Timeline 1914 - 1915
Return to home
1914 Jan 4,
Jane Wyman, U.S. film actress who was the first wife of President
Ronald Reagan, was born.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1914 Jan 5, Henry Ford
astounded the world as he announced that he would pay a minimum wage
of $5 a day and share with employees $10 million in last year’s
profits. The wage increase counter-balanced the increased demand on
the workers from the new assembly line production methods.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(HN, 1/5/99)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R28)
1914 Jan 6, Stock brokerage
firm of Merrill Lynch was founded.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1914 Jan 10, In Utah John
Morrison, a Salt Lake City grocer and father of six, was shot dead
along with his son (17) after two men entered his shop. Labor leader
Joe Hill (1879-1915) was soon treated for a fresh gunshot wound and
was later tried and convicted for murder.
(Econ, 8/6/11, p.73)
1914 Jan 14, Ford Motor Company
greatly improved its assembly-line operation by employing a chain to
pull each chassis along.
(AP, 1/14/01)
1914 Jan 16, Maxim Gorky was
authorized to return to Russia after an eight year exile for
political dissidence.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1914 Jan 19, Lester Flatt,
country musician (Flatt & Scruggs), was born.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1914 Jan 28, Beverly Hills, Ca,
was incorporated.
(http://www.beverlyhills.org/)
1914 Jan, The St.
Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line became the world’s first regularly
scheduled airline service. Scheduled service on the first winged
airline, the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, treated a passenger
or two to a wooden seat, fresh Florida air, and salt spray in the
face.
(HN, 6/1/98)(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1914 Jan, In Japan Mount
Sakurajima erupted and left 58 people dead.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)
1914 Jan, Gen. Smuts began
negotiations with Mohandas Gandhi to eradicate many of the racist
laws imposed on South African Indians.
(ON, 9/03, p.5)
1914 Feb 5, Sir Alan Hodgin,
English physiologist and biophysicist, was born.
(HN, 2/5/01)
1914 Feb 7, Charlie Chaplin
debuted "The Tramp" in "Kid Auto Races at Venice."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1914 Feb 7, Steel work was
completed on Exposition (Civic) Auditorium, SF.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1914 Feb 9, Gypsy Rose Lee,
stripper, was born in Seattle Wash.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1914 Feb 9, Bill "Rhymes with
Wreck" Veeck, baseball club owner, was born.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1914 Feb 10, Larry Adler,
harmonica virtuoso, was born.
(HN, 2/10/01)
1914 Feb 13, The American
Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, known as ASCAP, was
founded in New York City.
(HN, 2/13/98)(AP, 2/13/98)
1914 Feb 19, Riccardo
Zandonai's opera "Francesco da Rimini," premiered in Turin.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1914 Feb 21, White Wolf troops
attacked Zhanjiang, China.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1914 Feb, In Brazil a 22-man
party, that included former Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, started down
the Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt) in the Amazon Basin for a 2-month
adventure. In 2005 Candice Millard authored “The River of Doubt”
Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey.”
(SSFC, 10/23/05, p.M3)
1914 Feb 24, Joshua Chamberlain
(85) died. He was the Bowdoin College Maine professor whose
incredible defense of Little Round Top at Gettysburg and other
heroics earned him promotion to Major General and the Congressional
Medal of Honor.
(HN, 2/24/98)(MC, 2/24/02)
1914 Feb 25, John Tenniel
(b.1820), English illustrator, died. He is best remembered for his
illustrations in Lewis Carroll's “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”
and “Through the Looking-Glass.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tenniel)
1914 Feb 26, New York Museum of
Science and Industry was incorporated.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1914 Feb 26, Russian aviator
Igor Sikorsky carried 17 passengers in a twin engine plane in St.
Petersburg. Igor Sikorsky, founder of Sikorsky Aircraft, produced a
film in 1942 that promoted the capabilities of his VS-300
helicopter, highlighting its possible rescue and military
applications.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1914 Mar 1, Ralph Waldo
Ellison, renown African-American author who wrote "Invisible Man,"
was born.
(HN, 3/1/99)
1914 Mar 1, H. Colijn, Dutch
Minister of war, was named director of British Petroleum.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1914 Mar 4, Doctor Fillatre of
Paris, France successfully separated Siamese twins.
(HN, 3/4/98)
1914 Mar 6, Kirill P.
Kondrashin, conductor (Hollywood Bowl 1981), was born in Moscow,
Russia.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1914 Mar 6, German Prince
Wilhelm de Wied was crowned as King of Albania. He was installed as
head of the Albanian state by the International Control Commission.
His rule ended within six months, with the outbreak of World War I.
(HN, 3/6/98)(www, Albania, 1998)
1914 Mar 9, US Sen Albert Fall
(Teapot Dome) demanded the "Cubanisation of Mexico."
(MC, 3/9/02)
1914 Mar 10, Suffragettes in
London damaged painter Rokeby's Venus of Velasquez.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1914 Mar 12, George
Westinghouse (67), US engineer (Westinghouse Electric), died.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1914 Mar 17, Russia increased
the number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1914 Mar 20, Svyatoslav
Richter, pianist (Stalin Prize-1945), was born in Zhitomir, Ukraine.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1914 Mar 25, Norman Borlaug
(d.2009), later agricultural scientist and Nobel Prize winner
(1970), was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug)(WSJ, 9/5/06,
p.D8)(SFC, 9/14/09, p.A7)
1914 Mar 25, Frederic Mistral,
French poet (Nobel-1904), died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1914 Mar 27, Budd Schulberg,
journalist, novelist and screenwriter (What Makes Sammy Run), was
born.
(HN, 3/27/01)
1914 Mar 26, The birthday of
(Thomas Lanier) Tennessee Williams (1914-1983), American dramatist.
His play "The Glass Menagerie" was inspired by a pre-frontal
lobotomy performed on his sister to cure a case of schizophrenia.
The operation failed and his sister, Rose (1909-1996), was
institutionalized. He left a $10 million estate to support her and
directed that anything left go to support aspiring writers at the
Univ. of the South of Sewanee. [see Mar 11 & 26, 1911]
(AHD, p.1466)(WUD, 1994, p.1634)
1914 Mar 26, William
Westmoreland, U.S. army general and head of all ground forces in
South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, was born in Saxon, SC.
(HN, 3/26/99)(SS, 3/26/02)
1914 Mar 27, Budd Schulberg,
journalist, novelist and screenwriter (What Makes Sammy Run, On the
Waterfront), was born in NYC.
(HN, 3/27/01)(MC, 3/27/02)
1914 Mar 27, 1st successful
blood transfusion took place in Brussels.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1914 Mar 28, Edmund Sixtus
Muskie, (Sen-D-Me), US Sec of State (1980), was born.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1914 Mar 31, Octavio Paz,
Mexican diplomat and Nobel Prize-winning writer, was born.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1914 Apr 2, Alec Guinness,
English stage and film actor, was born illegitimate and spent his
early years in penury.
(WSJ, 8/15/00, p.A26)
1914 Apr 2, Federal Reserve
Board announced plans to divide country into 12 districts. [see Nov
16, 1914]
(HN, 4/2/98)
1914 Apr 4, Marguerite Duras,
French author (The Lover), was born.
(HN, 4/4/01)
1914 Apr 4, "Perils of Pauline"
was shown for 1st time in LA.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1914 Apr 7, British House of
Commons passed the Irish Home Rule Bill.
(HN, 4/7/97)
1914 Apr 8, U.S. and Colombia
signed a treaty concerning Panama Canal Zone.
(HN, 4/8/98)
1914 Apr 9, The 1st full color
film: "World, Flesh & Devil" was shown in London.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1914 Apr 9, In the Tampico
incident a US ship crew was arrested in Mexico.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1914 Apr 11, George Bernard
Shaw's "Pygmalion," premiered.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1914 Apr 14, Stacy G. Carkhuff
patented a non-skid tire pattern.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1914 Apr 19, Charles Sanders
Peirce (b.1839), American polymath, philosopher and scientist, died
in Milford, Pa. In 1883 he used randomization in a psychological
experiment at Johns Hopkins Univ.
(www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Charles_Peirce)(Econ, 5/5/12,
p.17)
1914 Apr 20, Soldiers killed 33
during mine strike in Ludlow, Colo. In the Ludlow Massacre 2 women
and 11 children perished in a mining camp torched by Colorado
militiamen called in by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to settle a strike.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, BR p.3)(MC, 4/20/02)
1914 Apr 21, U.S. marines
occupied Veracruz, Mexico. They stayed for six months.
(HN, 4/21/98)
1914 Apr 22, Babe Ruth's 1st
professional game as a pitcher was a 6-hit 6-0 win.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1914 Apr 25, Ross Lockridge,
Jr., novelist (Raintree Country), was born.
(HN, 4/25/01)
1914 Apr 26, Bernard Malamud
(d.1986), American novelist and short story writer (The Natural),
was born. "Life is a tragedy full of joy." He won a Pulitzer Prize
in 1967. In 1997 "The Complete Stories" by Bernard Malamud was
published.
(AP, 5/26/97)(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A12)(HN,
4/26/01)(MC, 4/26/02)
1914 Apr 26, James William
Rouse, US builder of shopping malls, was born.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1914 Apr 28, W.H. Carrier was
issued a patent for a method of “dew point control,” crucial to the
development of automatic air cooling systems. In 1923 he invented an
air-conditioning system powerful enough for installation at movie
theaters.
(http://dealscape.thedealblogs.com/2006/04/this_date_in_deal_history_firs.php)(ON,
8/07, p.11)
1914 Apr 28, At Eccles,
WV, 181 died in coal mine collapse.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1914 May 1, Yuan Shikai,
China's 1st president, won dictatorial qualification.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1914 May 6, British House of
Lords rejected women suffrage.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1914 May 7, Woodrow Wilson's
daughter Eleanor married in the White House.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1914 May 9, Carlo Maria
Giulini, conductor, was born.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1914 May 9, Clarence Eugene
Snow (d.1999), later known as singer Hank Snow (I Went to Your
Wedding), was born in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. His songs included the
1950 hit "I'm Moving On."
(SFC, 12/21/99, p.A27)(MC, 5/9/02)
1914 May 9, Pres. Wilson
proclaimed Mother's Day.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1915 May 12, In South Africa
Naspers was founded as Die Nasionale Pers (The National Press) with
the aim of furthering the cause of the Afrikaner people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naspers)(Econ,
7/10/10, p.61)
1914 May 13, Joe Louis, world
heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949, was born in
Lafayette, Ala. His boxing record was 63-3 with 49 knock-outs.
(AP, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/13/99)
1914 May 25, Paolo Giorza (81),
composer, died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1914 May 25, British House of
Commons passed Irish Home Rule.
(HN, 5/25/98)
1914 May 26, Jacob A. Riis
(b.1849), Denmark-born author and photographer, died in Barre, Mass.
His books included “How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the
Tenements of New York” (1890) and his autobiography “The Making of
an American” (1901). In 2008 Tom Buk-Swienty’s “The Other Half: The
Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America” was
published. The original Danish version was translated by his wife,
Annette.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAriis.htm)(SSFC,
9/21/08, Books p.4)
1914 May 29, The Canadian ship
Empress of Ireland sank while enroute to Quebec City to Liverpool
after colliding with the Norwegian coal freighter Storstad. 1,012
(1,024) of the 1,500 passengers and crew were killed. The site of
the tragedy was proclaimed a protected historic and archeological
site by Quebec in 1999.
(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D3)(SC, 5/29/02)
1914 May, President Woodrow
Wilson issued a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May
1914 the first national Mother’s Day. In 1907 Anna Jarvis of
Philadelphia suggested the idea of wearing carnations on the second
Sunday in May to honor mothers.
(HNPD, 5/9/00)
1914 Jun 2, Glenn Curtiss flew
his Langley Aerodrome.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1914 Jun 6, The 1st air flight
out of sight of land was made from Scotland to Norway.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1914 Jun 7, The first vessel
passed through the Panama Canal. [see Aug]
(HN, 6/7/98)
1914 Jun 11, Gerald Mohr, actor
(Christopher-Foreign Intrigue), was born in NYC.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1914 Jun 15, Yuri Andropov,
Russian KGB chief, 1st secretary, was born.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1914 Jun 15, Saul Steinberg,
American cartoonist (New Yorker), was born in Romania.
(HN, 6/15/01)
1914 Jun 17, John Hersey,
novelist and journalist (Men of Bataan, Hiroshima), poet, was born.
(HN, 6/17/01)
1914 Jun 19, Alan Cranston,
former Sen., D-Calif., was born.
(DT, 6/19/97)
1914 Jun 19, Harry Lauter,
actor (Waterfront), was born in White Plains, NY.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1914 Jun 19, The comic strip
"Captain and the Kids" debut in newspapers.
(DTnet, 6/19/97)
1914 Jun 26, Laurie Lee,
British writer (Cider with Rosie) , was born.
(HN, 6/26/01)
1914 Jun 26, Babe (Mildred)
Didrikson Zaharias (International Women's Sports Hall of Famer,
Olympic Hall of Famer, World Golf Hall of Famer, LPGA Hall of Famer,
National Track and Field Hall of Famer), was born in Port Arthur,
Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_Zaharias)
1914 Jun 27, Giorgio Almirante,
Italian fascist (member of parliament (1948-87), was born.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1914 Jun 27, US signed a treaty
of commerce with Ethiopia.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1914 Jun 28, Austrian Archduke
Francis Ferdinand, heir to Austria-Hungary, and his wife, Sofia,
were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by a Serb nationalist. As the
royal couple rode through the streets of Sarajevo in an open touring
car, seven young radicals from an obscure Serbian-Bosnian
nationalist group, called the Black Hand, lay in wait. An initial
assassination attempt failed, but a wrong turn brought the car near
Gavrilo Princip, who fired two shots at point-blank range into the
couple's bodies. Within minutes, both the Archduke and Sophia were
dead. Princip was arrested, but political tensions were so high
between Austria-Hungary and Serbia that war broke out as a result.
Like falling dominoes, international alliances brought one country
after another into the conflict. The event triggered World War I. In
2011 Adam Hochschild authored “To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty
and Rebellion.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.252, 284-285,290)(AP, 6/28/97)(HNPD,
6/28/98)(Econ, 6/4/11, p.93)
1914 Jun 28, World War I (WW I)
began in 1914 and ended on this date in 1919. [see Jul 28] In 1999
Niall Ferguson published "The Pity of War," in which he blames the
British government for having turned a European war into a world
war.
(HFA, ‘96, p.32)(WSJ, 4/14/99, p.A24)
1914 Jul 2, Frederick Fennell,
conductor (Time & the Winds), was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1914 Jul 4, 1st US motorcycle
race (300 miles, Dodge City Ks).
(Maggio, 98)
1914 Jul 10, The Boston Red Sox
purchased Babe Ruth (19) from the Baltimore Orioles for 30 pieces of
gold.
(Hem., 4/97, p.105)(MC, 7/10/02)
1914 Jul 11, Babe Ruth debuted
in the major leagues with the Boston Red Sox. He earned $2,900 in
his rookie season.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1914 Jul 14, 1st patent for
liquid-fueled rocket design was granted to Dr. R. Goddard.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1914 Jul 15, Gavin Maxwell,
Scottish writer and naturalist (Ring of Bright Water), was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1914 Jul 15, Mexican president
Huerta fled with 2 million pesos to Europe.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1914 Jul 16, A Socialist
conference in Brussels was attended by Kautsky, Trotsky & Rosa
Luxemburg.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1914 Jul 18, US army air
service 1st came into being as part of the Signal Corps.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1914 Jul 20, Armed resistance
against British rule began in Ulster.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1914 Jul 23, Austria and
Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of
Archduke Ferdinand; the dispute led to World War I.
(AP, 7/23/98)
1914 Jul 25, Russia declared
that it would act to protect Serbian sovereignty.
(HN, 7/25/98)
1914 Jul 26, Erskine Hawkins,
trumpeter, was born.
(HN, 7/26/01)
1914 Jul 26, Austrian-Hungary
condemned a Serbian ultimatum.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1914 July 27, Germany informed
Belgium and Luxembourg of its intention to pass its troops through
their countries. German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
reportedly called the 1839 London Treaty, in which all the European
powers had guaranteed Belgian neutrality, "a scrap of paper" not
worth fighting over. Bethmann-Hollweg was trying to persuade Britain
not to declare war based on the treaty. Unsuccessful in his efforts,
Britain and Belgium declared war when German troops entered Belgium
on August 4.
(HNQ, 7/24/98)
1914 Jul 27, British troops
invaded the streets of Dublin, Ireland, and began to disarm Irish
rebels.
(HN, 7/27/98)
1914 Jul 28, Austria-Hungary
declared war on Serbia, beginning World War I.
(CFA, ‘96, p.50)(HN, 7/28/98)
1914 Jul 28, The New York Stock
Exchange closed for 4 ½ months.
(CFA, ‘96, p.50)(HN, 7/28/98)
1914 Jul 28, World War I. Van
Doren described the world of this time in four economic zones:
1) Where the industrial force exceeds the number
of people engaged in agriculture. This included Great Britain, the
US, Germany, Belgium and Japan.
2) The agricultural population continues to be
about twice as large as the industrial force. This included Sweden,
Italy and Austria.
3) Those countries that had begun to
industrialize but were still primarily preindustrial. This included
Russia.
4) Countries that still depended almost
exclusively on handicrafts, artisanal work, and unskilled labor.
This included most of the Third World.
(V.D.-H.K.p.252, 284-285,290)
1914 Jul 29, Transcontinental
telephone service began with the first phone conversation between
New York and San Francisco.
(AP, 7/29/97)
1914 Jul 31, German Kaiser
Wilhelm II threatened war and ordered Russia to demobilize.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1914 Aug 1, France and Germany
mobilized.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1914 Aug 1, Germany declared
war on Russia at the onset of World War I.
(AP, 8/1/07)
1914 Aug 2, Germany invaded
Luxembourg.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1914 Aug 2, German press
falsely reported that French bombed Nuremberg.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1914 Aug 2, Great Britain
mobilized.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1914 Aug 2, Russian troops
invade Eastern Prussia.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1914 Aug 3, Germany invaded
Belgium and declared war on France at the onset of World War I. The
German plan for victory in France was known as the Schlieffen Plan,
and was based on a quick strike and the capture of Paris.
(HN, 8/3/98)(AP, 8/3/08)(ON, 8/08, p.5)
1914 Aug 3, German Admiral
Souchon, commander of the battle cruisers Goeben and Breslau,
received an unexpected change in his orders. After attacking the
Algerian coast he was no longer to sail west to the Atlantic Ocean.
Instead, he was now ordered to turn around and sail east to Turkey.
His new mission was to persuade the neutral Turkish government to
enter the war on the side of Germany. The 2 ships were sold to
Turkey and Souchon was made commander of the Turkish navy. He took
the ships into the Black Sea, where he bombarded the Russian cities
of Odessa, Sebastopol and Novorossiysk without the knowledge or
consent of the Turkish government.
(http://www.worldwar1.com/sfgb.htm)(ON, Dec,
1995)
1914 Aug 4, Britain and Belgium
declared war after German troops entered Belgium. The United States
proclaimed its neutrality.
(HNQ, 7/24/98)(AP, 8/4/97)
1914 Aug 5, One of the first,
if not the first, electric traffic light systems were installed in
Cleveland, Ohio.
(AP, 8/5/07)
1914 Aug 5, The British
Expeditionary Force mobilized for World War I.
(HN, 8/5/98)
1914 Aug 6, Ellen Louise
Wilson, the first wife of the twenty-eighth president, Woodrow
Wilson, died of Barite’s disease.
(HN, 8/6/98)
1914 Aug 6, Austria-Hungary
declared war against Russia and Serbia declared war against Germany.
(AP, 8/6/00)
1914 Aug 6, A German Zeppelin
bombed Liege City and killed 9 people.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1914 Aug 10, At Luik, German
12"/16.5" guns reached Belgian boundary.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1914 Aug 11, Jews were expelled
from Mitchenick, Poland.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1914 Aug 12, Great Britain
declared war on Austria-Hungary.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1914 Aug 13, Carl Wickman began
Greyhound, the 1st US bus line, in Minnesota.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1914 Aug 13, The British
purchased 3 fast cross-channel packets: Empress, Riviera and
Engadine. The ships were converted into seaplane tenders for
reconnaissance.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Aug 15, The Panama Canal
opened to traffic. The Panama Canal, a 52-mile waterway, was
completed. Some 5,000 workers, just 350 of them white, perished in
the American effort. In 1977 David McCullough authored "The Path
Between the Seas," a definitive account of the building of the
Panama Canal. In 2009 Julie Greene authored “The Canal Builders:
Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal.”
(WSJ, 7/22/96, p.A11)(SFEC, 11/3/96, p.A16)(HN,
8/15/98)(WSJ, 10/17/02, p.A18)(SFC, 3/3/09, p.E10)
1914 Aug 15, German assault at
Dinant: Lt. Charles de Gaulle (24) was injured.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1914 Aug 15, Anatol K. Liadov
(59), Russian composer (Baba Yaga), died.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1914 Aug 16, Liege, Belgium,
fell to the German army.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1914 Aug 16, Zapata and Pancho
Villa over ran Mexico.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1914 Aug 17, Franklin D.
Roosevelt Jr., son of FDR, (Rep-D-NY, 1949-55), was born.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1914 Aug 18, President Wilson
issued his Proclamation of Neutrality, aimed at keeping the United
States out of World War I.
(AP, 8/18/97)
1914 Aug 18, Germany declared
war on Russia.
(HN, 8/18/00)
1914 Aug 19, Elmer Rice' "On
Trial," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1914 Aug 19, The British
Expeditionary Force (BEF) landed in France.
(HN, 8/19/98)
1914 Aug 20, Battle at
Morhange: German troops chased French, killing 1000s.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1914 Aug 20, German forces
occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I.
(AP, 8/20/07)
1914 Aug 20, Russia won an
early victory over Germany at Gumbinnen.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1914 Aug 20-24, Battle of
Boundaries: Lorraine, Ardennen, Sambre & Meuse, Mons.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1914 Aug 22, In France some
27,000 soldiers died in the bloodiest battle of French history.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, Z1 p.2)
1914 Aug 22, Von Ludendorff and
von Hindenburg moved into East Prussia enroute to Russia.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1914 Aug 23, Gen. von Hausen
executed 612 inhabitants of Dinant, Belgium. Felix Fivet (3 weeks
old), Belgian baby, was among those executed by German troops.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1914 Aug 23, The Emperor of
Japan sided with the Allies and declared war on Germany in World War
I.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)(AP, 8/23/97)(HN,
8/23/98)
1914 Aug 24, German Zeppelins
bombed Antwerp.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Aug 25, German army began
6 week plundering of Leuven, Belgium. German Zeppelins bombed
Antwerp, Belgium, and 10 died.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1914 Aug 25, German troops
marched into France and pushed the French army to the Sedan.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1914 Aug 26, The French
government appointed Gen. Joseph Simon Gallieni (65) as military
governor of Paris. He had been called out of retirement at the onset
of war to serve in the Ministry of War in Paris.
(ON, 8/08, p.4)
1914 Aug 27, 2nd day of battle
at Tannenberg: Germany bombed Usdau.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1914 Aug 28, Three German
cruisers were sunk by ships of the Royal Navy in the Battle of
Heligoland Bight, the first major naval battle of World War I. The
Germans lost four ships and 1,000 sailors; British casualties were
33 killed.
(HN, 8/28/98)(RTH, 8/28/99)
1914 Aug 28, Anatoli Liadov
(59), composer, died.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1914 Aug 29, 4th day of
Tannenberg: Russian Narev-army panics, Gen Martos caught.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1914 Aug 30, The 1st German
plane bombed Paris and 2 people were killed.
(SFC, 8/24/96, p.E3)(MC, 8/30/01)
1914 Aug, Alberto Santos-Dumont
(1873-1932), Brazilian aviation pioneer, burned his aeronautical
papers after French neighbors labeled him a German spy.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1914 Aug, Sir Ernest Shackleton
(40) left England on a voyage to Antarctica with a 27 man crew on
the HMS Endurance. He planned to lead the "Imperial
Trans-Continental Expedition," a dog-sled party across the
continent.
(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.B15)(ON, 5/00, p.9)
1914 Aug, The British Flying
Corps (RFC) was sent to France to support the British Expeditionary
Corps.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Aug, Berlin stockyards
were slaughtering 25,000 pigs a week. By September, 1916, the number
dropped to 350 a week.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.73)
1914 Sep 1, Russia renamed St.
Petersburg to Petrograd.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1914 Sep 1, Martha, the last
known passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo.
(AH, 10/04, p.14)
1914 Sep 2, German Zeppelins
again bombed Antwerp.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Sep 3, Dixie Lee Ray,
Chairperson of the Atomic Energy Commission who received the U.N.
Peace Prize in 1977, was born.
(HN, 9/3/98)
1914 Sep 3, The French capital
was moved from Paris to Bordeaux as the Battle of the Marne began.
The British expeditionary army under general Lanrezacs army attacked
the Marne. French troops vacated Reims.
(HN, 9/3/98)(MC, 9/3/01)
1914 Sep 3, The air defense of
Great Britain was assigned to Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS).
Winston Churchill, the new first lord of the Admiralty, and the RNAS
were assigned the task of stopping the Zeppelins.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Sep 4, General von Moltke
ceased German advance in France.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1914 Sep 5, The First Battle of
the Marne began during World War I. The German First Army was led by
Gen. Alexander von Kluck.
(AP, 9/5/97)(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.A10)
1914 Sep 5, Charles Peguy
(d.1914), French poet and writer, died. "It is impossible to write
ancient history because we lack source materials, and impossible to
write modern history because we have far too many."
(AP,
7/28/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_P%C3%A9guy)
1914 Sep 6, In the Battle of
Marne German forces bypassed Paris to chase retreating allied
forces. French Gen. Gallieni orchestrated an attack using the
British Expeditionary Force along with the French 3rd, 5th and 6th
armies.
(ON, 8/08, p.5)
1914 Sep 7, James Alfred Van
Allen (d.2006), physicist, was born in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. In 1958
he discovered the two radiation belts surrounding the Earth, which
were named after him.
(HN, 9/7/98)(SFC, 8/10/06, p.B7)
1914 Sep 7, In the Battle of
Marne French Gen. Gallieni commandeered some 600 hundred Paris
taxicabs to deliver overnight 6,000 men of the 3rd army to reinforce
the 6th Army at the Battle of the Marne, which allowed the French
army to hold.
(ON, 8/08, p.5)
1914 Sep 8, Pvt. Thomas
Highgate (18) was the first British soldier in the war to be shot
for desertion. He had become separated from his unit, but said he
was trying to rejoin it when he was detained. In 2006 the British
government prepared to pardon 305 men who were hauled before firing
squads in World War I for desertion or cowardice after summary
trials.
(AP, 8/16/06)
1914 Sep 9, In the Battle of
Marne the German advance stalled and a retreat began back to the
Aisne River.
(ON, 8/08, p.5)
1914 Sep 11, W.C. Handy
published: "The Saint Louis Blues."
(SI-WPC, 12/6/96)(MC, 9/11/01)
1914 Sep 12, The First Battle
of the Marne ended in an Allied victory against Germany. The German
advance into France was stopped. 20th century history turned on this
pivotal event.
(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.A10)(AP, 9/12/06)
1914 Sep 15, President Woodrow
Wilson ordered the Punitive Expedition out of Mexico. The
Expedition, headed by General John Pershing, had been searching for
Pancho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1914 Sep 15, The Battle of
Aisne began between Germans and French during WW I.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1914 Sep 18, Battle of Aisne
ended with Germans beating the French during WW I.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1914 Sep 18, Gen. von
Hindenburg was named commander of German armies on the Eastern
Front.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1914 Sep 18, The Irish Home
Rule Bill became law, but was delayed until after World War I. The
Government of Ireland Act became law. It was an act by the British
government to take effect at the end of World War I.
(WSJ,3/13/95, p.A-15)(HN, 9/18/98)
1914 Sep 20, Kenneth More,
English actor (39 Steps, Doctor in the House), was born.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1914 Sep 22, The German cruiser
Emden shelled Madras, India, destroying 346,000 gallons of fuel and
killing only five civilians.
(HN, 9/22/99)
1914 Sep 22, A German submarine
sank 3 British ironclads, 1,459 died. The Aboukir, the Hogue, and
the Cressy, were all sunk in just over one hour. This
loss alerted the British to the deadly effectiveness of the
submarine, which had been generally unrecognized up to that
time.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1914 Sep 22, The RNAS attempted
their first air attack on the Zeppelins at Dusseldorf and Cologne.
There was little damage done.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Sep 24, In the
Alsace-Lorraine area between France and Germany, the German Army
captured St. Mihiel.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1914 Sep 26, Jack LaLanne,
fitness guru, was born.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1914 Sep 26, The Federal Trade
Commission was established to foster competition by preventing
monopolies in business.
(AP, 9/26/97)(HN, 9/26/99)
1914 Sep, Francis H. Leggett, a
steam cruiser bound for San Francisco, sank in heavy seas off the
Oregon coast. 74 people died and 2 survived.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)
1914 Sep, The Government of
Ireland Act became law. It was an act by the British government to
take effect at the end of World War I.
(WSJ,3/13/95, p.A-15)
1914 Oct 1, Daniel Joseph
Boorstin, author (Empire of Czar), was born. He won a Pulitzer Prize
in 1974 .
(MC, 10/1/01)
1914 Oct 4, The first German
Zeppelin raided London.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1914 Oct 6, Thor Heyerdahl,
Norwegian entomologist and adventurer whose Kon-Tiki expedition
established the possibility that Polynesians may have originated in
South America, was born.
(HN, 10/6/98)
1914 Oct 8, The RNAS attempted
another air attack on the Zeppelins at Dusseldorf and Cologne. The
dirigible shed at Dusseldorf was destroyed.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Oct 9, German troops took
Antwerp after a 12-day siege in WW I crushing the resistance of over
100,000 Belgian troops and violating Belgian neutrality.
(HN, 10/9/98)(MC, 10/9/01)
1914 Oct 12, The 1st battle at
Ypres, France, began.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1914 Oct 13, Garrett Morgan
invented and patented the gas mask.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1914 Oct 15, ASCAP (American
Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers) founded.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1914 Oct 15, Congress passed
President Wilson signed the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which labor
leader Samuel Gompers called "labor's charter of freedom." It
strengthened previous anti-monopoly legislation. The act exempted
unions from anti-trust laws; strikes, picketing and boycotting
became legal; corporate interlocking directorates became illegal, as
did setting prices which would effect a monopoly.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)(HN, 10/15/98)(AP, 10/15/08)
1914 Oct 15, Aleksander
Rozycki, composer, died at 69.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1914 Oct 16, Christian J.
Modeste, Gypsy king, was born.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1914 Oct 17, John Mosely,
recording expert and entrepreneur, was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1914 Oct 19, The German cruiser
Emden captures her thirteenth Allied merchant ship in 24 days.
(HN, 10/19/99)
1914 Oct 21, Battle of Warsaw
ended with a German defeat.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1914 Oct 22, The U.S. placed
economic support behind Allies.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1914 Oct 25, John Berryman,
poet, was born.
(HN, 10/25/00)
1914 Oct 27, Dylan Thomas,
British poet and author whose works included "Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Dog," was born in Swansea, Wales.
(AP, 10/27/97)(HN, 10/27/98)
1914 Oct 27, The British
battleship Audacious was sunk by a mine.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1914 Oct 28, Jonas Salk, US
physician and virologist, was born in NYC. He developed the first
safe and effective vaccine against polio.
(HN, 10/28/98)(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1914 Oct 28, George Eastman
announced the invention of the color photographic process.
(HN, 10/28/00)
1914 Oct 28, The German cruiser
Emden, disguised as a British ship, steamed into Penang Harbor near
Malaya and sank the Russian light cruiser Zhemchug.
(HN, 10/28/99)
1914 Oct 29, A Turkish fleet
including 2 German cruisers stormed the Black Sea and bombarded
Odessa, Sevastopol and Theodosia. [see Aug 3]
(PC, 1992, p.706)(ON, Dec, 1995)
1914 Oct 30, The Allied
offensive at Ypres, Belgium, began.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1914 Fall, Armenian volunteer
bands organized themselves and fought against the Turks. "The
Protestant missionaries distributed... propaganda in favor of
England and stirred the Armenians to desire autonomy under British
protection."
(History of Armenia, Horen Ashikian)
1914 Nov 1, Von Hindenburg was
named marshal of Eastern front.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1914 Nov 1, A German squadron
engaged the British fleet under Adm. Craddock near Coronel Bay,
Chile. The ships Good Hope and Monmouth were sunk and 1,600 men were
lost including Adm. Craddock.
(MC, 11/1/01)(ON, 3/02, p.11)
1914 Nov 2, Ray Walston, actor
(My Favorite Martian, Damn Yankees, Picket Fences), was born in New
Orleans, La.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1914 Nov 2, Victor
Herbert's "Only Girl," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1914 Nov 2, Great Britain
annexed Cyprus.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1914 Nov 2, Russia declared war
with Turkey. [see Oct 29]
(HN, 11/2/98)
1914 Nov 5, The Great Britain
and France declared war on Turkey.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1914 Nov 7, Japan attacked a
German concession on Chinese peninsula of Shanghai.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1914 Nov 9, Lt. Captain
Hellmuth Karl von Mucke (1892-1957) led a squad of men in 3 small
boats from the German cruiser Emden to destroy the British telegraph
station at Direction Island in the Cocos archipelago. Separated from
the Emden von Mucke commandeered the old schooner Ayesha and led his
men to Padang, where he sunk the Ayesha and took command of the
German merchant SS Choising. They reached Yemen on Jan 8, 1915.
(ON, 4/05, p.4)
1914 Nov 9, The Australian
light cruiser HMAS Sydney wrecked the German cruiser Emden, forcing
her to beach on a reef on North Keeling Island in the Indian Ocean.
(HN, 11/9/99)
1914 Nov 11, Howard Fast,
screenwriter (Rachel & the Stranger, Spartacus), was born in
NYC.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1914 Nov 13, The brassiere,
invented by Caresse Crosby, was patented by Mary Phelps Jacob.
(HN, 11/13/00)(MC, 11/13/01)
1914 Nov 15, Italian socialist
Benito Mussolini founded the newspaper Il Populo d’Italia.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1914 Nov 16, Federal Reserve
System formally opened. [see Apr 2, 1914]
(MC, 11/16/01)
1914 Nov 17, US declared Panama
Canal Zone neutral.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1914 Nov 20, Emilio Pucci,
fashion designer (Neiman-Marcus Award-1954), was born in Naples.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1914 Nov 20, US State
Department began requiring photographs for passports.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1914 Nov 20, Bulgaria
proclaimed its neutrality in the First World War.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1914 Nov 21, The RNAS attempted
an air attack on the Zeppelins at Friedrichshafen. They succeeded in
doing considerable damage.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Nov 22, Peter Woolridge
Townsend, war hero, courtier, writer, was born.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1914 Nov 24, Benito Mussolini
left Italy's socialist party.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1914 Nov 25, Joe DiMaggio,
baseball star, was born in Martinez, Ca.
(SFC, 10/15/04, p.F13)
1914 Nov 25, German Field
Marshal Fredrich von Hindenburg called off Lodz offensive 40 miles
from Warsaw, Poland. The Russians lost 90,000 to the Germans’ 35,000
in two weeks of fighting.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1914 Nov 26, Battleship HMS
Bulwark exploded at Sheerness Harbor, England, 788 died.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1914 Dec 2, Ray Walston, actor
(My Favorite Martian), was born.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1914 Dec 2, Austrian troops
occupied Belgrade, Serbia.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1914 Dec 4, The first Seaplane
Unit formed by the German Navy officially came into existence and
began operations from Zeebrugge, Belgium.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1914 Dec 5, Sir Ernest
Shackleton left South Georgia Island on the HMS Endurance in the
Weddell Sea in Antarctica.
(Hem. 1/95, p. 28)(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.B1)
1914 Dec 6, German troops over
ran Lodz.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1914 Dec 8, "Watch Your Step,"
the first musical revue to feature a score composed entirely by
Irving Berlin, opened in New York.
(AP, 12/8/99)
1914 Dec 8, The German cruisers
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, and Liepzig were sunk by a British
force under Adm. Sturdee in the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
1,800 German sailors were killed including Adm. Von Spee and his 2
sons. Over 2,500 lives were lost in a single day.
(HN, 12/8/98)(ON, 3/02, p.11)(SSFC, 10/6/02,
p.C12)
1914 Dec 15, The New York Stock
Exchange reopened under restrictions that specified minimum prices.
It had closed for 4 1/2 months due to the war.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.C1)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1914 Dec 17, Jews were expelled
from Tel Aviv by Turkish authorities.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1914 Dec 21, The first
feature-length silent film comedy, "Tillie's Punctured Romance," was
released.
(AP, 12/21/04)
1914 Dec 23, San Bruno, Ca.,
was incorporated following a campaign by the local newspaper, the
San Bruno Herald, mainly so the streets could be paved.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno,_California)(www.rofo.com/CA/San-Bruno)
1914 Dec 24, 577,875 Allied
soldiers spent Christmas as prisoners in Germany. World War I was
only months old on Christmas Eve 1914 when an extraordinary
unofficial truce occurred in many places along the Western Front.
"We were all moved and felt quite melancholy," wrote one German
soldier, "each of us taken up with his own thoughts of home." German
and English troops, often less than one hundred yards from each
other, set aside warfare to trade Christmas greetings and sing
familiar carols in two languages. The truce, probably observed by
two-thirds of the British and German troops, ended with the holiday,
but reasserted the basic decency of ordinary men like these British
and German soldiers caught up in war. In 2001 Stanley Weintraub
authored "Silent Night: The Remarkable 1914 Christmas Truce."
(HN, 12/24/98)(HNPD, 12/24/98)(WSJ, 12/17/01,
p.A16)
1914 Dec 24, John Muir (76),
naturalist, died in Martinez, Ca. He was born in Dunbar, Scotland,
in 1838.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, DB p.23)(SFC, 2/2/00, p.A21)(ON,
7/03, p.3)
1914 Dec 25, German and British
troops declared an unofficial truce to celebrate Christmas during
World War I.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1914 Dec 25, The British Royal
Navy Air Force attempted to bomb the German Zeppelin shed at
Cuxhaven. Fog obscured the mission and the bombs were dropped on
other sites, i.e. a seaplane base on Langeoog Island, the light
cruisers Stralsund and Graudenz and the city of Wilhemshaven. An
audacious British air attack on a Zeppelin base in northern Germany
caught the Germans with their defenses down. In 1985 R.D. Layman
(d.1999) published "The Cuxhaven Raid: The World's First Carrier Air
Strike."
(AHM, 1/97)(HN, 3/22/97)(SFC, 6/25/99, p.D6)
1914 Dec 26, Richard Widmark,
actor, was born: Judgment at Nuremberg, Murder on the Orient
Express, The Halls of Montezuma, How the West was Won, The Alamo,
Against All Odds, True Colors.
(440.com)
1914 Dec 29, The production of
Belgian newspapers was halted to protest German censorship.
(HN, 12/29/98)
1914 Dec 30, Bert Parks,
[Jacobson], TV host (Miss America), was born in Atlanta, Ga.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1914 Dec, Arthur Conan Doyle
planted a fossil elephant femur in the gravel pit near Piltdown that
was believed to be a genuine Paleolithic tool. It was shaped like a
cricket bat and appears to be part of Doyle’s Piltdown Ape-man
playing cricket hoax.
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.33)
1914 Hans J, Wegner, designer
of Danish Modern style wooden furniture, was born. His 3 most famous
chair designs were the "Classic," the "Chinese," and the "Peacock,"
all made during the late ‘40s and early ‘50s.
(SFC, 3/11/98, Z1 p.5)
1914 Marc Chagall returned to
Vitebsk and a year later married his muse, Bella Rosenfeld. He
founded a fine arts academy in his birthplace and later moved to
Moscow where he painted decorative murals for the Yiddish theater.
He later moved to Berlin.
(WSJ, 5/11/95, p. A-14)
1914 The sculpture "Large
Horse" was made by Duchamp-Villon.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)
1914 Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
(1891-1915) made the sculpture "Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound."
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)
1914 Raymond Duchamp-Villon
made his sculpture: "Large Horse," an abstract vision of horsepower.
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.B6)
1914 Andre Favory painted his
cubist "Woman with a Fan."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)
1914 Gustav Klimt, Austrian
modernist, painted "The Villa at Attersee." In 2003 Sotheby's
auctioned it for $29.1 million.
(SFC, 11/12/03, p.D4)
1914 Ludwig Meidner
(1884-1966), German expressionist artist, published his sequence of
drawings titled “Krieg,” a grotesque taste of the ghastliness of war
to come.
(Econ, 1/5/08, p.80)
1914 Jean Metzinger created his
cubist tabletop Still Life in muted shades of brown, blue and
yellow.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)
1914 Stanley Spencer painted
"The Centurion’s Servant."
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.C1)
1914 Egon Schiele (b.1990),
Viennese artist, made his "Reclining Woman With Raised Chemise."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1914 Canadian photographer
Margaret Watkins came to New York to study at the White School of
Photography, the only school in the US devoted to that art.
(WSJ, 12/31/96, p.5)
1914 S. Ansky wrote "Dybbuk," a
classic tale of love and ghostly possession. A Talmudic student
starves himself to death and inhabits the body of his beloved who
was wed to a rich nerd.
(SFEC,11/9/97, DB p.17)(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A12)
1914 Chris Evans, San Joaquin
Ca. farmer and political idealist published his utopian novel:
"Eurasia." He had been imprisoned for the first-degree murder of
professional man-hunter Vic Wilson and was suspected of robbing the
Southern Pacific Railroad. He was released on parole by Gov. Johnson
in 1911.
(Smith., 5/95, p.94)
1914 E.M. Forster authored his
novel "Maurice," a story of cross-class, homosexual love. A
1987 film version was directed by Merchant Ivory. The novel was not
published until after Forster’s death.
(SFEC, 8/22/99, DB p.37)(SSFC, 11/26/00, DB p.55)
1914 H.G. Wells authored "The
World Set Free," which included references to an atomic bomb.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, Z1 p.2)
c1914 Edith Wharton authored
"French Ways and Their Meaning." She argue in the book for American
Intervention in WW I.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.50)
1914 Eugene O’Neill wrote his
first full-length play "Bread and Butter." It was rejected and he
disavowed the work. it was never produced in his lifetime.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)
1914 Cecil B. DeMille (b.1881)
made his first film "The Squaw Man," for a new movie company headed
by Samuel Goldwyn. It established him as one of America’s top
directors. He went on to direct films of all types, making stars out
of protégés such as Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan in the silent
era and Charlton Heston and Paulette Goddard in the talkies.
(HNPD, 8/12/98)
1914 In San Francisco the Pier
35 ship terminal was built.
(SFC, 5/3/12, p.C5)
1914 The 315-mile Northwestern
Pacific Railroad reached Eureka, Ca.
(SFEC, 9/7/97, Z1 p.1)
1914 Robert Burgess, a local
real estate developer, advertised that the grandest view of planet
could be had from the top of Mount Diablo, where he had just built a
toll road to the top. The myth was later debunked. 72,000 square
miles are visible from Mt. McKinley in Alaska, as compared to the
18,000 square miles visible from the top of Mt. Diablo. The world’s
grandest view was from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
(SSFC, 11/23/08, p.E7)
1914 A new St. Ignatius Church
opened at the 5th site of St. Ignatius College on the block
bordered by Fulton, Masonic, Stanyon and Turk, the site of the old
Masonic Cemetery Association. The faculty residence opened there in
1920, the college in 1927 and the high school in 1929.
(SFCM, 3/29/02, p.48)(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1914 Union Station in Kansas
City, Mo., opened.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G6)
1914 Florida’s Jacksonville Zoo
began with a single red deer fawn.
(LP, Spring 2006, p.61)
1914 Edwin Perkins of Hendley,
Nebraska, began selling bottles of a flavored syrup called "Fruit
Smack." In 1927 he removed the water due to shipping expense and
offered the beverage powder in envelopes under the name "Kool-Aid."
In 1953 the Perkins Products Co. became part of the General Foods
Corp.
(SFC, 4/9/96, z1 p.5)
1914 Detroit got its first stop
sign.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1914 May Pierstorff was mailed
by her parents to her grandmother’s house at a parcel post rate from
Grangeville, Idaho, to Lewiston, Idaho, for 53 cents. She weighed
less than the 50 pound parcel post limit.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Z1 p.5)
1914 Wrigley Field baseball
stadium was built.
(SFC, 7/21/96, zone 1 p.6)
1914 The Krebs-Peterson House
was built in Carson City, Nev. It was featured in actor John Wayne's
last movie, “The Shootist” (1976).
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.F10)
1914 The Belle of Louisville
sternwheeler was built and began service as a freighter. It became a
landmark of Louisville, Ky., in 1962, and almost sank in 1997.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)
1914 The American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee, a humanitarian relief organization, was
founded.
(WSJ, 3/8/99, p.A16)
1914 Harry Fox introduced the
foxtrot dance in the Ziegfeld Follies.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.B3)
1914 Japan sided with the
Allies in the war against Germany.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)
1914 The Harrison Narcotics Act
was put forth but not signed until 1916. [see 1916]
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.E3)
1914 In Washington D.C. houses
of prostitution were banned.
(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.A24)
1914 The White House
Correspondents Association was formed following rumors that their
congressional counterparts would be asked to pick questioners at
presidential news conferences. In 1920 the group initiated an annual
dinner.
(WSJ, 4/30/01, p.A16)
1914 The US banned the import
of Mexican avocados. The ban stayed in force until Nov 1,1997.
(WSJ, 10/31/97, p.A20)
1914 When WW I broke out the US
military took all the relevant patents for wireless communications
and put them into a mandatory licensing pool.
(Wired, 10/96, p.133)
1914 US Navy Secretary Josephus
Daniels substituted grape juice for the daily rum ration.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Z1 p.5)
1914 The US Forest Service
created the Center for Wood Anatomy Research as a branch of the
Forest Products Laboratory. The service provided free wood analysis
to the public.
(WSJ, 10/22/97, p.B1)
1914 All the black families in
Prince George County, Alabama, were brutally driven out. The event
became known as the "Trouble." The 1996 novel "Sacred Dust" by David
Hill tells the story.
(SFC, 9/1/96, BR p.6)
1914 Believing that every woman
should have the right to plan the size of her family, Margaret
Sanger published a magazine with information about birth control
methods. Sanger was charged under the Comstock Law of 1873 with
mailing obscene literature, but the charges were dropped. Two years
later, Sanger spent 30 days in jail when she opened America’s first
birth control clinic in Brooklyn.
(HNPD, 9/14/98)
1914 Oregon narrowly repealed
its death penalty after having executed 24 men.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A11)
1914 The German ambassador
arrived in the US with $150 million to spend on behalf of his
country’s war effort. Enterprising San Franciscans made business in
shipping deals and supplies. Coal from Mayor James Rolph’s coal
company was sold to supply a German cruiser squadron off of South
America.
(SFEC, 10/9/96, E3)
1914 SF bought 125 streetcars
from the Jewett Car Co. in Ohio and put them to work hauling
passengers for the Panama Pacific Int’l. Exposition.
(SFC, 6/10/08, p.B1)
1914 The Int’l. Association of
Policewomen was formed. 25 US cities had policewomen.
(SFC, 6/25/04, p.F6)
1914 Citibank, USA, opened a
branch in Buenos Aires, Arg. The history of Citibank was written by
Phillip L. Zweig in 1996 and titled: "Wriston: Walter Wriston,
Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy."
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-12)
c1914 When WW I began Helena
Rubinstein relocated her Paris beauty salon business to NYC off 5th
Ave.
(SFEM, 8/23/98, p.29)
1914 Henry Ford (1863-1947)
introduced his $5 a day pay that made it possible for the average
worker to buy a car. 231,000 "Tin Lizzies" were built this year.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1914 Dodge cars were
introduced.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1914 Becton Dickinson Corp.
introduced its all-cotton elastic bandage. A naming contest offered
a $200 prize to the physician who thought up the best name. After
reviewing 3,000 suggestions, the acronym ACE was selected.
(Horizon, 8/96, p.8)
1914 DuPont of Wilmington,
Del., ordered 61 prefabricated houses from Aladdin Homes for a new
town called Hopewell Farm, Va., being built for workers in its
dynamite factory.
(WSJ, 10/31/05, p.B1)
1914 The Napanee Line of Dutch
Kitchenet cabinets was introduced by Coppes Brothers and Zook of
Nappanee, Indiana, about this time.
(SFC, 7/26/06, p.G2)
1914 Thomas J. Watson Sr.
(1874-1956) began running the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., a
predecessor to IBM. He converted the financially ailing
manufacturing business into the international giant IBM.
(WUD, 1994, p.1614)(HN, 2/17/99)(WSJ, 5/15/03,
p.A1)
1914 The Toy Tinkers Company of
Evanston, Ill., made the Tinkertoy Wonder Builder construction set
out of wood as its first product. It sold for 50 cents. Toy Tinkers
was sold in 1952 to A.G. Spalding. It was later acquired by Hasbro
who made its parts out of plastic. Hasbro was named after the
Hassenfeld Brothers.
(SFC, 2/5/97, z-1 p.7)(SFC, 4/8/98, Z1 p.6)(SFC,
8/15/98, p.E4)
1914 Two-way radio contact was
accomplished between pilot and ground control.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1914 James Chadwick, British
scientist, discovered that beta particles showed a wide spread of
energy distribution from zero to a few million electron volts.
(SCTS, p.130)
1914 Harlow Shapley, American
astronomer, suggested that the periodic luminosity changes of
cepheids are due to the pulsations of their giant gaseous bodies.
(SCTS, p.1171)
1914 In California Ishi, the
"Stone Age" Indian, led scientists back to the his native canyons
and demonstrated his old ways of life.
(CAS, 1996, p.7)
1914 The bones of a Neanderthal
baby were found in southwestern France and shipped to Paris for
analysis. The 40,000 year-old "Le Moustier 2" bones were put away
and re-discovered in 1996.
(SFC, 9/5/02, p.A16)
1914 In California Mt. Lassen
erupted and continued to spew volcanic debris through 1921.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.T5)
1914 Beno Gutenberg, German
geophysicist, located the top of the earth’s core at 1,800 miles
below the surface, which means that the core has a radius of 2,200
miles. To this day the top of the core is called the Gutenberg
discontinuity.
(DD-EVTT, p.78)
1914 Aug 15, Mamah Borthwick
Cheney, the mistress of Frank Lloyd Wright, was axed to death along
with her 2 children and 4 others by a crazed servant at Wright’s
rural Taliesin home. Wright restored the house, which was set aflame
in the rampage. The house was ravaged by fire again in 1925 and
again restored by Wright.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, DB p.48)(Econ, 3/5/11,
p.92)(http://tinyurl.com/4w943ss)
1914 Ambrose Bierce (b.1842),
American writer, died. His books included “The Devil's Dictionary”
(originally published as The Cynic’s Word Book in 1906) and “An
Occurrence Owl Creek Bridge.” He vanished in Mexico after a letter
sent from Chihuahua on Dec 26, 1913.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce)
1914 The British Royal Navy's
Grand Fleet moved to a new base in Scapa Flow, in Scotland’s Orkney
Islands. They needed a safe place to take on a German Fleet based in
the Baltic.
(www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/eastmainland/churchill/)
1914 The German warship
Magdeburg ran aground near Finland. The Russians found a copy of
their naval code book and gave copies to the British.
(SFEC, 2/16/97, BR p.7)
1914 In 2002 "German
Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial" was published.
(NW, 9/30/02, p.72)
1914 An 840km stretch of
frontier between China and India (Arunachal Pradesh state), in
effect independent at this time, was settled by the governments of
India and Tibet and named the McMahon Line after Sir Henry McMahon,
creator of the border line. The conference in Simla placed Tawang
inside the borders of India.
(Econ, 8/21/10, p.18)(Econ, 10/20/12, p.37)
1914 A Japanese settler
introduced rice farming to the Murray Region of Australia.
(Hem., 12/96, p.82)
1914 In western Japan the
Takarazuka Revue, a female musical theater troupe, was founded.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, DB p.55)
1914 Japan occupied the
Caroline Islands and received a League of Nations mandate over them
in 1920.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Islands)
1914 In Mexico Elmer Jones, a
Wells Fargo vice-president, was summoned by Pancho Villa and ordered
to continue doing business on the northern railroads seized by
Villa. Jones and another official refused and were imprisoned and
ordered to be executed. The execution order was not completed and
the Wells Fargo officials were rescued. The incident is contained in
the book: "Wells Fargo: Advancing the American Frontier."
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A2)
c1914 When WW I began New
Zealand pried Western Samoa from the Germans.
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.45)
1914 Nigeria was cobbled
together by British colonialists. Over 200 ethnic groups were
brought together into one country.
(SFEC, 7/19/98, p.A20)
1914 The Swedish firm Kreuger
& Toll, a construction and engineering firm co-founded by Ivar
Kreuger (1880-1932) and a partner, went public.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.116)
1914 Venezuela’s 1st oil gusher
was drilled near Lake Maracibo.
(WSJ, 4/18/02, p.A9)
1914-1915 The Cracker Jack prizes of baseball
cards of this time later became the most valued prizes. The shoeless
Joe Jackson card sold for $8,500 in 1998.
(SFC, 2/11/98, Z1 p.6)
1914-1916 George Washington Goethals served as the
governor of the Canal Zone.
(WUD, 1994, p.606)
1914-1917 Piet Mondrian painted his abstracts
called "Composition," that reflected his plus-minus ideas of
masculine and feminine lines. He later moved on to the style he
translated as "neo-plasticism," his attempt to reduce painting to
its pure essence.
(WSJ, 9/10/97, p.A20)
1914-1918 Marc Chagall painted the celebrated
Above Town, where a reclining couple hover in a celestial daze above
Vitebsk. In the lower left, a tiny figure defecates.
(WSJ, 5/11/95, p. A-14)
1914-1918 In 2002 Winston Groom authored "A Storm
in Flanders: The Ypres Salient: 1914-1918: Tragedy and Triumph on
the Western Front."
(SSFC, 6/30/02, p.M4)
1914-1918 The German campaign in East Africa was
directed by General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. German looting and
raiding caused at least 300,000 civilian deaths. By attacking
Northern Rhodesia they invaded British territory. Of 1 million
porters recruited by the British, 95,000 died. In 2007 Edward Paice
authored “Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in
Africa. In 2008 Edward Paice authored “World War I: The African
Front.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.87)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W8)
1914-1919 During WW I nine million people died; 2
million Frenchmen, 2 million Germans, 1 million Britons, .5 million
Italians, 1.7 million Austro-Hungarians, and about .5 million Turks.
In 1996 PBS aired an 8-hour documentary on the war. 116,516
Americans died. The Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, was sunk
during WW I by either a bomb or torpedo in the Aegean. In 1997
Stephen O’Shea, a Canadian journalist, wrote "Back to the Front," a
book based on a walking tour in which he revisited the front lines
of the war. In 1999 John Keegan published "The First World War,"
written mostly from a British perspective. In 1999 Byron Farwell
published "Over There," an account of American participation in the
war.
(SFC, 11/7/96, p.E1)(SFEM, 11/10/96, p.12)(AM,
May/Jun 97 p.80)(SFEC, 10/5/97, Par p.5)(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W5)(WSJ,
6/17/99, p.A24)
1914-1919 The Mack truck became a favorite of the
American Expeditionary Force during World War I.
(HNQ, 11/11/00)
1914-1919 The Texas Rangers killed some 5,000
Hispanics over this period.
(SFC, 4/12/04, p.E8)
c1914-1919 Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951),
Viennese-born philosopher, wrote his "Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus" while serving in the Austrian army during WW
I. He had "set out to chart the logical limits of language and ended
with poetic gestures toward what words could not capture." In 1996
Marjorie Perloff wrote "Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and
the Strangeness of the Ordinary."
(SFEC, 10/27/96, BR p.4)
1914-1928 German and Austrian Jews born in this
period collided with the Third Reich. In 2001 Walter Laqueur
authored "Generation Exodus," a study of what happened to many of
them.
(WSJ, 8/13/01, p.A11)
1914-1931 Karen Blixen, Danish author, lived on a
farm near Nairobi, Kenya. Her lover was Denys Finch-Hatton. She
wrote under the name Isak Dinesen. The two were featured in the 1985
film "Out of Africa" that starred Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.
The country was then called British East Africa.
(SFC, 6/17/98, p.E1)(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T10)
1914-1933 Sebastion Haffner (d.1999) covered this
period of the Weimar in a memoir that was cut short by his death.
The English version was published in 2002 as "Defying Hitler."
(WSJ, 9/19/02, p.D12)
1914-1945 Stanley Payne wrote "A History of
Fascism, 1914-1945," publ. in 1996.
(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-16)
1914-1979 Fred Coe was considered the greatest
producer in television’s Golden Age in the 1950s. John Krampner
wrote "The Man in the Shadows: Fred Coe and the Golden Age of
Television" in 1996.
(MT, Spg. ‘97, p.18)
1914-1996 Masao Maruyama, prof. of political
science at the Univ. of Tokyo (1950-1971). He formed the pillar of
postwar anti-establishment thought.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A18)
1914-200 In 2003 Harold Jones authored "Europe
Reborn: A History, 1914-2000."
(Econ, 11/15/03, p.79)
1915 Jan 1, German
submarine U-24 sank the British battleship Formidable in the English
Channel whilst on patrol and exercise with the 5th Battle Squadron.
She sank rapidly with the loss of 547 crew. The 5BS had been
steaming slowly (10knots), not zigzagging and were without destroyer
escort. Admiral in charge Lewis Bayly was dismissed from his
position over the loss.
(www.worldwar1.co.uk/sunk15.htm)
1915 Jan 2, Karl Goldmark
(b.1830), Hungarian composer (Queen of Saba), died in Vienna.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Goldmark)
1915 Jan 3, Jack Levine,
artist, was born in Boston, Mass. His social realist and
expressionist art included political and satirical undertones.
(SFC, 7/24/04, p.E1)
1915 Jan 6, John Cunningham
Lilly (d.2001), was born in Saint Paul, Minn. He later became a
medical doctor and dolphin and counter culture researcher
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.A18)
1915 Jan 9, Les Paul, guitarist
inventor (Les Paul), was born.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1915 Jan 9, Pancho Villa signed
a treaty with U.S. General Scott, halting border conflicts.
(HN, 1/9/98)
1915 Jan 12, The U.S. House of
Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.
(AP, 1/12/98)
1915 Jan 13, An earthquake in
Avezzano, Italy, killed 29,800.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1915 Jan 14, The French
abandoned five miles of trenches to the Germans near Soissons.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1915 Jan 15, Fannie Farmer
(b.1857), American culinary expert, died. Her “Boston Cooking-School
Cook Book” (1896) became a widely used culinary text.
(WSJ, 12/29/07,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Merritt_Farmer)
1915 Jan 15, Japan claimed
economic control of China.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1915 Jan 18, The HMS Endurance,
under Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 27 man crew, froze into the ice
of Antarctica. In 1999 Caroline Alexander published "The Endurance:
Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition."
(Hem. 1/95, p. 28)(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.B1)(SFEC,
1/24/99, BR p.1)
1915 Jan 18, A train crashed at
Colima-Guadalajara Mexico and some 600 people were killed.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1915 Jan 19, The neon tube sign
was patented by George Claude.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1915 Jan 19, The first German
air raids on Britain inflicted minor casualties. A Zeppelin attack
over Great Britain killed 4 people.
(HN, 1/19/99)(MC, 1/19/02)
1915 Jan 21, The first Kiwanis
Club was formally founded, in Detroit, Mich. Allen Browne in Dec,
1914, had proposed a fraternal club for business and professional
men. Kiwanis was established as an organization devoted to the
principle of service and to the advancement of individual,
community, and national welfare, and to the strengthening of
international goodwill.
(AP, 1/21/98)(www.tcfn.org/kiwanistci/about.html)
1915 Jan 23, Potter Stewart,
94th Supreme Court justice (1958-81), was born in Mich.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1915 Jan 23, John Chilembwe
(1871-1915) staged an uprising in Malawi. He and 200 followers
attacked local plantations that they considered to be oppressing
African workers. They killed three white plantation staff, including
plantation owner William Jervis Livingstone, whom they beheaded in
front of his wife and small daughter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chilembwe)
1915 Jan 24, The German cruiser
Blücher was sunk by a British squadron in the Battle of Dogger Bank.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1915 Jan 25, Umberto Giordano,
Sardou & Moreau's opera "Madame Sans Gene" premiered in NYC.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1915 Jan 25, The inventor of
the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated transcontinental
telephone service in the United States. Bell placed the first
ceremonial cross-continental call from New York to his old colleague
Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.D1)(AP, 1/25/98)(HN, 1/25/99)
1915 Jan 26, President Woodrow
Wilson signed the Rocky Mountain National Park Act. The 415 square
miles park, northwest of Denver, was created following a decade of
lobbying by photographer and naturalist Enos Mills.
(http://home.nps.gov/romo/historyculture/upload/chapter2.pdf)(SFC,
7/19/97, p.A2)
1915 Jan 28, Pres. Wilson
refused to prohibit the immigration of illiterates.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1915 Jan 28, The U.S. Coast
Guard was founded by an Act of Congress to fight contraband trade
and aid distressed vessels at sea.
(AP, 1/28/98)(HN, 1/28/99)
1915 Jan 28, 1st US ship, the
William P. Frye, was lost in WW I while carrying wheat to UK.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1915 Jan 28, The German navy
attacked the U.S. freighter William P. Frye, loaded with wheat for
Britain.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1915 Jan 31, Thomas Merton
(d.1968), French Trappist monk, poet, essayist , was born. "A
happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found; for
a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to
make us happy."
(AP, 4/17/01)(MC, 1/31/02)
1915 Jan 31, Germans
used poison gas for the 1st time on the Russians at Bolimov.
(HN, 1/31/99)(MC, 1/31/02)
1915 Jan 31, German U-boats
sank two British steamers in the English Channel.
(HN, 1/31/99)
1915 Feb 2, Abba Eban (d.2002),
Israeli statesman, was born in South Africa. He grew up in England,
attaining honors at Cambridge University, where he honed his oratory
as a leader of the university debating society.
(AP, 11/17/02)
1915 Feb 3, In Malawi John
Chilembwe, a preacher and anticolonialist rebel, was slain. His
picture was later put on every Malawi banknote.
(SSFC, 1/15/12,
p.H3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chilembwe)
1915 Feb 4, Germans decreed
British waters part of war zone; all ships were to be sunk without
warning.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1915 Feb 5, Robert Hofstadter,
US atomic physicist, was born.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1915 Feb 7, 1st wireless
message sent from a moving train to a station was received.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1915 Feb 7, Field marshal Paul
von Hindenburg moved on Russians at Masurian Lakes.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1915 Feb 8, D.W. Griffith's
silent movie epic about the Civil War, "The Birth of a Nation,"
premiered at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles.
(AP, 2/8/99)
1915 Feb 10, President Wilson
blasted the British for using the U.S. flag on merchant ships to
deceive the Germans. He also warned the Kaiser that he would hold
Germany "to a strict accountability" for U.S. lives and property
endangered. In Europe [Lithuania], the Germans encircled and
captured 100,000 Russians near Nieman River. When the United States
entered World War I, propagandist George Creel set out to stifle
anti-war sentiment.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1915 Feb 12, Andrew J.
Goodpaster, US general, supreme commander (NATO-Europe), was born.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1915 Feb 12, Lorne Greene,
actor (Bonanza, Battlestar Galactica), was born in Ottawa, Canada.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1915 Feb 12, The cornerstone
for the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, D.C., a year to the
day after groundbreaking.
(AP, 2/12/08)
1915 Feb 14, The Kaiser invited
the U.S. Ambassador Gerard to Berlin in order to confer on the war.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1915 Feb 16, Emil Waldteufel,
[Charles Levy], French composer (Estudiantina), died.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1915 Feb 18, Germany began a
blockade of England.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1915 Feb 19, British and French
warships began their attacks on the Turkish forts at the mouth of
the Dardenelles, in an abortive expedition to force the straits of
Gallipoli. Winston Churchill was the architect of the disastrous
campaign. Allied forces were evacuated at the end of the year after
both sides had suffered appalling hardships and losses. In 2011
Peter Hart authored “Gallipoli.”
(HN, 2/19/99)(NW, 12/24/01, p.64)(Econ, 10/8/11,
p.103)
1915 Feb 20, President Wilson
opened the Panama-Pacific Expo in San Francisco to celebrate the
opening of the Panama Canal. A 20-acre salt marsh was paved
over at Crissey Field for the Expo. It was held on what later became
the Marina District and 300,000 people attended opening day. Herb
Caen claimed to have been conceived in this year during the expo. A
40-ton organ with 7,000 pipes played the "Hallelujah Chorus." It was
made by the Austin Organs Co. of Hartford, Conn. After the fair it
was moved to the Civic Auditorium and used for 7 decades until the
1989 earthquake damaged it.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p.A1)(SFC, 10/4/96, p.A22)(SFC,
4/27/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)
1915 Feb 21, The 20th Russian
Army corps surrendered.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1915 Feb 22, Germany began
"unrestricted" submarine warfare.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1915 Feb 23, Germany sank US
ships Carib & Evelyn and torpedoed the Norwegian ship Regin.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1915 Feb 26, The 1st
flame-thrower was used by the Germans at Malancourt, Argonnen.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1915 Feb 28, Peter Medawar,
zoologist, immunologist (Nobel 1953), was born in England.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1915 Feb 28, Zero "Samuel"
Mostel, actor (Fiddler on the Roof), was born in Brooklyn.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1915 Mar 1, The Allies
announced their aim to cut off all German supplies, and assured the
safety of the neutrals.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1915 Mar 2, British Vice
Admiral Carden began bombing of Dardanelles forts.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1915 Mar 2, Vladmir Jabotinsky
formed a Jewish military force to fight in Palestine.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1915 Mar 3, The film "The Birth
of a Nation" debuted in New York City. The motion picture brought
Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh and Wallace Reid to the silver screen in
what has frequently been called the greatest silent film ever
produced.
(SFEC,11/9/97, DB p.44)(HC, Internet, 3/3/98)
1915 Mar 3, The National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), a NASA forerunner, was
created. It was the first US government sponsored organization in
support of aviation research and development.
(SC, 3/3/02)(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1915 Mar 4, Petrus de Jong,
Dutch premier (KVP, 1967-71), was born.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1915 Mar 9, The Germans took
Grodno on the Eastern Front.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1915 Mar 13, Dodgers manager
Wilbert Robinson tried to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane,
but the pilot substituted a grapefruit.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1915 Mar 13, The Germans
repelled a British Expeditionary Force attack at the battle of Neuve
Chapelle in France.
(HN, 3/13/99)
1915 Mar 14, Lincoln Beachey,
air devil, plunged into the shallows of SF Bay and was killed as
some 50,000 fans watched his performance during the Panama-Pacific
Expo. The battleship USS Oregon recovered the plane and body.
(Ind, 9/5/98, p.5A)
1915 Mar 14, The British Navy
sank the German battleship Dresden off the Chilean coast.
(HN, 3/14/98)
1915 Mar 15, Thomas Robert Bard
(b.1841), US Republican Senator from Ventura, California
(1900-1905), died. In 1871 he laid out the town of Hueneme and built
a wharf there. Bard was born in Chambersburg, Pa., and came to
California in 1864.
(www.bioguide.congress)
1915 Mar 16, The US Federal
Trade Commission was organized.
(AP, 3/16/97)
1915 Mar 16, British battle
cruisers Inflexible and Irresistible hit mines in Dardanelle
(Turkey).
(MC, 3/16/02)
1915 Mar 20, The French called
off the Champagne offensive on the Western Front.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1915 Mar 22, A German Zeppelin
made a night raid on Paris railway stations.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1915 Mar 23, Zion Mule Corp.
formed.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1915 Mar 25, The first
submarine disaster occurred when a U.S. F-4 sank off the Hawaiian
coast. 21 people were killed.
(HN, 3/24/98)(MC, 3/25/02)
1915 Mar 31, Henry Morgan,
comedian, radio performer, was born.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1915 Apr 1, Roland Garros
(d.1918), French aviator, shot down 2 German aviators over Belgium,
with bullets shot through his propellers. Corp. August Spachholz and
Lt. Walter Grosskopf became the 1st to be killed by an enemy pilot
flying alone.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1915 Apr 3, Paul Touvier, war
criminal, was born.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1915 Apr 4, Muddy Waters,
American blues musician, was born as McKinley Morganfield.
(HN, 4/4/01)(MC, 4/4/02)
1915 Apr 5, Jack Johnson
(1878-1946), African-American heavyweight champion boxer since 1908,
lost the heavyweight championship in Cuba to Jess Willard in the
26th round.
(SFC, 1/17/05,
p.D6)(www.hickoksports.com/biograph/johnsonjack.shtml)
1915 Apr 6, Big Bill Thompson
(b.1869) won the general election to become mayor of Chicago.
Thompson served 3 terms: 1915-1919, 1919-1923, and 1927-1931.
(www.chipublib.org/004chicago/mayors/thompson.html)
1915 Apr 7, Billie Holliday
(Holiday, d.1949, jazz and blues legend, was born. She sang "God
Bless the Child."
(HN, 4/7/99)
1915 Apr 10, Harry Morgan,
actor (December Bride, M*A*S*H, Dragnet), was born in Detroit, Mich.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1915 Apr 11, The Armenians of
Van began a general revolt, massacring all the Turks in the vicinity
so as to make possible its quick and easy conquest by the Russians.
(http://www.atmg.org/ArmenianFAQ.html#q6)
1915 Apr 15, Manuel de Falla's
ballet "El Amor Brujo," premiered in Madrid.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1915 Apr 21, Anthony Quinn
(d.2001), film star, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, to Frank Quinn
and Manuella Oaxaca.
(HN, 4/21/98)(SFC, 6/4/01, p.A17)
1915 Apr 22, Germans made the
first use of poison gas in World War I. Chlorine gas was used along
4 miles of the French line at Ypres.
(HN, 4/22/98)(NH, 10/98, p.18)
1915 Apr 23, ACA becomes
National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA), the forerunner of
NASA.
(HN, 4/23/99)
1915 Apr 24-May 14, Turkey said
Armenians had sided with Russia and issued a deportation order for
the mass deportation of Armenians. Armenian organizations in
Istanbul were closed and 235 members were arrested for treason.
Turkish police arrested some 800 of the most prominent Armenians in
Constantinople, took them into the hinterlands and shot them. With
that the terror spread through "Turkish Armenia" spearheaded by the
"Special Organization" of soldiers of the Turkish leader Enver. In
2006 Taner Akcam authored “A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and
the Question of Turkish Responsibility.”
(AP, 4/24/97)(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A10)(HNQ,
5/30/99)(Econ, 10/21/06, p.95)(AP, 4/24/10)
1915 Apr 25, Australian and New
Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli in Turkey in hopes of attacking
the Central Powers from below. Allied soldiers, ANZAC, invaded the
Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey in an unsuccessful attempt to take the
Ottoman Turkish Empire out of the war. The allies were defeated in
one of the deadliest battles of the war. In 1965 Sir Robert Rhodes
James authored "Gallipoli," a definitive account of the Allied
expedition.
(AP, 4/25/97)(SFC, 2/18/98, p.A18)(HN, 4/25/99)
1915 Apr 26, Second Lieutenant
Rhodes-Moorhouse became the first airman to win the Victoria Cross
after conducting a successful bombing raid.
(HN, 4/26/99)
1915 Apr 27, Alexander N.
Scriabin (43), Russian pianist, composer (Prometheus), died.
(SFC, 2/16/99, p.B1)(MC, 4/27/02)
1915 Apr, The New York Stock
Exchange ended restricted trading imposed in 1914.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.C1)
1915 May 1, The luxury liner
Lusitania left New York Harbor for a voyage to Europe. There were
warnings by the German government in NYC newspapers that it regarded
the refurbished liner a battle target. She was sunk by a German
U-boat six days later.
(HN, 5/1/99)(MC, 5/1/02)
1915 May 1, A German submarine
sank the U.S. ship Gulflight I.
(HN, 5/1/98)
1915 May 5, Alice Jeanne
Leppert, known later as the actress Alice Faye, was born in NYC.
[some sources give her birth year as 1912] She reigned as the queen
of the Fox movie lot from 1935 to 1944.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.C8)
1915 May 5, Richard H. Rovere,
journalist (Goldwater Caper), was born in Jersey City.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1915 May 5, German U-20 sank
the Earl of Lathom.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1915 May 6, Orson Welles
(d.1985), actor, director, and writer, was born in Kenosha, Wisc. He
is famous for his movie Citizen Kane (1941).
(HN,
5/6/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles)
1915 May 6, Theodore H. White,
historian, writer (Making of President), was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1915 May 6, Babe Ruth made his
pitching debut with the Red Sox hit his 1st HR, but lost to Yanks
4-3 in 15 innings.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1915 May 6, German U-20 sank
Centurion SE of Ireland.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1915 May 7, In the 2nd year of
WWI, the British Cunard ocean liner Lusitania, on a voyage from New
York to Liverpool, sank off the coast of Ireland in only 18-21
minutes after being struck by a torpedo fired by the German U-boat
U-20. Of 1,959 [1,978] passengers and crew, 1,195 died. Of the
fatalities, 123 were Americans. Even though the Germans maintained
the liner was carrying arms purchased in America to Britain, the
sinking of a passenger ship aroused intense anger against the German
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and hastened America's
entrance into the war. In 2002 Diana Preston authored "Lusitania: An
Epic Tragedy" and David Ramsay authored "Lusitania: Saga and Myth."
(CFA, '96, p.46)(AP, 5/7/97)(HN, 5/7/98)(HNPD,
5/7/99)(HN, 5/7/99)(WSJ, 5/8/02, p.AD9)
1915 May 7, Alfred G.
Vanderbilt, US millionaire, died aboard Lusitania.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1915 May 7, Elbert Hubbard,
American platitudinist, author, educator, died.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1915 May 9, German and French
forces fought the Battle of Artois.
(HN, 5/9/98)
1915 May 10, A Zeppelin dropped
hundreds of bombs on Southend-on-Sea.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1915 May 12, Mary Kay Ash,
chairman of Mary Kay Cosmetics, was born.
(HN, 5/12/99)
1915 May 12, Croatians
plundered Armenia and killed 250.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1915 May 14, Harry Joseph Chick
Daugherty, trombonist (Spike Jones & City Slickers), was born.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1915 May 15, AT&T became
the 1st corporation to have 1 million stockholders.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1915 May 15, In Germany Clara
Immerwahr, chemist and wife of chemist Fritz Haber, shot herself in
the heart with her husband’s service weapon in their garden,
possibly in response to his having personally overseen the first
successful use of chlorine at the Second Battle of Ypres on April
22, 1915. That same morning, Haber left for the Eastern Front to
oversee gas release against the Russians.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber)
1915 May 17, The National
Baptist Convention was chartered.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1915 May 20, Moshe Dayan,
Israeli general, minister of Defense, was born.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1915 May 22, Near Gretna,
Scotland a passenger train collided with a troop train, killing 227
people.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1915 May 23, Italy declared war
on Austria-Hungary in World War I. Italy entered World War I and
came up against the Austro-Hungarian forces including many
Slovenians in the Julian Alps near Trieste. Over 29 months 12 major
battles were fought along the Soca River.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)(SFEC, 7/9/00, p.T14)
1915 May 24, Thomas Edison
invented the telescribe to record telephone conversations.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1915 May 25, Daniel Wolf,
journalist, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1915 May 25, 2nd Battle of
Ypres ended with 105,000 casualties.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1915 May 27, Mario del Monaco,
loud Italian opera tenor (Verdi/Puccini), was born.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1915 May 27, Herman Wouk,
author, was born. His work included "Winds of War" and "The Caine
Mutiny."
(HN, 5/27/99)
1915 May 28, John B. Gruelle
patented the Raggedy Ann doll.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1915 May 29, Igor Buketoff,
conductor (Iceland Symphony 1964-65), was born in Hartford, CT.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1915 May 31, A German LZ-38
Zeppelin made an air raid on London. [see Jun 1]
(HN, 5/31/98)
1915 Jun 1, Germany conducted
the first zeppelin air raid over England. [see May 10, 31]
(DTnet, 6/1/97)(HN, 6/1/98)
1915 Jun 3, Leo Gorcey, actor
(Mannequin, Road to Zanzibar), was born in NYC.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1915 Jun 5, Alfred Kazin
(d.1998), critic and editor (A Walker in the City), was born.
(HN, 6/5/01)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.M2)
1915 Jun 5, Henri
Gaudier-Brzeska (23), French sculptor, died on the Western Front. In
1931 H.S. Ede authored “Savage Messiah: Gaudier Brzeska. In 2004
Paul O’Keeffe authored “Gaudier-Brzeska: An Absolute Case of
Genius.”
(Econ, 3/6/04,
p.76)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9036204/Henri-Gaudier-Brzeska)
1915 Jun 7, The resignation of
William Jennings Bryan as Woodrow Wilson‘s secretary of state, was
prompted by the "second Lusitania note." Bryan, who had signed the
first Lusitania note demanding that Germany stop unrestricted
submarine warfare, disavow the sinking of the Lusitania and make
reparations for the loss of U.S. lives, declined to sign a second
note out of fear it might involve the U.S. in World War I. The
second note, which demanded certain pledges from Germany, was
dispatched on June 9 over the signature of Bryan‘s replacement,
Robert Lansing. A third note, dispatched on July 21, was a virtual
ultimatum warning that repetition of such acts as the sinking of
Lusitania would be regarded as "deliberately unfriendly." [see Jun
8]
(HNQ, 10/21/99)
1915 Jun 8, William Jennings
Bryan, Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State, resigned in a
disagreement over U.S. handling of the sinking of the Lusitania.
[see Jun 7]
(AP, 6/8/97)(HN, 6/8/98)
1915 Jun 9, Les Paul (d.2009),
American guitarist and electric guitar innovator, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Paul)
1915 Jun 10, Girl Scouts were
founded. [see Mar 12, 1912]
(MC, 6/10/02)
1915 Jun 11, British troops
took Cameroon in Africa.
(HN, 6/11/98)
1915 Jun 12, David Rockefeller,
international banker, was born.
(HN, 6/12/98)
1915 Jun 20, There was a German
offensive in Argonne.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1915 Jun 21, Germany used
poison gas for the first time in warfare in the Argonne Forest.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1915 Jun 22, Austro-German
forces occupied Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians
retreated.
(HN, 6/22/98)
1915 Jun 24, Fred Hoyle,
British mathematician and astronomer, was born.
(HN, 6/24/01)
1915 Jun 24, More than 800
people died when the excursion steamer "Eastland" capsized at
Chicago’s Clark Street dock.
(AP, 6/24/00)
1915 Jun 26, Charlotte Zolotow,
American children’s writer, was born.
(HN, 6/26/01)
1915 Jun 27, In Fort Yukon,
Alaska, a state record 100° F (38° C) was recorded.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1915 Jun 30, The Second Battle
Artois ended as the French failed to take Vimy Ridge.
(HN, 6/30/98)
1915 Jul 1, Willie Dixon,
blues musician, was born.
(HN, 7/1/01)
1915 Jul 1, Jean Stafford,
American writer (The Mountain Lion), was born.
(HN, 7/1/01)
1915 Jul 2, Porfirio Diaz,
former president of Mexico, died in Paris, France.
(SFC, 12/14/00, p.A8)
1915 Jul 8, Charles Hard
Townes, physicist (developed lasers), was born in Greenville, SC.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1915 Jul 9, Germany’s South
West Africa surrendered to Gen. Botha of the Union of South Africa.
(http://home.wanadoo.nl/rhodesia/swatf.htm)
1915 Jul 10, Saul Bellow, Nobel
(1976) and Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and writer of
Jewish moral and social alarm (Herzog, Humboldt's Gift), was born in
Montreal. "A man is only as good as what he loves." In 2000 James
Atlas authored "Bellow: A Biography."
(AP, 9/30/98)(HN, 7/10/98)(SFEC, 10/15/00, BR
p.1)(MC, 7/10/02)
1915 Jul 16, Barnard Hughes,
actor (Tron, Where's Poppa, Best Friends), was born in Bedford
Hills, NY.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1915 Jul 24, Excursion ship
Eastland capsized in Lake Michigan and 852 die.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1915 Jul 26, James Murray, lead
compiler of the Oxford English Dictionary, died. The final entry to
the dictionary was completed in 1928. In 2003 Simon Winchester
authored “The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English
Dictionary.”
(ON, 11/05, p.7)
1915 Jul 28, The United States
occupation of Haiti began as 330 US Marines landed at Port-au-Prince
on the authority of President Woodrow Wilson to safeguard the
interests of US corporations. Roger Gaillard (d.2000 at 77),
historian, later wrote a multi-volume chronicle of the US Marine
occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Haiti)(SFC,
5/27/00, p.a26)
1915 Jul 28, 10,000 blacks
marched on 5th Ave in NYC to protest lynchings.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1915 Jul 29, Amalgamated Copper
was removed from the Dow Jones. Amalgamated Copper company had been
dissolved and its operations taken over by Anaconda Copper mining
Co.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R46)
1915 Jul, A homemade bomb
exploded in the Senate Reception Room. It was placed by Erich
Muenter, a former Harvard professor, who was upset by the private
sales of US munitions to the allies in WW I.
(SFC, 7/25/98, p.A6)
1915 Aug 5, The Austro-German
Army took Warsaw, in present-day Poland, on the Eastern Front.
(HN, 8/5/98)
1915 Aug 7, In the assault up
Russell's Top at Gallipoli 232 Australians died.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1915 Aug 12, The
autobiographical novel "Of Human Bondage," by William Somerset
Maugham, was first published.
(AP, 8/12/97)(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M2)
1915 Aug 14, British transport
Royal Edward was sunk a by German U boat and some 1000 people were
killed.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1915 Aug 16, A hurricane hit
Galveston, Texas. It caused 12 deaths and an estimated $5-8 million
in property damage in the city.
(http://www.gthcenter.org/exhibits/storms/1915/)
1915 Aug 17, Leo Frank, a
Jewish factory manager, was lynched by a mob of anti-Semites in Cob
County, Georgia. He had been convicted in the killing of Mary
Phagan, a 13-year-old girl who worked at his pencil factory. The
governor believed him innocent and commuted his death sentence in
June. The state of Georgia pardoned Frank in 1986. In 2000 Stephen
Goldfarb posted the names of some 2 dozen men believed to have
participated in the murder.
(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.A1)(AP, 8/17/02)(AP, 3/11/06)
1915 Aug 19, Ring Lardner Jr.,
author and screenwriter (A Star Is Born), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1915 Aug 19, The British ocean
liner Arabic was sunk by Germany. After the sinking Germany promised
that no more merchant ships would be torpedoed without warning. Two
Americans were aboard and Germany feared U.S. entry into World War
I. Earlier, in May 1915, a German U-boat sank the British liner
Lusitania, killing 60 percent of those on board-some 1,198-of whom
128 were Americans. The threat of American intervention receded
until the beleaguered Germans believed it was necessary to resume
unrestricted submarine warfare to break the British blockade. On
January 31, 1917, Berlin’s announcement that its submarines would
"sink on sight" brought the United States into the war.
(HNQ, 4/7/99)
1915 Aug 20, Paul Ehrlich (61),
German genealogist (Chemotherapy, Nobel 1908), died.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1915 Aug 21, Jack Weston
[Morris Weinstein], actor (4 Seasons, Rad), was born in Cleveland.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1915 Aug 21, Italy declared war
on Turkey.
(HN, 8/21/98)
1915 Aug 23, Czar Nicolaas II
took control of the Russian Army.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1915 Aug 24, Alice H.B.
Sheldon, science fiction writer, was born. He also worked as an
artist, CIA photo-intelligence operative, lecturer at American
University and major in the U.S. Army Air Force.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1915 Aug 26, Gre [Gerarda D]
Brouwenstijn, Dutch opera soprano, was born.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1915 Aug 27, Walter W. Heller,
economist (Old Myths & New Realities), was born.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1915 Aug 29, Ingrid Bergman
(d.1982), Oscar winning actress famous for her role in "Casablanca"
and "Anastasia," was born in Stockholm, Sweden. "Happiness is good
health and a bad memory."
(HN, 8/29/98)(AP, 7/21/97)
1915 Sep 2, Austro-German
armies took Grodno, Poland.
(HN, 9/2/98)
1915 Sep 4, Rudolf Schock,
German opera and operetta tenor, was born.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1915 Sep 4, The U.S. military
placed Haiti under martial law to quell a rebellion in its capital
Port-au-Prince.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1915 Sep 6, Franz Josef
Strauss, Germany, Nazi and minister of defense (1956-62), was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1915 Sep 7, John Gruelle
patented his Raggedy Ann doll.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1915 Sep 8, Germany began a new
offensive in Argonne on the Western Front.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1915 Sep 9, Albert G. Spalding
(b.1850), baseball star and promoter, died in San Diego, Ca.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spalding)
1915 Sep 9, A German zeppelin
bombed London for the first time, causing little damage.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1915 Sep 10, Edmond O'Brien
(d.1985), film actor, was born in NYC. His films included "Hunchback
of Notre Dame" (1939) and "The Wild Bunch" (1969).
(www.hollywood.com)
1915 Sep 11, Sir William
Cornelius Van Horne, former president of the CPR, died in Montreal.
His mansion was on Minister’s Island in New Brunswick, Canada. The
American-born Van Horne had managed the construction of Canada’s
transcontinental railway (1881-1886). Van Horne was buried in
Joliet, Ill.
(SFEC, 5/25/97,
p.T7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cornelius_Van_Horne)
1915 Sep 18, Reverend Sherman
Coolidge (1862-1932), an Arapaho minister and one of the founders of
the Society of American Indians (SAI), issued a proclamation
declaring the second Saturday of each May as “American Indian Day”
and appealing for US citizenship for American Indians.
(http://www.bia.gov/DocumentLibrary/HeritageMonth/index.htm)
1915 Sep 19, Elizabeth Stern,
Canadian pathologist, was born. She first published a case report
linking a specific virus to a specific cancer.
(HN, 9/19/00)
1915 Sep 21, Anthony Comstock
(b.1844), former US Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to
ideas of Victorian morality, died. The anti-porn campaigner had used
his position to seize 50 tons of books and 4 million pictures.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Comstock)(Econ, 3/15/08, p.44)
1915 Sep 21, Stonehenge was
sold by auction for 6,600 pounds sterling ($11,500) to a Mr. Chubb,
who bought it as a present for his wife. He presented it to the
British nation three years later.
(HN, 9/21/98)
1915 Sep 22, Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, Texas, held its 1st class.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1915 Sep 22, Xavier University,
the first African-American Catholic college, opened in New Orleans,
Louisiana.
(HN, 9/22/98)
1915 Sep 23, Clifford G. Shull,
physicist, was born. He improved techniques for exploring the atomic
structure of matter.
(HN, 9//00)
1915 Sep 24, Bulgaria mobilized
troops on the Serbian border.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1915 Sep 25, An allied
offensive was launched in France against the German Army.
(HN, 9/25/98)
1915 Sep 25, At the Battle at
Loos: 8,246 British and 0 German casualties.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1915 Sep 28, Ethel Rosenberg,
who, with her husband Julius, became one of the first American
civilians executed for espionage, was born.
(HN, 9/28/98)
1915 Sep 28, At the Battle of
Kut-el-Amara the British defeated the Turks in Mesopotamia.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1915 Sep 30, Lester Garfield
Maddox, (Gov-D-Ga) restaurant owner and ax handle wielder
segregationist, was born.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1915 Oct 4, Dinosaur National
Monument in Colorado and Utah was established. Pres. Woodrow Wilson
established Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8)(MC, 10/4/01)
1915 Oct 5, Germany issued an
apology and promises for payment for the 128 American passengers
killed in the sinking of the British ship Lusitania.
(HN, 10/5/98)
1915 Oct 8, The WWI Battle of
Loos ended with virtually no gains for either side. There was loss
of over one hundred thousand French, British, and German lives in
this battle. It marked the first use of poisonous gas by the
British, which drifted back to the British trenches.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1915 Oct 9, Woodrow Wilson
became the 1st president to attend a World Series game.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1915 Oct 9, Belgrade,
Serbia, surrendered to Central leaders.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1915 Oct 11, A Bulgarian anti
Serbian offensive began.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1915 Oct 12, Former President
Theodore Roosevelt criticized the concept of "hyphenated
Americanism," referring to U.S. citizens who identified themselves
by dual nationalities.
(AP, 10/12/05)
1915 Oct 12, Ford Motor Company
manufactured its 1 millionth Model T automobile.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1915 Oct 12, British nurse
Edith Cavell (47), despite international protests, was shot as a spy
by a German firing squad in Brussels, Belgium. Cavell, the matron of
a Brussels training school for nurses, was known for her compassion
and sense of duty. As WWI broke out in Europe, Cavell helped 60
British student nurses return home but she remained in Belgium. Even
though she knew that helping soldiers escape from German-occupied
territory meant the death penalty, Cavell agreed when asked to
participate in an escape ring that helped more than 200 fugitive
Allied soldiers return home after the British Expeditionary Force's
retreat from Mons. Such a large conspiracy could not long remain a
secret and in August 1915, Cavell and 35 other members of her
organization were arrested. At her hasty trial, she was condemned to
death for "conducting soldiers to the enemy." Although their action
may have been justified under the rules of war, the Germans
seriously blundered when they shot Edith Cavell. Within days of her
death, the selfless nurse was elevated to martyr status and the
Germans were internationally condemned as "murdering monsters." A
statue in St. Martin's Place, just off London's Trafalgar Square, is
dedicated to Cavell. In 2010 Diana Souhami authored “Edith Cavell.”
(AP,
10/12/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell)(Econ, 10/9/10,
p.121)
1915 Oct 16, Great Britain
declared war on Bulgaria.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1915 Oct 17, Arthur Miller,
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, was born. His work included
"Death of a Salesman" and "A View from the Bridge." In 2003 Martin
Gottfried authored "Arthur Miller: His Life and Work."
(HN, 10/17/00)(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.M2)
1915 Oct 19, US recognized
General Venustiano Carranza (opposing Pancho Villa) as the president
of Mexico, and imposed an embargo on the shipment of arms to all
Mexican territories except those controlled by Carranza.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1915 Oct 19, The US Patent
Office granted John Van Wormer a patent for his "paper bottle." His
patent was later acquired by the American Paper Bottle Company. The
first paper milk carton was introduced in 1933.
(www.planetark.org/cartons/carthist.html)
1915 Oct 19, Russia and Italy
declared war on Bulgaria.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1915 Oct 21, The 1st
transatlantic radio-telephone message was transmitted from
Arlington, Va., to Paris.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1915 Oct 23, Tens of thousands
of women marched in NYC, demanding the right to vote.
(AP, 10/23/08)
1915 Oct 24, Tito Gobbi, great
Italian baritone (Figaro, Rigoletto, Scarpia), was born.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1915 Oct 27, Ernest Shackleton
and the crew of the Endurance abandoned their ship in the Antarctic
ice.
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.W14)
1915 Oct 28, Richard Strauss'
Alpine Symphony premiered in Berlin.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1915 Oct 29, Thomas Masaryk
claimed independence for Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1915 Oct, The US secret service
captured 2 former Oakland policemen in Utah and Ohio after a 12,500
mile chase. The men were charged with counterfeiting $100,000 in
bogus $5 gold pieces.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)
1915 Nov 6, An order from
Constantinople reached the local authorities, at any rate in the
Cilician plain, directing them to refrain from further [Armenian]
deportations.
(http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/docs/bryce2.htm)
1915 Nov 7, An Austrian
submarine torpedoed the Italian passenger ship Ancona, and 272 were
killed.
(www.theshipslist.com/ships/descriptions/ShipsA.html)
1915 Nov 11, William Proxmire,
US Senator-D-Wi, 1957-88 (Golden Fleece Awards), was born.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1915 Nov 14, Booker T.
Washington (b.1856), Black American educator, died in Tuskegee,
Alabama. The former slave later founded the Tuskegee Institute
(1881). Booker Taliaferro Washington later became the 1st black on a
US postage stamp. His autobiography "Up From Slavery" was listed in
1999 as the 3rd best work of non-fiction in the English language in
the 20th century by the Modern Library. In 2009 Robert J. Norrell
authored “Up From History: The Life of Booker T. Washington.”
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 4/5/99)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.C5)(WSJ,
1/23/09, p.W10)
1915 Nov 19, Billy Strayhorn
(d.1967), composer, arranger and pianist, was born. He wrote "Take
the A Train."
(HN, 11/19/00)
1915 Nov 19, Joe Hill, Labor
leader and songwriter, was executed for murder. Joe Hill (Joseph
Hillstrom) was executed after being convicted of killing two men in
a holdup in Salt Lake City in 1914. He claimed the charges against
him were trumped up and won worldwide support, including that of
President Woodrow Wilson. Nevertheless, Hill was tried, convicted
and executed by firing squad. Hill, born Joel Haggelund in Sweden in
1879, went to the United States in 1902 and soon joined the
revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies). In
2011 William Adler authored “The Man Who Never Died: The Life,
Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill)(SSFC,
1/7/01, p.A21)(Econ, 8/6/11, p.73)
1915 Nov 19, The Allies asked
China to join the entente against the Central Powers.
(HN, 11/19/00)
1915 Nov 21, The HMS Endurance,
under Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 27 man crew, sank in the Weddell
Sea of Antarctica. The whole crew escaped on 3 lifeboats that
included the “James Caird.” They drifted for 5 months and when the
ice broke rowed to Elephant Island. Shackleton then rowed the Caird
for 800 miles with 5 men to South Georgia Island and returned to
pick up the 21 men left behind. Frank Hurley captured the sinking on
35-mm movie film. In 1933 F.A. Worsely, the captain of the
Endurance, authored “Shackleton’s Boat Journey.” In 1999 Caroline
Alexander authored “The Endurance.”
(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.B1,15)(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR
p.6)(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.W14)(ON, 5/00, p.10)(WSJ, 4/28/07, p.P8)
1915 Nov 22, The Anglo-Indian
army, led by British General Sir Charles Townshend, attacked a
larger Turkish force under General Nur-ud-Din at Ctesiphon, Iraq,
but was repulsed.
(HN, 11/22/98)
1915 Nov 25, Augusto Pinochet
(d.2006), general, coup leader and president of Chile (1974-1990),
was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet)
1915 Nov 26, Earl Wild,
American pianist and composer, was born. He debuted on Pittsburgh
radio at age 12 and was invited to become the station’s staff
pianist.
(WSJ, 11/29/05, p.D8)
1915 Nov 30, Brownie McGhee,
singer and guitarist, was born.
(HN, 11/30/00)
1915 Dec 2, Adolph Green,
songwriter (married to Phyllis Newman), was born.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1915 Dec 2, Millicent Hearst,
wife of William Randolph Hearst (d.1951), gave birth to twin sons,
David (d.1986) and Randolph (d.2000).
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.A21)(MC, 12/2/01)
1915 Dec 3, The U.S. expelled
German attaches on spy charges.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1915 Dec 4, Ku Klux Klan
received a charter from Fulton County, Ga.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1915 Dec 8, Jean Sibelius' 5th
Symphony in E, premiered.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1915 Dec 9, Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf, soprano (Der Rosenkavalier), was born in Jarotschin,
Germany.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1915 Dec 12, Frank Sinatra,
actor and singer, was born in Hoboken New Jersey. He died May 14,
1998. In 1986 Kitty Kelly wrote his biography "His Way."
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 11/11/96, p.D1)(SFC,
12/13/96, p.C10)(SFC, 5/16/98, p.E7)
1915 Dec 16, Albert Einstein
published his "General Theory of Relativity." In 2000 David Bodanis
authored "E=MC²: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation."
(SFC, 11/26/96, p.A7)(SFEC, 10/22/00, Par
p.23)(MC, 12/16/01)
1915 Dec 18, President Wilson,
widowed the year before, married Edith Bolling Galt at her
Washington home.
(AP, 12/18/98)
1915 Dec 18, In a single night,
about 20,000 Australian and New Zealand troops slipped away from
Gallipoli, undetected by the Turks defending the peninsula.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1915 Dec 19, Edith Piaf,
internationally famous French cabaret singer, was born. She is best
remembered for her songs "La Vie en rose" and "Non, je ne regrette
rein."
(HN, 12/19/99)
1915 Dec 19, Alvis Alzheimer
(b.1864), German neurologist (Alzheimer Disease), died.
(www.ibro.info/Pub_Main_Display.asp?Main_ID=34)
1915 Dec 22, In China Yuan
Shikai proclaimed the Empire of China (1915–1916) with himself as
Emperor of China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Shikai)
1915 Dec 25, At the war front
near Laventie, France, British and German soldiers exchanged
greetings, cigarettes and engaged in a short game of free-for-all
soccer.
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.D5)
1915 Dec 27, William Howell
Masters, sex author and physician, was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1915 Dec 27, In Ohio, iron and
steel workers went on strike for an eight hour day and higher wages.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1915 Dec 28, San Francisco
Mayor James Rolph Jr. dedicated the "new" $3.5 million City Hall.
The French Renaissance Revival building, was designed by Arthur
Brown Jr.
(www.inetours.com/Pages/SFNbrhds/Civic_Center.html)(SFEM,7/28/96,
p.38)(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)
1915 Dec 31, The Germans
torpedoed the British liner Persia without any warning; 335 are
dead.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1915 Paul Samuelson, MIT
economist, was born. He demonstrated the mathematical structure of
economic theory and melded classical and modern economic findings.
He also contributed to the theory of consumer behavior, welfare
economics, capital and interest and public finance.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1915 Frankie Yankovic (d.1998),
accordionist, was born in Davis, W. Va. He later became the Polka
King from Cleveland.
(SFC, 10/15/98, p.C6)
1915 Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941)
signed on about this time with the United Daughter of the
Confederacy to carve a memorial at Stone Mountain in Georgia and
soon rose to the high ranks of the newly resurgent KKK. He was later
fired from the project and in 1927 began the Mount Rushmore
presidential memorial.
(SSFC, 9/9/07, p.C4)
1915 Marc Chagall painted his
"L’Anniversaire" (Birthday).
(SFC, 5/26/96, BR p.9)
1915 Marcel Duchamp painted "In
Advance of the Broken Arm."
(WSJ, 12/2/96, p.A16)
1915 Kasimir Malevich, a
pioneer of abstract art, painted "Suprematist Cross in Black
Square." It was "emblematic of the avant-garde belief that
abstraction penetrated to the essence of things, on which basis the
world could be reinvented."
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.E5)
1915 Egon Schiele made his
"Self-portrait With Striped Armlets."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1915 Willa Cather published her
novel "The Song of the Lark." It was about an opera singer and the
birth and development of the artistic spirit.
(WSJ, 11/30/98, p.A20)
1915 Ford Madox Ford
(1873-1939) authored "The Good Soldier."
(WSJ, 12/3/05, p.P14)
1915 Alfred Wegener, German
scientist, published his evidence for the theory of continental
drift in his book: "Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane" (The
Origin of Continents and Oceans). This expanded on his theory that
continents had drifted to their present positions from the break-up
of a single primeval super-continent, Pangaea. He acknowledged the
work of F.B. Taylor in 1908.
(DD-EVTT, p.188)(ON, 9/04, p.8)
1915 The "Best Short Stories of
the Year" series was launched by Edward J. O'Brien.
(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)
1915 The play "Hobson’s Choice"
by Harold Brighouse was set in Manchester, England, and opened in
NYC. It was made into a film in 1954.
(WSJ, 1/16/02, p.A14)
1915 The film “A Jitney
Elopement” starred Charlie Chaplin. He also directed the film, which
was set in San Francisco.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.E8)
1915 The song "Hello Frisco"
was a musical chart-topper.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.D1)
1915 Jelly Roll Morton
published "Jelly Roll Blues."
(SFC, 5/24/03, p.D3)
1915 Richard Strauss composed
"An Alpine Symphony."
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E1)
1915 Theda Bara, born as
Theodosia Goodman, became an overnight sensation in director Frank
Powell’s silent film "A Fool There Was." Bara, silent screen sex
symbol, was one of the most glamorous and successful movie stars of
the 1910s. Theda was a coed from a well-to-do Cincinnati family in
1905 when she dropped out of school to become a New York actress.
Stage success eluded her, but By the start of WWI, Theda was the
third most popular screen star behind Mary Pickford and Charlie
Chaplin, but she chafed under the stereotypical "vamp" roles she
usually played. Theda’s 42-film career came to an end in 1919 with
the controversial box-office disaster "Kathleen Mavoureen." Bara
married director Charles Brabin in 1921 and remained a popular
Hollywood hostess until her death on April 7, 1955. Her adopted name
was an anagram for Arab death.
(HNPD, 7/24/98)(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E1)
1915 The 38-story Equitable
Building, located at 120 Broadway in the Financial District of Lower
Manhattan, was completed. It was designed by Ernest R. Graham.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equitable_Building_%28Manhattan%29)
1915 Geisinger Health Systems
was founded in Pennsylvania.
(Econ, 6/18/11, p.75)
1915 The US science journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) began
operations.
(SFC, 3/24/06, p.B9)
1915 The dance craze of 1915
kicked off Broadway's (NYC) true Golden Age.
(WSJ, 3/19/04, p.W12)
1915 Twentieth Century Fox was
founded.
(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.1)
1915 Carter G. Woodson launched
the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 37)
1915 This period was the height
of the US Progressive Era.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.A8)
1915 Augustus Owsley Stanley
began serving as governor of Kentucky and continued to 1919. His
grandson, Augustus Owsley Stanley III, became famous in the 1960s
for producing LSD, financially backing the Grateful Dead, and
working as the group’s sound engineer.
(SFC, 3/14/11, p.A6)
1915 San Diego hosted a World’s
Fair.
(AWAM, Dec. 94, p.32)
1915 In San Francisco the
2-story Agriculture Building at 101 Embarcadero was built. It was
designed by A.A. Pyle. It began life as a post office so mail
ferries could pull right up.
(SSFC, 1/17/10, p.C2)
1915 The San Francisco Cross
City Race was begun as a social event in connection with the
Panama-Pacific Expo.
