The following events occurred in July 1904:
July 1, 1904 (Friday) In Leverkusen, Germany, employees of the paint factories formerly known as Friedrich Bayer and Co. founded the Turn- und Spielverein der Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. in Leverkusen sports club, the predecessor of the Bayer 04 Leverkusen association football club. Captain G. H. Metcalf, a professional diver from Philadelphia, drowned after his diving helmet became displaced while working on deepening the channel of the Delaware River off Chester, Pennsylvania. The 1904 Summer Olympics, the third Modern Olympic Games, opened in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, as part of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. David R. Francis, President of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, officially opened the Games. Born: Mary Calderone (born Mary Steichen), American physician, public health advocate; in New York City (d. 1998) Gordon Gunson, English footballer; in Chester, England (d. 1991) Renato Vernizzi, Italian painter; in Parma, Italy (d. 1972) Died: Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, 52, Spanish ambassador to the United States, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. George Frederic Watts, 87, British symbolist painter and sculptor, died of bronchitis.
July 2, 1904 (Saturday) The 1904 Tour de France began in Paris. Born: René Lacoste, French Olympic tennis player and businessman; in Paris, France (d. 1996) Erik Lundin, Swedish chess master; in Stockholm, Sweden (d. 1988) František Plánička, Czech footballer; in Prague, Austria-Hungary (d. 1996) Frank Southall (born William Frank Southall), English Olympic racing cyclist; in Wandsworth, England (d. 1964) Carl Weinrich, American organist; in Paterson, New Jersey (d. 1991) Died: Eugénie Joubert, 28, French Roman Catholic religious professed and blessed, died of tuberculosis.
July 3, 1904 (Sunday) About 24 people died when fire consumed the engine and first three coaches of a Wabash Railroad train that struck a freight train in Litchfield, Illinois. Many of the train's passengers were delegates on their way to the 1904 Democratic National Convention in St. Louis. Canadian circus performer and giant Édouard Beaupré, 23, collapsed and died of a pulmonary haemorrhage due to tuberculosis during a show at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Born: Otto Gotsche, German political activist and writer; in Wolferode/Eisleben, Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia, Germany (d. 1985) Died: Theodor Herzl, 44, Austrian founder of Zionism, died of pneumonia due to cardiac sclerosis. John Bell Hatcher, 42, American paleontologist, died of typhoid fever. John O'Meara, 47–48, New Zealand Liberal Party Member of Parliament, died from an obstruction of blood on the brain which caused him to crash his bicycle.
July 4, 1904 (Monday) Piero Ginori Conti tested the world's first geothermal power generator at the Larderello dry steam field in Italy. It was a small generator that lit four light bulbs. Tom Kiely of Ireland won the men's all-around championship at the Olympic Games in St. Louis, Missouri, with American athletes Adam Gunn and Truxton Hare in second and third place. Born: Irène Aïtoff, French pianist and vocal coach; in Saint-Cast-le-Guildo, Côtes-du-Nord, France (d. 2006) Angela Baddeley (born Madeleine Angela Clinton-Baddeley), English actress; in West Ham, Essex, England (d. 1976) Rens Vis, Dutch Olympic footballer; in the Netherlands (d. 1993) Died: Bódog Czorda, 75, Hungarian politician Sir William Henry Rattigan, KC, 61, British Member of Parliament, was killed in a traffic collision.
July 5, 1904 (Tuesday) In Scooba, Mississippi, Albert Rea, an African American man, was lynched for the alleged attempted rape of an 18-year-old woman. Lightning sparked a major fire in Charlestown, Boston, Massachusetts, which destroyed a grain elevator and three freight houses of the Boston and Maine Railroad, caused three deaths by drowning and resulted in over $1,000,000 in damage. The fatalities were sailors from the Allan Line steamship Austria, the crew of which jumped overboard when the fire spread to their vessel. Born: Ernst Mayr, German-born biologist and author; in Kempten, Bavaria, Germany (d. 2005) Harold Acton, British writer, scholar, and aesthete; at Villa La Pietra, near Florence, Italy (d. 1994) Antonio Busini, Italian professional footballer and coach; in Padua, Kingdom of Italy (d. 1975) (some sources give date of birth as January 5, 1904) Eugenia Clinchard, American child actress; in Alameda County, California (d. 1989) Michael McLaverty, Irish novelist and short story writer; in Magheross (near Carrickmacross), County Monaghan, Ireland (d. 1992) Stanford Robinson, English conductor and composer; in Leeds, England (d. 1984) Franz Runge, Austrian footballer; in Klosterneuburg, Austria (d. 1975) Milburn Stone, American actor; in Burrton, Kansas (d. 1980) Franz Syberg, Danish composer; in Kerteminde, Funen, Denmark (d. 1955) Died: Joseph Evans, 67, British-born Australian politician Franz Martin Hilgendorf, 64, German zoologist and paleontologist, died of a gastric illness. Amelia Robertson Hill, 83, Scottish artist and sculptor
July 6, 1904 (Wednesday) British troops in Tibet stormed the Gyantse Dzong. British Indian Army officer John Duncan Grant would receive the Victoria Cross for his actions during the assault.
