Return to home
1910 Jan 3, British
miners struck for an 8 hour working day.
(MC, 1/3/02)
1910 Jan 3, The Social
Democratic Congress in Germany demanded universal suffrage.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1910 Jan 4, Leon Walrus
(b.1834), French economist, died. In 1874 he wrote and published the
first edition of his magnum opus, the “Elements of Pure Economics.”
(http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/walras.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/pdw34)
1910 Jan 6, Wright Morris
(d.1998 at 88), author, was born in Central City, Nebraska. He wrote
33 books over his career.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.D7)
1910 Jan 6, Union leaders asked
President Taft to investigate U.S. Steel practices.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1910 Jan 7, Alain JG de
Rothschild, banker and baron, was born in France.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1910 Jan 13, Andrew Jackson
Davis (b.1826), American clairvoyant, died. While in a mesmeric
(hypnotic) trance, could allegedly communicate with the spirit world
and accurately diagnose medical disorders. In 1850, in his book the
“Great Harmonia,” Davis talks about how man evolved from animals and
that evolution also took place in plants and animals up to man.
(www.andrewjacksondavis.com/)
1910 Jan 16, David McCampbell,
US pilot and captain (WW II-Pacific-downed 34 Japanese planes), was
born.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1910 Jan 20, Joy Adamson,
British author and naturalist, was born. He lived in Kenya and wrote
"Born Free."
(HN, 1/20/99)
1910 Jan 21, Angel Island
opened as an immigration processing and detention center and became
known as the Ellis Island of the West. It processed some 1 million
people until 1940. 50,000 Chinese entered the US through Angel
Island. It closed after a fire in 1940.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W37)(SFEC, 2/6/00, Rp.10)(SFC,
1/21/10, p.A12)
1910 Jan 21, A British-Russian
military intervention took place in Persia.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1910 Jan 21, Japan rejected the
American proposal to neutralize ownership of the Manchurian Railway.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1910 Jan 24, Louis Paulhan,
French aviator, made an aerial display at the Tanforan Race Track in
San Bruno, Ca., before a crowd of 75,000. He flew his biplane 1,300
(700) feet high at 70 mph. Earlier he took William Randolph Hearst
for a ride.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)(Ind, 8/17/02, 5A)(SSFC,
1/24/10, DB p.42)
1910 Feb 7, Edmond Rostand's
"Chanticleer," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1910
Feb 8, The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated in Washington,
D.C. by William D. Boyce, a wealthy Chicago publisher who learned of
the "scouts" on a trip to England the previous year.
(NPR, 7/26/95)(HN, 2/8/98)(AP, 2/8/99)
1910 Feb 10, Dominique Georges
Pire, Belgian cleric and educator, was born.
(HN, 2/10/01)
1910 Feb 11, Theodore Roosevelt
Jr. and Eleanor Alexander announced their wedding date—June 20,
1910. President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill creating Mesa Verde
National Park.
(HN, 2/11/97)
1910 Feb 13, William B.
Shockley, physicist, co-inventor of the transistor, was born. He won
the Nobel Prize in 1956.
(HN, 2/13/01)(MC, 2/13/02)
1910 Feb 17, In San Francisco 3
elephants appearing at a Broadway vaudeville house went on a rampage
while parading in North Beach.
(SSFC, 2/14/10, DB p.42)
1910 Feb 19, English premiere
of Richard Strauss' "Elektra."
(MC, 2/19/02)
1910 Feb 19, Mary Mallon (aka
Typhoid Mary) was released from 4 years of quarantine on New York’s
North Brother Island. In 1914 she caused a typhus outbreak in the
Sloane Maternity Hospital. She was again arrested and returned to
North Brother Island where she died Nov 11, 1938.
(ON, 7/01, p.12)
1910 Feb 20, Julian Trevelyan,
English Surrealist painter, collage maker, was born.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1910 Feb 21, John Galsworthy's
"Justice," premiered in London.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1910 Feb 22, In San Francisco
the Sierra Club, under the leadership of Prof. A.G. McAdie, named 2
peaks of the Sutro Forest. The loftiest peak in the city was named
Mount Davidson in honor of noted English-born geographer George
Davidson (1825-1911), and the other Sutro Crest, in honor of former
mayor and philanthropist Adolph Sutro.
(SSFC, 2/21/10, DB
p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Davidson_%28geographer%29)
1910 Feb 23, George Bernard
Shaw's "Misalliance," premiered in London.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1910 Feb 25, The Dalai Lama
fled from the Chinese and took refuge in India.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1910 Feb 27, Peter De Vries,
writer, poetry editor (Reuben Reuben, Prick of Noon)(Poetry
Magazine, The New Yorker), was born.
(HN, 2/27/01)(MC, 2/27/02)
1910 Feb 28, Vincente Minnelli,
director (American in Paris, Gigi), was born in Chicago, IL.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1910 Mar 1, An avalanche at
Wellington, Wa., pushed two Great Northern trains carrying 96 people
over a ledge at Stevens Pass.
(SSFC, 3/1/09, p.C10)
1910 Mar 6, In San Francisco a
dance marathon at Puckett’s Cotillion Hall ended and Manager Puckett
awarded $145 to six couples who broke the world record of 14 hours
and 41 minutes. The contest had begun the previous evening with 17
couples.
(SSFC, 2/28/10, DB p.42)
1910 Mar 8, Claire Trevor
(d.2000), Hollywood actress, was born. [some sources place her birth
in 1909]
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.C14)
1910 Mar 8, Baroness de Laroche
became the first women to obtain a pilot’s license in France.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1910 Mar 9, Samuel Barber,
American composer, was born. His work includes "Medea’s Meditation
and Dance of Vengeance."
(WUD, 1994, p.119)(SFC, 10/5/96, p.E1)(HN,
3/9/98)
1910 Mar 10, Slavery was
abolished in China.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1910 Mar 10, Carl Heinrich
Carsten Reinecke (85), composer, died.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1910 Mar 17, The Camp Fire
Girls organization was formed in Lake Sebago, Maine. It was formally
presented to the public exactly two years later.
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/01)
1910 Mar 21, The U.S. Senate
granted ex-President Teddy Roosevelt a pension of $10,000 yearly.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1910 Mar 23, Akira Kurosawa,
Japanese film director (Living, Rashomon, The Seven Samurai), was
born in Tokyo, Japan.
(HN, 3/23/01)(SS, 3/23/02)
1910 Mar 23, 1st race at Los
Angeles Motordrome (1st US auto speedway).
(SS, 3/23/02)
1910 Mar 26, US forbade
immigration to criminals, anarchists, paupers and the sick.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1910 Mar 26, William H. Lewis
was appointed Assistant Attorney General of US.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1910 Mar 27, John Robinson
Pierce, the father of communications satellites, was born.
(HN, 3/27/01)
1910 Mar 27, Alexander E.
Agassiz (74), US businessman, biologist, geologist, died.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1910 Mar 28, Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt gave his “Law and Order in Egypt” speech at Cairo Univ.
Sheikh Ali Yusuf, Muslim cleric and popular columnist, had written
an open letter in praise of Roosevelt’s visit, but the president’s
imperious tone soon disappointed Egyptian hopes.
(www.mobipocket.com/EN/eBooks/eBookDetails.asp?BookID=86377)(Econ,
6/6/09, p.1910)
1910 Mar 28, The first seaplane
took off from water at Martinques, France.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1910 Mar 29, Helen Wells,
author of the Cherry Ames series, was born.
(HN, 3/29/01)
1910 Apr 2, Karl Harris
perfected the process for the artificial synthesis of rubber.
(HN, 4/2/98)
1910 Apr 2, Boyd Alexander
(37), English explorer (Niger to the Nile), was murdered.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1910 Apr 3, Alaska’s Mt.
McKinley, the highest mountain in North America, was climbed.
(HN, 4/3/98)
1910 Apr 8, Harriet Doerr
(d.2002) was born as Harriet Huntington, grand-daughter of railroad
tycoon Henry Edwards Huntington, in Pasadena. In 1984 she won the
American Book Award for 1st fiction for "Stone for Ibarra."
(SFC, 11/28/02, p.A30)
1910 Apr 11, Anna Magnani,
Italian actress (Awakening, Roma), was born.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1910 Apr 14, President William
Howard Taft began a sports tradition by throwing out the first pitch
on baseball’s Opening Day. Taft threw to Washington Senator pitcher
Walter Johnson, who went on to hurl a shutout win, allowing the
Philadelphia Phillies just one hit and ending the day with a 3-0
victory for Washington.
(HNQ, 8/9/02)
1910 Apr 15, In San Francisco
detective Tim Riordan arrested Jolly Trixie, aka Miss Kitty
Plunkett, for allegedly violating the Penal Code. She was accused of
being deformed and exhibiting her deformity in a Fillmore Street
show house. Plunkett said she weighed only 585 pounds as opposed to
the alleged 685 pounds. 2 physicians testified that she was
perfectly symmetrical.
(SSFC, 4/11/10, DB p.50)
1910 Apr 19, After weeks of
being viewed through telescopes, Halley's Comet was reported visible
to the naked eye in Curacao.
(AP, 4/19/00)
1910 Apr 20, Robert F. Wagner,
(Mayor-D-NYC, 1954-65), was born.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1910 Apr 20, Eva Swan (26), a
SF schoolteacher, disappeared. Doctor’s assistant Ben Gordon (18)
kept the secret until after a fight with Dr. James Grant over $18 in
wages. He then went to the police. Her body was found on Sep 23
buried under a basement at 320 Eureka St. and soaking in nitric acid
with every joint sawed through. Grant and nurse Marie Messerschmidt
were arrested on murder charges after the failed abortion went awry.
(http://realchoice.0catch.com/library/deaths/bl10eswan.htm)(SSFC,
9/19/10, DB p.50)
1910 Apr 21, Author Mark Twain
(b.1835), born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, died in Redding, Conn.
His work included "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,"
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer," and "More Tramps Abroad." His short story "The War Prayer"
was published after his death. In 1912 Albert Bigelow Paine authored
"Mark Twain: A Biography." In 1959 Charles Neider authored "The
Autobiography of Mark Twain." In 1966 Justin Kaplan authored "Mr.
Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography." In 1997 Andrew Hoffman
authored "Inventing Mark Twain, The Lives of Samuel Langhorn
Clemens. In 2005 Ron Powers authored “Mark Twain: A Life.” In 2007
Peter Krass authored “Ignorance, Confidence, and Filthy Rich
Friends: The Business Adventures of Mark Twain.” In 2010 Jerome
Loving authored “Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens.”
In 2010 Volume I of Twain’s dictated autobiography was published.
(http://courant.ctnow.com/probjects/twain/timeline.htm)(SFC,
7/13/01, p.D5)(SSFC, 9/30/01, p.D6)(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.M2)(WSJ,
3/13/07, p.D5)(Econ, 4/17/10, p.93)(SSFC, 11/7/10, p.F1)
1910 Apr 21, Halley’s Comet was
visible in the night sky. Entrepreneurs peddled "comet gas masks"
for people worried about the Earth's passage through poisonous
cyanogen gas in the comet's tail.
(NH, 5/97, p.18)(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.B10)
1910 Apr 28, The first night
air flight was performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1910 May 3, Alceo Galliera,
composer, conductor, was born.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1910 May 4, Tel Aviv was
founded.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1910 May 6, Edward VII (68),
Britain's King (1901-1910), died and George V ascended to the
British throne.
(AP, 5/6/97)(MC, 5/6/02)
1910 May 8, Mary Lou Williams,
jazz pianist and composer, was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1910 May 8, Ricardo Jimenez
Oreamuno (b.1859) began serving his first term as president of Costa
Rica. In 1914 he was succeeded by Alfredo Gonzalez Flores.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Jim%C3%A9nez_Oreamuno)
1910 May 10, The 1st aircraft
air display was held at Hendon, England.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1910 May 11, Glacier National
Park in Montana was established.
(AP, 5/11/97)
1910 May 15, Robert F. Wagner,
(Mayor-D-NYC, 1949-65), was born.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1910 May 18, Passage of Earth
through tail of Halley's Comet caused near-panic.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1910 May 18, Flor van Duyse
(66), composer, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1910 May 23, Franz Kline
(d.1962), American painter of abstract expressionist style, was born
in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
(www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_77.html)
1910 May 23, Artie Shaw
(d.2004), jazz bandleader and clarinetist, was born as Arthur Jacoby
Arshawsky on the Lower East Side of NYC to poor Eastern European
Jewish immigrants.
(HN, 5/23/01)(SFC, 12/31/04, p.A4)
1910 May 25, Ernest Anderson,
publicist, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1910 May 26, Laurance S.
Rockefeller, CEO (Chase Manhattan Bank), was born in NYC.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1910 May 27, Robert Koch
(b.1843), German bacteriologist (TB, Cholera, Nobel), died.
(http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1905/koch-bio.html)
1910 May 28, T-Bone Walker,
blues guitarist and singer, was born.
(HN, 5/28/01)
1910 May 28, Kalman Mikszath
(b.1847), Hungarian satirical novelist, died.
(Sm, 3/06, p.79)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0586690/)
1910 May 29, Pope's encyclical
on Editae Saepe was against church reformers.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1910 May 29, Mili Alexeyevich
Balakirev (73), Russian composer (Islamej), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1910 May 31, Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell (b.1821), the first American woman to become a doctor,
died. She and colleagues founded the New York Infirmary for Women
and Children (1857).
(http://womenshistory.about.com/od/blackwellelizabeth/a/eliz_blackwell.htm)
1910 May 31, The Union of South
Africa was founded as a union within the British Empire.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 566)(AP, 5/31/97)
1910 Jun 2, Charles Stewart
Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, becomes the first man to
fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways.
