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The following events occurred in June, 1900.

• It was census day in America as workers began the actual count for the 1900 United States Census. In New York, a force of 1,100 enumerators, 85 interpreters, and 25 supervisors set out to count the city's 200,000 estimated residents, with a deadline of June 15 to complete the job. ^[1] The tally announced on October 30 was 76,295,220 ^[2] but was revised later to 76,212,168. The U.S. population a century earlier (1800) had been 5,308,483 and a century later (2000) would be 281,421,906. ^[3]. Sealed for at least 72 years, the complete census forms were finally unsealed by the National Archives on December 3, 1973. ^[4].

• Samori Toure, formerly the Emperor of the Wassoulou Empire in West Africa, died on the island of Ndjole, located in the middle of the Ogooue River in Gabon. He had been exiled there following his defeat in 1898 by the French army. Captain Albert Baratier, who had defeated Samori in battle, commented that the conqueror who "would have compared to Napoleon, found his St. Helena". ^[5]
• The French Senate voted an amnesty for Alfred Dreyfus, who had been pardoned earlier (September 18, 1899) by President Loubet. Not until July 19, 1906, was Dreyfus's name finally cleared by the setting aside of the original veridct against him. ^[6]

• William Howard Taft arrived in Manila on the U.S.S. Hancock to take office as the first civilian Governor of the Phillipines, replacing Gen. Arthur MacArthur, the last U.S. military governor. "The populace that was expected to welcome us was not there," Taft would say later, "and I cannot describe the coldness of the Army officers and the Army men who received us any better than by saying that it somewhat exceeded the coldnress of the populace." ^[7]
• The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was founded in New York. ^[8]
• In Germany the most comprehensive meat inspection laws to that date took effect. ^[9]
• Adventurer Mary Kingsley, who had written two bestsellers about the various peoples of West Africa, died of typhoid fever at the age of 37 in South Africa. ^[10]

• The Battle of Makahambus Hill took place near Cagayan de Oro City in the Philippines. The event is commemorated in the Phillipines as the lone victory of the Filipino soldiers against the American occupation forces, and a historical marker is on the site. [2]

• At 2:00 in the afternoon, Lord Roberts formally took possession of Pretoria, the capital of the South African Republic, for the British Empire. Thirteen hours earlier, three Boer officials presented General Roberts with General Botha's proposal for a surrender. ^[11]
• Stephen Crane, the American author of The Red Badge of Courage, died of tuberculosis at the age of 29 in Badenweiler, Germany. ^[12]

• President McKinley signed into law the federal charter for the American Red Cross. ^[13]
• Congress approved enactment of a civil code and a judicial code for Alaska, setting the capital at Juneau and creating a territorial government ^[14]
• Congress approved the "Jerome Agreement", where 2.9 million acres of Indian land in Oklahoma had been purchased for a bargain price of 93 cents and acre, despite assertions by the affected tribes (the Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache) that the terms had been misrepresented and the agreement had not legally been ratified (under the Medicine Lodge treaty) by 3/4 of the adult males of the tribe. A Kiowa tribesman named Lone Wolf brought suit in 1901 against the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Indians in the case of Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553 (1/5/1903). On July 4, 1900, President McKinley proclaimed the area open for settlement effective August 6, 1900. ^[15]
• After lobbying by organizations of Confederate veterans, Congress approved funding for reinterrment of 267 Southern soldiers from northern burial grounds to a special section of the Arlington National Cemetery. ^[16]
• Mr. Ryall, the Superintendent of Police in British East Africa (now Kenya, was eaten by a lion after traveling to the railway station in Kima. After going with two other hunters to track down the beast, Ryall was sleeping inside a closed railcar when the lion broke through a window and dragged him off. ^[17]

• Carrie Nation walked into the a saloon in Kiowa, Kansas and began her memorable crusade against liquor. At 8:30 in the morning, she informed owner John Dobson, "I don't want to strike you, but I am going to break up this den of vice." She then threw brickbats at his liquor bottles and at the mirror behind the bar. Mrs. Nation then vandalized three other establishments in Kiowa, before riding out of town. Because the saloons were operating illegally, she was not arrested. Nation continued her crusade over the next several years, until her death in 1911. ^[18]

