November 1903

November 1, 1903 (Sunday)

• William Melville retired as the superintendent of the Special Branch of Scotland Yard. He would secretly become the head of the new MO3 intelligence section in the War Office.
• The steamship Discovery departed from Yakutat, Alaska with about 30 people on board and disappeared. The following year, Chief John of the Lituya Bay Native Tribe would report having seen Discovery sink on the afternoon of November 2 after a failed attempt to enter Lituya Bay.
• Born:
• * Max Adrian, Northern Irish actor; in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Ireland
• * Carji Greeves, Australian rules footballer; in Warragul, Victoria, Australia
• * Don Robey, American songwriter and record producer; in Houston, Texas
• * Jean Tardieu, French artist, musician and author; in Saint-Germain-de-Joux, Ain, France
• * Mario Zampi, Italian film producer and director
• Died: Theodor Mommsen, 85, German writer and politician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature

  November 2, 1903 (Monday)

• Alfred Harmsworth, publisher of the British Daily Mail newspaper, launched the Daily Mirror, initially as a women's newspaper run by women.
• A conflagration destroyed about 150 houses in Jérémie, Haiti.
• The Lyceum Theatre opened in the Theater District, Manhattan, with American actor E. H. Sothern starring in The Proud Prince.
• In Richmond, Virginia, Maggie L. Walker became the first African-American woman to charter a bank.
• In the 1903 Ohio gubernatorial election, Republican Myron T. Herrick defeated the Democratic Mayor of Cleveland, Tom L. Johnson, for the position of Governor of Ohio.
• The collapse of a railroad bridge under demolition over the Brazos River in Brenham, Texas, killed one man and injured four others.
• Born:
• * Travis Jackson, American Major League Baseball shortstop; in Waldo, Arkansas
• * Edgard Potier, Belgian spy; in Seraing, Liège Province, Belgium
• Died: Vsevolod Solovyov, 54, Russian historical novelist

  November 3, 1903 (Tuesday)

• Count István Tisza took office as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary.
• Giovanni Giolitti became Prime Minister of Italy for the second time, and his new Cabinet was sworn into office.
• During an American football game in Long Branch, New Jersey, 18-year-old Raymond McVeigh, a player on the Cadillac team, sustained a head injury that did not appear to be serious. Several days later he was found unconscious at his home in Brooklyn and subsequently died.
• Six U.S. states voted to elect governors: Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi and Rhode Island.
• With the encouragement of the United States, Panama proclaimed itself independent of Colombia.
• Born:
• * Walker Evans, American photographer and photojournalist; in St. Louis, Missouri
• * Charles Rigoulot, French Olympic champion weightlifter; in Le Vésinet, Yvelines, France
• * Shizue Tatsuta, Japanese silent film actress; in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan
• Died:
• * Jean-Baptiste Brondel, 61, Belgian-born Catholic prelate
• * Benjamin T. Frederick, 69, member of the United States House of Representatives from Iowa

  November 4, 1903 (Wednesday)

• American showman and kite expert Samuel Franklin Cody made a second failed attempt to cross the English Channel from Dover to Calais in a collapsible boat pulled by a kite, having tried before on October 10.
• Agram Grigorian and Sigran Szmician, delegates to the Armenian convention in London, England, were shot from behind and killed near the Armenian headquarters at Peckham Rye. The assassin shot at a third delegate, Reuben Glaberiain, but missed; seeing that he would be unable to escape, he shot himself to death. The murderer was believed to be the same person who had assassinated Sagatel Sagouni, president of the Armenian Revolutionary Society, in Nunhead, London, on October 26.
• An explosion at the United States Navy ammunition depot on Iona Island, New York, killed six workers and blew out windows in Peekskill.
• American boxer James J. Jeffries declined an offer to fight boxer Sam McVey for a $20,000 purse, saying, "I have made up my mind never to fight a negro again as long as there are white men in the field."
• All but three buildings in the business district of Granite Falls, North Carolina, were destroyed by a fire that started in the Field and Smith Warehouse. The townspeople fought the fire with buckets of water.
• One passenger was killed and 51 injured, some seriously, in a cable car collision in Kansas City, Missouri.
• Born:
• * Boris Arbuzov, Russian and Soviet chemist and politician
• * Robert Emerson, American scientist; in New York City, New York
• * Watchman Nee, Chinese Christian preacher, church leader; in Shantou, Guangdong, Manchu China
• * Henry Milton Taylor, fourth Governor-General of the Bahamas
• Died: Heinrich Brück, 72, German Catholic church historian and bishop

  November 5, 1903 (Thursday)