Tragically, he became Britain's first aircraft fatality the
following month when his biplane broke up in midair.
(HN, 6/2/00)
1910 Jun 2, Pygmies were
discovered in Dutch New Guinea (Papua).
(SC, 6/2/02)
1910 Jun 9, Passenger on SS
Arawatta threw a bottle with note overboard. It was found June 6,
1983, in Queensland.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1910 Jun 11, Carmine Coppola
(d.1991), composer, conductor (Godfather II, Apocalypse Now), was
born.
(Internet)
1910 Jun 11, Jacques Cousteau
(d.1997), pioneer sea explorer, was born in Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac,
France. He invented the aqualung and wrote "The Living Sea."
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A7)(HN, 6/11/99)
1910 Jun 14, Rudolf Kempe,
conductor, was born in Niederpoyritz, Germany.
(MC, 6/14/02)
1910 Jun 19, Father's Day was
celebrated in Spokane Washington. Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane,
Washington, has been credited with the concept for Father's Day.
Dodd sought a way to honor her own father, who had raised her as a
single parent. In 1924 the holiday was approved by President Calvin
Coolidge and, in 1972, President Richard Nixon officially recognized
the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. An earlier observance of
Father's Day actually took place in Fairmont, West Virginia on July
5, 1908. The special day was organized by Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton,
who wanted to celebrate the lives of the 210 fathers who had been
lost in the Monongah Mining disaster several months earlier, on
December 6, 1907.
(AP,
6/19/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father%27s_Day)
1910 Jun 20, Chester Arthur
Burnett (d.1976) was born in West Point, Mississippi. He later
became known as the blues singer Howlin’ Wolf.
(SSFC, 7/4/04, p.M6)(www.britannica.com)
1910 Jun 20, Josephine Johnson,
Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Jordanstown, Wildwood), was born.
(HN, 6/20/01)
1910 Jun 20, Mexican President
Porfirio Diaz proclaimed martial law and arrested hundreds.
(HN, 6/20/98)
1910 Jun 22, German
bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich announced a definitive cure for
syphilis.
(AP, 6/22/01)
1910 Jun 23, Jean Anouilh,
French playwright, was born.
(HN, 6/23/01)
1910 Jun 24, The Japanese army
invaded Korea.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1910 Jun 25, An Act of US
Congress established a postal savings system in post offices,
effective January 1, 1911. It paid 2% interest on deposits not to
exceed $2,500. In 1966 post offices stopped taking deposits. A 1984
law declared that no claims on funds would be honored after July 13,
1985.
(www.usps.com/history/his2_5.htm)(SFC, 11/30/05,
p.G3)
1910 Jun 25, The Mann Act was
passed in the US. It forbade transporting women across state lines
for immoral purposes.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1910 Jul 28, Bill Goodwin,
announcer (Burns & Allen, Boing Boing Show), was born in SF,
Calif.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1910 Jun 29, Frank Loesser,
songwriter, was born.
(HN, 6/29/01)
1910 Jul 4, African-American
Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in the 15th round of a
heavyweight boxing match in Reno, Nevada. As Johnson entered the
ring a band played “All Coons Look Alike to Me.” Johnson’s victory
prompted race riots in major cities across the United States leaving
as many as 26 people dead. Jack London covered the match and coined
the phrase "The great white hope" in his story.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.B10)(Econ, 6/21/08, p.104)(ON,
4/09, p.7)
1910 Jul 4, Melville W. Fuller
(b.1833), US Supreme Court Chief Justice (1888-1910), died after
serving over 21 years. He favored limited government, economic
liberty, private property rights, free trade and contractual
freedom.
(SFC, 9/6/05,
p.A4)(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/50/)
1910 Jul 6, Dorothy Kirsten,
opera singer, was born.
(HN, 7/6/01)
1910 Aug 7, In San Francisco
the Chutes vaudeville theater on Fillmore St. attracted Sophie
Tucker, who revived her career after being black-balled by Flo
Ziegfeld back in New York. Tucker performed the Grizzly Bear song in
San Francisco. Sophie Tucker at the Chutes theater creates a genuine
furor with her rendition of “The Dance of the Grizzly Bear.” She did
two Sunday through Saturday runs, August 7 - 13, and September 18 -
24. in 1910.
(AJSF, Vol. 14. No. 2, Winter,
2003)(http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000131701)
1910 Aug 9, Alva Fisher
patented the first complete, self-contained electric washing
machine.
(HN, 8/9/00)(MC, 8/9/02)
1912 Aug 10, Leonard Woolf
(1880-1969), English man of letters, married writer Virginia
Duckworth (b.1882). Virginia Woolf committed suicide in 1941.
(WSJ, 12/17/05,
p.P13)(www.online-literature.com/virginia_woolf/)
1910 Aug 13, Florence
Nightingale (90), British nurse famous for her care of British
soldiers during the Crimean War, died. In 2004 Gillian Gill authored
“Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss
Florence Nightingale.” In 2008 Mark Bostridge authored Florence
Nightingale: The Making of an Icon.”
(HN, 8/13/98)(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.M3)(AP,
8/13/07)(WSJ, 10/21/08, p.A17)
1910 Aug 15, Hugo Winterhalter,
composer, was born.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1910 Aug 19, The advance guard
of the Barnum & Bailey Circus began arriving in San Francisco,
claiming to be the biggest ever to visit the Pacific Coast. It
included 1,280 people, 85 railroad cars, 700 horses and 400
elephants.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, DB p.42)
1910 Aug 20, Eero Saarinen
(d.1961), Finnish-US architect (IBM Building, MIT Chapel), was born
in Rantasalmi, Finland.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1910 Aug 20, The 1st shot fired
from an airplane was during a test flight over Brooklyn's Sheepshead
Bay.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.D5)
1910 Aug 20-1910 Aug 21, The
Great Idaho Fire killed 86 people and destroyed some 3 million acres
of timber in Idaho and Montana. In 2009 Timothy Egan authored “The
Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Save America.”
(http://www.idahoforests.org/fires.htm)(SFC,
12/1/09, p.E8)
1910 Aug 22, Japan annexed
Korea following 5 years as a protectorate and ruled for 35 years.
(WSJ, 10/14/95, p.A-1)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p.
215)(AP, 8/22/06)
1910 Aug 26, William James
(b.1842), American psychologist and philosopher, died. His work
included “the Principles of Psychology” (1890) and “The Varieties of
Religious Experience” (1902). William James was the older brother of
novelist Henry James. In 2006 Robert D. Richardson authored the
biography: “William James.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James)
1910 Aug 26-27, Agnes Gonxhe
Bojaxhiu (d.1997), later known as Mother Teresa and care-taker of
the poor in Calcutta, was born to an ethnic Albanian family in
Skopje, Macedonia. She later founded the Missionaries of Charity in
Calcutta and was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for her work.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)(AP,
9/12/03)
1910 Aug 27, Thomas Edison
demonstrated the first "talking" pictures using a phonograph in his
New Jersey laboratory.
(HN, 8/27/01)
1910 Aug 31, Theodore Roosevelt
delivered the "New Nationalism" speech at Osawatomie, Kansas,
effecting a split in the Republican Party. The speech was
interpreted as an assault upon the conservatism of the Taft
administration. In the speech, Roosevelt proclaimed that the New
Nationalism "maintains that every man holds his property subject to
the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever
degree the public welfare may require it."
(HNQ, 12/22/99)
1910 Sep 1, Jack Hawkins, actor
(Ben-Four Just Men) was born in London, England.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1910 Sep 2, Alice Stebbins
Wells was admitted to the Los Angeles Police Force as the first
woman police officer to receive an appointment based on a civil
service exam.
(HN, 9/2/98)
1910 Sep 2, Henri "le Douanier"
Rousseau (b.1844), French ambassador and painter, died in Paris. He
had recently completed his masterpiece “The Dream.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau)(WSJ, 9/13/06, p.D10)
1910 Sep 5, Marie Curie
demonstrated the transformation of radium ore to metal at the
Academy of Sciences in France.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1910 Sep 8, Jean-Louis
Barrault, director and actor (Les Enfants du Paradis), was born in
Vesinet, France.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1910 Sep 11, Gerhard Schroder,
German chancellor, was born.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1910 Sep 11, The 1st
commercially successful electric bus line opened in Hollywood.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1910 Sep 12, Alexander D.
Langmuir, epidemiologist, was born. He created and led the U.S.
Epidemic Intelligence Service.
(HN, 9/12/00)
1910 Sep 12, Gustav Mahler's
8th Symphony premiered in Munich with 1028 musicians.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1910 Sep 19, George Cohan's
"Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1910 Sep 23, Elliot Roosevelt,
son of FDR and writer (Murder in the Oval Office), was born.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1910 Sep 27, 1st test flight of
a twin-engined airplane was made in France.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1910 Sep, Hendrik Baekeland
joined with investors to form the General Bakelite Company.
(ON, 9/05, p.12)
1910 Sep, In Chicago a
spontaneous strike by a handful of women workers led to a citywide
strike of 45,000 garment workers. That strike was a bitter one and
pitted the strikers against not only their employers and the local
authorities, but also their own union.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgamated_Clothing_Workers_of_America)
1910 Oct 1, Mass. 1st state
fair was the Berkshire Cattle Fair in Pittsfield.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1910 Oct 1, The Los Angeles
Times building at 1st and Broadway was bombed killing 21 nonunion
pressman and linotype operators. A new Los Angeles Times building
was completed in 1935. In 2008 Howard Blum authored “American
Lightning: Terror, Mystery, The Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of
the Century.”
(WSJ, 9/16/08,
p.A23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times_bombing)
1910 Oct 1, At midnight a
strict anti-gambling law became effective in Nevada. It even forbid
the western custom of flipping a coin for the price of a drink.
Illegal but accepted gambling flourished until 1931 when the Nevada
Legislature approved a legalized gambling bill authored by Phil
Tobin, a Northern Nevada rancher.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB
p.64)(http://www.lvol.com/lvoleg/hist/lvhist.html)
1910 Oct 3, San Francisco new
police Chief Seymour closed down dancing of the “bunny hug” and the
“hug-me-tight” in the Tenderloin. As of the next day female habitues
of the Tenderloin will not be allowed to puff their usual cigarettes
in public.
(SSFC, 10/3/10, DB p.50)
1910 Oct 4, Scottish surgeon
Joseph Bell died. He was the real-life model for Arthur Conan
Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1910 Oct 10, Charles E. Hughes
(1862-1948) was sworn in as associate Justice on the US Supreme
Court. He resigned in 1916. In 1930 he became Chief Justice.
(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/62/)
1910 Oct 11, Joseph Alsop,
American journalist, was born.
(HN, 10/11/98)
1910 Oct 11, Buffalo Bill’s
Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Far East combined shows arrived in San
Francisco. They set up on 8 acres at 12th and Market with a big
arena and 22 tents. This was part of Col. William Cody’s farewell
tour.
(SSFC, 10/3/10, DB p.50)
1910 Oct 11, The San Francisco
Rotary Club offered a $10,000 prize to the aviator who first flies
from SF to New York.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, DB p.50)
1910 Oct 13, Ernest Kellogg
Gann, pilot and adventure novelist, was born. His work included
"Island in the Sky" and "The High and Mighty."
(HN, 10/13/00)
1910 Oct 13, Art Tatum,
American jazz pianist, was born.
(HN, 10/13/98)
1910 Oct 15, Torbjorn Oskar
Caspersson, Swedish cytologist and geneticist, was born.
(HN, 10/15/00)
1910 Oct 17, Julia Ward Howe
(b.1819), author of the Battle Hymn of Republic (1893), died at 91.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1910 Oct 18, M. Baudry was the
first to fly a dirigible across the English Channel—from La
Motte-Breil to Wormwood Scrubbs.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1910 Oct 23, Blanche S. Scott
became the first woman to make a solo, public airplane flight,
reaching an altitude of 12 feet at a park in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
(AP, 10/23/00)
1910 Oct 23, The reign of King
Chulalongkorn (Rama V) ended. He had introduced state corporations
as a way to modernize Thailand. Rama V (b.1853) lived in the
Vimanmek Mansion in Bangkok. It was made entirely of golden teak
wood. King Vajiravudh succeeded his father as Rama VI.
(SFC, 7/9/99, p.A12)(Econ, 3/20/10,
p.27)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chulalongkorn)
1910 Oct 27, Fred de Cordova,
film and TV producer (Tonight Show), was born.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1910 Oct 28, Francis Bacon
(d.1992), English artist who painted expressionist portraits, was
born in Dublin to English parents. He had no formal training as an
artist. After earning a modest reputation in the 1920s as a
modernist interior designer, he began oil painting in 1929. He first
established himself as a major in 1944, when his now-famous triptych
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion was exhibited
at London’s Tate Gallery. Birth year also given as 1909.
(HN, 10/28/98)(MIA, www,1999)(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB
p.29)
1910 Oct 29, A.J. Ayer, English
philosopher, was born.
(HN, 10/29/00)
1910 Oct 30, Jean Henri Dunant
(b.1828), Swiss philanthropist, died. His book “A Memory of
Solferino” (1862) led to the foundation of the Int’l. Committee of
the Red Cross. He was the first recipient (jointly) of the Nobel
Peace Prize.
(http://tinyurl.com/gbxhd)
1910 Nov 7, Leo Tolstoy
(b.1828), Russian earl and writer (War & Peace), died at the
rural Astapovo train station [OS, NS=Nov 20]. In 1967 Henri Troyat’s
“Tolstoy” became available in English. In 2007 Leah Bendavid-Val
authored “Song Without Words: The Photographs and Diaries of
Countess Sophia Tolstoy.” In 2011 Rosamund Bartlett authored
“Tolstoy: A Russian Life.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy)(WSJ,
12/1/07, p.W10)(SSFC, 12/4/11, p.F4)
1910 Nov 8, Democrats prevailed
in congressional elections for the first time since 1894.
