.webp)
Last edition:
Author William Sidney Porter, who would write under the pen name of O. Henry, was released from the Ohio Penitentiary. He's soon begin his prolific writing career.
A very heavy drinker, he died in 1910 at age 47.
The USS Kearsarge inadvertently fired a projectile at the city of Newport, Rhode Island and struck the Newport City Hall.
Philippine Gen. Zurbano surrendered to the U.S. Army on Luzon.
Last edition:
Samuel Watkins, Confederate volunteer from Tennessee and author of the well known Co. Aytch died at age 62, his health broken from the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Last edition:
Today In Wyoming's History: July 18: 1901. Tom Horn murders Willie Nickell, for which he is later hung. In part, Horn is relatively rapidly identified due to leaving an expended .30-30 cartridge at the site, that being a rifle cartridge he was associated with. At the time, the .30-30 was regarded as a long range high velocity cartridge and it was a relatively new cartridge as well. The murder was almost certainly a mistake, as Horn was very likely waiting for Willie's father. Willie was a big kid, albeit only age 14, and was wearing his father's coat on the day of the murder.It's interesting to note that Horn was born in Missouri and grew up on a large family farm, although he left home as an early teen. His 1860 birth date would have caused him to grow up in the Missouri of the 1860s and 1870s, which were particularly lawless, and produced a variety of notorious gunmen. He served as a civilian scout in the Army under the legendary Al Sieber and saw service on both sides of the border. He picked up a knowledge of the Apache language during this period..In the period leading up to this infamous act, he seems to have been employed as an enforcer for certain cattle interests that were continuing to contest along the lines of the Johnson County War as well as the ongoing sheep war. He first took up hiring out as a gunman in the Southwest, after his service to the Army. His role in Wyoming was often as a "stock detective", which gave a degree of legality to some of his activities.His arrest and conviction is one of two instances in the first decade of the 20th Century in Wyoming in which the gunman was rapidly identified due to a cartridge preference, the other being the 1909 Spring Creek Raid, which was the last raid of Wyoming's long running sheep wars. In that event, one of the assailants was armed with a semi automatic Remington 1908 in .25 Remington, his rifle being the only one of that type in the region.Horn has remained an oddly popular and well known figure in Wyoming's history and has his apologists. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. There are those who claim even to the present day that he was not guilty of the murder and was framed by those who had formerly employed him, citing to the efforts of Joe Lefors, who was critical in tracking him down and supplying testimony against him. But the apologists arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. Looked at objectively, Horn was a late Frontier era figure who became ensnared in the violence of the period at the same time at which it was winding down. The same decade of his arrest would see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid conclude their criminal activities in the state (also with Lefors playing a part in that) and the end of the Sheep Wars due to the arrival of effective law enforcement and unbiased juries. Perhaps Horns role as a fin de siecle play a role in the ongoing fascination with him.
Cy Young pitched his twelfth consecutive win for the Boston Americans.
Today In Wyoming's History: July 15: ..
1901 Tom Horn, returned from Army service in the Spanish American War, and employed by John Coble, member of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, visited Jim and Dora Miller's ranch near Iron Mountain, as well as Glendolene Kimmel, the 22 year old teacher at the Iron Mountain School.
The Kimmel story has been a feature of the Tom Horn legend from nearly the beginning, but in truth she had very little connection with Horn, having met him on a very limited basis. On this occasion, he told stories, and given his role as a frontier scout and in the Spanish American War, he had stories to tell. But Horn was nearly 40 years old on this occasion and Kimmel, a single woman in Wyoming, would have been sought after by nearly any single male in the region.
She would claim that one of the Miller boys claimed the murder, which is certainly possible even if he didn't. She swore an affidavit to that effect. She also wrote an unpublished book on Horn defending him. While that might show a strong degree of interest in him, it didn't rise to the level of a romantic relationship as suggested in later day.
A better view would be that based on her limited interaction with him she took an interest in his fate, and felt honor bound after hearing a confession of the murder, whether it was true or not.
Indeed, the more surprising things is that she never married.
The Edison Manufacturing Company attained a monopoly over the production of American motion pictures after a federal court in New York ruled in its favor in a suit against the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company for patent infringement.
The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers went on strike.
Christy Mathewson pitched no-hitter for the Giants against St. Louis
Last edition:
Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont became the first person to fly around the Eiffel Tower three times, a requirement for winning ta prize of 100,000 francs sponsored by oilman Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe.
He didn't get it as he failed to timely complete a round trip between the Longchamp Racecourse and the Tower within less than half an hour.
William McKinley became the first President to ride in an automobile.
It was a Saturday, and the Saturday Evening Post ran this odd cover.
Last edition:
Registration opened for the Oklahoma Territory land lottery at 9:00 a.m in El Reno and at Lawton. By 6:00 p.m. on July 26, when registration closed, 167,000 people had spent the $25 registration fee to be eligible for one of 13,000 tracts of land of 160 acres each, with drawing to begin on July 29.
Cole and Jim Younger were granted parole after almost 25 years in the Minnesota State Prison in Stillwater, Minnesota for their attempted robbery of a bank in the James Gang's Northfield Minnesota on September 7, 1876.
Chinese Imperial troops were defeated by the Allied Villagers Society at Chichou.
Last edition:
William McKinley proclaimed certain Indian lands in Oklahoma Territory, including the Creek Nation, open to settlement effective August 6, 1901.
