This Year in History:
1904
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On January 12, 1904, Henry Ford sets a land-speed record of 91.37 mph on the frozen surface of Michigan’s Lake St. Clair. He was driving a four-wheel vehicle, dubbed the “999,” with a wooden chassis but no body or hood. Ford’s record was broken within a month at Ormond Beach, Florida, by a driver named […]
In Baltimore, Maryland, a small fire in the business district is wind-whipped into an uncontrollable conflagration that engulfs a large portion of the city by evening. The fire is believed to have been started by a discarded cigarette in the basement of the Hurst Building. When the blaze finally burned down after 31 hours, an […]
Following the Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launches a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated. During the subsequent Russo-Japanese War, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the […]
On February 17, 1904, Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly premieres at the La Scala theatre in Milan, Italy. The young Puccini decided to dedicate his life to opera after seeing a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida in 1876. In his later life, he would write some of the best-loved operas of all time: La Boheme […]
Theodor Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss, the author and illustrator of such children’s books as “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham,” is born in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 2, 1904. Geisel, who used his middle name (which was also his mother’s maiden name) as his pen name, wrote […]
On April 8, 1904, with war in Europe a decade away, Britain and France sign an agreement, later known as the Entente Cordiale, resolving long-standing colonial disputes in North Africa and establishing a diplomatic understanding between the two countries. Formally entitled a Declaration between the United Kingdom and France Respecting Egypt and Morocco, the Entente […]
On May 5, 1904, 37-year-old Cy Young pitches the first perfect game in modern Major League Baseball history as the Boston Americans defeat the Philadelphia Athletics, 3-0. Young strikes out eight of the 27 batters he faces and benefits from excellent defense in a game that is completed in only 83 minutes. “Unparalleled feat,” a […]
The Third Olympiad of the modern era, and the first Olympic Games to be held in the United States, opens in St. Louis, Missouri. The 1904 Games were actually initially awarded to Chicago, Illinois, but were later given to St. Louis to be staged in connection with the St. Louis World Exposition. Like the Second […]
More than 1,000 people taking a pleasure trip on New York City’s East River are drowned or burned to death when a fire sweeps through the boat. This was one of the United States’ worst maritime disasters. The riverboat-style steamer General Slocum was built in 1890 and used mostly as a vehicle for taking large […]
On September 21, 1904, the Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph dies on the Colville reservation in northern Washington at the age of 64. White settlers had described him as superhuman and a military genius. But in truth, the Nez Perce Chief Him-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (“Thunder Rolling Down from the Mountains”) was more of a diplomat than a […]
At 2:35 on the afternoon of October 27, 1904, New York City Mayor George McClellan takes the controls on the inaugural run of the city’s innovative new rapid transit system: the subway. While London boasts the world’s oldest underground train network (opened in 1863) and Boston built the first subway in the United States in […]
On December 27, 1904, the play Peter Pan, by James Barrie, opens at the Duke of York’s Theater in London. Barrie was born in 1860 and studied at the University of Edinburgh. He worked as a reporter for the Nottingham Journal for two years after college. He moved to London in 1885 and became a […]
