February 27 » Second Boer War: Australian soldiers Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock are executed in Pretoria after being convicted of war crimes.
April 2 » "Electric Theatre", the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles.
April 20 » Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
June 28 » The U.S. Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.
November 21 » The Philadelphia Football Athletics defeated the Kanaweola Athletic Club of Elmira, New York, 39–0, in the first ever professional American football night game.
December 14 » The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu.
Day of death May 23, 1903
The temperature on May 23, 1903 was between 9.4 °C and 21.2 °C and averaged 14.5 °C. There was 13.3 hours of sunshine (83%). Source: KNMI
January 4 » Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island. The Edison film company records the film Electrocuting an Elephant of Topsy's death.
June 16 » The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.
June 19 » Benito Mussolini, at the time a radical Socialist, is arrested by Bern police for advocating a violent general strike.
July 20 » The Ford Motor Company ships its first automobile.
August 3 » Macedonian rebels in Kruševo proclaim the Kruševo Republic, which exists for only ten days before Ottoman Turks lay waste to the town.
November 18 » The Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the United States exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: F. van Dijk, "Family tree Van Dijk", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom_van_dijk/R4397.php : accessed January 4, 2026), "Jacobus Johannes Erkeland (1902-1903)".
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