(HN, 11/6/98)
1910 Nov 9, France, Spain,
Norway, Belgium, Germany, Russia, and Great Britain established
diplomatic relations with the new republic of Portugal.
(HN, 11/9/98)
1910 Nov 12, In the 1st movie
stunt a man jumped into the Hudson river from a burning balloon.
(MC, 11/12/01)
1910 Nov 14, Lieutenant Eugene
Ely, U.S. Navy, was the first to take off in an airplane from the
deck of a ship. He flew from the Birmingham at Hampton Roads to
Norfolk. It was a Curtiss plane flown by Eugene Ely, a company
exhibition pilot, that made the first successful takeoff from a Navy
ship.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1910 Nov 18, In Mexico the
first shots of the revolution were fired in Puebla when federal
police attacked the home of Aquiles Serdan, a shoe store owner
agitating against Diaz.
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.T6)
1910 Nov 20, Revolution broke
out in Mexico. Francisco I. Madero called for a rise to national
arms on this day when dictator Porfirio Diaz reneged on his pledge
to stay out of the presidential election.
(SFEC,11/9/97, p.T6)(AP, 11/20/97)
1910 Nov 22, Amy Elizabeth
Thorpe, a Minnesota-born British spy known as "Cynthia" was born in
Minneapolis. She has been described as World War II's "Mata Hari."
Family and friends called her Betty. William Stephenson, who ran
Great Britain’s World War II intelligence activities in the Western
Hemisphere, would one day give her a code name--"Cynthia." She
reputedly was one of the most successful spies in history.
(HNQ, 3/14/01)
1910 Nov 22, Arthur Knight
patented steel shaft golf clubs.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1910 Nov 23, Hawley H. Crippen,
doctor and murderer, was hanged.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1910 Nov 24, Robert
Baden-Powell, who founded the scout movement in Britain in 1907,
organized the first scout meeting in Africa at a church in Nairobi.
(AP, 11/24/10)
1910 Nov 25, Alwin Nikolais,
choreographer, was born.
(HN, 11/25/00)
1910 Nov 27, In NYC the
Pennsylvania Railroad began service at Pennsylvania Station. It was
begun under the direction of PRR president Alexander J. Cassatt
(d.1906) and designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and
White. In 2007 Jill Jonnes authored “Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age
Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and its Tunnels.” Penn
Station was demolished in 1963.
(AP, 11/27/06)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.95)(SSFC, 7/8/07,
p.M2)
1910 Nov 27, Rudolf Holzmann,
composer, was born.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1910 Nov 28, In San Francisco
John Edwards, knows as the “King of the Opium Ring,” was arrested at
his home at 133 Fillmore. Drugs found included 40 pounds of crude
opium. His arrest followed a police raid in Chinatown on Nov 26 in
which 210 persons were arrested.
(SSFC, 11/28/10, p.50)
1910 Dec 3, Neon lights were
1st publicly seen at the Paris Auto Show.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1910 Dec 3, Mary Baker Eddy
(b.1821), founder of the Church of Christ, Science (the Christian
Science movement), died.
(MC, 12/3/01)(WSJ, 9/26/03, p.W17)
1910 Dec 5, China set this date
for the removal of queus (a braid of hair) from the heads of male
citizens. This was expected to glut the human hair market.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, DB p.50)
1910 Dec 8, In San Francisco
the Jesuits of St. Ignatius broke ground on a new church at Parker
and Fulton. This was the site of the old Masonic Cemetery
Association.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1910 Dec 17, In San Francisco
25 men were arrested for spitting on sidewalks. It cost them $5 to
regain their liberty.
(SSFC, 12/12/10, DB p.46)
1910 Dec 18, Abe Burrows,
Broadway composer (Guys & Dolls 1951 TONY), was born in
Brooklyn, NY.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1910 Dec 18, The first
dispensary for treating hookworm disease opened in Columbia,
Mississippi.
(http://tinyurl.com/24cckey)
1910 Dec 19, Edward W. White
(1845-1921) was sworn in as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.
(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/55/)
1910 Dec 19, Jean Genet,
criminal, novelist, dramatist (The Blacks), was born in Paris,
France. In 1993 Edmund White published "Jean Genet: A Life."
(WUD, 1994, p.590)(SFEC, 10/5/97, Z1 p.3)(MC,
12/19/01)
1910 Dec 19, Rayon was 1st
commercially produced by Marcus Hook in Penn.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1910 Dec 21, 2.5 million plague
victims were reported in the An-Hul province of China.
(HN, 12/21/98)
1910 Dec 21, Explosion in coal
mine in Hulton, England killed 344 mine workers.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1910 Dec 22, In Chicago, Ill.,
21 firefighters died when a wall collapsed at the Union Stock Yards
fire.
(www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-exchange-1910fire,0,4327692.story)
1910 Dec 24, In San Francisco
Luisa Tetrazzini, opera diva, sang at the Charlotte Mignon (Lotta)
Crabtree fountain at Market and Kearney in a free performance before
a crowd of 250,000.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.B10)
1910 Dec 31, US tobacco
industry produced 9 billion cigarettes for the year.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1910 Dec 31, John B. Moisant
and Arch Hoxsey, two of America's foremost aviators died in separate
plane crashes. Moisant died in a plane crash in New Orleans.
(HN, 12/31/98)(HN, 7/31/01)
1910 Dec, "On or About December
1910: Early Bloomsbury and its Intimate World" by Peter Stansky
tells the story of the British Bloomsbury group of writers and
artists: Clive Bell, Thoby Stephen, Lytton Strachey, Saxon
Sydney-Turner, Leonard Woolf, Vanessa and Virginia Stephen. In 1997
Regina Marler wrote Bloomsbury Pie: The Making of the Bloomsbury
Boom."
(SFEC, 9/22/96, BR p.3)(SFEC,11/9/97, BR p.9)
1910 Dec, Virginia Stephen
(later Woolf), Adrian Stephen, Duncan Grant, Horace Cole and others
of the Bloomsbury group dressed as the Abyssinian Emperor and his
entourage and infiltrated the British warship the Dreadnought making
a mockery of national defense.
(SFEC, 9/22/96, BR p.3)(SFEC, 6/22/97, BR p.8)
1910 Dec, The Hotel Shattuck in
Berkeley, Ca., was completed. In 1914 the hotel added another wing
with 120 rooms to accommodate crowds expected for the Panama Pacific
Expo.
(SFC, 2/11/11, p.C1)
1910 Nell Sinton, American
artist, was born. Her work included the abstract oil "Greenhouse"
(1961).
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.C3)
1910 George Bellows painted his
sporting scene "Polo Crowd." In 1999 it sold for $27.5 million.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.W16)
1910 Marc Chagall in his
pre-Paris period painted "The Workshop and Death."
(WSJ, 5/11/95, p. A-14)
1910 Alexei von Jawlensky,
Russian painter, created the portrait "Schokko." In 2003 it was
auctioned for $8.2 million.
(SFC, 11/12/03, p.D4)
1910 Vasily Kandinsky painted
his first three compositions at the age of 44, however they were
destroyed in WW II.
(WSJ, 2/8/95), p.A-12)
1910 Matisse painted "La
Danse." "The Dance II" later ended up at the Hermitage.
(WSJ, 2/16/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A20)
1910 Pablo Picasso painted a
cubist portrait of Ambroise Vollard.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)
1910 John Singer Sargent gave
up portraiture and devoted the rest of his life to murals and
landscapes.
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.W2)
1910 Asahel Curtis shot his
photo: "The Leveling of the Hills to Make Seattle."
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.E3)
1910 E.M. Forster (1879-1970)
wrote "Howard’s End," his next to last novel and good description of
the English class system.
(SFEC, 9/22/96, BR p.3)(WSJ, 9/20/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.M._Forster)
1910 Harley Granville-Barker
wrote his play “The Madras House.”
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P9)
1910 Gaston Leroux wrote his
novel "The Phantom of the Opera."
(SFEM, 1/12/97, DB p.13)
1910 John A. Lomax, folklorist,
authored: "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads," a pioneering
work in music preservation.
(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A20)
1910 Jack London wrote "Burning
Daylight."
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-3)
1910 Herman Lons, German
writer, authored his novel “The Warwolf: a peasant chronicle.” It
was set in the time of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), during
which some 10 million people died including 4 million Germans. In
2006 it was made available in English.
(WSJ, 6/16/06, p.P8)
1910 Thomas Ince set up a Wild
West Show with Sioux Indians at his Inceville village near Los
Angeles and cranked out silent Western films.
(SFC, 1/29/00, p.E3)
1910 Charlie Chaplin, actor,
arrived in the US as part of a London music-hall troupe.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A12)
1910 Bert Williams, actor,
broke the color line on Broadway.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C15)
1910 The NYC film company IMP
produced “Coquette’s Suitor” and identified Florence Lawrence by
name as the lead actress. This was the 1st time to date that a move
star was identified for the purposes of advertising.
(ON, 4/06, p.6)
1910 Gustav Mahler composed his
9th Symphony.
(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.D8)
1910 Igor Stravinsky composed
"The Firebird."
1910 About this time jazz bands
began playing in the gambling houses and brothels of the city’s
notorious Storyville section.
(HNQ, 5/12/98)
1910 Zeppelin scare stories
began to appear in the press in England.
(AHM, 1/97)
1910 The Brooklyn Botanic
Garden was established under Dr. Charles Stuart Gager.
(WSJ, 6/21/06, p.D10)
1910 The Embrey Dam was
constructed on the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg, Va. The
22-foot dam was removed in 2004 to open up the river to migratory
fish.
(SFC, 2/24/04, p.A2)
1910 Carl Graham Fisher
(1874-1939), on a vacation to Miami about this time, saw potential
in the swampy, bug-infested stretch of land between Miami and the
ocean, and in his mind transformed the 3,500 acres of mangrove swamp
and beach into the perfect vacation destination for his automobile
industry friends, which he called "Miami Beach." He and his wife
bought a vacation home there in 1912 and he began acquiring land. In
2000 Mark Foster authored “Castles in the Sand: The Life and Times
of Carl Graham Fisher.” In 1913 Fisher conceived and helped develop
the Lincoln Highway, the first road for the automobile across the
entire United States of America. As a serial entrepreneur he
developed much of Miami Beach.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_G._Fisher)(Econ, 12/20/08, p.116)
1910 The Hasagawa General Store
was opened in Hana on Maui, Hawaii.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, p.T9)
1910 In San Francisco the Clay
Theater on Fillmore St. opened as a nickelodeon. The single-screen
theater closed down in 2010.
(SFC, 8/23/10, p.E1)
1910 In SF the 9-story Central
YMCA at 220 Golden Gate Ave. was completed. In 2009 it was closed to
make way for affordable apartments for the homeless.
(SSFC, 5/17/09, p.B1)
1910 In northern California
Fort Barry was established to the west of Fort Baker.
(SFC, 6/13/08, p.A22)
1910 Allensworth, an all-black
community in Tulare County, was founded by Allen Allensworth, a
former Louisiana slave.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.5)
1910 In SF William T. “Cocktail
Bill” Boothby (d.1930), devised his Boothby cocktail at the Palace
Hotel. It was essentially a Manhattan with a Champagne float.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.F2)
1910 The US Grant Hotel was
built in San Diego by the son of Civil War Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
(SSFC, 4/8/07, p.G1)
1910 The Hotel Stockton was
built in Stockton, Ca. in the Mission Revival style.
(SFC, 4/28/05, p.A14)
1910 The Thorsen House in
Berkeley, California, was designed by Charles Sumner Greene and
Henry Mather Greene. In 1943 it became the home of the Sigma Phi
fraternity.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.D1)
1910 Gus Vollmer, town marshal
of Berkeley Ca., instituted the first bicycle partrols by police
officers.
(SFC, 4/29/08, p.A1)
1910 In Scotia, Ca., the
Pacific Lumber Co. built Mill B to process old growth redwood. The
mill was closed in 2001.
(SSFC, 5/13/01, p.A4)
1910 Henry Murphy purchased 375
acres of Big Sur, Ca., from Tom Slate. The area was known as Slate’s
Hot Springs. The Esselen Indian tribe had used the area as their
burial ground and provided the Esalen name for the institute that
was later established there after work crews provided highway access
in the 1930s.
(SSFC, 6/16/02, p.A17)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.74)
1910 The first California
community college opened in Fresno.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1910 The Suisun City Railroad
Station was built about this time in Suisun City, Ca.
(Hem., Nov.’95, p.91)
1910 Hiram Johnson was elected
as governor of California. He promised to rid California politics of
the Southern Pacific Railroad influence.
(Smith., 5/95, p.94)(WSJ, 3/3/98, p.A16)(SFC,
4/18/98, p.A1)
1910 The Oklahoma State
Reformatory was built of granite from Wildcat Mountain by the first
60 inmates who arrived in covered wagons.
(WSJ, 11/2/05, p.A9)
1910 A double-hinged folding
purse became popular in Paris and transferred over to the US.
(SFC,11/12/97, Z1 p.7)
1910 American women began
buying most of their dresses in ready-to-wear shops and Edmund
Fairchild began publishing Women's Wear Daily for the garment
industry.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, Z1 p.8)
1910 Domestic servants were the
2nd largest employee group in developed countries at this time.
(Wired, 8/96, p.120)
1910 The Urban League was
formed to help Southern black Americans adjust to city living in the
North.