• The telescopic sight was approved for mass production, following the report of a special "Board of Officers on Test of Telescopic Sight for U.S. Magazine Rifle", chaired by Major John E. Greer. In its report, issued to the War Department after its May 24 meeting, the Board reported that the scope made by the Cataract Tool and Optical Company had proved accurate even a range of 2,000 yards-- more than a mile. "The board is of the opinion that this sight is suitable for use in the U.S. service, and recommends that a number of them be purchased for trial by troops in the field." ^[19]
• In Beijing, Boxer rebels set fire to the grandstand of the horse racing track of the Peking Club, the country club for Western diplomats. When some British students rode their horses out to investigate the fire, they were charged by a crowd of the Chinese and quickly turned back. One of the British horsemen, however, drew his pistol and killed one of the Chinese men. As a result of the incident, the Imperial government sent armies to surround the Beijing Legation Quarter, where the foreign legations were located. ^[20]

• Birsa Munda, the 24 year old rebel who led the Munda rebellion in British India's Bihar region, died in prison in Ranchi under mysterious circumstances. In death, he became one of the heroes of the Indian independence movement. ^[21]. Numerous organizations are named for Birsa, including the Birsa Agricultural University and the Birsa Munda Airport, both in Ranchi, and BIT Sindri, the Birsa Institute of Technology in the city of Sindri.
• Troops from the Imperial Chinese Army marched into Beijing and took positions around the legation quarter, where the diplomatic corps from Western powers, as well as Japan, were headquartered. ^[22]

• In response to the Boxer Rebellion, a multinational force of more than 2,000 foreign troops set off by train from Tien-tsin (Tianjin) for Pekin Beijing to protect the citizens of their respective countries. The trains, carrying troops from Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan, halted not far into the 110 mile trip because the rails had been torn up by the Boxers, and had to march the rest of the way. ^[23]
• In the 1960 film The Time Machine, the traveler stops at this date before proceeding onward to the year 802,701. ^[24]

• In Beijing, violence against foreigners took a new turn when Japanese diplomat Sugiyama Akira was murdered by Imperial Chinese soldiers. Akira, the chancellor of the Japanese Legation, had dressed in "top hat and tails" and driven by carriage from the legation quarter to the railway station, where he had planned to greet the relief force arriving from Tianjin, but the rails had been destroyed by the Boxers. Imperial soldiers under the command of General Tung dragged Akira from his carriage and hacked him to bits, then displayed his severed head at the station. ^[25]

• The Reichstag approved a second law that allowed the expansion of the German navy, doubling the number of ships to 96 in all. ^[26]
• In Chicago, hundreds of spectators at a circus were thrown to the ground when the seating collapsed, just as the performance began. Fourteen people were hospitalized. A week earlier, twelve people had been hurt in a collapse of seats at the same circus. ^[27]

• When three Chinese nationals in Boxer uniform came too close to the German legation, one of them, a young man, was captured by the German guards. Baron von Ketteler, the German minister to China, thrashed the Boxer with his stick and then ordered his guards to extend the beating. Kettler then sent a warning to the Chinese Foreign Ministry (the Zongli Yamen that the boy would die. Over the next few days, the foreign diplomats began shooting at Chinese nationals near the legation quarter. Von Ketteler would be killed on June 20. ^[28]

• The Republic of Hawaii formally came to an end as the "Act to Provide a Government for the Territory of Hawaii" took effect. ^[29] Sanford B. Dole, who had continued as President even after sovereignty was transferred to the United States in 1898 ^[30], became the first territorial Governor. Under section 4 of the Act, all persons who had been citizens of the Republic of Hawaii on August 12, 1898, became United States citizens. ^[31]
• At 7:00 pm, German embassy guards, under the direction of Ambassador Ketteler, went outside the legation quarter and fired upon Boxer rebels in Beijing, killing 20. Lancelot Giles, an interpreter with the British embassy, recorded the incident in his diary that night, noting the furious shouts from a crowd trying to get into the city. G.E. Morrison, correspondent for the London Times, noted another incident where 45 Chinese were killed in a raid by the Europeans on a temple. ^[32]

• An imperial decree issued from Chinese Empress (Tzu Hsi) Cixi, banning the Boxers from entering Beijing, in response to fighting between the European legations and the Boxer rebels. At the same time, more rebels continued to pour into the capital. ^[33]

• In Lübeck, Germany, the Elbe-Lübeck Canal, 41 miles in length, was formally opened by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The canal took five years to build at a cost of nearly six million dollars at the time, and joined the Elbe River to the Trave, which in turn provided ocean access at the Baltic Sea. ^[34]
• An accident at the Slough railway station led to the 1906 introduction of a system of Automatic Train Control.

