The USS Wheeling arrived at Taku Forts to reinforce the US presence in China.
General Arthur MacArthur, the father of Douglas MacArthur and a Civil War hero, was named to replace General Elwell Stephen Otis as military governor of the Philippines.
Over 100 people were killed near Austin, Texas, when the McDonald Dam burst.
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Boer forces under Christiaan de Wet attacked at Sanna's Post, taking 400 British POWS and cutting off the water supply to Bloemfontein, which resulted in the spread of typhus.
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France, effective on this day, reduced the workday for women and children from 12 hours to 11 hours.
Current American Republicans would likely find that abhorrent.
The law provided further that on April 1, 1902, the workday would go to 101⁄2 hours and to ten hours by April 1, 1904.
Father Leonardo Murialdo, 71, founder of the Congregation of Saint Joseph died.. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI on May 3, 1970.
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South Africa's best general, Piet Joubert, died of peritonitis at age 68.
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Delegates from the Social Democratic Party and the Socialist Labor Party founded a Socialist Party in the US.
The party would prove to be a significant one up until World War One, and then it would decline thereafter, although it still exists.
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Willis L. Moore, Chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau, issued Instruction No. 51 declaring that "The smoking of cigarettes in the offices of the Weather Bureau is hereby prohibited. Officials in charge of stations will rigidly enforce this order, and will also include in their semiannual confidential reports information as to those of their assistants who smoke cigarettes outside of office hours."
It's interesting that it seems to have been limited to cigarettes.
Press Clay Southworth, 14, shot the last wild passenger pigeon near his farm in Sargents, Ohio,
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Dr. Karl Landsteiner's published his report on his discovery of a process for classification of the four blood groups under the ABO blood group system (as A, B, AB and O), "Zur Kenntnis der antifermentativen, lytischen und agglutinierenden Wirkungen des Blutserums und der Lymphe".
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. probably will declare it a fib and order up a healthy bowl of beef tallow.
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The US abolished slavery on Guam.
US forces landed at Tagbilaran in the Philippines.
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The Second Philippine Commission was formed with McKinley appointed William H. Taft at its head. The commission was instructed by McKinley to work towards successful independence.
There's yet another lesson for claimed Chief Executive Trump, who has totally failed to grasp the thought behind President McKinley's tariff policies, which were to wipe out a government surplus by depressing trade. McKinley wasn't an imperialist and was attempting to bring a country to independence even while we were fighting its independence movement.
McKinley, it might be noted, was an intelligent man, not rich, who had served his country in wartime.
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In a somewhat bizarre episode of the Spanish American War/Philippine Insurrection, on this day in 1899, the Spanish soldiers at Baler, who had held out for a year in a fortified church, were recognized as friend of the Filipino people and granted safe conduct.
A film about this event was earlier reviewed by us here:
1898: Our Last Men In the Philippines
Baler had been under siege from June 26, 1898, until June 2, 1899, which exceeded the period of time during which Spain was at war with the United States. The troops under siege had not realized that Spain had departed, and when informed, they refused to believe it and kept fighting. Ultimately, the besieging Filipinos became concerned for the garrison and began to supply it with food, beverages and cigarettes. An American expedition to relieve the garrison was launched and failed.
Finally, on June 2, 1899, the garrison surrendered.
The Spanish troops were lauded by Aguinaldo, but two Franciscan Priests who had been at the church, Fr. Félix Minaya and Fr. Juan López, plus a captured Yorktown seaman, George Arthur Venville, were kept as prisoners. The priests were freed when the US occupied the town on June 3, 1900 but Venville was executed by Filipino tribesmen.
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The House passed the Gold Standard Act.
The British marched into Bloemfontein.
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General John French gave the leaders of the Orange Free State 11 hours to surrender, which they did.
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President McKinley ordered the withdrawal of some of the troops in the Philippines.
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The Senate passed the Gold Standard Act. It's be signed by President McKinley and go into effect on March 14.
Wait! Donny loves William B. Has he heard of this yet?
A mine explosion at the Red Ash Mine at Fayette County, West Virginia, killed forty six miners.
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A drunken spectator twice approached the carriage carrying Donny Trump's newfound favorite President, William McKinley and Secretary George B. Cortelyou, attempting to open the vehicle's door in an attempt to shake hands with the President..
In light of McKinley's later fate, this was later recalled by NYPD Commissioner Murphy.
Security wasn't what it now is. Drunks still are what they are now. Presidents have declined enormously in quality.
McKinley had served in the Civil War, which was why he was extremely reluctant to get engaged in a war with Spain. Trump hasn't served in anything. McKinley went on to a career in law after the Civil War. Trump, um, yeah whatever.
Today President McKinley is mostly remembered for his Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, who rapidly eclipsed him. Roosevelt was the first great President of the 20th Century, and arguably one of only two great US Presidents of the 20th Century, the other being his cousin Franklin. There have been no great Presidents since FDR, although Truman was certainly a very good President.
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Samoa officially became an unwilling part of the German Empire. Wilhelm Solf became the first governor. Chief Mata'afa, who had fought against the Germans, was named as the paramount chief of the western Samoa colony and Kaiser Wilhelm II was designated as the Paramount King.
Of interest, Solf would die in 1936, his efforts to create a new moderate German political party after the rise of Nazism having failed, but his wife, Johanna, would form the Solf Circle resistance group and personally sheltered Jews along with one of her daughters. She was arrested and put in a concentration camp, but survived and passed away in 1954.
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The British lifted the four month siege of Ladysmith..
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Boer troops surrendered at Paardeberg.
Bayern Munich, the football club, was founded.
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Giving evidence, perhaps of a point raised elsewhere on this blogsite today, Rafaela Ybarra Arambarri de Vilallonga, a wealthy widower the founder of the Sisters of the Holy Guardian Angels and Holy Family Hospice, passed away at age 57.
She was the mother of seven, and dedicated much of her life to the poor children of Bilboa, Spain.
Her beatification was celebrated on 30 September 1984.
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He remains one of the most significant personalities in Wyoming's history.
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