January 1904

[January 1], 1904 (Friday)

• Boston's polar bear club, the L Street Brownies, held their first documented New Year's Day swim in Boston Harbor.
• The Louvre Hotel on Lake Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, was destroyed by fire. Three people, including a 12-year-old boy and his mother, died of smoke inhalation, and four people were injured. According to an article in The San Francisco Call, "With the remembrance of the Iroquois Theater horror fresh in their minds, all persons in the place became panic-stricken and rushed madly for the streets as soon as it became known that the hotel was on fire."
• Born: Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Pakistani politician; in Kharian, Gujrat District, Punjab Province, British India
• Died:
• * James J. Belden, 78, member of the United States House of Representatives from New York, died of uremic poisoning.
• * Konoe Atsumaro, 40, Japanese politician
• * Frederick Pabst, 67, German American brewer, died of pulmonary edema.

  [January 2], 1904 (Saturday)

• Julio Argentino Roca, the President of Argentina, issued a decree confirming the transfer of the British meteorological station on Laurie Island, which would become Orcadas Base, to Argentina.
• The First Physical Culture Exhibition, the first large-scale bodybuilding competition in America, concluded at Madison Square Garden in New York City, having begun on December 28, 1903. American bodybuilder Al Treloar won the competition.
• During a matinee performance at the Thalia Theater on the Bowery in New York City, a false cry of fire nearly caused a human crush. A group of policemen in the lobby averted disaster by attacking audience members with clubs and fists and forcing them back inside, bringing a sudden end to the panic.
• Born:
• * Walter Heitler, German physicist; in Karlsruhe
• * Truus Klapwijk, Dutch Olympic water polo player, diver and freestyle swimmer; in Rotterdam
• * James Melton, American popular and operatic tenor singer; in Moultrie, Georgia
• Died:
• * Mathilde Bonaparte, 83, French princess
• * Harvey Ellis, 51, American architect and furniture designer
• * Queen Hyojeong, 72, Empress Dowager of Korea
• * James Longstreet, 82, American Civil War Confederate general and United States Minister to the Ottoman Empire, died of pneumonia.

  [January 3], 1904 (Sunday)

• St. Catherine's Academy, a girls' Catholic school near Springfield, Kentucky, was totally destroyed by fire, causing about $200,000 in damage but no deaths.
• A derailment on the Western Maryland Railroad east of Hagerstown, Maryland, killed two people, including a 5-year-old girl, and injured 30.
• An explosion at an anniversary dance in Keasbey, New Jersey, for the St Johns Benevolent Society injured 30 people, some seriously.
• Colorado Governor James Hamilton Peabody placed Telluride, Colorado under modified martial law.
• Born:
• * Boris Kochno, Russian poet, dancer and librettist; in Moscow
• * Carlos Nascimento, Brazilian footballer and manager; in Rio de Janeiro
• Died: Larin Paraske, 70, Izhorian oral poet

  [January 4], 1904 (Monday)

• The Committee on Military Ballooning of the British War Office issued its final report on its post-Second Boer War assessment of aeronautics. Much of the report would soon be rendered obsolete as news spread of the Wright brothers' flights in the Wright Flyer the previous month.
• The Lewis Hotel in Jewett City, Connecticut was destroyed by fire, resulting in about $25,000 of property damage. Firefighters battled the flames in temperatures of.
• The United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Gonzales v. Williams, determining that citizens of Puerto Rico were not aliens and could not be denied entry at American ports.
• The Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines, Iowa, was severely damaged by a fire started by a candle which an electrician left burning. The interior of the House of Representatives chamber was largely destroyed. Engineer Crampton Linley was credited with saving the building by leading a group of men to close doors separating the Capitol's wings. The following morning, while inspecting the damage above the ceiling of the House Chamber, Linley would fall through the ceiling to his death.
• In Corvallis, Oregon, twenty vigilantes tarred and feathered Edmund Creffield, leader of a group of Holy Rollers, and his fellow leader H. Brooks. Creffield would marry Maude Hurt, daughter of his former follower O. V. Hurt, the following day in Albany, Oregon.
• Born:
• * Frédéric Adam, French composer, conductor and administrator; in Hinsbourg, Alsace
• * Erik Chisholm, Scottish composer; in Cathcart, Glasgow
• * Audrey Emery, American heiress and socialite; in Cincinnati, Ohio
• * Tom Helmore, English film actor; in London
• * Hjördis Töpel, Swedish Olympic diver and swimmer; in Gothenburg
• Died:
• * Mitrofan Belyayev, 67, Russian music publisher and philanthropist
• * Thomas C. Campbell, 58, American lawyer and politician, died from the aftereffects of exposure aboard the grounded yacht Roamer.
• * Friedrich Jolly, 59, German neurologist
• * Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer, 81, English-American author
• * Anna Winlock, 46, American astronomer and human computer

