Timeline 1905-1907
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1905 Jan 2,
Sir Michael Tippett, British composer, was born in London. His
childhood was divided among England, France and Italy. His work
included the oratorio "Vision of St. Augustine."
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A19)
1905 Jan 2, After a six-month
siege, Russians surrendered Port Arthur to the Japanese.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1905 Jan 3, Ray Milland
(Reginald Truscott-Jones) Academy Award-winning actor: The Lost
Weekend [1945], We’re Not Dressing, Star-Spangled Rhythm, Lady in
the Dark, Let’s Do It Again, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes, was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1905 Jan 5, Representatives of
35 state Audubon organizations incorporated as the National
Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds
and Animals.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.12)(MC, 1/5/02)
1905 Jan 9, (Old Style
calendar) On what would become known as "Bloody Sunday," Russian
Orthodox Father George Gapon led a procession in St. Petersburg of
some 200,000 who were marching on the Winter Palace to present their
grievances to Czar Nicholas. Troops on the scene panicked, firing
into the crowd and killing hundreds, thus igniting the Revolution of
1905. Across Russia, government officials were attacked, peasants
seized private estates and workers’ strikes virtually paralyzed the
economy. In St. Petersburg, a council (soviet) of workers’ delegates
threatened to take over the government. Nicholas consented to
the adoption of a constitution and election of a parliament (Duma).
The first Duma met in 1906. [see Jan 22]
(HNQ, 10/1/00)
1905 Jan 14, Jane Lathrop
Stanford drank from a bottle of mineral water at her Nob Hill home
in SF and became violently ill. Analysis of the water revealed
strychnine. [see Feb 28]
(Ind, 5/26/01, 5A)
1905 Jan 18, Joseph Bonanno
(d.2002), later NYC mafia boss, was born in Castellmare del Golfo,
Sicily.
(SSFC, 5/12/02, p.A23)
1905 Jan 18, Edward Henry
Corbould (b.1815), English artist, died.
(WSJ, 11/22/08,
p.W11)(www.corbould.com/artists/ehc/ehc.html)
1905 Jan 21, Christian Dior,
fashion designer (long-skirted look), was born in Normandy, France.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1905 Jan 22, (New Style
calendar) On what would become known as “Bloody Sunday,” Russian
Orthodox Father George Gapon led a procession in St. Petersburg of
some 200,000 who were marching on the Winter Palace to present their
grievances to Czar Nicholas. Troops on the scene panicked, firing
into the crowd and killing hundreds, thus igniting the Revolution of
1905. Across Russia, government officials were attacked, peasants
seized private estates and workers’ strikes virtually paralyzed the
economy. In St. Petersburg, a council (soviet) of workers’ delegates
threatened to take over the government. Nicholas consented to
the adoption of a constitution and election of a parliament (Duma).
The first Duma met in 1906. [see Jan 9]
(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A27)(HNQ, 10/1/00)(AP, 1/22/07)
1905 Jan 24, In Vilnius a mass
worker strike began and lasted to Jan 29.
(LHC, 1/24/03)
1905 Jan 25, Largest diamond,
Cullinan (3106 carets), was found in South Africa.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1905 Jan 26, Maria Augusta von
Trapp (d.1987), Austrian singer, inspired "Sound of Music," was
born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_von_Trapp)(SSFC, 10/14/07, p.B6)
1905 Jan 27, Russian General
Kuropatkin took the offensive in Manchuria. The Japanese under
General Oyama suffered heavy casualties.
(HN, 1/27/99)
1905 Jan 31, John O'Hara,
novelist (Appointment at Samarra), was born in Pottstown, Penn.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1905 Feb 1, Germany contested
French rule in Morocco.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1905 Feb 2, Ayn Rand (d.1982),
writer and social philosopher (Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead), was
born in St. Petersburg, Russia, as Alisa Rosenbaum. Her work
espoused the political-economic philosophy of Objectivism,
capitalism and what she called "rational selfishness." She graduated
from the University of Leningrad in 1924 and moved to the United
States in 1926, becoming a citizen in 1931. In Objectivism, the
individual alone and his acts of self-interest are seen as the
positive driving force of society. Rand rejected ideologies of
altruism and self-sacrifice. Her novels "Fountainhead" (1943) and
"Atlas Shrugged" (1957) and a number of non-fiction works brought
wide recognition to her and her theories. Rand founded the journal
The Objectivist in 1962. She died in 1982. "Upper classes are a
nation’s past; the middle class is its future." "So you think that
money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root
of money?"
(AP, 4/30/97)(AP, 5/13/98)(HNPD,
9/27/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand)
1905 Feb 7, Ulf Svante von
Euler-Chelpin, Swedish physiologist, was born.
(HN, 2/7/01)
1905 Feb 7, Congress granted
statehood to Oklahoma. New Mexico and Arizona were the only
remaining territories. [see 1907]
(HN, 2/7/99)
1905 Feb 7, The Dominican
Republic signed a treaty turning over customs collection to US.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1905 Feb 8, A cyclone hit
Tahiti and adjacent islands killing some 10,000 people.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1905 Feb 15, Harold Arlen
(d.1986), composer, arranger and pianist, was born as Hyman Arluck.
His work included "Stormy Weather" and "It’s Only a Paper Moon." He
was born Hyman Arluck, the son of a Jewish cantor. In 1996 Edward
Jablonski wrote his second biography titled: "Harold Arlen: Rhythm.
Rainbows, and Blues."
(WSJ, 6/28/96, p.A7)(HN, 2/15/01)(MC, 2/15/02)
1905 Feb 15, The 1st race meet
at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark. was run.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1905 Feb 15, Lewis Wallace
(77), US politician, general, writer (Ben Hur), artist and inventor,
died. His paintings included "The Conspirators," a depiction of
those accused in the assassination of Pres. Lincoln. He had 8
registered US patents and was accomplished at playing and making
violins. His home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, is now a museum.
(HT, 3/97, p.66)(MC, 2/15/02)
1905 Feb 16, 1st US Esperanto
club was organized in Boston. Dr. Lazarus Ludwig Zamenhof
(1859-1917), a Polish ophthalmologist, invented the artificial
language in 1885.
(MC, 2/16/02)(SFCM, 6/8/03, p.18)
1905 Feb 17, Russia’s Grand
Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (b.1857), the brother of Tsar Alexander
III, was assassinated by a terrorist bomb at the Kremlin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Sergei_Alexandrovich_of_Russia)(Econ,
12/19/09, p.82)
1905 Feb 21, The Mukden
campaign of the Russo-Japanese War, began. In one of the largest
battles ever fought up to that time, some 750,000 Japanese and
Russian soldiers engaged in the battle for Mukden in the
Russo-Japanese War. The 3-week battle pitted 400,000 Japanese and
350,000 Russians stretched over a front extending more than 90
miles. More than 100,000 were left dead or injured as the Russians
began a retreat toward Harbin on March 9.
(HN, 2/21/98)(HNQ, 4/23/99)
1905 Feb 22, Japan 1st claimed
the volcanic islets they called Takeshima, located between Japan and
Korea, where they are known as Tokdo (Dokdo). Japan illegally
incorporated Dokdo as its territory through an administrative
measure of one of its prefectures.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.42)(Econ, 4/9/05, p.14)
1905 Feb 23, The Rotary Club
was founded in Chicago by lawyer Paul Percy Harris and 3 friends.
Montague M. Bear, an engraver and member of the Rotary Club of
Chicago, sketched a wagon wheel with 13 spokes. When fellow club
members began to complain that the design was static and lifeless,
Bear added flourishes that made the wheel appear to ride on a bed of
clouds. Unfortunately, some members felt the clouds looked like
dust, defying the laws of gravity by being kicked up on both sides
of the wheel. The service club did not admit women until the
1980s.
(http://tinyurl.com/28kd23m)(AP, 2/23/98)(SFC,
9/28/99, p.A27)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.70)
1905 Feb 24, Russian Minister
of Agriculture, Alexi Yermolov offered the Czar a new constitution.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1905 Feb 25, Adele Davis,
nutritionist, was born.
(HN, 2/25/01)
1905 Feb 27, Japanese pushed
Russians back in Manchuria, and cross the Sha River.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1905 Feb 28, Jane Lathrop
Stanford, the wife of Leland Stanford, died of suspected arsenic
poisoning at the Moana Hotel in Honolulu. A coroner’s jury confirmed
the result. Her body was returned to the mainland under the care of
David Starr Jordan, the president of Stanford Univ. An examination
by Stanford physicians claimed no trace of strychnine and set heart
attack as cause of death. A will signed 19 months earlier had left
the bulk of her $30 million estate to Stanford Univ. In 2003 Robert
Cutler authored "The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford." [see Jan
14]
(Ind, 5/26/01, 5A)(SFC, 11/20/03, p.A21)
1905 Mar 3, US Forest Service
formed. President Theodore Roosevelt successfully lobbied Congress
to create the Forest Service and appointed Gifford Pinchot, a fellow
conservationist, to run the agency. Pinchot had studied forestry in
Europe and worked for the U.S. government in various forestry
positions since 1896. He stayed with the Forest Service until 1910
and contributed greatly to its early development and national
attitudes towards conservation with his enthusiasm. In 1912, he
helped former President Roosevelt found the Bull Moose Party. He
later went on to serve as governor of Pennsylvania. His
autobiography "Breaking New Ground," was published in 1947, a year
after his death.
(WSJ, 2/25/97, p.A22)(HNQ, 4/20/01)(SC, 3/3/02)
1905 Mar 3, The Russian Czar
agreed to create an elected assembly.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1905 Mar 4, The inauguration of
Theodore Roosevelt.
http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/theTIMEMACHINE.html
1905 Mar 4, Gerhart Hauptmann's
"Elga" premiered in Berlin.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1905 Mar 5, Russians began to
retreat from Mukden in Manchuria.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1905 Mar 8, The peasant revolt
in Russia was reported to be spreading to Georgia.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1905 Mar 9, Peter Quennell,
biographer, was born.
(HN, 3/9/01)
1905 Mar 9, Rex Warner, English
poet, writer (Wild Goose Chase), was born.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1905 Mar 9, Archeologists
unearthed the royal tombs of Yua and Tua in Egypt.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1905 Mar 10, Japanese Army
captured Mukden, later Shenyang, China.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1905 Mar 11, The Parisian
subway was officially inaugurated.
(HN, 3/11/98)
1905 Mar 13, Margaretha Zelle
made her debut as the oriental dancer "Mata Hari," in Paris.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)
1905 Mar 15, Berthold Schenck
von Stauffenberg was born. He later attempted to assassinate Hitler.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1905 Mar 17, Anna Eleanor
Roosevelt married her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in New
York and by 1916, they had become the parents of six children.
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/98)(HNPD, 10/11/99)
1905 Mar 19, Albert Speer,
German architect, minister of Armament (NSDAP), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1905 Mar 22, Ruth Page, US
choreographer, ballet leader (Diaghilev, Pygmalion), was born.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1905 Mar 24, Jules Verne
(b.1828), French sci-fi author (Around the World in 80 Days), died
in Amiens.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/verne.htm)
1905 Mar 25, Rebel battle flags
that were captured during the war were returned to the South.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1905 Mar 26, Viktor Emil
Frankl, psychiatrist (Man's Search for Meaning), was born.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1905 Mar 28, Marlin Perkins, TV
host (Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom), was born in Carthage, Mo.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1905 Mar 29, Annunzio
Mantovani, orchestra leader (Mantovani), was born in Venice, Italy.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1905 Apr 1, US Leather was
removed from the Dow Jones. It was succeeded by Central Leather Co.
It was one of the nation’s largest shoemakers in the first decades
of this century.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.R45)
1905 Apr 1, Berlin and Paris
were linked by telephone.
(HN, 4/1/98)
1905 Apr 2, Kurt Adler
(d.1988), American conductor, was born. "Tradition is what you
resort to when you don't have the time or the money to do it right."
(HN, 4/2/01)(AP, 8/25/99)
1905 Apr 2, Serge Lifar, dancer
and opera director, was born.
(HN, 4/2/01)
1905 Apr 6, W. Warrick Cardozo,
physician and pioneer researcher on Sickle Cell Anemia, was born.
(HN, 4/6/99)
1905 Apr 9, J. William
Fulbright, U.S. senator from Arkansas, was born. He opposed the
Vietnam War.
(HN, 4/9/99)
1905 Apr 12, Hippodrome arena
opened in NYC.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1905 Apr 12, French Dufaux
brothers tested a helicopter.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1905 May 15, Joseph Cotton,
actor, was born in Petersburg, Va.
(AP, 5/15/05)
1905 Apr 16, A Japanese
baseball team from Waseda Univ. in Tokyo came to the West Coast for
a 3-month 26-game tour. They played their opening game against
Stanford and lost 9-1. Their manager, Prof. Iso Abe, is called the
"father of modern baseball in Japan." They won 9 of their 26 games.
(SFC, 10/31/96, p.C1)
1905 Apr 19, Tom Hopkinson,
British writer, was born.
(HN, 4/1901)
1905 Apr 21, Edmund G "Pat"
Brown, (Gov-D-Calif), was born.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1905 Apr 24, Robert Penn
Warren, first U.S. poet laureate, was born.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1905 May 16, Henry Fonda
(d.1982), actor, was born in Grand Island, Nebraska. He starred in
"Grapes of Wrath" and "On Golden Pond."
(HN, 5/16/99)(AP, 5/16/07)
1905 May 24, Mikhail Sholokhov,
Russian novelist (And Quiet Flows the Don), was born. He won a Nobel
Prize in 1965.
(HN, 5/24/01)(MC, 5/24/02)
1905 May 25, Binnie Barnes,
London, actress (Adventures of Marco Polo, Diamond Jim), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1905 May 25, Joseph C. Harsch,
newscaster (Background), was born in Toledo, OH.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1905 May 26, There was a pogrom
against Jews in Minsk, Belorussia.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1905 May 27, Japanese fleet
destroyed the Russian East Sea fleet in Straits of Tushima. [see May
28]
(MC, 5/27/02)
1905 May 28, A Japanese fleet
under Adm. Heihachiro Togo defeated a Russian fleet under Adm.
Zinovi Petrovich Rozhestvensky in the Battle of Tsushima. The
Russian fleet lost 22 ships out of 38 to the Japanese in the Battle
of Tsushima Straits. In 2002 Constantine Pleshakov authored "The
Tsar’s Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima."
(WSJ, 9/6/00, p.A27)(ON, 5/04, p.9)
1905 May 29, Fela Sowande,
composer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1905 May 29, Jan [Johannes]
Teulings, Dutch actor, director (That Joyous Eve), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1905 May 29, There was a pogrom
against Jewish community in Brisk, Lithuania.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1905 May 29, Leon Francis
Victor Caron (55), composer, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1905 Jun 7, Norway declared
independence from Sweden. Their union had been in effect in since
1814.
(SC, 6/7/02)(SSFC, 6/5/05, p.F7)
1905 Jun 8, US Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt offered to act as a mediator in the Russo-Japanese War.
(AP, 6/8/05)
1905 Jun 10, 1st forest fire
lookout tower placed in operation was at Greenville, Me.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1905 Jun 10, Japan and Russia
agreed to peace talks brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1905 Jun 11, Pennsylvania
Railroad debuted the fastest train in world (NY-Chicago in 18 hrs).
(SC, 6/11/02)
1905 Jun 21, Jean-Paul Sartre
(d.1980), French philosopher and existentialist, was born. He won
the Nobel Prize in 1964 but declined it. His works include "The Road
to Freedom."
(HN, 6/21/98)(AP, 2/15/00)
1905 Jun 27, The battleship
Potemkin succumbed to a mutiny on the Black Sea.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1905 Jun 29, Archibald Wright
“Moonlight” Graham (1876-1965) of the New York Giants played for two
innings in right field in his only professional baseball game on
this day and was promptly forgotten until 1989 when the movie “Field
of Dreams” was released. “Moonlight” never got to bat, instead he
was left on deck, a late substitute in a lopsided 11-1 win. Graham
completed his medical degree from the University of Maryland in
1908. He obtained his license the following year and began
practicing medicine in Chisholm, Minnesota.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_Graham)
1905 Jun 29, Russian troops
intervened as riots erupt in ports all over the country, leaving
many ships looted.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1905 Jun, In Pittsburgh, Penn.,
the world's 1st theater geared exclusively for motion pictures
opened.
(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A27)
1905 Jul 2, Jean-Rene Lacoste,
tennis champ, alligator shirt designer, was born in France.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1905 Jul 4, Lionel Trilling
(d.1975), literary critic and educator, was born. His work included
"The Liberal Imagination" and "Sincerity and Authenticity." He wrote
the 1947 novel "Middle of the Journey."
(WSJ, 6/4/99, p.W15)(HN, 7/4/01)
1905 Jul 4, Elisee Reclus
(b.1830), French geographer and anarchist, died in Belgium. His
books included “La Nouvelle Géographic universelle, la terre
et les hoinmes” (1875-1894), a 19 volume work that crowned his as
the father of modern geography.
(http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/ReclusElisee.htm)
1905 Jul 7, The International
Workers of the World founded their labor organization in Chicago.
The IWW was formed by William Haywood of the Western Federation of
Miners, Daniel De Leon of the Socialist Labor Party and Eugene
V. Debs of the Socialist Party. Members of the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW) were also known as Wobblies. The Wobblies
were formed partly in response to the American Federation of Labor’s
opposition to the unionization of unskilled labor. As an
organization that advocated sabotage, they were suppressed and
prosecuted by the federal government from 1917-18 and were driven
underground by the "Red Scare" that started in the United States in
1919. Ideological disputes with the newly formed U.S.
Communist Party dissipated their remaining energies so that they
ceased to be a force of any significance past the mid-1920s. In 1969
Melvyn Dublfsky authored its definitive history "We Shall Overcome."
(HNQ, 10/16/00)(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.A24)(HN, 7/7/01)
1905 Jul 8, The mutinous crew
of the battleship Potemkin surrendered to Rumanian authorities.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1905 Jul 10, Ivie Anderson,
jazz singer, was born.
(HN, 7/10/01)
1905 Jul 17, Edgar Snow,
American author and journalist, was born in Kansas City, Missouri.
(www.umkc.edu)
1905 Jul 19, Boyd Neel,
conductor (Story of an Orch), was born in Blackheath, Kent
England.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1905 Jul 22, Boris Alexandrov,
conductor (Red Army Song/Dance Ensemble), was born.
(MC, 7/22/02)
1905 Jul 25, Elias Canetti,
Bulgarian-British novelist, essayist (Nobel 1981), was born.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1905 Jul 29, US Secretary of
War William Howard Taft, under the approval of Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt, and PM of Japan Katsura Taro signed the Taft-Katsura
Agreement, which reinforced American and Japanese influence and
spelled doom for Korean sovereignty. Japan agreed not to interfere
in the ongoing US rape of the Philippines in return for the US
agreement not to interfere with Japan’s forthcoming rape of Korea.
(AH, 10/07,
p.56)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft-Katsura_Agreement)
1905 Jul 29, Dag
Hammerarskjold, Nobel Peace Prize (1961) winning secretary-general
of the United Nations (1953-1961), was born in Sweden.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1905 Jul 29, Stanley Kunitz,
poet, was born.
(HN, 7/29/01)
1905 Aug 3, Maggie Kuhn, social
activist and founder of "The Gray Panthers," was born.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1905 Aug 3, Dolores Del Rio,
actress (What Price Glory?), was born in Mexico.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1905 Aug 17, John Hay Whitney,
publisher (NY Herald Tribune 1961-67), was born.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1905 Aug 19, Fitzhugh Lee, US
pilot, vice-admiral (WW II, Navy Cross), was born.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1905 Aug 19, Roald Amundsen and
his crew of 6 aboard Gjøe, a converted herring boat, made
contact with the US Coast Guard cutter Bear, which confirmed their
crossing the Northwest Passage following a 26-month journey.
Amundsen continued by dogsled to the Yukon while his crew completed
their journey at Point Bonita, California, just outside the Golden
Gate.
(SFC, 4/17/00, p.D8)(WSJ, 4/18/00, p.A16)(Ind,
4/27/02, 5A)
1905 Aug 20, Jack Teagarden,
jazz trombonist, was born.
(HN, 8/20/00)
1905 Aug 24, Arthur "Big Boy"
Crudup, blues singer, was born. He was a major influence on Elvis
Presley.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1905 Aug 30, Ty Cobb made his
major league batting debut, playing for the Detroit Tigers, hitting
a double in his first at-bat in a game against the NY Highlanders.
The Tigers won, 5-3.
(AP, 8/30/00)
1905 Aug 31, Sanford Meisner,
influential acting teacher, was born.