The 1904 Democratic National Convention opened in the Coliseum of the St. Louis Exposition and Music Hall in St. Louis, Missouri. In Clinton, Oklahoma Territory, a waterspout killed two women and three children. Born: Erik Wickberg, General of The Salvation Army; in Gävle, Sweden (d. 1996) Died: Joseph Horace Lewis, 79, Confederate States Army brigadier general, member of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky Abai Qunanbaiuly, 58, Kazakh poet Kandathil Varghese Mappillai, 46–47, Indian journalist, translator and publisher, editor of Malayala Manorama
July 7, 1904 (Thursday) Large crowds of Jews from many countries attended Theodor Herzl's funeral in Vienna. 6000 people followed the hearse to Herzl's burial at the cemetery in Döbling. Herzl would be reinterred in 1949 on the hill in West Jerusalem now known as Mount Herzl. In France, the government of Émile Combes ratified the law of 7 July 1904, prohibiting religious congregations from teaching and strengthening the secularization of education. Born: Nick Connor, American politician; in Gadsden, Alabama (d. 1995) Manuela de Jesús Arias Espinosa, Mexican Roman Catholic religious professed and blessed; in Ixtlán del Río, Nayarit, Mexico (d. 1981) Died: Adolph Friedländer, 53, German lithographer Charles Page Thomas Moore, 73, American lawyer and judge
July 8, 1904 (Friday) Born: Vladimir Belokurov, Russian and Soviet actor and pedagogue; in Nizhny Uslon, Sviyazhsky Uyezd, Kazan Governorate, Russian Empire (d. 1973) Henri Cartan, French mathematician; in Nancy, France (d. 2008) Bill Challis, American jazz arranger; in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (d. 1994) Roger Motz, Belgian mining engineer and politician; in Schaerbeek, Belgium (d. 1964) Died: Joseph Blanc, 58, French painter
July 9, 1904 (Saturday) OGC Nice was founded as the Gymnaste Club de Nice in Nice, France. Pitcher Hiram Williamson of the Providence, Maryland, baseball team was struck in the head by a pitch while at bat in a game at Cherry Hill, Maryland. He would die of his injuries on July 11 at the age of 23. Born: Carlota Jaramillo (born María Isabel Carlota Jaramillo), Ecuadorian pasillo singer; in Calacalí, Pichincha Province, Ecuador (d. 1987, cerebral trauma after fall) Heinz Jost, German SS official and Holocaust perpetrator; in Homberg-Holzhausen, German Empire (d. 1964) Ernst Küppers, German Olympic backstroke swimmer; in Viersen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (d. 1976) Hideo Oguni, Japanese screenwriter; in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture (d. 1996) Otto Wahl, German Olympic cross-country skier; in Zella-Mehlis, Thuringia, Germany (d. 1935, brain disease) Robert Whitney, American composer and conductor; in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England (d. 1986) Died: Bersan, 21–22, American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse
July 10, 1904 (Sunday) The 1904 Democratic National Convention adjourned at 1:30 a.m., having nominated Judge Alton B. Parker of New York for President of the United States and Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia for Vice President. In Houston, Mississippi, Jesse Tucker, an African American man, was lynched before daybreak for an alleged assault on a white woman the previous night. The same morning, the coroner's jury delivered their verdict on Tucker's death while standing on the railroad bridge from which his body hung: "We, the jury, find that the deceased, Jesse Tucker, came to his death by hanging at the hands of unknown parties." Sixteen residents of Hoboken, Jersey City and New York City were killed, and about 50 injured, when a passenger train collided with their excursion train in Midvale, New Jersey. Born: Haim Ben-Asher (born Haim Finkel), Israeli politician; in Odessa, Russia (d. 1998) Jules Herremans, Belgian Olympic javelin thrower (d. 1974) Iša Krejčí, Czech neoclassical composer, conductor and dramaturge; in Prague, Austria-Hungary (d. 1968) Tom Tippett, English footballer; in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England (d. 1997) Died: José Toral y Velázquez, 71, Spanish Army general
July 11, 1904 (Monday) The inaugural Mount Washington Hillclimb Auto Race began at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and would conclude on July 12. Born: Helmut Grunsky, German mathematician; in Aalen, Kingdom of Württemberg, Germany (d. 1986) Leland John Haworth, American particle physicist; in Flint, Michigan (d. 1979) Died: Frederic Dan Huntington, 85, American clergyman, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York. Huntington's son, George P. Huntington, a professor of Hebrew, died of slow fever on the same day.
July 12, 1904 (Tuesday) John Sinclair, a British Member of Parliament, married Lady Marjorie Gordon in London. Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated at the wedding ceremony. American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) and his daughters arrived in New York City with the body of Clemens' wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, who had died in Italy on June 5. Born: Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, Nobel Prize laureate; in Parral, Chile (d. 1973) Pinhas Lavon, Israeli politician; in Kopychyntsi, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary (d. 1976) Edward Max Nicholson, English ornithologist and environmentalist; in Kilternan, Ireland (d. 2003) Boris Rohdendorf, Soviet entomologist and curator (d. 1977) Died: Samuel M. Jones, 57, Welsh-born Mayor of Toledo, Ohio, died of a lung abscess caused by asthma. Hendrik Dirk Kruseman van Elten, 74, Dutch artist
July 13, 1904 (Wednesday) Jockey George Green fractured his skull in a fall on the track at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. He would die of his injuries on July 17. The National Association of Colored Women met for its second session in a church in downtown St. Louis. The meeting had been scheduled to take place on the World's Fair grounds but was moved in accordance with a resolution introduced by Margaret Murray Washington, who objected to discrimination against African Americans by exposition officials. Twenty-two people returning to Chicago from a Sunday school picnic were killed when their passenger train collided with a freight train on the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad between Chicago Heights and Glenwood, Illinois. Born: Jim Burrows, New Zealand teacher, sportsman, administrator, and military leader; in Prebbleton, New Zealand (d. 1991) Luigi Capuano, Italian film director and screenwriter; in Naples, Italy (d. 1979) Robert Minton, American Olympic bobsledder and stockbroker; in Lawrence, Nassau County, New York (d. 1974) Died: Lemuel Moss, 74, American theologian, president of Indiana University