May 1902

May 1, 1902 (Thursday)

• A tornado swept over the city of Dacca in British India and killed 416 people.
• The Canadian Pacific Railway took over the Ottawa, Northern and Western Railway.
• The Cork International Exhibition, a world's fair, opened in Ireland for a six-month-long run until the end of October. On the same day, the directors of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, voted to postpone the celebration from 1903 to 1904.
• U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt approved the court-martial of Major Edwin F. Henn for torture of Filipino prisoners.
• The imprisoned U.S. Navy officers of USS Chicago were set free after being pardoned by the King of Italy.
• U.S. Representative William H. Moody of Massachusetts resigned to become the new United States Secretary of the Navy.
• The 13th County Championship cricket season began in the United Kingdom, with 15 counties competing.
• Fujimoto Bill Broker Banking, as predecessor of Daiwa Securities Group, was founded in Osaka, Japan.

  May 2, 1902 (Friday)

• The town of Maharg, Oklahoma, located on Turkey Creek of Washita County, was destroyed by a flash flood. The survivors relocated to higher ground and incorporated it as "Foss".
• Died:
• * Amos J. Cummings, 73, American Medal of Honor recipient and U.S. Representative for New York since 1895
• * Prince George of Prussia, 76, German nobleman and playwright who wrote under the names Gunther von Freiberg and George Conrad

  May 3, 1902 (Saturday)

• The Battle of Bayang between the U.S. Army 27th Infantry and the army of the Moro sultan on the island of Mindanao, Philippines ended when the American infantry stormed the fort, killing the Sultan and 200 of his defenders.
• A fire destroyed the Egyptian village of Mit Ghamr, killing at least 61 people.
• Born: Alfred Kastler, French physicist and Nobel Prize laureate; in Guebwiller, Haut-Rhin département

  May 4, 1902 (Sunday)

• The report on an investigation of atrocities in the Philippine province of Tayabas, written by U.S. Army General Adna Chaffee, was received at the United States Department of War by Secretary Elihu Root in the form of a cabled telegram outlining a communication to Chaffee by Major Cornelius Gardner. Gardner listed four charges, accompanied by specifications that included the burning by U.S. troops of villages on the island of Luzon, including the town of Dolores.
• Born: Carl Eckart, American physicist, oceanographer, geophysicist, and administrator; in St. Louis

  May 5, 1902 (Monday)

• The Commonwealth Public Service Act created the Australian Public Service.
• The United States Senate voted to postpone the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1903 to 1904.
• U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt nominated Herbert G. Squiers to be the first American ambassador to Cuba.
• A violent eruption of Mount Pelée terrified many of the residents of most of the residents of the island of Martinique, although most chose not to evacuate.
• The American steamer, SS Kanawha, smashed its bow when it ran into the lock wall at the Davis Island Dam on the Ohio River, and sank.
• Born: Charles de Beaumont, British Olympic fencer; in Liverpool
• Died: Bret Harte, 65, American writer, died from throat cancer

  May 6, 1902 (Tuesday)

• All 737 passengers and crew on the British passenger ship were killed when the ship sank in a cyclone while en route from Madras in India, to Rangoon in Burma, after being hit by a cyclone. The ship was traversing the Irrawaddy Delta when it was struck.
• In a revolt in the Venezuela city of Carúpano, 115 Venezuelan Army troops were killed and 210 wounded.
• Born: Max Ophüls, German film director; in Saarbrücken
• Died: William T. Sampson, 62, U.S. Navy admiral and the third incumbent U.S. Representative to die in office in the past five days

  May 7, 1902 (Wednesday)

• Two thousand people on the island of Saint Vincent were killed when the volcano La Soufrière erupted, devastating the northern portion of the island.
• Irish Nationalists in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom voted on a resolution to censure the Speaker of the Commons. The measure was rejected by a vote of 63 for and 398 against.
• The United States House of Representatives began consideration of statehood for the U.S. territories of Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico.
• Died: Agostino Roscelli, 83, Italian priest and Catholic saint, founder of the Institute of Sisters of the Immaculata

  May 8, 1902 (Thursday)

• Over 30,000 people on the island of Martinique were killed when the Mount Pelée volcano erupted, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre.
• Born: André Michel Lwoff, French microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; in Paris
• Died: Paul Leicester Ford, 37, American novelist, was shot and killed by his older brother, Malcolm Webster Ford, 40, American amateur athlete, in a murder-suicide

