The following events occurred in February 1904:
February 1, 1904 (Monday) Frank Wedekind's play Pandora's Box, the second part of his "Lulu" cycle, received its world premiere in Nuremberg, Germany. Opera singer Lillian Nordica was granted an interlocutory decree of divorce from her husband, operatic tenor Zoltán Döhme. At the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt met for about 10 minutes with renowned American frontier lawman and sportswriter Bat Masterson while senators and representatives waited in an adjoining room. In a bout at the West End club in St. Louis, Missouri, American boxer Abe Attell defeated American Harry Forbes by knockout to win the world featherweight championship. Born: Tricky Sam Nanton (born Joseph Nanton Irish), American trombonist; in New York City (d. 1946, stroke) Pierre Naville, French Surrealist writer and sociologist; in Paris, France (d. 1993) S. J. Perelman, American humorist and author; in Brooklyn, New York City (d. 1979) Joseph Asajiro Satowaki, Japanese Roman Catholic cardinal, Archbishop of Nagasaki; in Shittsu, Kyushu, Japan (d. 1996, brain tumor) Died: Curtis Coe Bean, American businessman and politician, Congressional delegate from Arizona Territory (b. 1828) Mariano S. Otero, Congressional delegate from the Territory of New Mexico, apoplexy (b. 1844) Peter Paul Maria Alberdingk Thijm, Dutch academic and writer (b. 1827)
February 2, 1904 (Tuesday) Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Ad diem illum, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Pope Pius IX's definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. In Council Bluffs, Iowa, the home of the Christiensen family was destroyed by fire at 2 am, killing five children 11 years old and younger and critically burning their mother. Nadir of American race relations: The Kentucky House of Representatives indefinitely postponed consideration of a bill to disenfranchise African American voters, effectively killing the measure. A major fire in the wholesale district of Knoxville, Tennessee, killed fire captain William A. Maxey and John J. Dunn, a former fireman who was helping fight the blaze. The walls of a neighboring building collapsed and fell through the roof of the building where Maxey and Dunn were. Born: Bozorg Alavi (born Seyyed Mojtaba Alavi), Iranian writer, novelist and intellectual; in Tehran, Iran (d. 1997) Peter Blos, German American psychoanalyst; in Karlsruhe, Germany (d. 1997) Sonora Webster Carver (born Sonora Webster), American horse diver; in Waycross, Georgia (d. 2003) Valery Chkalov, Soviet test pilot; in Vasilyevo, Russian Empire (d. 1938, plane crash) Helen Rose, American costume designer; in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1985) Andreina Sacco, Italian athletics competitor; in Turin, Italy (d. 1988) Died: Sir Edward Braddon , Cornish-born Australian politician, Premier of Tasmania (b. 1829) Ernest Cashel, American-Canadian criminal, execution by hanging (b. c. 1882) Frederick Mills, English rugby union player (b. 1849) William Collins Whitney, American politician, United States Secretary of the Navy, sepsis while under anesthesia prior to appendicitis operation (b. 1841) W. W. Woolnough, American newspaperman, abolitionist and politician (b. 1822)