(HN, 8/31/00)
1905 Sep 1, Alberta and
Saskatchewan became the 8th and 9th Canadian provinces.
(Econ, 9/10/05, p.37)(AP, 9/1/06)
1905 Sep 4, Mary Renault (Mary
Challans), author who wrote about her wartime experiences in "The
Last of the Wine" and "The King Must Die," was born. She also wrote
"Funeral Games."
(HN, 9/4/98)(MC, 9/4/01)
1905 Sep 5, Arthur Koestler
(d.1983), Hungarian novelist and essayist, was born. He wrote about
communism in “Darkness at Noon” (1941) and “The Ghost in the
Machine.”
(HN, 9/5/98)(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 8/26/06,
p.P8)
1905 Sep 5, The
Russian-Japanese War ended as representatives of the combating
empires, meeting in New Hampshire, signed the Treaty of Portsmouth.
Japan achieved virtually all of its original war aims.
(AP, 9/5/97)(HN, 9/5/98)
1905 Sep 13, U.S. warships
headed to Nicaragua on behalf of American William Albers, who was
accused of evading tobacco taxes.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1905 Sep 14, Pierre de Brazza
(b.1852), Franco-Italian explorer, died and was buried in Algeria.
He was born in Italy and later naturalized French. Brazza
single-handedly opened up for France entry along the right bank of
the Congo that eventually led to French colonies in West Africa. In
2006 his remains were exhumed and moved to a mausoleum in
Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo.
(Econ, 10/7/06,
p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Savorgnan_de_Brazza)
1905 Sep 18, Eddie "Rochester"
Anderson, Oakland California, actor (Jack Benny Show), was born.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1905 Sep 18, Greta Garbo
(d.1990), actress nominated for Oscars for her roles in "Anna
Christie" and "Ninotchka," was born in Stockholm.
(HN, 9/18/98)(MC, 9/18/01)
1905 Sep 22, Race riot in
Atlanta, Georgia killed 10 blacks and 2 whites.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1905 Sep 25, Red Smith,
sportscaster and columnist, was born in Green Bay Wisc.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1905 Sep 27, Annalen der Physik
published a fourth paper by Albert Einstein, "Does the Inertia of a
Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?," in which Einstein developed
an argument for arguably the most famous equation in the field of
physics: E = mc². Einstein considered the equivalency equation
to be of paramount importance because it showed that a massive
particle possesses an energy, the "rest energy", distinct from its
classical kinetic and potential energies.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_Papers)
1905 Sep 30, British director
Michael Powell ("The Red Shoes") was born in Bekesbourne, Kent,
England.
(AP, 9/30/05)
1905 Oct 4, Orville Wright
piloted the first flight longer than 30 minutes. The flight lasted
33 minutes, 17 seconds and covered 21 miles.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1905 Oct 5, Orville and Wilbur
Wright's "Flyer III" flew 38.5 km in 38.3 minutes.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1905 Oct 6, Tennis great Helen
Wills Moody was born in Berkeley, Calif.
(AP, 10/6/05)
1905 Oct 13, Henry Irving
(b.1838), British actor, died in England. In 2008 Michael Holroyd
authored “A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen
Terry, Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families.” Irving was the
first actor to be awarded a British knighthood (1895).
(WSJ, 3/6/09,
p.W6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Terry)
1905 Oct 14, Eugene Fodor,
Hungarian-born travel writer, was born.
(HN, 10/14/00)
1905 Oct 15, Charles P. Snow
(d.1980), English novelist (Death Under Sail), was born. He pointed
out that the university’s separate worlds have ceased to talk to one
another. The "uni" in the university has become meaningless as the
institution, possessing more and more power as government funds were
pumped into it for research, turned into a loose confederation of
disconnected mini-states, instead of an organization devoted to the
joint search for knowledge and truth.
(V.D.-H.K.p.142)(HN, 10/15/00)(MC, 10/15/01)
1905 Oct 15, Claude Debussy's
"La Mer," premiered.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1905 Oct 15, US President
Grover Cleveland wrote an article for "Ladies Home Journal", joining
others in the US who opposed women voters. The president said, "We
all know how much further women go than men in their social
rivalries and jealousies... sensible and responsible women do not
want to vote."
(MC, 10/15/01)
1905 Oct 5, Winsor McCay
(1871-1934), cartoonist, debuted his “Little Nemo In Slumberland” in
the NY Herald. An art book reproducing over 100 of his best pages in
full broadsheet was published in 2005.
(SFC, 10/22/05,
p.E1)(www.bpib.com/illustrat/mccay.htm)
1905 Oct 20, A Great General
Strike in Russia began and lasted 11 days.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1905 Oct 20, Russian tsar
allowed Polish people to speak Polish.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1905 Oct 26, Norway signed a
treaty of separation with Sweden and chose Prince Charles of Denmark
as the new king; he became King Haakon VII.
(HN, 10/26/98)
1905 Oct 29, Henry Green,
novelist, was born. His work included "Living" and "Party Going."
(HN, 10/29/00)
1905 Oct 29, Hottentot chief
Hendrik Witbooi was fatally injured.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1905 Oct 30, G.B. Shaw's "Mrs.
Warren's Profession," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1905 Oct 30, Czar Nicholas II
of Russia issued the October Manifesto, granting civil liberties and
elections in an attempt to avert the burgeoning support for
revolution. Nicholas II also accepted the 1st Duma (Parliament)
(HN, 10/30/00)(MC, 10/30/01)
1907 Nov 4, Faygo was founded
in Detroit as Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works by Russian
immigrants Ben and Perry Feigenson. The original flavors of Faygo
were based on cake frosting recipes used by the Feigensons in
Russia. The brothers ran the company until the mid-1940s, when they
turned it over to their sons. In the 1950s the company created a
series of radio and television advertisements featuring a fictional
cowboy called the Faygo Kid, who was portrayed in animation for
television commercials for Faygo Old-Fashioned Root Beer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faygo)
1905 Nov 9, Erika Mann,
German-US author (Other Germany) and daughter of Thomas Mann, was
born.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1905 Nov 10, Sailors revolted
in Kronstadt, Russia.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1905 Nov 14, David Belasco's
"Girl of Golden West," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1905 Nov 18, George Bernard
Shaw's "Major Barbara," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1905 Nov 18, The Norwegian
Parliament elected Prince Charles of Denmark to be the next King of
Norway. Prince Charles took the name Haakon VII.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1905 Nov 19, Tommy Dorsey, band
leader, was born in Shenandoah, Pa.
(AP, 11/19/05)
1905 Nov 19, 100 people drowned
in the English Channel as the steamer Hilda sank.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1905 Nov 22, British, Italian,
Russian, French and Austrian-Hungarian fleet attacked the Grecian
Isle of Lesbos.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1905 Nov 25, Jules Massenet's
opera "Thais" had its 1st American performance.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1905 Nov 26, George Emlyn
Williams, Welsh actor and playwright (portrayed Charles Dickens),
was born.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1905 Nov 28, Arthur Griffith
formed Sinn Fein in Dublin. Sinn Fein is Gaelic for "we ourselves,"
but also for "ourselves alone." This political party became the
unofficial political wing of militant Irish groups in their struggle
against British rule.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1905 Nov, Eugene Schmitz,
president of the Musicians Union, was re-elected mayor of SF. His
Union Labor Party captured every seat on the Board of Supervisors. A
victory parade left the SF Chronicle Building clock tower on fire.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A8)(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.B5)
1905 Dec 1, Charles Finney,
American author (Circus of Dr Lao), was born.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1905 Dec 1, Twenty officers and
230 guards were arrested in St. Petersburg, Russia for the revolt at
the Winter Palace.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1905 Dec 5, Otto Preminger,
director and producer (Laura, Exodus), was born in Austria.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1905 Dec 7, Gerard Kuiper,
Dutch-US astronomer (moons of Uranus, Neptune), was born.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1905 Dec 9, Richard Strauss'
opera "Salome," premiered in Dresden. Soprano Marie Wittich
delegated the dance of the seven veils to a member of the corps de
ballet.
(http://operetta.stanford.edu/Strauss/Salome/main.html)(WSJ,
10/16/03, p.D8)
1905 Dec 9, The French Assembly
National voted for separation of church and state.
(http://tinyurl.com/yyvx2d)(WSJ, 4/25/03, W13)
1905 Dec 16, The US
entertainment trade publication Variety came out with its first
weekly issue.
(AP, 12/16/97)
1905 Dec 24, Howard Hughes
(d.1976), American industrialist, film producer, director and
aviator, was born.
(HN, 12/24/98)
1905 Dec 29, Charles Tyson
Yerkes (b.1837), financier, died in New York City. His estate was
valued at $4 million. Yerkes developed Chicago’s streetcar system.
His life was immortalized in Theodore Dreiser's Cowperwood trilogy:
“The Financier’ (1912), “The Titan’ (1914), and “The Stoic” (1947).
In 2006 John Franch authored the biography “Robber Baron: The Life
of Charles Tyson Yerkes.
(WSJ, 8/29/06,
p.D5)(www.chicago-l.org/figures/yerkes/)
1905 Dec 30, Governor Frank
Steunenberg of Idaho was killed by an assassin's bomb. The former
Gov. of Idaho, was blown up by a booby-trapped gate in front of his
home in Caldwell, Idaho. Three Western Federation of Miners leaders
in Colorado, Charles Moyer, George Pettibone and William Haywood,
were "legally kidnapped" to Idaho and put on trial for the murder.
The event and surrounding circumstances were described by J. Anthony
Lukas in his 1997 book: "Big Trouble."
(SFEC, 10/5/97, BR p.1,6)(HN, 12/30/98)
1905 James Burnham (d.1987),
political activist and author, was born in Chicago.
(WSJ, 7/16/02, p.D6)
1905 Harry Harlow (d.1981),
psychologist, was born in Fairfield, Iowa.
(CW, 6/03, p.51)
1905 The Gallery VII Salon
d’Automne in France featured the Fauves. It featured works by
Matisse, the acknowledged leader, along with Andre Derain, Maurice
de Vlaminck and others. Louis Vauxelles described 2 classic marble
sculptures as "Donatello chez les fauves" (D. among the wild
beasts).
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A20)
1905 The expressionist art
group "Die Bruecke" (the Bridge) was formed by German painters that
included Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A17)
1905 Matisse painted his "Femme
au Chapeau," (Woman with the Hat). It later became part of the Elise
S. Haas collection bequeathed to the SFMOMA.
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, SFE Mag. p.21)
1905 Picasso painted his "Boy
in a Collar." In 1995 it sold for $12.1 mil. He also painted his
"Sitting Harlequin." He also painted "Boy with a Pipe" in this Rose
Period. The etching "la Toilette de la Mere" was made. In 2004
Sotheby started auction bidding at $70 million for "Boy with a
Pipe." It sold for a record $104 million.
(WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 3/29/97, p.E1)(SFC,
7/29/99, p.E6)(WSJ, 5/11/04, p.A18)
1905 G. B. Shaw wrote his play,
"Man and Superman." It portrays the concept of a comic Mozartian
intellectual charming the devils of the underworld, the only place
where his Don Juan really feels comfortable. "Major Barbara" was
also written.
(V.D.-H.K.p.237)(WSJ, 1/26/96, A-1)
1905 Sigmund Freud authored
"Three Contributions to the Theology of Sexuality." It misinformed
generations about the nature of the female orgasm.
(NW, 6/30/03, p.44)(WSJ, 5/5/06, p.A16)
1905 Ernst Haeckel published
"Wanderbilder," writings and illustrations on biology from his
extensive travels.
(NH, 12/98, p.58)
1905 H.E. Marshall authored
“Our Island Story,” a history of Britain for children.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.44)
1905 Baroness Emmuska Orczy
authored her novel “The Scarlet Pimpernal,” set in the French
Revolution.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.P10)
1905 C. Rawling published "The
Great Plateau" [Tibet].
(NH, 5/96, p.68)
1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish
author, won the Nobel Prize and wrote the third work of his trilogy
"With Fire and Sword." It was preceded by "Pan Michael" and "The
Deluge." The first 2 books were made into films during the 1960s and
1970s. Filming of the 3rd work began in 1997.
(SFC,11/18/97, p.E2)(SFC, 7/8/99, p.E3)
1905 Mark Twain wrote his
pamphlet "King Leopold’s Soliloquy" in support of reform in the
Congo. US Sec. of State Elihu Root was pressured to take action on
the Congo.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.11)
1905 H.G. Wells (1866-1946)
authored his novel “Kipps,” the story of an oppressed draper’s
apprentice and his rise under the English class system.
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.W8)
1905 Edith Wharton authored her
2nd novel "The House of Mirth," in which Lily Bart attempts to
monetize her beauty and gambles on Wall Street.
(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.8)(WSJ, 3/14/09, p.W8)
1905 Booker T. Washington wrote
"Tuskegee and Its People."
(NH, 2/97, p.82)
1905 Robert Sengstacke Abbott
founded the Chicago Defender newspaper. The paper helped ignite the
move of tens of thousands of southern black sharecroppers north to
Chicago and other cities. His nephew, John Sengstacke, took over the
paper in 1940 and expanded it from a weekly to a daily.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.B1)
1905 Mark Sullivan wrote the
Collier Mag. expose of the newspapers that lobbied to defeat a
patent-medicine truth-in-labeling bill before the Mass. state
legislature. The newspapers received tens of millions of dollars in
ad revenues from the snake-oil salesmen.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-16)
1905 The El Tovar Hotel,
designed by Charles Whittlesey, opened at the edge of the Grand
Canyon. It was named after Pedro de Tobar, a member of the 1540
Coronado expedition.
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.16)
1905 The American Political
Science Association held its first meeting.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.C2)
1905 The Sons of Daniel Boone
was founded by Daniel Beard.
(HNQ, 7/1/98)
1905 The Stanford-Binet
intelligence test was first developed.
(WSJ, 6/5/97, p.A1)
1905 Bertha Kinsky von Sutner
became the first woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. She had founded
European pacifist organizations with her husband, Artur,
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.28)
1905 Robert Koch (b.1843),
German physician, bacteriologist, and medical researcher, won a
Nobel Prize in Medicine.
(HN, 12/11/00)(MC, 12/11/01)
1905 The New York Giants with
the help of pitcher Christy Mathewson won the World Series under
manager John McGraw.
(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A27)
1905 The big football game
between Stanford and UC Berkeley was banned from San Francisco due
to the riots that often followed. 18 football players died
nationwide from game injuries in this year.
(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.14)
1905 Gus Vollmer, a veteran of
the Spanish-American War, was named town marshal of Berkeley, Ca.
(SFC, 4/29/08, p.A1)
1905 The US federal government
built the Klamath Project, a series of reservoirs and lakes on the
California-Oregon border. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation began
draining the Klamath Basin to help farmers. The Audubon Society
lobbied Pres. Roosevelt to preserve some of the area, a major
Pacific flyway for birds, and in 1908 he agreed.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A8)(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.A15)
1905 A US federal law made it a
felony to use corporate or union money to influence directly a state
election.
(Econ, 3/27/04, p.34)
1905 East Coasters including
Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie and Frederic Remington set up
the American Bison Society. In 1907 they sent 15 animals by rail to
the new Wichita Bison Refuge in Oklahoma. The society met for the
last time in 1935. The society was revitalized in 2005 to secure the
ecological future of the animal. In 2009 Steven Rinella authored
“American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon.”
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.82)
1905 Teddy Roosevelt
established the million-acre Siskiyou Forest Reserve in Oregon.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T8)
1905 California ceded Yosemite
Valley to the federal government.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1905 In Marin County, Ca., US
Rep. William Kent, heir to a Chicago meat-packing fortune, purchased
612 acres of old-growth redwood forest from the Tamalpais Land &
Water Co. for $45,000.
(SFC, 12/17/07, p.A1)
1905 In southern California the
town of Vernon was founded at a rail crossing along the Los Angeles
River as an industrial city in LA County. In 2011 it had about 1,800
businesses employing some 50,000 workers, but only 96 actual
residents.
(Econ, 5/7/11, p.34)
1905 In SF a reform movement
began led by former mayor James Phelan and Fremont Older, editor of
the San Francisco Bulletin. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt sent special
prosecutor Francis Heney to investigate graft in SF.
(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.B5)
1905 In San Francisco the
Burdette Building was built at 90 Second St. and opened as a saloon.
It was the only structure for block to survive the 1906 SF
earthquake.
(SSFC, 4/11/10, p.C2)
1905 In San Francisco the
8-story Grant Building 1095 Market Street was completed. It was
named after Joseph D. Grant, a local financier and industrialist.
The interior was ravaged by the fire that followed the 1906
earthquake and major renovations were made.
(SFC, 1/16/10, p.D1)
1905 The Sentinel Building was
constructed in San Francisco just before the earthquake. The 8-story
steel-framed "flatiron" structure with a copper dome at Columbus and
Kearney was designed by Salfield & Kohlberg for the notorious
political boss Abe Reuf. Reuf was later sent to San Quentin for his
transgressions. In 1973 film director Francis Ford Coppola purchased
the building for $500,000. In 1970 the building was named as a city
landmark.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A20)(SSFC, 7/26/09, p.C2)(SSFC,
12/27/09, DB p.46)
1905 In SF a building at 700
Montgomery St. was constructed in late classical style for the
Columbus Savings Bank. It survived the 1906 earthquake.
(SFC, 3/14/00, p.A14)
1905 In SF a 16,000
square-foot, Italianate-style mansion was built at 2820 Scott St. In
1915 it was elegantly embellished for a visit by Marie, the queen of
Romania. In 2005 it was acquired by the Paige family, owners of the
Paige Glass Co.
(SFC, 3/8/08, p.F2)
1905 In San Francisco’s
Dogpatch area the Edwardian style house at 1061 Tennessee was built.
In 2009 half of it was offered for sale as an 1,159 square-foot
condo at $679,000.
(SFC, 10/28/09, p.C2)
1905 Frank W. Epperson
(1804-1983) invented the Popsicle on a cold night in San Francisco.
In 1923 Epperson remembered his frozen soda water mixture and began
a business producing Epsicles in seven fruit flavors.
(www.icecreamusa.com/popsicle/history/)
1905 US General Leonard Wood
(b.1860) took over as military commander of the Philippines.
(www.wood.army.mil/MGLeonardwood.htm)
1905 W.E.B. Dubois and other
black leaders organized the Niagara Movement. it followed the
National Citizen’s Rights Association, which was organized by Homer
Plessey's lawyer, Albion Tourgee. Tourgee’s biography was written by
Otto Olsen: "Carpetbagger’s Crusade: The Life of Albion Winegar
Tourgee."
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-6)
1905 Alonzo Herndon, a former
slave, purchased two black benevolent associations for $140 and
created Atlanta Mutual, which sold burial insurance to Atlanta’s
black community. The company grew to become Atlanta Life Financial
Group.
(WSJ, 5/3/08, p.A8)
1905 Mary Anderson of Alabama
received a patent for a streetcar windshield wiper. Her effort was
the result of a trip to NYC in 1903 where she watched drivers coping
with the weather.
(WSJ, 5/9/05, p.R10)
1905 In Denver Sarah Breedlove
(Madame C.J. Walker) began selling in earnest her own Wonderful Hair
Grower product. She settled the company in Indianapolis in 1910 and
incorporated it in 1911. In 1912 she forced her way to the podium to
address the National Negro Business League at its annual meeting,
even though Booker T. Washington refused to recognize her.
(SFEM, 8/23/98, p.30)
1905 Robert Todd Lincoln, son
of Abraham Lincoln, gave the Lincoln Life Insurance Co. the right to
use the family name.
(DFP, 7/28/96, p.J5)
1905 Burrows, Marsh &
McLennan was formed by Henry W. Marsh and Donald R. McLennan
in Chicago becoming the world's largest insurance agency with annual
premiums of $3 million ($59 million consumer price index
adjusted). It was renamed Marsh & McLennan in 1906. In 1997, the
company merged with Johnson & Higgins.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_&_McLennan)
1905 Senior executives of
Equitable Life Insurance attempted to displace James Hyde, son of
founder Henry Hyde, from leadership. In 2003 Patricia Beard authored
"After the Ball," an account of the affair.
(WSJ, 8/1/03, p.W10)
1905 Charles Evans Hughes
supervised a New York state investigation into the insurance
industry.
(WSJ, 8/1/03, p.W10)
1905 Alliance Furniture was
founded in Jamestown, NY, by a group of 8 partners of Swedish
heritage. The company manufactured high-quality dining-room
furniture until at least the 1950s.
(SFC, 6/18/08, p.G3)
1905 The De Forest Wireless and
Telegraph Company established its KPH Radio station in San Francisco
and began broadcasting from the Palace Hotel. It was destroyed in
the 1906 earthquake. In 1912 Marconi bought the station and chose
Bolinas for its transmitter.
