1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1899th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 899th year of the 2nd millennium, the 99th year of the 19th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1890s decade. As of the start of 1899, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Contents
Events
January
January 1
Spanish rule formally ends in Cuba with the cession of Spanish sovereignty to the U.S., concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas.
In Samoa, followers of Mataafa, claimant to the rule of the island's subjects, burn the town of Upolu in an ambush of followers of other claimants, Malietoa Tanus and Tamasese, who are evacuated by the British warship HMS Porpoise.
Theodore Roosevelt is inaugurated as Governor of New York at the age of 39.
January 3 – A treaty of alliance is signed between Russia and Afghanistan.
January 5 –
A fierce battle is fought between American troops and Filipino defenders at the town of Pililla on the island of Luzon.
The collision of a British steamer and a French steamer kills 12 people on the English Channel.
January 6 – Baron Curzon takes office as the Governor-General of British India.
January 7 – Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Philippine insurrection against the U.S. occupation, issues a proclamation calls on Filipinos to continue the fight for liberty. President McKinley dispatches USS Princeton and USS Yorktown to Manila.
January 8 – The Association football club SK Rapid Wien is founded in Vienna.
January 9 –
After a successful revolt against the Ottoman Empire by the inhabitants of the island of Crete, the area, which joins Greece, gets its first constitution.
February
February 1
Ranavalona III, who had been the Queen of Madagascar until being deposed on February 28, 1897, is sent into exile by English colonial authorities, along with the rest of the royal family.
The Suntory whisky distiller and worldwide alcoholic and soft drink brand of Japan is established by Shinjiro Torii in Osaka as a store selling imported wines.
February 2 –
The participants in the Australian Premiers' Conference agree that Australia's capital (Canberra) should be located between Sydney and Melbourne.
The Tsar of Russia donates $500,000 for the relief of famine suffered by peasants in the Empire.
February 4 – The Philippine–American War begins as hostilities break out in Manila.
February 5 – The first major battle of the Philippine–American War concludes with the capture by the U.S. of the San Juan River Bridge that connects Manila and San Juan.
February 6 –
By a vote of 57 to 27, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain is ratified by the United States Senate to end the Spanish–American War.
An investigation by the U.S. government determines that more than 10,000 cans of meat that had been purchased for use by troops in Cuba had been rancid.
February 7 – Following conviction at court-martial for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman" arising from his accusations against Major General Nelson A. Miles, U.S. Commissioner General Charles P. Eagan is suspended from duty for six years by President McKinley.
March
March 1 – Juan Lindolfo Cuestas resumes office as President of Uruguay after stepping down for 24 days to allow Senate President José Batlle y Ordóñez to serve as acting president.
March 2 – Mount Rainier National Park is established in the U.S. state of Washington.
March 3 – Guglielmo Marconi conducts radio beacon experiments on Salisbury Plain and notices that radio waves are being reflected back to the transmitter by objects they encounter, one of the early steps in the development of radar.
March 4 –
Cyclone Mahina strikes Bathurst Bay, Queensland. A 12-meter-high wave reaches up to 5 km inland, leaving over 400 dead (one of the deadliest natural disasters in Australia's history).
Francisco Silvela forms a new cabinet as Prime Minister of Spain, replacing the government of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta.
March 6 – In Berlin, Felix Hoffmann patents Aspirin and Bayer registers its name as a trademark.
March 8 – The Frankfurter Fußball-Club Victoria von 1899 (predecessor of Eintracht Frankfurt) is founded.
March 9 – The Senate of the state of Utah adjourns its attempts to elect a new U.S. Senator, after having voted 149 times without a candidate reaching the necessary majority. The term of Frank J. Cannon expired on March 3. Although Alfred W. McCone had come within two votes of getting the necessary 32 required for a majority, his support failed when state representative Albert A. Law claimed the McCone had offered him a bribe to change his vote.
March 10 – At the Battle of Balantang, the U.S. Army sustains 400 casualties in an attack by Philippine troops.
March 11
April
April 1 – The Second Battle of Vailele takes place in Samoa as rebels loyal to King Mata'afa Iosefo force the retreat of American and British troops loyal to Prince Tanumafili.
April 4 –
Cuba's General Assembly votes to disband the Cuban army and to dissolve to accept U.S. sovereignty.
The British Antarctic Expedition reports discovery of new land in the Weddell Sea at a latitude of 71 36" S.
