the Fiat motor vehicles. July 12 – The British freight ship City of York sinks after striking reefs at Rottnest Island, off the coast of Western Australia, due to a misunderstanding of signal flare fired from the island's lighthouse. The ship, which was nearing the end of a 90-day voyage from the U.S. (San Francisco) to Fremantle, Western Australia, evacuates its 26 crew in two lifeboats, but one of the boats overturns and 11 men, including Captain Phillip Jones, drown. July 13 – A tornado kills 13 people in the U.S. village of Herman, Nebraska. July 14 – The first Republic of Acre is declared by former Spanish journalist Luis Gálvez Rodríguez de Arias in the Amazon jungle in South America, and lasts for nine months. July 15 – Japan's first comprhensive copyright law takes effect and, on the same day, Japan agrees to join the Berne Convention on respect of copyright laws of other nations. General Emilio Aguinaldo, who has commanded the Filipino resistance against the Spanish government, informs the U.S. Army General Thomas M. Anderson that he intends to assume authority for the Philippine Islands in areas conquered by the Filipinos from the Spaniards. July 16 – The first soccer football game in El Salvador between two organized teams takes place at the Campo Marte field in Santa Ana, where a local team hosts a team of players from San Salvador. The Santa Ana team wins, 2 to 0. July 17 NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital. In the Battle of Togbao, the French Bretonnet–Braun mission is destroyed, in the North African kingdom of Chad, by the warlord Rabih az-Zubayr. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation takes effect, ending extraterritoriality and the unequal status of Japan in foreign commerce. July 18 – The patent for the first sofa bed (a foldable bed frame that can be stored under the cushions of a couch) is taken out by African-American inventor Leonard C. Bailey. He receives U.S. Patent No. 629,286 on June 2, 1900. July 19 – U.S. Secretary of War Russell A. Alger submits his resignation at the request of U.S. President McKinley, following public outrage over the United States Army beef scandal, in which the War Department purchased tainted beef for soldiers during the Spanish-American War. July 20 – A white lynch mob in Tallulah, Louisiana carries out the killing