July 1902

July 1, 1902 (Tuesday)

• The Raymond Stampede, Canada's oldest professional rodeo, was launched in Raymond, Alberta.
• In London, the Prince of Wales, reviewed a parade of thousands of British colonial troops who had traveled from their native lands to be present for the coronation of his father, King Edward VII.
• The Philippine Organic Act was enacted by the United States Congress and became law, providing for the election of a Philippine Assembly following the cessation of the Philippine–American War.
• The Biologics Control Act took effect in the United States after being passed by Congress in the wake of the deaths of 13 children from a tainted serum that had been intended to treat diphtheria. The new law authorized the United States Public Health Service to inspect producers and test their medicines, as well as to require the first expiration dates to be placed on health products.
• The uninhabited Henderson Island of the Pitcairn Islands was formally annexed to the British Empire.
• Oliver Robert Hawke Bury became general manager of Great Northern Railway in the United Kingdom, after working for the Buenos Aires and Rosario Railway in Argentina.
• The first national anthem of the Korean Empire, commissioned by the Emperor Gojong, was presented to the imperial court by German composer Franz Eckert, the hymn's author as director of the Korean military band. It would be performed for the first time on September 9, 1902.
• Campbell's dwarf hamster was discovered as a distinct species by explorer C. W. Campbell, who collected the first specimen for taxonomists, in Inner Mongolia, near the village of Shaborte.
• Luceafărul, a literary magazine in the Romanian language, was published for the first time, in Budapest.
• Born: William Wyler, Swiss-American film director, in Mülhausen, Elsass-Lothringen, German Empire , under the name Wilhelm Weiller
• Died: Anthony Giuseppe, an immigrant involved in the coal miners' strike, died after he was shot, apparently by accident, by Coal and Iron Police at a Lehigh Valley Coal Company colliery in Old Forge, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania.

  July 2, 1902 (Wednesday)

• The Wimbledon tennis tournament concluded, with British players Laurence Doherty and Muriel Robb taking the men's and women's singles titles.
• United States Secretary of War Elihu Root telegraphed an order abolishing the position of Governor-General of the Philippines in recognition of the end of the Philippine–American War.
• Adolphe Alexandre Chaillet received the first patent for the "Shelby lamp", invented by him in 1897 while in the employ of the Shelby Electric Works in Shelby, Ohio.

  July 3, 1902 (Thursday)

• Less than four years after the Spanish–American War ended, the United States and Spain signed a "treaty of amity, commerce and navigation" at Madrid.
• Ministerial Party candidate Henry Garde won the by-election for Maryborough in Queensland, Australia, following the death of Charles Hastings Barton a few weeks earlier. On the same day, Digby Denham retained Oxley for the Ministerial party in the by-election caused by the death of Samuel Grimes.

  July 4, 1902 (Friday)

• U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt issued a complete amnesty for all Filipinos who had taken up arms against the United States during the Philippine Revolution.
• Thirty Bulgarian civilians were killed by troops of Turkey at the frontier between the two nations.
• The Pacific Electric Railway opened an interurban line between Los Angeles and Long Beach, California.
• Born:
• * Meyer Lansky, Polish-American mobster known as the "Mob's Accountant", in Grodno, Russian Empire, as Meier Suchowlański
• * George Murphy, American dancer, actor, and politician, in New Haven, Connecticut
• Died: Swami Vivekananda, 39, Indian religious leader, during meditation practice. He had previously predicted that he would not reach the age of forty.

  July 5, 1902 (Saturday)

• Following the resignation of Fredrik von Otter, Erik Gustaf Boström became Prime Minister of Sweden for a second time, having previously served from 1891 to 1900.
• At least 500,000 dinners were served to Londoners to celebrate the Coronation of Edward VII and Alexandra, in an exercise supervised by Sir Thomas Lipton even though the ceremony had been postponed until August because of the King's illness.
• The only Test cricket match ever played at Bramall Lane, Sheffield in England was won by the touring Australian XI.
• U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt issued an executive order forbidding federal civil service employees from using outside influence in attempts to get promoted.