(SFC, 7/13/05, p.B2)
1905 The Hearst Corp. acquired
Cosmopolitan magazine.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1905 Standard Rope & Twine
Co. collapsed. It was succeeded by Standard Cordage Co.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.R46)
1905 Studebaker of South Bend,
Indiana, produced an electric car, the Victoria Phaeton, that could
be charged at home.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.22)
1905 Some automakers introduced
motor trucks and ignition locks; and auto plants were opened in
Canada.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1905 Winton Motors acquired
Cleveland Cap Screw Co., which became the subsidiary Electric
Welding Co.
(F, 10/7/96, p.67)
1905 The R.T. Davis Milling Co.
began making an Aunt Jemima rag doll set that included Aunt Jemima,
her husband Uncle Mose, and children Wade and Diana.
(SFC,10/22/97, Z1 p.7)
1905 The Wright Brother’s Flyer
III became the world’s first practical airplane, but attracted
little attention.
(NPub, 2002, p.7)
1905 Einstein presented his
theory of relativity declaring that the very measurement of time
intervals is affected by the motion of the observer. He proposed
that light is itself quantized, or particle-like, to explain how
electrons were emitted when light hit certain metals. He presented
four papers, the first on Brownian motion, the second was on the
composition of light, the third proposed the Special Theory of
Relativity, and the fourth established the equivalence of mass and
energy (see Sep 27). Einstein presented 5 papers this year, one of
which was titled “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy
Content?” This paper provided an incomplete proof of E=mc2, an
equation that had already been know for a few years. In 2008 Hans C.
Ohanian authored “Einstein’s Mistakes: The Human Failings of
Genius.”
(NH, 3/05,
p.72)(www.aip.org/history/einstein/great1.htm)(WSJ, 9/5/08, p.A13)
1905 Sylanus Bowser modified
his 1885 kerosene pump into a self-regulating gasoline pump.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, Z1 p.6)
1905 Gustav Carlson invented
plywood.
(SFC, 8/28/99, p.B3)
1905 A Mayo Clinic researcher
found that analyzing quick-frozen tissue could tell surgeons whether
a growth is cancerous while the patient was still on the operating
table.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)
1905 Nettie Stevens,
geneticist, showed that sex was associated with the X chromosome.
(NH, 6/01, p.32)
1905 H.F. Osborn, noted
dinosaur expert, first identified fossils of Tyrannosaurus rex.
(SFME, 5/7/95, P.13)(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)
1905 Pete Aguereberry
discovered gold in Death Valley and worked his Eureka Mine for 40
years.
(SSFC, 1/19/03, p.C5)
1905 The Salton Sea in southern
California was formed by a broken Colorado River diversion dyke.
Prior to this time it had been called the Salton Sink. It flowed
unimpeded for the next 15 months.
(AAM, 3/96, p.87)(SFC, 7/7/96, zone 1 p.5)(SSFC,
12/9/01, p.A22)
1905 California banned the
collection of condor eggs. By 1982 only 22 condors were left in the
state. In 1987 government biologists caught the last of 5 wild
condors. Between 1992 and 2004 161 condors were released of which
about half survived.
(CW, Winter 04, p.26)
1905 New York City began using
a garbage incinerator to generate electricity to light the
Williamsburg Bridge.
(www.astc.org/exhibitions/rotten/timeline.htm)
1905 In Argentina Robert Leroy
Parker and Harry Longabaugh, known as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid, held up a bank in Santa Cruz province.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)
1905 Baron Edouard Empain of
Belgium built the model city of Heliopolis near Cairo, Egypt, with
his own elaborate, Indian-inspired palace as its main attraction.
(AP, 5/4/05)
1905 Herbert Austin began
making cars at Longbridge near Birmingham, England. The site later
became the main factory of MG Rover.
(Econ, 3/11/06, p.53)
1905 Vaclav Laurin and Vaclav
Klement, Czech bicycle makers, began making cars. They later merged
with Skoda Pilsen.
(www.skoda-auto.com/global/history/company)
1905 Kaiser Wilhelm II
organized a trans-Atlantic yacht race that was won by Charlie Barr,
skipper of the Atlantic. His record crossing was 12 days 4 hrs and 1
min. Scott Cookman in 2002 authored "Atlantic: The Last Great Race
of Princes."
(WSJ, 5/3/02, p.W12)
1905 Adolph Menzel (b.1815),
German painter, died. He combined elements of many styles and was
considered the greatest artist in Germany at the time and was
Prussia’s foremost historical artist. He was considered Germany’s
French Impressionist.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A16)
1905 The neo-Gothic Parliament
building was constructed in Budapest, Hungary.
(Sm, 3/06, p.79)
1905 Japan imposed protectorate
status on Korea. Hirobumi Ito was installed in Seoul as resident
general and took charge of all governmental affairs. Japan named
Durham White Stevens as the foreign advisor to Kojong.
(AH, 10/07, p.56)
1905 Mexico’s Islas Marias
penal colony was founded. It was about 112 kms (70 miles) from the
mainland Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta.
(AP, 11/24/11)
1905 In Mexico Pres. Diaz and
his finance minister, Jose Limantour, set a silver-gold parity of
32:1, that proved to be a deflationary mistake on the eve of
revolution.
(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1905 In Southwest Africa (later
Namibia) the Nama tribe joined the Herero uprising against German
settlers stealing their land, cattle and women.
(AFP, 10/4/11)
1905 Norway established
independence from Denmark after 400 years of servitude. (Fresno Bee,
11/29/94)
1905 Russia attacked Japan but
was easily defeated. [see May 28]
(V.D.-H.K.p.286)
1905 Revolution broke out in
Russia and nationalist feelings ignited in the Baltic states.
(Compuserve, Online Encyclopedia)
1905 Over 1 million Russians
staged a general strike demanding political reforms.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1905 Nestle S.A. originated in
a merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company for milk products
established in 1866 by the Page Brothers in Cham, Switzerland, and
the Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé Company set up in 1866
by Henri Nestlé to provide an infant food product.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9)
1905 In Europe Jean Lanfray, a
Swiss laborer, murdered his wife and children after drinking 2
glasses of absinthe.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A3)
1905 Cecil Rhodes brought about
the construction of a 650 foot iron bridge to connect Zambia and
Zimbabwe near victoria Falls.
(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.C4)
1905-1911 Iran’s Constitutional Revolution took
place. The revolution led to the establishment of a parliament in
Persia (Iran).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Baskerville)
1905-1914 The great ostrich feather craze for the
adornment of women’s hats, gowns, capes, gloves and shoes took place
over this period. In 2008 Sarah Stein authored “Plumes: Ostrich
Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce.”
(WSJ, 11/19/08, p.A19)
1905-1956 Margaret Lee Runbeck, American author:
"Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of
traveling."
(AP, 11/8/99)
1905-1961 Dag Hammarskjöld, U.N.
Secretary-General: "A successful lie is doubly a lie; an error which
has to be corrected is a heavier burden than the truth."
(AP, 8/6/98)
1905-1967 Patrick Kavanaugh, Irish poet, author of
"Raglan Road," which Joan Osborne later put to the music of the song
"At the Dawning of the Day."
(WSJ, 3/17/99, p.A24)
1905-1970 John Henry O'Hara, journalist, novelist
and short story writer. Prof. Frank MacShane (d.1999) later authored
a biography on O'Hara.
(WUD, 1994, p.1001)(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C8)
1905-1974 Jane Ace, American radio personality:
"I'm a ragged individualist."
(AP, 10/22/99)
1905-1975 Ivy Baker Priest, former U.S. treasurer
Thought for Today: "We seldom stop to think how many peoples’ lives
are entwined with our own. It is a form of selfishness to imagine
that every individual can operate on his own or can pull out of the
general stream and not be missed."
(AP, 6/16/98)
1905-1978 Ilka Chase, author, actress and
humorist: "You can always spot a well-informed man—his views are the
same as yours."
(AP, 12/23/97)
1905-1978 Phyllis McGinley, American poet and
author: "Time is the thief you cannot banish." "God knows that a
mother needs fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and
patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the
human soul. But because I happen to be a parent of almost fiercely
maternal nature, I praise casualness. It seems to me the rarest of
virtues." "History must always be taken with a grain of salt. It is,
after all, not a science but an art."
(AP, 12/22/97)(AP, 5/9/98)(AP, 10/24/98)
1905-1979 Barnett Newman, New York painter. Late
in his life he began making abstract sculpture. His last piece was
called "Zim Zum I" (1969).
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A17)
1905-1989 Robert Penn Warren, American author,
poet and critic: "What is man but his passion?"
(AP, 2/18/98)
1905-1995 Hobby, Oveta Culp,
U.S. public official and publisher; b. Killeen, Tex. She was
(1943-45) the first director of the Women’s Army Corps and served
(1953-55) as the first secretary of the Dept. of Health, Education,
and Welfare. She was editor (1952-53, 1955-83), president (1955-65)
and (1965-83) chairman of the board of the Houston Post.
(HNQ, 8/18/99)
1906 Jan 7, Harry Houdini’s
fame as the "King of Handcuffs" was assured when he escaped from the
Washington, D.C., jail cell of President James Garfield’s assassin,
Charles Guiteau. For the next 20 years, Houdini astounded worldwide
audiences with illusions such as the "Upside-Down Water Torture
Cell" and straitjacket escapes. Houdini died on October 31, 1926.
(HN, 3/24/98)(HNPD, 3/24/00)
1906 Jan 8, Upton Sinclair
signed a contract with Doubleday Page, which published "The Jungle."
The hero was a newlywed Lithuanian immigrant who found work in a
Chicago meatpacking plant. The novel that exposed the intolerable
working conditions in the Chicago slaughterhouses. Early chapters
were published serially in Appeal to Reason, a Midwestern socialist
newspaper.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)(ON, 10/20/11, p.6)
1906 Jan 11, Albert Hoffmann,
Switzerland, chemist (discovered LSD in 1943), was born.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1906 Jan 12, The Dow Jones
Industrial average surged over 100 for the first time.
(WSJ, 2/26/96, p.C-1)
1906 Jan 12, Henny Youngman
(d.1998), comedian, was born in London.
(SFC, 2/25/98, p.C2)
1906 Jan 13, The Golden Gate
Hotel opened on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nev..
(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.F4)
1906 Jan 15, Aristotle Onassis,
Greek tycoon, who married Jackie Kennedy, was born.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1906 Jan 16, Marshall Field
(71), Chicago department store founder, died in NYC.
(AP, 1/16/06)
1906 Jan 22, Willa
Brown-Chappell, pioneering aviator, was born.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1906 Jan 25, Major Gen. Joseph
Wheeler II (70), Confederate, US General, died. He led a cavalry
division in the Battle of San Juan Hill in 1898. As a Confederate
brigadier and then major general, "Fightin’ Joe" Wheeler commanded
the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Mississippi and, later, the
Army of Tennessee. Captured in May 1865, he went on to have a
prosperous postwar life, serving as a U.S. congressman for eight
terms. After his Spanish-American War service, Wheeler retired from
the army as a brigadier general of U.S. Regulars. He was interred in
Arlington National Cemetery.
(HNQ, 2/13/02)(MC, 1/25/02)
1906 Jan 31, A magnitude 8.8
quake off the coast of Ecuador and Colombia. It generated a tsunami
that killed at least 500 people.
(AP, 2/27/10)
1906 Jan, Lee De Forest filed a
patent for diode vacuum tube detector, a two-electrode device for
detecting electromagnetic waves, a variant of the Fleming valve
invented two years earlier. A year later, he filed a patent for a
3-electrode device that was a much more sensitive detector of
electromagnetic waves. It was granted US Patent 879,532 in February
1908 and paved the way for the radio and television industry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest)(SSFC, 6/26/11, p.42)
1906 Jan, The steamer Valencia
from SF ran aground at bluffs on the west side of Vancouver Island.
Many of the passengers and crew made it to shore, but none of the
126 survived due to exposure.
(SSFC, 3/3/02, p.C8)
1906 Feb 1, 1st federal
penitentiary building completed in Leavenworth, Kansas.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1906 Feb 2, A Papal encyclical
denounced the separation of church & state.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1906 Feb 4, Clyde Tombaugh,
astronomer who discovered Pluto, was born.
(HN, 2/4/01)
1906 Feb 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(d.1945), German Protestant theologian, was born. "If you board the
wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other
direction."
(AP, 8/27/00)(HN, 2/4/01)
1906 Feb 4, The New York Police
Department began finger print identification.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1906 Feb 5, Actor John
Carradine was born in New York City.
(AP, 2/5/06)
1906 Feb 7, Aisingyoro Henry
Puyi, the last emperor of China, was born in Beijing.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)(AP, 2/7/06)
1906 Feb 8, Chester F. Carlson,
physicist, was born. He invented xerography, the electrostatic
dry-copy process.
(HN, 2/8/01)
1906 Feb 8, Henry Roth, writer,
was born. His work included "Call it Sleep."
(HN, 2/8/01)
1906 Feb 9, Poet Paul Laurence
Dunbar (33), son of former slaves, died of TB in his hometown of
Dayton, Ohio.
(AH, 2/06, p.15)
1906 Feb 9, Natal proclaimed a
state of siege in Zulu uprising.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1906 Feb 10, Britain's 1st
modern and largest battleship, the "HMS Dreadnought," was launched.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1906 Feb 15, British Labour
Party organized.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1906 Feb 17, Alice Lee
Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt's irrepressible eldest
daughter, married Congressman Nicholas Longworth of Ohio in an
elaborate White House ceremony. Heedless of social convention,
Alice's behavior routinely shocked her family and friends. Once the
president, when confronted with another of Alice's escapades,
remarked, "I can do one of two things, I can run the country or
control Alice. I cannot do both." Nevertheless, the world public was
captivated with the first daughter, who seemed to embody the ideal
Gay Nineties woman. In spite of its promising beginning, Alice's
25-year marriage to Longworth was not a happy one, but Alice reigned
as the grande dame of Washington, D.C. society for another 50 years.
(HNPD, 2/16/99)
1906 Feb 19, W.K. Kellogg &
Ch Bolin incorporated the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Co. Will
Kellogg spent 2/3 of the company budget to advertise Corn Flakes.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.E4)(ON, 2/05, p.10)
1906 Feb 20, Russian troops
seized large portions of Mongolia.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1906 Feb 23, Johann Hoch, US
murderer, was executed.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1906 Feb 28, Bugsy Siegel,
gangster who created casinos in Las Vegas, was born.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1906 Mar 3, Vuia I aircraft,
built by Romanian Traja Vuia, was tested in France.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1906 Mar 4, John McAllister
Schofield, a Union general in the Civil War and onetime commanding
general of the army, died in St. Augustine, Fla., at age 74.
(AP, 3/4/06)
1906 Mar 6, Lou Costello
(d.1959), American film comedian, was born in Paterson, NJ. He
paired with Bud Abbott in numerous films and the famous "Who's on
First" routine.
(HN, 3/6/99)(MC, 3/6/02)
1906 Mar 10, 1st performance of
Maurice Ravel's "Sonatine."
(MC, 3/10/02)
1906 Mar 10, London Underground
opened Bakerloo line from Baker Street to Waterloo Line.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1906 Mar 10, A coal dust
explosion killed 1,060 at Courrieres, France.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1906 Mar 11, The Simplified
Spelling Board was announced with Andrew Carnegie funding the
organization, to be headquartered in New York City. In August Pres.
Theodore Roosevelt issued an executive order mandating simplified
spelling in all government administrative documents.
(Econ, 8/30/08,
p.19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board)
1906 Mar 13, Susan B. Anthony
(b.1820), abolitionist and advocate of black suffrage as well as the
rights of women to vote, died. Eleanor Roosevelt suggested that
Susan B. Anthony should be added to the four faces of Mount
Rushmore. Eleanor Roosevelt later suggested that social
reformer and woman suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony should be
included with the images of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and
Theodore Roosevelt, but her suggestion was not accepted.
(AP, 3/13/99)(HNQ, 4/17/00)
1906 Mar 17, President Theodore
Roosevelt first likened crusading journalists to a man with "the
muck-rake in his hand" in a speech to the Gridiron Club in
Washington, DC, as he criticized what he saw as the excesses of
investigative journalism.
(AP,
3/17/06)(www.gwu.edu/~smpa/faculty/documents/Harvard.pdf)
1906 Mar 18, Roy L. Johnson, US
admiral (WW II-Pacific Ocean), was born.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1906 Mar 19, Adolf Eichmann,
Nazi Gestapo officer, was born. He was captured in Argentina and put
on trial in Israel.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1906 Mar 19, Ermanno
Wolf-Ferrari's "Quattro Rusteghi," premiered in Munich.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1906 Mar 20, George B. Shaw's
"Captain Brassbound's Conversion," premiered in London.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1906 Mar 20, Army officers in
Russia mutinied at Sevastopol.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1906 Mar 21, John D.
Rockefeller III, billionaire philanthropist (oil), was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1906 Mar 21, Ohio passed a law
that prohibited hazing by fraternities.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1906 Mar 24, "Census of the
British Empire" showed England ruled 1/5 of the world.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1906 Mar 25, Alan John
Percivale Taylor, English historian, was born. He pioneered the
presentation of the history lecture on British television.
(HN, 3/25/99)
1906 Mar 25, Jean Sablon,
French crooner, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1906 Mar 29, E. Power Biggs,
organist, composer (CBS), was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, England.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1906 Mar 31, G.B. Shaw's German
version of "Caesar and Cleopatra," premiered in Berlin.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1906 Mar, Matisse first
exhibited his 6x8 foot untraditional, pastoral canvas “Le Bonheur de
vivre” at the Salon des Independants in Paris. It was purchased from
the salon by Leo and Gertrude Stein.
(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P12)
1906 Apr 4, John Cameron
Swayze, newscaster (Timex, Hindenburg), was born in Wichita, Ks.
(AP, 4/4/06)
1906 Apr 14, Pres. Roosevelt
made a speech about “Man With the Much Rake” during a ceremony at
the laying of the corner stone of the House of Representatives.”
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.A13)
1906 Apr 16, In Michigan 2
freighters collided and sank in the Soo passage near Sault Ste.
Marie. The crews of the Sexonia and the Eugene Zimmerman escaped.
(SFC, 4/17/06, p.A9)
1906 Apr 16, In Pennsylvania 3
men were shot dead in a riot among striking coal miners at Windber.
An appeal was made to Gov. Pennypacker for troops.
(SFC, 4/17/06, p.A9)
1906 Apr 6, 1st animated
cartoon was copyrighted.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1906 Apr 7, A general act was
issued by the international conference of Algeciras, Spain. Thirteen
powers participated in the deliberations on the Moroccan question,
and despite strong German objections, agreed to entrust to France
and Spain the management of the Moroccan police. The powers also
made arrangements regarding Morocco's state bank, system of
taxation, customs administration, and public works.
(www.bartleby.com/67/1378.html)
1906 Apr 9, The third modern
Olympic games opened in Athens and marked the 10th anniversary of
the modern Olympics.
(HN, 4/9/98)
1906 Apr 10, A report from
Russia said 7 soldiers were killed during a rebellion at the
garrison in Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia). On April 17 it was reported
that 315 soldiers were killed in a fight between mutineers and loyal
troops.
(SFC, 4/18/06, p.A15)
1906 Apr 11, Einstein
introduced his Theory of Relativity. [see 1905]
(MC, 4/11/02)
1906 Apr 11, James A. Bailey
(58), circus showman (Barnum & Bailey), died.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1906 Apr 13, Samuel Beckett
(d.1989), Irish (French) novelist-playwright, Nobel Prize winner in
1969, (Waiting for Godot), was born. He settled in France and wrote
in French and then translated to English. Sometimes he reversed the
process. His work included "Act Without Words" (1956), "Happy Days"
(1960-61), "Rough for Theater II" (1976), "Catastrophe" (1982) and
"What’s There" (1983). Also the prose trilogy "Molloy," "Malone
Dies" and "The Unnamable." In 1996 James Knowlson wrote his study of
Beckett: "Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett." "We are all
born mad. Some of us remain so."
(V.D.-H.K.p.369)(SFEC, 10/27/96, BR p.5)(HN,
4/13/98)(AP, 10/3/98)
1906 Apr 13, An explosion on
the US battleship Kearsarge killed 7 men. The vessel was off Culebra
Island in the Caribbean Sea when the explosion in the forward turret
occurred. 2 more deaths were soon reported with 10 sailors in
serious conditions.
(SFC, 4/15/06, p.A6)(SFC, 4/18/06, p.A15)
1906 Apr 13, There was a mutiny
on the Portuguese battleships Dom Carlos and Vasco da Gama.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1906 Apr 14, Russian writer
Maxim Gorky was in NYC raising funds for the revolt in Russia. He
had just been ordered out of 2 respectable hotels due to his
relationship with Russian actress Mlle. Andreivea.
