March 1900 - March 11, 1900 (Sunday)

March 11, 1900 (Sunday)

• Captain Umberto Cagni of Italy, with ten men and 102 dogs, set off from the base camp at Franz Josef Land, established by the Arctic expedition of the Duke of Abruzzi. Cagni's men did not reach the North Pole, but planted the Italian flag at 86–34 N on April 25, closer than anyone had before, before turning back.
• Religious broadcasting was launched in Elkhart, Indiana, as the Reverend E.H. Gwynne of the First Presbyterian Church, began preaching his sermons by telephone technology. A transmitter, designed by inventors from the Home Telephone Company for the benefit of a crippled parishioner, was placed on the pulpit, "and every word was as distinctly heard as though the listeners were present in the church", a reporter noted;
• At the Mount Olivet Baptist Church at 53rd Street near Broadway in New York, Pastor C.T. Walker baptized 184 African-Americans at the end of revival services. Nicknamed "the Colored John the Baptist", Walker was originally from Augusta, Georgia, where a school bears his name.