  [January 5], 1904 (Tuesday)

• An explosion in the nitroglycerin department of the National Explosives Works, from St Ives, Cornwall, killed four men, caused multiple injuries, and shattered windows in St. Ives and Penzance.
• Born:
• * Miguel Capuccini, Uruguayan footballer; in Montevideo
• * Jeane Dixon, American astrologer; in Medford, Wisconsin
• * Erika Morini, Austrian violinist; in Vienna
• * Otto Niebergall, Communist Party of Germany politician; in Kusel
• Died:
• * Count Arthur John Moore KHS, 54, Irish nationalist politician
• * William Campbell Walker, CMG, 66–67, New Zealand politician
• * Karl Alfred von Zittel, 64, German paleontologist, died of heart disease.

  [January 6], 1904 (Wednesday)

• Italian composer Giacomo Puccini arrived in Milan to supervise rehearsals of his new opera Madama Butterfly, which would receive its world premiere at La Scala on February 17.
• The Associated Press published a statement issued the previous day by the Wright brothers correcting published misinformation about their December 1903 flights.
• The wreck of a passenger train on the Rock Island Railroad in Willard, Kansas resulted in 17 deaths and 37 injuries.
• Born:
• * Aimée Bologne-Lemaire, Belgian feminist and Walloon activist; in Saint-Gilles, Belgium
• * Ilya Musin, Russian conductor; in Kostroma
• * Ramiro Prialé, Peruvian politician; in Huancayo, Department of Junín

  [January 7], 1904 (Thursday)

• The distress signal CQD was established, only to be replaced two years later by SOS.
• Alexander Graham Bell and his wife, Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, left the port of Genoa, Italy, aboard the German steamship Princess Irene with the remains of James Smithson, benefactor of the Smithsonian Institution.
• Irish author James Joyce wrote the essay "A Portrait of the Artist", elements of which he would incorporate into his later works Stephen Hero and Ulysses.
• In New York City, three employees of the Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad — a yardmaster, a car coupler and a foreman — were killed in a collision between two trains.
• Born:
• * Charles Collins, American singer and actor; in Frederick, Oklahoma
• * Ruth Landshoff, German American actress and writer; in Berlin
• * Edoardo Volterra, Italian scholar of Roman law; in Rome
• Died:
• * Ruth Cleveland, 12, daughter of former U.S. President Grover Cleveland, died of diphtheria.
• * Parke Godwin, 87, American journalist
• * Friedrich von Hefner-Alteneck, 58, German engineer
• * Hippolyte Auguste Marinoni, 80, French publisher and builder of rotary printing presses
• * Emmanuel Rhoides, 67, Greek writer
• * Sir Albert Woods, 87, English officer of arms

  [January 8], 1904 (Friday)

• The steamboat Clallam sank in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with the loss of 56 lives. Every woman and child aboard drowned due to accidents involving the lifeboats. At the Clallams launching on April 15, 1903, the traditional bottle of champagne had failed to break on the boat's bow.
• The Blackstone Library was dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system.
• Born:
• * Peter Arno, American cartoonist; in New York City
• * Karl Brandt, German physician and Schutzstaffel officer; in Mulhouse, Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire
• * Tampa Red, American Chicago blues musician; in Smithville, Georgia
• * Lev Zinder, Russian linguist; in Kiev, Russian Empire
• Died:' Orson W. Bennett, 62, American Union Army officer, Medal of Honor recipient

  [January 9], 1904 (Saturday)

• Dervish movement : At Jidbali, Somaliland, 1000 Dervish were killed in battle with British forces under Lt. Gen. Charles Egerton.
• In Wayne County, West Virginia, near Cassville, 6 men were killed and 14 injured in a dynamite explosion on the extension of the Norfolk and Western Railway.
• Born:
• * Wilhelm Groth, German physical chemist; in Hamburg
• * Giorgio La Pira, Italian politician and human rights activist, Mayor of Florence; in Pozzallo, Ragusa, Sicily
• Died:
• * Charles Foster, 75, American politician, member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio, Governor of Ohio and Secretary of the Treasury, died of cerebral hemorrhages.
• * John Brown Gordon, 71, American general and politician, 53rd Governor of Georgia, died of stomach and liver congestion.
• * Hannah Lynch, 44, Irish translator, died of a stomach ailment.
• * Alfred Richards, 36, South African Test cricketer and rugby union player, died of typhoid fever.
• * William W. Skiles, 54, American lawyer and politician, member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio, died from pneumonia.
• * Thomas E. Stewart, 79, American lawyer, member of the United States House of Representatives from New York
• * Francis Wayland III, 78, American judge and politician, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut and dean of the Yale Law School, died of acute bronchitis.