March 20, 1905: Explosion in U.S. shoe factory kills 58 employeesMarch 5, 1905: General Kuropatkin orders Russian Imperial Army to retreat from the Japanese after disastrous battle in MukdenMarch 23, 1905: General Venizelos attempts a revolution on the island of CreteMarch 3, 1905: Tsar Nicholas II creates the Duma, Russia's first representative assembly
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia announced his decision to create an elected assembly, the Imperial State Duma, to represent the people of the Russian Empire in an advisory capacity, although the real power to make laws remained with the Tsar and the cabinet of ministers.
The second inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt took place as the incumbent U.S. president, who had taken office in 1901 to fill the remainder of the term of President William McKinley, was sworn in for a full term as 26th President of the United States.[1]
Newly inaugurated vice president Charles W. Fairbanks called the Fifty-ninth Congress of the United States of America into session.[1]
Russia's Sergei Diaghilev achieved national fame with the display of over 4,000 paintings at the Tauride PalaceinSaint Petersburg.[2] He would go on to worldwide prominence a year later with his touring exhibition in Europe.
John Henninger Reagan, 86, U.S. Representative for Texas who resigned from Congress in 1861 to serve in the government of the Confederate States of America as its Postmaster General during the American Civil War. After the end of the war and the readmission of Texas to the Union, Reagan was re-elected to the U.S. Congress in 1875 and then as a U.S. Senator from 1887 to 1891
The UK House of Commons declined to approve remedial measures for evicted Irish tenants in Britain, the legislation receiving 182 votes in favor and 220 against.[1]
Tsar Nicholas II dissolved a proposed commission to investigate labor disputes in the Russian Empire, after workers organizations refused to send delegates.[1]
U.S. Senator William B. Bate of Tennessee died suddenly from pneumonia, five days after attending the inauguration of the president and the beginning of his fourth term at the opening of the 59th Congress. Bate, who served had three full terms as Senator, had first taken office 18 years and five days earlier, on March 4, 1887. A funeral was held for him the next day in the Senate Chamber of the U.S. Capitol, after which his body was sent back to Nashville.[1]
The Japanese capture of Mukden (modern-day Shenyang) completed the rout of the Russian Imperial Army in Manchuria as the Russo-Japanese War continued. The Russian commander, General Aleksey Kuropatkin, telegraphed the Tsar that his armies would be retreating to avoid further danger.
Cassie Chadwick
Canadian-born swindler Cassie Chadwick, who had claimed to be the daughter and an heiress of multi-millionaire Andrew Carnegie to defraud banks of millions of dollars, was sentenced for 14 years imprisonment after being convicted for fraud against the Citizen's National Bank in Cleveland. She would die in the Ohio State Penitentiary less than three years later, passing away on October 10, 1907.
Born: Richard Haydn (stage name for George Richard Hayden), English-born U.S. actor on stage, film and television; in Camberwell, London (d. 1985)
Italy's Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti and his cabinet stepped down, after their resignations and had been announced on March 4 because of Giolitti's illness.[1]
Twenty-three of the 26 crew of the British windjammer ship Kyber died [4] when the ship was wrecked off of the coast of Cornwall and Land's End. Local first responders saved three of the men, and the rest were buried in a mass grave.
Born: Berthold von Stauffenberg, German aristocrat and lawyer implicated as a conspirator in the 1944 attempt by his brother, Claus von Stauffenberg, to assassinate Adolf Hitler; in Stuttgart (hanged 1944)
Died:
Meyer Guggenheim, 77, Swiss-born American silver mining entrepreneur and patriarch of the Guggenheim family
James Hamilton Peabody was installed as the Governor of the U.S. state Colorado by the Colorado Legislature while the election dispute between himself and Alva Adams was being investigated, on the condition that Peabody resign in favor of Lieutenant Governor J. F. McDonald.[1] Peabody resigned the next day and McDonald became acting governor of Colorado.
France's Chamber of Deputies voted to reduce the military service requirement for young men to two years.[1]
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, in New York City for the annual St. Patrick's Day celebration, came to the wedding of his 20-year-old niece, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, to her distant cousin, 23-year old law student Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[6] Theodore, the 26th U.S. President, served the role of "giving the bride away" to Franklin, who would become the 32nd President of the United States in 1933 with Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt as his First Lady.
Albert Einstein submitted for publication his paper "On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the production and transformation of light", in which he explained the photoelectric effect using the notion of light quanta. The paper would be published on June 9.
