July 1900 - July 9, 1900 (Monday)

July 9, 1900 (Monday)

• In China, the Taiyuan Massacre took place as Governor Yu-Hsien of the Shanxi Province ordered captive foreign missionaries and their families to be executed. After being promised an escort to safety, the prisoners were brought before the Governor, who ordered their beheading. Reverend George Farthing was the first to die, and after all the men had been executed, Farthing's wife and three young children were killed along with the remaining foreigners. Forty-six (34 Protestant and 12 Catholic) died in one day. – forty-six altogether.
• Queen Victoria signed the An Act to Constitute the Commonwealth of Australia (Stat. of Victoria, 63 & 64, Chap. 12), in duplicate, keeping one copy for the United Kingdom, and giving the other document to the representatives of the Australian colonies to take home with them—along with the table, the inkstand, and the pen that had been used for the signing. Under the Act, the Queen would proclaim that five of the six colonies (Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland) and "if Her Majesty is satisfied that the people of Western Australia have agreed thereto", a sixth, would "unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." The proclamation was made on September 17, 1900, and the Commonwealth came into being on January 1, 1901.