This Year in History:
1899
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On this day in 1899, future President Herbert Hoover marries his fellow Stanford University geology student and sweetheart Lou Henry in Monterey, California. After their nuptials, the newlyweds departed on…
The German company Bayer patents aspirin on March 6, 1899. Now the most common drug in household medicine cabinets, acetylsalicylic acid was originally made from a chemical found in the…
On this day, The Countess Cathleen by William Butler Yeats opens at the Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin, the theater’s inaugural performance. Yeats, already an accomplished poet, had been persuaded…
The amateur bandit Pearl Hart and her boyfriend hold up an Arizona stagecoach on May 30, 1899. Little is known about Pearl Hart’s early life. She was born in Ontario,…
On this day in 1899, E.B. White, the author of the popular children’s novels “Charlotte’s Web,” “Stuart Little” and “The Trumpet of the Swan,” is born in Mount Vernon, New…
On July 21, 1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway, author of such novels as “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea,” is born in Oak Park, Illinois.…
Alfred Hitchcock, the macabre master of moviemaking, is born in London on August 13, 1899. His innovative directing techniques and mastery of suspense made him one of the most popular…
On August 15, 1899, in Detroit, Michigan, Henry Ford resigns his position as chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company’s main plant in order to concentrate on automobile production. Henry…
The South African Boer War begins between the British Empire and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The Boers, also known as Afrikaners, were the descendants of…
On this day in 1899, poet and critic Allen Tate is born in Winchester, Kentucky. Tate attended Vanderbilt University, where he helped found a well‑regarded poetry magazine called The Fugitive,…