Twin explosions killed 24 miners at the Rush Run and Red Ash coal mines near Thurmond, West Virginia.[1]
Born: Albert Speer, German architect and convicted war criminal who became the Nazi German Minister of Armaments and War Production as a close associate of Adolf Hitler; in Mannheim, Grand Duchy of Baden. Speer served a 20-year prison sentence at Spandau Prison for his use of concentration camp inmates as slave labor in armaments factories, and wrote a best-selling account of the experience after his release. (d. 1981)
"The Treaty of Peace and Friendship" (El tratado de Paz y Amistad) between Chile and Bolivia, signed on October 20, 1904, went into effect, settling the question of the border between the two South American nations. Bolivia ceded the territory of Antofagasta to Chile in return for Chile extending a railroad from the Pacific port of Arica to the Bolivian capital at La Paz.
The Theriso revolt began in Crete as about 1,500 men, led by Eleftherios Venizelos, met at the village of Theriso to challenge the island's authoritarian government and press for its unification with Greece.
In the U.S. state of Maryland, the state Supreme Court ordered Governor Edwin Warfield to submit a proposed constitutional amendment for disenfranchisement of non-whites to a referendum vote.[7]
Lord Midleton, Britain's Secretary of State for India, presented a report to the House of Commons that over 346,000 people had died of bubonic plague in India in a single year.[7]
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany signed legislation authorizing the construction of a railway across its colony of Kamerun (now Cameroon) from Jaunde (now Yaounde) to Lake Chad.[7]
Born:
Sir John Randall, British physicist whose improved version of the cavity magnetron made centimetric wavelength radar possible during World War II and was later a key component to the microwave oven; in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire (d. 1984)
Lale Andersen, German singer known for her recording of Lili Marleen, one of the most popular songs in Europe during World War II in the Axis and Allied nations; in Bremerhaven (d. 1972)
"The Toastmasters Club", whose concept would later be used for the 1924 founding of the more successful Toastmasters International, was founded by Ralph C. SmedleyinBloomington, Illinois, an employee of the city's YMCA chapter. With a stated of goal of aiding people in learning how to give public speeches, conduct meetings, plan programs and work on committees, Smedley's first effort failed twice, but he would relaunch the organization on October 22, 1924, in Santa Ana, California.[8]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the measure of average prices on stocks of major industries, reached its highest level since 1890, closing at 79.27 points. The high would be broken 31 times as during a bull market, peaking at 103 points on January 19 before making a steady downward drop.
General Min Young-hwan was appointed as the Prime Minister of the Korean EmpirebyEmperor Gojong, but was removed 12 days later on April 4. General Min was one of the last premiers of an independent Korea before the Eulsa Treaty of November 17, 1905, made Korea a protectorate of the Japanese Empire, and would commit suicide after the treaty was signed by his successor.
The Battle of Tabanovce was fought between the 27 guerrillas of the Serbian Chetnik Organization and much larger battalion of 112 members of the Ottoman Army at the village of Tabanovce, now part of the Republic of North Macedonia. The Chetniks, led by Vladimir Kovačević. The Ottomans and their Albanian allies lost more than half of their men, but Kovačević was killed in battle.
A federal grand jury returned a criminal indictment against the government of the U.S. city of Louisville, Kentucky for alleged violations of federal laws against forced labor.
Boxer Jimmy Walsh knocked out Monte Attell, in a controversial six-round bout at the National Athletic Club in Philadelphia to win recognition of the World Bantamweight Championship by the National Boxing Association, despite being disqualified by the referee.
U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Charles J. Train was appointed as the new commander-in-chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet, but his career would be marred in November when he accidentally shot and injured a Chinese woman while hunting pheasants near Nanjing. Admiral Train would die of uremia 16 months later while in China.[9]
Born:
Mikio Oda, Japanese athlete and the first Asian Olympic gold medalist, for the men's triple jump in 1928; in Kaita, Hiroshima Prefecture (d. 1998)
Pennsylvania Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker vetoed the first attempt to pass a compulsory sterilization law in the United States as part of a program of eugenics, "An act for the prevention of idiocy", authorizing mental institutions the perform surgery "for the prevention of procreation.".[10] Pennypacker was severe in his criticism of the bill, stating in his veto message, "It is plain that the safest and most effective method of preventing procreation would be to cut the heads off the inmates, and such authority is given by the bill to this staff of scientific experts. It is not probable that they would resort to this means for the prevention of procreation, but it is probable that they would endeavor to destroy some part of the human organism. He added that "Men of high scientific attainments are prone in their love for technique to lose sight of broad principles outside of their domain of thought," and that the bill bill "violates the principles of ethics."[11] The veto was not overridden. The U.S. state of Indiana would pass the first sterilization bill in 1907.[10]
