December 4, 1905: Unpopular British Prime Minister Balfour resigns, replaced by Campbell-Bannerman
December 16, 1905: Wales defeats New Zealand, 3 to 0, in rugby union's "Match of the Century"
The following events occurred in December 1905:
December 1, 1905 (Friday)
Voting was held in the Republic of Cuba for the president and for the 12-member Cuban Senate and the 32-member House of Representatives.[1] After the withdrawal by the Liberal Party of its candidates, President Tomás Estrada Palma was the only person on the ballot for that office, and all of the candidates of his Moderate Party were elected, with the exception of one independent.[2] The election was fraudulent enough that the U.S. Department of War would institute its Platt Amendment powers nine months later to form an occupational government.
Rioting began in British Guiana, the only British colony on the continent of South America, after police in Georgetown fired shots into a crowd of protesters at a plantation.[4] Before the riot was suppressed, seven people were killed and seven seriously injured.[5]
The Philippine Medical School, which would become the University of the Philippines in less than three years, was founded by the U.S.-sponsored Philippine Commission's Act No. 1415.[6]
In Korea, a protectorate of Japan, Son Byong-hi, leader of the Donghak religion, based on Confucianism, modernized the organization to make its operations more transparent and less likely to be prohibited by the Japanese. Son changed the name to Cheondoism.[7]
An explosion at the Diamond Coal and Coke Company near Diamondville, Wyoming killed 18 miners.[8]
Died: James Potter Davenport, 64, American politician and the first public official in the U.S. to be removed from office by a recall election, was killed in a streetcar accident several months after losing his job as a Los Angeles City councilman.[9]
An unknown person in north Philadelphia threw a heavy iron weight at the train taking U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and his guests home to Washington D.C. after the Army-Navy Game played earlier in the day. The attacker apparently hurled the plumb bob in the belief that Roosevelt was riding in the presidential train car. Instead, the projectile showered glass on U.S. Army Major Webb Hayes who, "from a profile view, strongly resembled the President" and was riding in the "Salvius", a train car that "in appearance might have been mistaken very easily for President Roosevelt's private car." Roosevelt's car, however, was at the back of the train. Hayes, riding in the front car, sustained minor cuts from broken glass although the iron missile "narrowly had missed his head."[12]
The Saint Petersburg Soviet, a gathering of anti-government Bolshevik party members from across Russia, was suppressed with the mass arrest of delegates by the Okhrana, the Russian Empire's secret police. Among the delegates arrested were Leon Trotsky and Alexander Bogdanov.[13]
Born: General Francisco Javier Arana, Guatemalan military leader and chairman of the junta that ruled Guatemala in 1944 and 1945; in Villa Canales (assassinated 1949)
Arthur Balfour, the unpopular Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, resigned along with his entire cabinet resigned in hopes that their Conservative Party could retain their majority in the scheduled January 12 parliamentary elections.[15] Balfour would not only see the Conservative Party lose 246 of their 402 seats in the House of Commons, he would lose his own seat in Parliament as well.[16]
The 59th U.S. Congress opened its first session. The Republican Party, which had a 251 to 135 seat advantage over the Democrats in the House of Representatives, re-elected Joe Cannon as Speaker of the House.[17]
The wreck of the Canadian steamer Lunenberg killed 11 of the 17 people aboard, after running aground on the rocks at Cape Breton while trying to travel into Amherst Harbor. Five of the crew took advantage of a chance to be rescued by a fishing boat, while 12 others declined to abandon their ship because there appeared to be little damage. When the group did abandon ship, their lifeboat overturned and only the captain survived.[18]
Russia's government averted a nationwide railway strike by setting aside a death sentence that had been issued to a convicted strike leader.[3]
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's State of the Union address was read aloud by clerks in separately to the U.S. Senate and to the House of Representatives.[21]
The government of Turkey accepted the demands of Austria, Italy, France and Britain to institute reforms in Macedonia, after their fleet of warships had taken possession of Mitylene on November 28.[3] The warships withdrew on December 15.