(SFC, 4/15/06, p.A7)
1906 Apr 14, Pres. Roosevelt
made a speech about “Man With the Muck Rake” during a ceremony at
the laying of the corner stone for the House of Representatives.”
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.A13)
1906 Apr 15, A mob in
Springfield, Mo., took 3 black men from a county jail, lynched them
and burned their bodies. 2 of the men were being held under
suspicion of murder and the 3rd was accused of assaulting a white
domestic. Gov. Folk ordered out state militia to patrol the streets.
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.A13)
1906 Apr 15, Nine European
steamships arrived in NYC with some 11,839 immigrants. Another 8
ships were expected the next day with a similar number of
immigrants. The facilities at Ellis Island could only handle 5,000
newcomers per day.
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.A13)
1906 Apr 17, Daniel Burnham,
Chicago architect, presented his design plans for San Francisco
modeled on the Parisian plans by Baron Georges-Eugene Haussman.
(SFC, 4/14/96, EM, p.20)
1906 Apr 17, A boiler explosion
on the British battleship Prince of Wales killed 3 sailors as it
underwent speed trials in the Mediterranean.
(SFC, 4/18/06, p.A15)
1906 Apr 17, In France the wife
of a miner who had refused to strike was attacked by 150 women in
her home in the Pas de Calais district.
(SFC, 4/18/06, p.A15)
1906 Apr 18, At 5:12 a.m. the
San Francisco 8.2 earthquake occurred. Seismologists in 1977
reduced the magnitude to 7.9. 28,000 buildings were destroyed and
498 blocks leveled. One quarter of the city burned. About 700 people
died. The massive earthquake was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles and
as far inland as Nevada. It caused severe damage and loss of life in
the San Francisco Bay area, and a three-day fire spawned by the
shaking reduced 4.7 square miles of the city to blackened ruins.
Military officials estimated $400 million of damage and a total of
700-800 killed. Modern research estimates that closer to 3,000 of
San Francisco's 400,000 inhabitants lost their lives. Sweeney
Observatory in Goldengate Park was destroyed. Some 30,000 people
were left homeless and lived in GG Park for up to a year and a half.
The quake was centered in Olema. Old City Hall at Fulton and Larkin
was destroyed. The Fairmont Hotel was severely damaged just 2 months
before it was scheduled to open. In 2001 Dan Kurzman authored
"Disaster: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906." In
2005 Philip Fradkin authored “The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of
1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself.”
(SFC, 4/4/96, p.A-106)(SFC, 4/8/96, p.A-1)(SFC,
4/14/96, p.Z1, p.3)(AP, 4/18/97)(SFC, 7/29/97, p.A5,7)(SFEC, 3/8/98,
p.W31)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A13)(SFC, 4/22/01, BR p.3)(SFC, 2/15/02,
p.G8)(SFC, 4/7/05, p.B1)(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.F1)
1906 Apr 18, SF Mayor Schmitz
issued a proclamation that authorized police "to Kill any and all
persons found engaged in looting or in the Commission of Any Other
Crime."
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C3)
1906 Apr 18, Dennis Sullivan,
SF Fire Chief, was severely injured when the chimney of the
California Hotel crashed into the adjoining firehouse. Sullivan died
of his injuries on April 22. In the 1920s a firechief residence was
built in his honor at 870 Bush St. A pond on the Potrero Hill potato
farm of John Center provided water that saved the Mission district
from the earthquake fire. Residents on Russian Hill saved 5 homes on
Green Street between Jones and Leavenworth from fire and dynamite
crews. The "Portals of the Past" monument in Golden Gate Park is a
marble remnant from a mansion destroyed by the earthquake and fire.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.A26)(SFC, 8/20/98, p.B4)(SFC,
12/29/04, p.B1)(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.A8)(SFC, 4/24/06, p.A9)
1906 Apr 18, San Francisco
firefighters, with the assistance of the US Navy, managed to drag a
single fire hose from a pumper in the bay, over the shoulder of
Telegraph Hill, over a mile to the Jackson Street warehouses. They
saved Anson Hotaling’s Whiskey warehouses at 451 and 455 Jackson
street. Nearby Jones Alley was later renamed Hotaling Way.
(http://web.mac.com/danruden/APHotaling/About_Us.html)(SSFC,
9/13/09, p.N4)
1906 Apr 18, The SF earthquake
killed 119 people at Agnews State Hospital in San Jose.
(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A21)
1906 Apr 19, Pierre Curie,
French physicist, chemist (Nobel 1903), died. Curie, was hit
by a truck and killed as he crossed a street in Paris.
(ON, 3/00, p.2)(MC, 4/19/02)
1906 Apr 22, Eddie Albert
(d.2005), film and TV star (Green Acres), was born in Rock Island,
Ill, and grew up in Minneapolis.
(SFC, 5/28/05, p.A2)
1906 Apr 22, A new baseball
rule put the umpire in sole charge of all game balls.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1906 Apr 22, The SF Health
Office reported that about 500 bodies had been recovered from the
earthquake and fire. Insurance losses were estimated at $175 million
and total losses at $300 million.
(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.A8)
1906 Apr 22, Dennis Sullivan,
SF Fire Chief, severely injured in the April 18 earthquake, died of
his injuries.
(SFC, 12/29/04, p.B1)(SSFC, 4/23/06, p.A8)
1906 Apr 23, Maria Arnoldo,
[Adrianus Broeders], photographer, writer, was born.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1906 Apr 23, The Belgian
training ship Count de Smet de Naey foundered off Prawle Point,
England. The captain and 33 on board were drowned.
(SFC, 4/24/06, p.A9)
1906 Apr 24, William Joyce was
born. He was the British traitor, who during World War II gave
anti-British broadcasts known as 'Lord Haw-Haw.'
(HN, 4/24/99)
1906 Apr 25, William Joseph
Brennan Jr., future Supreme Court Justice (1956-90), was born in
Newark, New Jersey.
(SFC, 7/25/97, p.A8)(AP, 4/25/07)
1906 Apr 25, J.H. Metcalf
discovered asteroid #599: Luisa.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1906 Apr 26, Gracie Allen (Mrs.
George Burns), comedienne (George Burns Show), was born.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1906 Apr 28, Bartholomeus J
"Bart" Bok, Dutch-US astronomer (Milky Way), was born.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1906 Apr 28, Kurt Gödel
(d.1978), Austrian mathematician, was born in the Moravian city of
Brno. Godel later developed his incompleteness theorem showing that
within any logical system, no matter how rigidly structured, there
are always questions that cannot be answered with certainty,
contradictions that may be discovered, and errors that may lurk.
(V.D.-H.K.p.340)(SFC, 6/14/05, p.D2)
1906 Apr, William J. Seymour, a
black preacher, (b.1870) began evangelizing for his apostolic Faith
Mission from 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles. The Azusa Street
revival contributed to a new diaspora of missionaries who
anticipated that global evangelization would be achieved by gospel
preaching accompanied by miraculous signs and wonders.
(www.ag.org/enrichmentjournal/199904/026_azusa_3.cfm)
1906 Apr, In Serbia General
Gruuios, the Premier and Minister of War, resigned because King
Peter refused to adopt his suggestion and dismiss the regicide
officials.
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.A13)
1906 May 8, Roberto Rossellini,
Italian film director, was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1906 May 10, Russia's Duma
(Parliament) met for the 1st time.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1906 May 17, Opera singer Zinka
Milanov was born in Zagreb, Croatia.
(AP, 5/17/06)
1906 May 19, The Federated
Boys’ Clubs, the forerunner of the Boys’ Clubs of America,
were organized.
(AP, 5/19/97)(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1906 May 22, Orville and Wilbur
Wright were awarded U.S. Patent 821,393 for "new and useful
improvement in Flying Machines." They had hired a patent attorney to
refine their 1903 application. The first successful powered flight
of the Wright Flyer took place on December 17, 1903.
(HNQ, 3/19/01)
1906 May 23, Henrik Ibsen (78),
Norwegian playwright and poet died in Christiania, Norway.
(AP, 5/23/06)
1906 May 26, Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt approved the US Congress chartered the Archaeological
Institute of America.
(www.archaeological.org/pdfs/AIA_Congressional_CharterA5S.pdf)
1906 May 29, Terence Hanbury
White (T.H. White), novelist (The Sword in the Stone, England Have
My Bones), was born in Bombay, India.
(HN, 5/29/01)(SC, 5/29/02)
1906 May 31, In Madrid, Spain,
an anarchist bomb exploded under the wedding carriage King Alfonso
and Queen Ena. 20 people were killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/b45gm)
1906 May, In California a
suspicious fire destroyed the Chinese fishing village of Point
Alones on the Monterey Bay. The Chinese were not allowed to rebuild.
(SFC, 11/5/10, p.A1)
1906 Jun 3, Josephine Baker,
dancer, singer, Parisian nightclub owner, was born to an Indian and
African mother and a Creole father in St. Louis. She was a talented
singer and dancer who got her show business start with the Dixie
Steppers vaudeville troupe and was the first black, female American
entertainer to achieve international stardom. She left home at 13 to
tour on the southern vaudeville circuit, later appeared on Broadway
and was noted in New York as a comedienne. Frustrated by the racism
she encountered in her homeland, Baker moved to France in 1925 and
joined the Folies Bergere. Her sensuous performances with La Revue
Negre earned her rave reviews and admiring fans. She returned to
America in 1935 after 10 years in France only to find that racial
barriers still prevented her from attaining the same status she
enjoyed in Europe. She appeared in New York's Ziegfeld Follies but,
when she did not achieve any success there she returned to France,
became a citizen, and married a Frenchman. During World War II,
Baker became active in undercover work for the French Resistance
movement. She later adopted twelve orphans from around the world,
calling them her "Rainbow Tribe." Josephine Baker died in France in
1975 and was buried in Paris with full military honors.
(HNQ, 6/3/98)(HN, 6/3/98)(HNQ, 12/28/98)
1906 Jun 8, Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt signed the American Antiquities Act, first proposed in
1882. It was used to set aside American resources by executive
order. Roosevelt had urged the passage of the Antiquities Act to
allow the president to designate areas of scientific, historic or
archeological significance as national monuments without the
approval of Congress.
(SFEC, 11/21/99,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquities_Act)(Arch, 1/06, p.4)
1906 Jun 14, Margaret
Bourke-White, American photojournalist, was born.
(HN, 6/14/01)
1906 Jun 19, Earl Bascom (rodeo
showman and inventor: first side-delivery rodeo chute, first
hornless bronc saddle, first one-handed bareback rigging), was born.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1906 Jun 22, Anne Morrow
Lindbergh, author, wife of Charles Lindbergh (Gifts from the Sea),
was born.
(HN, 6/22/01)
1906 Jun 22, Billy Wilder,
movie director, was born. He directed "The Lost Weekend" and "The
Apartment" and won an Oscar for "Stalag 17."
(HN, 6/22/99)
1906 Jun 24, Pierre Fournier,
cellist (Paris Conservatoire), was born in Paris, France.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1906 Jun 25, A love triangle
came to a violent end atop New York's Madison Square Garden as
architect Stanford White, the building's designer, was shot to death
by Harry Thaw, for an alleged tryst White had with Thaw's wife,
Florence Evelyn Nesbit. Thaw, tried for murder, was acquitted by
reason of insanity. At the time this was called "The Crime of the
Century."
(HN, 6/25/99)(AP, 6/25/06)
1906 Jun 26, Ferenc Szisz won
the first French Grand Prix. Szisz won the race in a 13 liter, 90
horsepower Renault. The car was not particularly powerful
compared to other cars in the race, but it did have the important
advantage of removable tire-carrying rims. The removable rims meant
tire changes took a speedy four minutes compared to the regular 15
minutes required with fixed rim tires. Szisz finished a little over
a half hour ahead of the second-place car.
(HNQ, 7/25/00)(AHDD, p.26)
1907 Jun 27, John McIntire,
actor (Naked City, Wagon Train, Virginian), was born in Spokane,
Wash.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1906 Jun 28, Maria Goeppert
Mayer, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was born.
(HN, 6/28/01)
1906 Jun 29, The US Congress
enacted the Hepburn Act, which prohibited railroads from offering
discounted rates to large shippers and authorized the Interstate
Commerce Commission to set maximum freight charges for railroads.
Pres. Roosevelt had personally appealed for its passage.
(AH, 6/07,
p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_Act)
1906 Jun 30, President Theodore
Roosevelt signed into law the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat
Inspection Act. The meat inspection act was inspired by Upton
Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle. The large meatpackers supported the
law because it put inspection costs on the government and imposed
costly regulations on smaller competitors.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(WSJ, 3/8/06, p.A21)(AP, 6/29/06)
1906 Jul 1, In San Francisco
St. Ignatius College held a formal inauguration ceremony for a new
campus site, its 4th, at Hayes and Shrader. Since the earthquake 18
SI Jesuits took up temporary residence at the 57-room mansion of
Mrs. Bertha Welch at 1090 Eddy Street.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1906 Jul 2, Hans Bethe,
physicist (Nobel 1967), peace worker, was born.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1906 Jul 3, George Sanders,
actor (All About Eve-Academy Award 1950), was born in Russia.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1906 Jul 4, Great Britain,
France & Italy granted independence to Ethiopia.
(Maggio, 98)
1906 Jul 7, Leroy "Satchel"
Page, baseball pitcher for the Negro Leagues and the Major League,
was born.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1906 Jul 8, Philip C. Johnson,
architect, was born.
(HN, 7/8/01)
1906 Jul 12, French Captain
Alfred Dreyfus was found innocent in France of his earlier
court-martial for spying for Germany. Dreyfus had served over 4
years on Devil’s Island before a top French court rehabilitated his
name in what came to be called the Dreyfus Affair.
(PC, 1992, p.664)(SFC, 7/13/06, p.A16)
1906 Jul 14, Tom Carvel, ice
cream mogul (Carvels), was born.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1906 Jul 15, Richard W. Armour,
humorist, author of "Twisted Tales from Shakespeare," was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1906 Jul 18, S.I. Hayakawa,
(Sen-R-CA), educator (Language in Action), was born.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1906 Jul 17, American
playwright Clifford Odets was born in Philadelphia.
(AP, 7/18/06)
1906 Jul 23, Marston Bates,
American zoologist and author of "The Nature of Natural History,"
was born.
(HN, 7/23/98)
1906 Jul 23, Pogroms took place
against Jews in Odessa.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1906 Jul 27, Leo Durocher,
baseball player and manager, was born.
(HN, 7/27/98)
1906 Jul, Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt wrote a letter to editor William Allen White in which he
called Upton Sinclair “hysterical, unbalanced and untruthful” in
reference to Sinclair’s criticism of the Chicago meat packing
plants.
(WSJ, 3/8/06, p.A21)
1906 Aug 5, John Houston, film
director of such movies as "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and
"The Maltese Falcon," was born in Nevada, Mo.
(HN, 8/5/98)(MC, 8/5/02)
1906 Aug 7, In North Carolina,
a mob defies a court order and lynches three African Americans which
becomes known as "The Lyerly Murders."
(HN, 8/7/99)
1906 Aug 11, In France, Eugene
Lauste received the first patent for a talking film.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1906 Aug 13, At Fort Brown,
Texas, some 10-20 armed men engaged an all-Black Army unit in a
shooting rampage that left one townsperson dead and a police officer
wounded. A 1910 inquiry placed guilt on the soldiers and Pres.
Roosevelt ordered all 167 discharged without honor. In 1970 John
Weaver (d.2002) authored "The Brownsville Raid," an account of the
incident that led the Army to exonerate all 167 men.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A25)
1906 Aug 15, The 1st freight
delivery tunnel system began underneath Chicago.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1906 Aug 16, An magnitude 8.6
earthquake in Valparaiso, Chile, left an estimated 20,000 people
dead.
(SFEC, 6/13/99, Z1 p.5)(AP, 6/22/02)
1906 Aug 19, Philo T.
Farnsworth (d.1971), inventor (electronic TV), was born in Beaver
County, Utah.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarnsworth.htm)
1906 Aug 21, Friz Freleng,
animator (Bugs Bunny-Emmy 1982), was born.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1906 Aug 22, The 1st Victor
Victrola was manufactured.
(MC, 8/22/02)(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1906 Aug 26, Christopher
Isherwood, English novelist and playwright, was born. He wrote
"Goodbye to Berlin" (Berlin Stories), the inspiration for the play
"I am a Camera" and the musical and film "Cabaret." [1904 also given
as birth year]
(WUD, 1994 p.755)(HN, 8/26/00)
1906 Aug 26, Albert Bruce
Sabin, U.S. virologist, born in Poland. In 1955, he developed an
oral vaccine against polio.
(RTH, 8/26/99)
1906 Aug 28, John Betjeman
(d.1984), poet laureate of England (1972-1984), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman)
1906 Sep 1, Papua New Guinea
was placed under Australian administration, which continued to 1973.
(www.hubert-herald.nl/PapuaNewGuinea.htm)(Econ,
5/28/11, SR p.17)
1906 Sep 2, Giuseppe Giacosa
(b.1847), Italian songwriter (libretti opera Puccini), died.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1906 Sep 8, Robert Turner
invented the automatic typewriter return carriage.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1906 Sep 11, Mohandas Gandhi
addressed a meeting in Johannesburg on social protest against
the Asiatic Law Amendment, a new law by the province of Transvaal
that made it compulsory for all Indians over age 8 to register with
the government and carry ID cards. In the India Opinion he published
articles on what he called Satyagraha (Truth Force): "the
vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent
but on one's self."
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1906 Sep 12, Dmitri
Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, composer, was born in St. Petersburg,
Russia. [see Sep 25]
(MC, 9/12/01)
1906 Sep 19, Addressing the
annual dinner of The Associated Press in New York, Mark Twain said
there were "only two forces that can carry light to all the corners
of the globe ... the sun in the heavens and The Associated Press
down here."
(AP, 9/19/00)
1906 Sep 22, Race riots in
Atlanta, Georgia, killed 21 people. In 2001 Mark Bauerlein authored
"Negrophobia," an account of the riots.
(HN, 9/22/98)(WSJ, 6/12/01, p.A20)
1906 Sep 24, Victor
Herbert's musical "Red Mill," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1906 Sep 24, Devils Tower, the
first US National Monument, was designated by President Theodore
Roosevelt. Devils Tower is a volcanic rock formation, rising 867
feet over a base of gray igneous rock at 1,700 feet, located in the
Black Hills of Wyoming.
(SSFC, 6/18/06, p.G5)(www.nps.gov/deto/)
1906 Sep 25, Dimitri
Shostakovich (d.1975), Soviet composer who wrote 15 symphonies, was
born. His work included the Violin Concerto No. 2. [see Sep 12]
(WUD, 1994, p.1320)(SFC, 1/30/98, p.E5)(HN,
9/25/98)
1906 Sep 28, US troops
reoccupied Cuba. They stayed until 1909.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1906 Sep 7-1906 Sep 19, Dr.
Frederick Cook (1865-1940) and Ed Barrill explored the foothills of
Mt. McKinley, Alaska. Cook soon claimed to have taken a picture of
his companion, Edward Barrill, from the summit of Mt. McKinley. In
1909 his book “To the Top of the Continent” was published. In 1923
Cook was convicted of mail fraud for selling worthless oil stocks to
unsuspecting investors. In 1998 it was reported that the photo was a
fake, and that the 2 men never reached the summit.
(SFC, 11/27/98, p.A3)(ON, 3/06, p.6)
1906 Sep-1907 Feb, In San Francisco 5,610 fir and redwood shacks
were built during this period to provide housing for earthquake
refugees. They were placed in rows at 11 refugee camps and rented
for $2 per month.
(SSFC, 1/24/10, DB p.42)
1906 Oct 1, In Finland the
Parliament Act came into force. It replaced the old Diet dating back
to the 17th century with a 200-seat unicameral Parliament and
introduced universal suffrage.
(http://web.eduskunta.fi/Resource.phx/parliament/aboutparliament/presentation/history.htx)
1906 Oct 3, The first
conference on wireless telegraphy in Berlin adopted SOS as warning
signal.
(HN, 10/3/98)
1906 Oct 6, Janet Gaynor, film
actress, was born.
(HN, 10/6/00)
1906 Oct 8, Karl Ludwig Nessler
first demonstrated a machine in London that put permanent waves in
hair. The client wore a dozen brass curlers, each weighing two
pounds, for the six-hour process.
