As terms of surrender were drawn up for Russia, the Russian squadron of five battleships and three cruisers put into anchor at Sainte-Marie Island (now Nosy Boraha) off the coast of Africa and Madagascar.[2]
Anna May Wong (stage name for Wong Liu Tsong), American actress and the first Chinese-American film star in the U.S.; in Los Angeles (d. 1961)
Died: Clara Augusta Jones Trask, 65, American dime novelist who wrote hundreds of books under the pen names "Hero Strong" and "Clara Augusta"
January 3, 1905 (Tuesday)
Japan took former possession of Port Arthur and renamed it Ryojun, holding it for 40 years. The area would revert in 1945 to China and is now the Lushunkou District.[2]
Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino became Prime Minister of Romania for the second time, having previously served from 1899 to 1900, and remains in office for more than two years.[5]
The city of Bend, Oregon, plotted out in 1900 by Alexander Drake, was incorporated as a town for local logging companies, and would have a population of 536 in 1910. By the year 2020, it would have almost 100,000 residents.[6]
The Lick Observatory announced the discovery of a sixth moon of Jupiter, made by their astronomer Charles D. Perrine. Unlike the first five Jovian satellites discovered, the sixth one would be referred to as "Jupiter VI" until 1975, and is now called Himalia.[2]
The U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of William D. Crum, an African-American, to the office of collector of customs at Charleston, South Carolina after Crum's nomination by President Theodore Roosevelt.[2]
Danish prime minister Johan Henrik Deuntzer and his cabinet resigned over a disagreement regarding Denmark's military.[2]
The Colorado State Legislature entered an agreement with Alva Adams to allow him to take office as Governor of Colorado while a challenge by Republican candidate James Peabody was being investigated. Under the arrangement, Adams took office on January 10 on condition that he was to step down voluntarily if the legislature concluded that Peabody had won the popular vote. Adams resigned on March 17 after the investigation concluded that Peabody had won.[2]
January 8, 1905 (Sunday)
At the excavation site in Egypt near Saqqara, where British archaeologist Howard Carter was an inspector for the Egyptian Antiquities Service, the Egyptian guards of the site were in a fist fight with 15 tourists from France, many of whom were intoxicated. The government of France filed a formal protest with Egyptian authorities, and Carter took the side of his workers. To appease the French in the "Saqqara Affair", Carter was fired from his job and without formal employment for the next three years.[8] In 1923, he would gain worldwide fame in finding the tomb of Tutankhamen.
Under the supervision of five editors, work began on the comprehensive Catholic Encyclopedia, subtitled "An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church" and published by the Robert Appleton Company. The first volume would appear in 1907.
Marie Walcker, the last victim of German-born American serial killer and bigamist Johann Otto Hoch, died of poisoning in Chicago a month after her their marriage. On January 30, Hoch was arrested in New York City, initially for having married and deserted multiple women (one estimate is 45 women in ten states from 1888 to 1905 [10]), but soon was charged with Marie Walcker's murder, for which he would be convicted. Hoch was suspected of perhaps as many as 50 murders, but only charged with Walcker's death. He would be hanged on February 23, 1906.[11]
Alexander, Prince of Lippe, the last sovereign monarch of the German principality of Lippe, died after a nominal reign of 10 years, leaving no children to succeed him and ending the Lippe-Detmold line. Prince Alexander's power had been exercised by regents because of his mental illness, and the question of a successor would not be resolved until October until the last regent, Alexander's cousin Leopold IV, Count of Lippe-Biesterfeld. After World War One, the principality would be abolished and would exist as a "Free State" until the end of World War Two; it is now part of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.[13]
A series of three 133 feet (41 m) high tsunamis killed 61 people in the Norway in the villages of Ytre Nesdal and Bødal, after a rockslide swept down Mount Ramnefjell and crashed into Lake Lovatnet.[15]
The Ottawa Hockey Club retained the Stanley Cup, winning the best-2-of-3 series in the second and deciding game against the Dawson City Nuggets, who had traveled 4,000 miles (6,400 km) from Canada's Yukon Territory by dog sled, ship, and train over more than three weeks to challenge Ottawa for the Cup.[16] After prevailing in the first game, 9 to 2 over the Nuggets on January 13, the day after the exhausted Nugget players arrived in the capital, the champions easily won Game 2, with a final score of Ottawa Hockey Club 23, Dawson City Nuggets 2.[17]
