Timeline 1916-1917
Return to home
1916 Jan 2, The
U.S. instructed Ambassador Sharp to tell the Entente in Paris that
America would reject the German peace offer.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1916 Jan 3, Betty Furness consumer
advocate, TV spokesperson for refrigerators, was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1916 Jan 3, Three armored Japanese
cruisers were ordered to guard the Suez Canal.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1916 Jan 11, Russian General
Yudenich launched a WWI winter offensive and advances west.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1916 Jan 12, Pieter W. Botha,
later president of South Africa, was born in Orange Free State.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1916 Jan 14, British authorities
seized German attaché von Papen’s financial records confirming
espionage activities in the U.S.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1916 Jan 18, The Russians forced
the Turkish 3rd Army back to Erzurum.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1916 Jan 24, Rafael Caldera,
president of Venezuela (1969-1974), was born.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)
1916 Jan 27, President Woodrow
Wilson opened a preparedness program.
(HN, 1/27/99)
1916 Jan 28, Louis D. Brandeis, a
private practice attorney and leader in the US Zionist movement, was
appointed by President Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first
Jewish member. He served until 1939.
(AP, 1/28/98)(SFC, 10/6/05, p.A15)
1916 Jan 29, 1st bombings of Paris
by German Zeppelins took place.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1916 Jan 29, Grigori Rasputin,
Russian mystic, shaman, grubby peasant, and influential favorite of the
Romanov court, survived a failed attempt to poison him. Prince Felix
Yussoupov, an effete, wealthy young aristocrat, shot and killed
Rasputin and in effect, brought down the Russian Empire. The prince
dined out on his story for many decades, becoming a jet-set celebrity.
He restored his old wealth, lost in the Soviet Revolution, by suing
anyone who wrote about Rasputin without his permission. [see Dec 16,
Dec 30, 1916]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1916 Jan 30, Sir Clements Markham
(b.1830), English explorer and geographer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clements_Markham)
1916 Jan 31, President Woodrow
Wilson refused the compromise on Lusitania reparations.
(HN, 1/31/99)
1916 Feb 2, U.S. Senate voted
independence for Philippines, effective in 1921.
(HN, 2/2/99)
1916 Feb 3, Canada’s original
parliament buildings, in Ottawa, burned down.
(AP, 2/3/97)
1916 Feb 5, Enrico Caruso recorded
"O Solo Mio" for the Victor Talking Machine Co.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1916 Feb 6, Germany admitted full
liability for Lusitania incident and recognized the United State's
right to claim indemnity.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1916 Feb 6, Ruben Dario (b.1867),
Nicaraguan poet, died. Dario, one of Nicaragua's best-known poets, is
considered the father of the Modernismo movement.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9028777/Ruben-Dario)
1916 Feb 8, Demonstrators
protested against food shortages in Berlin.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1916 Feb 9, Conscription began in
Great Britain as the Military Service Act becomes effective.
(HN, 2/9/99)
1916 Feb 11, Baltimore Symphony
Orchestra presented its 1st concert.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1916 Feb 11, Emma Goldman was
arrested for lecturing on birth control.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1916 Feb 13, Vilhelm Hammershoi
(b.1864), Danish painter, died. He is most celebrated for his
interiors, many of which he painted at his residence in Copenhagen.
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.94)
1916 Feb 15, Ian Ballantine,
publisher (Ballantine Books), was born.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1916 Feb 16, Russian troops
conquered Erzurum, Armenia.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1916 Feb 21, The World War I
Battle of Verdun began in France with an unprecedented German artillery
barrage of the French lines; the French were able to prevail after 10
months of fighting. German Gen’l. Erich von Falkenhayn launched the
attack.
(AP, 2/21/98)(HN, 2/21/01)(Sm, 2/06, p.38)
1916 Feb 23, Secretary of State
Lansing hinted that the U.S. might have to abandon the policy of
avoiding "entangling foreign alliances."
(HN, 2/23/98)
1916 Feb 23, French artillery
killed the entire French 72nd division at Samogneux, Verdun.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1916 Feb 24, Jules Verne’s "20,000
Leagues Under the Sea" opened in New York.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1916 Feb 26, Jackie Gleason,
comedian (Ralph Kramden in the Honeymooners), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1916 Feb 26, Mutual signed Charlie
Chaplin to a film contract.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1916 Feb 26, General Henri
Philippe Petain took command of the French forces at Verdun. A line of
bayonets protruding from the earth still testifies to French valor at
Verdun in World War I.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1916 Feb 26, Germans sank the
French transport ship Provence II, killing 930.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1916 Feb 26, Russian troops
conquered Kermansjah, Persia.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1916 Feb 28, Haiti became the
first U.S. protectorate.
(HN, 2/28/98)
1916 Feb 28, Henry James (b.1843),
US-British writer (Bostonians), died in London. His books included “The
American“ (1877) and “The Golden Bowl” (1904). In 2004 Colm Toibin
authored “The Master,” a novel that explores James’ private life. In
2007 Peter Brooks authored “Henry James Goes to Paris.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_James)(SFC,
6/19/04, p.E1)(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P11)
1916 Feb 29, Dinah Shore, actress
and singer, was born. [see Mar 1, 1917]
(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A1)
1916 Mar 1, Germany began
attacking ships in the Atlantic.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1916 Mar 1, A conference of
Lithuanians in Berne (Mar 1-5) demanded for the 1st time the full
independence of Lithuania.
(LHC, 3/1/03)
1916 Mar 3, Robert Whitehead,
Broadway producer (Bus Stop, A Man for All Seasons), was born.
(HN, 3/3/01)
1916 Mar 6, Rochelle Hudson,
actress (That's My Boy), was born in Okla City, OK.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1916 Mar 6, The Allies recaptured
Fort Douamont in France.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1916 Mar 7, French Defense
Minister Joseph Gallieni resigned from his position.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1916 Mar 8, US invaded Cuba for
3rd time. This time "to end corrupt Menocal regime."
(MC, 3/8/02)
1916 Mar 9, Pancho Villa led 1,500
horsemen in a night raid on Columbus, New Mexico. 18 US soldiers and
citizens were killed as the town was looted and burned. President
Woodrow Wilson responded by ordering General John J. "Black Jack"
Pershing to "pursue and disperse" the bandits. Wilson called out
158,664 National Guard members to deal with the situation.
(HN, 3/9/99)(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A11)(AP, 3/9/07)
1916 Mar 9, Germany declared war
on Portugal.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1916 Mar 10, US President Woodrow
Wilson ordered General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing to pursue and
capture Pancho Villa, following Villa’s raid in New Mexico.
(SFC, 3/11/09, p.B2)
1916 Mar 10, James Herriot
(d.1995), Scottish writer and country veterinarian (All Creatures Great
and Small), was born as James Alfred Wight, in Sunderland, England.
[Other sources give his birthday as Oct 3.]
(HN, 3/10/01)
1916 Mar 14, In the Battle of
Verdun Germans attacked on Mort-Homme ridge, West of Verdun.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1916 Mar 15, Harry James (d.1983),
American band leader and trumpet player, was born, He is best
remembered for his hit "You Made Me Love You." He married Betty Grable
(HN,
3/15/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_James)
1916 Mar 15, General Pershing and
his 15,000 troops chased Pancho Villa into Mexico. US troops pursued
the guerillas, killing 50 on US soil and 70 more in Mexico. General
Pershing failed to capture the Villa dead or alive. Villa was
assassinated at Parral in 1923.
(HN, 3/15/98)(MC, 3/15/02)
1916 Mar 18, On the Eastern Front,
the Russians countered the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake
Naroch. The Russians lost 100,000 men and the Germans lost 20,000.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1916 Mar 19, Irving Wallace,
author (People's Almanac, The Man), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1916 Mar 19, The First
Aerosquadron took off from Columbus, NM, to join Gen. John J. Pershing
and his Punitive Expedition for Pancho Villa in Mexico.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1916 Spring, Mata Hari made
contact with German intelligence through her lover Alfred Kiepert. She
traveled to Cologne and Frankfurt, was shown how to use invisible ink,
and was given the code name H-21.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)
1916 Mar 29, Eugene McCarthy, U.S.
senator and 1968 presidential candidate, was born in Watkins, Minn.
(HN, 3/29/01)(MC, 3/29/02)
1916 Mar 29, The Italians called
off the fifth attack on Isonzo.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1916 Mar 30, Pancho Villa killed
172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1916 Mar 31, General Pershing and
his army routed Pancho Villa’s army in Mexico.
(HN, 3/31/98)
1916 Mar, Ishi, the last Yahi
Indian in California, died of tuberculosis. His body was cremated but
his brain was removed and shipped to the Smithsonian Institute in
Washington, DC. The documentary film "Ishi, the Last Yahi" was made by
John Harrison Quinn (d.2000 at 59). In 2004 Orin Starn authored "Ishi's
Brain: In search of the Last "Wild" Indian."
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.A1)(SFC, 1/26/00, p.A24)(SSFC,
2/8/04, p.M1)
1916
Apr 1, The first US national women's swimming championships was
held.
(OTD)
1916 Apr 2, German troops overtook
Bois de Caillette.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1916 Apr 3, Herb Caen (d.1997),
columnist (SF Chronicle), was born in Sacramento, Calif.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1916 Apr 4, US Senate agreed
(82-6) to participate in WW I.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1916 Apr 5, Gregory Peck, film
actor (To Kill a Mockingbird), was born in La Jolla, Calif.
(HN, 4/5/01)(MC, 4/5/02)
1916 Apr 6, German government OK’d
unrestricted submarine warfare.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1916 Apr 9, The German army
launched it's third offensive during the Battle of Verdun.
(HN, 4/9/99)
1916 Apr 11, Alberto E. Ginastera,
composer (Panambi), was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1916 Apr 12, Beverly Cleary,
American writer, was born. Her children’s books included the Ramona
Quimby series which stemmed from “Henry Huggins” (1950).
(SFC, 5/6/06, p.E1)
1916 Apr 12, American cavalrymen
and Mexican bandit troops clashed at Parole, Mexico.
(HN, 4/12/99)
1916 Apr 14, Emerson Buckley,
composer, was born.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1916 Apr 14, Sir Ernest Shackleton
and his 27 man crew landed at Elephant Island off the Antarctic
Peninsula.
(ON, 5/00, p.10)
1916 Apr 16,
In Norway Lars Korvald (d.2006), later prime minister (1972-1973)
was born on a farm near the southeastern village of Nedre Eiker. He
graduated from the Norwegian Agricultural College in 1943, and became
an agriculture teacher.
(AP, 7/4/06)
1916 Apr 20, Wrigley Field in
Chicago opened.
(HN, 4/20/98)
1916 Apr 20, German-British sea
battle off Belgian coast.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1916 Apr 21, Bill Carlisle, the
infamous ‘last train robber,’ robbed a train in Hanna, Wyoming.
(HN, 4/21/99)
1916 Apr 22, Yehudi Menuhin
(d.1999), violinist, was born in New York.
(SFC, 3/13/99, p.A1)(HN, 4/22/01)
1916 Apr 23, Lord Dunsany's "Night
at an Inn," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1916 Apr 24, Some 1,600 Irish
nationalist, the Irish Volunteers, launched the Easter Rising by
seizing several key sites in Dublin, including the General Post Office.