  May 9, 1902 (Friday)

• Ships from the Royal Navy, the French Navy and the Imperial German Navy sailed into the Guatemalan port of San José to enforce repayment of foreign loans.
• Tirésias Simon Sam resigned as President of Haiti after six years in office. Pierre Boisrond-Canal formed a temporary government on May 26.
• Died: Henry Morton, 65, American scientist and the president of the Stevens Institute of Technology since its founding in 1870

  May 10, 1902 (Saturday)

• The Society of American Magicians, which now has 5,000 members worldwide, was founded in New York City by 24 magicians who met in a backroom at Martinka's Magic Shop.
• Born: David O. Selznick, American film producer; in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Died: Sebastian S. Marble, 85, U.S. politician and former Governor of Maine

  May 11, 1902 (Sunday)

• Elections for the 589 deputies of France's Chambre des députés concluded with voting for those seats where no candidate had obtained a majority on April 27. The Bloc des gauches, an alliance of Socialists, Radicals, and the Opportunist Republicans won 338 seats for a majority in the Chambre, while the Progressive Republicans of Prime Minister Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau lost half of their 254 seats and were left with 127. A member of the Bloc, the Radical Party's Émile Combes, formed a new government.
• Died: Charles "Tucky" Collis, 64, Irish-American Medal of Honor recipient

  May 12, 1902 (Monday)

• Brazilian inventor Augusto Severo de Albuquerque Maranhão, 38, and his companion, French engineer Georges Saché, 25, flew Severo's semi-rigid airship Pax over Paris. They lost control of the aircraft, which caught fire and exploded over Montparnasse Cemetery, killing both men.
• A strike by the United Mine Workers closed all of the unionized coal mines in the anthracite district of Pennsylvania.
• Multiple explosions of naphtha killed 28 people at Sheraden, Pennsylvania, at the time an unincorporated community outside of the city limits of Pittsburgh, and injured 200 others.
• Born: Jack Trice, American college football player; in Hiram, Ohio

  May 13, 1902 (Tuesday)

• The 1902 Copa de la Coronación football competition began in Spain, the forerunner of the Copa del Rey. Real Madrid, founded in March, played its first game as a soccer football team and lost to Barcelona, 3 to 1.
• The United States Congress voted to approve $300,000 for foreign aid relief to Martinique.
• Died: Walter N. Haldeman, 81, American newspaper editor who founded the Louisville Courier as a pro-secessionist newspaper in 1844, then later merged it with a pro-Union newspaper in 1868 to form the Louisville Courier-Journal. Haldeman was also the a major league baseball team owner and a charter member of the National League with the Louisville Grays who played in 1876 and 1877.

  May 14, 1902 (Wednesday)

• Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso performed for the first time in England, performing at Covent Garden in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto.
• Born:
• * Helen Flanders Dunbar, American healthcare provider and pioneer in psychosomatic medicine; in Chicago
• * Mahmoud Aslan, Tunisian novelist, playwright and journalist; in Tunis

  May 15, 1902 (Thursday)

• Lyman Gilmore claimed to have flown a steam-powered fixed-wing aircraft on this date. The proof was alleged to have been destroyed in a 1935 fire.
• The final of the Copa de la Coronación football tournament was won by Club Bizcaya, who defeated Barcelona 2–1.
• Born: Richard J. Daley, American politician and longtime Mayor of Chicago; in Chicago

  May 16, 1902 (Friday)

• In the first and only time in Major League Baseball history that a deaf batter faced a deaf pitcher, William "Dummy" Hoy of the Cincinnati Reds went up to bat against Luther Taylor of the New York Giants.
• The Catholic Church issued Decree 4097 of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, declaring that churches were prohibited from substituting electric lights for candles on the altar during Solemn High Mass.
• Born:
• * Elizabeth Nord, British-American labor leader and executive of the Textile Workers Union of America; in Lancashire, England
• * Karamshi Jethabhai Somaiya, Indian entrepreneur who established Somaiya University near Bombay; in Malunjar, Ahmednagar, Bombay Presidency
• * Judith Tyberg, American Sanskrit scholar and yogi; in Point Loma, California
• * Carles Fages de Climent, Spanish Catalonian writer, poet and journalist; in Figueres
• Died:
• * Benjamin H. Child, 59, American law enforcement officer and Medal of Honor recipient
• * Major General Herbert T. Siborne, 75, British Army officer, engineer and military historian