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October 1903

The following events occurred in October 1903:

October 1, 1903 (Thursday)

October 2, 1903 (Friday)

October 3, 1903 (Saturday)

October 4, 1903 (Sunday)

October 5, 1903 (Monday)

October 6, 1903 (Tuesday)

October 7, 1903 (Wednesday)

October 8, 1903 (Thursday)

  • A Japanese police boat from Taiwan, sent to Botel Tobago island the previous day, returned with two survivors of the Chief Mate's lifeboat from the Benjamin Sewall, a Russian seaman and a Filipino seaman. They reported that the islanders had surrounded the lifeboat, stripped its occupants of their clothes and belongings and overturned the boat, leaving the group clinging to it in the water. Most of the group dropped off one by one and drowned. Some of the survivors swam toward the island, where the Russian and Filipino men were captured and enslaved by the islanders, who forced them to chop and carry wood, still naked. They were rescued by the Japanese police. Three Japanese seamen also reached the island and hid in the mountains; they were found alive on October 14. The other seven occupants of the boat drowned.
  • The Irish National Theatre Society presented the world premiere of John Millington Synge's one-act play In the Shadow of the Glen at the Molesworth Hall in Dublin, Ireland.
  • The Uruguayan gunboat General Rivera was destroyed and sunk by an internal explosion at Montevideo, Uruguay. Among the sailors killed was the gunboat's commander, who was burned to death.
  • In Columbus, Georgia, Superintendent of Public Works Robert L. Johnson and three workers were killed in the cave-in of a deep trench.
  • Born:
  • Georgy Geshev, Bulgarian chess master; in Sofia, Principality of Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire (d. 1937)
  • Mikro (pseudonym for Christoffel Hermanus Kühn), South African author and poet; in Williston, Northern Cape, South Africa (d. 1968)
  • Ferenc Nagy, 40th Prime Minister of Hungary; in Bisse, Austria-Hungary (d. 1979)
  • Colette Peignot, French author and poet, also known by the pseudonyms Laure and Claude Araxe; in Meudon, France (d. 1938)
  • Elizabeth Wyn Wood, Canadian sculptor; in Orillia, Ontario, Canada (d. 1966)
  • Died: Joseph Fisher, 60, Union Army soldier, Medal of Honor recipient

October 9, 1903 (Friday)

  • Irishman Paddy McCarthy and Italian Abelardo Robassio fought the first professional boxing match in Argentina at the rooms of El Gladiador magazine in Buenos Aires. McCarthy won by knockout in the fourth round.
  • An editorial in The New York Times, commenting on the failure of the Langley Aerodrome two days earlier, stated, "It might be assumed that the flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years."
  • The Wright brothers began assembly of the 1903 Wright Flyer at Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina.
  • October 1903 floods:
  • The slow-moving remnants of a tropical storm triggered the 1903 Passaic Flood in North Jersey, which lasted through October 11. of rain fell within 24 hours on Paterson, New Jersey, which received over of rain during the entire event. The Passaic River crested at at Little Falls, New Jersey. Bridges and dams along the Passaic and Ramapo Rivers were destroyed, including a dam at Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. The flood, the most severe in the region since the American Colonial Period, caused $7 million in damage. The Edison Manufacturing Company produced a short documentary film, Flood Scene in Paterson, N.J., shot a few days after the flood.
  • By the evening of October 9, nearly of rain had fallen on New York City in a 30-hour period. Brooklyn was flooded, forcing residents to retreat to the second floors of their buildings and interrupting streetcar service. New York City's Chief Engineer expressed the opinion that "climatic changes are going on which will make a rainfall from 3 to 5 inches an hour a thing of ordinary occurrence".
  • The 27-ton gasoline boat Admiral capsized in a squall on San Francisco Bay, drowning an engineer and a passenger.
  • J. E. Dolloff, one of two water suppliers in Monroe, Washington, began laying pipe to a new house. S. A. Buck, Dolloff's competitor, to whom the Monroe City Council had granted the water franchise, attached a hose to a fire plug across the street and blasted Dolloff and worker James Frazier out of the trench in which they were working. Dolloff swore out a warrant for Buck's arrest, but Buck doused the work crew two more times before his trial at 2 p.m. The "water war" in Monroe would continue in one form or another until 1923, when the town finally set up its own municipal water system.
  • Born:
  • André Mourlon, French Olympic sprinter; in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, France (d. 1970)
  • Walter O'Malley, American baseball executive; in The Bronx, New York City (d. 1979)
  • Karel Steklý, Czech film director; in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (d. 1987)
  • Died: Camille du Locle, 71, French theater manager and librettist

