"For one month we have been besieged in British Legation under continued shot and shell from Chinese troops. Quick relief only can prevent general massacre. --CONGER." China's minister to the United States, Wu Ting-fang, delivered the telegraphed message to United States Secretary of State John Hay, providing the first confirmation that the foreign envoys in Beijing were still alive. The message, sent by U.S. Ambassador to China Edwin H. Conger in the U.S. State Department cipher, had been a reply to Hay's ciphered message of July 11. To rule out the possibility that the Chinese army had captured the cipher books, Secretary John Hay sent a reply the next day: "Dispatch received. Authenticity doubted. Answer this giving your sister's name." Conger's reply confirmed the news. Saturday, July 21, 1900 Alberic Crescitelli was executed by Boxers in China and was later beatified as one of the Martyr Saints of China. Composer Arthur Sullivan made his last public appearance, attending the performance at The Crystal Palace of the song, The Absent-Minded Beggar, Rudyard Kipling's poem, which he had set to music. Sullivan died four months later. Sunday, July 22, 1900 At the 1900 Summer Olympics, Walter Tewksbury of the United States won the 200-metre race for his fifth medal of the Olympic Games (2 golds, 2 silver and 1 bronze). In the first and last Olympic 5000-metre team race, a combined British and Australian team defeated a French team. Monday, July 23, 1900 King Alexander of Serbia announced that he would marry his mistress, Draga Mašin, who had been one of the servants for his mother, Natalie. The Cabinet resigned, including Alexander's father, who was Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian army after abdicating in 1889. Despite protests, the marriage took place on August 5. The king and his wife would be assassinated in 1903. The First Pan-African Conference took place in London, a three-day international gathering focused on strategies to bring about rights for all people of African ancestry, independence from colonialism for African countries and international black unity. W. E. B. Du Bois and Henry Sylvester Williams were among the prominent names associated with the conference. Robert Charles, a self-educated African-American civil rights activist, shot and wounded one of three members of the New Orleans Police Department who approached him while he was sitting with his roommate in a predominantly white neighborhood. This began a series of events which would trigger the