• At 3:25 p.m. the ships from navies of several nations began bombardment of the Taku Forts in China, and amphibious landing parties began their invasion. An ultimatum, sent the night before, had expired at 2:00. Ninety minutes into the battle, ammunition magazines inside the forts were detonated by shelling from the attacking ships, and the forts were surrendered the next day. ^[35]
• As delegates gathered in Philadelphia for the upcoming 1900 Republican National Convention, delegates weighed in on the choice for President McKinley's running mate, to replace the late vice-president, Garrett Hobart. U.S. Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania announced that 58 of his state's 64 delegates supported New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt. Colorado followed, and soon more states were supporting Roosevelt. ^[36].

• The Taku Forts of China were were captured by 8:00 a.m., 16 hours after Western navies had begun bombardment. The allies lost 184 men, while more than 1,000 Chinese defenders were killed or wounded. One allied ship, the Gilyak of Russia, was sunk. ^[37] The four destroyers of the Chinese Navy, anchored at the Peiho river, were captured and recommissioned as naval vessels in Britain, France, Germany and Russia. ^[38] The Hai Lung became the British HMS Taku, the Hai Hse became the French ship Takou, the Hai Jing became the German ship Taku and the Hai Hua was later the Russian ship Lieutenant Burakov. ^[39]

• In Beijing, the Empress Dowager Cixi delivered an ultimatum to the eleven ambassadors in the Legation quarter. Because of the attack on the Taku Forts, all foreign residents (including diplomats, missionaries and their families) were given until 4:00 pm the next day -- to leave the Chinese capital. ^[40]

• Clemens von Ketteler, the German ambassador to China, was murdered as he and an aide went to the Chinese Foreign Ministry (Zongli Yamen) without their guards. With less than seven hours left until a 4 p.m. deadline for all foreigners to leave Beijing, Baron von Ketteler ignored the warnings of his fellow ambassadors and rode out of the diplomatic quarter. Von Ketteler was shot and killed as he approached the Zongli Yamen; his interpreter, Heinrich Cordes, survived to return to the embassy, at which point evacuation was no longer an option. ^[41] At 4:00 p.m., Chinese troops began their siege of the foreign legations quarter, where 900 Europeans and 3,000 Chinese Christians held out behind the walls. The siege would last 55 days. ^[42]

• China formally declared war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France, and Japan, as an edict issued from the Dowager Empress Cixi. ^[43]
• As the rainy season began, Maj. Gen. Arthur MacArthur, commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines, declared a 90-day amnesty for all guerillas. Any combatant willing who surrendered and took an oath of allegiance to the United States would be allowed to return home. Only 5,022 Filipinos accepted, mostly prisoners. ^[44]
• At the 1900 Republican National Convention, President McKinley and New York Governor and Roosevelt were unanimously nominated for President and Vice-President. ^[45]

• In Dunhuang, Gansu province of China, a Daoist monk named Wang Yuanlu rediscovered an entire library of the centuries-old Dunhuang manuscripts. The newest of the materials dated from the 11th century, the oldest from the 5th. ^[46].

• The day after the discovery of one ancient Chinese library, another was destroyed by fire. The Hanlin Academy Library in Beijing was adjacent to the British Legation and was China's largest collection of works, housing thousands of centuries-old publications. Soldiers under the command of General Chang Foo Shiang set fire to the academy while attacking the British embassy; the library burned to the ground, but the winds blew the flames away from the embassy, which survived unscathed. ^[47]
• Foreign residents of Tien-tsin Tianjin were rescued by the Allied invasion force, led by Major Littleton W.T. Waller and a detachment of U.S. Marines, followed by German, British, Japanese and Italian forces. Future American president Herbert Hoover, a 26 year old engineer, was among the persons saved. ^[48]

• The Wangla village in the Hebei province of China was attacked by the Boxers, who burned down the Catholic church there and killed all of the Christian converts except for four orphan girls who were kidnapped. Given the chance to have their lives spared in return for renouncing their faith, the four girls-- Lucy Wan Cheng (18), Mary Fan Kun (16), Mary Chi Yu (15) and Mary Zheng Xu (11) -- refused, and were murdered. One hundred years later, they would be among 85 Martyr Saints of China canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000. ^[49]