(HNQ, 6/3/99)
1910 Honus Wagner played
baseball (Louisville Colonels & Pittsburgh Pirates, from
1897-1917) and had his baseball card pulled from cigarette packs.
His cards thus became rare and by 1991 sold for $451, 000.
(WSJ, 9/20/96, p.B1)
1910 The lively cork-centered
ball made its debut in baseball.
(WSJ, 9/4/98, p.A1)
1910 In the boxing heavyweight
championship between Jack Johnson, a black man, and white
challenger, Jim Jeffries, it is believed that Jack London coined the
phrase "Great White Hope" while covering the fight.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.A17)
1910 Otto Wallach (d.1931),
German chemist, won the Nobel Prize.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1910 Woodrow Wilson ran for
governor of New Jersey.
(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A12)
1910 US General Leonard Wood
(b.1860) was named Chief of Staff of the Army, the only medical
officer to ever hold the position.
(www.wood.army.mil/MGLeonardwood.htm)
1910 The US census categorized
the population as "White, Black, Mulatto, Chinese, Japanese, and
other."
(SFC,12/26/97, p.A21)
1910 An amendment to the
Immigration Act of 1907 barred disease carriers from entry into the
United States. After Congress amended the Immigration Act,
criminals, paupers, anarchists, and disease carriers were forbidden
to enter the United States.
(HNQ, 5/20/99)
1910 The US federal regulator
for rail took on the regulation of telephony.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.86)
1910 The Flexner Report, a
book-length study of medical education in the US and Canada, led to
the overhaul of medical education. It was written under the aegis of
the Carnegie Foundation.
(Econ, 6/11/11, p.65)
1910 California built a dam at
Crane Valley near Yosemite creating a lake called the Crane Valley
Reservoir. A local lumber company polluted the lake killing all the
fish. The lake was restocked with bass and renamed Bass Lake.
(SSFC, 7/16/06, p.G8)
1910 William Durant
(1861-1947), the founder of General Motors, was turfed out by the
company’s bankers. In 1911 he joined forces with Louis Chevrolet, a
Swiss-born racing driver, to set up a new carmaker that was later
folded into GM.
(Econ, 10/29/11,
p.76)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Durant)
1910 Gambling in Nevada was
outlawed.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)
1910 Tennessee passed a
Prohibition law that gave distillers one year to dismantle their
operations. George Dickel's operations moved to Kentucky and Jack
Daniel's to Missouri and Alabama. Prohibition knocked both out of
business in 1920.
(SFC, 2/04/04, p.D2)
1910 The US Salomon Brothers
financial firm was founded. By 2001 it was folded into Citigroup. In
2001 Charles R. Geisst authored "The Last Partnerships."
(WSJ, 5/31/01, p.A14)
1910 Financiers in support of
federal supervision of the banking system in the US held a
clandestine meeting at the exclusive Jekyll Island Club off the
coast of Georgia that eventually led to the formation of the Federal
Reserve System.
(WSJ, 5/8/95, p.A-14)
1910 There was a murder in
Florida later described by Peter Matthiessen (b.1927) in his 1997
book "Lost Man’s River." It was part of his Watson trilogy. The
first part was titled "Killing Mr. Watson" (1990).
(SFC,11/22/97, p.D1)(SFEC,12/797, p.B11)
1910 Joyce Clyde Hall (b.1891)
of Nebraska and his brother began selling greeting cards In Kansas
City, Mo. This was the beginning of Hallmark Cards.
(http://pressroom.hallmark.com/comprehensive_timline.html)
1910 Henry Ford opened a new
plant in Highland Park, Mich., the largest plant in the world. The
retail price of the Model T dropped to $780.
(ON, 3/03, p.3)
1910 The Nelson McCoy Sanitary
Stoneware Co. was founded in Roseville, Ohio. In 1933 the name was
changed to the Nelson McCoy Pottery Co. and it stayed in business
until 1990.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.G4)
1910 Nils August Johanson
founded Swedish Hospital in Seattle. His daughter, Katherine,
married Elmer Nordstrom in 1934 and helped build the Nordstrom
apparel chain.
(SFEC, 6/4/00, p.C15)
1910 In Washington state Axel
Uddenberg opened Gig Harbor’s first general store. In the 1960s it
served as a dance and music hall. In 1973 Peter Stanley bought the
place and turned it into the Tides Tavern.
(SSFC, 9/2/07, p.D8)
1910 John D. Rockefeller gave
$1 million for the creation of the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission
to coordinate activity for the cure and prevention of hookworm,
which infected some 40% of school-age southern children.
(WSJ, 1/16/03, p.A2)
1910 The Black & Decker
tool company was founded.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A25)
1910 Alfred C. Fuller took his
brush business national with ads in a national magazine for
salesmen.
(WSJ, 11/3/99, p.B1)
1910 The Hearst Corp.
established The National Magazine Company Ltd. In the United
Kingdom.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1910 The Thomas A. Edison Inc.
was formed.
(SFC, 7/29/98, Z1 p.23)
1910 The Western Pacific
Railroad opened passenger service between San Francisco and Salt
Lake City.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, DB p.30)
1910 The Owen automobile
offered a top, windshield, electric horn, headlamps and a tail lamp
as standard features.
1910 Italian automaker Fiat
began building cars in the US and continued until 1918.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1910 The first rearview mirrors
were used by an Indianapolis 500 driver who won the race.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1910 Czar Nicholas of Russia
purchased a Delaunay-Belleville with a backseat heater that used hot
water from the engine. Most Americans used buffalo robes.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1910 Bill Keys (d.1969) began
working in the Desert Queen Mine in Southern California. He
eventually inherited the mine which went bust and homesteaded a
ranch by the same name. He later was convicted on a murder charge
but after 5 years in prison was pardoned after Eric Stanley Gardner,
author of the Perry Mason books, interceded on his behalf.
(Sp., 5/96, p.126)
1910 The industrial force
exceeded the number of people engaged in agriculture in the Belgium
and Japan.
(V.D.-H.K.p.284)
c1910 The 6-day workweek faded
to a 5-day workweek.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, Z1 p.8)
1910 The US black population
totaled 9,828,000 people while the mulatto count was 2,051,000.
(SFC, 5/3/96, A-25)
1910 T. Hunt Morgan, a
geneticist at Columbia Univ., used fruit flies to show that traits
get passed down through genes and chromosomes.
(SFC, 6/27/00, p.A17)
1910 Miss Henrietta S. Leavitt
(1868-1921), American astronomer at Harvard, discovered that there
is a definite relation between the observed luminosities of
pulsating cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds and their pulsation
periods: the brighter a star is, the longer it takes to go through
its cycle.
(SCTS, p.174)
1910 The tail of Halley’s Comet
brushed Earth and entrepreneurs made some quick money selling "comet
gas masks" to protect people from the poisonous cyanogen gas that
was discovered coming off the comet.
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.A12)
1910 Barnum Brown, fossil
hunter of the American Museum of Natural History, found the Red Deer
River fossil site in Alberta, Canada.
(T.E.-J.B. p.25)
1910 A 100-kg aquamarine stone
was found in Minas Gerais, Brazil, whose value in 1996 would exceed
US$25 million.
(USA Today, OW, 4/22/96, p.13)
1910 Fires swept across the
Western US and burned over 8 million acres.
(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A3)
1910 Jack Daniel, whiskey
producer, died of blood poisoning. His nephew Lem Motlow took over
the business.
(SFC, 2/04/04, p.D2)
1910 Winslow Homer (b.1836),
American painter, died. His work "Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)" was
done between 1873-1876. His sea painting from the rocky coast of New
England captured the power of the sea on the people who confronted
it and depended on it. In 2002 Patricia Junker and Sarah Burns
authored "Winslow Homer: Artist and Angler."
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-12)(HN, 2/24/99)(WSJ, 7/21/00,
p.W2)(WSJ, 1/10/03, p.W7)
1910 Namikawa Sosuke (b.1847),
top Japanese cloisonne artist, died.
(WSJ, 9/24/04,
p.W10)(www.widener.edu/?pageId=436&vobId=1040&pm=566)
1910 Australia’s government
began removing Aboriginal children from their families, in what was
considered to be best for the children. The race was later estimated
to number about 60,000 nationally at this time, and was said to be
doomed to extinction. The policy continued into the 1970s. As many
as 100,000 children were seized from their parents creating what was
later called the "stolen generation."
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A10)(SFC, 5/26/00, p.A20)(AP,
1/30/08)
1910 China’s imperial Manchu
house staged a world’s fair in Nanjing calling it the “South Seas
Encouraging Industry Meeting.” 14 foreign countries took part.
(Econ, 12/5/09, p.54)
1910 In France Le Divan
bookstore was founded in the Left Bank of Paris. It was put up for
sale in 1996 by its owners, the Gallimard publishing house.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T9)
1910 In France a hairdresser
devised the permanent wave for hair.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1910 Paris was menaced by a
great flood. "The streets were like rivers, the squares, like great
lakes."
(SFEC, 8/25/96, BR p.5)(SFEC, 9/21/97, BR p.4)
1910 The French built a
railroad line to link Haiphong, Vietnam, to Kunming, the capital of
China's Yunnan province.
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.42)
1910 French Equatorial Africa
was a former administrative grouping of four French territories in
west central Africa. It was first formed by the federation of 3
French imperial colonies: Gabon, Middle Congo, and
Ubangi-Shari-Chad. It comprised a total area of 969,112 square miles
(2,500,000 sq km). Chad was separated from Ubangi-Shari in 1920 to
form a fourth colony.
(www.discoverfrance.net)
1910 In Germany there was an
important show on Islamic art in Munich.
(WSJ, 12/11/97, p.A21)
1910 In India Laxmanrao
Kirloskar banded together 25 workers and their families and
succeeded in transforming a barren expanse in Aundh state into his
dream village. Kirloskar Brothers Limited (KBL), the first Kirloskar
venture at Kirloskarvadi was to become the base for all of the
Kirloskar Group's subsequent enterprises. It began as the only
Indian company with its own products, a fodder cutter and iron
plough, which competed with British products.
(http://kirloskarapps.kirloskar.com/kirloskar/web/11$M1.html)(Econ,
6/3/06, Survey p.8)
1910 Degania Aleph, Israel’s
first kibbutz, was founded by 12 pioneers, while the area was still
under Ottoman control. In 2007 it joined a growing proportion of
kibbutzim abandoning egalitarian socialism in favor of a self-taxing
regime combined with free-market forces.
(SSFC, 3/4/07, p.A15)
1910 In Italy Ermenegildo Zegna
(d.1966 at 74) began his fashion house in Trivero, in the Alpine
foothills.
(Econ, 11/13/10,
p.76)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermenegildo_Zegna)
1910 In Japan Kida Sadakichi
wrote "The Teaching of National History."
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.34)
1910 In Korea the Chosun
Dynasty ended when the Japanese deposed the royal family after a
518-year reign. King Sunjong was the final ruler. The occupational
force allowed the monarchy to retain its ceremonial court for
several years.
(SFC, 5/9/01, p.C18)
1910 The Mexican Revolution
became a consuming civil war.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)
1910 Montenegro, a principality
in the 19th century, was recognized as a kingdom.
(AP, 10/20/02)
1910 Manuel II, Portugal’s last
king, was overthrown and went into exile in England.
(SSFC, 9/29/02, p.C12)
1910-1911 Piet Mondrian painted the symbolist
triptych "Evolution." It anticipated sci-fi comic-book illustration
by 50 years.
(WSJ, 9/10/97, p.A20)
1910-1914 In 1935 George Dangerfield authored “The
Strange Death of Liberal England.” It was an attempt to explain the
decline of the British Liberal Party during this period.
(Econ, 9/25/10, p.104)
1910-1925 The Royal Art Glass Co. in New York City
made glass lamps.
(SFC, 8/5/98, Z1 p.3)
1910-1931 The Long Trail, which follows the crest
of the Green Mountains for 265 miles, was built and served as a
model for the Appalachian Trail.
(NH, 7/96, p.54)
1910-1939 In 2007 Katie Roiphe authored “Uncommon
Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary
Circles 1910-1939.”
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P9)
1910-1970 More than 6 million southern blacks left
their rural homes in search of an urban "Promised Land" in the
north. The largest migration in American history was caused by the
"push" of hardships prevalent in the South--such as segregation,
lynching and the economic hopelessness of the sharecropping
system--and the "pull" of opportunity in the North. Plentiful
industrial jobs, although sometimes menial, often offered wages
three times higher than did jobs in the South. Glowing reports from
friends and family already in the North inspired increased
migration. While racism, housing shortages and crime often greeted
the new arrivals, they also found organizations such as the National
Urban League and National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) dedicated to improving the lives of black Americans.
(HNPD, 2/10/99)
1910-1981 Samuel Barber, American composer.
(DrEE, 9/28/96, p.5)
1910-1987 Gimbel’s department store stood on
Herald Square in NYC.
(SFC, 12/13/06, p.E3)
1910-1997 Dame C.V. Wedgwood, English historian:
"An educated man should know everything about something, and
something about everything."
(AP, 12/1/97)
1911 Jan 2, The Terra Nova
expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott reached the coast of
Antarctica.
(ON, 6/20/11, p.5)
1911 Jan 3, Joseph Rauh civil
rights activist: cofounded Americans for Democratic Action; member:
executive board of NAACP; general counsel: Leadership Conference on
Civil Rights, was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1911 Jan 3, John Sturges
director: Bad Day at Black Rock, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The
Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Ice Station Zebra, The Eagle
Has Landed, was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1911 Jan 5, Portugal expelled
the Jesuits.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1911 Jan 7, Aviator James
Radley, operating a French Bleriot airplane, performed over South
San Francisco, skimmed the West Virginia, the flagship of
Rear-Admiral Barry, and checked the time of San Francisco Ferry
Tower clock on both sides.
