March 1900 - March 2, 1900 (Friday)

March 2, 1900 (Friday)

• The University of Kansas basketball team would win three NCAA championships (1952, 1988 and 2008), but suffered its worst loss of all time on this evening in Lincoln, falling to the University of Nebraska 48–8. "Coach Naismith, who is the originator of the game of basket ball, came up from Lawrence yesterday afternoon and brought a team that represents fine physical specimens of manhood", wrote a local paper, "but they were slow in following the ball. The complained of the slickness of the floor ..."
• The first high school basketball game in Illinois was played, at Elgin, Illinois. Englewood High School of Chicago defeated Elgin 16–12.
• Pope Leo XIII, who would live to be the oldest pontiff in history, celebrated his 90th birthday.
• Born: Kurt Weill, German, and later American, composer, in Dessau (d. 1950)
• Died: U.S. Representative Sydney Epes, 34, at Garfield Hospital in Washington following an appendectomy. The Virginia Democrat had been a Congressman for less than one year.