  July 6, 1902 (Sunday)

• Maria Goretti, an 11-year-old girl living in Ancona in Italy, died the day after she was fatally stabbed by an 18-year-old neighbor, Alessandro Serenelli, when she resisted his romantic advances. Before dying, Maria forgave her killer. Serenelli went to prison for 27 years and, after his release, would ask for and receive forgiveness from Maria's mother, Assunta Goretti. Serenelli would enter a monastery and become well known as Father Stephano. He and Mrs. Goretti lived to see the beatification of Maria. After verification of miracles attributed to her, the canonization of Saint Maria Goretti by Pope Pius XII would take place on June 24, 1950.
• Born: Wiktoria Goryńska, Austrian-Polish artist and resistance leader against the Nazi German invasion, in Vienna

  July 7, 1902 (Monday)

• Joseph Chamberlain, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, sustained head injuries in an accident while a passenger in a horse-drawn carriage and under convalescent care for the next 10 days. A historian would later note of Chamberlain that "during that time two events took place which, if he had been up and about, might conceivably have taken a different turning." The British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, chose the moment of Chamberlain's absence to resign and to ask King Edward VII to appoint Salisbury's nephew, Lord Balfour, as his successor.

  July 8, 1902 (Tuesday)

• The United States Reclamation Service, now the United States Bureau of Reclamation, was established within the Geological Survey of the Department of the Interior as the first federal agency to acquire the rights and distribution of the American water supply.

  July 9, 1902 (Wednesday)

• The Kingdom of Siam ceded control of four parts of the southern Malay Peninsula to the control of the British Empire. The sultanates of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu were incorporated into British Malaya and are now part of Malaysia.
• Horace Gray, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, informed U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt of his retirement after 20 years of service. Gray died two months later, on September 15.
• By a vote of 307 to 234, the Chamber of Deputies in France voted to invalidate the election of Count Jean de Castellane based on evidence of his acceptance of bribes.
• The United States began negotiations with Colombia for a treaty to construct a canal across the northernmost departamento of Colombia, the Departamento del Istmo, which would later secede to become the Republic of Panama.

  July 10, 1902 (Thursday)

• The Rolling Mill Mine disaster in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States, resulted in the deaths of 112 miners. Most were killed by methane gas poisoning following an explosion.
• The uninhabited atoll Oeno Island was formally annexed to the British Empire.
• Born: Kurt Alder, German-Polish chemist and Nobel Prize laureate, in Königshütte, German Empire

  July 11, 1902 (Friday)

• The British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, retired for health reasons, in order to be replaced by his nephew, Arthur Balfour.
• The Order of the Garter was conferred by King Edward VII of the United Kingdom on Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
• The town of Maryville, Illinois was incorporated.
• Born: Rolf Widerøe, Norwegian accelerator physicist, in Oslo

  July 12, 1902 (Saturday)

• Lord Kitchener and John French, leaders of the British victory in the Second Boer War in South Africa, were given a heroes' welcome and a parade in London upon their return to the United Kingdom.
• The Columbia Amusement Company, which set the standard for the traveling burlesque shows for the next 25 years, was formed at the Columbia Theatre in New York City. The "Columbia Wheel" guaranteed a rotating series of burlesque acts to travel a circuit of theaters, with new companies starting tours each month.
• Arthur Balfour took office as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• The first of the Neuquén–Cipolletti bridges on Argentina's Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway was opened. The first locomotive to pass over it, number 205, was driven by Antonio Mazzarolo.

  July 13, 1902 (Sunday)

• Liang Cheng was appointed as the Chinese Empire's minister to the United States. He arrived in the States on July 19 and would serve until 1907.
• King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy arrived in Saint Petersburg for his first official visit to the Russian Empire as the reigning monarch.

  July 14, 1902 (Monday)

• Sir Michael Hicks Beach resigned his portfolio as the British Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• St Mark's Campanile, the 400-year-old bell tower of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, completely collapsed, demolishing the logetta and killing the caretaker's cat.
• Rose Isabel Spencer, the wife of English aeronaut Stanley Spencer became the first woman to pilot a motorized aircraft. Mrs. Spencer guided Spencer's balloon airship successfully around Crystal Palace in London.
• Born: Josef Toufar, Czech Roman Catholic priest who was persecuted by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia as part of a campaign to discredit organized religion, in Arnolec, Bohemia