Eemon de Valera was one of the commandants in the uprising. It was
provoked by impatience with the lack of home rule and was put down by
British forces several days later. Michael Collins, a member of Sinn
Fein, led the guerrilla warfare. 116 soldiers and 16 policemen were
slain along with 62 rebels. The 1999 novel "A Star Called Henry" by
Roddy Doyle was set in this period. Film footage of the Easter Rising
was sold at auction in 2000 for $115,000 to a private Irish resident.
(WSJ, 10/11/96, p.A8)(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1 p.6)(AP,
4/24/97)(SFEC, 9/19/99, BR p.1)(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.A30)(ON, 9/04, p.5)
1916 re: Apr 24, In "Easter"
William Butler Yeats wrote: "All changed, changed utterly: A terrible
beauty is born."
(NOHY, 3/1990, p.212)
1916 re: Apr 24, "The history
taught stopped at 1916, they didn’t deal with the war of independence
or the civil war." Thus said Neil Jordan, director of the 1996 film
"Michael Collins."
(SFC, 9/22/96, Par p.31)
1916 Apr 26, Morris L. West,
novelist (Shoes of the Fisherman), was born in Australia.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1916 Apr 28, The British declared
martial law throughout Ireland.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1916 Apr 29, The Easter Rising in
Dublin collapsed as Irish nationalists surrendered to British
authorities. Irish nationalists set post office on fire in Dublin
during Easter Uprising.
(AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 4/29/98)(MC, 4/29/02)
1916 May 1, Glenn Ford, actor, was
born in Quebec, Canada. He starred in the film "The Blackboard Jungle."
(HN, 5/1/99)(MC, 5/1/02)
1916 May 3, Irish nationalist
Padraic Pearse and two others were executed by the British for their
roles in the Easter Rising.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1916 May 4,
Responding to a demand from Pres. Wilson, Germany agreed to limit its
submarine warfare, averting a diplomatic break with Washington.
However, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare the following
year.
(AP, 5/4/07)
1916 May 5, U.S. marines invaded
the Dominican Republic. [see May 15, 1916]
(HN, 5/5/98)
1916 May 8, Sir Ernest Shackleton
with 6 men man crew completed a 16-day voyage of 800 miles from
Elephant Island to South Georgia Island in the lifeboat James Caird.
(ON, 5/00, p.10)
1916 May 9, The Sykes-Picot
Agreement was a secret understanding between the governments of Britain
and France defining their respective spheres of post-World War I
influence and control in the Middle East. The boundaries of this
agreement still remains in much of the common border between Syria and
Iraq. Britain and France carved up the Levant into an assortment of
monarchies, mandates and emirates. The agreement enshrined Anglo-French
imperialist ambitions at the end of WW II. Syria and Lebanon were put
into the French orbit, while Britain claimed Jordan, Iraq, the Gulf
states and the Palestinian Mandate. Sir Mark Sykes (d.1919 at age 39)
and Francois Picot made the deal.
(WSJ, 2/27/00,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes-Picot_Agreement)
1916 May 11, Max [Johann BJM]
Reger (43), German composer, pianist, organist, died.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1916 May 13, The 1st US
observance of Indian (Native American) Day. [see Sep 27]
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1916 May 13, Sholem Aleichem
(b.1859), Yiddish writer (Fiddler on the Roof), died in NY. He was born
as Solomon Rabinowitz (1859) in Russia. His work included “Tevye the
Dairyman,” a series of stories published from 1894-1914.
(www.britannica.com)(WSJ, 9/22/07, p.W6)
1916 May 15, U.S. Marines landed
in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder. [see May 5, 1916]
(HN, 5/15/98)
1916 May 18, US pilot Kiffin
Rockwell shot down German aircraft.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1916 May 20, The Saturday Evening
Post cover featured a Norman Rockwell painting.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1916 May 20, Sir Ernest Shackleton
with 2 men crew reached a whaling station on St. Georgia Island after
their ship sank in the ice of Antarctica. Shackelton's own account of
the venture was titled: "South." In 1959 Alfred Lansing wrote
"Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage." A biography of Shackleton
was written in 1985 by Roland Huntford.
(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.B1)(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.6)
1916 May 20, A tornado hit Codell,
Kansas. More hit on the same date in 1917 and 1918.
(www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2006/alm06may.htm)
1916 May 22, French troops
occupied parts of Fort Douaumont, Verdun.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1916 May 24, US pilot William Thaw
shot down a German Fokker.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1916 May 25, Virginia Ginny Simms,
actress, singer (Kay Kyser Band), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1916 May 27, French Gen. Joseph
Simon Gallieni (b.1849) died. He had been called out of retirement at
the onset of war to serve in the Ministry of War in Paris and
orchestrated the allied victory at the Battle of the Marne (1914).
(ON, 8/08,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Galli%C3%A9ni)
1916 May 28, Walker Percy, writer
(The Moviegoer, Love in the Ruins), was born in Birmingham, Ala.
(HN, 5/28/01)(MC, 5/28/02)
1916 May 29, Official flag of
president of United States was adopted.
(HN, 5/29/98)
1916 May 29, U.S. forces invaded
the Dominican Republic and stayed until 1924.
(HN, 5/29/98)
1916 May 30, Dr. Joseph W.
Kennedy, scientist, discoverer of plutonium, was born.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1916 May 30, Herbert Smith was the
chief designer at Sopwith and came up with the Sopwith Triplane in
1916--the inspiration for other triplanes that followed. In the spring
of 1916, Herbert Smith, the chief designer at Sopwith, began work on a
successor to the well-regarded Sopwith Pup. He set out to design a
plane that could climb faster, fly higher, maneuver as well as if not
better than its predecessor and, if possible, afford better visibility
than the Pup. Surprisingly, the prototype that emerged from the Sopwith
hangar on May 30, 1916, was not a biplane but a triplane. The design
impressed the pilots who flew it and the pilots who flew against it.
Soon many other triplane designs appeared in the skies.
(HNQ, 3/22/01)
1916 May 31, During World War I,
British and German fleets fought the Battle of Skagerrak at Jutland off
Denmark and 10,000 were left dead. There was no clear-cut victor,
although the British suffered heavier losses.
(HN, 5/31/98)(AP, 5/31/06)
1916 Jun 1, The National Defense
Act increased the strength of the U.S. National Guard by 450,000 men.
The legislation set up uniform standards for training, unit size and
required all enlistees to take a dual oath to obey the state’s governor
and the US president.
(HN, 6/1/98)(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A11)
1916 Jun 5, Lord Herbert Horatio
Kitchener, British war hero, died when a German mine sank his
battleship in the North Sea. In 2001 John Pollock authored "Kitchener:
Architect of Victory, Artisan of Peace."
(WSJ, 2/27/00, p.A24)
1916 Jun 8, Francis Crick,
co-discoverer of the structure of DNA (Nobel 1962), was born.
(HN, 6/8/98)(MC, 6/8/02)
1916 Jun 9, Robert S. McNamara,
U.S. Secretary of Defense (1961-1968) under presidents John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon B. Johnson, was born. He oversaw the American buildup and
fighting in the Vietnam War.
(HN, 6/9/99)(MC, 6/9/02)
1916 Jun 10, Mecca, under control
of the Turks, fell to the Arabs during the Great Arab Revolt. Sharif
Hussein, Arab Emir of Mecca, led the revolt.
(HN, 6/10/98)(ON, 10/05, p.7)
1916 Jun 15, President Woodrow
Wilson signed a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1916 Jun 17, American troops under
the command of Gen. Jack Pershing marched into Mexico. US Gen’l.
Pershing led an unsuccessful punitive expedition against Francisco
"Pancho" Villa. [see Mar 31]
(SFC, 1/26/98, p.A17)(MC, 6/17/02)
1916 Jun 21, Mexican troops beat a
US expeditionary force under Gen Pershing.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1916 Jun 23, Carleton Watkins
(b.1829), California photographer, died in obscurity at Napa State
Hospital. He was later considered the greatest documentarian of Western
landscape ever to heft a camera.
(SFC, 5/4/09,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carleton_Watkins)
1916 Jun 24, John Ciardi, poet,
was born.
(HN, 6/24/01)
1916 Jun 26, Russian General
Aleksei Brusilov renewed his offensive against the Germans.
(HN, 6/26/98)
1916 Jun 29, Sir Roger David
Casement, the Irish-born diplomat knighted by King George V in 1911,
was convicted of treason for his role in Ireland's Easter Rebellion,
and sentenced to death.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1916 Jul 1, Olivia DeHavilland
(Academy Award-winning actress: To Each His Own [1946], The Heiress
[1949]; Gone with the Wind), was born.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1916 Jul 1, Dwight D. Eisenhower
married Mary "Mamie" Geneva Doud in Denver.
(AP, 7/1/97)
1916 Jul 1, Roland Robert Tuck,
London, British Spitfire ace during World War II who shot down 29 enemy
planes Tuck's hard-won flying skill and a remarkable run of good
fortune contributed to victory in the Battle of Britain, was born.
(HN, 7/1/98)
1916 Jul 1, At 7:30AM, a 5 day,
continuous, British artillery bombardment of German lines stopped, and
11 British divisions (100,000 men) went "over the top" toward the
Germans. By 9AM 22,000 were dead & another 40,000 were wounded in
what became known as the Battle of the Somme. These attacks continued
for another five months, costing the British over one million killed
& wounded. Field Marshal Douglas Haig commanded the British forces.
4 months of stalemate cost 420,00 British casualties.
(MC, 7/1/02)(AP, 7/15/09)
1916 Jul 1, British court martial
was held for the Dublin Easter uprising.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1916 Jul 2, Barry Gray, radio talk
show host, was born.
(HN, 7/2/01)
1916 Jul 2, Ken Curtis Lamar,
actor (Ripcord, Festus-Gunsmoke), was born in Colorado.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1916 Jul 3, The Battle of the
Somme began. More than 100,000 men were killed in the first day.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1916 Jul 3, The 1st of 3 fatal
shark attacks occurred near the NJ shore.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1916 Jul 4, Tokyo Rose, (Iva
Toguri D'Aquino), was born in Los Angeles. She did propaganda
broadcasts against the U.S. from Japan during World War II.; imprisoned
after the war, then received presidential pardon in 1977.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1916 Jul 4, Nathan’s Famous Hot
Dogs opened a stand at Brooklyn’s Coney Island and held an eating
contest as a publicity stunt that became an annual event.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A3)
1916 Jul 4, Poet Alan Seeger died
in action at Befloy-en-Santerre. Born in New York City in 1888, Seeger
went to Paris in 1912 and joined the French Foreign legion at the
outbreak of WWI. He was killed in the Battle of the Somme. He wrote the
lines: I have a rendezvous with death / At some disputed barricade..."
(SFEC, 3/16/97, z1 p.2)(HNQ, 8/23/98)
1916 Jul 9, The 1st cargo
submarine to cross Atlantic arrived in US from Germany.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1916 Jul 11, Dan Patch (b.1896), a
record-breaking, Indiana-born, harness race horse, died and was buried
in Minnesota. He was the first harness race horse to break the 2-minute
mile. In 2008 Charles Leersen authored “Crazy Good: The True Story of
Dan Patch, The Most Famous Horse in America.” Here Leersen details the
pharmacopoeia used in racing at the turn of the century.
(WSJ, 5/17/08, p.W9)
1916 Jul 14, Natalia Ginzberg,
Italian novelist (The Dry Heat, Family Sayings), was born.