• The Yellow Fever Board, chaired by Dr. Walter Reed, with board members Dr. Jesse Lazear, Dr. James Carroll and Dr. Aristides Agramonte, began working on the task of ending the disease of yellow fever, which had killed hundreds of thousands of residents of the Western Hemisphere. Working at the U.S. Army hospital at Quemado de Güines, Cuba, the Board proved that the disease was transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti and that eradication of the mosquito would halt future epidemics. Dr. Lazear died from the disease after allowing himself to be bit by a mosquito, but his discovery was history-changing. In 1900, 1,000 people in Havana died from yellow fever; in 1901, only twenty did. ^[50].

• The Russification of Finland took a new direction when an Imperial ukase issued from from Tsar Nicholas II, replacing Finnish with Russian as the official language. Use of Russian in the government offices was required immediately, while its use by lower government offices would be phased in over five years. ^[51]
• The same day in British India, Resolution No. 585 went into effect, requiring that "except in a purely English office", no person would be appointed to a government job "unless he knows both Hindi and Urdu" and that incumbent officials would have one year to learn both languages. ^[52]

• A treaty between signed in Paris between France and Spain set the boundary between their West African colonies, at Mauritania and the Spanish Sahara. The treaty was ratified on March 22, 1901 ^[53]. Mauritania became independent in 1960, and after it gave up claims to the Spanish colony, it now shares the border with Morocco.

• In Vienna, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir renounced his right of succession to the to the throne of Austria-Hungary, renounced his right of succession in order to marry Countess Sophie Chotek von Chotkova. The ceremony, administered by Foreign Minister Goluchowski, included an oath to have a morganatic marriage. In marrying a commoner (who was a Countess by marriage) the heir forfeited the right of succession for any children by Chotek. ^[54]. The marriage took place at Reichstadt in Bohemia (now Zakupy in the Czech Republic the following Sunday. ^[55] The couple did not have children, nor did Franz Ferdinand live to become Emperor of Austria or King of Hungary. Exactly 14 years after the Archduke's oath, both he and his wife were assassinated on June 28, 1914, setting off [{World War I]].

• King Oscar II of Sweden approved the proposed statutes of the Nobel Foundation, creating the organization that had been funded by the 1895 Will of Alfred Nobel. The first Nobel Prize awards were made by the foundation in 1901. ^[56]

• At Pier 8 of in Hoboken, New Jersey, cotton bales and barrels of turpentine and oil caught fire around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. In less than 15 minutes, high winds , the fire had spread a quarter of a mile along the port and on to the four German steamships moored there. The liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was slowly towed into the Hudson River and its fire brought under control. The Saale and the Main, each with 150 crew on board, were cut loose and set adrift, but destroyed by the fire, while the Bremen was heavily damaged. On the Saale, the portholes were too narrow for the men inside to escape. Some victims drowned, but most burned to death. ^[57]. Despite the best efforts of the Hoboken and New York fire departments to save the piers and the ships, respectively, 326 people were killed. ^[58]

• June 2 - Gordon Sinclair, Canadian journalist who had a Top Ten hit single in 1973 with his spoken recording "The Americans" (d. 1984)
• June 3 - Rolland Fisher, American temperance activist (d. 1982)
• June 4 - George Watkins, American baseball player (d. 1970)
• June 5 - Dennis Gabor, Hungarian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
• June 7 - Frederick Terman, the "Father of Silicon Valley"

Glen Gray, American saxophonist (d. 1963)

• June 15 - Paul Mares, American jazz trumpeter (d. 1949)
• June 17 - Martin Bormann, German Nazi official (d. 1945)
• June 25 - Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma - last Governor-General of India (assassinated 1979).
• June 29 - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French pilot and writer (d. 1944)

• June 2 - Samori Ture, West African empire-builder (b. 1830)
• Clarence Cook, American critic and writer (b. 1828)
• June 3 - Mary Kingsley, English explorer and writer (b. 1862)
• June 5 - Stephen Crane, American author (b. 1871)
• June 11 - Belle Boyd, American Confederate spy and actress (b. 1843)
• June 19 - Princess Josephine of Baden (b. 1813)