May 22, 1900 (Tuesday)
- The first test was made of the Adams Air Splitting Train, on a run from Washington to Baltimore, then back again. Inventor Frederick Adams had forecast that the aerodynamic, "cigar-shaped" train could be run at a speed of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) with less expenditure than is now required to keep up a speed of 50 miles per hour (80 km/h). However, the train achieved no more than 60 m.p.h.
- At 4:30 in the afternoon, an explosion at the Cumnock Mining Company, near Sanford, North Carolina, killed twenty-two coal miners. The accident was believed to have been "caused by a broken gauze in a safety lamp".
- Born: Clyde Tolson, Associate Director of the FBI and right-hand man of J. Edgar Hoover, in Laredo, Missouri; (d.1975)
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