(HN, 7/14/01)
1916 Jul 15, The Boeing Co.,
originally known as Pacific Aero Products, was founded in Seattle by
William Boeing.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1916 Jul 9, Edward Heath (d.2005),
later PM of England (1970-1974, was born in Kent county.
(SFC, 7/18/05, p.B6)
1916 Jul 22, In San Francisco some
50,000 people marched in a Preparedness Day parade sponsored by
business leaders and opposed by labor. A bomb went off on Market St. at
Steuart during the parade. 10 people were killed including Arthur
Nelson. The bomb was set by a professed anarchist. Labor leader Tom
Mooney was convicted but it turned out that the evidence was
fabricated. In 1930 Gov. Clement Young denied a pardon for Mooney. He
was pardoned in 1939 by Democratic Governor Culbert Olson.
(AP, 7/22/97)(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W5)(SFC, 9/22/01,
p.A3)(OAH, 2/05, p.A10)(SFC, 7/8/05, p.F6)(SSFC, 4/27/08, DB
p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mooney)
1916 Jul 24, John D. MacDonald,
author was born.
(HN, 7/24/02)
1916 Jul 25, An explosion at the
Cleveland Waterworks tunnel project trapped 12 men and 18 would-be
rescuers. 8 men were saved and 10 bodies were recovered by a team led
by black inventor Garrett A. Morgan (d.1963) dressed in his new Safety
Hood.
(ON, 3/02, p.12)
1916 Jul 28, David Brown, director
(Jaws, Planet of the Apes), was born in NYC.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1916 Jul 28, Laird Cregar, actor
(Charley's Aunt, Hangover Square), was born in Phila.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1916 Jul 30, German saboteurs blew
up a munitions pier on Black Tom Island, Jersey City, NJ. 7 people were
killed. Damages totaled about $20-25 million. After much legal
maneuvering a commission in 1939 ruled that Germany was guilty of
sabotaging Black Tom and another plant in Kingsland, NJ, and awarded$50
million to the claimants. In 1953 the new Federal Republic of Germany
began making payments. The last payment was made in 1979.
(AH, 10/04, p.36,77)
1916 Aug 3, Sir Roger Casement
was hanged for treason in England.
(HN, 8/3/99)
1916 Aug 4, The United States
signed a treaty to purchase the Danish Virgin Islands for $25 million.
The US purchased the southern Virgin Islands including St. Thomas, St.
John, St. Croix and about 50 other small Caribbean islets and cays from
Denmark. They were then known as the Danish West Indies. The Act of
March 3, 1917, authorized payment by the US of $25 million for the
Virgin Islands.
(WUD, 1994, p.1595)(AP, 8/4/97)(HNQ, 11/20/99)
1916 Aug 5, The British navy
defeated the Ottomans at the naval battle off Port Said, Egypt.
(HN, 8/5/98)
1916 Aug 5, George Sainton Kaye
Butterworth (31), composer, died.
(MC, 8/5/02)
1916 Aug 6, Richard Hofstadter,
physicist who won the Nobel prize in 1961 for his studies of neutrons
and protons, was born.
(HN, 8/6/98)
1916 Aug 7, Persia formed an
alliance with Britain and Russia.
(HN, 8/7/98)
1916 Aug 11, The Russia army took
Stanislau, Poland, from the Germans.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1916 Aug 12, In Paris Jean Cocteau
took pictures of Pablo Picasso, poet Max Jacob and painter Amedeo
Modigliani and other friends as they met for lunch and passed the
afternoon. It all came out in the 1997 book by Billy Kluver: A Day With
Picasso."
(SFC,11/18/97, p.E1)
1916 Aug 31, Daniel Schorr,
broadcast journalist (CBS), was born in NYC.
(www.nndb.com)
1916 Aug 25, The National Park
Service was established within the Department of the Interior by the
Organic Act. Horace Albright and Stephen Mather helped persuade the US
Congress to establish the organization.
(AP,
8/25/97)(www.nps.gov/legacy/organic-act.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/mr6gc)
1916 Aug 25, Erich Von Stroheim
Jr, actor, director (Napoleon, Sunset Blvd), was born.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1916 Aug 25, Van Johnson (d.2008),
film actor, was born in Newport, RI.
(SFC, 12/13/08, p.A5)
1916 Aug 27, Italy declared war on
Germany.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1916 Aug 28, C. Wright Mills
(d.1962), sociologist, writer (The Power Elite), was born in Waco,
Texas.
(Google)
1916 Aug 28, Germany declared war
on Romania.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1916 Aug 28, Italy’s declaration
of war against Germany took effect during World War I.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1916 Aug 29, Congress created the
US Naval reserve.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1916 Aug 29, Gen Von Hindenburg
became German Chief of Staff.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1916 Aug 29, Transportship Hsin-Yu
& cruiser Hai-Yung collided and 1000 people were killed.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1916 Aug 30, Sir Ernest Shackleton
rescued the crew he had left behind on Elephant Island.
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.w14)
1916 Aug 31, Daniel Schorr,
broadcast journalist (CBS), was born.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1916 Sep 1, The US Congress passed
the Keatings-Owen Act, which banned child labor from interstate
commerce. In 1918 it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
(http://tinyurl.com/2gx7pm)(ON, 2/07, p.6)
1916 Sep 1, Bulgaria declared war
on Romania as the First World War expanded.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1916 Sep 2, Two airborne planes
communicated directly by radio for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1916 Sep 3, The German Somme front
was broken by an Allied offensive. Allies turned back the Germans in
the Battle of Verdun.
(HN, 9/3/98)(MC, 9/3/01)
1916 Sep 6, Clarence Saunders
opened his first Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Memphis, Tenn. He
pioneered self-service in the US and obtained a patent. He later
franchised over a 1,000 stores.
(WSJ, 11/16/98, p.A12)(Econ, 10/2/04, p.18)(AP,
9/6/06)
1916 Sep 7, The U.S. Congress
passed the Workman’s Compensation Act.
(HN, 9/7/00)
1916 Sep 11, The "Star Spangled
Banner" was sung at the beginning of a baseball game for the first time
in Cooperstown, New York.
(HN, 9/11/00)
1916 Sep 13, Roald Dahl (d.1990),
son of Norwegian immigrants, was born in Llandaff, Wales. He is best
known for his children’s books such as "James and the Giant Peach."
(www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/author/dahl)
1916 Sep 15, Armored tanks were
introduced by the British during the Battle of the Somme.
(HN, 9/15/00)
1916 Sep 19, The 1st landing on
Schiphol, Farman F-22 of Soesterberg.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1916 Sep 21, Ewing Marion Kauffman
(d.1993) was born in Garden City, Missouri. In 1950 he formed Marion
Laboratories and sold the company to Merrell Dow in 1989. He founded
the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 1966 to foster education and
entrepreneurship.
(www.kauffman.org/ewingkauffman.cfm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewing_Kauffman)
1916 Sep 22, Warren Billings, one
of 5 people charged in the July 22 San Francisco Preparedness Day
bombing, was sentenced to life in prison.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W5)
1916 Sep 26, A Bishop spoke
against Catholics joining trade unions
(MC, 9/26/01)
1916 Sep 27, 1st Native American
Day celebrated, honoring American Indians. [see May 13]
(MC, 9/27/01)
1916 Sep 27, Constance of Greece
declared war on Bulgaria.
(HN, 9/27/98)
1916 Oct 3, James Alfred Wight
Herriot (d.1995), Yorkshire veterinarian and author, was born. His
books include "All Creatures Great and Small."
(HN, 10/3/00)
1916 Oct 4, The California State
Federation of Labor maintained its policy of banning Japanese workers
from joining labor unions.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W5)
1916 Oct 4, National Lead, US
Steel (preferred) and Peoples Gas were removed from the Dow Jones.
AT&T was first added to the DJIA.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45,46)(WSJ, 4/2/04, p.C1)
1916 Oct 5, Corporal Adolf Hitler
was wounded in WW I.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1916 Oct 7, In the most lopsided
victory in college football history, Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland
University of Lebanon, Tennessee, 222-0 in Atlanta.
(http://gtalumni.org/Publications/magazine/spr98/div11.html)
1916 Oct 14, C. Everett Koop, U.S.
Surgeon General (1981-1989), was born.
(HN, 10/14/00)(MC, 10/14/01)
1916 Oct 16, Margaret Higgins
Sanger opened the first birth control clinic at 46 Amboy St. in
Brooklyn. She spent 30 days in jail when she opened America's first
birth control clinic. Sanger coined the term "birth control" and made
the cause a worldwide movement. After opening her clinic in Brooklyn,
she was jailed for creating a public nuisance. Born in Corning, New
York, on September 14, 1883, Sanger died in 1966.
(AP, 10/16/97)(HNQ, 9/11/98)
1916 Oct 19, Emil Gilels, pianist
(Brussels Competition-1938), was born in Odessa, Ukraine.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1916 Oct 19, Karl-Birger Blomdahl,
Sweden, opera composer (Herr von Hancken), was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1916 Oct 21, US Army formed
Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC).
(MC, 10/21/01)
1916 Oct 24, Henry Ford awarded
equal pay to women. Industrialist Henry Ford helped lead American war
production with the gigantic facility at Willow Run.
(HN, 10/24/98)
1916 Oct 25, German pilot Rudolf
von Eschwege shoot down his first enemy plane, a Nieuport 12 of the
Royal Naval Air Service over Bulgaria.
(HN, 10/25/99)
1916 Oct 26, French leader
Francois Mitterrand, was born. He served as President of France from
1981-95.
(HN, 10/26/98)(MC, 10/26/01)
1916 Oct 26, Margaret Sanger was
arrested for obscenity (advocating birth control).
(MC, 10/26/01)
1916 Oct 27, The 1st published
reference to "jazz" appeared in Variety.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1916 Oct, T.E. Lawrence (of
Arabia) met with Feisal Hussain for the 1st time.
(http://tinyurl.com/3rd3h)
1916 Nov 2, France reconquered Ft
Vaux, Verdun.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1916 Nov 3, On the Baltic off of
Finland a German U-boat under Captain Bruno Hoppe ordered Captain E.B.
Eriksson of the Swedish schooner Jonkoping to halt for an inspection.
Beverages headed for the Russians were discovered and the ship was
evacuated and sunk. In 1998 some 1,000 bottles of 1907 Heidsieck
Monopole champagne were recovered, of which 500 were preserved in
drinking condition. Hoppe later sank the schooner Akir. The 66-ton
Joenkoeping was sunk in the Baltic Sea by a German U-boat. It carried
44 creates of champagne, 67 barrels of cognac, and 17 barrels of port
wine intended for the Russian army. Divers planned to recover the cargo
in 1998.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A14)(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A19)(AP,
9/21/98)
1916 Nov 4, Walter Cronkite, news
anchor for CBS (1962-1981), was born.
(HN, 11/4/98)(MC, 11/4/01)
1916 Nov 7, President Woodrow
Wilson was re-elected over Charles Evans Hughes, but the race was so
close that all votes had to be counted before an outcome could be
determined, so the results were not known until November 11. President
Woodrow Wilson was elected for a second term largely because he had
successfully kept America out of the war that was raging in Europe
since 1914. His campaign slogan was: "He kept us out of the war."
Wilson beat Charles Evans Hughes, a former Supreme Court Justice with
an electoral college vote of 277-254. Wilson’s victory in California,
13 electoral votes, by 3,773 votes gave him 277 electoral votes to 254
for Hughes. Wilson carried the popular vote 9.1 million to 8.5 for
Hughes.