April 5 – A team of prospectors sets out from Northern Rhodesia to explore the minerals of central Africa for the British company Tanganyika Concessions (TCL). Discovering that the most valuable copper deposits are in the Congo Free State, TCL makes an unsuccessful attempt to purchase full rights from King Leopold of Belgium.
April 6 – Services are held at Arlington National Cemetery for the burial of 336 American soldiers who died in Cuba and Puerto Rico.
April 7 –
The Shootout at Wilson Ranch, the last major gunfight of the Wild West era in the U.S., takes place in Tombstone, Arizona. Brothers William Halderman and Thomas Halderman, kill two lawmen. They will be hanged on November 16, 1900.
Marconi's wireless system is successfully tested across the English Channel during a thunderstorm.
April 8 – A flood caused by the collapse of an ice gorge in the Yellowstone River drowns 12 people near Glendive, Montana.
April 9
In Uganda, King Chwa II Kabalega of the Bunyoro kingdom, a leader of the fight against British colonial occupation, is taken prisoner after being shot in a battle near Hoima. Kabalega is exiled to the Seychelles and remains there until 1923.
May
May 1 –
Britain's Prime Minister announces in the House of Commons that the government has not been able to reach an agreement with Cecil Rhodes on plans for a Cape Town to Cairo railroad across Africa.
The natural gas companies of New York City cut prices by 60% from $1.25 to 50 cents per 1,000 cubic feet.
May 2 – The Kingdom of Siam (modern-day Thailand) cedes its province of Luang Prabang (now Laos) to France.
May 3 –
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899: U.S. troops arrive at Wardner, Idaho, and arrest hundreds of suspected rioters.
The Ferencvárosi TC Association football club is founded in Budapest.
May 4 – German inventor John Matthias Stroh applies for the patent for his new invention, the "Stroh violin". A British patent is granted on March 24, 1900.
May 8 – In the French West African colony of Niger, Paul Voulet massacres the Hausa inhabitants of the village of Birni-N'Konni in retaliation for the continued resistance of Queen Sarraounia.
May 9 – The sultanate of Morocco settles the claims of the U.S. against it, and the cruiser USS Chicago departs from Tangier.
May 10 – Finnish farmworker Karl Emil Malmelin kills seven people with an axe at the Simola croft in the village of Klaukkala.
May 11 –Pope Leo XIII declares that 1900 will be a jubilee year.
May 13
A train wreck near Reading, Pennsylvania kills 28 people and injures 50.
June
June 2 – American outlaws Robert L. Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry A. Longabaugh ("The Sundance Kid") commit their first armed robbery as "The Wild Bunch", stopping a Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Wyoming, with accomplices Harvey Logan and Elzy Lay, and steal more than $30,000 worth of cargo.
June 3
Dreyfus affair: France's Court of Cassation orders a reopening of the 1894 conviction for treason of French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus after evidence of a wrongful conviction is made public, and directs that Dreyfus be returned to France after five years of imprisonment on Devil's Island.
The United States and Spain resume diplomatic relations, as U.S. President McKinley receives the Duke of Arcos as the new Minister for Spain.
June 5 – General Antonio Luna, Commander of the Philippine Republican Army, is assassinated along with his chief aide, Colonel Paco Román, after being lured to Cabanatuan by President Emilio Aguinaldo.
June 9 – American boxer James J. Jeffries wins the world heavyweight boxing championship when he knocks out Cornish-born Bob Fitzsimmons at Coney Island, New York.
June 10 – Under the terms of the Samoa Tripartite Convention, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States form a colonial government to administer a protectorate over the islands of Samoa. The government lasts less than nine months, and Germany annexes the western part of Samoa on March 1, 1900, leaving the U.S. to control what becomes American Samoa.
June 11 – Pope Leo XIII issues a declaration of the consecration of the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The consecration follows the issuance of his papal encyclical Annum sacrum, declaring 1900 to be a Holy Year and directing all Roman Catholic churches in the world to implement the Prayer of Consecration to the Sacred Heart during the period of June 9 to June 11, 1899.
June 12 – The New Richmond tornado completely destroys the town of New Richmond, Wisconsin, killing 117 and injuring more than 200.
July
July 1
The International Council of Nurses is founded in London.
The German domestic appliance company Miele is founded.
July 3 – Swiss-born American boxer Frank Erne wins the world lightweight championship by defeating champion George "Kid" Lavigne in Buffalo, New York.