(SSFC, 1/2/11, DB p.42)
1911 Jan 10, Rear Admiral
Buttervant Barry (1849-1938), commander in chief of the US Pacific
fleet, was discovered in his quarters on the flagship West Virginia
engaged in a liaison with a cabin boy. Admiral Barry, in lieu of
resigning or suicide, retired on Jan 13.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, DB
p.42)(www.arlingtoncemetery.net/ebbarry.htm)
1911 Jan 10, Two German
cruisers, the Emden and the Nurnberg, suppressed a native revolt on
island of Ponape in the Carolina Islands [Caroline Islands, east of
the Philippines] when they fired on the island and land troops.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1911 Jan 14, The USS Arkansas,
the largest U.S. battleship, was launched from the yards of NY
Shipbuilding Company.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1911 Jan 15, An explosive bomb
was dropped from an airplane during an aviation meet in South San
Francisco. The plane was about 400 feet high and the bomb dropped
within 10 feet of its target.
(SSFC, 1/16/11, DB p.42)
1911 Jan 16, Jay Hanna Dean,
aka "Dizzy Dean," one of baseball's greatest pitchers, hall of fame,
was born.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1911 Jan 17, Francis Galton
(b.1822), English scientist, died. He was one of the first moderns
to present a carefully considered eugenics program. His work
included the invention of weather maps and the description of
fingerprints. He also developed a system for classifying human
profiles using geometric diagrams. He was a cousin of Charles Darwin
and the founder of the science of statistics. The idea of
sterilizing human beings considered as physical or mental
undesirables stemmed from Galton’s ideas.
(NH, 6/97, p.18)(SFC, 8/28/97,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton)
1911 Jan 18, Naval aviation was
born when pilot Eugene B. Ely flew a Curtis Pusher biplane onto the
deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.a15)(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A15)(AP,
1/18/98)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A19)
1911 Jan 22, Bruno Kreisky,
bandleader, chancellor (1970-83), was born in Austria.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1911 Jan 24, U.S. Cavalry was
sent to preserve the neutrality of the Rio Grande during the Mexican
Civil War.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1911 Jan 26, The Richard
Strauss opera "Der Rosenkavalier" premiered in Dresden, Germany.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1911 Jan 26, Glenn Curtiss
piloted the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1911 Jan 28, In San Francisco
143 were taken prisoner following a raid on gambling at a poolroom
at Fourth and Mission streets run by Brophy & Collins.
(SSFC, 1/23/11, p.42)
1911 Jan 31, The German
Reichstag exempted royal families from tax obligations.
(HN, 1/31/99)
1911 Jan, A pair of U.S. Army
aviators dropped the first live bomb. The Mexican Revolution gave
the opportunity to use the airplane in actual combat. Airplanes had
already begun to replace balloons for battlefield observation.
(HNQ, 7/16/00)
1911 Feb 2, Johan J. "Jussi"
Bjorling, great Swedish tenor, was born. Now regarded by many as the
greatest opera tenor of the middle 20th Century.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1911 Feb 6, Ronald Reagan was
born in Tampico, Illinois. Reagan went on to become a film actor,
governor of California (1967-1975) and the 40th president of the
United States (1981-1989) and was credited with ending the Cold War.
(HN, 2/6/99)(AP, 2/6/08)
1911 Feb 6, 1st old-age home
opened in Prescott, Ariz.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1911 Feb 8, Elizabeth Bishop,
poet, was born.
(HN, 2/8/01)
1911 Feb 8, Victor Herbert's
opera "Natoma," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1911 Feb 8, US helped overthrow
President Miguel Devila of Honduras.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1911 Feb 17, The 1st hydroplane
flight to & from a ship was made by Glenn Curtiss in San Diego.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1911 Feb 19, Merle Oberon, film
actress, was born.
(HN, 2/19/01)
1911 Feb 21, Gustav Mahler
conducted his last concert.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1911 Feb 22, Canadian
Parliament voted to preserve the union with the British Empire.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1911 Feb 23, G. Mennen
("Soapy") Williams, (Gov-D-Mich, 1949-60), was born in Detroit.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1911 Feb 25, A rare snowstorm
hit San Francisco.
(SSFC, 2/20/11, DB p.46)
1911 Feb 28, Denis Burkitt,
British medical researcher, was born.
(HN, 2/28/01)
1911 Mar 1, Jose Ordonez was
elected the president of Uruguay.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1911 Mar 3, Jean Harlow
(Harlean Carpenter)(actress: Platinum Blonde, Red Dust, Bombshell,
Dinner at Eight, China Seas, Libeled Lady), was born.
(HC, Internet, 3/3/98)
1911 Mar 3, The 1st US federal
cemetery with Union and Rebel graves opened at Jefferson Barracks
National Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1911 Mar 4, Victor Berger of
Wisconsin became the 1st socialist congressman in US.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1911 Mar 7, The United States
sent 20,000 troops to the Mexican border in the wake of the Mexican
Revolution.
(AP, 3/7/98)
1911 Mar 8, Alan Hovhaness,
composer (Lousadzak, Ukiyo), was born in Somerville, Mass.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1911 Mar 8, International
Women's Day was established when American working women demonstrated
for their rights as workers and women.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(SFC, 3/8/02, p.A32)
1911 Mar 9, The funding for
five new battleships was added to the British military defense
budget.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1911 Mar 11, The Cadillac
Division of General Motors demonstrated the first electric self
starter, enabling women to drive alone. Charles Kettering created
the first successful electric self-starter for Cadillac. It was
introduced in the 1912 model. The perfection of the self-starter by
inventor Charles Kettering enormously expanded the market for the
automobile. Kettering, born in Londonville, Ohio, in 1876, had
invented an electric cash register motor while at the National Cash
Register Company in 1906. In 1909 he organized the Dayton
Engineering Laboratories Company, later known as Delco, and soon
made notable improvements in automobile ignition and lighting
systems. His self-starter was introduced in the 1912 Cadillac. He
founded the Charles F. Kettering Foundation dedicated to natural
science research and was co-founder of the Sloan-Kettering Institute
for Cancer Research. Kettering died in 1958.
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)(F, 10/7/96, p.67)(HNQ,
3/3/99)
1911 Mar 12, In San Francisco a
squad of immigration officials captured 6 Chinese slave girls, said
to have been purchased for $25,000.
(SSFC, 3/13/11, DB p.42)
1911 Mar 12, Dr. Fletcher of
Rockefeller Institute discovered the cause of infantile paralysis.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1911 Mar 12, Gustavo Diaz
Ordaz, president of Mexico, was born.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1911 Mar 13, LaFayette Ron
Hubbard (L. Ron Hubbard, d.1986), sci-fi writer, scientologist
founder of Scientology (Dyanetics), was born.
(SFC, 2/12/01, p.A13)(MC, 3/13/02)
1911 Mar 13, The Supreme Court
approved the corporate tax law.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1911 Mar 16, Josef Mengele, MD,
PhD, SS ("The Angel of Death at Auschwitz"), was born in Gunzburg,
Germany.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1911 Mar 18, Theodore Roosevelt
opened the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the
U.S. to date.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1911 Mar 18, A vote was held
for the incorporation of Daly City, Ca. The voting place was the
upstairs backroom of Jack Letlos’ Restaurant on Mission Rd. The vote
was for 132, against 130. Also passed in the vote was the new
official name of Daly City in honor of John Daly.
(GTP, 1973, p.84)(LaPen, 12/86, p.4)
1911 Mar 20, Winter Garden
Theater opened at 1634 Broadway, NYC.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1911 Mar 20, Russian Premier
Stolypin resigned in St. Petersburg.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1911 Mar 24, Penal code reform
abolished corporal punishment in Denmark.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1911 Mar 25, The Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146 immigrant workers. 13 girls
survived the fire that broke out on the top three floors of the
10-story New York’s Asch Building as the workday was ending. No one
knows what caused the fire, but it spread quickly, fueled by the
fabric scraps and sewing machine oil used in the manufacture women’s
blouses. The three avenues of escape were almost immediately clogged
with panicked workers, mostly young immigrant women. Then, to the
horror of spectators seven stories below, the desperate women began
to jump to their deaths. Appalled by the tragedy, the New York State
legislature formed a commission whose findings led to the creation
of new fire and building codes that were soon adopted in cities
throughout America.
(HNPD, 3/25/00)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A8)(SFC, 2/24/99,
p.C4)(AP, 3/23/08)
1911 Mar 26, Tennessee Williams
(d.1983), American dramatist, was born in Columbus, Miss. His plays
included "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "A Streetcar Name Desire."
(HN, 3/26/01)(AP,
3/26/02)(http://tinyurl.com/s8zm5)
1911 Mar 28, M.K. Ciurlionis
(b.1875), Lithuanian artist and composer, died.
(LC, 1998, p.12)
1911 Mar, The American Economic
Review (AER) published its first article, a look at irrigation in
the western United States.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.84)
1911 Apr 1, Gunther Rennert,
opera director, producer, was born in Essen, Germany.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1911 Apr 3, The US Supreme
Court ruled against Dr. Miles Medical Co., which had sued a
distributor for selling at cut rate prices. In 1937 Congress passed
the Free Trade Law letting states selectively allow price fixing to
protect small retailers.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/220/373/)(WSJ,
8/18/08, p.A12)
1911 Apr 6, In San Francisco
the Police Board examined 9 Mission saloon keepers who were cited
for selling liquor to women decoys. Mission District Police Capt.
Henry Gleeson faced a possible charge of neglect of duty.
(SSFC, 4/3/11, DB p.46)
1911 Apr 8, Melvin Calvin, US
chemist (photosynthesis, Nobel 1961), was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1911 Apr 12, Pierre Prier
completed the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and
56 minutes.
(HN, 4/12/99)
1911 Apr 13, Nino Sanzogno,
composer, was born.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1911 Apr 18, George Huntington
Hartford II, heir (A&P), was born in NYC.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1911 Apr 21, Leonard Warren,
baritone, Met 1939-60, was born in NYC.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1911 Apr 23, Simone Simon,
French actress (All Money Can Buy, Ladies in Love), was born.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1911 Apr 30, Portugal approved
woman suffrage.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1911 May 4, In San Francisco
Police chief Seymour instructed Capt. Thomas Duke of Central Station
to notify the proprietors of brothels that $2 per day would be the
maximum they would be allowed to charge the 100 prostitutes at 633
Jackson and 719 Commercial Street. Current charges for the women
were $5 per day.
(SSFC, 5/1/11, DB p.46)
1911 May 8, Robert Johnson,
bluesman, was born in Mississippi.
(HT, 5/97, p.40),
1911 May 8, England signed a
treaty with China making opium the main trading commodity with the
Chinese.
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)
1911 May 11, Doodles Weaver,
comedian (Spike Jones and City Slickers), was born in LA, Calif.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1911 May 13, NY Giant Fred
Merkle was 1st to get 6 RBIs in an inning (1st).
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1911 May 15, Max Frisch
(d.1991), Swiss architect and writer, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Frisch)
1911 May 15, The Supreme Court
ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in
violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The anti-trust suit led to
the dissolution of Standard Oil Co. of John D. Rockefeller. From its
remains 34 new companies were formed that included Exxon, Mobil,
Amoco, Chevron, Arco and Conoco. Rockefeller’s quarter interest in
the parent turned into a quarter interest in all the offspring. The
action of the supreme court was based n part on findings by Ida
Tarbell, who published articles in McClure’s Magazine regarding
Rockefeller and Standard Oil. In 2008 Steve Weinberg authored
“Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D.
Rockefeller.”
(AP, 5/15/97)(WSJ, 5/8/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 3/28/08,
p.W5)
1911 May 16, Remains of a
Neanderthal man were found in Jersey, UK.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1911 May 16, Zeppelin
"Deutschland" was wrecked at Dusseldorf.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1911 May 17, Maureen O’Sullivan
(d.1998), film actress, was born in Boyle, Ireland.
(SFC, 6/24/98, p.C2)
1911 May 18, Joseph Vernon "Big
Joe" Turner, blues singer, was born in Kansas City, MO.
(HN, 5/18/01)
1911 May 18, San Francisco
received its first shipment of red onions from Stockton and growers
received $2.25 per sack for all they could deliver. Italian
gardeners earned about $500 an acre from their crop.
(SSFC, 5/15/11, DB p.46)
1911 May 18, Composer Gustav
Mahler (50) died in Vienna, Austria. His wife Alma Schindler married
Walter Gropius in 1915. Mahler left his 10th symphony unfinished. A
1996 recording was made based on work by Remo Mazzetti Jr. who in
turn based his work on the late Deryck Cooke. In 2004 Cornell Univ.
Press published “Gustav Mahler: Letters to His Wife.” In 2010 Norman
Lebrecht authored “Why Mahler: How One Man and Ten Symphonies
Changed the World.”
(SFEC, 5/18/97, DB p.52)(AP, 5/18/01)(WSJ,
12/15/04, p.D10)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.81)
1911 May 19, Maurice Ravel’s
opera "L'Heure Espagnole," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1911 May 23, The NY Public
Library building at 5th Avenue was dedicated by Pres Taft. In 2008
the central reference building at 42nd and Fifth Avenue was renamed
"The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building following a $100 million
contribution by Schwarzman (b.1947), co-founder of the Blackstone
Group, toward the expansion of the New York Public Library.
(SFC, 5/23/11,
p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman)
1911 May 25, Porfolio Diaz,
President of Mexico, resigned his office under pressure from the
revolution.