(HN, 11/7/98)(HNPD, 2/24/99)(SFC, 10/9/99,
p.A21)(SFEC, 10/29/00, p.A1) (SFC, 11/10/00, p.A3)
1916 Nov 7, Republican Jeannette
Rankin (R-Montana), lifelong feminist and pacifist of Montana, became
the first woman elected to Congress. As legislative secretary of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association, Rankin helped the women
of Montana win the vote in 1914, six years before all American women
won the vote. Rankin was elected as a delegate-at-large to the U.S.
House of Representatives. During her first term in Washington
(1917-1919), Rankin strongly supported isolationism--she was one of 49
members of Congress to vote against war with Germany in 1917. Rankin
served another term in the House of Representatives from 1941 to 1943,
where she created a furor as the only legislator to vote against
declaring war on Japan after the Pearl Harbor raid. This unpopular
stand ended her political career, but Rankin remained politically
active, even leading a 1968 march to protest American involvement in
Vietnam. Jeanette Rankin died in 1973.
(AP, 11/7/97)(HN, 11/7/98)(HNPD, 11/6/98)
1916 Nov 7, Grand duke Nikolai
Nikolayevich warned the czar of an uprising.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1916 Nov 8, Peter Ulrich Weiss,
German novelist and dramatist, was born. His work included "Marat/Sade"
and "The Investigation."
(HN, 11/8/00)
1916 Nov 14, Frederick Libby
(d.1970), American WW I ace, was awarded the Military Cross by King
George V at Buckingham Palace. He wrote an account of his experiences
later published as "Horses Don’t Fly."
(WSJ, 8/16/00, p.A20)
1916 Nov 16, French adjutant-chief
Eugene Rouges died with several of his men when a German artillery
shell exploded in their trench in Gradesnica, Macedonia. In the 1990s
villagers began finding a liquid fortune in vintage cognac buried in
the old trenches.
(AP, 7/23/07)
1916 Nov 17, Shelby Foote,
American writer famous for his three volume book on America’s Civil
War, was born.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1916 Nov 18, Gen. Douglas Haig
finally called off 1st Battle of the Somme in Europe.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1916 Nov 20, Thomas McGrath, poet
and novelist, was born.
(HN, 11/20/00)
1916 Nov 21, The HMHS Britannic,
the sister ship of the Titanic, sank in the Kea Channel off Greece
after being hit by a mine or a torpedo. 30 people in lifeboats died
from the suction of the sinking ship. The Britannic, launched in 1914
from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, included an
additional expansion joint due to design update following the sinking
of the Titanic in 1912.
(www.titanic-titanic.com/britannic.shtml)(AH, 10/07,
p.14)
1916 Nov 21, Franz Jozef I, King
of Austria and Hungary, died.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1916 Nov 22, Jack London, American
writer, died in Glen Ellen, Ca., of a kidney disease, gastrointestinal
uremic poisoning. An overdose of morphine was also suspected. He had
written 50 books. London produced 200 short stories, 400 nonfiction
articles and 20 novels. A 1998 biography by Alex Kershaw was titled:
"Jack London: A Life."
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.A17)(SFEC, 1/25/98, BR
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London)
1916 Nov 24, Forrest J. Ackerman,
coined the term "sci-fi," was born.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1916 Nov 28, Vyes Theriault,
French-Canadian author, novelist, was born.
(HN, 11/28/00)
1916 Nov 28, Hiram Bingham,
American explorer, wrote a letter to Gilbert H. Graham, the president
of National Geographic, in which he stated that artifacts from his 3rd
expedition to Peru belonged to the Peruvian government, which expected
their return in 18 months. A dispute over the return of artifacts from
Yale back to Peru continued in 2006.
(SFC, 3/10/06, p.A12)
1916 Nov 28, The first (German)
air attack on London.
(DTnet, 11/28/97)
1916 Nov 29, US declared martial
law in Dominican Republic.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1916 Nov, Ray Conniff (d.2002),
bandleader and composer, was born in Attleboro, Mass.
(SFC, 10/19/02, p.A21)
1916 Nov, T.E. Lawrence was
assigned as the British liaison to Arab Prince Feisal Hussain.
(http://tinyurl.com/3rd3h)
1916 Dec 1, King Constantine
Greece refused to surrender to the Allies.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1916 Dec 2, Francesco Paolo
Tosti (b.1846), composer, died at the Hotel Excelsior in Rome, Italy.
Tosti wrote a total of 360 songs in his lifetime including: “Goodbye,”
“Forever,” and “Mother.”
(www.bohemianopera.com/tosti.htm)
1916 Dec 3, French commander
Joseph Joffre was dismissed after his failure at the Somme. General
Robert Nivelle became the new French commander-in-chief.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1916 Dec 5, Hans Richter (73),
composer, died.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1916 Dec 5, David Lloyd George
replaced Herbert Asquith as the British Prime Minister.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1916 Dec 9, Kirk Douglas, film
star, was born as Issur Demsky in Amsterdam, NY.
(SSFC, 10/8/06, Par
p.2)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0000018/)
1916 Dec 12, Worst train disaster
ever took place in Modane, France, 543 French Soldiers were killed.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1916 Dec 14, Shirley Jackson,
novelist and short story writer (Life Among Savages, The Lottery), was
born.
(HN, 12/14/00)
1916 Dec 14, People of Denmark
voted to sell Danish West Indies to United States for $25 million. [see
Aug 4]
(AP, 12/14/02)
1916 Dec 15, The French defeated
the Germans in the World War I Battle of Verdun. [see Dec 18]
(AP, 12/15/97)
1916 Dec 16, Gregory Rasputin
(45), the Russian monk and confidant to Czarina Alexandra, was
assassinated by Prince Yussoupov (Youssoupoff). The monk who had
wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was murdered by a
group of noblemen. He was fed cakes and wine laced with cyanide, then
shot a number of times and finally drowned. In 1957 Youssoupoff
(d.1967) authored a memoir in France that in 2003 was translated into
English: Lost Splendor: The Amazing Memoirs of the Man Who Killed
Rasputin." A TV version of Rasputin was made for HBO in 1996. [see Dec
30]
(WSJ, 3/25/96, p.A-15)(AP, 12/16/97)(SSFC, 11/30/03,
p.M4)
1916 Dec 18, The Battle of Verdun
ended with the French and Germans each having suffered more than
330,000 killed and wounded in 10 months. [see Dec 15]
(HN, 12/18/98)
1916 Dec 29, According to the New
Style calendar (Dec. 16th by the Old Style), Grigory Rasputin, the
so-called "Mad Monk" who had wielded great influence with Czar Nicholas
II, was murdered by a group of Russian noblemen in St. Petersburg.
Rasputin drowned when he was thrown through a hole in the ice of the
Neva River. When Rasputin was introduced to the Russian royal family in
1905, he demonstrated an ability to heal the royal son Alexis and was
then welcomed into the family circle. Rasputin was considered a holy
peasant, but his belief that sinning was necessary for salvation led
him to seduce women and other scandalous behavior. A conspiracy,
believing Rasputin had too much influence on the empress, formed to
assassinate him, and on the night of December 29-30, they poisoned his
wine--but he did not die. They shot him twice, but when he still
refused to die, they drowned him.
(HNPD, 12/30/98)(AP, 12/29/06)
1916 Marcel Duchamp displayed a
plastic typewriter cover as finished work of art, a dadaist still-life
with the logo "Underwood."
(WSJ, 6/4/97, p.A16)
1916 A glass mural, "Dream
Garden," was made by Maxfield Parrish and Louis Tiffany. the 15 x 49
foot work was commissioned by Cyrus Curtis and sold for over $5 million
in 1998.
(SFC, 7/24/98, p.C11)
1916 Albert Gleizes painted his
ethereal Florent Schmidt at the Piano.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)
1916 Egon Schiele, Viennese
artist, made his "Reclining Woman Exposing Herself."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1916 Egon Schiele painted a view
of Krumau, Bohemia. In 2003 it sold for £12.6 million.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.55)
1916 Henry Tonk, artist, did
Studies of Facial Wounds. It was inspired by the shrapnel horrors of WW
I.
(WSJ, 6/15/95, p.A-14)
1916 Paul Strand, photographer,
broke from soft focus and created his own modernist approach to
photography.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.22)
1916 Albert Einstein published his
book “Relativity: The Special and the General Theory,” in an effort to
make relativity understandable to the layman.
(ON, 6/07, p.4)
1916 C.F. Dixon-Johnson authored
"The Armenians," with the aim of "presenting the public an opportunity
of judging whether or not 'the Armenian Question' has another side than
that which has been recently so assiduously promulgated throughout the
Western World."
(www.mfa.gov.tr/grupe/eh/eh08/06.htm)
1916 Ring Lardner (1885-1933),
American humorist and writer, authored “You Know Me Al.” It traced the
1st season of a rookie hurler for the Chicago White Sox.”
(AP, 5/14/99)(HN, 3/6/01)(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P8)
1916 Arnold Toynbee edited a
document titled: "The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire:
1915-1916."
(http://www.ku.edu/~kansite/ww_one/docs/bryce.htm)
1916 Frederick J. Waugh, a noted
marine painter, authored "The Clan of Munes," a children's book about
troll-like figures set in the Cathedral Woods of Monhegan Island,
Maine. The book was later thought to have inspired a tradition of
building fairy houses in the Cathedral Woods.
(WSJ, 1/18/00, p.A1,8)
1916 In "Easter" William Butler
Yeats wrote: "All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born."
(NOHY, 3/1990, p.212)
1916 The opera "Die Toten Augen"
(The Dead Eyes) by composer Eugen D'Albert (b.1864 in Glasgow) was
first performed in Dresden under Fritz Reiner.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, DB p.33)
1916 George Gershwin at 18 wrote
his first published song: "When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em. When
You Got ‘Em, You Don’t Want ‘Em."
(SFEC, 3/16/97, z1 p.2)
1916 Eric Satie composed "Trois
melodies."
(SFC,11/14/97, p.C5)
1916 In Miami industrialist James
Deering (d.1925) built the Vizcaya villa in Italian Renaissance style
with formal gardens as his winter home on S. Miami Ave. The local
government acquired the villa in 1952 and turned it into a museum.
(Hem. 1/95, p. 60)(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.W2)(WSJ, 8/31/01,
p.W2)
1916 The Goodyear Redwood Lumber
Co. constructed Harbor House in Elk, Ca., (once Greenwood Landing). It
served as an executive residence and quarters for Goodyear guests.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T9)
1916 The Frenchglen Hotel was
built for cattle traders and stockmen in southeastern Oregon. It was
named after Peter French.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T5)
1916 Photographer Alfred Stieglitz
(52) met artist Georgia O’Keeffe (29).
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.B9)
1916 Margaret Sanger (d.1966)
founded Planned Parenthood.
(SFC, 11/13/96, p.E10)
1916 The George Gustav Heye Center
was founded. [see 1874-1957, Heye]
(Wired, Dec., ‘95, p.117)
1916 In San Francisco a set of 4
linked homes on Russian Hill, designed by Willis Polk, were built at
1-7 Russian Hill Place.
(SSFC, 9/27/09, p.C2)
1916 The San Diego Zoo in Balboa
Park was founded.
(Hem., 8/96, p.21)
1916 The beach community at Willow
Camp, Ca., was renamed Stinson Beach after the largest land owners in
the area, Rose and Nathan Stinson.