July 4 – The most famous skeleton of a dinosaur ever found intact, a diplodocus, is discovered at the Sheep Creek Quarry near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The expedition team, financed by Andrew Carnegie for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and led by William Harlow Reed, bestows the name "Dippy" on the Diplodocus carnegii. It becomes well known after Carnegie has plaster cast replicas made for donation to museums all over the world.
July 5 – The 1895 Trade and Navigation agreement between the Japanese and Russian empires goes into effect, with each country was given "a full freedom of ship and cargo entrance to all places, ports, and rivers on the other country's territory."
July 7 – The Great Lakes Towing Company is incorporated by John D. Rockefeller and William G. Mather to acquire more than 150 tugboats to control shipping in four of the North American Great Lakes and quickly builds a monopoly on Great Lakes traffic.
July 8 – The Lorelei Fountain is unveiled in The Bronx in New York City.
July 10 – British colonial authorities in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan give control of the Red Sea port of Suakin to Sudan, after having agreed that Egypt would have the right to administer commerce there.
July 11 – In Turin, Giovanni Agnelli and eight investors form the Italian automobile manufacturer F.I.A.T., producers of the Fiat motor vehicles.
July 12 – The British freight ship City of York sinks after striking reefs at Rottnest Island, due to a misunderstanding of signal flare fired from the island's lighthouse. The ship, which was nearing the end of a voyage from San Francisco to Fremantle, Western Australia, evacuates its men in two lifeboats, but one of the boats overturns and 11 men, including the captain, drown.
August
August 3 – The John Marshall Law School is founded in Chicago.
August 4 – Japan rescinds its policy of extraterritoriality privileges to western nations that had operated consular courts to try cases against western nationals under western law.
August 5 – Automotive mechanic Henry Ford incorporates the Detroit Automobile Company. While the company failed, it establishes Detroit, Michigan, as the site for U.S. car manufacturing and provided a model for the Ford Motor Company.
August 6 – Near Stratford, Connecticut, 36 people are killed when a trolley falls off of a trestle and lands upside down in a pond 40 feet below.
August 7
Dreyfus affair: The retrial of French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus before a court-martial opens.
Governance of the island of Guam, under the administration of the United States Department of the Navy, begins.
August 8 – The San Ciriaco hurricane strikes Puerto Rico and leaves 250,000 people homeless. The official death toll is later listed as 3,369 people.
August 10 – Marshall "Major" Taylor wins the world 1-mile (1.6 km) professional cycling championship in Montreal, securing his place as the first African American world champion in any sport.
August 12 – South African Republic General Jan Smuts makes a final initiative to avert the outbreak of what will become the Second Boer War, meeting in Pretoria with the British chargé d'affaires, Conyngham Greene.
August 13 – The battle for the Philippine city of Angeles begins. The U.S. captures the area, the future site of Clark Air Force Base, by August 16.
September
September 5 – General Horacio Vasquez, leader of a revolution against the Dominican Republic's President Wenceslao Figuereo, arrives at the capital, Santo Domingo and forms a provisional government.
September 9 – Dreyfus affair: In the retrial of his court-martial, Alfred Dreyfus is again found guilty of treason and sentenced to serve the remaining 10 years of his prison sentence on Devils Island, notwithstanding that the real culprit has previously admitted to his actions.
September 11 – Northern Arizona University is founded in Flagstaff, as Northern Arizona Normal School.
September 13
Halford Mackinder, Cesar Ollier and Josef Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian, the highest peak of Mount Kenya.
The French Army invades the Sultanate of Zinder in Niger and kills the ruler, Amadou Kouran Daga.
September 14 – General Cipriano Castro defeats the Venezuelan Army at the battle of Tocuyito and prepares to march to Caracas to overthrow President Ignacio Andrade.
September 15 – Preparing for an attack on Britain's Cape Colony from the neighboring Transvaal Republic, Robert Baden-Powell arrives at the border town of Mafeking and begins recruiting volunteers and stockpiling munitions to prepare for an attack and siege.
September 19
Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus is pardoned in France by the Ministry of War. He is released from prison at Rennes the following day but not fully exonerated until 1906.
The patent for the first water meter is granted to Edwin Ford.
September 21
October
October 1 – Possession of the Mariana Islands is formally transferred from Spain to Germany, which purchased the archipelago (with the exception of Guam) from Spain for 837,500 German gold marks and become part of German New Guinea.