January 17, 1905 (Tuesday)
In France, Prime Minister Émile Combes and his cabinet announced their resignations after being implicated in the Affair of the Cards (L'Affaire des Fiches), a system set up by the War Ministry to purge the French Army officers corps of Jesuits.[18]
Guillermo Stábile, Argentine soccer football ? centre forward who was the top scorer in the 1930 World Cup while playing for the Argentina national team; later the manager for the Argentina team from 1939 to 1960; in Buenos Aires (d. 1966)
Tsar Nicholas II of the Russian Empire narrowly escaped injury during the "blessing of the waters" of the Neva River near Saint Petersburg. One of the guns firing a salute malfunctioned and sent grapeshot down into the crowd of dignitaries, narrowly missing the Tsar.[2]
An arbitration treaty was signed at Washington between the United States, Sweden, and Norway.[2]
Lobbyists from the U.S. territory of New Mexico presented their arguments against being consolidated with the Arizona Territory for admission as a single state.[2]
The Dominican Republic signed an agreement with the United States to allow the U.S. to administer the collection of customs taxes for Santo Domingo for 50 years, with the U.S. to assume responsibility for payment of the Republic's debts to foreign nations from Dominican income. The agreement was done as an exercise of the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine.[20]
Elections were held in Hungary for the 413 seats in the Országgyűlés, the Kingdom's parliament within Austria-Hungary. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister István Tisza, that had ruled Hungary since 1875, and the Liberals lost 118 of their 277 seats, but Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary (in his capacity as King Ferenc József) ignored the results and kept Tisza in power.[20]
The Nelson Act was passed into law in the United States, providing for racial segregation of schools in the Alaska Territory. While providing for establishment of a school district in any unincorporated community with a population of at least 20 "white children and children of mixed blood who lead a civilized life", the Act also required that "the education of Eskimos and Indians in Alaska shall remain under the direction and control of the Secretary of the Interior, and school for and among the Eskimos and Indians of Alaska shall have the same right to be admitted to any Indian boarding school as the Indian children in the States or Territories of the United States."[23]
Died: Watson Heston, 58, American editorial cartoonist and author of The Bible Comically Illustrated
January 28, 1905 (Saturday)
Two disasters in the Russo-Japanese War took place in different battles. In Manchuria, near Linchinpu, a group of 200 Japanese soldiers armed only with rifles was thrown into battle against Russian Army defenders who had two machine guns available. When the Japanese got within 900 feet (270 m) of the Russians, the firing of 1,000 cartridges began with most of the soldiers killed or wounded within two minutes.[24] At the village of Sandepu, 36 miles (58 km) south of Mukden, General Oskar Gripenberg ordered the Russian Army to attack, but the Japanese repelled the attackers with a bayonet charge. Most of the Russian soldiers were killed or wounded, and those who didn't die immediately were left behind in the retreat and froze to death overnight.[25]
The U.S. Supreme Court rendered its unanimous decision in the landmark case of Swift & Co. v. United States, upholding as constitutional the right of the federal government to use antitrust laws to regulate monopolies based on the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution ("Congress... shall have power to regulate Commerce... among the several States") [20]
January 31, 1905 (Tuesday)
What has been called "the greatest ball of the Gilded Age" [26] was held by James Hazen Hyde, the 28-year-old heir to the fortune of the founder of the Equitable Life Assurance Association" at New York City's Sherry Hotel, who spent $200,000 for a "Louis XV costume ball" for invited guests.[27] Based on purchasing power at the time, the cost of the party would have been equivalent to more than 6.7 million dollars in 2022.[28]
^"Cantacuzino, Gheorghe Grigore", in Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, ed. by Wojciech Roszkowski and Jan Kofman (Taylor & Francis, 2016) p. 1862
^Jon Abernathy, Bend Beer: A History of Brewing in Central Oregon (Arcadia Publishing, 2014)
^Stan Fischler, Golden Ice: The Greatest Teams in Hockey History (McGraw Hill Ryerson, 1990) p. 261
^"Klondike Hockeyites Meet an Overwhelming Defeat at the Capital— Twenty Three Goals Scored by Ottaw to Two by Dawson Team", Yukon World, January 17, 1905, p. 1
^Piers Paul Read, The Dreyfus Affair: The Scandal That Tore France in Two (Bloomsbury, 2012) p. 338