While Americans were savoring their one-sided victory in the Spanish-American War a year earlier, Britain was embarking on a different war of several years’ duration in South Africa. Its adversaries were the Boers, South African settlers of Dutch descent. The Boers were farmers who had grudgingly accepted British dominion over the region for decades, but the situation changed when diamonds and gold were discovered there in the 1890s. Britain prevailed in the hard-fought war, but not until 1902. A young reporter named Winston Churchill was captured by the Boers while serving as a war correspondent.

In other news of 1899:

• The United States established an Open Door Policy toward China in an effort to preserve equal access to Chinese ports and support China’s territorial and administrative integrity.
• Congress approved the use of voting machines in federal U.S. elections.
• Filipino independence fighters began a guerrilla war after failing to gain independence from the United States. The rebels surrendered in 1902, and the U.S. granted the Philippines autonomy in 1934 and independence in 1946.
• The first motorcycle race was held in Manhattan Beach, New York.
• The nation’s first auto repair shop was opened in Boston.
• The Great Blizzard of 1899 paralyzed much of the nation in mid-February, especially the South, where New Orleans and parts of the Mississippi River were iced over. Washington, D.C., was buried under more than 20 inches of snow.
• During the storm, the temperature hit a record low of 61 below zero in Montana.
• Gangster Al Capone was born, as were dancer Fred Astaire and beer baron August Anheuser Busch, Jr.
• George F. Bryant of Boston patented the wooden golf tee.

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