October 3 – The boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana is resolved by a binding award from the International Tribunal of Arbitration of five neutral jurists agreed upon by the United Kingdom and the United Venezuelan States.
October 8 – The South African Republic telegraphs a three-day ultimatum to the U.K., demanding an arbitration of issues and a pullback of troops from the borders between the Republic and the adjoining Cape Colony, Natal and Bechuanaland by October 11.
October 10 – The French Sudan is divided into two smaller administrative units, Middle Niger (which later becomes the nations of Niger and Gambia) and Upper Senegal (which becomes the nations of Senegal and Mali)
October 11 – In South Africa, the Second Boer War between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State begins as the Boers invade the British colony of Natal.
October 13 – The Second Boer War extends into the British Bechuanaland Protectorate (modern-day Botswana) as the siege of Mafeking begins.
October 14 – The Boer invasion of the Cape Colony begins with the siege of Kimberley.
October 15 – French Army officer Ferdinand de Béhagle is put to death by Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, prompting a French expedition to be led against Rabih.
October 17 – The Thousand Days' War begins in Colombia as Colombian Liberal Party soldiers led by General Rafael Uribe Uribe, with support from Venezuela, begin a fight against the government of National Party president Manuel Antonio Sanclemente. The war will continue for 1,130 days.
November
November 2 – The siege of Ladysmith begins as armies of the two Boer republics cut telegraph lines connecting Ladysmith to the British colony, and try over the next 118 days to starve out the British force. The British defenders will hold the fort without surrendering, until the siege is broken on February 28, 1900 by a force led by Redvers Buller.
November 4 – The Alpha Sigma Tau sorority is founded in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
November 5
The U.S. Army wins the battle to capture the Philippine Republic's capital at Angeles City, after nearly three months of fighting. It also captures the Philippine stronghold of Magalang.
The Belgian Antarctic Expedition is concluded.
November 6 – The Boers begin the shelling of the British settlement at Mafeking.
November 7
Representatives of the U.S., the UK and Germany sign a treaty for arbitration of Samoa's claims for damages, with King Oscar of Sweden and Norway agreeing to become the neutral arbitrator.
Joshua Lionel Cohen is awarded a U.S. patent for the flash-lamp.
(October 26 Old Style) – Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya receives its Russian metropolitan première at the Moscow Art Theatre.
November 8 – The Bronx Zoological Park opens in New York City.
November 9 – The Boer attack on Ladysmith is repulsed by British artillery, with the Boers sustaining 800 killed and wounded.
November 11 – The Battle of San Jacinto is fought in the Philippines. The battle demonstrates the limitations to the heavy, wheel-mounted Gatling gun, in uneven territory.
December
December 2
Philippine–American War – Battle of Tirad Pass ("The Filipino Thermopylae"): General Gregorio del Pilar and his troops are able to guard the retreat of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo, before being wiped out.
During the new moon, a near-grand conjunction of the classical planets and several binocular Solar System bodies occur. The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Saturn are all within 15° of each other, with Venus 5° ahead of this conjunction and Jupiter 15° behind.
December 9 – An explosion kills 32 coal miners at the Carbon Hill mines in Carbonado, Washington.
December 10
Four-month-old Sobhuza II begins his 82-year reign as King of Swaziland.
Battle of Stormberg: The British Army makes a disastrous attempt to surprise the Boer position in Natal and suffers 687 losses.
The college fraternity Delta Sigma Phi is founded at the City College of New York.
December 11 – Second Boer War: Battle of Magersfontein – Boers defeat British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
December 13 – General French routs Boer troops that had been advancing into the Cape Colony toward Noupoort.
December 15
Battle of Colenso: Britain's General Buller loses 1,097 officers and men in Natal, the third serious British reverse in South Africa in this "Black Week".
Glasgow School of Art, the most notable work of Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, opens.
Date unknown
Riro, last of the Kings of Easter Island, on a visit to Valparaíso, Chile, dies either from alcohol poisoning, or an assassination plot by the Chilean government.
Oxo beef stock cubes are introduced, by Liebig's Extract of Meat Company.
Giros-Loucheur Group, predecessor of Vinci, a worldwide construction and infrastructure industry, founded in France.
Timken Roller Bearing Company, predecessor of worldwide parts brand Timken, is founded in Missouri.
The 1899–1923 cholera pandemic begins, spreading to Europe, Asia and Africa.