Dr. Eduard Zirm, an Austrian ophthalmologist, performed the world's first successful corneal transplant. Alois Glogar, a 45-year-old Czech farm worker received the corneas of an 11-year old boy at Dr. Zim's eye clinic hospital in Olmütz (now Olomouc in the Czech Republic).[23]
Ten people were killed in a collision of railroad trains in Wyoming.[3]
Sailing off of the coast of the U.S. state of Florida, three respected ornithologists witnessed a large animal while watching from the British steam yachtValhalla. Edmund Meade-Waldo, Michael John Nicoll and the Earl of Crawford saw what Meade-Waldo described as having a six-foot wide fin and a thick neck as wide as a man's body. The press quickly dubbed their sight a "sea serpent". A freighter, the Happy Warrior, reported a similar sighting on December 10.[25]
John H. Mitchell, 70, U.S. Senator for Oregon since 1866, known for his conviction in the Oregon land fraud scandal earlier in the year, died of complications from a recent dental surgery.[26][27] The U.S. Senate had been considering his expulsion at the time of his death.
Rabbi Zadoc Kahn, 66, Chief Rabbi of France since 1889
Olivia Floyd, 79, former spy and blockade runner for the Confederacy during the American Civil War.[28]
Representatives of Venezuela and Brazil signed protocols to settle their long-time boundary dispute.[3]
Georgy Khrustalev-Nosar, the first chairman of the Russian Bolsheviks' Saint Petersburg Soviet, was arrested.[29] 1 The date is sometimes listed as November 26, in that Russia still used the "old style" Julian calendar, 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar used in most of the rest of the world. Leon Trotsky was subsequently chosen for the Bolshevik chapter in the Russian capital, and Khrustalev-Nosar never returned to the leadership.
At the request of Walter Camp, representatives from nine colleges met at a conference at the Manhattan Hotel in New York to discuss changes in the rules of football to make the sport safer. The day before, faculty from 13 of 19 colleges invited attended a meeting at the Murray Hill Hotel to give their comments for the Rules Committee to consider.[30]
Died:
Henry Holmes, 65, British violinist and symphonic composer
Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb, 64, British classical scholar known for his translations of ancient Greek literature
The Nobel Prizes were presented to the laureates by the King Oscar II of Sweden, with German scientists sweeping the prizes for chemistry (Adolf von Baeyer of Germany being awarded the prize for chemistry for the synthesis of indigo); physics (Philipp Lenard for his discovery of the properties of cathode rays); and medicine (Robert Koch for his findings of the bacteriological causes of tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax). Baronness Bertha von Suttner of Austria-Hungary won the Peace Prize or her founding of the Gesellschaft der Friedensfreunde; Henryk Sienkiewicz; Henryk Sienkiewicz of Poland, author of Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, won the prize for Literature.[31]
December 11, 1905 (Monday)
Inspired by the revolt in Moscow Uprising, the Council of Workers' Deputies of Kiev staged a mass uprising, establishing the Shuliavka Republic in the city, and would last until December 16.
After getting angry about the prize of sugar sold at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran (now the capital of Iran), the Ottoman governor ordered the public beating of 17 prominent merchants.[32] The operators of the Bazaar closed down the marketplace in protest, and would be a factor in the igniting of the Persian Constitutional Revolution.