Last edition:
The only two six masted schooners in the world, the George W. Wells and the Eleanor Percy, collided off the coast of Cape Cod in fair weather. Both would need to be repaired.
Proclamation 457—Ratfying an Agreement Between the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes and the Muscogee or Creek Tribe of Indians
June 25, 1901
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Whereas the act of Congress entitled "An act to ratify and confirm an agreement with the Muscogee or Creek tribe of Indians and for other purposes," approved on the 1st day of March, 1901, contains a provision as follows:
That the agreement negotiated between the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes and the Muscogee or Creek tribe of Indians, at the city of Washington on the 8th day of March, nineteen hundred, as herein amended, is hereby accepted, ratified, and confirmed, and the same shall be of full force and effect when ratified by the Creek national council. The principal chief, as soon as practicable after the ratification of this agreement by Congress, shall call an extra session of the Creek national council and lay before it this agreement and the act of Congress ratifying it, and if the agreement be ratified by said council, as provided in the constitution of said nation, he shall transmit to the President of the United States the act of council ratifying the agreement, and the President of the United States shall thereupon issue his proclamation declaring the same duly ratified, and that all the provisions of this agreement have become law according to the terms thereof: Provided, That such ratification by the Creek national council shall be made within ninety days from the approval of this act by the President of the United States,
And whereas the principal chief of the said tribe has transmitted to me an act of the Creek national council entitled "An act to ratify and confirm an agreement between the United States and the Muscogee Nation of Indians of the Indian Territory" approved the 25th day of May, 1901, which contains a provision as follows:
That said agreement, amended, ratified and confirmed by the Congress of the United States, as set forth in said act of Congress approved March 1, 1901, is hereby accepted, ratified and confirmed on the part of the Muscogee Nation and on the part of the Muscogee or Creek tribe of Indians constituting said Nation, as provided in said act of Congress and as provided in the Constitution of said Nation, and the Principal Chief is hereby authorized to transmit this act of the National Council ratifying said agreement to the President of the United States as provided in said act of Congress.
And whereas paragraph thirty-six of said agreement contains a provision as follows:
This provision shall not take effect until after it shall have been separately and specifically approved by the Creek national council and by the Seminole general council; and if not approved by either, it shall fail altogether, and be eliminated from this agreement without impairing any other of its provisions.
And whereas there has been presented to me an act of the Creek national council entitled "An act to disapprove certain provisions, relating to Seminole citizens, in the agreement between the Muscogee Nation and the United States, ratified by Congress March 1, 1901," approved the 25th day of May, 1901, by which the provisions of said paragraph thirty-six are specifically disapproved:
Now, therefore, I, William McKinley, President of the United States, do hereby declare said agreement, except paragraph thirty-six thereof, duly ratified and that all the provisions thereof, except said paragraph thirty-six which failed of ratification by the Creek national council, became law according to the terms thereof upon the 25th day of May, 1901.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 25th day of June, A.D. 1901, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and twenty-fifth.
Signature of William McKinley
WILLIAM McKINLEY
By the President:
DAVID J. HILL,
Acting Secretary of State.
Last edition:
A mere thirty days after the Creek National Council had ratified an agreement to cede its land to the Federal government, oil was struck on those lands in Oklahoma Territory at Red Fork.
The gusher would be responsible for the transformation of Tulsa into a major city.
Philippine General Juan Cailles surrendered to the United States along with 650 of his men.
American nurse Clara Maass, serving in Cuba, volunteered to be bitten by a malarial mosquito as part of medical research. She'd contract the disease and die. She was 25 years old.
Last edition:
Gregorio Cortez, betrayed by a friend, was captured without incident, near Laredo, Texas. the friend, Jesus Gonzalez, received a $1,000 reward.
A monument was placed on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls to Laura Second, an American born immigrant to Canada who traveled twenty miles to warn the British of an impending American attack.
Contrary to what Americans generally imagine, many Americans retained strong British loyalties in the 1810s and quite a few were sympathetic to the British cause.
Last edition:
President McKinley established a civil government in the Philippines and appointed William Howard Taft as its first governor.
Japanese statesman Hoshi Tōru, formerly the Speaker of Japan's House of Representatives and the Japanese Minister to the United States, was stabbed to death by Iba Shotaro, a bank manager and former college dean.
In something debatable to this day, the first waters from the Colorado River arrived in the Imperial Valley in the southern California desert through a complicated diversion system.
Last edition:
South African President Schalk Burger and Orange Free State President Marinus Theunis issued a proclamation that neither nation would accept a settlement with the British resulting in the loss of independence of their countries.
Pittsburgh Pirate Honus Wagner became the first major league baseball player to "steal home" twice during the same game.
The Philippine Commission voted to make English and Spanish the official languages of the Philippines.
A court decided in favor of viewing rights to Lake Michigan.
June 20, 1901 -- Chicago Lake Front Sees Another Lawsuit
Last edition:
The ambassadors to China from the Eight-Nation Alliance voted against allowing Chinese Army soldiers to return to Beijing, a fundamentally insulting vote.
Princess Anastasia was born.
Last edition:
Boer General P. H. Kritzinger authorized Boer troops to shoot any blacks who were riding a horse without the permission of an employer. The illegal order was based on the concept that such Cape Colony blacks must be spies.
The London School of economics was incorporated.
Last edition:
