December 1899

The following events occurred in December 1899:

December 1, 1899 (Friday)

 * Died:
 * Ed Gastfield, American professional basesball player (b. 1865)

December 2, 1899 (Saturday)

 * Philippine–American War – Battle of Tirad Pass ("The Filipino Thermopylae"): General Gregorio del Pilar and his troops are able to guard the retreat of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo, before being wiped out.
 * During the new moon, a near-grand conjunction of the classical planets and several binocular Solar System bodies occur. The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Saturn are all within 15° of each other, with Venus 5° ahead of this conjunction and Jupiter 15° behind. Accompanying the classical planets in this grand conjunction are Uranus (technically visible unaided in pollution-free skies), Ceres and Pallas.** Rebel Venezuelan General Jose Manuel Hernandez captures the city of Maracaibo in his revolt against Cipriano Castro's government, but is only able to hold it for 15 days.
 * Died:
 * Gregorio del Pilar, Filipino general, killed in action (b. 1875)

December 4, 1899 (Monday)

 * As the 56th U.S. Congress holds its first session, David B. Henderson (Republican-Iowa) is elected Speaker of the House. The House refuses permission for Brigham H. Roberts (Democrat-Utah) to take the oath of office as a U.S. Representative, pending investigation of allegations of bigamy.

December 5, 1899 (Tuesday)

 * Germany's cabinet agrees to repeal a Prussian law that had prohibited the creation of political societies or clubs.

December 6, 1899 (Wednesday)

 * A lynch mob in Maysville, Kentucky forces its way into the county jail to seize an African-American indicted for murder, tortures him and then burns him to death.

December 9, 1899 (Saturday)

 * An explosion kills 32 coal miners at the Carbon Hill mines in Carbonado, Washington.

December 10, 1899 (Sunday)

 * Four-month-old Sobhuza II begins his 82-year reign as King of Swaziland, on the death of his father, Ngwane V; his grandmother Labotsibeni Mdluli serves as queen regent.
 * Battle of Stormberg: The British Army makes a disastrous attempt to surprise the Boer position in Natal and suffers the loss of 687 officers and men.
 * The college fraternity Delta Sigma Phi is founded at the City College of New York, by Charles A. Tonsor Jr. and Meyer Boskey.
 * Died:
 * King Ngwane V of Swaziland (b. 1876)

December 11, 1899 (Monday)

 * Second Boer War: Battle of Magersfontein – Boers defeat British forces trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
 * Philippine-American War: Filipino General Tierona surrenders the province of Cagayan to U.S. Navy Captain McCalla of the USS Newark.

December 13, 1899 (Wednesday)

 * General French routs Boer troops that had been advancing into the Cape Colony toward Noupoort.

December 14, 1899 (Thursday)

 * Walther Hauser is elected President of Switzerland by the Swiss Federal Assembly.

December 15, 1899 (Friday)

 * Battle of Colenso: Britain's General Buller loses 1,097 officers and men in a fight against the Boers in Natal, the third serious British reverse in South Africa in a week.
 * Glasgow School of Art opens its new building, the most notable work of Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
 * The Republican National Committee votes to hold its 1900 national convention in Philadelphia, to start on June 19, 1900.

December 16, 1899 (Saturday)

 * The Association football club A.C. Milan is founded in Italy.
 * Died:
 * Fred Waterman, American professional baseball player (b. 1845)

December 18, 1899 (Monday)

 * The British War Office sends Lord Roberts to South Africa to become the new commander of British forces in the Second Boer War, with Lord Kitchener to be second in command, and announces that 100,000 additional men will be sent as the British death toll rises to 7630.
 * U.S. Army General Lawton is killed by a Filipino sniper near San Mateo on Luzon island.
 * Stock prices fall drastically at the New York exchanges and the Produce Exchange Trust Company fails.
 * Died:
 * Fred Truax, American professional baseball player (b. 1868)

December 19, 1899 (Tuesday)

 * New York City's clearinghouse banks pool together a $10,000,000 loan fund to prevent further failures of companies.
 * Died:
 * "Henry Ware Lawton", American general, killed in action (b. 1843)

December 20, 1899 (Wednesday)

 * The U.S. government arrests nine customs officials in Havana on charges of collusion to defraud the government.

December 21, 1899 (Thursday)

 * U.S. Army General Leonard Wood arrives in Havana to become the new Governor-General of Cuba.

December 22, 1899 (Friday)

 * More than 40 schoolchildren from Belgium drown in the capsizing of a boat near the French town of Frelinghien on the River Lys that serves a boundary between Belgium and France.
 * A fire kills 16 children in Quincy, Illinois.

December 23, 1899 (Saturday)

 * Forty coal miners are killed in an explosion near Brownsville, Pennsylvania.
 * Sir Reginald Wingate is appointed as the new British Governor-General of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

December 24, 1899 (Sunday)

 * The wreck of the British steamship Ariosto off the coast of Hatteras, North Carolina in the U.S. drowns 21 of the crew.

December 26, 1899 (Tuesday)

 * Pinnacle Rock, a balancing rock in Cumberland Gap on the Tennessee and Kentucky border in the U.S., falls down.

December 28, 1899 (Thursday)

 * The bodies of the officers and men killed on the 1898 explosion of the battleship USS Maine are reinterred at the Arlington National Cemetery.

December 29, 1899 (Friday)

 * The British Royal Navy cruiser HMS Magicienne seizes the German steamer, Bundesroth at Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa (modern-day Mozambique) on grounds that German officers and men are being brought to supplement the Boer Army. The Bundesroth is then escorted to Durban in Britain's Natal Colony.

December 30, 1899 (Saturday)

 * General Wood completes the appointment of a cabinet of ministers composed of Cuban residents, with Diego Tamayo, Luis Esterez, Juan B. Hernandez, Enrique Varona, Jose R. Villaton and Ruiz Rivera taking office.

December 31, 1899 (Sunday)

 * The German government and Kaiser Wilhelm II declare that the 20th century will begin on January 1, 1900. In most of the world, however, December 31, 1899 is not the last day of the 19th century, which also includes the year 1900.
 * Retrospectively, day zero for dates in Microsoft Excel (similar to January 1, 1970 being day zero for Unix time). This is to ensure backwards compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3, which had a bug misinterpreting 1900 as a leap year.