July 1903

The following events occurred in July 1903:

July 1, 1903 (Wednesday)

• The first Tour de France bicycle race, sponsored by the French newspaper L'Auto in an effort to boost sales, was launched from the Café au Réveil-Matin in Paris.^[1]
• The
  Albula Tunnel in the Alps.^[2]
• The
  Dorothea Douglass as Ladies' Singles champion.^[3]
• North-West Territories.^[4]
• Born: Amy Johnson, English aviator, in Hull (died 1941)

July 2, 1903 (Thursday)

• The 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup motor race was held at the Athy Circuit in Ireland and was won by Camille Jenatzy of Belgium.^[5]
• Under the Cuban–American Treaty of Relations, signed in May 1903, the United States and Cuba signed a second lease on Guantánamo Bay, as a result of which the U.S. would send a payment to the Cuban government each year in return for permission to use the land as a coaling and naval station.^[6]
• Born:
  Olav V of Norway, at Sandringham, UK (died 1991)^[7]
• Died: Ed Delahanty, American Major League Baseball left fielder and infielder, fall into Niagara River (born 1867)^[8]

July 3, 1903 (Friday)

• Born:
  • Ace Bailey, Canadian ice hockey player, in Bracebridge, Ontario (died 1992)
  • Ralph Samuelson, American inventor of water skiing (died 1977, cancer)^[9]
• Died: Harriet Lane, 73, First Lady of the United States during the presidency of her uncle, James Buchanan

July 4, 1903 (Saturday)

• Inaugural
  World Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion Jack Root lost his title, by a technical knockout, to George Gardiner at Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, less than three months after winning it.^[10]

July 5, 1903 (Sunday)

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July 6, 1903 (Monday)

• Born: Hugo Theorell, Swedish scientist and Nobel laureate, in Linköping (died 1982)^[11]

July 7, 1903 (Tuesday)

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July 8, 1903 (Wednesday)

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July 9, 1903 (Thursday)

• French writer Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen was arrested on suspicion of indecent behavior with minors and offending the public decency; he was incarcerated at La Santé Prison.^[12]
• hanged on February 11, 1904.^{[13][14][15][16]}

July 10, 1903 (Friday)

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July 11, 1903 (Saturday)

• Born: O. E. Hasse, German film actor and director, in Obersitzko (died 1978)

July 12, 1903 (Sunday)

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July 13, 1903 (Monday)

• Born: Kenneth Clark, English art historian and broadcaster, in London (died 1983)

July 14, 1903 (Tuesday)

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July 15, 1903 (Wednesday)

• At 7 p.m., a massive explosion destroyed a privately owned explosives magazine at Robb's Jetty, in what is now
  Thomas Whelan. Although Whelan himself would initially be suspected of sabotage, head caretaker Robert Carrick would become the prime suspect, but would never be charged due to a lack of evidence.^[17]

July 16, 1903 (Thursday)

• Born: Adalberto Libera, Italian Modernist architect, in Trentino (died 1963)

July 17, 1903 (Friday)

• Died: James McNeill Whistler, 69, American painter

July 18, 1903 (Saturday)

• The U.S. paddle steamer North Pacific lost its course in foggy conditions, struck a rock off
  Marrowstone Island, Washington state
  , and sank.

July 19, 1903 (Sunday)

• The pre-race favourite, France's Maurice Garin, won the inaugural Tour de France.^[18]
• King
  Edward VII of the United Kingdom made his first visit to Ireland since becoming king in 1901.^[19]
• At the county jail in Basin, Wyoming, a lynch mob of about 50 men shot and killed Deputy Sheriff C. E. Pierce of the Big Horn County, Wyoming Sheriff's Office, who was guarding two murder suspects, Gorman and Walters. The mob then broke down the jail's doors with telephone poles and shot and killed the two prisoners.^[20][21]

July 20, 1903 (Monday)

• Died: Pope Leo XIII, 93, Italian prelate (born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci)

July 21, 1903 (Tuesday)

• The first tropical cyclone of the Atlantic hurricane season developed northeast of the Samaná Peninsula of the Dominican Republic.

July 22, 1903 (Wednesday)

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July 23, 1903 (Thursday)

• The first Ford Model A automobile was sold to Chicago dentist Ernest Pfennig.^[22]

July 24, 1903 (Friday)

• In the
  by-election at Barnard Castle in the UK, brought about by the death of sitting Liberal MP, Sir Joseph Pease, Arthur Henderson took the seat for Labour, becoming the first Labour candidate to win against both Liberal and Conservative opposition, and only the fifth Labour MP in the House of Commons.^[23]

July 25, 1903 (Saturday)

• The weekly magazine
  Perth, Western Australia, under the editorship of John Norton.^[24][25]