The following events occurred in December 1900:
December 1, 1900 (Saturday) A census of the German Empire was taken. Data released on February 26, 1901, showed a population of 56,345,014 "of which number 27,731,067 were males". The growth rate of 7.70% in five years was the highest increase in 30 years.The American Monthly Review of Reviews (July 1901) p90 The President of Switzerland resolved a boundary dispute between French Guiana and Brazil, awarding most of the territory to Brazil. In Washington, D.C., the United States and Nicaragua signed a treaty, subject to approval, giving the U.S. exclusive rights to construct and operate the Nicaragua Canal (never built), and to use the San Juan River and Lake Managua, in return for five million dollars.
December 2, 1900 (Sunday) 2,200 Filipino rebels took an oath of allegiance to the United States at Vigan; they were the largest group to do so to that time. John Hossack, a farmer near Indianola, Iowa, was killed with an axe while he slept in bed. His wife Margaret was charged with the murder and convicted on April 11, 1901, but the verdict was overturned and a second trial ended with a hung jury. Susan Glaspell, who covered the case for the Des Moines Daily News, later fictionalized it in her 1916 one-act play Trifles and a 1917 short story, "A Jury of Her Peers".
December 3, 1900 (Monday) The U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company v. Kentucky. By an 8–1 margin, the Court upheld a state law requiring racial segregation even on interstate transportation. Since Kentucky's law provided that non-white passengers had to move to cars separate from white passengers after a train entered the state, the ruling effectively made separate cars a requirement on all trains. The census was taken in Norway, at that time a part of a union with Sweden. Its population in 1900 was 2,221,477. Oscar L. Booz, 21, a first-year cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, died from internal injuries sustained four days earlier during hazing. Booz refused to name his tormentors, and the public outcry over his death resulted in a U.S. Congressional investigation that ultimately led to the cadets pledging to discontinue the long-time practice of hazing of newly admitted cadets. Born: Ulrich Inderbinen, Swiss mountain guide; in Zermatt, canton of Valais (d. 2004) Richard Kuhn, Austrian chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938; in Vienna (d. 1967)
December 4, 1900 (Tuesday) General Auguste Mercier, formerly Minister of War for France, warned the French Senate about "the possibility of war with Great Britain" and his strategy for an invasion, adding that "a landing in England is not beyond realization". Mercier suggested that his invasion plan "could be held over the head of England, like the sword of Damocles"."Invasion of England Easy", New York Times, December 5, 1900, p. 1 Born: John Axon, British train driver, celebrated in song for his heroism in a fatal 1957 accident; in Stockport, Cheshire (d. 1957)
December 5, 1900 (Wednesday) Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy signed a treaty providing that their navies would work together in the event of an attack on either nation by France or Russia.The Secret Treaties of Austria-Hungary, 1879–1914 Translated by Denys Peter Myers, John Gilman D'Arcy Paul p. 115 The "War of the Golden Stool", the fifth and final Ashanti War, was declared over, with most of the British troops and Governor James Willcocks departing Kumasi.
December 6, 1900 (Thursday) Leopold Godowsky made his professional debut as a pianist in Berlin.Gdal Saleski, Famous Musicians of a Wandering Race (Kessinger Publishing, 2006), p. 315 Caisse Populaire, the first cooperative bank in North America, opened in Lévis, Quebec.Myron Timothy Herrick, Rural Credits, Land and Cooperative (D. Appleton and Company, 1914), pp. 445 Born: Agnes Moorehead, American film and TV actress, best known for her role in the television sitcom Bewitched; in Clinton, Massachusetts (d. 1974)
December 7, 1900 (Friday) In the American war in the Philippines, rebel leader General Emilio Verdeflor was killed in battle after being surprised by troops led by Major H.B. McCoy. The United States Department of the Navy invited bids for construction of new ships to double the size of the United States Navy, calling for five battleships and six armored cruisers. Nikola Tesla claimed to have received intelligent communication from Mars.
