, Australia, the worst mining disaster in the country's history, killed 96 miners. A royal commission appointed to look into the disaster later stated that only the substitution of safety lamps for flame lights could have saved the lives of the victims.
• Raffaele Palizzolo, a former Deputy from Palermo, Italy was jailed for the 1893 murder of banker Emanuele Notarbartolo, former mayor of Palermo, by the Assize Court in Bologna.
• In the United Kingdom, the Clitheroe by-election, brought about by the elevation to the House of Lords of the incumbent Liberal MP, was won by Labour Representation Committee candidate David Shackleton, who was unopposed.
• Born: Pete Latzo, American boxer and world welterweight champion 1926 to 1927; in Colerain, Pennsylvania

  August 2, 1902 (Saturday)

• The Philippine opera Sangdugong Panaguinip, the first opera to be performed in the Tagalog language, premiered at the Zorrilla Theatre in Manila.
• Born: Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch from 1959 to 1971; in Damanhour, Egypt

  August 3, 1902 (Sunday)

• The Philippine Independent Church was established by Isabelo de los Reyes and the recently excommunicated Catholic priest Gregorio Aglipay, and other Filipinos who were dissatisfied with the friars from Spain who dominated the Roman Catholic Church in the area. The new church rejected the concept of spiritual authority and infallibility of the Pope and abolished the celibacy requirement for priests.
• Died: August Klughardt, 54, German composer and conductor

  August 4, 1902 (Monday)

• In the Tchipindo area of present-day Angola, Portuguese troops killed a small group of native rebels, including Mutu ya Kavela, a leading counsellor of "King" Kalandula.
• The Italian government ordered that all ships in the nation's navy be equipped with wireless telegraphic transmitters.
• The Belgian ship Wordsworth was wrecked off Assu Torre, Bahia, Brazil.
• The French soccer football team Cannes was founded by an English sportsman, Herbert Lowe, and a group of friends.

  August 5, 1902 (Tuesday)

• Anténor Firmin formed a rebel government in Haiti at Gonaïves.
• Spain's Prime Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta announced that he planned to retire from politics.

  August 6, 1902 (Wednesday)

• The Cunard Line ocean liner RMS Carpathia was launched from the shipyard in Wallsend in England, after being christened by the daughter of the Cunard Line vice-chairman. It would make its maiden voyage on May 5, 1903. Converted to a troop ship for World War I, Carpathia would be sunk by a German submarine on July 17, 1918.
• Died: Harry Tracy, 26, American outlaw, committed suicide after being wounded by a posse at Creston, Washington

  August 7, 1902 (Thursday)

• José Plácido de Castro, a rebel against the government of Bolivia, declared the Bolivian province of Acre independent the day after capturing the town of Xapuri. The province would be annexed by Brazil the following year as the Acre War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Petrópolis.
• Died: Nikolaos Vokos, 48, Greek artist, died from an undisclosed illness.

  August 8, 1902 (Friday)

• Wadiyar IV reached the age of 21 and assumed full power as the maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore in British India, now part of the state of Karnataka. At the time of his death in 1940, Wadiyar IV would be one of the wealthiest men in the world. The regency of his mother, Kempa Nanjammani Vani Vilasa Sannidhana, ended after seven years.
• The Royal Commissions Act 1902, an Australian Act of Parliament, received royal assent, allowing the Governor-General to issue letters patent in the name of the Crown for a Commission of Inquiry.
• Sir Edmund Barton, Prime Minister of Australia, was knighted by King Edward VII, becoming the first incumbent prime minister to be knighted.
• The British Academy was founded in London as King Edward VII granted royal assent to its charter.
• On the eve of the coronation of King Edward VII, Charles T. Ritchie became the new British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Austen Chamberlain became the new Postmaster General, and the Earl of Dudley became the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of the United Kingdom.
• Born: Paul Dirac, English physicist known for the Dirac equation and his contributions to quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate; in Bristol
• Died: James Tissot, 65, French artist

  August 9, 1902 (Saturday)

• The Coronation of Edward VII and Alexandra took place at Westminster Abbey, London, after delays caused by King Edward VII of the United Kingdom having to undergo emergency surgery during June. Georges Méliès's film The Coronation of Edward VII was shown in London that same evening.
• Born:
• * Gujarmal Modi, Indian industrialist who founded the conglomerate Modi Enterprises in 1933; in Mahendragarh, Patiala State, British India
• * Zino Francescatti, French violinist; in Marseille, Vaucluse département
• * Henriette Dibon, French poet; in Avignon

  August 10, 1902 (Sunday)

• In Japan's parliamentary elections the Rikken Seiyūkai party, formed a year earlier by former Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi, won 191 of the 376 seats in the Imperial Diet. General Katsura Tarō, who made a point of avoiding politics, remained the Prime Minister of Japan.
• Born:
• * Norma Shearer, Canadian-born American actress who won the 1930 Academy Award for Best Actress; in Montreal
• * Arne Tiselius, Swedish biochemist and 1948 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate; in Stockholm
• Died: U.S. Senator James McMillan, 64, known for chairing the McMillan Commission that devised the plan for the layout of the National Mall landscaping of memorials, monuments and government buildings in Washington, D.C.

