This Year in History:
1900
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Recognized for heroically protecting the American flag during the Civil War, Army Sgt. William Harvey Carney receives the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, on May 23, 1900. The first Black American service member to earn the award, Carney was born into slavery in Virginia in 1840. Although a handful of other Black […]
For nearly a month beginning June 17, 1900, future President Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou are caught in the middle of the Boxer Rebellion in China, when the community of foreigners they lived in, in the city of Tianjin, is besieged and under attack. After marrying in Monterey, California, on February 10, 1899, Herbert […]
On June 20, 1900, Chinese nationalists behind the so-called Boxer Rebellion occupy the capital city of Peking (later Beijing), kill several Westerners—including German ambassador Baron von Ketteler—and besiege the foreign legations in the diplomatic quarter of the city. The occupation would last 55 days. In response to widespread foreign encroachment upon China’s national affairs, the […]
Warren Earp, the youngest of the famous clan of gun fighting brothers, is murdered in an Arizona saloon. Nicholas and Virginia Earp raised a family of five sons and four daughters on a series of farms in Illinois and Iowa. Three of the Earps’ sons grew up to win lasting infamy. On October 26, 1881, […]
In Monza, Italy, King Umberto I is shot to death by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who resided in America before returning to his homeland to murder the king. Crowned in 1878, King Umberto became increasingly authoritarian in the late 19th century. He enacted a program of suppression against the radical elements in Italian society, […]
One of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history hits Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killing more than 6,000 people. The storm caused so much destruction on the Texas coast that reliable estimates of the number of victims are difficult to make. Some believe that as many as 12,000 people perished, which would make it […]
On November 8, 1900, Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind (1936), is born in Atlanta, Georgia. Mitchell worked as a journalist for the Atlanta Journal for six years. She quit after an ankle injury limited her mobility, and she devoted herself to her novel about the South during and after the Civil War. […]
On November 22, 1900, the first car to be produced under the Mercedes name is taken for its inaugural drive in Cannstatt, Germany. The car was specially built for its buyer, Emil Jellinek, an entrepreneur with a passion for fast, flashy cars. Jellinek had commissioned the Mercedes car from the German company Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft: it was […]
German physicist Max Planck publishes his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a “blackbody” substance, and the quantum theory of modern physics is born. Through physical experiments, Planck demonstrated that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter. According to theories of classical physics, energy is solely a continuous wave-like phenomenon, […]
Prohibitionist Carry Nation smashes up the bar at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kansas, causing several thousand dollars in damage and landing in jail. Nation, who was released shortly after the incident, became famous for carrying a hatchet and wrecking saloons as part of her anti-alcohol crusade. Carry Amelia Moore was born in Kentucky in […]