October 10, 1903 (Saturday)

October 11, 1903 (Sunday)

October 12, 1903 (Monday)

October 13, 1903 (Tuesday)

October 14, 1903 (Wednesday)

October 15, 1903 (Thursday)

October 16, 1903 (Friday)

October 17, 1903 (Saturday)

October 18, 1903 (Sunday)

October 19, 1903 (Monday)

October 20, 1903 (Tuesday)

October 21, 1903 (Wednesday)

October 22, 1903 (Thursday)

  • The October 22 issue of The Independent featured an article by American astronomer Simon Newcomb entitled "The Outlook for the Flying Machine". In it, Newcomb wrote, "The mathematician of to-day admits that he can neither square the circle, duplicate the cube or trisect the angle. May not our mechanicians, in like manner, be ultimately forced to admit that aerial flight is one of that great class of problems with which man can never cope, and give up all attempts to grapple with it? I do not claim that this is a necessary conclusion from any past experience... Quite likely the twentieth century is destined to see the natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of the bird. But when we inquire whether aerial flight is possible in the present state of our knowledge; whether, which such materials as we possess, a combination of steel, cloth and wire can be made which, moved by the power of electricity or steam, shall form a successful flying machine, the outlook may be altogether different." The Wright brothers would make their first successful flights in the Wright Flyer on December 17 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In later years Newcomb's views would sometimes be distorted and presented out of context to suggest that he had thought the problem of heavier-than-air flight was certain to remain unsolved.
  • Due to an epidemic of yellow fever in San Antonio, Texas, Governor S. W. T. Lanham issued a proclamation quarantining the city, effective from October 22 until further notice. The proclamation forbade railway ticket agents in San Antonio from selling tickets to points within Texas, although passengers could travel to points outside the state.
  • Born:
  • George Beadle, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, President of the University of Chicago; in Wahoo, Nebraska (d. 1989)
  • Zlatyu Boyadzhiev, Bulgarian painter; in Brezovo, Principality of Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire (d. 1976)
  • Curly Howard (born Jerome Lester Horwitz), American comedian and actor (The Three Stooges); in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York City (d. 1952)
  • Died:
  • William Edward Hartpole Lecky , 65, Irish historian, member of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
  • Joe Yingling, 36, American Major League Baseball pitcher

October 23, 1903 (Friday)

October 24, 1903 (Saturday)

October 25, 1903 (Sunday)

October 26, 1903 (Monday)

October 27, 1903 (Tuesday)

  • In Allentown, Pennsylvania, Catharine Bechtel found the body of her 21-year-old daughter, Mabel H. Bechtel, in an underground alley next to the row home where the family lived. Mrs. Bechtel stated that she had seen two men carrying an object from a carriage into the alley early that morning. Mabel Bechtel was involved in a love triangle with two suitors: Alois Eckstein, favored by her family because he was well-off, and David Weisenberger, to whom her family objected partly because he was Jewish. Blood evidence showed that Mabel had been murdered in her own bedroom, placing her family under suspicion.
  • U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt celebrated his 45th birthday with an 18-course dinner. Congratulatory letters and telegrams arrived at the White House from throughout the United States.
  • According to an October 31 report in The Cincinnati Enquirer, Major League Baseball pitcher Rube Waddell, who was in Chicago starring in the melodrama Stain of Guilt, visited another theater where lions were on display and punched one of them in the jaw, provoking it into biting Waddell's left hand.
  • Hunter Will Lankford was reportedly shot and killed during a fight between three white hunters and a group of Choctaws north of Boswell, Indian Territory. A Choctaw was shot and wounded.
  • In Los Angeles, California, American boxers Jack Johnson and Sam McVey fought in a rematch of their February bout. Johnson won after 20 rounds, retaining the World Colored Heavyweight Championship title.
  • Born:
  • Karl Gall, Austrian motorcycle racer; in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (d. 1939 from racing crash injuries and pneumonia)
  • E. Pendleton Herring, American political scientist; in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 2004)
  • Jonas Jonsson, Swedish Olympic sport shooter; in Hanebo, Bollnäs Municipality, Sweden (d. 1996)
  • Died: Morris M. Estee, 69, American lawyer and politician

October 28, 1903 (Wednesday)

October 29, 1903 (Thursday)

October 30, 1903 (Friday)

October 31, 1903 (Saturday)

References