Events January 1899 January 1 Spanish rule ends in Cuba, concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Queens and Staten Island become administratively part of New York City. January 2 – Bolivia sets up a customs office in Puerto Alonso, leading to the Brazilian settlers there to declare the Republic of Acre in a revolt against Bolivian authorities. The first part of the Jakarta Kota–Anyer Kidul railway on the island of Java is opened between Batavia Zuid (Jakarta Kota) and Tangerang. January 3 – Hungarian Prime Minister Dezső Bánffy fights an inconclusive duel with his bitter enemy in parliament, Horánszky Nándor. January 4 – U.S. President William McKinley's declaration of December 21, 1898, proclaiming a policy of benevolent assimilation of the Philippines as a United States territory, is announced in Manila by the U.S. commander, General Elwell Otis, and angers independence activists who had fought against Spanish rule. The American Society of Landscape Architects, still in existence 123 years later, is founded. January 5 – A fierce battle is fought between American troops and Filipino defenders at the town of Pililla on the island of Luzon. The Filipinos retreat to the mountains at Tanay. January 6 – Lord Curzon becomes Viceroy of India. January 7 – The Lucky Star, an English comic opera composed by Ivan Caryll and produced by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company premieres at the Savoy Theatre in London for the first of 143 performances. January 8 – The Association football club SK Rapid Wien is founded in Vienna. January 9 – After a successful revolt against the Ottoman Empire by the inhabitants of the island of Crete, the area, which joins Greece, gets its first constitution, with provisions for a provincial legislature with 138 Christian deputies and 50 Muslim deputies. George F. Hoar, a U.S. Senator for Massachusetts, speaks out in the Senate against American expansion into the Philippines. The text of Hoar's is sent by cable to Hong Kong at a cost of $4,000, and is later cited by Ambassador John Barrett on January 13, 1900, as an incitement to Filipino attacks on U.S. troops. January 10 – The Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity is founded, at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois. January 11 – The Steel Plate Transferrers' Association, the first labor union for workers skilled in siderography (the engraving and mass reproduction of steel plates for newspaper printing) is established.