A particularly severe flood hits many water areas in Finland. The water level of many lakes, such as lake Saimaa, reach extraordinary heights, which are marked on the coastal cliffs to this day. In Finland the flood is called the Oathbreaker's flood because it coincided with severe dissatisfaction with the emperor Nicholas II among the Finns.
Births
January
January 1 – Jack Beresford, British Olympic rower (d. 1977)
January 6 – Heinrich Nordhoff, German automotive engineer (d. 1968)
January 7 – Francis Poulenc, French composer (d. 1963)
January 8 – S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, 4th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (d. 1959)
January 11 – Eva Le Gallienne, English actress (d. 1991)
January 12 – Paul Hermann Müller, Swiss chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1965)
January 14 – Carlos P. Romulo, Filipino diplomat (d. 1985)
January 15 – Goodman Ace, American actor, comedian and writer (d. 1982)
January 17
Al Capone, American gangster (d. 1947)
Nevil Shute, English-born novelist (d. 1960)
January 21 – John Bodkin Adams, British physician acquitted of murder (d. 1983)
January 23 – Tom Denning, Baron Denning, English lawyer, judge and Master of the Rolls (d. 1999)
January 25 – Paul-Henri Spaak, 31st Prime Minister of Belgium and 2nd secretary general of NATO (d. 1972)
January 27 – Béla Guttmann, Hungarian-born Association football coach (d. 1981)
February
February 3
Café Filho, 18th President of Brazil (d. 1970)
Lao She, Chinese author (d. 1966)
Doris Speed, British actress (d. 1994)
Mildred Trotter, American forensic anthropologist (d. 1991)
February 6 – Ramon Novarro, Mexican-born American actor (k. 1968)
February 10 – Cevdet Sunay, 5th President of Turkey (d. 1982)
February 15
Georges Auric, French composer (d. 1983)
Lillian Disney, American artist (d. 1997)
Gale Sondergaard, American actress (d. 1985)
February 17 – Jibanananda Das, Indian poet, writer, novelist and essayist in Bengali (d. 1954)
February 18 – Sir Arthur Bryant, British historian (d. 1985)
February 22
Joseph Le Brix, French aviator, naval officer (d. 1931)
Ian Clunies Ross, Australian scientist (d. 1959)
February 23 – Erich Kästner, German writer (d. 1974)
February 24 – Mikhail Gromov, Soviet aviator (d. 1985)
February 26 – Alec Campbell, Australian WWI soldier, last Australian Gallipoli veteran (d. 2002)
March
March 8
Eric Linklater, British author (d. 1974)
Elmer Keith, American rancher, author, and firearms enthusiast (d. 1984)
March 11 – King Frederik IX of Denmark (d. 1972)
March 13 – John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1980)
March 21 – Panagiotis Pipinelis, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1970)
March 24 – Dorothy C. Stratton, American director of the SPARS during World War II (d. 2006)
March 25 – Burt Munro, New Zealand motorcycle racer (d. 1978)
March 27 – Gloria Swanson, American actress (d. 1983)
March 28
Gussie Busch, American founder of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery Company (d. 1989)
Harold B. Lee, 11th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1973)
March 29 – Lavrentiy Beria, Soviet official (d. 1953)
April
April 7 – Robert Casadesus, French pianist (d. 1972)
April 9 – Hans Jeschonnek, German general (d. 1943)
April 11 – Percy Lavon Julian, American scientist (d. 1975)
April 16 – Osman Achmatowicz, Polish chemist (d. 1988)
April 19 – George O'Brien, American actor (d. 1985)
April 20 – Alan Arnett McLeod, Canadian soldier, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1918)
April 22 – Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born American writer (d. 1977)
April 23 – Bertil Ohlin, Swedish economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
April 24 – Oscar Zariski, Russian mathematician (d. 1986)
April 27 – Walter Lantz, American animator, creator of Woody Woodpecker (d. 1994)
April 29 – Duke Ellington, African-American jazz musician, bandleader (d. 1974)
May
May 3 – Aline MacMahon, American actress (d. 1991)
May 8 – Friedrich Hayek, Austrian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1992)
May 10 – Fred Astaire, American singer, dancer and actor (d. 1987)
May 12 – Indra Devi, Baltic-born yogi and actress (d. 2002)
May 17 – Anita Conti, French-Armenian explorer, photographer, first female oceanographer in France (d. 1997)