(HN, 10/8/00)
1906 Oct 9, Joseph F. Glidden,
inventor (barbed wire), died.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1906 Oct 11, The San Francisco
school board ordered the segregation of Oriental schoolchildren,
inciting Japanese outrage. To counter local prejudice David Starr
Jordan, Stanford’s 1st president, David Pike Bowie, a San Mateo
Japanophile, and Japanese General Consul Kisaburo Ueno soon formed a
chapter of the Japan Society to foster bilateral understanding. The
order was later rescinded at the behest of President Theodore
Roosevelt, who promised to curb future Japanese immigration to the
United States.
(HN, 10/11/98)(SFC, 10/29/05, p.B7)(AP, 10/11/06)
1906 Oct 14, Hannah Arendt,
historian (Origins of Totalitarianism), was born in Germany.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1906 Oct 16, Cleanth Brooks,
Kentucky-born writer and educator, was born.
(HN, 10/16/00)
1906 Oct 18, James Brooks, US
mural painter (Acquisition of Long Island), was born.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1906 Oct 19, The crew of Roald
Amundsen aboard Gjoe, a converted herring boat, arrived off the
coast of San Francisco following their crossing of the Northwest
Passage in a 26-month journey.
(SFC, 10/19/06, p.B1)
1906 Oct 22, Sidney Kingsley,
US playwright (One in White, Darkness at Noon), was born.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1906 Oct 22, 3000 blacks
demonstrated and rioted in Philadelphia.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1906 Oct 22, Paul Cezanne
(b.1839), French post-impressionist painter, died in
Aix-en-Provence.
(AP, 10/22/06)
1906 Oct 23, Gertrude Ederle,
swimmer (Olympic-gold-1924), was born in NYC.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1906 Oct 25, US inventor Lee de
Forest patented the "Audion," a 3-diode amplification valve which
proved a pioneering development in radio and broadcasting.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1906 Oct 25, The Peter Iredale,
a British 278-foot 4-mast bark, wrecked on Clatsop Beach, but the
whole crew survived. The only enemy shell to strike Oregon soil
during WW II landed near the wreck.
(PC, Smith-Western)
1906 Oct 31, Louise Talma,
composer (Summer Sounds), was born in Arcachon, France.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1906 Oct 31, George Bernard
Shaw's "Caesar & Cleopatra," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1906 Nov 2, Luchino Visconti,
film director, was born in Milan, Italy. His work included
“Obsession” and “Death in Venice.”
(HN, 11/2/00)(AP, 11/2/06)
1906 Nov 6, Republican Charles
Evans Hughes was elected governor of New York, defeating newspaper
publisher William Randolph Hearst. In 1910 he was appointed to the
US Supreme Court and served until 1916. In 1930 he was appointed as
Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court and served until 1941.
(AP, 11/6/99)(SFC, 10/6/05, p.A15)
1906 Nov 9, President Theodore
Roosevelt left Washington D.C. for a 17 day trip to Panama and
Puerto Rico, becoming the first president to make an official visit
outside of the U.S.
(HN, 11/9/98)
1906 Nov 9, Arthur Rudolph,
Nazi-turned-American rocket engineer, was born.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1906 Nov 14, Louise Brooks,
silent film star, was born. She became a symbol of the 1920s
flapper.
(HN, 11/14/00)
1906 Nov 15, Curtis E. Le May,
air force general and VP candidate, was born.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1906 Nov 17, Soichiro Honda,
founder and CEO of Honda Motor Co., was born in Japan.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1906 Nov 18, Anarchists bombed
Rome’s St. Peter’s Cathedral.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1906 Nov 20, George Bernard
Shaw's "Doctor's Dilemma," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1906 Nov 21, In San Juan,
President Theodore Roosevelt pledged citizenship for Puerto Rican
people.
(HN, 11/21/98)
1906 Nov 21, China prohibited
opium trade.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1906 Nov 22, The "S-O-S"
distress signal was adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic
Convention in Berlin.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1906 Nov 28, Philadelphia Jack
O’Brien and Tommy Burns fought to no decision in a 20-round draw in
a world heavyweight title bout in Los Angeles.
(DTnet, 11/28/97)
1906 Nov 30, President Theodore
Roosevelt publicly denounced segregation of Japanese school children
in San Francisco.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1906 Nov, Alois Alzheimer
(1864-1915), German psychiatrist, first described the symptoms of a
progressive neurodegenerative disease that caused memory loss,
dementia and ultimately death. This was based on his patient,
Auguste D (56). She was the first person to have been diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease.
(WSJ, 5/13/97, p.B1)(Econ, 7/29/06, p.72)
1906 Dec 2, Peter Carl Goldmark
(d.1977), engineer, was born in Budapest, Hungary. He developed the
first commercial color television and the long-playing phonograph
record.
(HN, 12/2/00)(AP, 12/2/06)
1906 Dec 3, The U.S. Supreme
Court ordered Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leaders
extradited to Idaho for trial in the Steunenberg murder case.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1906 Dec 6, Lt. Thomas E.
Selfridge flew a powered, man-carrying kite that carried him 168
feet in the air for seven minutes at Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1906 Dec 8, Richard Llewellyn,
author (How Green Was My Valley), was born.
(HN, 12/8/00)
1906 Dec 9, Grace Hopper,
mathematician and computer pioneer, was born.
(HN, 12/9/00)
1906 Dec 10, President Theodore
Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War. This
was the first Nobel Peace Prize.
(AP, 12/10/97)(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C3)
1906 Dec 12, US Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt nominated Oscar Straus to be secretary of commerce and
labor; Straus became the first Jewish Cabinet member.
(AP, 12/12/07)
1906 Dec 30, Sir Carol Reed
(d.1976) British movie director ("The Third Man," "Our Man in
Havana," "Oliver!") was born in London.
(AP, 12/30/06)
1906 Dec 14, First U1 submarine
was brought into service in Germany.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1906 Dec 19, H. Allen Smith,
Ill, humorist, author (Low Man on Totem Pole), was born.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1906 Dec 19, Leonid Brezhnev,
Soviet General Secretary of the Communist arty and President of the
Supreme Soviet from 1964 until 1982, was born in the Ukraine.
(HN, 12/19/98)(MC, 12/19/01)
1906 Dec 24, Canadian physicist
Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music
program over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass.
(AP, 12/24/97)
1906 Dec 27, Oscar Levant,
American composer and actor, was born in Pittsburgh.
(AP, 12/27/06)
1906 Dec 28, Alexander Cassatt
(b.1839), president of the Pennsylvania Railroad since June 9, 1899,
died. He was succeeded as by James McCrea. Cassatt was the
older brother of artist Mary Cassatt.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cassatt)
1906 Mildred Augustine Wirt
Benson (d.2002) was born in Ladora, Iowa. She later became a
newspaperwoman and wrote the 1st 23 Nancy Drew children’s mysteries
under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene.
(WSJ, 5/30/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/31/02, p.A13)
1906 William Empson, English
critic and poet, was born. He wrote the book "Seven Types of
Ambiguity," in which he attempted to translate the new ideas of
physics into literary criticism.
(WUD, 1994, p.468)(SFEC, 8/17/97, Z1 p.3)
1906 Billy Wilder, American
film director, was born in (Austria). In 1999 Ed Sikow published "On
Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder."
(SFEC, 2/7/99, BR p.5)
1906 Auguste Rodin began his
sculpture "Large Left Clenched Hand With Figure."
(WSJ, 4/1/97, p.A16)
1906 Georges Braque painted
"Olive Tree Near L’Estaque." It sold for $4.4 mil in 1998. He also
did the landscape "La Ciotat."
(WSJ, 5/21/98, p.A15)
1906 Cezanne painted "Le
Cabanon de Jourdan" in the year of his death.
(SFC, 5/21/98, p.A14)
1906 Andre Derain painted "The
Dance," a jungle scene with 3 dancers and a sinuous snake.
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A20)
1906 Matisse painted "The Joy
of Life." Matisse and Picasso met in this year and this work bugged
Picasso, who answered with hard-core cubism.
(NW, 5/13/02, p.12)
1906 Claude Monet painted
"Water Lilies." His last great series was devoted to the water
lilies of the pond in his Japanese garden in Giverney. This series
of paintings lasted to 1916 and became increasingly abstract. One of
the 1906 Water Lilies paintings sold for $22.5 mil in 1999.
(DPCP 1984)(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.W16)
1906 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
painted the corpulent "Portrait of Gertrude Stein" and the landscape
"Gosol." In 1996 the landscape sold for $3.4 million. In 1947 it was
acquired by the New York Met. He also did "Head of a Peasant (Joseph
Fontdevila)," "Woman Combing Her Hair," and "Self-Portrait With
Palette." His colossal female nude predecessors to the 1907
"Demoiselles d’Avignon" were also done. In this year Picasso hooked
up with Georges Braque to launch Cubism.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)(SFC, 11/15/96, p.C5)(SFC,
3/29/97, p.E1)(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 4/9/97,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein)
1906 John Singer Sargent
painted his "Self-Portrait."
(WSJ, 2/23/99, p.A20)
1906 Maurice de Vlaminck
painted "The Seine at Chatou." In 2002 it was valued at an estimated
$4.4-5.8 million.
(WSJ, 3/15/02, p.W14)
1906 Langdon Mitchell wrote his
play "The New York Idea."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.37)
1906 William Vaughan Moody
wrote his play "The Great Divide."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.37)
1906 Henry Adams, American
historian, published his autobiography, "The Education of Henry
Adams." In 1999 the Modern Library cited the work as the century's
best English-language work of non-fiction.
(V.D.-HK.p.266)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)
1906 Ambrose Bierce
(1842-c1914), American writer, published “The Cynic’s Word Book.” It
was expanded and republished in 1911 as “The Devil’s Dictionary.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil%27s_Dictionary)
1906 Svante Arrhenius published
his book "Worlds in the Making," in which he welcomed the additional
heat generated by additional carbon in the atmosphere fueling the
greenhouse effect.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.57)
1906 H. Elves and A. Henry
published their classic work on dendrology: "The Trees and Shrubs of
Great Britain and Ireland."
(NH, 6/96, p.46)
1906 Hermann Hesse published
"Beneath the Wheel," a novel about an overly zealous and diligent
student who is driven to self-destruction.
(iUniv. 7/2/00)
1906 Jack London authored his
novella “Before Adam,” in which he envisioned 3 distinct hominids
living in the mid-Pleistocene.
(Arch, 5/05, p.59)
1906 Percival Lowell,
astronomer, published "Mars and Its Canals."
(NH, 10/96, p.74)(NH, 12/96, p.22)
1906 Edmund Morel wrote "Red
Rubber: the Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Flourishing on the Congo
in the year of Grace 1906."
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.9)
1906 Felix Salten (1869-1945),
Austrian writer, authored the novel “Josephine Mutzenbacher,” the
fictional autobiography of a Vienna prostitute, a notorious
pornographic novel. In 1923 he authored “Bambi.”
(Econ, 11/8/08,
p.102)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Salten)
1906 The multi-volume "Flora
Brasiliensis," the definitive volume on Brazilian botany
commissioned in 1817 by Maximilian I of Austria, was published.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)
1906 The autobiography of Lew
Wallace (1827-1905) was published.
(HT, 3/97, p.66)
1906 American Vitagraph studios
of NYC produced the film “Daniel Boone,” featuring Florence Lawrence
(born as Florence Annie Bridgewood) and her mother Lotta Lawrence.
By the following year Florence had appeared in 38 Vitagraph
productions.
(ON, 4/06, p.5)
1906 Charles Looff, the
carousel demigod, built a carousel that was placed in the SF
Playland-at-the-Beach.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A20)
1906 Arnold Schoenberg composed
his first Chamber Symphony. It preceded his atonal evolution.
(WSJ, 9/17/98, p.A20)
1906 The 16-story,
Beaux-Arts-style Knickerbocker Hotel opened in NYC at Broadway and
42nd. It was financed by Jacob Astor. The hotel closed in 1921 and
was converted to apartments and textile showrooms. In the 1950s it
was converted to an office tower. In 2006 it was purchased by
Istithmar Hotels, an investment arm of Dubai’s royal family, with
plans to restore it as a luxury hotel.
(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.G5)
1906 In New York City Pierpont
Morgan (1837-1913) financed the building of the Pierpont Morgan
Library, a research library and museum at 29 E. 36th St. It was
designed by McKim, Mead and White.
(SFC, 2/15/97, p.D1)(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.B10)
1906 The Hotel Nevada opened in
Las Vegas shortly after the rail lines from Los Angeles and Salt
Lake City met nearby.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.B1)
1906 In San Francisco the belt
and suspender factory at 130 Bush was constructed shortly after the
earthquake. The 10-story building was built on a 20x80 foot lot. Its
story was documented in the 1996 book by L.G. Segedin: "130 Bush, An
Illustrated Story About Four Buildings and a Monument in San
Francisco."
(SFEC, 1/5/97, BR p.1)
1906 In San Francisco the
16-story Whittell Building was constructed at 166 Geary Street.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.C2)
1906 In SF Purcell’s
Negro dance hall opened at 550 Pacific St. and Sid LeProtti began
playing there. It w3as one of the first buildings erected following
the earthquake and fire.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.D7)(SFC, 2/16/09, p.B2)
1906 The California Federation
of Women’s clubs began a campaign to mark the missionary route of El
Camino Real with cast-iron bells. They were installed along El
Camino Real from San Diego to Sonoma and included a route along the
east side of the SF Bay. The first bell was erected in San Diego. SF
got the 13th bell. By 1913 at least 450 bells had been installed.
The project was rejuvenated in 1963 and again in 2004.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A15)(SFC, 11/11/04, p.B1)(SSFC,
12/20/09, p.C1)
1906 Giuseppe and Mike Gallo
founded the Gallo Wine Company in California.
(SFC, 12/19/02, p.D1)
1906 The Pagani Brothers
established a winery in Sonoma, Ca. In 1970 the Lee family opened
Kenwood Vineyards on the site. Some of the Kenwood grapes came from
vineyards on Jack London’s original ranch in Glen Ellen.
(SFC, 11/2/07, p.F3)
1906 Baldassare Forestiere
(1879-1946), Sicilian immigrant, began creating his 10-acre
Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno, Ca.
(WSJ, 8/28/08,
p.D11)(www.forestiere-historicalcenter.com/Forestierebio.html)
1906 The SF earthquake created
a boom for wood and the town of Freestone in Sonoma, Ca., quickly
grew to 10,000 people as a lumber and railroad town.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T5)
1905 Charles M. Schwab of
Bethlehem Steel bought Union Iron Works, located at Pier 70 in SF,
for $1 million. He used the facility to build 66 destroyers and 18
submarines for WWI.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F2)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.A11)
1905 The National Steel and
Ship building Company (NASSCO) in San Diego was founded as a small
machine shop. In 1997 the employee-owned company encompassed 147
acres with a work force of 5,000 for ship design, construction and
repair.
(IBCC, 10/97, #9)
1905 The Sonoma Brewing Company
was established in Sonoma, Ca.
(SFEM,7/28/96, p.25)
1905 Wells Fargo fell under the
control of Edward Harriman, a railroad entrepreneur, who moves its
headquarters to NYC and merged with Nevada National Bank.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A10)
1906 Robert Moran, shipbuilder
and mayor of Seattle, Wa., began construction of his 54-room
mansion, Rosario, on Orcas Island, where he had purchased 7,800
acres. Construction was begun after Moran had completed the building
of the U.S.S. Nebraska for the Navy.
(AAM, 3/96, p.36-39)
1906 Modern Pentecostalism
began at a revival meeting at a church on Azuza St. in Los Angeles.
It began as a multiracial movement but soon split along racial lines
into the white Assemblies of God and the black Church of God in
Christ. By 1996 an estimated 20 million Pentecostal Christians were
in the US.
(SFC, 10/14/96, p.A17)
1906 The Chicago Lighthouse was
founded by a group of women volunteers who were both blind and
sighted and offered housing, clothing and food assistance to people
who were blind.
(www.thechicagolighthouse.org/default.asp?page=aboutus)
1906 The Cat Fanciers
Association split from the American Cat Association and began
offering its own shows.
(Smith., 4/1995, p.132)
1906 A US Steel mill begat a
company town name Gary after Elbert H. Gary, the chairman of the
board.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A3)
1906 Pres. Theodore Roosevelt
stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon. He descended to the bottom in
1908 and declared it a national monument.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, BR p.12)
1906 Pres. Roosevelt appointed
Oscar Solomon as Sec. of Commerce. Solomon was the 1st Jewish person
to hold a US cabinet position.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C3)
1906 The US established a
provisional government in Cuba as revolution threatened.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1906 The US Bureau of
Chemistry, a precursor to the FDA, was created.
(WSJ, 9/26/97, p.A1)
1906 American Life and Accident
Insurance Co. was founded in Kentucky.
(WSJ, 10/11/08, p.A9)
1906 The Louisiana McIlhenny
family were awarded a trademark for the word Tabasco, which was also
the name of their popular pepper sauce.
(WSJ, 10/9/07, p.D11)
1906 The Alaska capital was
moved from Sitka to Juneau.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, Z1 p.2)
1906 The Michigan State
Telephone Co. published a telephone directory using yellow paper for
the first time, thus producing the first Yellow Pages.
(WSJ, 11/24/07,
p.W7)(www.oldtelephonebooks.com/pages/varieties)
1906 Gov. James Kimble of
Mississippi denounced black men as fiends and argued that lynching
was the only way to control a barbarous race.
(WSJ, 1/14/02, p.A16)
1906 Upton Sinclair wrote a
letter to Pres. Roosevelt urging him to send an inspector into the
Chicago packing houses.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A7)
1906 The Alaska Packers Assoc.
bought the square-rigged Balclutha ship and renamed it Star of
Alaska. It carried workers to the Chignick Cannery and transported
them back after the salmon season.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.D3)
1906 Cemex opened a cement
factory near Davenport, Ca., under a lease to mine limestone until
2067.
(SFC, 7/28/06, p.A14)
1906 A.P. Giannini saved
$80,000 from the Bank of Italy building before it burned and
reopened after the earthquake and fire before the other SF banks.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.B4)
1906 The Illinois Cabinet Co.
was founded. It was later purchased by General Electric, renamed to
Illinois Cabinet Works, and used to make cabinets for GE television
sets.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.G2)
1906 The Red Wing Union
Stoneware Co. began operating in Red Wing, Minnesota. In 1936 it
became Red Wing Potteries, which closed in 1967.
(SFC, 1/2/08, p.G3)
1906 James Cannon, textile
tycoon, founded his North Carolina company town Kannapolis.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.30)
1906 The B.F. Huntley Furniture
Co. opened in Winston-Salem, NC. It had been organized as the
Oakland Furniture Co. in 1898. In 1929 it was purchased by the
Simmons Co., then based in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
(SFC, 7/9/08, p.G5)
1906 In St. Louis Annie Turnbo
(b.1869) registered the "Poro" tradename to cover her Wonderful Hair
Grower product. Poro was a Mende (West African) term for a
devotional society.
(SFEM, 8/23/98, p.30)
1906 Ex-Lax, the laxative, was
first sold. Its main ingredient, phenolphthalein, was later found to
be a cancer risk and it was yanked from the shelves in 1997. The
laxative qualities of the chemical were thought to be first
discovered accidentally by Hungarians in 1902 who considered using
it as an additive in wine.
(WSJ, 9/26/97, p.A1)
1906 Gay and Robinson joined
other sugar planters in the California & Hawaiian Sugar Co. with
operations in the SF Bay Area. C&H Sugar took over a waterfront
mill in Crockett, Ca.
(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.I3)(SSFC, 3/20/05, p.D11)
1906 J.P. Morgan brought in
Theodore Vail to organize the AT&T telephone system.
(I&I, Penzias, p.214)
1906 The Haloid Co. was founded
in Rochester New York (home of Kodak). It was a photographic paper
supplier and later became the Xerox Corp.
(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.C-1)
1906 The Commercial Pacific
Cable Co. (later AT&T) planted ironwood trees on Midway Island
after setting cable across the Pacific.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.T5)
1906 Alfred C. Fuller founded
the Fuller Brush Company in Hartford, Conn., with $375 in savings
and expanded sales using a door-to-door sales force. It was bought
out in 1968 by Consolidated Foods for $53 million and then sold to
CPAC in 1994 for $17 million.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A3)(WSJ, 11/3/99, p.B1)
1906 Charles F. Kettering
designed the first cash register powered by an electric motor.
(www.ncr.com/history/history.htm)
1906 The Planters Nut and
Chocolate Co. was formed. The company's symbol, Mr. Peanut, was
created ten years later.