Born: Gilbert Roland (stage name for Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso), Mexican-born film and TV actor Ciudad Juárez (d. 1994)
The American Woolen Company, the leading producer of wool for garments in the U.S., announced it would increase the wages of its 30,000 employees by 10 percent, effective January 1.[3]
Former U.S. Congressman John F. Fitzgerald (whose grandson and namesake, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, would be elected the 35th President of the United States in 1960) was elected Mayor of Boston.[3]
U.S. President Roosevelt announced the engagement of his daughter, Alice, to U.S. Representative Nicholas Longworth of Ohio.[3]
Born: Ilya Trauberg, Soviet Russian film director; in Odessa, Russian Empire (d. of heart attack, 1948)
December 14, 1905 (Thursday)
Russian Army General Vladimir Bekman spared the town of Tukums, in Russian-controlled Latvia, after residents had voluntarily abandoned a nationalist uprising. Departing from the standard Russian Imperial policy of merciless reprisals against secessionists, General Bekman chose not to burn the town to the ground after having had 62 rifles and 45 revolvers surrendered to him, and reported the incident to Tsar Nicholas II. The Tsar wrote in the margin of the report, "This is no reason. The city should have been destroyed."[36]
Died: General Herman Haupt, 88, Superintendent of the Military Railroad in the U.S. Department of War who guided the prompt repair and guarding of railroad lines, bridges and telegraph communications during the American Civil War. Haupt died while traveling on a train in New Jersey.[37]
The New York City press took notice of the gradual transformation of the Harlem neighborhood of the city predominantly black area of Manhattan Island, as a result of a victory for the African-American community in a successful fight Philip A. Payton Jr.'s Afro-American Realty Company, and the white-owned Hudson River Realty Company. In April, the Hudson company had purchased three apartment houses on West 135th Street between 5th Avenue and Lenox Avenue and issued eviction notices to the African-American tenants. Payton retaliated the same day by issuing eviction notices to the white tenants in its two buildings on 30 and 32 West 135th Street,[39] By December, Hudson River Realty had been forced to sell the three apartment buildings to Afro-American Realty[40][41] Within the next 20 years, white property owners moved out as some sold their buildings at a loss or boarded them up, rather than to rent or sell to black people and "A negro colony spread from the concentrated area around Payton's original buildings on 134th Street, until it became an onslaught no wall could contain."[42]
Died: James B. Simmons, 78, American Baptist minister who had endowed Abilene Baptist College in Texas after its founding in 1891. The institution was renamed Simmons College in 1892 and, after contributions from Mary and John G. Hardin, has been named Hardin–Simmons University since 1934.
December 18, 1905 (Monday)
English archaeologist Edward R. Ayrton discovered "Tomb KV47", prepared for the EgyptianpharaohSiptah, 31 centuries the tomb had been closed.[43] Siptah's mummy had been found in 1898 by Victor Loret. Ayton had been excavating the area by having trenches dug at the direction of expedition leader Theodore M. Davis, and on the day of discovery, found the top of a flight of steps that led down to the burial chamber.
The Moscow uprising was suppressed by the Russian Army after 11 days. Major General Sergei Sheydeman issued an order the same day against further action, directing that "If armed resistance is provided, then exterminate everyone without arresting anyone." ("Если будет оказано вооружённое сопротивление, то истреблять всех, не арестовывая никого").[44]
The only railroad line to serve the small southern African kingdom of Lesotho was opened, connecting the capital city at Maseru to South Africa's Bloemfontein–Bethlehem line.
Inventor Henry Sandell received U.S. Patent No. 807,871 for the first self-playing violin. The "Automatic Virtuosa" was marketed by the Mills Novelty Company.[45]
Born:
Irving Kahn, American investor and philanthropist, co-founder of the Kahn Brothers Group; in New York City (d. 2015)
Baron Géza Fejérváry, announced his resignation as Prime Minister of Hungary within the Dual Kingdom of Austria-Hungary, along with his entire cabinet. King Ferenc József of Hungary (Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria) refused to accept the resignation.[46]
December 21, 1905 (Thursday)
Korea received its first Japanese Resident-General after becoming a protectorate of the Japanese Empire, as former Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi assumed the office. Ito's assassination on October 26, 1909, would become a pretext for the annexation of Korea by Japan.
Russian Prime Minister Sergei Witte and his cabinet members published a decree, consistent with Tsar Nicholas II's October Manifesto, providing the guidelines for the Imperial Duma, the first elected parliament in Russia's history.[48] Because Russia still used the Julian calendar, the "old style" date was December 14 and not observed as Christmas Eve in Russia.