May 20 – John Marshall Harlan II, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1971)
May 24
Suzanne Lenglen, French tennis player (d. 1938)
Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bangladeshi national poet (d. 1976)
May 30 – Irving Thalberg, American film producer (d. 1936)
June
June 2 – Lotte Reiniger, German-born silhouette animator (d. 1981)
June 3 – Georg von Békésy, Hungarian biophysicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1972)
June 10 – Ruth Poll, American lyricist and music publisher (d. 1955)
June 11 – Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1972)
June 12 – Fritz Albert Lipmann, German-born American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1986)
June 13 – Carlos Chávez, Mexican composer (d. 1978)
June 16 – Helen Traubel, American soprano (d. 1972)
June 24 – Bruce Marshall, Scottish writer (d. 1987)
June 25 – Arthur Tracy, American singer (d. 1997)
June 26 – Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (d. 1918)
June 27 – Juan Trippe, American airline pioneer, entrepreneur (d. 1981)
June 30
Madge Bellamy, American actress (d. 1990)
František Tomášek, Czechoslovak cardinal and archbishop (d. 1992)
July
July 1
Thomas A. Dorsey, American musician (d. 1993)
Charles Laughton, English-American stage, film actor (d. 1962)
Konstantinos Tsatsos, President of Greece (d. 1987)
July 4 – Austin Warren, American literary critic. (d. 1986)
July 5 – Marcel Achard, French playwright, scriptwriter (d. 1974)
July 6 – Susannah Mushatt Jones, American supercentenarian, last remaining American born in the 19th century and world's oldest living person (d. 2016)
July 7
George Cukor, American film director (d. 1983)
Jesse Wallace, American naval officer, 29th Governor of American Samoa (d. 1961)
July 11 – E. B. White, American writer (d. 1985)
July 12 – E. D. Nixon, African-American civil rights leader and union organizer (d. 1987)
July 15 – Seán Lemass, Taoiseach of Ireland (d. 1971)
July 16 – Božidar Jakac, Slovene painter, photographer and filmmaker. (d. 1989)
July 17 – James Cagney, American actor and dancer (d. 1986)
July 21
Hart Crane, American poet (suicide 1932)
August
August 4 – Ezra Taft Benson, American religious leader, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1994)
August 9
Paul Kelly, American stage, film actor (d. 1956)
P. L. Travers, Australian-born British author (Mary Poppins) (d. 1996)
August 13 – Alfred Hitchcock, British-born American film director (d. 1980)
August 14 – Alma Reville, English screenwriter, wife of Alfred Hitchcock (d. 1982)
August 16 – Glenn Strange, American actor (d. 1973)
August 19 – Colleen Moore, American actress (d. 1988)
August 24
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (d. 1986)
Albert Claude, Belgian biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1983)
August 26 – Rufino Tamayo, Mexican painter (d. 1991)
August 27
C. S. Forester, English novelist (d. 1966)
Byron Foulger, American actor (d. 1970)
August 28 – Charles Boyer, French actor (d. 1978)
August 29 – Lyman Lemnitzer, American general (d. 1988)
August 31 – Boots Adams, American business magnate, president of Phillips Petroleum Company (d. 1975)
September
September 1 – Andrei Platonov, Russian-born Soviet writer (d. 1951)
September 3 – Macfarlane Burnet, Australian biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1985)
September 8 – May McAvoy, American actress and singer (d. 1984)
September 9 – Brassaï, French photographer (d. 1984)
September 11 – Jimmie Davis, American politician and musician, Governor of Louisiana (d. 2000)
September 13 – Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Romanian fascist politician, leader of the Iron Guard (d. 1938)
September 18 – Ida Kamińska, Polish actress, playwright and translator (d. 1980)
September 23
Tom C. Clark, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1977)
Louise Nevelson, Ukrainian-born American sculptor (d. 1988)
September 24 – Bessie Braddock, British politician (d. 1970)
October
October 1 – Ernest Haycox, American writer (d. 1950)
October 3 – Gertrude Berg, American actress (d. 1966)
October 4 – Franz Jonas, President of Austria (d. 1974)
October 5 – George, Duke of Mecklenburg, head of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1963)
October 8 – Al Sheehan, American entertainment businessman and radio host (d. 1967)
