Lobbied by the American dairy industry, the United States Senate voted, 39 to 31, to pass a bill putting additional taxes on the butter substitute oleomargarine.[2]
Will Reynolds, an African-American railroad employee who was being served with a warrant for a five dollar charge account, killed the sheriff of Colbert County, Alabama and five deputies, along with one bystander, before being killed by a party of law enforcement officers.[6]
Bulgarian revolutionary Metody Patchev entered Kadino Selo, Macedonia with six other revolutionaries, not realising that Ottoman troops were stationed in the village. Recognising the hopelessness of their situation, he killed his friends and committed suicide.[7]
Russia and China signed a treaty for Russian withdrawal of troops from Manchuria over in three stages taking place between July 1902 and January 1904.[2]
In Kemmerer, Wyoming, U.S. merchant J. C. Penney opened his first store, originally under the trade name "Golden Rule", with himself and his wife as the sole employees. Penney would say later that he was surprised that his first day's revenue was $466.59. By 1913, he would have 36 stores and incorporate as the J. C. Penney Company. By 1924 he would have 500 stores and by 1941, there would be 1,600. [15]
A series of earthquakes struck Guatemala as the worst tremor in the Central American nation in nearly 200 years, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII ("Severe"). Officially, 800 people were killed[19] although the consequences of the quake, including flooding, a tsunami and volcanic activity, killed an estimated 12,200 people. Hardest hit was the city of Escuintla, which was shaken for two minutes, killing 4,000 of its 10,000 inhabitants. The town of Ocós was destroyed by lava from fissures that opened beneath the town, and then struck by a tidal wave from the Pacific Ocean. Other villages with a large loss of life were San Marcos, San Pedro Sacatepéquez, San Juan Ostuncalco, Champerico, Cuyotenango, Maztenango and Tuscana.[20]
The Mount Pelée volcano in Martinique began erupting, raining cinders on its southern and western side.[25] The volcano's deadly eruption would happen 15 days later.
Manchester United was founded by five English investors who bought the assets of the bankrupt Newton Heath LYR Football Club.[26][27] In its first 100 seasons, Man U. would win 10 FA Cups and seven First Division titles and seven Premier League titles.
Boer General Jan Smuts departed Concordia in the Northern Cape of the South African Republic (the Transavaal), along with 250 men to meet with British negotiators at Vereeniging to discuss a ceasefire in the Second Boer War. General Smuts "was received with all military honours" by Colonel Cooper of the British Army, who provided an escort to guide Smuts and his entourage through British lines. The evening before his departure, General Smuts told supporters, "If on my return I can say 'It is peace,' then we shall have reason for joy. But if I say 'The war goes on', then we shall take up arms again, and fight with more ardour than ever, and with new enthusiasm.'"[29]
Meteorological statistics show that, averaged over the whole of Australia, April 1902 was the driest month since records began, with only 3.74 millimetres (0.15 in).[34]
^Badsey-Ellis, Antony (2005). London's Lost Tube Schemes. Capital Transport. ISBN1-85414-293-3.
^Merkx, Kris; Deruette, Serge (1999). La Vie en Rose: Réalités de l'Histoire du Parti socialiste en Belgique [La Vie en Rose: Realities of the History of the Socialist Party in Belgium] (in French). Brussels: EPO. ISBN2872621474.
^"75 years ago this week James Cash Penney opened his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming", advertisement, Los Angeles Times, April 17, 1977, p.I-7
^"Russia" in The International Year Book: A Compendium of the World's Progress During the Year 1902 (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903) p. 595
^"Thomas L. Tally, Film Pioneer, Dies. Producer First Signed Mary Pickford, Chaplin. A Founder of First National Pictures". The New York Times. November 25, 1945.
^Tucker, Spencer C., ed. (2009). The encyclopedia of the Spanish–American and Philippine–American wars: a political, social, and military history. Vol. I–III. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 217. ISBN978-1-85109-951-1.
^"Guatemala: April 18, 1902", in Natural Disasters, by Lee Davis (Facts on File, Inc., 2008) pp. 50-51
^ abcdefThe American Monthly Review of Reviews (June, 1902), pp. 667-671
^Strikwerda, Carl (1997). A House Divided: Catholics, Socialists, and Flemish Nationalists in Nineteenth-century Belgium. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN9780847685271.
^"Naval Operations Plans between Germany and the USA, 1898—1913", by H. H. Herwig and D. F. Trask, in The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880-1914, ed. by Paul Kennedy (Allen & Unwin, 1979) p. 54
^McGuire, James; Quinn, James (2009). Dictionary of Irish Biography. Vol. II. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy-Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-63331-4.
^"A French Volunteer in the Ranks of the Boers", by Robert de Kersauson, in L'Illustration, January 24, 1903, translated by C. de Jong and reprinted in the South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4 (1976) p. 23