  August 11, 1902 (Monday)

• The Częstochowa pogrom was carried out against the Jewish community in the Russian-occupied city of Chenstokhov, killing 14 Jews.
• The conference of colonial premiers ended in London with the assembled colonial government leaders agreeing to adopt the metric system of weights and measures throughout the British Empire.
• By an overwhelming majority, the Chilean Congress ratified the arbitration treaty and the arms limitation treaty recently signed with Argentina.
• U.S. Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray publicly announced his retirement.
• Born:
• * Alfredo Binda, Italian cyclist, three-time UCI world champion and five-time winner of the Giro d'Italia; in Cittiglio
• * Lloyd Nolan, U.S. film and television actor, 1955 Emmy Award for Best Actor winner; in San Francisco

  August 12, 1902 (Tuesday)

• The German luxury ocean liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm II, operated by Norddeutscher Lloyd, was launched from the shipyard at Stettin. It would have its maiden voyage on April 14, 1903.
• Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903: After a battle in which 167 men were killed, rebels in Venezuela gained control of the city of Barcelona. At the request of the American ambassador to Venezuela, Herbert Wolcott Bowen, a U.S. Navy warship was dispatched to Caracas to protect American interests.
• The International Harvester Company was incorporated in Trenton, New Jersey, with start-up capital of $120 million.
• Canadian-born American inventor Reginald Fessenden was granted 13 separate U.S. patents for his wireless telegraphy inventions.
• While following two burglary suspects, Patrolmen Timothy T. Devine and Charles Pennell of the Chicago Police Department in Illinois were shot and killed in an ambush. Six suspects were arrested after Devine and Pennell's deaths. Another assailant would shoot and kill Pennsylvania State Constable Harry Foster "Darby" Bierer of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on July 9, 1903, while Bierer was trying to arrest him for dynamiting a mine building in Luxor, Pennsylvania. The suspect would be hanged for Bierer's murder on February 11, 1904.
• Born: Mohammad Hatta, the first Vice President of Indonesia and third Prime Minister of Indonesia; in Fort de Kock, Dutch East Indies

  August 13, 1902 (Wednesday)

• The former U.S. Navy ship USS Cheyenne, sold in 1900 and renamed the Jacob Kuper, exploded and sank off of the coast of Staten Island in New York Harbor near Tompkinsville, after its boiler exploded and killed four people.

  August 14, 1902 (Thursday)

• German chemist Wilhelm Normann was granted a patent for his 1901 invention of hydrogenation of fats in the production of margarine and vegetable shortening after applying for the patent on February 27, 1901.
• The city of Clarkston, Washington, on the opposite side of the Snake River from Lewiston, Idaho, was incorporated after being renamed for William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition; Lewiston had been named in honor of the other leader of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis.
• A team of five explorers led by J. Norman Collie and guided by Hans Kaufmann made the first ascent of Howse Peak, at the highest peak in the Waputik Mountains of the Canadian Rockies.
• Born: Lillian Mary Pickford, pioneering British neuroendocrinologist; in Jubbulpore, Central Provinces, British India

  August 15, 1902 (Friday)

• The city of Tianjin was returned to complete control of the Chinese government, after having been taken by the Eight-Nation Alliance during the Boxer Rebellion.
• In order to satisfy the requirement of being a member of parliament to be part of the British government, Postmaster General Austen Chamberlain was elected unopposed to a seat in the House of Commons.

  August 16, 1902 (Saturday)

• Having recently surrendered to the United Kingdom to end the Second Boer War, former South African Boer generals Louis Botha, Christiaan de Wet and Koos de la Rey were welcomed to England.
• King Edward VII was the honoree of Coronation Review at Spithead as the Royal Navy's Channel Fleet, which had defended the English Channel since 1854, passed in a line in front of the royal party, marking the first time that a review was performed at a British coronation.
• Born: Georgette Heyer, British novelist; in Wimbledon, London