(SFC, 1/20/99, Z1 p.2)
1906 Wagon builders John,
William and Augustus Mack came out with a 10-ton truck.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.E4)
1906 The twins Francis and
Freelan Stanley won acclaim when their Stanley Steamer set a world
speed record at Ormond Beach, Fla., at 127.66 mph.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1906 There were 72,000 recorded
divorces in the US. A 7-fold increase in 40 years.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)
1906 In Alaska a fire burned
down most of downtown Fairbanks.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.T7)
1906 Paul Laurence Dunbar
(b.1872), US poet, died. His verse and short stories were written in
black dialect.
(WUD, 1994, p.442)(WSJ, 1/21/00, p.W2)
1906 Stanford White (b.1852),
architect, was shot and killed by the millionaire husband of his
former teenage mistress. The incident was later featured in E.L.
Doctorow’s novel 1975 "Ragtime" and the 1955 movie "The Girl on the
Red Velvet Swing." White’s story was later told by Suzannah Lessard
in her 1996 book: "The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the
Stanford White Family."
(SFEC, 10/13/96, BR p.3)(SFEC, 12/8/96, p.C21)
1906 Ludwig Boltzmann (b.1844),
Austrian atomic physics engineer, died. His Vienna tombstone read
"Entropy is the logarithm of probability." He hanged himself at the
seaside resort of Duino.
(WUD, 1994, p.167)(WSJ, 7/28/98, p.A16)(SFEC,
8/16/98, Z1 p.8)
1906 Joseph Malaby Dent
(1849-1926), British bookbinder turned publisher, began Everyman’s
Library, a collection of low cost classic books.
(WSJ, 1/9/06,
p.D4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Dent)
1906 In Britain a Trade
Disputes Act was passed. It aimed to protect striking workers from
retaliation through the courts [see 1900].
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.60)
1906 In England the Manchester
engineer Henry Royce and millionaire’s son Charles Rolls built the
first Rolls-Royce car.
(WSJ, 10/28/97, p.B1)
1906 In Germany the 1st gay
periodical "Der Eigene" was published.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, DB p.66)
1906 Alfred Lothar Wegener
(26), German meteorologist, joined an expedition to survey
Greenland’s glacier-fringed coast.
(ON, 9/04, p.8)
1906 A coalition of clerical
grandees, progressive intellectuals and bazaar traders forced the
shah of Iran to promulgate Iran’s first constitution and establish a
parliament.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.85)
1906 Boris Schatz (d.1932)
founded a visionary art school in Jerusalem and became known for his
trademark white robe and pet peacock. Born in Lithuania and trained
in Paris he was a Jewish artist and occasional boxer who discovered
Zionism and abandoned the European art scene for Jerusalem, then a
Mideastern backwater.
(AP, 5/23/10)
1906 The Cemex company was
founded in Mexico with the opening of Cementos Hidalgo. In 1920
Cementos Portland Monterrey began operations and in 1931 the 2
companies merged to become Cementos Mexicanos.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemex)
1906-1911 Petr Stolypin served as prime minister
of Russia until he was executed. In 2001 Abraham Ascher authored the
biography: "P.A. Stolypin."
(WSJ, 5/16/01, p.A21)
1906-1916 In Daly City, Ca., businesses made gas
out of oil at 731 Schwerin St.
(SFC, 3/2/09, p.B1)
1906-1926 Saudi forces captured the Al Hasa, Asir
and Al Hijaz regions, unifying much of Arabia under Saudi rule.
(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1906-1930 The Heintz Art Metal Shop of Buffalo,
N.Y., owned by Otto L. and Edwin Heintz, made decorative wares over
this period.
(SFC, 4/1/98, Z1 p.7)
1906-1945 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian:
"If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the
corridor in the other direction."
(AP, 8/27/00)
1906-1956 The career of George Jean Nathan, drama
critic and companion of H.L. Mencken. In 1998 Charles S. Angoff
published "The World of George Jean Nathan: Essays Reviews &
Commentary."
(SFEC, 5/31/98, BR p.4)
1909-1966 Stanislaw J. Lec, Polish poet, author
and satirist: "THINK before you think!"
(AP, 8/28/98)
1906-1967 Franz Waxman, German composer. He left
Nazi Germany to work in Hollywood and wrote the score to Billy
Wilder's film "Sunset Boulevard."
(WSJ, 3/5/99, p.W10)
1906-1972 Oscar Levant, pianist-composer-actor:
"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you
remember."
(AP, 1/23/00)
1906-1973 Lon Chaney Jr., son of actor Lon Chaney.
In 1998 Don G. Smith published "Lon Chaney Jr., Horror Film Star,
1906-1973."
(SFEM, 10/11/98, p.6)
1906-1975 Hannah Arendt, German-born American
historian and philosopher: "Real stories, in distinction from those
we invent, have no author. Although history owes its existence to
men, it is not ‘made’ by them." "Forgiveness is the key to action
and freedom." "It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven't
done anything wrong: How noble! Whereas it is rather hard and
certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent."
(AP, 5/7/97)(AP, 8/15/98)(AP, 6/30/99)
1906-1978 Gilbert Highet, Scottish-born American
author and educator: "What is politics but persuading the public to
vote for this and support that and endure these for the promise of
those?"
(AP, 11/4/97)
1906-1989 Richard Armour: "Shake and shake / The
catsup bottle. / None will come, / And then a lot’ll."
(AP, 2/28/98)
1906-1996 Sir Laurens van der Post, South African
author: "Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when
they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."
(AP, 4/29/01)
1907 Jan 1, Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt shook a record 8,513 hands in 1 day.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1907 Jan 1, The Pure Food and
Drug Act became law in the United States
(HN, 1/1/99)
1907 Jan 4, George Bernard
Shaw's "Don Juan in Hell" scene from "Man and Superman" premiered in
London.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1907 Jan 6, Maria Montessori
(1870-1952), Italian physician, educationist, opened her 1st school,
Children’s House (Casa dei Bambini), in San Lorenzo, Italy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori)(SFC, 1/6/07, p.B1)
1907 Jan 15, 3-element vacuum
tube was patented by Dr. Lee De Forest.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1907 Jan 22, The Richard
Strauss opera "Salome" made its American debut at the Metropolitan
Opera in NYC; its racy content (including the Dance of the Seven
Veils) sparked outrage.
(AP, 1/22/07)
1907 Jan 23, Hediki Yukawa,
Japanese physicist (Nobel 1949), was born.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1907 Jan 26, US Congress passed
the Tillman Act, which prohibited corporations from making direct
campaign contributions to federal election candidates. It was named
for Sen. Benjamin "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, a democrat from South
Carolina.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.A8)(AP,
1/26/07)
1907 Jan 26, John Millington
Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World” opened at the Abbey
Theater in Dublin. Many Irish nationalists found it so offensive
that they embarked on a semi-organized campaign to bring down the
production.
(SFC, 12/30/06,
p.E1)(www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10167)
1907 Feb 3, James A. Michener
(d.1997), American novelist, was born. His work included "Tales of
the South Pacific." "Character consists of what you do on the third
and fourth tries."
(AP, 2/4/97)(HN, 2/3/01)
1907 Feb 5, Norton Simon,
publishing executive (Simon & Schuster), was born.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1907 Feb 8, Revolution broke
out in Argentina.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1907 Feb 10, It was reported
that SF Mayor Schmitz had agreed to close the city's "oriental
schools" and allow Asian children to attend white schools following
a meeting with Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W3)
1907 Feb 11, William J. Levitt,
U.S. businessman and community builder, was born. He led the postwar
housing revolutions with his Levittowns.
(HN, 2/11/99)
1907 Feb 11, The passenger ship
Larchmont was steaming through a winter storm in heavy seas, 4 miles
southwest of Watch Hill, Rhode Island when she was rammed by the
coal carrying schooner Harry P. Knowles, which had drifted off
course in the blizzard. The Larchmont sank in 10 minutes and only 19
men including the captain, George McVey survived the ordeal.
(http://rhodeisland-philatelic.com/rhodeisland/postcard120.htm)
1907 Feb 12, Bodies continued
to wash ashore from the steamer Larchmont, which had collided the
previous with a schooner off New England's Block Island. The
vessel's quartermaster, James E. Staples, claimed a loss of 332.
(AP, 2/12/98)
1907 Feb 13, English
suffragettes stormed the British Parliament and 60 women were
arrested.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1907 Feb 16, Fernando
Previtali, composer, was born.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1907 Feb 17, Colonel Olcott
died in Madras, India during his last trip there to give his annual
Theosophical Society presidential address .
(Smith., 5/95, p.127)
1907 Feb 18, 600,000 tons of
grain were sent to Russia to relieve the famine there.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1907 Feb 18, In SF according to
an agreement between Mayor Schmidt, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt and the
SF School Board, Japanese children under 16 were to be admitted to
the city’s public schools, skilled and unskilled laborers from Japan
were to be banned from entering the US and American laborers were to
be excluded from Japan.
(SSFC, 2/18/07, DB p.58)
1907 Feb 20, Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt signed an immigration act which excluded "idiots,
imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons" from
being admitted to the US.
(AP, 2/20/07)
1907 Feb 21, Wystan Hugh Auden
(d.1973), English born American poet, critic and playwright, was
born. He wrote the libretto for Benjamin Britten’s first music drama
(1941), "Paul Bunyan." He died in Austria after suffering from
Touraine-Solente-Gole in which the skin of the forehead, face,
scalp, hands, and feet becomes thick and furrowed. "Political
history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of
study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and
villains from fiction." His work included "The Age of Anxiety." In
1998 Norman Page published "Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years."
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(AHD, 86)(WSJ, 2/12/96,
p.A-13)(WSJ, 1/8/98, p.A7)(AP, 4/15/98)(WSJ, 4/23/98, p.A16)(SFEC,
9/27/98, BR p.8)(HN, 2/21/01)
1907 Feb 22, It was reported
that workers at the refugee camp in San Francisco’s Ingleside
district had agreed the comply with a directive by commander C.M.
Wallenberg to work one day per week for the betterment of the camp
or miss their allotment of free tobacco.
(SSFC, 2/18/07, DB p.58)
1907 Feb 22, The 1st cabs with
taxi meters began operating in London.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1907 Feb 26, Concerns about a
growing influx of foreigners, mostly Europeans, prompted Congress to
create what became known as the Dillingham Commission, which
examined the impact of immigrants on America. The panel later
recommended curtailing immigration from southern and eastern Europe
through use of quotas, higher entry fees, literacy tests and other
restrictions.
(AP, 2/26/07)
1907 Feb 26, Members of US
Congress raised their own salaries to $7500.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1907 Feb 26, Royal Oil and
Shell merged to form British Petroleum (BP).
(SC, 2/26/02)
1907 Feb 28, Milton Caniff,
cartoonist (Terry and the Pirates), was born in Hillsboro, Ohio.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1907 Feb, SF Mayor Edward
Robeson Taylor (1838-1923) married Eustice Jeffers (27), the
daughter of an old friend.
(SFC, 11/6/07, p.B5)
1907 Mar 1, There were only
15,000 Jews left in Odessa, Russia. The attacks on the Jews
continued as more and more evacuated.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1907 Mar 2, Georges Feydeaus'
"La Puce à l'Oreille" premiered in Paris, France.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1907 Mar 2, General Louis Botha
was named premier of Transvaal.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1907 Mar 5, The 2nd
Russian Duma, which included 7 Lithuanians, began work. The Duma
stayed in session until June 15.
(LHC, 3/5/03)
1907 Mar 6, In California Gov.
James Gillett signed amendments to the Pharmacy and Poison Act
making it a crime to sell opiates of cocaine in the state without a
prescription.
(SSFC, 3/4/07, p.E1)
1907 Mar 7, Rolf Jacobsen,
Norwegian poet, was born.
(HN, 3/7/01)
1907 Mar 9, Henry Leland
Clarke, composer, was born.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1907 Mar 9, Indiana enacted the
nation’s 1st involuntary sterilization law based on eugenics. It was
intended "to prevent procreation of confirmed criminals, idiots,
imbeciles, and rapists." More than 30 states ended up passing
compulsory sterilization laws that were eventually overturned or
repealed. In 2004 Christine Rosen authored "Preaching Eugenics."
(NH, 7/02, p.12)(WSJ, 4/22/04, p.D10)(AP, 3/9/07)
1907 Mar 11, President
Roosevelt induced California to revoke its anti-Japanese
legislation.
(HN, 3/11/98)
1907 Mar 14, President Theodore
Roosevelt signed an executive order designed to prevent Japanese
laborers from immigrating to the United States as part of a
"gentlemen's agreement" with Japan.
(AP, 3/14/07)
1907 Mar 15-1907 Mar 16,
Finland held elections and Finnish women became the first in the
world to attain full political rights.
(http://electionresources.org/fi/)
1907 Mar 16 The British cruiser
Invincible, the world’s largest, was completed at Glasgow shipyards.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1907 Mar 21, US Marines arrived
in Honduras to protect American lives and interests in the wake of
political violence.
(SFC, 9/30/99, p.E5)(AP, 3/21/07)
1907 Mar 22, James Gavin, U.S.
Army General, was born. He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division on
D-Day, Operation Market-Garden and the Battle of the Bulge.
(HN, 3/22/97)(AP, 3/22/99)
1907 Mar 22, Russians troops
completed the evacuation of Manchuria in the face of advancing
Japanese forces.
(HN, 3/22/97)(AP, 3/22/99)
1907 Mar 23, Daniele Bovet,
Swiss-born Italian pharmacologist, was born.
(HN, 3/23/01)
1907 Mar 28, Pavel Ivanovich
Blaramberg (65), composer, died.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1907 Mar 31, Romanian Army put
down a Moldavian farmers' revolt.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1907 Apr 13, Harold E. Stassen
(d.2001), later 3-term governor, was born on a truck farm in W. St.
Paul.
(SFC, 3/5/01, p.A24)(MC, 4/13/02)
1907 Apr 14, Francois "Papa
Doc" Duvalier, dictator of Haiti, was born.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1907 Apr 16, Joseph-Armand
Bombardier, inventor of the snowmobile, was born in Valcourt,
Quebec, Canada.
(www.museebombardier.com/en/content/jab/biographie1907_1925.htm)
1907 Apr 17, The Ellis Island
immigration center in New York Harbor processed a record 11,747
immigrants, part of a record 1,004,756 for the year. Between 1820
and 1970, the year 1907 saw the largest number of immigrants to the
U.S., 1,285,349. Between 1905 and 1915, the annual immigration
numbers topped 1 million six times.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T10)(HNQ, 8/12/99)
1907 Apr 18, Miklos Rozsa,
movie composer (Atomic Cafe, Fedora), was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1907 Apr 18, SF Board of
supervisors, a year after the city’s 1906 earthquake, set the
official death toll for the disaster at 478. Let evidence showed
more that 3,400 fatalities.
(SFC, 1/15/05, p.B1)
1907 Apr 18, The Fairmont Hotel
opened in SF, exactly one year after the 1906 earthquake. It was
designed by Julia Morgan and named after mining magnate James Graham
Fair.
(SSFC, 2/4/07, p.F1)
1907 Apr 25, Paula Trueman,
actress (Gran-Billy), was born in NYC.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1907 Apr 26, The Jamestown,
Va., Tercentenary Exposition opened.
(www.jamestown2007.org/past-1907.cfm)(Econ,
5/1/07, p.40)
1907 Apr 29, Fred Zinnemann
(d.3/14/97), Hollywood film director, was born in Vienna. His films
included “A Hatful of Rain,” “The Sundowners,” “The Nun’s Story,”
“From Here to Eternity,” “Julia” and “A Man for All Seasons” (1966)
with Paul Scofield.
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A19)(AP, 4/29/07)
1907 Apr, William Edgar Geil
(42), travel writer from Doylestown, Pa., arrived on his 2nd trip to
China in Shanhaiaguan. He planned to follow the Great Wall of China
from one end to the other and write a detailed account of the
structure.
(ON, 2/09, p.10)
1907 May 1, Kate Smith
(d.1986), singer, was born in Washington, DC.
(AP,
5/1/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Smith)
1907 May 5, San Francisco
streetcar workers of the Carmen’s Union went on strike after Patrick
Calhoun, president of the United Railroads, refused to accept a $3
per 8-hour day wage. Calhoun induced the strike and hired James
Farley to break the union. The strike ended up leaving 31 people
dead.
(SFC, 9/13/02, p.D9)(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.B1)
1907 May 7, In San Francisco a
gunfight erupted during the electrical workers strike in what came
to be known as "Bloody Tuesday." City union street car workers
fought with scabs and 4 people were killed and 20 seriously injured.
(SFC, 1/20/98, p.B3)(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W3)
1907 May 9, Baldur von
Schirach, German writer, Nazi Youth leader, convicted war criminal,
was born.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1907 May 10, Paul Dukas' opera
"Ariane et Barbe Bleue," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1907 May 12, Katherine Hepburn,
actress (The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen), was born in
Hartford, CT.
(HN, 5/12/01)(AP, 5/12/07)
1907 May 12, Leslie Charteris,
English-US detective writer (The Saint), was born.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1907 May 12, A. Kopff
discovered asteroids #633, Zelima, and #634, Ute.
(SC, Internet, 5/12/97)
1907 May 12, J.K. Huysmans
(59), writer, died.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1907 May 13, Daphne du Maurier
(d.1989), author (Rebecca), was born in England.
(HN, 5/13/01)(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W4)
1907 May 22, Lord Laurence
Olivier, English actor, was born in Dorking, Surrey. He made
Shakespeare movies and was knighted in 1947.
(HN, 5/22/99)(AP, 5/22/07)
1907 May 25, U Nu, premier
Burma (1948-58, 1960-62), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1907 May 26, John Wayne,
American actor, was born as Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset,
Iowa. He became famous for his western and World War II movies.
(HN, 5/26/99)(AP, 5/26/07)
1907 May 27, Rachel Carson
(d.1964), biologist and writer (Silent Spring, The Sea Around Us),
was born. "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder,
he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it,
rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world
we live in."
(AP, 12/29/98)(HN, 5/27/01)
1907 May 27, Bubonic Plague
broke out in San Francisco.
(HN, 5/27/98)
1907 May 28, Patrick Browne,
British Lord justice of appeal, was born.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1907 May 29, Desmond
Shawe-Taylor, critic, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1907 May 31, Taxis began
running in NYC. [see Aug 13]
(MC, 5/31/02)
1907 May, The idea of a day set
apart every year to honor motherhood is credited to Anna Jarvis of
Philadelphia, who, in 1907, suggested the wearing of carnations on
the second Sunday in May to honor mothers. Her enthusiastic campaign
for a nationwide observance attracted enough public support that
President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation designating the
second Sunday in May 1914 the first national Mother’s Day.
(HNPD, 5/9/00)
1907 Jun 1, Frank A. Whittle,
England inventor (jet engine), was born. (MC, 6/1/02)
1907 Jun 1,27 degrees F (-33
degrees C) in Sarmiento, Argentina, a South American record.
(DTnet, 6/1/97)
1907 Jun 4, Automatic washer
and dryer was introduced.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1907 Jun 6, Bill Dickey,
professional baseball player, was born.
(HN, 6/6/01)
1907 Jun 11, Paul Mellon
(d.1999), art lover, horse breeder (1964 Gold Baton), and
philanthropist, was born to Andrew W. Mellon and Nora McMullen.
Andrew Mellon was a financier and longtime secretary of the
treasury. Mellon donations created the Yale Center for British Art,
the Bollingen Prize for poetry, and the National Gallery of Art in
Washington.
(SFC, 2/3/99, p.A22)(SC, 6/11/02)
1907 Jun 12, A committee from
the Vista Grande Improvement Club (Daly City, Ca.) was appointed to
arrange for a volunteer fire department and a fire alarm system.
(DCFD, Centennial, 2007)
1907 Jun 14, Women in Norway
won the right to vote.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1907 Jun 16, The Russian czar
dissolved the Duma in St. Petersburg.
(HN, 6/16/98)
1907 Jun 20, Lillian Hellman
(d.1984), American author and playwright (The Little Foxes, Toys in
the Attic), was born. "Success and failure are not true opposites
and they’re not even in the same class; they’re not even a couch and
a chair."
(AP, 1/28/01)(HN, 6/20/01)
1907 Jun 21, American newspaper
publisher E.W. Scripps founded the United Press Associations, a
forerunner of United Press International.
(AP, 6/21/07)
1907 Jun 22, Anne Morrow
Lindbergh, author (Gift from the Sea), was born.
(MC, 6/22/02)
1907 Jun 26, Russia’s nobility
demanded drastic measures to be taken against revolutionaries.
(HN, 6/26/98)
1907 Jun 27, Valerie Cossart
(d.1994), actress (The Hartmans), was born in London.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0181961/)
1907 Jun, Pablo Picasso
stumbled on the African and Oceanic collection at the Ethnographic
Museum of the Trocadero in Paris, as he was working on "Les
Desmoiselles d’Avignon." The experience from that point on put an
African influence on much of his work.