(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A13)
1916 Fenton U-turn Weems ran 171
yards for a touchdown at the Rose Bowl where Washington State beat
Brown 14-0. He had become disoriented, ran the wrong way, turned around
and scored.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, z1 p.4)
1916 Glenn Springs, Texas.
"During the Pancho Villa troubles in Mexico, several hundred hungry
bandits crossed the border and sacked the town..."
1916 Pres. Woodrow Wilson put a
Maine Park under federal protection and dubbed it Sieur de Monts
National Monument.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.T6)
1916 The 1915 film "Birth of a
Nation" was shown to Pres. Woodrow Wilson, the first motion picture
shown in the White House.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E3)
1916 Pres. Woodrow Wilson signed
the Harrison Drug Act. It required all persons licensed to sell
narcotics to file an inventory of their stocks with the IRS. It
outlawed the use of cocaine, which had been a key ingredient in many
patent medicines. [2nd source says the act was created in 1914]
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.2)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.E3)
1916 Pres. Wilson signed the
federal estate tax into law. It was a levy on the transfer of large
fortunes between generations. In 2006 Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro
authored “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” a unique portrait of American
politics as viewed through the lens of the death tax repeal saga.
(WSJ, 7/13/00, p.A1)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.25)
1916 Anton Dilger (1884-1918), an
American educated as a surgeon in Germany, set up a basement laboratory
in Washington DC for cultivating anthrax bacteria and Pseudomonas
mallei to infect horses and cattle destined to supply Allied armies.
German saboteurs disseminated the bacteria. Dilger later moved to
Mexico to help goad Mexico into attacking the US. He died of the
Spanish flu in Madrid. In 2007 Robert Koenig authored “The Fourth
Horseman: One Man’s Mission to Wage the Great War in America.”
(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.M2)
1916 US troops were still fighting
skirmishes on some islands of the Philippines to this time.
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A6)
1916 Farm Credit Services of
America was founded as the 1st of America’s government sponsored
entities.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.68)
1916 Bandelier National Park, NM,
was named after anthropologist Adolph F.A. Bandelier. [see 1880)
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D7)
1916 Mt. Lassen, Ca., was made a
National Park.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T8)
1916 In Utah the US government
took land from the Ute Indians for the rights to oil shale reserves. In
2000 84,000 acres were given back.
(SFC, 1/14/00, p.A12)
1916 Robert Brislawn, a Wyoming
horse-packer, began trading Indians for their best mustangs.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A3)
1916 Charlie Chaplin’s paycheck
was the highest in the land with the possible exception of steel
magnate Charles Schwab.
(WSJ, 7/17/96, p.A12)
1916 The Dow Jones was expanded to
20 stocks.
(WSJ, 6/3/96, p.C1)
1916 The Detroit Glass Minnow Tube
was first introduced about this time. It is a fish lure where the
angler pours a little water and live bait into a glass tube that is
capped before casting.
(Hem, 8/95, p.97)
1916 The Four Wheel Drive Auto Co.
of Clintonville, Wis., got a boost from WW I demand for its trucks.
(WSJ, 9/16/05, p.W12)
1916 Oakland Preserving Co. became
the California Packing Co.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.B1)
1916 Todd Shipyards was formed in
Brooklyn, NY, in a merger of several companies that included Robins Dry
Dock & Repair Co. From 1958 to 1986 it was led by John T. Gilbride
(1916-2007), whose father had run Robins. Todd filed for bankruptcy
protection in 1987 and emerged from bankruptcy in 1990.
(WSJ, 3/24/07, p.A8)
1916 Whitman Publishing became a
subsidiary of Western Printing and Lithographing Co., which became
Western Publishing in 1960. They published Little Golden Books under
the Golden Press name.
(SFC, 4/15/98, Z1 p.6)
1916 The US Gypsum Co. invented a
building board, with gypsum sandwiched between sheets of tough paper,
that it called Sheetrock (drywall). It replaced multiple plaster coats
and became popular after WW II.
(SFC, 10/29/03, p.F1)
1916 James L. Kraft invented
processed cheese, which resulted in his Kraft empire.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.B3)
1916 A formula for household
bleach was devised.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.7)
1916 Edouard Heuer pioneered the
chronos, or stopwatch. It indicated 1/100th of a second.
(Hem., 2/96, p.113)
1916 Hand operated windshield
wipers, stop lights and rearview mirrors became standard on some cars.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1916 A Westinghouse engineer in
Pittsburgh started to play music over the air to his friends. By 1920
the company had a radio station operating on the factory roof.
(WSJ, 1/12/98, p.A19)
1916 The US had 270,000 miles of
railway. By 1986 this would diminish by half.
(NG, 5/88, pres. intro.)
1916 A single farm worker in
1916 provided food and farm products to seven Americans. By 1972 that
number had grown to 60.
(HNQ, 12/28/99)
1916 Psychologist James Leuba
conducted a random poll of selected scientists to inquire if they
believed in God. 40% said that they believed in God. A 1997 poll by
Edward Larson that followed the 1916 procedure produced similar
results. Leuba predicted that disbelief would spread as education
expanded.
(SFC, 4/4/97, p.A12)
1916 Lewis Terman, Stanford
psychology professor known as the father of American IQ testing,
developed and published the "Stanford Revision and Extension of the
Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale," commonly known as Stanford-Binet. His
son Frederick Terman was later considered the father of a technical
revolution. He encouraged his students to start local businesses that
led to the growth of Silicon Valley.
(WSJ, 7/18/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W31)(WSJ,
6/2/98, p.A20)
1916 In Nevada drillers on the
30,000 acre Fly Ranch in the Hualapai Flat struck geothermal water and
gave birth to the Fly Geyser. It transformed the area into a desert
wetland.
(NH, 7/98, p.83)
1916 Fairbanks, Alaska, caught
fire. The town's bacon supply was burned as fuel to keep the steam
powered water pump running. The event was later covered by Margaret
Murie (d.2003) in her 1962 autobiography "Two in the Far North."
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.A16)
1916 Charles Dawson, a
paleontologist involved in the 1912 Piltdown Hoax, died.
(Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.48)
1916 Henry James (b.1843),
American novelist and brother of William James, died. His novels
included "The Ambassadors," "The Golden Bowl," "The Wings of the Dove,"
"The Beast in the Jungle," and "The Portrait of a Lady." In 2000 Robert
B. Pippin authored "Henry James and Modern Moral Life." Pippin held
that James was trying to work out a practical morality without recourse
to religion or ethical principles.
(WUD, 1994, p.762)(WUD, 1994, p.A38)
1916 Percival Lowell, American
astronomer, died. He believed that an unknown planet was affecting the
orbit of Neptune, which was discovered in 1930. The first two letters
of Pluto commemorate his name.
(Disc. Ch., 7/23/95)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Par p.13)
1916 Josiah Royce (b.1855),
American philosopher and educator, died.
(WUD, 1994, p.1249)
1916 Charles Taze Russell (b.1852)
died. He founded the International Bible Students Association. In the
1870’s Russell abandoned the Adventist movement and formed his own in
Pennsylvania, which was later named Jehovah’s Witnesses. His early
followers were called "Russellites."
(HN, 2/16/02)
1916 Charles de Foucauld, a former
French army officer turned monk who lived among the Tuareg people in
the Sahara, was killed in an anti-French uprising in Algeria. In 2005
he was beatified by Pope Benedikt XVI. Inspired by the monk, groups
known as the Little Sisters and Little Brothers of Jesus were formed in
Algeria.
(AP, 11/13/05)
1916 Charles I took the throne and
worked for peace as the Austro-Hungarian empire neared its end. He
abdicated at the end of the war in 1918 and died in Portugal in 1922 at
age 34. In 2003 the Vatican attributed a miracle to the last emperor of
Austria-Hungary, paving the way for the eventual beatification and
sainthood of Charles I.
(AP, 12/21/03)
1916 In Britain Cecil Chubb bought
the property that contained Stonehenge from a Wiltshire farmer.
(HT, 3/97, p.22)
1916 Britain appointed a Royal
Commission to investigate the calamitous attack on the Dardanelles.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.67)
1916 Roger Casement, knighted for
his service in the Congo, was hanged at London’s Pentonville Prison for
his activities on behalf of Irish independence.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.12)
1916 Germany reduced its
retirement age from 70, which was fixed by Bismarck, to 65.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.16)
1916 Germany adopted daylight
saving time.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, Par p.15)
1916 In Namibia it was the
beginning of 73 years of occupation [by South Africa].
(SFC,11/19/97, p.C2)
1916 A disastrous breach of Dutch
coastal defenses occurred.
(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1916 In the Philippines native
legislators were 1st elected but the US governors general remained in
charge for years.
(SSFC, 5/11/03, p.D6)
1916 In South Africa the Univ. of
Fort Hare (UFH) was officially established.
(MT, Fall/99, p.13)
1916-1922 Charlie Dalton later wrote the book "With
the Dublin Brigade" that covers this period of the Irish rebellion.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, p.C13)
1916-1922 David Lloyd George of Wales served as the
Prime Minister of Britain.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.T4)
1916-1924 US Marines occupied the Dominican Republic.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-14)
1916-1931 The Indian rupee was the legal tender of
Iraq.
(WSJ, 11/7/03, p.A10)
1916-1996 Stavros Niarchos, Greek shipping tycoon. He
was a fierce rival of Aristotle Onassis and earned millions of dollars
shipping crude oil around the world. He married the former wife of
Onassis after Onassis latched on to Jackie Kennedy. He died on Apr 15,
in Switzerland and was buried there.
(SFC, 4/18/96, C-4)
World War timeline 1917:
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/start.html
1917 Jan 5, Wieland Wagner, German
opera director (grandson of Richard Wagner), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1917 Jan 5, Jane Wyman (d.2007),
film star, was born as Sarah Jane Mayfield Fulks in St. Joseph, Mo.
(SFC, 9/11/07, p.A2)
1917 Jan 5, Bulgarian and German
troops occupied the Port of Braila in East Romania.
(HN, 1/5/99)(WUD, 1994, p.178)
1917 Jan 6, Hendrik P.G. Quack
(82), lawyer and economist (Bank of Netherlands), died.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1917 Jan 10, Buffalo Bill Cody,
army scout and Indian fighter, died. Edward Zane Carroll Judson wrote
about Western themes using the name Ned Buntline. The author is best
known for his dime novels about William "Buffalo Bill" Cody.
(MesWP)(HNQ, 4/9/00)(MC, 1/10/02)
1917 Jan 10, Germany was rebuked
as the Entente officially rejected a proposal for peace talks and
demanded the return of occupied territories from Germany.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1917 Jan 14, The Provisional
Parliament was established in Poland.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1917 Jan 17, The United States
paid Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
(AP, 1/17/07)
1917 Jan 18, Philip Boileau
(b.1863), Canada-born artist, died in the US. He was known for his
portraits of beautiful women, the “Boileau Girls.”
(SFC, 3/12/08,
p.G3)(www.thephilipboileausociety.com/)
1917 Jan 19, John Raitt, Bonnie
Raitt's father, singer, actor (Pajama Game, Carousel), was born.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1917 Jan 19, Silvertown Essex's
ammunition factory exploded and 300 died.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1917 Jan 19, The Zimmermann Note,
a coded message sent to Germany’s minister in Mexico by German Foreign
secretary Arthur Zimmermann, proposed an alliance between Germany and
Mexico in the event war broke out between the U.S. and Germany.
Intercepted by British naval intelligence, the note proposed, among
other things, "We shall give generous financial support, and it is
understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New
Mexico, Texas, and Arizona." The message was forwarded by the British
to the U.S. State Department, which subsequently released it to the
press on March 1.
(HNQ, 7/15/98)
1917 Jan 22, President Wilson
pleaded for an end to war in Europe, calling for "peace without
victory." (By April, however, America was also at war.)
(AP, 1/22/98)
1917 Jan 24, Ernest Borgnine,
actor (Ice Station Zebra, McHale, Marty), was born in Hamden, Ct.
(Internet)
1917 Jan 28, US forces were
recalled from Mexico after nearly eleven months of fruitless searching
for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, accused of leading a bloody
raid against Columbus, New Mexico.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1917 Jan 31, Germany
resumed unlimited sub warfare, saying that all neutral ships that are
in the war zone would be attacked.
(AP, 1/31/98)(HN, 1/31/99)
1917 Jan, The 5-member white Dixie
Jass Band from New Orleans led by Nick LaRocca cut its first jazz
records: "Darktown Strutters’ Ball" and "Indiana" for Columbia Records
in NYC.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E3)(SFC, 1/19/02, p.D5)
1917 Jan, In Norway a piece of
sugar containing anthrax bacilli was found in the luggage of Otto Karl
von Rosen, when he was apprehended in Karasjok for suspected espionage
and sabotage.
(NH, 10/98, p.18)
1917 Feb 1, Admiral Tirpitz
(1849-1930) announced that Germany would attack all shipping in the
North Atlantic with its feared U-Boats. [see Jan 31]
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. C-1)(WUD, 1994 p.1488)
1917 Feb 3, The United States
broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, which had announced a
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. A German submarine sank the
U.S. liner Housatonic off coast of Sicily.
(AP, 2/3/97)(HN, 2/3/99)
1917 Feb 5, Congress nullified
President Woodrow Wilson's veto of the Immigration Act, a law severely
curtailing the immigration of Asians. Literacy tests were required.
(AP, 2/5/97)(HN, 2/5/99)
1917 Feb 5, Mexico’s constitution
was adopted.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(AP, 2/5/97)
1917 Feb 7, The British steamer
California was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1917 Feb 11, Sidney Sheldon,
American novelist, was born.
(HN, 2/11/97)
1917 Feb 15, The Main Branch of
the SF Public Library at the Civic center was dedicated.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1917 Feb 15, M Wolf discovered
asteroid #865 Zubaida.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1917 Feb 16, The 1st Madrid
synagogue in 425 years opened.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1917 Feb 17, Edmund Bishop (70),
English secretary of Thomas Carlyle, died.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1917 Feb 19, American troops were
recalled from the Mexican border.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1917 Feb 19, Carson McCuller,
writer (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), was born.
(HN, 2/19/01)
1917 Feb 20, Kern, Bolton &
Wodehouse's musical "Oh, Boy!," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1917 Feb 20, Ammunitions ship
exploded in Archangel harbor, Russia, and about 1,500 died.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1917 Feb 23, The February
revolution began in Russia (OS calendar). [see Mar 8]
(MC, 2/23/02)
1917 Feb 24, The British presented
the decoded Zimmermann telegram, a German plot for Mexican help, to
Pres. Wilson and an enraged Wilson released the document to the
American public on March 1. On April 6, 1917, America formally declared
war on Germany and her Allies.
(HNPD, 2/24/99)(MC, 2/24/02)
1917 Feb 25, Anthony Burgess,
English writer (A Clockwork Orange), was born.
(HN, 2/25/01)
1917 Feb 26, President Wilson
publicly asked congress for the power to arm merchant ships. When the
United States entered World War I, propagandist George Creel set out to
stifle anti-war sentiment. Pres. Wilson, following his 1916
re-election, had asked the NY publicist to design a public relations
campaign to swing the country’s interests to support Britain and
France.
(HN, 2/26/98)(AH, 6/07, p.46)
1917 Feb 26, Utrecht Harbor,
Netherlands, held its 1st Annual fair.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1917 Feb 27, John Connally, Texas
Governor, wounded in the assassination of President John Kennedy, was
born.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1917 Feb 28, AP reported that
Mexico and Japan would ally with Germany if US enters WW I.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1917 Feb 28, Russian Duma set up a
Provisional Committee; workers set up Soviets.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1917 Feb, Mata Hari was arrested
in Paris for spying.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)
1917 Mar 1, Robert Lowell, Jr.,
poet, was born. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for Lord Weary's
Castle.
(HN, 3/1/01)
1917 Mar 1, Dinah Shore, singer
(See the USA in a Chevrolet), was born in Winchester, Ten. [see Feb 29,
1916]
(SC, 3/1/02)
1917 Mar 1, The 1st US federal
land bank was chartered.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1917 Mar 2, President Woodrow
Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act giving Puerto Ricans US
citizenship. The Jones Act separated the Executive, Judicial, and
Legislative branches of Puerto Rican government, provided civil rights
to the individual, and created a locally elected bicameral legislature.
The two houses were a Senate consisting of 19 members and a 39-member
House of Representatives. However, the Governor and the President of
the US had the power to veto any law passed by the legislature. Also,
the US Congress had the power to stop any action taken by the
legislature in Puerto Rico.
(www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/jonesact.html)(AP,
3/2/98)
1917 Mar 2, Desi Arnaz (Desiderio
Alberto Arnez y de Acha III) was born in Santiago, Cuba. His father was
the mayor of Santiago.
(www.youns.com/lucy/desiarnaz.asp)
1917 Mar 3, Congress passed the
1st excess profits tax on corporations.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1917 Mar 4, Republican Jeanette
Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the House
of Representatives.
(AP, 3/4/98)
1917 Mar 5, The 1st jazz recording
for Victor Records was released by RCA Victor in Camden, NJ. Viktor
issued "Dixie Jass Band One-Step" and "Livery Stable Blues" by The
Dixie Jass Band.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.D5)(MC, 3/5/02)
1917 Mar 8, The US Senate voted to
limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule, introduced at the
urging of Pres. Wilson. The Senate had operated without a cloture rule
since 1806.
(AP, 3/8/98)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.30)
1917 Mar 8-12, Russia’s democratic
February revolution took place in Russia. The "February Revolution"
(according to the Old Style calendar that Russians used) began with
rioting and strikes in the Russian army garrison at Petrograd.
(AP, 3/8/98)(LHC, 3/8/03)
1917 Mar 8, Ferdinand von Zeppelin
(78), Dutch count, air pioneer, died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1917 Mar 9, Algirdas Julius
Greimas, Lithuanian semiologist and mythologist, was born in Tula,
Russia. He died Feb 27, 1992, in Paris.
(LHC, 3/9/03)
1917 Mar 9, A Lithuanian
committee in St. Petersburg accepted a declaration for Lithuanian
autonomy. (LHC, 3/9/03)
1917 Mar 11, British troops
occupied Baghdad.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1917 Mar 12, Russian troops
mutinied in the "February Revolution." [see Mar 8]
(HN, 3/12/99)
1917 Mar 14, China broke off
diplomatic relations with Germany.
(HN, 3/14/98)
1917 Mar 15, Nicholas II, last
Russian tsar, said he will abdicate.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1917 Mar 16, Nicholas II, Czar of
Russia, abdicated in favor of his brother Michael. He was forced to
sign a document of abdication after being brought down by political
unrest and widespread starvation stemming from Russia’s staggering
losses in WWI. The czar, his wife Alexandra, their four daughters and
son Alexis, heir to the throne, were held prisoner by the Bolsheviks
for several months at Tsarskoye Selo palace near Petrograd. In August
1917, the family was transported to distant Siberia to prevent any
attempt to restore them to the throne. In July 1918, the entire royal
family was executed by local Bolsheviks.
(HNPD, 3/16/99)
1917 Mar 17, Czar Michael
abdicated after one day in favor of a provisional government under
Prince George Evgenievich Lvov (55).
(PCh, 1992, p.722)
1917 Mar 18, The Germans sank the
U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any
type of warning.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1917 Mar 19, Dino Lipatti,
composer, pianist, was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1917 Mar 19, The US Supreme Court,
in Wilson v. New, upheld the Adamson Act, the eight hour work day for
railroad workers.
(HN, 3/19/98)(AP, 3/19/08)
1917 Mar 19, A German submarine in
the Mediterranean Sea sunk the French battleship Danton. In 2009 the
Danton was discovered on the seabed southwest of Sardinia.
(SFC, 2/21/09,
p.A2)(www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?16848)
1917 Mar 20, Dame Vera Lynn,
British songstress, was born. She sang "White Cliffs of Dover" and
"Lily Marlene" during World War II.
(HN, 3/20/99)
1917 Mar 20, Gideon Sundback,
Swedish-born engineer, patented an all-purpose zipper while working for
the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey. The zipper name
was coined by B.F. Goodrich in 1923, who used it to fasten rubber
galoshes. In 1994 Robert Friedel authored “Zipper: An Exploration in
Novelty.”
(ON, 7/04, p.5)(www.inventors.about.com)
1917 Mar 22, The U.S. became the
first to recognize the Kerensky Government in Russia.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1917 Mar 23, A 4 day series of
tornadoes killed 211 in Midwest US.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1917 Mar 23, Austrian Emperor
Charles I made a peace proposal to French President Poincare.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1917 Mar 27, The Seattle
Metropolitans became the first US team to win the Stanley Cup as they
defeated the Montreal Canadiens.
(AP, 3/27/97)
1917 Mar 28, The Women’s Army
Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was founded, these were Great Britain’s first
official service women.
(HN, 3/28/99)
1917 Mar 28, Puccini's "La
Rondine," premiered in Monte Carlo.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1917 Mar 28, Jews were expelled
from Tel Aviv and Jaffa by Turkish authorities.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1917 Mar 29, Man O'War, racehorse
(winner of 20 out of 21 races and $249,465), was born.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1917 Mar 31, The United States
took possession of the Virgin Islands, which it had purchased from
Denmark for $25 million.
(HFA, ‘96, p.26)(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/31/98)
1917 Apr 1, In Baltimore some
4,000 pro-war demonstrators stormed a meeting of the American League
Against Militarism and threatened to hang the participants that
included Stanford Univ. Chancellor David Starr Jordan.
(Ind, 4/12/03, 5A)
1917 Apr 1, Scott Joplin (b.1868),
ragtime composer (Sting), died of syphilis in a NY mental hospital. His
work included the opera "Treemonisha."
(MC, 4/1/02)(SFC, 6/21/03, p.D3)c
1917 Apr 2, At 8:30 p.m. President
Woodrow Wilson, delivered his message before a joint session of
Congress and recommended that a state of war be declared between the
United States and the imperial German government. Realizing that the
war looming ahead would be a costly one, Wilson said, "the day has come
when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the
principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she
has treasured…" and "The world must be made safe for democracy."
(AP, 4/2/97)(HN,
4/2/98)(http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/theTIMEMACHINE.html)
1917 Apr 2, Jeannette Pickering
Rankin was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
(HN, 4/2/01)
1917 Apr 3, Lenin left Switzerland
for Petrograd.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1917 Apr 4, U.S. Senate voted 90-6
to enter World War I on Allied side.
(HN, 4/4/98)
1917 Apr 5, Robert Bloch, sci-fi
author (Hugo, Psycho), was born.
(HN, 4/5/01)(MC, 4/5/02)
1917 Apr 6, The US Congress
approved a declaration of war against Germany and entered World War I
on the Allied side.
(HN, 4/6/98)(AP, 4/6/04)
1917 Apr 7, De Falla's ballet "El
Sombrero de tres Picos," premiered in Madrid.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1917 Apr 9, Battle of Arras began
as Canadian troops launched a massive assault on Vimy Ridge in France.
(HN, 4/9/99)(MC, 4/9/02)
1917 Apr 10, Robert B. Woodward,
synthetic chemist, was born.
(HN, 4/10/01)
1917 Apr 10, A munitions factory
explosion at Eddystone, PA., killed 133 workers.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1917 Apr 11, Babe Ruth beat NY
Yanks, pitching to a 3-hit, 10-3 win for Red Sox.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1917 Apr 12, Domenico Scarlatti's
and Jean Cocteau's ballet premiered in Rome.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1917 Apr 13, Howard Keel, actor,
singer (7 Brides for 7 Brothers, Kiss Me Kate), was born.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1917 Apr 13, Diamond Jim Brady
(b.1856), American financier, philanthropist and gourmand, died. When
his body was examined, doctors discovered that his stomach was eight
times larger than that of an average person.
(WSJ, 1/12/08,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Diamond_Jim%22_Brady)
1917 Apr 15, The British defeated
the Germans at the battle of Arras.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1917 Apr 16, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
returned to Russia after years of exile to start the Bolshevik
Revolution.
(AP, 4/16/97)(HN, 4/16/98)
1917 Apr 20, In the Pravda
newspaper Lenin named Russia "Free land of world."
(MC, 4/20/02)
1917 Apr 25, Ella Fitzgerald
(d.1996), jazz singer, was born. [see Apr 25, 1918]
(HN, 4/25/02)
1917 Apr 26, Ieoh Ming Pei (IM
Pei), architect (1961 Brunner Prize), was born in Canton, China. He
designed the East Wing of the US National Gallery of Art.
(WSJ, 2/20/97,
p.A18)(www.archpedia.com/Architects/IM-Pei.html)
1917 Apr 28, Robert Anderson,
writer (Tea & Sympathy, Never Sang for My Father), was born in NY.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1917 Apr, The US Navy had 54
airplanes, one nonoperational airship, two balloons and 267 officers
and men.
(SFEC, 2/16/97, BR p.9)
1917 May 1, Caucasian unity was
proclaimed at the first Mountain People's Congress in Vladikavkaz. The
idea of a Caucasus Confederation had its origins in the spring of 1917
and was developed further in 1918. At the Congress the "Alliance of
United Mountain People of the North Caucasus and Dagestan", headed by
T. Chermoev, a Chechen, R. Kaplanov, a Kumyk, P. Kotsev, a Kabardian,
V. Dzhabagiev, an Ingush, and others, was officially established. The
Abkhazian people also became full members of this alliance. A Mountain
Peoples' Government was formed in November 1917.
(www.ciaonet.org/olj/crs/crs_1998sp/crs98sp_las01.html)
1917 May 5, Eugene Jacques Bullard
became the first African-American aviator when he earned a flying
certificate with the French Air Service.
(HN, 5/5/99)
1917 May 10, Atlantic ships got
destroyer escorts to fend off German attacks.
(HN, 5/10/98)
1917 May 12, M. Wolf discovered
asteroid #870, Manto.
(SC, Internet, 5/12/97)
1917 May 13, Ernest Bloch
(1880-1959), Swiss composer, premiered his work "Schelomo."
(WUD, 1994 p.159)(MC, 5/13/02)
1917 May 13, Three peasant
children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin
Mary. Francisco and Jacinta Marto and Lucia de Santos (d.2005) later
reported appearances on 5 more occasions. Dos Santos was said by
believers to be the main recipient of prophecies from the Virgin about
key 20th century events. The Vatican said the 1st secret foretold the
end of World War I and that the 2nd predicted the spread and collapse
of Communism and the conversion of Russia. In 2000 the Vatican
disclosed that the so-called 3rd Secret of Fatima was a vision of an
attempt to kill a pope. It was reportedly associated to the May 13,
1981, assassination attempt. In 2000 the Vatican unveiled the 62-line
handwritten account of Lucia de Jesus dos Santos.
(AP, 5/13/97)(SFEC, 5/14/00, p.A2)(SFC, 6/27/00,
p.A12)
1917 May 18, The U.S. Congress
passed the Selective Service act, calling up soldiers to fight World
War I.
(HN, 5/18/99)
1917 May 18, California approved
an Industrial Loan Act. State chartered industrial loan banks approved
loans to industrial workers shunned by traditional banks.
(www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_15)(Econ,
4/22/06, p.71)
1917 May 18,
Satie-Massine-Picasso's ballet "Parade" premiered in Paris, France.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1917 May 20, Turkish government
authorized Jews to return to Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1917 May 21, Raymond Burr, actor,
was born in BC, Canada. He played Perry Mason on television.
(HN, 5/21/99)(MC, 5/21/02)
1917 May 25, Steve Cochran, actor
(Mozambique, Gay Senotiys, Dallas), was born in Eureka, CA.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1917 May 25, Jimmy Hamilton,
saxophonist, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1917 May 25, Theodore Hesburgh,
ex-president of Notre Dame, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1917 May 25, Leon Felix Augustin
Joseph Vasseur (72), composer, died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1917 May 26, Up to eight separate
tornadoes cut a path of destruction for nearly 300 miles across
Illinois and Indiana.
(SFC, 5/26/09, p.D8)
1917 May 28, "Papa" John Creach,
violinist, was born.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1917 May 28, Barry Commoner,
biologist (Science & Survival), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1917 May 29, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States (1961-1963), was born
at 83 Beals St. in Brookline, Mass. He was assassinated in his first
term.
(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/99)(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.C12)
1917 May, The film "The Spirit of
’76," produced by Robert Goldstein, opened in Los Angeles. The film
celebrated the American Revolution but showed the British in an
unfavorable light and with the United States involved in World War I on
the side of the British, federal officials accused Goldstein of
producing "pro-German" propaganda. In 1918. Goldstein was arrested for
violating the Espionage Act and sentenced to 10 years. He served 3.
(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W17)(HNQ, 3/1/01)
1917 May, French soldiers refused
to return to the trenches after the disastrous April-May Chemin des
Dames offensive of Gen. Nivelle, in which more than 30,000 French
soldiers died and 80,000 were wounded to no good purpose. The "La
Chanson de Craonne," sung to the tune of Charles Sablon's "Bonsoir
M'amour" by the mutineers, celebrated the resistance of the soldiers to
return to the front and was banned for many years from French airwaves.
(www.ufppc.org/content/view/6510/)
1917 Jun 2, Max Showalter, actor,
composer (Stockard Channing Show), was born in Caldwell, Ks.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1917 Jun 4, Charles Collingwood,
news commentator (CBS, Chronicles), was born in Mich.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1917 Jun 4, American men begin
registering for the draft. [see Jun 5]
(MC, 6/4/02)
1917 Jun 4, The Most Excellent
Order of the British Empire, a British order of chivalry, was
established by King George V. The Order included five classes in civil
and military divisions in decreasing order of seniority. These
included: Knight Grand Cross (GBE) or Dame Grand Cross (GBE), Knight
Commander (KBE) or Dame Commander (DBE), Commander (CBE), Officer
(OBE), and Member (MBE).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire)
1917 Jun 5, About 10 million
American men began registering for the draft in World War I.
(AP, 6/5/97)
1917 Jun 7, Gwendolyn Brooks, one
of the foremost African American poets of the 20th Century, was born.
She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her verse narrative "Annie
Allen."
(HN, 6/7/99)
1917 Jun 7, Dean Martin, singer,
comedian (partner for Jerry Lewis), was born in Steubenville, Ohio. He
died in Beverly Hills, Ca. on Dec. 25, 1995. [see Jun 17]
(WSJ, 12/26/95, p. A-1)(SC, 6/7/02)
1917 Jun 7, British Field Marshal
Sir Douglas Haig launched his assault in Flanders to take German
pressure off his French allies. For months, troops of the British
Expeditionary Force fought a series of pointless battles in a
nightmarish landscape of knee-deep shell holes filled with mud and
blasted, skeletal trees. When the campaign finally ground to a halt on
November 10, 1917, the BEF had suffered losses of 300,000 men and
German losses were around 200,000--for a total gain of four miles.
(HNPD, 6/7/99)
1917 Jun 8, Byron R. White
(d.2002), later US Supreme Court Justice (1962-1993), was born in Fort
Collins, Colo.
(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A1)
1917 Jun 10, 60,000 people of
Petrograd welcomed Prince Kropotkin, who was banned 41 years earlier.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1917 Jun 13, Germany bombed London.
(MC, 6/13/02)
1917 Jun 15, Great Britain pledged
the release of all Irish captured during the Easter Rebellion of 1916.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1917 Jun 16, Katharine Graham
(d.2001), publisher of the Washington Post, was born. She was later
considered one of the most influential women in the United States.
(HN, 6/16/99)(SFC, 7/18/01, p.A6)
1917 Jun 16, Irving Penn, fashion
photographer, brother of film director Arthur Penn, was born.
(HN, 6/16/01)
1917 Jun 16, The 1st Congress of
Soviets convened in Russia.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1917 Jun 17, Dean Martin, singer
and comedian, was born as Dino Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio. He
worked with Jerry Lewis. His films included "My Friend Irma,"
"Hollywood or Bust," "Airport," "Bells are Ringing" and "Rio Bravo."
[see Jun 7]
(MC, 6/17/02)
1917 Jun 17, British king George V
took the name Windsor. [see Jun 19, Jul 17]
(MC, 6/17/02)
1917 Jun 17, The Russian
Duma met in secret session in Petrograd and voted for an immediate
Russian offensive against the German Army.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1917 Jun 19, King George V ordered
the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames.
The family took the name "Windsor." [see Jun 17, Jul 17]
(DT, 6/19/97)(MC, 6/19/02)
1917 Jun 23, Babe Ruth, starting
pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, was ejected from a baseball game after
he walked the 1st batter and argued with the umpire. Relief pitcher
Ernie Shore threw out the 1st batter at 2nd base and proceeded to pitch
a no-hitter.
(SFC, 9/2/00, p.B3)
1917 Jun 24, Russian Black Sea
fleet mutinied at Sebastopol.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1917 Jun 26, General John "Black
Jack" Pershing arrived in France with the first of the 14,000 American
Expeditionary Force.
(AP, 6/26/97)(HN, 6/26/98)(MC, 6/26/02)
1917 Jun 27, Hank Gowdy became the
1st baseball player to enter WW I military service.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1917 Jun 28, The Raggedy Ann doll
invented.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1917 Jun 29, The Ukraine
proclaimed independence from Russia.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1917 Jun 30, Lena Horne, American
singer, was born in Brooklyn, NYC. She later appeared in the films
"Stormy Weather" and "Death of a Gunfighter."
(HN, 6/30/99)(MC, 6/30/02)
1917 Jul 1, The 1893 upper jaw
cancer operation for President Grover Cleveland remained a secret until
July 1, 1917, when the doctor who performed the operation revealed the
story.
