The Boxer Uprising ended as U.S. Marines helped Great Britain capture Peking.
A hurricane & tidal wave killed 5,994 in Galveston, Texas.
William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan for the U.S. presidency — the two had faced off with the same results in 1896.
Dwight Davis established the Davis Cup for tennis.
Lyman Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard Of Oz was published.
The Associated Press was founded.
Popular songs included The Maple Leaf Rag, You Can't Keep A Good Man Down and Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder.
1901
President William McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz and died 8 days later. Vice
President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn into office.
Radio was born — in the form of wireless telegraphy — when the morse code letter for "S" was
transmitted from Poldhu in Cornwall, England to Newfoundland, Canada by Guglielmo Marconi.
Andrew Carnegie's $5,200,000 donation helped set up the New York Public Library system.
Scott Joplin's The Entertainer enjoyed a resurgence in popularity as ragtime piano evolved into
an original American musical form.
Thomas Edison improved his motion picture camera by adding a device that allowed it to "pan."
1902
Wilbur & Orville Wright developed their third — and first successful — glider. They performed 970
flights, with some ranging over 600 feet.
The first post-season football game, the Tournament Of Roses (later the Rose Bowl), saw Michigan defeat Stanford 49-to-nothing.
The Republic of Cuba was established, ending American occupation.
The purported laziness of some southerners was discovered to be the symptom of hookworms.
New York's longest-running musical to date, Floradora, closed after 550 performances.
Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance — March #1 was one of the year's most popular songs.
1903
A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago took 588 lives.
President Roosevelt sent the first official transatlantic wireless telegraph message to King
Edward VII, from the Marconi transmitter at Wellfleet, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Wisconsin introduced the concept of primary elections.
The U.S. & the Republic of Panama signed the treaty to build the Panama Canal.
The era of aviation arrived when Orville Wright successfully piloted the first heavier-than-air
craft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company.
The Columbia Company and phonograph inventor/developer Thomas Edison began regularly
releasing music recordings.
1904
In the first Olympics to be held in the U.S. — at the new St. Louis Exposition — American T.J.
Hicks won the marathon in 3:28:53. The U.S. took gold in 21 events.
Republican Theodore Roosevelt was elected president by the largest margin in U.S. history,
receiving over 2-million more votes than Alton Parker.
1,055 people died when a fire swept through the steamship General Slocum in New York.
2,600 buildings over 80 blocks of Baltimore were destroyed by fire.
The World Series was canceled when New York Giants manager John McGraw refused to let his
team play Boston.
The ragtime piano style continued to migrate from the Mississippi Delta, with keyboard buffs
throughout America learning to play songs like Ol' Miss Rag.
1905
The first Rotary Club was formed in Chicago.
The Wright brothers flew 25 miles in 38 minutes.
A lot at #1 Wall Street, New York, sold for $717,430 — a record price for real estate.
3,000 people were stricken and 400 died from a yellow fever outbreak in New Orleans, traced to
mosquitoes.
Variety was founded in New York as the official trade paper of the live theater industry.
The player/piano — which could be played manually or play "rolls" of pre-encoded music — was
introduced.
1906
Madison Square Garden architect Stanford White was shot and killed by millionaire Harry K. Thaw, who accused White of having an affair with wife, Evelyn Nesbit Thaw. After a hung jury, Thaw was declared insane in 1908, escaped from the mental hospital where he was incarcerated in 1913, then was declared sane and released from custody in 1915.
President Theodore Roosevelt was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for
his efforts in ending the Russo-Japanese War. He also the first president to set foot on foreign
soil while in office, visiting canal construction sites in Panama.
Congress established an early version of a "no-fly zone" around Washington, D.C., after a
German man created a panic by sailing a zeppelin around the U.S. Capitol dome.
A quarter-million people were made homeless and 460 were killed when San Francisco was
struck by an early-morning earthquake followed by widespread gas and electrical fires.
The Thomas A. Edison Phonograph Company produced what may have been the first audio commercial, a
demonstration recording for its new line of record players.
1907
United Press (later United Press International) was founded in New York.
Lee DeForest became, in essence, the first disc jockey, by using phonograph records to test
wireless audio in New York City.
Coal mine explosions in Monongahela, West Virginia and Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania killed a
total of 601 workers.
President Roosevelt banned the immigration of Japanese laborers.
On November 16th, Oklahoma became the 46th state.
The U.S. faced its 20th depression since 1790.
The feather boa was all the rage.
Patriotic songs like You're A Grand Old Flag were America's favorites.
1908
The Ford Model T was introduced.
William Taft, who had helped refine the U.S. Post Office, was elected president.
Lt. Tom Selfridge of the U.S. Signal Corps became the first person killed in a plane crash, when
Orville Wright's experimental plane lost a propeller over Virginia. Wright was seriously injured.
Popular Vaudeville comedians such as Smith & Dale were finding a new medium for their "schtick" — phonograph recordings.
Victor Herbert's musical Babes In Toyland continued in San Francisco as his Little Nemo opened
in New York.
1909
Admiral Robert Edwin Peary planted the U.S. flag on the North Pole.
259 coal miners died in an explosion at Cherry, Illinois.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded.
The 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth attracted over a million people to observances
in New York City. The keynote speaker was Booker T. Washington.
A constitutional amendment passed by the senate would give congress the powers to enact
income taxes.
The first animated cartoon, Gertie The Dinosaur, was made from 10,300 drawings by newspaper
cartoonist Windsor McCay.
W.C Handy's Memphis Blues — originally a political campaign song called Mr. Crump — became
the first published American blues song. It was later reworked as St. Louis Blues.