(HN, 5/25/98)(SC, 5/25/02)
1911 May 27, Hubert Humphrey,
senator, was born. He served as VP (1965-69) to Lyndon Johnson (38th
VP), and was a presidential candidate in 1968. "The greatest gift of
life is friendship and I have received it."
(HN, 5/27/98)(AP, 2/28/01)(MC, 5/27/02)
1911 May 27, Vincent Price,
actor, was born in St. Louis, Mo. He became best known for his role
in movies of Edgar Allen Poe horror stories. He stared in The Fly.
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)(HN, 5/27/99)
1911 May 27, The Coney Island
attraction "Dreamland" was destroyed by fire. The biggest ballroom
in the world was located at the end of the Dreamland Pier from
1904-1911.
(http://history.amusement-parks.com/dreamlandfire.htm)(Econ,
12/22/07, p.91)
1911 May 29, The first running
of the Indianapolis 500. Ray Harroun won at 74.59 mph (120 kph).
[see May 30]
(HN, 5/29/98)(SC, 5/29/02)
1911 May 29, In SF the
amusement park known as "The Chutes," located on Fillmore Street,
burned down. The fire originated in the Chutes restaurant and
destroyed 13 stores in the Chutes building. All the animals in the
“Happy Family House” as well as the donkeys and ponies in the Chutes
stable were killed. There would not be another amusement park in San
Francisco for over 20 years, until Chutes-at-the-Beach opened at
Ocean Beach in the mid-1920s, changing its name to
Playland-at-the-Beach by 1928 and lasting until 1972. The
shoot-the-chutes attraction was torn down in January 1950.
(AJSF, Vol. 14. No. 2, Winter, 2003)(SSFC,
5/29/11, DB p.46)
1911 May 29, William Schwenck
Gilbert (74), writer (Gilbert & Sullivan), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1911 May 30, The first
long-distance auto race in Indianapolis was won by Ray Harroun. One
driver was killed and the average speed was 74.4 mph. [see May 29]
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)(AP, 5/30/97)
1911 May, Morgan Shuster
(1877-1960), an American lawyer, began serving as treasurer-general
of the Persian empire. In December under Russian and British
pressure, the vice-regent of Persia expelled Shuster from office
against the will of the Persian parliament.
(Econ, 7/17/10, p.87)
1911 Jun 4, Gold was discovered
in Alaska’s Indian Creek.
(HN, 6/4/98)
1911 Jun 6, The
Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was created by a merger
of The Tabulating Machine Company (Herman Hollerith's punch card
company in Washington, DC), International Time Recording Company (a
time clock maker in NY state), Computing Scale Company (maker of
scales and food slicers in Dayton, Ohio), and Bundy Manufacturing
(time clock maker in Auburn, NY). In 1924 the company was renamed
Int’l. Business Machines (IBM).
(http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_flint.html)(Econ,
6/11/11, p.64)
1911 Jun 9, Carry Amelia Moore
Gloyd Nation (b.1846), American temperance leader, died in
Leavenworth, Kansas. She was buried in the Belton City Cemetery,
Belton, Cass County, Missouri. Carry Nation was a social reformer,
saloon smasher and scourge of barkeepers and drinkers everywhere.
(www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/carry8.htm)
1911 Jun 10, Queen Wilhelmina
opened the Rembrandt house in Amsterdam.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1911 Jun 13, Luis W. Alvarez
(d.1988), physicist (Nobel-1968), was born in SF, Ca.
(MC, 6/13/02)(www.britannica.com)
1911 Jun 21, Albert
Hirschfield, illustrator, was born.
(HN, 6/21/01)
1911 Jun 21, Porfirio Diaz, the
ex-president of Mexico, exiled himself to Paris.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1911 Jun 22, King George V of
England crowned at Westminster Abbey.
(SFEM, 1/26/97, p.40)(HN, 6/22/98)
1911 Jun 27, Appsley
Cherry-Gerrard, an English aristocrat and the youngest member of the
Robert Falcon Scott South Pole expedition, began a 5 week
expedition, lit by 5 hour-days of twilight, hauling a sledge on a
hunt for pelican eggs that Scott wanted. He was accompanied by Lt.
Henry Bowers and ornithologist Dr. Edward Wilson In 1922 he authored
“The Worst Journey in the World.” The author was later part of the
rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and
three men who had accompanied Scott on the final push to the Pole.
(WSJ, 4/28/07, p.P8)(ON, 6/20/11, p.6)
1911 Jun 28, Samuel J. Battle
became the first African-American policeman in New York City.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1911 Jun 29, Klaus E.J. Fuchs,
German nuclear physicist, spy, was born.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1911 Jun 29, Bernard Herrmann,
composer, was born.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1911 Jun 30, Czeslaw Milosz
(d.2004), Polish poet and critic and Nobel winner, was born in
Lithuania. In 2001 his Polish "Milosz’s ABC’s" was published in
English.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.C1)(HN, 6/30/01)
1911 Jul 1, A proclamation
removed "Dei Gratia" from Canada's coins.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1911 Jul 4, 105øF
(41øC) at Vernon, Vermont (state record).
(Maggio, 98)
1911 Jul 4, 106øF
(41øC) at Nashua, New Hampshire (state record).
(Maggio, 98)
1911 Jul 4, Ty Cobb went 0 for
4 & ended a 40 game hit streak. White Sox Ed Walsh stopped Ty
Cobb's 40-game hitting streak.
(Maggio, 98)
1911 Jul 5, George Pompidou,
Prime Minister of France, 1968, was born.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1911 Jul 7, Gian-Carlo Menotti,
composer (Amahl & Night Visitors), was born in Italy.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1911 Jul 14, Terry Thomas,
actor (It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), was born in England.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1911 Jul 16, Ginger Rogers
(d.1995), actress and dancer, was born as Virginia Katherine McMath.
(HN, 7/16/01)(MC, 7/16/02)
1911 Jul 18, Hume Cronyn, actor
(World According to Garp, Cocoon), was born in London, Ontario.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1911 Jul 20, Generals Henry
Wilson and Auguste Dubail signed a plan for British Expeditionary
army in case of war with Germany.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1911 Jul 21, Marshall McLuhan
(d.1980), Canadian English professor and communication theorist,
author of "The Medium is the Message," was born. He wrote the book:
"Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man." "Only the vanquished
remember history."
(V.D.-H.K.p.357)(HN, 7/21/98)(AP, 4/11/00)
1911 Jul 24, Hiram Bingham,
American explorer, was led by local guides to a Lost City of the
Incas. He explored several Inca ruins and the mountaintop citadel of
Machu Pichu. He was in search of the lost city of Vilcabamba, the
Inca’s legendary last refuge from the invading Spaniards. Bingham
was an archeologist from Yale and later served as a Connecticut
governor and US senator. In 1948 Bingham authored “Lost City of the
Incas.”
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 543)(SFC, 5/13/98,
p.C4)(www.tambotours.com/binghamtrek.html)(WSJ, 11/1/08, p.W18)
1911 Jul 28, Ann Doran, actress
(Longstreet, Shirley), was born in Amarillo, Tx.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1911 Jul 31, George Liberace,
violinist (Liberace Show), was born in Menasha, Wisc.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1911 Aug 1, Konrad Duden
(b.1829), German philologist, died. His 1880 dictionary represents
the start of the Duden series and included 28,000 words on 187
pages.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Duden)
1911 Aug 3, Airplanes were used
for the first time in a military capacity when Italian planes
reconnoitered Turkish lines near Tripoli.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1911 Aug 6, Lucille Ball
(d.1989), American actress and comedian, was born. "I don’t know
anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it, and I’m afraid of
people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work—and realizing
what is opportunity and what isn’t."
(AP, 3/12/98)(HN, 8/6/98)
1911 Aug 10, The House of Lords
in Great Britain gave up its veto power, making the House of Commons
the more powerful House.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1911 Aug 12, Cantinflas
(d.1993), comedian and film star, was born in Mexico City as Mario
Moreno.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(HN, 8/12/98)(MC, 8/12/02)
1911 Aug 13, In San Francisco
10 members of the Industrial Workers of the World were arrested
during a riot in North Beach. Speakers had been addressing a crowd
denouncing all forms of government along with a tirade against the
pope.
(SSFC, 8/14/11, DB p.42)
1911 Aug 15, Procter and Gamble
unveiled its Crisco shortening.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1911 Aug 21, Leonardo da
Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” was stolen from the Louvre Museum. It had hung
there for more than 100 years. Vincenzo Perugia, a former Louvre
employee, stole the painting. It turned up in Italy two years later.
In 2009 R.A. Scotti authored “Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft
of Mona Lisa.”
(AP, 8/21/06)(SSFC, 5/10/09, Books p.H5)
1911 Aug 22, President William
Taft vetoed a joint resolution of Congress granting statehood to
Arizona. Taft vetoed the resolution because he believed a
provision in the state constitution authorizing the recall of judges
was a blow at the independence of the judiciary. The offending
clause was removed an Arizona was admitted to statehood on February
14, 1912. Afterward, the state restored the article in its
constitution.
(HNQ, 11/21/99)
1911 Aug 25, Jacopo Napoli,
composer, was born.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1911 Aug 31, Anthony Fokker's
demonstrated the aircraft "Snip."
(MC, 8/31/01)
1911 Aug, Calbraith Perry
Rodgers stayed aloft longer than any other contestant at the Chicago
International Aviation Meet. Rodgers had recently purchased a new
Wright airplane, the 1st ever sold to a private citizen.
(ON, 10/06, p.10)
1911 Sep 1, M. Fourny set a
world aircraft distance record of 720 km.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1911 Sep 9, An airmail route
opened between London and Windsor.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1911 Sep 13, Bill Monroe,
musician and the Father of Bluegrass, was born.
(HN, 9/13/00)
1911 Sep 14, Russian Premier
Piotr Stolypin was mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at
the Kiev opera house.
(HN, 9/14/98)
1911 Sep 15, SF Police Chief
D.A. White abolished the “dead line” designed to keep the women of
the underworld within the confines of Chinatown. The line was first
instituted by Police Chief Biggy had been irregularly enforced.
(SSFC, 9/11/11, DB p.46)
1911 Sep 17, Cigar-smoking
Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879-1912) set off from Sheepshead Bay, New
York, on the first flight across America. Rodgers, sponsored by the
Vin Fiz grape drink company, flew the fragile Wright B biplane in
pursuit of a $50,000 prize offered to the first person to make a
transcontinental flight in 30 days or less. Rodgers failed to win
the prize because his 4,321-mile flight took 84 days—of which only 3
days, 10 hours and 4 minutes was actual flying time! His average
speed was 51.56 miles per hour. By the time he landed at Long Beach,
California, on November 5, Rodgers had made 70 crash landings,
suffered numerous minor injuries and had rebuilt his Vin Fiz so
completely that only one strut and the rudder were its original
equipment.
(HNPD, 9/18/98)(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1911 Sep 18, Russian Premier
Piotr Stolypin (b.1862) died four days after being shot at the Kiev
opera house by socialist lawyer Dimitri Bogroff. As governor of the
Saratov province, Stolypin ruthlessly suppressed local peasant
uprisings, and helped to squelch the revolutionary upheavals of
1905.
(HN,
9/18/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Stolypin)
1911 Sep 19, William Golding
(d.1993), novelist best known for Lord of the Flies, was born. He
won the Nobel Prize in 1983.
(HN, 9/19/98)(MC, 9/19/01)
1911 Sep 19, Red Tuesday.
20,000 protested for universal rights.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1911 Sep 23, Frank Moss
(d.2003), liberal Utah Democratic Senator (1958-1976), was born in
Salt Lake City.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
1911 Sep 23, Second
International Aviation Meet opened in New York.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1911 Sep 24, Konstantin
Chernenko, president of the Soviet Union 1984-1985, was born.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1911 Sep 25, Italy declared war
on Turkey. [see Sep 30]
(MC, 9/25/01)
1911 Sep 29, Walter Brookins
set an American record by flying 192 miles from Chicago to
Springfield, Ill., making two stops.
(NPub, 2002, p.8)
1911 Sep 30, Italy declared war
on Turkey over control of Tripoli. [see Sep 25]
(HN, 9/30/98)
1911 Sep, Ishi (d.1916), a
native California Indian, walked out of the forest near Oroville,
Ca. He underwent examination at UC medical center in San Francisco
and liked to practice "drawing bow" on Parnassus Heights.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 12/26/99,
p.W4)(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.M1)
1911 Oct 4, The 1st public
elevator began service at London's Earl's Court Metro Station.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1911 Oct 5, Italian troops
occupied Tripoli.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1911 Oct 10, California voters
approved amendments by Republican Gov. Hiram Johnson that included
the recall, initiative and referendum process as part of his
progressive reform package. Almost 2/3 of 178,115 voters affirmed
the amendments. Voters granted women the right to vote in state and
local elections. It was the 6th state of the union to pass suffrage.
(SFC, 5/18/98, p.A7)(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)(SSFC,
8/3/03, p.D1)(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.E3)(SSFC, 10/10/04, p.E1)
1911 Oct 10, San Francisco
voters defeated an amendment on “Votes for Women” by some 12,000
votes. Charges of corruption and ballot abuse were cited. The
amendment passed state-wide.
(SSFC, 10/10/04, p.E1)(SSFC, 10/9/11, DB p.42)
1911 Oct 10, Sir Robert Borden
(1854-1937) began serving as Canada's prime minister and continued
to 1920. In 2011 his image was placed on the front of a Canadian
$100 bill.
(Reuters,
11/14/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Borden)
1911 Oct 10-1911 Oct 14,
Revolution in China began with a bomb explosion and the discovery of
revolutionary headquarters in Hankow. Revolutionaries under Sun
Yat-sen overthrew China's Manchu dynasty. The revolutionary movement
spread rapidly through west and southern China, forcing the
abdication of the last Ch'ing emperor, six-year-old Henry Pu-Yi. He
was interned in Russia and China for 14 years after WW II and later
worked as a gardener. By October 26, the Chinese Republic would be
proclaimed, and on December 4, Premier Yuan Shih-K'ai would sign a
truce with rebel general Li Yuan-hung. The Revolution declared that
the art housed in the Forbidden City was to be for the public. The
day became a holiday known as Double 10 or national Day.
(WSJ, 12/29/95, p.A-11)(SFC, 7/1/97,
p.A8)(AP, 10/10/97)(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A21)
1911 Oct 14, Le Duc Tho
(d.1990), North Vietnamese representative at Paris peace talk
(1970-72), was born. He declined the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.
(AP, 10/16/98)(MC, 10/14/01)
1911 Oct 14, John Marshall
Harlan (b.1833), US Supreme Court Justice, died after serving 34
years. A memoir written by his wife, Malvina, was later discovered
and published in 2002: "Some Memories of a Long Life (1854-1911)"
(WSJ, 5/28/02,
p.D7)(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/44/)
1911 Oct 14, Revolution in
China began with a bomb explosion and the discovery of revolutionary
headquarters in Hankow. The revolutionary movement spread rapidly
through west and southern China, forcing the abdication of the last
Ch’ing emperor, six-year-old Henry Pu-Yi.
(HN, 10/14/98)
1911 Oct 19, A team, consisting
of Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting, and
Roald Amundsen set out from base camp Framheim on a 2nd to reach the
South Pole. They reach the South Pole on Dec 14.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen)
1911 Oct 20, Will Rogers Jr,
actor (Down to Earth), was born in NY.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1911 Oct 24, Clarence M.
Kelley, FBI head, was born.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1911 Oct 24, Sonny Terry, blues
performer, was born.
(HN, 10/24/00)
1911 Oct 24, Robert Scott's
expedition left Cape Evans for South Pole.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1911 Oct 25, In Chicago Ada and
Minna Everleigh closed their Everleigh Club, a high-end brothel,
which they had begun in 1910. In 2007 Karen Abbott authored “Sin in
the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for
America's Soul.”
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P8)
1911 Oct 26, Mahalia Jackson
(d.1972), American gospel singer, was born. "It's easy to be
independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you
haven't got a thing -- that's the Lord's test."
(AP, 3/18/99)(MC, 10/26/01)
1911 Oct 29, Joseph Pulitzer
(1847), Hungary-born American newspaperman, died in Charleston, S.C.
In 2002 Denis Brian authored "Pulitzer: A Life." In 2010 James
McGrath Morris authored “Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print , and
Power.”
(WSJ, 1/30/02,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer)(SSFC, 3/7/10,
p.F4)
1911 Oct 31, Prof. John J.
Montgomery (b.1858) died when his glider crashed on his 56th flight
at the Evergreen College campus south of San Jose.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1911 Oct, The Philadelphia
Athletics, forerunners of the Oakland A’s, won the World Series,
beating the New York Giants of the National League, today’s SF
Giants.
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)
1911 Oct, In China the
Revolution overthrew the Qing Dynasty and declared that the art
housed in the Forbidden City was to be for the public.
(WSJ, 12/29/95, p.A-11)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1911 Oct, Italian troops began
deporting Libyans to Italian islands in the Adriatic. More then
5,000 Libyans were deported between 1911 and WW II in an effort to
break the resistance.
(AFP, 10/26/07)
1911 Nov 1, Italian planes
performed the first aerial bombing on Tanguira oasis in Libya. Lt.
Giulio Cavotti dropped a hand grenade on an oasis outside of
Tripoli. In 2001 Sven Lindqvist authored "A History of Bombing."
(HN, 11/1/98)(SFC, 4/22/01, BR p.3)
1911 Nov 5, Roy Rogers, singing
cowboy (Happy Trails, Roy Rogers Show), was born. He was born as
Leonard Franklin Slye in Cincinnati where his father worked in a
shoe factory. He died in 1998 at age 86.
(SFC, 7/7/98, p.A1,2)(MC, 11/5/01)
1911 Nov 5, Calbraith P.
Rodgers ended the first transcontinental flight; 49 days from New
York to Pasadena, Calif.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1911 Nov 5, Italy attacked
Turkish North-Africa (Libya), and took Tripoli and Cyrenaica.
First use of a plane dropping bombs. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/5/01)
1911 Nov 6, Maine became a dry
state.
(HN, 11/6/98)
1911 Nov 10, President Taft
ended a 15,000-mile, 57-day speaking tour.
(HN, 11/10/00)
1911 Nov 10, Andrew Carnegie
formed the Carnegie Corp. for scholarly & charitable works.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1911 Nov 10, The Imperial
government of China retook Nanking.
(HN, 11/10/99)
1911 Nov 11, In Chicago a man
died of heat prostration.
(SFEC,10/19/97, Z1 p.2)
1911 Nov 12, Buck Clayton, jazz
trumpeter, was born.
(HN, 11/12/00)
1911 Nov 12, In Chicago two
people froze to death. The temperature had dropped 61 degrees
overnight.
(SFEC,10/19/97, Z1 p.2)
1911 Nov 18, Alfred Binet,
French child psychologist, died.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1911 Nov 19, New York received
the first Marconi wireless transmission from Italy.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1911 Nov 20, Gustav Mahler's
"Das Lied von der Erde" premiered in Munich.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1911 Nov 21, Suffragettes
stormed Parliament in London. All were arrested and all chose prison
terms.
(HN, 11/21/98)
1911 Nov 26, In San Francisco
John Edwards, known as “The King of the Opium Ring,” was arrested
near his home at 133 Fillmore St. Police secured the biggest haul of
morphine, cocaine and opium ever found in the possession of one man.
(SSFC, 11/27/11, DB p.42)
1911 Nov 27, Audience threw
over-ripe vegetables at actors for the 1st recorded time in US.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1911 Nov 28, Zapata proclaimed
Plan of Ayala, Mexico.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1911 Nov 29, Konrad Fuchs,
German atomic physicist, was born. He worked on developing the
atomic bomb in the United States during World War II while giving
its secrets to the Soviet Union.
(HN, 11/23/99)
1911 Dec 3, Nino Rota, composer
(Torquemada), was born in Milan, Italy. He composed operas and
orchestral music and taught at Italy's Bari Conservatory. He also
wrote scores for Federico Fellini and other film directors.
(WSJ, 3/5/99, p.W10)(MC, 12/3/01)
1911 Dec 4, The US Supreme
Court in Grigbsy v. Russell established the policy owner’s right to
transfer an insurance policy.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.78)(http://tinyurl.com/nj4pe5)
1911 Dec 8, The 61-member SF
Orchestra, later known as the SF Symphony, played its first
performance before some 1400 people and featured works by Wagner,
Haydn and Tchaikovsky. The performance featured violinist Fritz
Kreisler.
(SFC, 9/5/11, p.A12)
1911 Dec 10, Chester "Chet"
Huntley, American broadcast journalist, was born. He teamed
with David Brinkley to anchor TV nightly news.
(HN, 12/10/99)
1911 Dec 10, Cal Rodgers
(1879-1912) completed the first US transcontinental flight in the
Wright EX Vin Fiz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calbraith_Perry_Rodgers)(NPub, 2002,
p.8)
1911 Dec 10, Joseph Dalton
Hooker (b.1817), British botanist and explorer, died.
(WSJ, 5/10/08,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Dalton_Hooker)
1911 Dec 11, Naguib Mahfouz
(d.2006), Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian novelist, was born.
(HN, 12/11/00)(SFC, 8/31/06, p.A13)
1911 Dec 12, In northern India
Britain’s King George V stood before some 562 princes as well as
maharajahs, soldiers and bureaucrats, and made a surprise
announcement that would change the fate of Delhi, an ancient fading
city with a population of 410,000. The king said Delhi would be the
new capital of India.
(AP, 12/11/11)(Econ, 12/17/11, p.68)
1911 Dec 13, Kenneth Patchen,
American poet and author, was born. His works included "Before the
Brave" and "Hurrah for Anything."
(HN, 12/13/99)
1911 Dec 14, Norwegian explorer
Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating
an expedition led by Robert F. Scott. The best book on Scott and
Amundsen is by Roland Huntford "Scott and Amundsen."
(AP, 12/14/97)(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.1,6)
1911 Dec 18, Jules Dassin,
director (Circle of Two, Never on Sunday), was born in Middletown,
Ct.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1911 Dec 19, Onetime race-car
driver Weldon Cooke piloted the homemade Black Diamond airplane over
Mount Tamalpais on a flight from Oakland, Ca., to Marin County.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A1)
1911 Dec 21, Joshua Gibson,
baseball player for the Negro Leagues, Home-Run King, was born.
Segregated baseball lasted sixty years in the United States.
(HN, 12/21/98)
1911 Dec 23, Emmanuel
Wolf-Ferrari's opera "I Giojelli Della Madonna" was produced in
Berlin.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1911 Dec 30, Sun Yat-sen was
elected the first president of the Republic of China.
(AP, 12/30/97)
1911 Dec 31, Helene Dutrieu won
the Femina aviation cup in Etampes. She set a distance record for
women at 158 miles.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1911 The "Mona Lisa" was stolen
from the Louvre. The theft was made into a film in 1997 based on the
Seymour Reit book: "The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa."
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.B5)
1911 Marc Chagall painted
Russia with "Donkeys and Others," "The Russian Village of the Moon"
and "I and the Village."
(WSJ, 5/11/95, p. A-14)(SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)
1911 Vasily Kandinsky painted
"Compositions IV & V." "This airy, whitish, light-filled canvas
abounds with imagery from Kandinsky’s Russian childhood..."
(WSJ, 2/8/95), p.A-12)
1911 Roger de la Fresnaye
painted "Artillery."
(SFC, 11/26/96, p.D5)
1911 Henri Matisse painted "The
Blue Window."
(WSJ, 1/14/00, p.W12)
1911 Egon Schiele, Austrian
expressionist, painted "Dead City III."
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A7)
1911 Rev. William Wolcott
willed paintings by Monet, Pissarro and 14 other artists to the
Daniel White Fund to "create and gratify a public taste for fine
art, particularly among the people of Lawrence." He requested that
the paintings be housed in a museum until a gallery was built.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A25)
1911 J.M. Barrie adopted Peter
Pan into the novel “Peter and Wendy.” [see Dec 27, 1904]
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)(USAT, 9/2/04, p.2D)
1911 Max Beerbohm wrote
"Zuleika Dobson." In 1998 it was ranked 59th in a list of 100 best
English language novels of the 20th century.
(SFEC, 11/15/98, BR p.6)
1911 Joseph Smeaton Chase
traveled the coast from Mexico to Oregon via horse and wrote a
journal titled "California Coast Trails."
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T3)
1911 G.K. Chesterton authored
his historical novel “The Ballad of the White Horse” set in England
in 878 as King Alfred faced the invading Danes.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.P10)
1911 Irving Fisher (1867-1947),
American Economist, authored “The Purchasing Power of Money,” in
which he formalized the quantity theory of money.
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.76)(Econ, 2/14/09, p.78)
1911 Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967)
included the 1st chapter of his fictional, futuristic serial called
Ralph 124C41+ in his Modern Electrics magazine.
(ON, 11/05, p.10)
1911 Charlotte Perkins Gilman
wrote "The Man-Made World" and "Our Androcentric Culture." [may be
one book]
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.34)
1911 The silent film "The
Military Air Scout" featured Lt. H.H. Arnold as the first movie
stunt man.
(SFC, 2/8/97, p.A24)
1911 Debussy composed "Trois
Ballades de Francois Villon" set to poems by the poet.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, DB p.9)
1911 Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
published the vocal score of his opera "Treemonisha" from his own
pocket. He had completed it in 1910 but no publisher would accept a
ragtime opera by a black composer. Joplin also footed a single
reading this year with piano accompaniment. The 1st full
professional staging was done in 1975 by the Houston Grand Opera.
(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A20)(SFC, 6/21/03, p.D1)(WSJ,
3/8/06, p.D14)
1911 Igor Stravinsky composed
"Petrouchka."
(T&L, 10/80, p. 106)
1911 Sophie Tucker (d.1966 at
78), cabaret singer, had Thomas Edison engineer her first record.
(SFC, 3/13/97, p.E3)
1911 The most popular song of
the year was "Oh! You Beautiful Doll."
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)
1911 SF Bay Area banker and
entrepreneur Mortimer Fleishhacker (1868-1953) built a grand home on
75 acres in Woodside, Ca.
(SSFC, 7/10/11, p.M12)
1911 Fernbridge was built over
the Eel River in Ferndale, Ca.
(SSFC, 6/10/07, p.G8)
1911 In SF the Perine Mansion,
designed by Conrad Meussdorffer, was built at 535 Powell St. It
later became the home of Tessie Wall (d.1922), a SF madam.
(SFC, 7/2/07, p.E1)
1911 The Sunol Water Temple
near Niles Canyon in Alameda County, Ca., was designed by Willis
Polk as a tribute to Vesta and the SF water system. He designed it
with 12 circular columns supporting a wood and tile roof.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.A21,26)
1911 In SF the Old First
Presbyterian Church laid the cornerstone for its Byzantine style
edifice at Van Ness and Sacramento. The church was later rocked by
financial scandal under Rev. John Creighton. In 1999 Stephen Taber
authored his book on the 300-member church: "Pioneer Community of
Faith."
