The following events occurred in January 1904:
January 1, 1904 (Friday) Boston's polar bear club, the L Street Brownies, held their first documented New Year's Day swim in Boston Harbor. The Louvre Hotel on Lake Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, was destroyed by fire. Three people, including a 12-year-old boy and his mother, died of smoke inhalation, and four people were injured. According to an article in The San Francisco Call, "With the remembrance of the Iroquois Theater horror fresh in their minds, all persons in the place became panic-stricken and rushed madly for the streets as soon as it became known that the hotel was on fire." Born: Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Pakistani politician; in Kharian, Gujrat District, Punjab Province, British India (d. 1982) Died: James J. Belden, member of the United States House of Representatives from New York, uremic poisoning (b. 1825) Konoe Atsumaro, Japanese politician (b. 1863) Frederick Pabst, German American brewer, pulmonary edema (b. 1836)
January 2, 1904 (Saturday) Julio Argentino Roca, the President of Argentina, issued a decree confirming the transfer of the British meteorological station on Laurie Island, which would become Orcadas Base, to Argentina. The First Physical Culture Exhibition, the first large-scale bodybuilding competition in America, concluded at Madison Square Garden in New York City, having begun on December 28, 1903. American bodybuilder Al Treloar won the competition. During a matinee performance at the Thalia Theater on the Bowery in New York City, a false cry of fire nearly caused a human crush. A group of policemen in the lobby averted disaster by attacking audience members with clubs and fists and forcing them back inside, bringing a sudden end to the panic. Born: Walter Heitler, German physicist; in Karlsruhe, German Empire (d. 1981) Truus Klapwijk (born Geertruida Klapwijk), Dutch Olympic water polo player, diver and freestyle swimmer; in Rotterdam, Netherlands (d. 1991) James Melton, American popular and operatic tenor singer; in Moultrie, Georgia (d. 1961, lobar pneumonia) Died: Mathilde Bonaparte, French princess (b. 1820) Harvey Ellis, American architect and furniture designer (b. 1852) Queen Hyojeong, Empress Dowager of Korea (b. 1831) James Longstreet, American Civil War Confederate general and United States Minister to the Ottoman Empire, pneumonia (b. 1821)
January 3, 1904 (Sunday) St. Catherine's Academy, a girls' Catholic school near Springfield, Kentucky, was totally destroyed by fire, causing about $200,000 in damage but no deaths. A derailment on the Western Maryland Railroad east of Hagerstown, Maryland, killed two people, including a 5-year-old girl, and injured 30. 30 people were injured, some seriously, by an explosion at an anniversary dance in Keasbey, New Jersey, for the St Johns Benevolent Society. Colorado Labor Wars: Colorado Governor James Hamilton Peabody placed Telluride, Colorado under modified martial law. Born: Boris Kochno, Russian poet, dancer and librettist; in Moscow, Russian Empire (d. 1990, fall) Carlos Nascimento, Brazilian footballer and manager; in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (d. 1979) Died: Larin Paraske, Izhorian oral poet (b. 1833)