1902 Archives | HISTORY

On March 6, 1902, the Madrid Foot Ball Club is founded by a group of fans in Madrid, Spain. Later known as Real Madrid, the club would become the most successful European football (soccer) franchise of the 20th century.

On April 23, 1902, Colombian-born Luis Castro becomes the first known Latin American athlete to play for a Major League Baseball team. Wearing a Philadelphia Athletics uniform, he debuted at second base in the ninth inning on Opening Day, replacing Napoleon “Larry” Lajoie—a future Hall of Famer barred from playing by a Pennsylvania court injunction.

On May 8, 1902, Martinique’s Mount Pelée begins the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. By the following day, the city of Saint Pierre, which some called the Paris of the Caribbean, was virtually wiped off the map.

In Pretoria, representatives of Great Britain and the Boer states sign the Treaty of Vereeniging, officially ending the three-and-a-half-year South African Boer War.

Arthur Flegenheimer, who will go on to become one of New York’s most feared criminals under the name “Dutch Schultz,” is born in the Bronx. Thirty-three years later, his life came to a violent and bloody conclusion when he was shot down in the men’s room of the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey.

According to newspaper reporting at the time, on September 24, 1902, pioneering cookbook author Fannie Farmer, who changed the way Americans prepare food by advocating the use of standardized measurements in recipes, opens Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery in Boston. In addition to teaching women about cooking, Farmer later educated medical professionals about the importance of proper nutrition for the sick.