1902 in the United States
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Events from the year 1902 in the United States.
Incumbents
- President: Theodore Roosevelt (R-New York)
- Vice President: vacant
- Chief Justice: Melville Fuller (Illinois)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: David B. Henderson (R-Iowa)
- Congress: 57th
Events
January–March
- January 3
- The first college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, California.
- Nathan Stubblefield demonstrates his wireless telephone device in Kentucky.
- January 8 – A train collision in the New York Central Railroad's Park Avenue Tunnel kills 17, injures 38, and leads to increased demand for electric trains.
- January 28 – The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C., to promote scientific research with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.
- February 9 – Fire levels 26 city blocks of Jersey City, New Jersey.
- February 18 – U.S. President Roosevelt prosecutes the Northern Securities Company for violation of the Sherman Act.
- February 22 – Senators Benjamin Tillman and John L. McLaurin, both of South Carolina, have a fist fight while Congress is in session.[1] Both Tillman and McLaurin are censured by the Senate on February 28.
- February – A commission on yellow fever announces that the disease is carried by mosquitoes.
- March 10 – A Circuit Court decision ends Thomas Edison's monopoly on 35 mm movie film technology.[2]
April–June
- April 2 – The Electric Theatre, the first movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, California.
- April 7 – The Texas Oil Company Texaco is founded.
- May 15 – It is claimed that in a field outside Grass Valley, California, Lyman Gilmore achieves flight in a powered airplane (a steam-powered glider). There is no surviving evidence to verify this claim.
- May 20 – Cuba gains independence from the United States.
- May 22 – Crater Lake National Park is established in Oregon.
- June 2 – The Anthracite Coal Strike begins in the United States.
- June 15 – The New York Central railroad inaugurates the 20th Century Limited passenger train between Chicago and New York City, New York.
- June 17 – The Newlands Reclamation Act funds irrigation projects for the arid lands of 17 states in the American West.
- June 24 – Target Corporation, the department store chain, is founded.
July–September
- July 1 – The Philippine Organic Act becomes law, providing that the lower house of the Philippine legislature will be elected after the insurrection ends.
- July 2 – The Philippine–American War ends.
- July 8 – The United States Bureau of Reclamation is established within the U.S. Geological Survey.
- July 10 – The Rolling Mill Mine disaster in Johnstown, Pennsylvania kills 112 miners.
- July 17 – Willis Carrier devises air conditioning in New York City.
- August 22 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first American President to ride in an automobile, a Columbia Electric Victoria through Hartford, Connecticut.
- September 19 – Shiloh Baptist Church disaster: 115 people are killed during a stampede at the church in Birmingham, Alabama.
October–December
- October 21 – A 5-month strike by the United Mine Workers ends.
- October 24 – Delta Zeta Sorority is founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
- November 16 – A newspaper cartoon inspires creation of the first teddy bear by Morris Michtom in the U.S.
- November 30 – On the American frontier, the second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, Harvey Logan ("Kid Curry"), is involved in a shoot out in Knoxville, TN and escaped.
- December – The Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 occurs (until February 1903), in which Britain, Germany and Italy sustain a naval blockade on Venezuela in order to enforce collection of outstanding financial claims. This prompts the development of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Undated
- The Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend, Indiana, begins as duck pond.[3]
Ongoing
- Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)
- Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)
- Philippine–American War (1899–1902)
Births
- January 4 – John A. McCone, CIA Director from 1961 to 1965 (died 1991)
- February 13 – Blair Moody, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1951 to 1952 (died 1954)
- February 27 – John Steinbeck, novelist (died 1968)
- March 24 – Thomas E. Dewey, 47th Governor of New York, 1948 Republican presidential nominee (died 1971)
- April 2 – David Worth Clark, U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1939 to 1945 (died 1955)
- May 15 – Richard J. Daley, Mayor of Chicago from 1956 (died 1976)
- July 4 – George Murphy, U.S. Senator from California from 1965 to 1971 (died 1992)
- December 5 – Strom Thurmond, 103rd Governor of South Carolina (died 2003)
Deaths
- January 15 – Alpheus Hyatt, zoologist and paleontologist (born 1838)
- February 18 – Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Co. (born 1812)
- March 12 – John Peter Altgeld, 20th Governor of Illinois (born 1847)
- March 14 – Daniel H. Reynolds, Confederate Brigadier General (born 1832)
- April 3 – Esther Hobart Morris, first women justice of the peace in the United States (born 1814)
- April 27 – Julius Sterling Morton, 3rd United States Secretary of Agriculture (born 1832)
- May 5 – Bret Harte, short-story writer and poet (born 1836)
- May 26 – Almon Brown Strowger, inventor (born 1839)
- June 5 – Louis J. Weichmann, chief witness for the prosecution in the trial of the assassins of Abraham Lincoln (born 1842)
- August 10 – James McMillan, Canadian-born U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1889 to 1902 (born 1838)
- September 26 – Levi Strauss, founder of Levi Strauss & Co. (born 1829)
- October 26 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, suffragist (born 1815)
- November 22 – Walter Reed, U.S. Army physician (born 1851)
- November 27 – George S. Cook, prominent early American photographer (born 1819)
- November 29 – John Elliott Ward, politician and diplomat (born 1814)
- December 4 – Charles Dow, founder of Dow Jones & Company and The Wall Street Journal (born 1851)
- December 7 – Thomas Nast, political cartoonist (born 1840)
- December 14 – Julia Grant, First Lady of the United States (born 1826)
- December 22 – Dwight M. Sabin, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1883 to 1889 (born 1843)
See also
References
- ^ Times, Special To The New York (23 February 1902). "SENATORS FIGHT ON SENATE FLOOR; McLaurin and Tillman of South Carolina Come to Blows. BOTH ADJUDGED IN CONTEMPT They Apologize, but Committee Will Pass on the Affair. Fisticuffs Followed McLaurin's Assertion That Tillman Had Lied About Him in the Course of Philippine Debate". Retrieved 12 November 2016 – via NYTimes.com.
- ^ "Continued Legal Battles". Thomas A. Edison Papers. Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. 2016-10-28. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
- ^ "About Us". Potawatomi Zoo. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
Further reading
- American Annual Cyclopaedia ... 1902, NY: D. Appleton & Co. – via HathiTrust
- "Domestic Chronology", Statistician and Economist, San Francisco: Louis P. McCarty, 1905, pp. 227–347 – via HathiTrust
{{citation}}: External link in|chapterurl=|chapterurl=ignored (|chapter-url=suggested) (help). (Covers events May 1898-June 1905)
External links
Media related to 1902 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons