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A20)(Econ, 2/11/06, p.81)
1907 Jul 1, World's 1st air
force was established as part of the US Army.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1907 Jul 1, The Asiatic
Registration Act became law in the province of Transvaal, SA.
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1907 Jul 3, A Papal decree
forbade the modernization of theology.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1907 Jul 6, Artist Frida Kahlo
(d.1954) was born in Coyoacan, Mexico.
(SFC, 4/18/96, E-1)(SFC, 7/14/96, p.C11)(AP,
7/6/07)
1907 Jul 7, Robert Heinlein
(d.1988), science-fiction author, was born in Butler, Miss.
"Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil."
(V.D.-H.K.p.383)(AP, 5/25/99)(AP, 7/7/07)
1907 Jul 8, George W. Romney,
later governor of Michigan, was born into a Mormon family in
Chihuahua, Mexico. He later was a candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination until he admitted that he had been
"brainwashed" by the military on the Vietnam War.
(HN, 7/8/98)(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A4)(SSFC, 2/25/07,
p.A4)
1907 Jul 8, Florenz Ziegfeld
staged his first "Follies" on the roof of the New York Theater in
New York City.
(AP, 7/8/97)
1907 Jul 8, Mayor Eugene
Schmitz was sentenced to 5 years in San Quentin for graft and
bribery but the conviction was later overturned. Others were forced
out of office for accepting bribes from the telephone company, gas
company, trolley company, local skating rinks and boxing promoters.
Dr. Charles A. Boxton (d.1927) admitted to taking bribes and was
granted immunity by District Attorney W.H. Langdon for his
testimony. Boxton was then appointed temporary mayor for one week in
place of Mayor Schmitz and resigned a week later. The Native Sons of
California promptly struck Boxton from their rolls. Schmitz was
later elected to the SF Board of Supervisors. One of the bribes was
a $200,000 payment to the SF supervisors from Patrick Henry Calhoun,
president of the United Railroads, which operated nearly all of the
city’s public transit lines.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.E8)(SFC, 9/30/99, p.E5)(SFEC,
12/26/99, p.W3)(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.B5)
1907 Jul 15, The London
Electrobus Company began picking up passengers in the world’s
biggest trials of battery-powered buses. The service collapsed in
1909. It suffered from an investment scam led by Baron de Martigny,
a Canadian music-hall artist, the front man for Edward Lehwess, a
German lawyer and con-artist. In 1906 Lehwess had sold the company a
worthless patent that caused investors to demand the return of some
80,000 pounds.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.10)
1907 Jul 16, Orville
Redenbacher (d.1995), agronomist and popcorn entrepreneur, was born
in Brazil, Indiana. "Do one thing and do it better than anyone."
(AH, 10/01, p.36)(AP, 7/16/07)
1907 Jul 16, Barbara Stanwyck
(d.1990), Oscar winning actress, was born in New York as Ruby
Stevens.
(HN, 7/16/98)(AP, 7/16/07)
1907 Jul 16, The SF
supervisors, under pressure from graft prosecutors, named Edward
Robeson Taylor (67), a doctor and lawyer, as mayor. He quickly
replaced 16 of 18 supervisors, forced the police chief to quit and
replaced many city officials with honest and competent men.
(SFC, 11/6/07, p.B5)
1907 Jul 18, Florenz Ziegfeld's
"Follies of 1907," premiered in NYC. [see Jul 8]
(MC, 7/18/02)
1907 Jul 24, In Boise, Id., the
last day of the Bill Haywood trial over the 1905 murder of former
Idaho Gov. Frank Steunenberg. Haywood, president of the Western
Federation of Miners, was defended by Clarence Darrow.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, BR p.1,6)
1907 Jul 25, Jack Gilford,
actor (Save the Tiger, Cocoon, Arthur 2), was born in NYC.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1907 Jul 25, Johnny Hodges,
jazz musician, was born.
(HN, 7/25/02)
1907 Jul 28, Earl Silas Tupper,
founder of Tupperware, was born.
(HN, 7/28/01)
1907 Jul 28, Vivian Vance,
actress (Ethel Mertz-I Love Lucy), was born in Cherryvale, Ks.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1907 Aug 1, The US Air Force
had its beginnings as the US Army Signal Corps established an
aeronautical division in charge of "all matters pertaining to
military ballooning, air machines and all kindred subjects."
(AP, 8/1/07)
1907 Aug 2, Fire Chief George
Edmonds called roll call at Poket’s Hall for the 45 members of the
newly organized Vista Grande Fire Dept. members were ordered to
respond to calls with their own buckets until equipment could be
purchased. The area population (Daly city, Ca.) was estimated at
2,900.
(DCFD, Centennial, 2007)
1907 Aug 3, Irene Tedrow,
actress (Lucy-Dennis the Menace, Mr. Novak), was born in Denver,
Colo.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1907 Aug 8, Benny Carter, jazz
musician, composer and bandleader, was born in New York.
(AP, 8/8/07)
1907 Aug 13, Alfred Alwin Felix
Krupp, arms manufacturer, was born in Essen, Germany.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1907 Aug 13, The 1st taxicab
began operating in NYC. [see May 31]
(MC, 8/13/02)
1907 Aug 14, "Ha-Tikva" was
adopted as official Zionist hymn.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1907 Aug 15, Joseph Joachim
(76), German violinist, composer, died.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1907 Aug 21, Dr. Roy K.
Marshall, TV scientist (Nature of Things), was born in Glen Carbon,
Ill.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1907 Aug 26, Harry Houdini
escaped from chains underwater at Aquatic Park in 57 sec.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1907 Aug 26, In San Bruno, Ca.,
the Olympic Club held its first annual motor meet at the Tanforan
race track. 10,000 spectators and 700 machines showed up for the
auto and motorcycle races.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W3)
1907 Aug 28, Two Seattle
teenagers began a telephone message service that grew to become the
United Parcel Service (UPS). Jim Casey (19) and Claude Ryan founded
the American Messenger Company in Seattle, Wash. In 1913 the company
merged with Evert McCabe and formed Merchants Parcel Delivery. In
1919 the company expanded beyond Seattle and changed their name to
United Parcel Service (UPS).
(SFC, 7/22/99,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Parcel_Service)
1907 Aug 30, Shirley Booth
(Thelma Booth Ford) was born in New York City. Booth was best known
from 1950s television as the zany maid Hazel. She won a Tony, an
Oscar, the Cannes Festival award and numerous critics' commendations
for her role as the slovenly Lola Delany in 'Come Back, Little
Sheba'. Booth went on to act in more films including 'The
Matchmaker' which was a precursor to the musical 'Hello
Dolly!'
(MC, 8/30/01)
1907 Aug 31, William Shawn,
longtime editor of The New Yorker, was born.
(HN, 8/31/00)
1907 Aug 31, England, Russia
and France formed their Triple Entente.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1907 Aug, Mayor Eugene Schmitz
and others were forced out of office for accepting bribes from the
telephone company, gas company, trolley company, local skating rinks
and boxing promoters. Dr. Charles A. Boxton (d.1927) admitted to
taking bribes and was granted immunity by District Attorney W.H.
Langdon for his testimony. Boxton was then appointed temporary mayor
for one week in place of Mayor Schmitz and then resigned. The Native
Sons of California promptly struck him from their rolls.
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.E8)
1907 Sep 1, Walter Reuther,
labor leader, was born in Wheeling, W.Va. He merged the American
Federation of Labor with the Congress of International Organizations
(HN, 9/1/99)(AP, 9/1/07)
1907 Sep 3, Carl Anderson,
physicist, was born in NYC. He won the 1936 Nobel prize for his
discovery of the positron.
(HN, 9/3/00)
1907 Sep 3, Loren Eiseley,
professor of Anthropology (Animal Secrets), was born in Lincoln,
Nebraska.
(www.american-buddha.com)
1907 Sep 4, Edvard Hagerup
Grieg (64), Norwegian composer (Peer Gynt Suite), died.
(WUD, 1994, p.622)(MC, 9/4/01)
1907 Sep 7, The British liner
RMS Lusitania set out on its maiden voyage, from Liverpool, England,
to New York, arriving six days later. The Lusitania was sunk by a
German submarine in 1915.
(AP, 9/7/07)
1907 Sep 8, Pius X published
his anti-modernism encyclical Pasceni dominici gregis.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1907 Sep 10, Herbert Marcus
Sr., his sister Carrie Marcus Nieman, and her husband A.I. Nieman
opened the retail firm Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Texas. By 2002 the
firm had 32 US stores.
(SSFC, 9/9/07, p.G3)(AP, 9/10/07)
1907 Sep 10, Alaska’s Tongass
National Forest, the largest US National Forest, was established as
part of the National Forest System in a presidential proclamation
made by Theodore Roosevelt. In 1908 it was joined with the Alexander
Archipelago Forest Reserve, established in 1902.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, Z1
p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongass_National_Forest)
1907 Sep 13, The RMS Lusitania
arrived in New York, completing its maiden voyage from England.
(AP, 9/13/07)
1907 Sep 15, Fay Wray (d.2004),
film actress, was born in Alberta, Canada. She became best known for
her 1933 performance in “King Kong.”
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.B7)
1907 Sep 17, Warren Earl
Burger, the 15th chief justice of the United States (1969-86), was
born in St. Paul, Minn.
(AP, 9/17/07)
1907 Sep 19, US Supreme Court
Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. was born in Suffolk, Va.
(AP, 9/19/07)
1907 Sep 23, Jarmila Novotna,
soprano (Met Opera) and president of Czechoslovakia (1957-68), was
born.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1907 Sep 25, Jean Sibelius' 3rd
Symphony premiered.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1907 Sep 26, Anthony F. Blunt,
British historian and spy for USSR, was born.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1907 Sep 26, New Zealand went
from being a colony to a dominion within the British Empire.
(AP, 9/26/07)
1907 Sep 29, The foundation
stone was laid for Washington National Cathedral, which wasn't fully
completed until 1990.
(AP, 9/29/07)
1907 Sep 29, Gene Autry
(d.1998), singing cowboy and baseball executive, was born in Tioga,
Texas.
(SFC, 10/3/98, p.A14)(AP, 9/29/07)
1907 Sep, The Cosmopolitan
magazine published the epic poem “A Wine of Wizardry” by George
Sterling (1869-1926). The poem and accompanying essay by Ambrose
Bierce sparked critical reaction across the continent. Sterling,
Jack London’s best friend, was the scion of a Long Island whaling
family and worked in an East Bay real estate firm.
(SSFC, 12/23/07, p.M4)
1907 Oct 1, The Plaza Hotel
opened in NYC at 5th Av and 59th Str.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T4)(AP, 10/1/07)
1907 Oct 7, Helen MacInnes,
writer, was born.
(HN, 10/7/00)
1907 Oct 11, The freighter
Cyprus foundered during a storm on Lake Superior, while on its
second voyage hauling iron ore from Superior, Wis., to Buffalo, NY.
All but one of the Cyprus' 23 crew members died. The 420-foot
shipwreck was found in 2007, 8 miles north of Deer Park, Mich.,
where a single survivor had reached shore. The ship was built in
Lorain, Ohio, and launched on Aug. 17, 1907.
(AP, 9/10/07)
1907 Oct 13, Yves
Allégret, French film director, was born. His work included
"Dédée d'Anvers" and "Une si jolie petite plage."
(HN, 10/13/00)
1907 Oct 17, Guglielmo Marconi
began offering limited commercial wireless telegraph service between
Nova Scotia and Ireland.
(AP, 10/17/07)
1907 Oct 21, The Panic of 1907
began with a run on the Knickerbocker Trust Co. of New York.
(AP, 10/21/07)
1907 Oct 22, President Theodore
Roosevelt visited The Hermitage, the Nashville, Tenn., home of the
late President Andrew Jackson. Years later, Maxwell House claimed
that Roosevelt had praised a cup of its coffee during this visit by
saying it was "good to the last drop."
(AP, 10/22/07)
1907 Oct 22, The Ringling
Brothers Circus bought Barnum & Bailey.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1907 Oct 27, Union Station in
Washington, D.C., opened.
(AP, 10/27/07)
1907 Oct 27, The first trial in
the Eulenberg Affair ended in Germany. Prince Philip Eulenberg was
an aristocrat and former diplomat who was an old friend of the
Kaiser’s. Others were jealous of Eulenberg’s position. Maximilian
Harden, editor of the magazine Die Zunkunft, began to print a series
of articles in the fall of 1906 which alleged that Eulenberg and
other highly placed men were homosexuals.
(HN, 10/27/98)
1907 Oct 28, Edith Head,
fashion designer for MGM, was born.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1907 Oct, By general agreement
the first mention of the word “brassiere” appeared in Vogue
magazine.
(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.E1)
1907 Nov 5, Moncure D. Conway
(b.1832), American clergyman and author, died. "It is the darling
delusion of mankind that the world is progressive in religion,
toleration, freedom, as it is progressive in machinery."
(AP,
3/19/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moncure_D._Conway)
1907 Nov 7, General Electric
was re-instated as a component of the Dow Jones. Tennessee Coal,
Iron and Railroad Co. was removed from the Dow Jones. GE had entered
the appliance business this year.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.R45)(WSJ, 5/15/08, p.A1)
1907 Nov 13, The 1st helicopter
was piloted by French engineer Paul Cornu (1881-1944). The copter
hovered a foot off the ground for 20 seconds [see Apr 12, 1905].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cornu)(SSFC,
12/14/03, p.D2)
1907 Nov 14, William Steig,
children author ("Shrek"), was born in New York.
(AP, 11/14/07)
1907 Nov 14, Astrid Lindgren
(d.2002), children's writer, was born near Vimmerby, Sweden. Her
books included “Pippi Longstocking.”
(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)(AP, 11/14/07)
1907 Nov 15, Count Claus
Schenck von Stauffenberg, German anti fascist colonel, was born.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1907 Nov 16, Burgess Meredith,
actor, was born in Cleveland. He died Sep 10, 1997 at 89. He played
the Penguin on TV’s Batman and numerous films in a 60 year film
career.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.5B)(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A18)
1907 Nov 16, The Gila Cliff
Dwellings in New Mexico was established as a national monument.
People of the Mogollon culture lived in these cliff dwellings from
the 1280s through the early 1300s.
(SSFC, 9/21/08,
p.E6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gila_Cliff_Dwellings_National_Monument)
1907 Nov 16, Indian Territory
and Oklahoma Territory were unified to make Oklahoma, which was made
the 46th state. Black settlers founded some 30 towns before
statehood was achieved. Osage Indian Reservation became Osage
County, one of the largest in the US.
(WSJ, 11/10/97, p.A1)(NG, 5/95, p.92)(HN,
11/16/98)(SFCM, 3/9/08, p.20)
1907 Nov 20, Henri-Georges
Clouzot, French director (Le salaire de la peur), was born.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1907 Nov 21, Jim Bishop, author
(The Day Lincoln was Shot), was born.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1907 Nov 21, The Cunard liner
Mauritania set a new speed record for steamship travel, 624 nautical
miles in a one day run.
(HN, 11/21/02)
1907 Nov 21, Gaetano Braga
(78), composer, died.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1907 Nov 26, The Russian Duma
lent support to Czar in St. Petersburg, who claimed that he had
renounced autocracy.
(HN, 11/26/98)
1907 Nov 27, Lyon Sprague de
Camp (d.2000), US sci-fi author (Goblin Tower, Hand of Zei), was
born.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1907 Nov 28, Alberto Moravia,
Italian novelist, novelist, was born. His work included “The
Conformist” and “Conjugal Love.”
(HN, 11/28/00)
1907 Nov 28, Future movie
producer Louis B. Mayer opened his first movie theater, in
Haverhill, Mass.
(AP, 11/28/07)
1907 Nov 30, Jacques Barzun,
French author, was born. Hi books included “The House of Intellect”
(1959).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Barzun)
1907 Nov, Edward Robeson Taylor
(1838-1923), appointed in July as interim mayor of SF, was elected
to the office.
(SFC, 11/6/07, p.B5)
1907 Dec 2, Spain and France
agreed to enforce Moroccan measures adopted in 1906.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1907 Dec 3, George M. Cohan's
musical "Talk of the Town," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1907 Dec 6, The worst mining
disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal
mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.
(AP, 12/6/07)
1907 Dec 7, The first Christmas
Seals to help the fight against tuberculosis were sold, in
Wilmington, Del. [Some sources say Dec. 9].
(AP, 12/7/07)
1907 Dec 8, Oscar II (78), the
king of Sweden and former king of Norway, died in Stockholm.
(AP, 12/8/07)
1907 Dec 9, US Christmas seals
went on sale for the first time, at the Wilmington, Del., post
office. Proceeds went to fight tuberculosis. The fists US Christmas
seals were issued by the Red Cross in a program founded by a
Delaware woman to support a TB sanitarium [see Dec 7].
(AP, 12/9/97)(SFC, 12/23/98, Z1 p.3)
1907 Dec 10, Rumor Godden,
English novelist (Black Narcissus), was born.
(HN, 12/10/00)
1907 Dec 13, In Argentina the
Ministry of Agriculture struck oil while drilling for water in
Comodoro Rivadavia.
(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A9)
1907 Dec 16, US Navy
battleships, which came to be known collectively as the "Great White
Fleet," set sail from Hampton Roads, Va., on a 14-month
round-the-world voyage at the order of President Theodore Roosevelt,
who wanted to demonstrate American sea power.
(AP, 12/16/07)
1907 Dec 17, William Thompson
(b.1824), Belfast-born mathematical physicist and engineer, (aka
Lord Kelvin), died in Scotland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin)
1907 Dec 18, Christopher Fry,
playwright (Ring Around the Moon), was born in Bristol, England.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1907 Dec 19, A gas explosion
killed 239 workers in a coal mine in Jacobs Creek, Pa.
(AP, 12/19/97)(MC, 12/19/01)
1907 Dec 21, Oskar Lassar (58),
German dermatologist, died.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1907 Dec 22, Actress Dame Peggy
Ashcroft was born in Croydon, England.
(AP, 12/22/07)
1907 Dec 23, The 1st all-steel
passenger railroad coach was completed at Altoona, Pa.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1907 Dec 24, I.F. Stone
(d.1989), American investigative journalist, was born in
Philadelphia. "Those who nobly set out to be their brother's keeper
sometimes end up by becoming his jailer. Every emancipation has in
it the seeds of a new slavery, and every truth easily becomes a
lie."
(AP, 10/17/99)(AP, 12/24/07)
1907 Dec 25, Cab Calloway, band
leader and first Jazz singer to sell a million records, was born.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1907 Dec 26, Albert Gore Sr.
(d.1998), later US Representative and Senator from Tennessee, was
born in Granville, Tenn.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.C14)
1907 Dec 26, William Kent
(d.1928) donated 298 acres for the Muir Woods National Monument. US
Rep. William Kent, heir to a Chicago meat-packing fortune, had moved
to Marin County, Ca., in the late 1800s. His donations also included
parkland on Mount Tamalpais.
(SFCM, 1/20/02, p.22)(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A13)(SFC,
12/17/07, p.A1)
1907 Dec 28, The WSJ reported
on the photographs of Mars by Dr. Lowell at the Lowell Observatory
in Arizona. Lowell identified markings in the photos as evidence of
great canals constructed for irrigation.
(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.B1)
1907 Dec 29, Robert C. Weaver
(d.1997), the first African American to serve on a president’s
cabinet, was born. He advised Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt on
Housing, Education and Employment. [see Jan 13,18, 1966]
(HN, 12/29/00)
1907 Dec 30, The Mills
Commission issued its final report, concluding that Abner Doubleday
was the inventor of the sport of baseball, a claim Doubleday himself
had never made. Few, if any, sports historians take this finding
seriously.
(AP, 12/30/07)
1907 Dec 31, For 1st time a
ball was dropped at Times Square to signal new year.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1907 Dec 31, Gustav Mahler
conducted the Metropolitan Opera.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1907 Dec, The US stock market,
spurred by a "bear raid," took a nose-dive and set off a widespread
panic. Many banks failed.
(SFC, 9/30/99, p.E5)
1907 Dec, There was stock
market panic this year when the Knickerbocker Trust Co. failed. J.P.
Morgan took charge and forbade the NY stock market to close and
raised $25 million in 15 minutes to add liquidity. He summoned the
most important bankers to devise a plan to abort the panic and no
depression was induced. Morgan also called on clergymen to preach
sermons of confidence. The crises led the government to create the
Federal Reserve System (1913). Morgan got bankers to agree to settle
accounts among themselves with clearinghouse certificates rather
than cash and thus increased the money supply. The story was later
recounted by John Steele Gordon in his 1999 book "The Great Game."
(SFC,10/27/97, p.B2)(WSJ, 10/7/98, p.A22)(WSJ,
1/11/99, p.R42)(WSJ, 12/13/99, p.A32)
1907 Dec, Banker J.P. Morgan
saved the US financial system by putting his own money on the line
in the Panic of 1907. In the Panic of 1907 J.P. Morgan, who ran US
Steel, bought the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co. and
trustbuster Theodore Roosevelt agreed not to object to the buyout.
Elbert H. Gary was the chairman of US Steel.
(WSJ,2/13/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45)(WSJ,
7/16/01, p.A10)
1907 Mario Ciampi, architect,
was born in San Francisco.
(SFC, 10/22/05, p.F1)
1907 Robert Young (d.1998),
film and TV actor, was born in Chicago.
(SFC, 7/23/98, p.C4)
1907 Marc Chagall painted his
"Self Portrait with Seven Fingers."
(WSJ, 5/11/95, p. A-14)
1907 Arthur Wesley Dow painted
"Rain in May."
(SFC, 9/11/99, p.C12)
1907 Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
painted the portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I.” The painting was stolen
in 1938 when the Nazis took Austria. Her niece, Maria Altman
(1917-1994), fought for the recovery of family paintings and won
their return. In 2006 the portrait sold for a record $135 million to
cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder. Adele Bloch-Bauer (d.1925) was
the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist in Vienna.
(SFC, 6/19/06,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt)(Econ, 2/19/11,
p.96)
1907 Matisse painted his "Red
Madras Headdress" which featured his wife as the model. The painting
later became part of the Albert C. Barnes collection. [see 1925,
Barnes] Matisse also painted "Blue Nude" in this year.
(WSJ, 11/28/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 7/9/01, p.A26)
1907 The play "Playboy of the
Western World" by John Millington Synge was first produced at the
Abbey Theater in Dublin, Ireland.
(WSJ, 7/21/98, p.A12)
1907 August Strindberg
completed his anti-naturalistic play "The Ghost Sonata."
(WS, 6/27/01, p.A12)
1907 Charles Caffin wrote
"Story of American Painting."
(SFEM, 4/11/99, p.50)
1907 Alfred Stieglitz made his
photogravure "The Steerage." It was later acquired by the Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York.
(WM, www,1999)
1907 "Chapters of Brazil
Colonial History, 1500-1800" by Joao Capistrano de Abreu (1853-1927)
was first published. The Oxford Library of Latin America published a
new edition in 1998.
(WSJ, 2/3/98, p.A20)
1907 Henri Bergson wrote
"Creative Evolution." He saw evolution activated by a creative inner
experience that he called the "elan vital," the power of life to
overcome fixed and rigid forms.
(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)
1907 "The Secret Agent" by
Joseph Conrad was published.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A3)
1907 Edmund Gosse authored
“Father and Son” a memoir about loss of faith.
(Econ, 6/2/07, p.91)
1907 P.M.B. Maurice Maeterlinck
(1862-1949), Belgian playwright and essayist, authored “The
Intelligence of Flowers.”
(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.M2)
1907 The first Hopalong Cassidy
book was published. Clarence Mulford began his Cassidy stories in
1905. The first Cassidy movie with William Boyd was released in
1935. The series moved on to radio and TV.
(SFC, 1/21/98, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 7/8/98, Z1 p.3)
1907 Walter Rauschenbusch
(1861-1918), Christian theologian and Baptist minister, authored
“Christianity and the Social Crisis.”
(WSJ, 5/11/07,
p.W11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rauschenbusch)
1907 Alfred Russel Wallace
wrote his book "Is Mars Habitable."
(NH, 12/96, p.28)
1907 H.G. Wells (1866-1946)
authored “The War in the Air.” It was serialized and published in
1908. It is notable for its prophetic ideas, images, and concepts,
such as the use of the airplane for the purpose of warfare and the
coming of World War I.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_the_Air)
1907 Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
authored her novella "Madame de Treymes."
(WSJ, 7/8/06,
p.P8)(www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/6741/chronology.html)
1907 Harold Bell Wright
(1872-1944), who had traveled to the Ozarks for his health,
published his novel “The Shepherd of the Hills.” In 1960
performances of a stage version began at the Old Mill Theatre in
Branson, Missouri. During the first quarter of the twentieth century
the novels of Wright outsold every other American writer.
(Econ, 5/24/08,
p.48)(www.branson.com/branson/shepherd/history.htm)
1907 Mikhail Fokine used
Saint-Saens cello dirge for his dance "The Swan," made for dancer
Anna Pavlova. It became "The Dying Swan" in the New World.
(SFC, 11/9/96, p.E1)
1907 Gustav Mahler composed his
Symphony No. 8, nicknamed "Symphony of a Thousand" because it is
usually performed by hundreds of players. The devil is evoked in the
last half of the work.
(SFC, 10/23/00, p.F3)
1907 In SF a 14-story,
71,345-square-foot building, designed by George Applegarth, was
completed at Market and New Montgomery. In 2007 it sold for some $26
million.
(SFC, 5/22/07, p.C6)
1907 The US Customs House in
NYC was constructed.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.T4)
1907 The Flemish Gothic
skyscraper at 90 West Street, NYC, designed by Cass Gilbert, was
completed
(WSJ, 10/17/02, p.D6)
1907 A brick building was
constructed on Cornelia Street in East Rutherford, NJ, to serve as
the headquarters for Becton Dickinson Corp. In 1977 the executive
offices were moved to Paramus, NJ.
(Echo, 12,2007)
1907 The St. Louis "New"
Cathedral on Lindell Blvd. was begun. It was not finished until the
1990s and grew to possess the largest collection of mosaic art in
the world.
(SFC, 10/12/97, p.T5)
1907 Fred Swanton, a local
entrepreneur in Santa Cruz, CA., opened the Santa Cruz Beach
Boardwalk.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, DB p.64)
1907 Frederick Meyer, a cabinet
maker from Germany, founded the School of the California Guild of
Arts and Crafts in Berkeley, Ca. In 1922 he purchased the 4-acre
Treadwell estate in Oakland to accommodate growth. In 1936 the
school was renamed the California College of the Arts and Crafts and
in 2003 it became California College of the Arts.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.M2)
1907 In San Francisco a 2-story
commercial building, designed by Sylvan Schnaittacher, was erected
at 77 New Montgomery St. In 1920 3 stories, designed by Mel
Schwartz, were added.
(SSFC, 2/20/11, p.C2)
1907 In SF the city’s
International Hotel, destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, was
rebuilt at 848 Kearny. By the 1920s it became part of the 10-block
Filipino American enclave known as Manilatown.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.B1)
1907 Ezra Pound and William
Carlos Williams met as students at the Univ. of Pennsylvania.
(SFC, 6/3/96, BR p.6)
1907 The Univ. of Arizona Cow
Barn was constructed, wearing the ornamental scalloped gables of a
Spanish mission church.
(AWAM, Dec. 94, p.32)
1907 The MacDowell Colony was
founded in Peterborough, New Hampshire, to nurture the arts by
providing creative individuals with an inspiring environment. It was
founded in honor of composer Edward MacDowell (d.1908).
(WSJ, 3/20/06,
p.B1)(www.macdowellcolony.org/history.html)
1907 The Organization of
American Historians was founded as the Mississippi Valley Historical
Association.
(www.oah.org/members/mbrinfo.html)
1907 Frederick H. Meyer founded
the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in Berkeley. In 1922 it was
renamed the California College of Arts and Crafts and moved to
Oakland.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.C3)
1907 Carlotta Monterey, later
the 3rd wife of Eugene O’Neill, playwright, was Miss California.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, Z1p.1)
1907 The first official perfect
US bowling game was rolled.
(WSJ, 5/31/06, p.A1)
1907 The Hague Convention of
this year prohibited the taking of war booty and instituted what
some considered the first wartime environmental protections.
(WSJ, 5/29/96, p.A6)(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A15)
1907 A Federal Meat Inspection
Act was passed.
(WSJ, 12/16/97, p.A1)
1907 Pres. Teddy Roosevelt
continued to establish himself as the first great "trust buster." He
won a ban on corporate contributions.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.B2)(SSFC, 3/18/01, p.A1)
1907 The US $10 gold coin
featured the head of Victory wearing an Indian headdress designed by
Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.W15)
1907 The City Council of Fort
Dodge, Iowa, passed legislation that required everybody between the
ages of 25 and 45 to get married.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, z-1 p.2)
1907 The SF bribery trial
against Patrick Calhoun, president of the United Railroads, ended
with a hung jury.
(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.B1)
1907 In SF the building at 261
Columbus, designed by Oliver Everett, was completed. It later became
the home of City Lights Bookstore.
(SSFC, 5/31/09, p.B2)
1907 The Sunset View Cemetery
was established in Lawndale (Colma), Ca.
(www.colmahistory.org/History.htm)
1907 The San Francisco Brewing
Company established a facility at 155 Columbus Ave, South San
Francisco.
(SSFC, 3/8/09, p.E8)
1907 In San Francisco some 600
new houses were built on the 440-foot-tall Bernal Hill as people
erected homes there following the 1906 earthquake.
(SSFC, 6/21/09, p.A2)
1907 In San Francisco a 2-story
industrial building was built at 944 Folsom St. It was renovated in
1936. Boyd, a lighting manufacturer, purchased the building in 1995
and renovated it again as the Boyd Building.
(SSFC, 1/30/11, p.C2)
1907 Swimmer Arthur Cavill
landed at the San Francisco Presidio an hour and 18 minutes from his
departure at Lime Point in Marin.
(SSFC, 7/24/11, DB p.42)
1907 Mt. Rainier National Park
in Washington state became the first national park opened to car
traffic and attendance soared.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.A6)
1907 The family of Lt. Col.
George Armistead, commander at Fort McHenry in 1814, donated the
fort’s flag to the Smithsonian Museum. It had inspired Francis Scott
Key to write the Star Spangled Banner.
(WSJ, 7/3/02, p.B1)
1907 The first retail drive-in
gasoline facility opened in St. Louis.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1907 Charles Ives, composer,
founded Ives & Myrick, an insurer that he headed from 1916-1930.
(WSJ, 9/1/00, p.W2)
1907 The New York Currier &
Ives partnership, formed in 1857, closed down with an inventory of
7,000 titles.
(WSJ, 12/19/00, p.A19)
1907 The Murphy Oil Company was
founded in Arkansas.
(F, 10/7/96, p.60)
1907 Clayton S. Reaser
purchased a 5-year old Pennsylvania furniture company named
Gettysburg Manufacturing Co. and renamed it Reaser Furniture
Manufacturing Co.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.G2)
1907 Hermann Minkowski,
mathematician, proposed a new geometry that added time to the three
dimensions of space.
(NG, March 1990, J. Boslough p. 118)
1907 Leo Baekeland of Yonkers,
NY, invented Bakelite, a hard plastic. [see 1909]
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)
1907 Whiting & Davis Co. of
Plainville, Mass., established in 1896, developed a chain mail mesh
machine about this time and became the world’s largest manufacturer
of mesh products.
(SFC, 7/11/07,
p.G4)(http://bagladyemporium.com/BLU/index.php?n=Main.WhitingDavisCo)
1907 Lee De Forest patented the
"Audion tube," a sensitive receiver for radio signals. He also
invented the first method for putting sound on film.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A8)
1907 The phenomenon of
electroluminescence was first observed in a piece of Silicon Carbide
(SiC) by Henry Joseph Round (1881-1966), an English electronics
engineer.
(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ
p.26)(www.wavicle.biz/led_history.html)
1907 In France the physicist
Georges Claude discovered that high voltage electricity shot through
certain gases radiated a colored light. He patented a neon tube in
1909.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 5/23/99,
p.B7)(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T6)
1907 The leak from the diverted
water of the Colorado River that formed the Salton Sea in southern
California was finally plugged.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A22)
1907 The 1st Black American was
elected a Rhodes scholar.
(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.A1)
1907 "Buffalo clover... nearly
knee-high... afforded a rich pasture." An image of the fertile
frontier penned by historian S.P. Hildreth in 1788. After 1907 the
clover was unseen until 1989 when it emerged in some topsoil
delivered to a botanist’s backyard.
(NG, Jan. 94, p.144)
1907 The American Museum of
Natural History purchased a collection of 35 Maori preserved and
tattooed heads. A Maori representative in 1998 sought to bring them
back to New Zealand.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.B3)
1907 Dmitri Ivanovich
Mendeleyev (b.1834), Russian chemist, died. He formulated the
periodic table of elements in 1869 and authored the 1st modern
chemistry text in Russia. In 2001 Paul Strathern authored
"Mendeleyev’s Dream," a history of chemistry.
(V.D.-H.K.p.324)(HN, 2/8/01)(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A17)
1907 In Argentina Robert Leroy
Parker and Harry Longabaugh, known as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid, held up another bank. They sold their ranch in Patagonia to a
beef syndicate and went to Bolivia where they were gunned down by
soldiers after robbing a mine payroll.
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)
1907 In Britain the current Old
Bailey building was built. It stands on the site of the old Newgate
Jail.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T11)
1907 Britain urged the adoption
of Daylight Savings Time (DST) to conserve fuel and provide more
hours to train soldiers. British architect and golfer William Willet
authored a pamphlet deploring the waste of daylight.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(WSJ, 3/31/05, p.D8)
1907 Britain and Russia carved
Iran into spheres of influence.
(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)
1907 The British forced the
abolition of slavery on the new Sultan of Zanzibar and Lamu Island
went into an economic decline.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.T7)
1907 Florence Nightingale
(1820-1910) became the first woman to receive the British Order of
Merit.
(ON, 10/20/11, p.6)
1907 India’s Tata firm opened
an office in London to buy supplies for its Indian operations.
(Econ, 9/10/11, p.61)
1907 Explorations under Louis
Deleporte and the French School of the Far East began at the ancient
city of Angkor. Found artifacts were shared between France and
Cambodia.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1907 The Royal Alexandria
Theater was built in Toronto, Canada.
(SFEC, 12/8/96, p.C21)
1907 A great cantilever bridge
collapsed in Quebec killing 75 workers.
(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1907 Glenn Curtiss, of New
York, joined with Alexander Graham Bell, F.W. Baldwin, Thomas
Selfridge, and John McCurdy, working in Nova Scotia, to found the
Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) to developing a practical flying
machine.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1907 Vaclav Trojan, Czech
composer, was born. His works include "Cathedral in Ruins," the
opera "Rondabout" and a variety of film music such as Jiri Trnka’s
puppet films: Spalicek, the Emperor’s Nightingale, Prince Bajaja,
Old Bohemian Legends and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(BAAC PN, Chambers, 1/8/96)
1907 Howard Carter obtained the
patronage of George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon to finance
his archeological excavations in Egypt.
(ON, 5/00, p.6)
1907 In Egypt a mummy known as
KV55 was found. It was named after the number of the tomb where it
was found in the Valley of the Kings. In 2010 DNA and CT scanning
identified the mummy as that of Pharaoh Akhenaten (1350-1336BC).
(AP, 3/12/10)
1907 In France the bowling game
of petanque or boule assumed its current form after possible origins
in ancient Greece or Egypt. Similar to bocce ball it is played on a
dirt court with baseball sized steel balls. In 1998 it was seeking
Olympic recognition. The French version was born near Marseille as a
sport for the masses. In 1959 France held the 1st annual petanque
world championship.
(WSJ, 1/5/98, p.20)(WSJ, 8/30/07, p.A7)
1907 In Germany Johannes
Klepper licensed, improved and marketed a folding kayak.
(Hem, 9/04, p.50)
1907 In Germany in Berlin the
Hotel Adlon on the Unter den Linden was founded by Lorenz Adlon. It
was burned to the ground during WW II and reconstructed in 1997.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T5)
1907 A 4-year German campaign
ended against the cattle-herding Hereros of Southwest Africa (later
Namibia). It was later estimated that tens of thousands of Hereros
were butchered, with only some 15,000 surviving. Many historians
called the killings the first genocide of the 20th century. Some 300
skulls were believed taken from the Herero and ethnic Nama who died
in German-run prison camps over the four-year conflict. In 2011 a
Namibian delegation reclaimed about 20 human skulls used by
colonial-era scientists, who sought to prove the racial superiority
of whites over blacks.
(AFP, 9/26/11)
1907 Carl Hagenbeck established
the world’s first zoo to free animals from cages in Hamburg,
Germany.
(Hem., Oct. ‘95, p.25)
1907 On the Isle of Man the
motorbike race for the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy, was started.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.T13)
1907 In Korea some dozen
civilian leaders started a national campaign to raise money to ease
the national debt to Japan, which was its colonial ruler. About
1/6th of the total debt was donated.
(SFC, 1/7/98, p.A8)
1907 In Korea the Righteous
Army under the command of Yi In-yeong massed 10,000 troops to
liberate Seoul and defeat the Japanese. The Army came within 12 km
of Seoul but could not withstand the Japanese counter-offensive. The
Righteous Army was no match for two infantry divisions of 20,000
Japanese soldiers backed by warships moored near Inchon. The doomed
revolt ultimately left some 14,000 Koreans dead as well as 160
Japanese.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous_army)(AH,
10/07, p.57)
1907 Royal Dutch combines its
oil operations with Shell Transport & Trading Co.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.A14)
1907 Stalin (1879-1953)
organized an armed robbery on 2 coaches carrying treasure to the
state bank in central Tbilisi, Georgia. He delivered his gains to
Lenin. In 2007 Simon Sebag Montefiore authored “Young Stalin.”
(Econ, 5/19/07, p.88)
1907 Ricardo Anckermann
(b.1842), ethnic German artist who painted in Mallorca, Spain, died.
(WSJ, 12/27/07, p.D7)
1907 In Sudan the first primary
school for girls was founded by the Bedris family. It grew to become
the private Ahfad University.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A12)
1907-1908 Constantin Brancusi created his "blocky"
sculpture "The Kiss."
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A5)(SFC, 10/26/96, p.B6)
1907-1909 Murray Levick was the naturalist on the
Ernest Shackleton south polar expedition. [see 1908]
(NH, 8/96, p.36)
1907-1914 George Washington Goethals, US major
general and engineer, was the chief engineer of the Panama Canal.
(WUD, 1994, p.606)
1907-1915 The Lucerna Palace in Prague,
Czechoslovakia, was built by Vaclav Havel, grandfather of the Czech
president of 1997.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.B4)
1907-1917 "A Life of Picasso Vol. II" by John
Richardson (1996) covers this period of the painter’s life.
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A20)
1907-1934 HJ was a mark used by A.G. Harley Jones,
operator of the Royal Vienna Art Pottery in the Staffordshire
district of England at this time.
(SFC, 7/9/97, Z1 p.3)
1907-1958 Mike Todd, American movie producer:
"I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind.
Being broke is only a temporary situation."
(AP, 12/5/98)
1907-1964 Opera stars of this period were featured
on a 1997 video "The Art of Singing: Golden Voices of the Century"
by NVC Arts on Atlantic Records.
(WSJ, 6/5/97, p.A20)
1907-1971 James Ramsey Ullman, American author:
"To know a little less and to understand a little more: that, it
seems to me, is our greatest need."
(AP, 8/21/97)
1907-1972 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Polish-born scholar: "He who is swift to believe is swift to
forget."
(AP, 5/1/01)
1907-1977 Loren Eiseley, American anthropologist:
"The door to the past is a strange door. It swings open and things
pass through it, but they pass in one direction only. No man can
return across that threshold, though he can look down still and see
the green light waver in the water weeds."
(AP, 4/24/99)
1907-1978 Charles Eames, an American polymath
artist. Together with his wife he designed numerous objects,
furniture and made more than 75 films.
(SFC, 6/6/96, E1)
1907-1982 Jacques Tatisheff, French film actor and
director. In 2000 David Bellow authored the biography "Jacques
Tati."
(WSJ, 8/1/00, p.A20)
1907-1989 Laurence Olivier, British actor: "I
take a simple view of living. It is keep your eyes open and get on
with it."
(AP, 3/18/98)
1907-1990 Rabbi Hyman Judah Schachtel, American
theologian, author and educator: "Happiness is not having what you
want, but wanting what you have."
(AP, 1/31/01)
1907-1996 Sir Frank Whittle, British engineer. He
first patented the idea of a jet engine in 1930.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A20)
1907-1997 Dora Maar, fashion and portrait
photographer. In 1935 she met Pablo Picasso in Paris and began a
7-year affair.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.E1)
1907-1997 Henriette Wyeth, painter, daughter of
American master N.C. Wyeth. Her work included "Death and the Child."
She was the sister of painter Andrew Wyeth. Two other sisters,
Carolyn and Ann, were also painters.
(SFC, 4/4/97, p.A25)(WSJ, 6/2/98, p.A20)
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1908-1909