(SFEM, 5/11/97, p.6)
1915 In SF, Ca., philanthropist
Phoebe Apperson Hearst led a fund to save the Palace of Fine Arts
building, designed by Bernard Maybeck for the Panama Pacific Fair,
from demolition. The building later became the Exploratorium. In
1960 Walter Johnson gave $4 million to rebuild the structure.
Another restoration project began in 2004.
(SFC, 5/2/98, p.E1)(SFC, 9/7/07, p.B12)
1915 The California legislature
outlawed boxing and ended Colma’s golden decade of boxing.
(Ind, 3/22/03, 5A)
1915 California expanded the
definition of sodomy to include fellatio and cunnilingus.
(SSFC, 5/11/08, Books p.4)
1915 The California Dept. of
Motor Vehicles was created.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.A10)
1915 A new water system was
placed into service in Daly City, Ca., and tested in front of the
new City Hall on Wellington Ave.
(DCFD, Centennial, 2007)
1915 The Lagomarsino family of
Daly City employed dozens of women to pick violets and fashion them
into bouquets and boutonnieres for the World’s Fair in SF. The next
generation of the family branched into real estate and built the
apartment houses along Hillside Blvd. in Daly City and Colma.
(GTP, 1973, p.118)
1915 By this year 15 out of 49
businesses in the Daly City area were saloons or businesses that
served liquor.
(GTP, 1973, p.50)
1915 The population of Daly
City, Ca., reached 5,000 people.
(DCFD, Centennial, 2007)
1915 Thomas Edison, Henry Ford
and Harvey Firestone rode in a private Pullman car to visit Luther
Burbank in Santa Rosa, Ca.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.T8)
1914 A memorial tower was
erected on the Berkeley, Ca., campus with a design adopted from the
Campanile San Marco in Venice. It was financed by a $200,000
donation from a banker's widow.
(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.13)
1914 The Beaux Arts Oakland,
Ca., City Hall was the first government high-rise (19 stories)
office building in the US. It was lauded by Mayor Frank K. Mott. The
original cost was under $2 million.
(SFEM, 1/4/98, p.5)
1914 In Oakland, Ca., the
Cathedral Building at 1615 Broadway and Telegraph was completed. It
was designed by Benjamin McDougall.
(SFC, 3/1/08, p.B4)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.C2)
1914 Mother’s Cake & Cookie
Co. was founded in Oakland, Ca., by N.M. Wheatley, a newspaper
vendor. After a series of owners the firm was sold in 2005 to
Catterton Partners, a private equity firm. In 2006 Catterton
announced the closure of the Oakland bakery and distribution sites.
In 2008 Catterton sought bankruptcy protection for Mother’s Cookies.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.D1)(SFC, 4/4/06, p.C3)(SFC,
10/9/08, p.C1)
1914 The town of Walnut Creek,
Ca., population 500, incorporated.
(SFC, 7/17/06, p.B5)
1914 The South San Francisco
Scavengers garbage company established itself in South San
Francisco, Ca.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A22)
1914 In the San Francisco, Ca.,
peninsula some 2,000 acacia trees were planted along El Camino Real
following the 1,500 planted in 1911.
(Ind, 4/17/99, p.5A)
1915 Freud described people as
not very good at heart. "The element of truth behind all this, which
people are so ready to disavow, is that men are not gentle creatures
who want to be loved, and at most can defend themselves if they are
attacked."
(V.D.-H.K.p.294)
1915 Alcatraz island was
converted into a military prison.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W38)
1915 In Colorado the Rocky
Mountain National Park, northwest of Denver, was created.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A2)
1915 In Georgia Ku Klux
Klansmen held a formative assembly at the town of Stone Mountain.
(SFC,11/28/97, p.B6)
1915 Aubrey Robinson banned
tourists from Niihau, Hawaii, and severely restricted visits.
(SSFC, 3/20/05, p.D11)
1915 Dr. Forrest Shaklee
(1894-1985), an Oakland, Ca., chiropractor, invented his Vitalized
Minerals. In 1956 he founded Shaklee Products, a nutritional
supplement company.
(SSFC, 8/13/06,
p.F1)(www.shaklee.com/main/aboutPhiloStory)
1915 Charles Thompson acquired
the Electric Welding Company from Alexander Winton. It was the
nation’s leading producer of engine valves.
(F, 10/7/96, p.67)
1915 The Frigerator electric
food cooler was introduced by Guardian.
(SFC, 12/29/99, Z1 p.1)
1915 The Hearst Corp. formed
King Features Syndicate to consolidate its pioneering efforts in
comic syndication.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1915 Dr. Harry Heiselden of
Chicago was dubbed the "Black Stork" for withholding treatment from
defective newborns. The story is told by Martin S. Pernick in his
1996 work "The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective"
Babies in American medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915."
(MT, 6/96, p.13)
1915 There were some 450
automotive and auto parts makers in the US by the end of this year.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1915 Louis Chevrolet sold his
interest in the Chevrolet Motor Company and focused his interest on
auto racing.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(SFEC, 1/9/00, Z1 p.2)
1915 Orville Wright (1871-1948)
sold his interest in the Wright Company and retired.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1915 August Freuhauf, a Detroit
blacksmith, invented the semi-trailer.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, Z1 p.7)
1915 N.L. Bowen, scientist at
Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, showed that in a pool of
molten rock (magma) early-formed dense crystals may sink, leaving
the upper reaches of the body different in composition from the
lower part where the crystals settle.
(DD-EVTT, p.29)
1915 Dr. Joseph Goldberger
traced the disease pellagra among poor, corn-dependent people of the
American South to a dietary deficiency. The specific component,
vitamin B3, was not identified until 1938.
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.4)
1915 The coldest summer on
record in the US with temp. averaging 69.53 degrees.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.272)
1915 Miners near Oatman, Az.,
struck a vein of gold that led to a $10 million haul.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.T8)
1915 Philadelphia-born inventor
and engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor died. He had developed
industrial management processes that have influenced nearly every
modern industrial country. The son of a lawyer, Taylor first
developed his theories while working at Midvale Steel Company. He
noted that production efficiency could be greatly improved by
observing an individual worker and eliminating wasted time by
creating economy of movement. Taylor's interest soon led to a career
as a consulting engineer in this new field of "scientific
management." Although Taylor's systems evoked resentment from labor
for the extremes some factories took the new ideas to, Taylor saw
himself as a reformer. After retiring at age 45, he continued to
lecture about the principles of scientific management until his
death.
(HNQ, 5/18/01)
1915 In 2003 Peter Balakian,
Prof. at Colgate Univ., authored "The Burning Tigris: The Armenian
Genocide and America's Response," a one-sided account of the 1915
Armenian genocide and the Turkish massacres of Armenians in the
1890s.
(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.M4)
1915 Kurdish tribes took part
in the mass slaughter by the Ottomans of around 1 million Armenians.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.64)
1915 The British Women’s
Institute movement was formed with two clear aims: to revitalise
rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in
producing food during the First World War. In 2013 Julie summers
authored “Jambusters: The Story of Women’s Institute in the Second
World War.
(Econ, 3/9/13, p.85)
1915 In England A.G. Richardson
and Co. Ltd. used Crown Ducal Ware as a trade name for its
earthenware. The name was later acquired by Enoch Wedgewood &
Co.
(SFC, 3/5/97, Z1 p.2)
1915 In London, a Bow Street
magistrate declared “The Rainbow”, a novel by D.H. Lawrence, to be
obscene.
(SFC, 7/14/06, p.A2)
1915 In France Le Canard
Enchaine, a satirical newspaper, was founded.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Canard_encha%C3%AEn%C3%A9)(Econ,
12/4/10, p.64)
1915 The French government
banned absinthe, the "Green Goddess," which had become renowned for
causing convulsions, hallucinations and psychosis. In 1988 the
European Union lifted the ban on making absinthe.
(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.W8)(http://tinyurl.com/5mqxvs)
1915 Germany lost control of
South West Africa (later Namibia) to the British after brutally
suppressing the indigenous people.
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.T4)
1915 Germany banned commercial
baking on Sunday to limit bread sales due to WW I.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1915 The explosion of Tambora
in Indonesia was estimated to be of the magnitude of 40,000 H-bombs.
(NH, 5/96, p.3)
1915 Ingush and Chechen
regiments led "the Brusilov breakthrough" on the Russian-German
front. Their horse cavalry attacked an enemy force armed with heavy
artillery.
(www.chechnyafree.ru)
1915 Japan demanded major
concessions from China.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)
1915 In Japan Tokuji Hayakawa
developed an improved mechanical pencil. His company became known as
the Sharp Corp.
(Econ, 3/5/11, p.71)(http://tinyurl.com/4thh7ke)
1915 Under British law Africans
were declared “tenants at will of the Crown” and kicked off their
ancestral land. In Kenya’s Rift Valley the Kalenjins became
squatters.
(WSJ, 1/30/08, p.A18)
1915 In Kuwait Sheikh Mubarak
died. Kuwait’s rule later alternated between the 2 branches of the
al-Sabah family, the al-Salem and the al-Jaber lines, after the 2
sons of Mubarak.
(Econ, 1/21/06, p.47)
1915 In Libya during the war
against the Italian colonial rulers, a Misratan rebel commander
named Ramadan al-Sweihy was betrayed and then killed by the
tribesmen of Bani Walid, who were taking money from the Italians.
(AP, 9/2/11)
1915 By this year Malay
plantations produced 107,860 tons of rubber compared with 37,200
tons in Brazil.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)
1915 In Mexico the government
freed all prisoners at the fortress of San Juan de Ulua after they
defended the fortress during a brief US occupation of Veracruz. The
government declared the dungeon closed to prisoners for at least one
hundred years.
(SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T12)
1915 Hans Leip, in training for
the Prussian Guard, authored the poem “Song of a Young Sentry.” It
reflected his recent meetings with two women named Lili and Marlene.
In 1938 Norbert Schultze of Berlin put it to music. The composition
was recorded in 1939 by cabaret chanteuse Lale Anderson and became
hugely popular as the song “Lili Marlene.” In 2008 Liel Leibovitz
and Matthew Miller authored “Lili Marlene: The Soldier’s Song of
World War II.”
(WSJ, 11/8/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Marleen)
1915 Marie, the queen of
Romania, visited San Francisco.
(SFC, 3/8/08, p.F2)
1915-1916 The 10-part silent serial "Les Vampires"
by Louis Feuillade was produced.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.D3)
1915-1916 A number of skirmishes took place
between the Texas Rangers and Mexican Americans rebelling under the
"Plan de San Diego" and numerous people were killed. Participants
included the anarchist Magon brothers, and rebel leader Aniceto
Pizana. In 2003 Benjamin Heber Johnson authored "Revolution in
Texas: How a Forgotten Revolution and Its Bloody suppression Turned
Mexicans into Americans."
(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M3)
1915-1917 Mina Loy wrote her poetry: "Love Songs."
(SFEC, 12/22/96, BR p.6)
1915-1917 Of the 1.75 million Armenians in Turkey
at the outset of World War I, 250,000 fled into Russia. Some 600,000
starved to death in the Mesopotamian desert. Henry Morgenthau, US
ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, alerted Pres. Wilson of a massacre
of Armenians by the Turks. Evidence and photographs of the camps
were provided to Morgenthau by Armin Wegner, German Red Cross
official and Johannes Lepsius, a German missionary. British diplomat
Lord Bryce hired Arnold Toynbee to document the slaughter. In 2004
Turkey's Culture Ministry allowed the film "Ararat" by Atom Egoyan,
which recalled the plight of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during this
time, to be shown in Turkey with one rape scene cut. In 2004
Armenian descendants of some of the dead, who held 2,400 insurance
policies, reached a $20 million settlement with New York Life
Insurance Co.
(AP, 4/24/97)(HN, 4/24/98)(SFC, 4/27/99,
p.A10)(HNQ, 5/30/99)(PC, 1992, p.711)(SFC, 1/2/04, p.D15)(SFC,
1/29/04, p.A3)
1915-1917 As many as 1 million lives were lost
along the Isonza Front in northern Slovenia.
(SFEC, 7/9/00, p.T14)
1915-1920 The US Army bookkeepers began jotting
down G.I. on their ledgers for items made of galvanized iron. By
1935 the term expanded to anything issued to soldiers and stood for
government issue or general issue. During WW II the acronym was
extended to anything associated with Army life and soldiers
themselves.
(SFC, 9/30/98, Z1 p.3)
1915-1920 In Mexico Venustiano Carranza
(1859-1920), revolutionary and political leader, served as
president. The army was led by Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928).
(WUD, 1994, p.226,994)
1915-1923 Marcel Duchamp made his signature work:
"The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even," an allegorical
depiction of the orgiastic deflowering of a virgin.
(WSJ, 12/18/96, p.A18)
1915-1929 San Francisco constructed th 4,600
foot-long O’Shaughnessy Seawall at the north end of Ocean Beach to
protect the Great Highway and make a boardwalk amusement tourist
area. Economic conditions halted the project.
(http://nsgl.gso.uri.edu/scu/scuw97003/scuw97003chap9.pdf)
1915-1934 US Marines occupy and run Haiti.
Haitian-American history is covered in an early 1993 Smithsonian
article.
(Smith., 4/95, p.44)
1915-1939 The book "W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 2:
The Arch Poet," by R.F. Foster covered this period of Yeats’ life.
(WSJ, 11/13/03, p.D8)
1915-1959 Billie Holiday, American singer:
"Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose."
(AP, 3/15/99)
1915-1965 Robert Ruark, American author: "A man
can build a staunch reputation for honesty by admitting he was in
error, especially when he gets caught at it."
(AP, 5/13/99)
1915-1977 Bill Vaughan, American journalist:
"America is a land where a citizen will cross the ocean to fight for
democracy -- and won't cross the street to vote in a national
election."
(AP, 6/6/99)
1915-1986 Theodore H. White, American political
writer: "To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of
most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult
act of heroism you can have."
(AP, 2/13/98)
1915-1991 Robert Motherwell, painter of the New
York School. In 1997 Daiv Rosand edited: "Robert Motherwell on
Paper: Drawings, Prints, Collages."
(SFEC, 3/16/97, BR p.8)
1915-1996 Robert Adams, aka Robert Martin Krapp,
writer, translator, editor and teacher. His work included "Ikon:
John Milton and the Modern Critics" (1955), "Stendhal: Notes on a
Novelist" (1959), "Surface and Symbol: the Consistency of James
Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’" (1962), "Proteus, His Lies, His Truth:
Discussions of Literary Translation" (1973), and "The Roman Stamp:
Frame and Facade in Some Forms of Neo-Classicism" (1974). He was
also a founding editor of the "Norton Anthology of English
Literature," and an editor of the Hudson Review.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.C10)
1915-1998 Margaret Walker Alexander, black author,
was born in Birmingham. She died Nov 30, 1998 at age 83. Her work
included the 1942 poem "For My People," and the 1966 novel
"Jubilee."
(SFC, 12/1/98, p.B2)
Go to
1916-1917