December 8, 1900 (Saturday) Pope Leo issued Conditae a Christo, redefining the rights of Catholic nuns.Ethelred Luke Taunton, The Law of the Church: A Cyclopedia of Canon Law for English-speaking Countries (K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1906), p. 455 The United States called off scheduled plans to send a warship to Morocco to force the sultanate to pay its debts. "The great annual religious festival of the Moors is about to begin", reported The New York Times, referring to Ramadan, adding "it is the height of impropriety for any truly orthodox person to conduct business. The Sultan could not, without risking his soul, pay any debts, or even receive an infidel who came on diplomatic business." The State Department called off the operation until the middle of February."Demand on Morocco Delayed", New York Times, December 9, 1900, p. 1 James Roosevelt, American business executive, 72, and father to Franklin D. Roosevelt died while his 18-year-old son was away as a student at Harvard University.Janice Pottker, Sara and Eleanor: The Story of Sara Delano Roosevelt and her Daughter-in-law, Eleanor Roosevelt (Macmillan, 2004), p. 88
December 9, 1900 (Sunday) Claude Debussy's first two Nocturnes, "Nuages" and "Fêtes", had their world premiere, performed by the Lamoureux Orchestra as conducted by Camille Chevillard in Paris.Richard Langham Smith, Debussy: Studies (Cambridge University Press, 1997) p. 168
December 10, 1900 (Monday) Carl Jung passed up a career in internal medicine to take up psychiatry, starting a position at the Burgholzli Mental Hospital, as an assistant to Eugen Bleuler.Michael F. Palmer, Freud and Jung on Religion (Routledge, 1997), pp. 88–89 Germany's Admiral Otto von Diederichs presented the Imperial German Navy department with an update on the state of naval planning against the United States, noting that the Imperial German Navy had a numerical advantage over the United States Navy in the number of ships, tonnage and pieces of heavy artillery, both worldwide and in the Atlantic Ocean.Paul Kennedy, The War Plans of the Great Powers 1880–1914 (Routledge, 1979) p. 50
December 11, 1900 (Tuesday) William D. Coleman, the president of Liberia since 1896, resigned under pressure after failing to extend government control further away from the capital. Coleman, a native of Fayette County, Kentucky, was replaced by Secretary of State (and Baltimore native) Garretson W. Gibson.Sir Harry Johnston, Liberia (Huthinson & Co., 1906), pp. 298–99, 378
December 12, 1900 (Wednesday) At a dinner in his honor at the University Club in Manhattan, Charles M. Schwab outlined a vision for a steel company that would handle everything from mining coal and iron, to the sale of steel products. J. P. Morgan was intrigued enough that he joined, along with Andrew Carnegie, John Warne Gates and other industrialists, in creating U.S. Steel. The city of Washington, D.C., marked its centennial as the nation's capital with elaborate ceremonies, including a proposed dollar addition to the White House. Born: Mária Telkes, Hungarian physicist, inventor of thermoelectric and solar powered machinery; in Budapest (d. 1995) Sammy Davis Sr., American dancer and father of Sammy Davis Jr.; in Wilmington, North Carolina (d. 1988)
December 13, 1900 (Thursday) Albert Einstein submitted what would become his first published article in an academic journal, "Folgerungen aus der Kapillaritatserscheinungen" ("Deductions from the Phenomena of Capillarity"), to the Annalen der Physik.Ronald William Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (HarperCollins, 1984), p. 66 The paper would be accepted and published on March 1, 1901.Arthur J. Miller, Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty That Causes Havoc (Basic Books, 2008) p. 71 Terry McGovern became undisputed lightweight boxing champion of the world in a bout in Chicago against Joe Gans, knocking him out in the second round, in a fight that many observers thought was fixed.Elliott J. Gorn, Sports in Chicago (University of Illinois Press, 2008) p. 45
December 14, 1900 (Friday) On a date now considered to be the birthday of quantum mechanics, Max Planck presented his paper Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Energieverteilung im Normalspektrum (On the Theory of the Law of Energy Distribution in Normal Spectrum) at a meeting of the German Physical Society in Berlin.Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory: The Quantum Theory of Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Sommerfeld: Its Foundation and the Rise of Its Difficulties 1900–1925 (Springer, 2000), pp. 50–53 The 1899 Hague Convention was revised in Brussels.Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements (Taylor & Francis, 2003), p. 994
December 15, 1900 (Saturday) Soon after Lord Roberts declared that the Second Boer War was over, British troops in South Africa suffered a surprise defeat and the capture of hundreds of their men by the Boer attackers led by General P.H. Kritzinger.Birgit Seibold, Emily Hobhouse and the Reports on the Concentration Camps during the Boer War, 1899–1902: Two Different Perspectives (Columbia University Press, 2011) p. 37 A total of 573 men in four companies of the Northumberland Fusiliers were taken prisoner at the battle of Magaliesberg."British Lost Hundreds", New York Times, December 16, 1900, p1 At Zastron on December 13, 120 British soldiers stationed there were captured by the Boers."More British Captured", New York Times, December 16, 1900, p. 1 In one of the earliest "bad trades" in baseball, the Cincinnati Reds sent rookie pitcher Christy Mathewson to the New York Giants in return for legendary pitcher Amos Rusie. Both were future Hall of Fame stars, one rising (Mathewson went on to win 373 games) and the other falling (Rusie pitched only 22 innings for Cincinnati).Dan Schlossberg, "Trading Players Still A Risky Venture In Majors", Baseball Digest (May 1991), pp. 63–64
December 16, 1900 (Sunday) The German training frigate Gneisenau, with 450 naval cadets on board, sank in a storm during exercises off of the Spanish coast at Málaga, drowning 136."The Loss of the Gneisenau", New York Times, December 18, 1900, p. 1 In Rome, the "Mediterranean Agreement" was signed by France and Italy, providing that if France extended influence in Morocco, it would not oppose Italian occupation of Cyrenaica and Tripoli (now Libya).Dennis E. Showalter, Tannenberg: Clash of Empires (1914, reprinted by Brassey's, 2004) p. 50 George Bernard Shaw's play, Captain Brassbound's Conversion in London.Judith Evans, The Politics and Plays of Bernard Shaw (McFarland, 2002) pp. 44–45 Born: Rudolf Diels, German party official, founder of the Gestapo; in Berghausen, Germany. Diels escaped prosecution after World War II, but died November 18, 1957, in a hunting accident.
December 17, 1900 (Monday) The Guzman Prize, first and only prize ever offered for communication with extraterrestrials, was announced in Paris. A prize of 100,000 francs was provided, except for communication with Mars, which was considered too easy.David Getz, Life on Mars (Macmillan, 2004) p. 9 Ellis Island's processing center reopened, after an 1897 fire. The Kaiser Wilhelm III brought 654 Italian immigrants, who were first of the 2,251 who come through on that day.John T. Cunningham, Ellis Island: Immigration's Shining Center (Arcadia Publishing, 2003) p. 64
December 18, 1900 (Tuesday)