Hendrik Wade Bode, American engineer who perfected electronic data transmission and automated weapons systems; in Madison, Wisconsin (d. 1982)
December 25, 1905 (Monday)
An experimental college football game was played in Wichita, Kansas between Fairmount College (now Wichita State University) and Washburn College to test a suggested rule change, from three tries to gain of five yards for a first down, to requiring the offensive team to advance the ball 10 yards on three tries. Doubling the distance meant that very few first downs were made and that punts were more frequent, and the final score was 0 to 0.[49][50] The game also saw the first experiment in allowing teams to throw the forward pass, with Fairmount's Bill Davis completing a pass to Art Solter.
The Imperial Japanese Navy launched the battle cruiser Teukuba, Japan's first armored cruiser to have been constructed entirely without foreign-made parts.[52]
Henry MacCracken, Chancellor of New York University convened a meeting of representatives of 62 universities and colleges to agree upon changes in the game of college football,[55] and agreed to form the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS), which would formally be constituted on March 31, 1906.[56] In 1910, it would be renamed the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).[56]
Died: Charles T. Yerkes, 68, financier who provided the capital for the construction of mass transportation by street railway in Chicago (in 1886) and the Underground subway in London (1900), as well as the Hale Telescope in the Yerkes Observatory[58]
December 30, 1905 (Saturday)
At Caldwell, Idaho, a bomb killed former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, the former governor. As he was opening the gate to his front yard, a charge of dynamite was detonated, and Steunenberg, who had been governor from 1897 to 1901, died 20 minutes later.[59] The investigation would lead to a trial against leaders of the Western Federation of Miners.
U.S. explorer Walter Wellman, who had led two failed expeditions (in 1894 and 1898) aimed at trying to be the first person to reach the North Pole, announced a new plan to travel to the still-unconquered Pole by airship.[60] Wellman's employer, the Chicago Record-Herald, provided $250,000 in funding to build a powered airship, the America and to fund the expedition. Wellman's expedition would depart Spitsbergen for the Pole on September 2, 1907, but be turned back by bad weather. A second attempt on August 15, 1909, would fail within hours.
^Carl F. Young, Eastern Learning and the Heavenly Way: The Tonghak and Chondogyo Movements and the Twilight of Korean Independence (Western University Press) pp.113–121
^"18 Killed by Explosion; Second Disaster in a Wyoming Coal Mine— Rescuers Brave Death", The New York Times, December 3, 1905, p.1
^"One Killed, Twenty Injured, in Collision of Electric Cars," Los Angeles Herald, December 2, 1905, p.1
^"The first successful full‐thickness corneal transplant: a commentary on Eduard Zirm's landmark paper of 1906", by W. J. Armitage, et al., The British Journal of Ophthalmology (October 2006) pp. 1222–1223
^"Concerts", The Standard (London), December 7, 1905, p.9
^"Real Estate Race War Is Started in Harlem— Dispossessed White Men Ask Negroes to be Allowed to Stay— Colored Folks Retaliated", The New York Times, December 17, 1905, p. 12
^"Negroes Win Real Estate Fight— Control Block in West 135th-st., Between 5th and Lenox Aves.", New York Tribune, December 17, 1905, p. 9
^"Harlem Flats Change Hands Again", The New York Age, December 21, 1905, p. 1
^Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America (Little, Brown & Co., 2011)
^Donald Treadgold, Twentieth Century Russia (Westview Press, 2000)
^"Ten Yard Rule a Failure", The New York Times, December 26, 1905
^"New Football Rules Tested", Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1905
^"'Mlle. Modiste' a New York Hit— Fritzi Scheff Scores Success in New Blossom-Herbert Play", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 26, 1905, p.3
^"For Japan's New Navy", The Brooklyn Citizen, December 27, 1905, p. 6
^Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski: Monografia historyczna miasta (1997) pp. 133-136
^"Obituary: Louis Dalrymple", New York Tribune, December 29, 1905. p. 16
^"Football Convention Wants One Rule Code— Sweeping Action by College Conference at Murray Hill Hotel After Stormy Session", The New York Times, December 30, 1905, p. 2
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