October 9 – Bruce Catton, American Civil War historian, Pulitzer Prize winner (d. 1978)
October 19 – Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
October 24 – László Bíró, Hungarian inventor of the ballpoint pen (d. 1985)
October 29 – Akim Tamiroff, Armenian actor (d. 1972)
November
November 7 – Stanisław Swianiewicz, Polish economist and historian (d. 1997)
November 11 – Pat O'Brien, American actor (d. 1983)
November 13
Vera Caspary, American screenwriter, novelist, playwright (d. 1987)
Iskandar Ali Mirza, 1st president of Pakistan (d. 1969)
November 17 – Douglas Shearer, Canadian-born American film sound engineer (d. 1971)
November 18 – Eugene Ormandy, Hungarian-American conductor (d. 1985)
November 19 – Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, Shia Ayatollah (d. 1992)
November 22 – Hoagy Carmichael, American composer, pianist, singer, actor and bandleader (d. 1981)
November 24 – Soraya Tarzi, Afghan feminist, queen (d. 1968)
November 26
Richard Hauptmann, German murderer of Charles Lindbergh Jr. (d. 1936)
Maurice Rose, American general (d. 1945)
November 29 – Emma Morano, Italian supercentenarian, oldest Italian ever, last surviving person born in the 1800s (d. 2017)
December
December 1 – Tommy Lucchese, American gangster (d. 1967)
December 2 – John Barbirolli, English conductor (d. 1970)
December 3 – Hayato Ikeda, prime minister of Japan (d. 1965)
December 8 – John Qualen, Canadian-American actor (d. 1987)
December 9 – Jean de Brunhoff, French writer (d. 1937)
December 14 – DeFord Bailey, American country musician (d. 1982)
December 15 – Harold Abrahams, British athlete (d. 1978)
December 16
Noël Coward, English actor, playwright and composer (d. 1973)
Aleksander Zawadzki, President of Poland (d. 1964)
December 18 – Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian author and philosopher (d. 1990)
December 19 – Martin Luther King Sr., American Baptist pastor, missionary, and figure in the civil rights movement (d. 1984)
December 20 – John Sparkman, American politician (d. 1985)
December 25
Humphrey Bogart, American actor (d. 1957)
Oscar Polk, American actor (d. 1949)
Frank Ferguson, American actor (d. 1978)
Date unknown
Nureddine Rifai, 25th Prime Minister of Lebanon (d. 1980)
Deaths
January–February
January 1 – William Hugh Smith, 72, Governor of Alabama during Reconstruction, 1868 to 1870, former Alabama legislator who joined the Union Army
January 10
Jonathan B. Turner, 93, U.S. educational reformer and champion of land grant universities, co-founder of the University of Illinois
William A. Russell, 67, U.S. Congressman and industrialist who was the first president of the International Paper Company
January 13 – Nelson Dingley Jr., 66, U.S. politician and Congressman for Maine since 1881, author of the Dingley Act for increased tariffs
January 14 – Nubar Pasha, 74, the first Prime Minister of Egypt (1878–79, 1884–88 and 1894–95)
January 17 – Jedediah Hotchkiss, 70, American military cartographer for the Confederacy during the American Civil War
January 23 – Romualdo Pacheco, 77, the only Hispanic Governor of the U.S. state of California (in 1875); (b. 1831)
January 29 – Alfred Sisley, 59, French impressionist landscape painter, died of throat cancer (b. 1839)
January 30 –Harry Bates, 48, British sculptor (b. 1850)
January 31 – Princess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma, 29, princess consort of Bulgaria, from complications of childbirth (b. 1870)
February 6
Leo von Caprivi, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1831)
March–April
March 3 – William P. Sprague, American politician from Ohio (b. 1827)
March 6 – Princess Kaʻiulani, last monarch of Hawaii (b. 1875)
March 12 – Sir Julius Vogel, Premier of New Zealand (b. 1835)
March 18 – Othniel Charles Marsh, American palaeontologist (b. 1831)
March 20 – Martha M. Place, American murderer, first woman executed in the electric chair (b. 1849)
March 24 – Marie Goegg-Pouchoulin, Swiss national, international women's rights activist, pacifist (b. 1826)
April 1 – Charles C. Carpenter, American admiral (b. 1834)
April 5 – T. E. Ellis, Welsh politician (b. 1859)
April 6 – Garret Parry, Irish piper (b. 1847)
April 7 – Pieter Rijke, Dutch physicist (b. 1812)
April 11 – Lascăr Catargiu, 4-time prime minister of Romania (b. 1823)
April 16 – Emilio Jacinto, Filipino poet, revolutionary (b. 1875)
