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 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.
(MC, 1/28/02)
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 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)
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.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(V.D.-H.K.p.252, 284-285,290)(AP,
6/28/97)(HNPD, 6/28/98)
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 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 Charleton Heston and Paulette Goddard in the talkies.
(HNPD, 8/12/98)
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 Union Station in Kansas City,
Mo., opened.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G6)
1914 The Panama-Pacific
Exposition opened.
(I&I, Penzias, p.215)
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 In Wisconsin Mamah 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.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, DB p.48)
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 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 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 (84),
Austria-Hungarian composer (Queen of Saba), died.
(MC, 1/2/02)
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 12, The U.S. Congress
established Rocky Mountain National Park.
(HN, 1/12/99)
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 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 27, US Marines occupied
Haiti. [see Jul 29]
(MC, 1/27/02)
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 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.
(HN, 2/19/99)(NW, 12/24/01, p.64)
1915 Feb 20, President Wilson
opened the Panama-Pacific Expo in San Francisco to celebrate the
opening of the Panama Canal. The Panama-Pacific Int’l. Exhibition was
held on what became the Marina and 300,000 people attended opening day.
60,000 pavilions with exhibits from 41 nations, 43 states and 3 US
territories were featured. 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)(HN, 2/20/98)(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 hundreds 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)(HN, 4/24/98)(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A10)(HNQ,
5/30/99)(Econ, 10/21/06, p.95)
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 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, American
guitarist and electric guitar innovator, was born.
(HN, 6/9/01)
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 3, US military forces
occupied Haiti, and remained until 1934. [see Jan 27, Jul 29]
(MC, 7/3/02)
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, US forces invaded
Haiti and stayed until 1924.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1915 Jul 28, 10,000 blacks marched
on 5th Ave in NYC to protest lynchings.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1915 Jul 29, U.S. Marines landed
at Port-au-Prince to protect American interests in Haiti. Roger
Gaillard (d.2000 at 77), historian, later wrote a multi-volume
chronicle of the US Marine occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934.
(HN, 7/29/98)(SFC, 5/27/00, p.a26)
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 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 11, Despite international
protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, was executed by
Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners. [see Oct 12]
(HN, 10/11/98)
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 was shot as a spy by a German firing squad in Brussels, Belgium.
Cavell, the 47-year-old matron of a Brussels training school for
nurses, was known for her compassion and sense of duty. As World War I
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. [see Oct 11]
(AP, 10/12/97)(HNPD, 10/13/98)
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).
(HNQ, 10/25/99)(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.A21)(MC, 11/19/01)
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 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 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 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)
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 Carter G. Woodson launched
the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 37)
1915 San Diego hosted a World’s
Fair.
(AWAM, Dec. 94, p.32)
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)
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 Broadway and Telegraph was completed.
(SFC, 3/1/08, p.B4)
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 The height of the Progressive
Era.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.A8)
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 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 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 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 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 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
then recorded by cabaret chanteuse Lale Anderson and became hugely 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)
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)
1915-1934 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