• In Dourdan, France, Arthur Duray set a new automobile land speed record of in a Gobron-Brillié automobile, surpassing his own previous record set on July 17.
• Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright brothers tested the engine of the Wright Flyer. The test damaged the engine's propeller shafts, which the Wrights sent back to Dayton, Ohio to be repaired by Charlie Dayton, their machinist.
• Hanover College football player Frank Shanklin died at an Indianapolis hospital of injuries he sustained five weeks earlier during a practice game at Hanover Field.
• Born:
• * H. Warner Munn, American fantasy and horror fiction writer and poet; in Athol, Massachusetts
• * Guillermo Saavedra, Chilean Olympic and professional footballer; in Rancagua, Chile

  November 6, 1903 (Friday)

• The English-language South China Morning Post newspaper was first published in Hong Kong.
• U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt extended de facto recognition to the new government of Panama.
• In Franklin, Pennsylvania, local athlete and football player Willis M. Kingsley was declared the winner of a three-round fight with Clarence C. Doolittle. Kingsley subsequently died due to a ruptured blood vessel. Authorities arrested Doolittle for murder the following day on the theory that Doolittle had punched Kingsley behind the ear after shaking his hand at the end of the fight, causing his death.
• Eight miners, including Superintendent R. B. Turner, died in a fire at the Kearsarge mine near Virginia City, Montana.
• Born:
• * Seymour Lipton, American abstract expressionist sculptor; in New York City, New York
• * June Marlowe, American film actress; in St. Cloud, Minnesota
• * Carl Rakosi, German-born American poet; in Berlin, Germany
• Died: Giovanni de Ciotta, 79, Hungarian politician

  November 7, 1903 (Saturday)

• Samuel Franklin Cody successfully crossed the English Channel in his kite-boat, this time sailing from Calais to Dover.
• Sir James Ritchie took office as Lord Mayor of London.
• American wrestler Tom Jenkins, the wrestling champion of the world, retained his title in a match with Tom Sharkey at Carnival Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida.
• A major fire at Shaw's Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, caused $1000 in damage to buildings and $2,500 in damage to plants, with a great loss of species and varieties.
• The Grange Store and Opera House in Olathe, Kansas, was destroyed by a fire that broke out while 700 people were watching a play in the auditorium. No civilians were seriously injured, but several firefighters were badly burned.
• At the county stock fair in Pomeroy, Washington, Tom Andress, assistant to aeronaut Roy Williams, fell from Williams' balloon after becoming tangled in its ropes as it took off. Andress broke both arms at the wrist.
• In Sacramento, California, American baseball player George Hildebrand and his wife were rushed to the hospital after being rendered unconscious by a bathroom heater that failed to ignite and filled the room with gas.
• Born:
• * Ary Barroso, Brazilian composer and pianist; in Ubá, Minas Gerais, Brazil
• * Dean Jagger, American actor; in Columbus Grove or Lima, Ohio
• * Konrad Lorenz, Austrian zoologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; in Vienna, Austria-Hungary
• Died:
• * William Lukens Elkins, 71, American businessman and art collector, died of blood poisoning.
• * Frank Russell, 35, American anthropologist and ethnologist, died of tuberculosis.
• * Silvanus Trevail, 52, British architect, shot himself to death in a train lavatory.

  November 8, 1903 (Sunday)

• At about 2 a.m. in Brinkley, Arkansas, a mob of 10 or 15 people lynched Z. C. Cadle, a white man, who had killed Policeman J. C. Cox with a bladed weapon.
• Born:
• * Luigi Allemandi, Italian footballer and manager; in San Damiano Macra, Italy
• * Anton Fredrik Klaveness, Norwegian shipowner and Olympic equestrian; in Sandefjord, Norway
• Died: Vasily Dokuchaev, 57, Russian geologist and geographer

  November 9, 1903 (Monday)

• Pietro Rosano, who had taken office as the new Italian Minister of Finance on November 3, fatally shot himself at his home in Naples as a result of family problems and a campaign against him by socialist newspapers.
• Republican Representative Joseph Gurney Cannon of Illinois was sworn in as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
• At about 7:45 p.m. in Wabaunsee County, Kansas, William Thomas Smale was shot and killed through his farmhouse's dining room window by an assailant outside the house while Smale's wife and children were seated around the dining room table. The telephone lines to the house had been cut. Despite a great deal of sensational newspaper speculation, the murder would never be solved.
• Born:
• * Jacques Dumesnil, French film and television actor; in Paris, France
• * Léon-Étienne Duval, French Catholic prelate and cardinal; in Chênex, Haute-Savoie, France
• * Margaret Fay Shaw, American photographer and folklorist; in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
• Died:
• * Alfred Edward Rodewald, 41, English merchant and musician, died from complications of influenza.
• * Montagu Corry, 1st Baron Rowton,, 65, British philanthropist and public servant
• * Andrew Stewart, 67, member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania