1900 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: William McKinley
• Vice President: vacant
• Chief Justice: Melville Fuller
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: David B. Henderson
• Congress: 56th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• January 1 - Hawaii asks for a delegate at the U.S. Republican National Convention.
• January 2
• *John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China.
• *The first electric bus becomes operational in New York City.
• January 3 - The United States Census estimates the country's population was 70 million.
• January 5 - Dr. Henry A. Rowland of Johns Hopkins University discovers the cause of the Earth's magnetism.
• January 8 - President of the United States William McKinley places Alaska under military rule.
• January 14 - The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899, in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the Samoan islands.
• January 17
• *Brigham H. Roberts is refused a seat in the United States House of Representatives because of his polygamy.
• *Yaqui Indians in Texas proclaim independence from Mexico.
• January 29 - The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with 8 founding teams.
• February 3 - Kentucky Governor William Goebel dies of wounds after being shot by assassins on January 30. Goebel, who had prevailed in a dispute over the winner of the 1899 election, had been sworn in on his deathbed.
• February 5 - Britain and the United States sign a treaty for the building of a Central American shipping canal through Nicaragua.
• February 7
• * San Francisco plague of 1900–1904 begins.
• * After a 13-day special session, the California legislature votes for Thomas R. Bard to fill the vacancy for its U.S. Senator vacant since March 1899.
• February 9 - Dwight F. Davis creates the Davis Cup tennis tournament.
• March 5 - Two U.S. cruisers are sent to Central America to protect U.S. interests in a dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
• March 6 - A coal mine explosion in West Virginia kills 50 miners.
• March 15 - The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard.
• March 24 - New York City Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks ground for a new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that will link Manhattan and Brooklyn.

  April–June

• April 30
• *Hawaii becomes an official U.S. territory
• *Famous Train Engineer Casey Jones, dies in a wreck in Vaughan, Mississippi, while saving all of the passengers on his train.
• May 1 - Scofield Mine disaster: An explosion of blasting powder in coal mine in Scofield, Utah kills at least 200.
• May 23 - Sergeant William Harvey Carney is awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner. While he is the 21st African American recipient of the medal, the action for which he is honored pre-dates all other African American recipients.
• June 7 - American temperance activist Carrie Nation enters a saloon in Kiowa, Kansas, and destroys its stock of alcoholic beverages with rocks.
• June 30 - Hoboken Docks Fire: A wharf fire at the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey owned by the North German Lloyd Steamship line spreads to German passenger ships ,, and . The fire engulfs the adjacent piers and nearby ships, killing 326 people.

  July–September

• July 25 – The Robert Charles Riots occur in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.
• September 8 – The Galveston Hurricane makes landfall at Galveston, Texas, eventually killing 6,000–12,000 in the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
• September 13 – Philippine–American War: Filipino resistance fighters defeat a large American column in the Battle of Pulang Lupa.
• September 17 – Philippine–American War: Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeat Americans under Colonel Benjamin F. Cheatham at Mabitac.

  October–December

• c. October 3 – The Wright brothers begin their first manned glider experimental flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
• November 3 – The first automobile show in the United States opens at New York City's Madison Square Garden.
• November 6 - U.S. presidential election, 1900: Republican incumbent William McKinley is reelected by defeating Democratic challenger William Jennings Bryan.

  Undated

• Milton S. Hershey introduces the milk chocolate Hershey bar.
• In New Haven, Connecticut, Louis Lassen of Louis' Lunch makes the first modern-day hamburger sandwich.
• At the Carnegie Steel Company, Slavs and Italians produce one-third of the world's total steel supply.

  Ongoing

• Progressive Era
• Lochner era
• Philippine–American War

  Births

• January 2 - William Haines, actor
• January 3 - C. L. Dellums, co-founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
• January 4 - James Bond, ornithologist
• January 5 - George Magrill, film actor
• January 6 - John West Sinclair, silent film actor
• January 8 - Dorothy Adams, character actress
• January 9 - Richard Halliburton, adventurer, writer
• January 11
• * Borden Chase, writer
• * Lloyd French, film director
• January 15 - Rogers E. M. Whitaker, an editor at The New Yorker and railroad traveler
• January 27 - Hyman G. Rickover, admiral
• January 28 - Alice Neel, portrait painter
• January 31 - Betty Parsons, painter and gallerist
• February 5 - Adlai Stevenson II, politician
• February 12 - Roger J. Traynor, judge
• February 13 - Wingy Manone, jazz trumpeter and bandleader
• February 25 - Richard Hollingshead, inventor of the drive-in theatre
• March 3 - Ruby Dandridge, African American film and radio actress
• March 4 - Herbert Biberman, screenwriter, film director
• March 8 - Howard Aiken, computing pioneer
• March 29 - Oscar Elton Sette, fisheries scientist
• April 1 - William Benton, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1949 to 1953
• April 5 - Spencer Tracy, film actor
• April 10 – Arnold Orville Beckman, chemist and investor
• April 13 – Sorcha Boru, born Claire Jones, art deco potter, ceramic sculptor
• April 26 - Charles Francis Richter, geophysicist, inventor
• May 5 - Helen Redfield, geneticist
• May 11 - Thomas H. Robbins Jr., admiral
• May 12 - Joseph Rochefort, captain and cryptanalyst
• May 15 - Ida Rhodes, mathematician, pioneer in computer programming
• May 27 - Leopold Godowsky Jr., violinist and chemist, co-inventor of reversal film
• May 28
• * Tommy Ladnier, jazz trumpeter
• * Morris Talpalar, sociologist
• May 31 - Lucile Godbold, Olympic athlete
• June 3 - Adelaide Ames, astronomer
• June 4 - George Watkins, baseball player
• June 7
• * Glen Gray, jazz saxophonist
• * Frederick Terman, electrical engineer, professor
• June 8 - Lena Baker, African American maid executed for capital murder, pardoned posthumously
• June 14
• * Ruth Nanda Anshen, writer, editor and philosopher
• * June Walker, actress
• June 15 - Paul Mares, jazz trumpeter
• June 19 - Laura Z. Hobson, author
• June 22 - Russell Vis, wrestler
• June 23 - Blanche Noyes, aviator
• June 24 - Gene Austin, crooner
• June 25 - Georgia Hale, silent film actress and real estate investor
• July 2 - Joe Bennett, baseball player
• July 4 - Nellie Mae Rowe, African American folk artist
• July 5
• * Reed Howes, model and film actor
• * Richard K. Webel, landscape architect
• July 6 - Frederica Sagor Maas, playwright, essayist and author
• July 7
• * Frank W. Cyr, educator, author
• * Earle E. Partridge, general
• July 8 - George Antheil, avant-garde composer
• July 9
• * Joseph LaShelle, cinematographer
• * Frances McConnell-Mills, toxicologist
• July 13
• * Cornelius Keefe, film actor
• * George Lewis, jazz clarinetist
• July 20 - Hunter Lane, baseball player
• July 21 - Isadora Bennett, theatre manager, modern dance publicity agent
• July 22 - Edward Dahlberg, novelist and poet
• July 23 - Julia Davis Adams, author, journalist
• July 29 - Owen Lattimore, scholar of Asia
• August 3 - Ernie Pyle, journalist
• August 9 - Charles Farrell, screen actor
• August 11 - Philip Phillips, archaeologist
• August 15 - Estelle Brody, silent film actress
• August 18 - Glenn Albert Black, archaeologist
• August 19
• * Colleen Moore, film actress
• * Dorothy Burr Thompson, archaeologist, art historian
• August 26 - Margaret Utinsky, nurse, recipient of the Medal of Freedom
• September 5 - Grace Eldering, public health scientist, co-developer of vaccine for whooping cough
• September 8 - Claude Pepper, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1936 to 1951
• September 17
• * J. Willard Marriott, entrepreneur, founder of the Marriott International hospitality chain
• * Lena Frances Edwards, African American physician, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
• September 18 - Thomas Darden, rear admiral, 37th Governor of American Samoa
• September 22 - Paul Hugh Emmett, chemical engineer
• September 28 - Isabel Pell, socialite, member of the French Resistance during WWII
• October 2 - Olive Ann Alcorn, dancer, model and silent film actress
• October 6 - Vivion Brewer, desegregationist
• October 9 - Frederick Moosbrugger, admiral
• October 10 - Helen Hayes, actress
• October 17 - Jean Arthur, comic film actress
• October 18 - Evelyn Berckman, novelist
• November 5
• * Martin Dies Jr., politician
• * Natalie Schafer, actress
• November 6
• * Ida Lou Anderson, orator, professor and radio broadcasting pioneer
• * Hugh Prosser, film actor
• November 8
• * Margaret Mitchell, novelist
• * Charley Paddock, Olympic sprinter
• November 11 - Frederick Lawton, 9th Director of the Office of Management and Budget
• November 13 - David Marshall Williams, inventor
• November 14 - Aaron Copland, composer
• November 20 - Florieda Batson, hurdler
• November 29 - Mildred Gillars, Nazi propaganda broadcaster
• December 6 - Agnes Moorehead, actress
• December 12 - Sammy Davis Sr., dancer
• December 19 - Margaret Brundage, illustrator
• Undated
• * Hattie Moseley Austin, African American entrepreneur, restaurateur
• * Louella Ballerino, fashion designer, known for her work in sportswear
• * Grace Morley, art museum curator
• * Fannie Nampeyo, Hopi potter and ceramic artist
• * Virginia Frances Sterrett, artist, illustrator

  Deaths

• January 2 - Zenas Bliss, Union Army general and Medal of Honor recipient
• January 22 - David Edward Hughes, inventor of the microphone and teleprinter
• February 18 - Clinton L. Merriam, banker and politician
• February 20 - Washakie, head chief of the Eastern Snakes
• February 22 - Dan Rice, clown
• March 19 - John Bingham, politician and lawyer
• April 7 - Frederic Edwin Church, landscape painter
• April 24 - Andrew Smith Hallidie, inventor and cable car pioneer
• April 30 - Casey Jones, legendary train engineer
• May 22 - Nathaniel P. Hill, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1879 to 1885
• June 11 - Maria Isabella Boyd, U.S. Civil War spy for the Confederacy
• July 14 - John H. Gear, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1895 to 1900
• August 2 - John Mason Loomis, lumber tycoon, Union militia colonel in the American Civil War and philanthropist
• August 5 - Luke Pryor, U.S. Senator from Alabama in 1880
• August 12 - James Edward Keeler, astronomer
• August 13 - Collis P. Huntington, railroad promoter
• August 16 - John James Ingalls, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1873 to 1891
• September 20 - John Alexander McClernand, lawyer, politician, and Union General during the American Civil War
• September 23 - William Marsh Rice, philanthropist and founder of Rice University
• September 25 - John M. Palmer, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1891 to 1897
• September 29 - Samuel Fenton Cary, Congressman and prohibitionist
• October 20 - Charles Dudley Warner, essayist and novelist
• October 22 - John Sherman, 32nd United States Secretary of the Treasury, 35th United States Secretary of State
• November 27 - Cushman Kellogg Davis, Governor of Minnesota from 1874 to 1876 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1887 to 1900
• December 21 - Roger Wolcott, lawyer and politician, 39th Governor of Massachusetts
• December 31 - J.T. Wamelink, Dutch-born composer