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A19)
1911 In SF the First St. John’s
United Methodist Church, designed by George Washington Kramer, was
constructed at Larkin and Clay. It went empty in 2005 as the church
agreed to sell the land to Pacific Polk Properties to build a
27-unit condominium. It failed to attain status as a city landmark
and was slated for demolition in 2009.
(SFC, 5/27/09, p.B1)
1911 In SF a 2-story building
was constructed in Art Nouveau style at 1660 Haight St. to serve as
a vaudeville house. It later became a neighborhood market and
then a clothing bazaar.
(SSFC, 1/10/10, p.C2)
1911 In the SF Bay Hazel
Langenour became the 1st woman to swim the Golden Gate span.
(SFCM, 1/25/04, p.15)
1911 James "Sunny Jim" Rolph
was elected as mayor of SF. He went on to become the governor of the
state in 1930. He lived by the motto: "Make no enemies." He claimed
to be a descendent of Pocahontas.
(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A14)(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4,5)
1911 SF Bay Area wild oysters
were pretty much wiped out by this time.
(SFC, 4/28/03, A14)
1911 In SF the amusement park
known as “The Chutes,” located on Fulton Street, burned down. The
rides that survived the fire were moved, including the
Shoot-the-Chutes, to Ocean Beach, which inspired the first name for
the amusement area, Chutes at the Beach.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playland_(San_Francisco))
1911 Liguria started a focaccia
tradition in San Francisco’s North Beach.
(SSFC, 10/30/11, p.G3)
1911 The Victoria Pastry Co.
began making Sicilian specialties in San Francisco’s North Beach.
(SSFC, 10/30/11, p.G3)
1911 The New York Public
Library at 5th Ave. and 42nd opened its doors. It was designed by
Carere and Hastings and featured a 78-by-297-foot reading room in
the General Research Division.
(WSJ, 11/17/98, p.21)
1911 The Hotel Utah was
completed in Salt Lake City across the street from Temple Square.
Ten stories of Edwardian glazed brick, tile, concrete and
terra-cotta is surmounted by a statue of Utah’s state symbol, a
beehive.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.W36/8)
1911 Frederick Winslow Taylor,
American efficiency expert declared: "In the past man was first, in
the future the system will be first."
(WSJ, 6/13/97, p.A17)
1911 Freud and Jung visited NYC
as a prelude to their lectures at Clark Univ. [see 1909]
(SFEC, 4/4/99, BR p.3)
1911 George B. Post, architect
and designer of early skyscrapers, was awarded the Gold Medal of the
American Institute of Architecture.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A24)
1911 Marie Curie won the Nobel
Prize in Physics for the isolation of the elements polonium and
radium.
(SSFC, 11/28/04, p.4)
1911 Maurice Maeterlinck
(1862-1949), Belgian poet, dramatist, and essayist, won the Nobel
Prize in Literature. His play 'Pelleas and Melisande' was adopted as
a libretto by Claude Debussy.
(WUD, 1994, p.861)(SFEC, 3/2/97, BR p.8)
1911 Wilhelm K.W. Wien
(b.1864), German physicist, won the Nobel Prize.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1911 The NY Highlanders (later
Yankees) signed Justin Fitzgerald (d.1952) from San Mateo, Ca., to a
$385 per year contract, the largest ever presented to an amateur
player from the West Coast.
(Ind, 4/17/00, 5A)
1911 William Howard Taft was
president of the US and James S. Sherman was his vice-president.
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)
1911 The first US experimental
airmail flight took place on Long Island, a 3-mile journey between
Garden City Estates and Mineola.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.B5)
1911 The US Navy acquired its
first airplane, the A-1 Triad.
(HT, 4/97, p.60)
1911 The stock market tumbled
and a recession began. It was precipitated in part by a federal
antitrust suit against US Steel.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.B2)
1911 The US Geological Survey
estimated the Black Mesa coal reserves at 16 billion tons.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, z1 p.4)
1911 Fingerprints were first
used in a courtroom as evidence. In 2002 a US federal judge
challenged their validity.
(SSFC, 2/24/02, p.A19)
1911 California began
collecting a corporate franchise tax. It was attacked as being
unfair. In 1929 it was overhauled to be based on a company’s income
and was placed under the newly created Franchise Tax Commission. In
1949 the commission’s named was changed to the Franchise Tax Board.
(SFC, 6/21/11, p.D5)
1911 The California state
legislature officially adopted the grizzly bear state flag.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.16)
1911 California voters granted
women the right to vote in state and local elections. It was the 6th
state of the union to pass suffrage.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)(SSFC, 10/10/04, p.E1)
1911 American Tobacco was
broken up under the Sherman Antitrust Law, and freed former holdings
such as Ligget & Myers Co., P. Lorrilard Co., and R.J. Reynolds.
A company called American tobacco survived the breakup.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)
1911 Securities of automotive
companies were listed on the New York Stock Exchange for the first
time.
(xxxx)
1911 The Indianapolis 500 race
was first run. [see 1910]
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(SFC, 8/24/96, p.E1)
1911 Michigan drew the first
white center line on a roadway.
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.B1)
1911 Nevada, in an effort to
raise revenue, began offering divorces in 6 weeks, the quickest in
the US.
(Econ, 7/10/10, SR p.11)
1911 In Tacoma, Wa., Frank C.
Mars began his candy company with a circle of chocolate covered with
a crunchy coating. It was modeled after a British confection. His
son, Forrest, created M&Ms in 1940.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A21)
1911 General Motors Truck Co.
was formed.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1911 Louis Chevrolet helped
establish the Chevrolet Motor Company.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(SFEC, 1/9/00, Z1 p.2)
1911 Henry Ford reduced the
retail price of the Model T to $690.
(ON, 3/03, p.3)
1911 Goodyear began flying its
blimps. Frank Augustus Seiberling (1859-1954) was the founder of the
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in Akron, Ohio.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.B3)(SFC, 5/26/99, Z1 p.6)
1911 The Hearst Corp. acquired
Good Housekeeping magazine.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1911 Quaker Oats bought the
Great Western Cereal Co., maker of Mothers Oats. Great Western of
Akron, Ohio, had owned the brand since 1901.
(SFC, 1/16/08, p.G4)
1911 Einstein presented the
idea that matter curves the fabric of space.
(NH, 2/97, p.76)
1911 The Marconi truck had a
radio.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1911 Ernest Rutherford
theorized that atoms must be mainly empty space with a small nucleus
in the center. He overturned the idea that that the atom is solid.
This led to the theory that the energy stored in the nucleus of an
atom could be released.
(NG, May 1985, J. Boslough, p. 642,653)(SFEC,
12/19/99, Par p.14)
1911 Superconductors were first
discovered.
(SFC, 3/13/97, p.B1)
1911 Lee DeForest invented the
vacuum tube in Palo Alto, Ca.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.D1)
1911 A half gallon of milk was
17 cents, a pound of butter was 34 cents, a pound of round steak was
18 cents, and a pound of potatoes was 22 cents. The average annual
income was $520 and a new Ford was $780.
(SMTS, 10/1/86, p.4)
1911 Samuel Drumheller and
Jesse Gouge began mining operations in Alberta, Canada near Calgary.
The coal operations revealed many fossil remains of dinosaurs.
(CFA, ‘96, p.62-63)
1911 H.H. Baker, American
geologist, proposed that the split of the continental masses was
attributable to the approach of Venus during the Cenozoic.
(DD-EVTT, p.189)
1911 George C. Munro, a
naturalist from New Zealand, planted Norfolk pine tress along the
crest of the mountain ridge of Lana’i, Hawaii.
(SFEM, 10/13/96, p.24)
1911 Monarch, the captive
California grizzly bear, died in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park
not far from the present children’s playground.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.17)
1911 Alfred Binet,
psychologist, died. He developed the Binet Intelligence Test as a
general measure of intellectual potential.
(WSJ, 7/18/97, p.A14)
1911 Edmonia Lewis (b.1843),
American sculptor, died. Her work included “The Death of Cleopatra.”
(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.B1)
1911 Elmer McCurdy, outlaw,
died. His mummified corpse became a tourist attraction in a small
Oklahoma funeral home, and later was taken across country in
carnivals and roving wax museums. In 2002 Mark Svengold authored
"Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an
American Outlaw."
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M4)
1911 David S. Woods (b.1830),
painter, died. His work included the c1859 portrait of a horse named
"Black Hawk," owned by Ansel Easton, co-owner of the Pacific Mail
Steamship Co.
(SFCM, 10/28/01, p.18)
1911 The Australian federal
government took control of the Northern Territory as part of a deal
to build a railway linking Adelaide to Darwin.
(Econ, 8/9/03, p.36)
1911 In Bosnia the Black Hand
was the nickname for a secret society, Unity or Death, formed in
1911 by Serbian army officers seeking liberation of Bosnia from
Austrian domination. These nationalist leaders sought the creation
of a Greater Serbia.
(HNQ, 5/29/99)
1911 King George V of Britain
visited India. He went hunting in Nepal and from the back of an
elephant bagged 21 tigers, 8 rhinos, and a bear.
(NG, 12/97, p.138)
1911 The first Michelin guide
to the British Isles was published to help travelers and included
information on how to change a tire.
(AFP, 1/18/11)
1911 Chinese men stopped
shaving their heads and wearing braids. The style had originated
under the order of a Manchu emperor in 1644.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, Z1 p.6)
1911 Tsinghua University was
established in 1911 originally as "Tsinghua Xuetang," a preparatory
school for students who would be sent by the government to study in
universities in the United States. The school was renamed "Tsinghua
School" in 1912. The university section was instituted in 1925 and
undergraduate students were then enrolled. The name "National
Tsinghua University" was adopted in 1928, and in 1929 the Research
Institute was set up.
(http://tinyurl.com/cco9p)
1911 In China the Yangtze River
overflowed and some 100,000 people were killed.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.B3)
1911 In Italy Fillipo
Marinetti, founder of the Futurist movement, predicted that 21st
century Italy would be controlled by a technocracy of engineers
living in "high tension chambers…between wall of iron and
crystal..."
(SFC, 1/13/99, Z1 p.3)
1911 In Nepal King Prithvi Bir
Bikram Shah (36) passed away and his son King Tribhuvan Bir Bikram
Shah (b.1906) ascended the throne.
(www.nepalmonarchy.gov.np/monarcyinnepal/monarchyinnepal.php)
1911 In the Philippines the
Taal volcano erupted and 1,335 people were killed.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A14)
1911 In Russia Mendel Beilis
was tried on charges of killing a Russian child to extract its blood
for baking Passover matzos. He spent over 2 years in prison before a
jury found him not guilty. Franz Kafka followed the story and may
have transformed it into a universal symbol of arbitrary
victimization in his "The Trial."
(WSJ, 10/17/00, p.A20)
1911 Russia exported 13.7
million tons of grain while some 30 million of its peasants suffered
from famine.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.B3)
1911 A group of South Africans
took part in the Trans-Saharan Ostrich Expedition to claim the
Barbary Ostrich from French West Africa. They then sold the
expensive plumes to milliners in across American and Europe.
(Econ, 6/4/11, p.95)
1911 In Stockholm, Sweden,
construction began on a new city hall. The design was a mix of
Italian Renaissance, Moorish and Byzantine style and was
completed in 1923.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.G4)
1911 Eugene Bleuler, Swiss
psychiatrist, coined the term “schizophrenia.”
(Econ, 10/29/05, p.84)
1911 The Hanoi Opera House in
Vietnam was designed by the French.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.T6)
1911-1912 In Mexico during the Revolution the
crime rate rose in double digits for two years in a row
(SFEC, 1/26/97, p.A14)
1911-1913 In Mexico Francisco Indalecio Madero,
revolutionary and political leader, served as president.
(WUD, 1994, p.861)
1911-1917 Sir Robert Borden, Conservative Party,
served as the 8th Prime Minister of Canada.
(CFA, ‘96, p.81)
1911-1931 Omar Mukhtar harassed the Italian forces
attempting to subdue Libya. The 1981 film “Lion in the Desert”
starred Anthony Quinn as Omar Mukhtar.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.29)
1911-1960 David Park, American artist. His work
included: "Man in a T-Shirt" and "Untitled" (1958), "Torso" (1959).
(SFEC, 12/1/96, DB p.21)(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A20)
1911-1976 Rosalind Russell, American actress:
"Taste. You cannot buy such a rare and wonderful thing. You can’t
send away for it in a catalogue. And I’m afraid it’s becoming
obsolete."
(AP, 4/20/97)
1911-1979 Elizabeth Bishop, American poet and
artist. As a Manhattan primitive she specialized in watercolor and
her work tended to be small.
(WSJ, 12/5/96, p.A16)
1911-1986 Andre Leroi-Gourhan, paleolithic
scholar. He viewed cave painting as an integrated composition. He
wrote "Treasures of Prehistoric Art."
(NH, 7/96, p.22)
1911-1991 George J. Stigler, American economist:
"The trouble is that hardly anybody in America goes to bed angry at
night."
(AP, 1/23/99)
1911-1996 Norma Teagarden, jazz pianist. Her
brother Jack was a celebrated trombonist, brother Charlie a
trumpeter, and Cub a drummer. She joined Jack’s big band in 1942 and
played in the bands of Ben Pollack and Ada Leonard. In the late 40s
she led her own band and began teaching students. In 1963 the entire
family performed together at the Monterey Jazz Festival. She played
with a strong striding left hand and a softer right hand. Since 1975
she played at the Washington Square Bar and Grill in San Francisco.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A17)
1911-1997 "Traditional Chinese Painting in
the 20th Century" by Lang Shaojun is the 5th section of Wu Hung’s
1997 "The Origins of Chinese Painting." The period is marked by the
emergence of the literati-amateur movement.
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.6)