April 22
Sir John Mowbray, 1st Baronet, British MP and Father of the House of Commons since 1898 (b. 1815)
Johann Köler, Estonian painter (b. 1826)
April 24 – Richard J. Oglesby, U.S. politician, three-time Governor of Illinois for whom the town of Oglesby, Illinois is named (b. 1824)
May–June
May 16 – William Nast, German-born religious leader and founder of the German Methodist Church in the U.S. (b. 1807)
May 19 – Charles R. Buckalew, American politician and diplomat (b. 1821)
May 22 – John Bachmann, Swiss-American lithographer (b. 1817)
May 24 – William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher, British law lord (b. 1817)
May 25 – Emilio Castelar y Ripoll, President of the First Spanish Republic (b. 1832)
June 3 – Johann Strauss Jr., Austrian composer (b. 1825)
June 4 – Eugenio Beltrami, Italian mathematician (b. 1835)
June 5 – Antonio Luna, Filipino general (assassinated) (b. 1866)
June 7 – Augustin Daly, American theatrical impresario, playwright (b. 1838)
June 10 – Ernest Chausson, French composer (b. 1855)
July–August
July 1 – Sir William Flower, British museum curator and surgeon (b. 1831)
July 2 – General Horatio Wright, 79, American engineer, U.S. Army officer in the American Civil War, Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (b. 1820)
July 4 – Sir Alexander Armstrong, 81, Irish-born physician, Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer (b. 1818)
July 10
Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia, 28, Tsarevich and heir to the throne of Russia as younger brother of Nicholas II (b. 1871)
Albert Grévy, French statesman and Governor-General of Algeria 1879-1881 (b. 1823)
July 16
Margaretta Riley, British botanist (b. 1804)
William Preston Johnston, 68, American college administrator and first president of Tulane University (b. 1831)
July 18 – Horatio Alger Jr., American writer (b. 1832)
July 20 – Frances Laughton Mace, American poet (b. 1836)
July 21 – Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician (b. 1833)
July 27 – Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa, German chess-master (b. 1818)
August 4 – Karl, Freiherr von Prel, German philosopher (b. 1839)
August 9
Sir Edward Frankland, British chemist (b. 1825)
September–October
September 2 – Ernest Renshaw, British tennis player (b. 1861)
September 12 – Cornelius Vanderbilt II, American railway magnate (b. 1843)
September 13 – Sarah Warren Keeler, American educator of the deaf-mute (b. 1844)
September 17 – Charles Alfred Pillsbury, American industrialist (b. 1842)
September 28 – Giovanni Segantini, Italian painter (b. 1858)
October 2
Emma Hardinge Britten, British writer (b. 1823)
Percy Pilcher, British aviation pioneer, glider pilot (b. 1866)
October 7 – Deodato Arellano, Filipino Propagandist (b. 1844)
October 14
Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy Waterston, American diarist (b. 1812)
Nicolai Hanson, Norwegian zoologist and Antarctic explorer (b. 1870)
October 22 – Ella Hoag Brockway Avann, American educator (b. 1853)
October 23 – Sir Penn Symons, British general (died of wounds) (b. 1843)
October 25 – Grant Allen, Canadian science writer and novelist (b. 1848)
October 30
Sir Arthur Blomfield, British architect (b. 1829)
November–December
November 16
Vincas Kudirka, Lithuanian doctor, poet and national hero (b. 1858)
Julius Hermann Moritz Busch, German publicist (b. 1821)
November 21 – Garret Hobart, 24th Vice President of the United States (b. 1844)
November 22 – Arthur Morgan, Member of Van der Linde Gang (b.1863)
November 23 – Thomas Henry Ismay, British owner of the White Star Line (b. 1837)
November 24 – Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, Sudanese political, religious leader (killed in battle) (b. 1846)
November 28 – Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione (b. 1837)
December 2 – Gregorio del Pilar, Filipino general (killed in battle) (b. 1875)
December 10 – King Ngwane V of Swaziland (b. 1876)
December 19 – Henry Ware Lawton, American general (killed in action) (b. 1843)
December 22
Pascual Ortega Portales, Chilean painter (b. 1839)
Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist (b. 1837)
Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, British landowner and politician (b. 1825)
December 30
Date unknown
Ellen Morton Littlejohn, American quilter (b. c. 1826)