(HNQ, 11/6/99)
1917 Jul 2, Race riots erupted in
East St. Louis, Illinois. The official death toll was put at 48, but as
many as 200 were believed killed. In 1964 Elliott M. Rudwick authored
Race Riot at East St. Louis, July 2, 1917.” In 2008 Harper Barnes
authored “Never Been a Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked the Civil
Rights Movement.”
(SFC, 7/18/08,
p.E3)(www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=54020510)
1917 Jul 2, An Arab army led by
Feisal Hussein and Bedouin chief Auda Abu Taiya fought Turkish forces
at Aqaba killing 300 and capturing 160 Turkish soldiers.
(ON, 10/05, p.8)
1917 Jul 4, During a ceremony in
Paris honoring the French hero of the American Revolution, U.S. Lt.
Col. Charles E. Stanton declared, "Lafayette, we are here!"
(AP, 7/4/97)
1917 Jul 6, During World War I,
Arab forces led by T.E. Lawrence and Auda Abu Tayi captured the port of
Aqaba from the Turks.
(AP, 7/6/08)
1917 Jul 7, A federal Grand Jury
indicted 147 people including multimillionaire Leopold Michels and many
San Franciscans in the case of "Germany’s gigantic conspiracy against
American neutrality." The "neutrality plot" involved an alleged attempt
to foment revolution in India against British rule and a conspiracy to
ship supplies from SF to German ships in the Pacific.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W5)
1917 Jul 9, British warship
"Vanguard" exploded at Scapa Flow killing 804.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1917 Jul 11, The Allied assault on
Flanders, Belgium, began and lasted to Nov 10, for a total gain of four
miles and the occupation of Passchendaele. 9 major battles took place
during this period in the Allied attempt to capture Passchendaele. In
preparation for the attack the Allies fired some 4.2 million shells. In
2006 military teams around Flanders still retrieved 2-3 dozen shells
per day.
(AM, 7/04, p.9)(WSJ, 5/24/06, p.A1)
1917 Jul 12, Andrew Wyeth, painter
who focused on the northeastern United States, was born in Chadds Ford,
Pa. In 1998 Beth Venn and Adam Weinberg published "Unknown Terrain," a
companion piece to a Whitney Museum exhibition of his art.
(HN, 7/12/98)(MC, 7/12/02)(www.wyethcenter.com)
1917 Jul 15, Robert Conquest,
English author (Back to Life), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1917 Jul 16, Ludwig Philipp
Scharwenka (70), German composer (Album Polonaise), died.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1917 Jul 17, The British royal
family adopted the Windsor name. King George V changed the family name
to the House of Windsor from the German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg
& Gotha. [see Jun 17,19]
(AP, 7/17/97)(SFEC, 1/19/97, Par p.2)(DTnet, 6/19/97)
1917 Jul 20, The US draft lottery
in World War I went into operation.
(AP, 7/21/97)
1917 Jul 20, Alexander Kerensky
became the premier of Russia.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1917 Jul 20, The Pact of Corfu was
signed between the Serbs, Croats & Slovenes to form Yugoslavia.
[see Dec 1, 1918]
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1917yugoslavia1.html)
1917 Jul 22, British bombed German
lines at Ypres with 4,250,000 grenades.
(MC, 7/22/02)
1917 Jul 26, J. Edgar Hoover got
job with the Justice Department.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1917 Jul 31, The third Battle of
Ypres commenced as the British attacked the German lines.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1917 Aug 1, Frank Little, IWW
organizer, was lynched in Butte, MT.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1917 Aug 2, Royal Naval Air
Service officer E.H. Dunning became the first pilot to land on the deck
of a moving ship. He performed the tricky maneuver by flying his
Sopwith Pup alongside the HMS Furious as it steamed at high speed into
the wind, then side-slipping inward to the deck. Furious joined the
British Royal Navy as an aircraft carrier after being fitted with a
primitive flight deck. Five days after his successful deck landing,
Dunning drowned during another attempt when his aircraft developed
mechanical problems and plunged overboard.
(HNPD, 8/5/99)
1917 Aug 4, Pravda called for the
killing of all capitalists, priests and officers.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1917 Aug 10, The US Congress
passed the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act. It gave Pres. Wilson the
power to regulate the transportation, production and storage of wartime
necessities.
(AH, 6/07,
p.44)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401802360.html)
1917 Aug 14, The Chinese
Parliament declared war on the Central Powers, Germany and Austria,
during World War I.
(AP, 8/14/97)(HN, 8/14/98)
1917 Aug 22, John Lee Hooker,
blues singer and guitarist, was born.
(HN, 8/22/98)
1917 Aug 28, Jack Kirby,
cartoonist (X-Men, Spiderman, Hulk, Capt America), was born.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1917 Aug 28, 10 suffragists were
arrested as they picketed the White House.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1917 Sep 2, Cleveland Amory,
conservationist and TV reviewer (TV Guide), was born in Nahant, Mass.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1917 Sep 2, Admiral Tirpitz formed
the Deutsche Vaterlands Party.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1917 Sep 3, The 1st night bombing
of London by German fighter planes.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1917 Sep 3, German troops overran
Riga Latvia.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1917 Sep 3, Fanya Kaplan, the
Russian who shot at Lenin on Aug 30th, was executed.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1917 Sep 4, The American
expeditionary force in France suffered its first fatalities in World
War I when a German plane attacked a British-run base hospital..
(AP, 9/4/08)
1917 Sep 6, French pilot Georges
Guynemer shot down 54th German aircraft.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1917 Sep 8, Eugene Bullard,
aviator, was born in Columbus, Georgia. He emigrated to France and
became the first African-American combat aviator when he flew a
reconnaissance mission over the city of Metz, France. He was credited
with one confirmed "kill," a German Pfalz he shot down over Verdun.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1917 Sep 11, Jessica Mitford
(d.1996), writer who championed civil rights, best known for her book
“The American Way of Death,” was born.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1917 Sep 11, Ferdinand Marcos,
Philippines Pres. (1965-86), was born.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1917 Sep 15, Russia was proclaimed
a republic by Alexander Kerensky, the head of a provisional government.
(AP, 9/15/97)
1917 Sep 17, Some 20,000 iron
workers went on strike in SF, Oakland and Alameda in the biggest strike
ever on the Pacific Coast. Marines were sent to guard the Union iron
Works and 32 men were arrested in street demonstrations.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W5)
1917 Sep 17, The German Army
recaptured the Russian [Latvian] Port of Riga from Russian forces.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1917 Sep 20, Arnold "Red"
Auerbach, second winningest basketball coach in history with 1,037
victories for the Boston Celtics, was born.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1917 Sep 20, The British assaulted
the Polygon Forest in France.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1917 Sep 27, Louis Auchincloss,
novelist, was born in Lawrence, NY. His work included "Portrait in
Brownstone, The Embezzler," and "Watchfires.
(HN, 9/27/00)(MC, 9/27/01)
1917 Sep 27, Hilaire Germain Edgar
Degas (b1834), French impressionist painter died in Paris. His
fascination with horses was covered in the 1998 book "Degas at the
Races" by Jean Sutherland.
(WSJ, 10/2/96, p.B5)(SFEC, 6/21/98, BR
p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Degas)
1917 Sep, Elvin Jones, jazz
drummer, was born.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, DB p.15)
1917 Oct 6, Robert Mitchum, actor
(2 for the Seesaw, Ryan's Daughter), was born.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1917 Oct 6, US Congress passed the
Trading With the Enemy Act, which allowed the US to seize the property
of enemy nationals.
(WSJ, 10/28/06,
p.P13)(www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/182.html)
1917 Oct 8, Rodney Porter, British
biochemist and Nobel Prize winner, was born.
(HN, 10/8/00)
1917 Oct 8, Leon Trotsky was named
chairman of Petrograd Soviet.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1917 Oct 10, Thelonious Monk
(d.1982), jazz pianist and composer, was born. He eventually moved to
New York City where he played at various nightclubs throughout the 40s.
He began recording more in the 1950s, usually with small groups,
gaining more notoriety, but his musical influence on his fellow
musicians was already considerable, including such jazz artists as
George Russell and Randy Weston. Jazz pianist and prolific composer
Thelonious Monk, one of the early bebop musicians of the 1940s, stopped
touring and recording in the early 70s, leaving such jazz standards as
"Straight, No Chaser" and " ‘Round Midnight." [see Oct 11]
(HNQ, 2/28/01)
1917 Oct 11, Thelonious Monk, jazz
great, was born. [see Oct 10]
(MC, 10/11/01)
1917 Oct 15, Arthur Schlesinger,
Jr., historian and author, was born in Ohio. He won the 1946 Pulitzer
Prize for his book "Age of Jackson."
(HN, 10/15/00)(MC, 10/15/01)
1917 Oct 15, Mata Hari (b.1876),
the woman whose name has become synonymous with a seductive female spy,
was executed by the French outside Paris on charges of spying for the
Germans during World War I. The daughter of a prosperous Dutch
merchant, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle married a colonial army officer
named MacLeod in 1895. The couple lived for five years in Java and
Sumatra before the marriage failed. By 1905, Mrs. MacLeod was calling
herself Mata Hari--said to be Malay for "eye of the day"--and creating
a sensation as an exotic East Indian dancer in Europe. Among her many
lovers were military officers and, although the facts surrounding her
espionage activities are still unclear, Mata Hari was arrested by the
French as a German spy in February 1917. After a two-day trial before a
military court, Mata Hari was sentenced to death for espionage. In 2002
Richard Skinner authored "The Red Dancer," a novel based on her life.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)(AP, 10/15/97)(HNPD,
10/15/98)(SSFC, 3/24/02, p.M4)
1917 Oct 17, The 1st British
bombing of Germany took place.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1917 Oct 19, The first doughnut
was fried by Salvation Army volunteer women for American troops in
France during World War I.
(HN, 10/19/98)
1917 Oct 21, Dizzy Gillespie, jazz
trumpeter, famous for Night in Tunisia and Blue ‘n’ Boogie, was born.
(HN, 10/21/98)
1917 Oct 21, Members of the First
Division of the U.S. Army training in Luneville, France, became the
first Americans to see action on the front lines of World War I. The
first U.S. troops entered the front lines at Sommervillier under French
command.
(AP, 10/21/98)(HN, 10/21/98)
1917 Oct 21, Petrograd's garrison
accepted a Revolutionary Military Committee.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1917 Oct 22, Leopold Stokowski led
Philadelphia Orchestra in its first recording.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1917 Oct 23, The 1st Infantry
division, "Big Red One," fired the 1st US shot in WW I.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1917 Oct 23, Lenin spoke against
Kamenev, Kollontai, Stalin and Trotsky.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1917 Oct 24, The Austro-German
army routed the Italian army at Caporetto, Italy. In what came to be
known as the 1st blitzkrieg German and Austro-Hungarian forces took at
least 250,000 Italian soldiers as prisoners on the Isonzo Front.
(HN, 10/24/98)(SFEC, 7/9/00, p.T14)
1917 Oct 25(OS), In Russia
Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin seized power. Lenin (1870-1924) and
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), seized power from Russian socialist Alexander
F. Kerensky (1881-1970) who had taken over the government in July of
1917. Kerensky sent troop on this day to shut down the Bolshevik press
in Petrograd (Leningrad, St. Petersburg). Kerensky’s ministers at the
Winter Palace surrendered in the face of Bolshevik armed might. [see
Nov 7]
(www.marxists.org/history/ussr/revolution/)
1917 Oct 26, Felix the Cat,
cartoon character, was born.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1917 Oct 27, 20,000 women marched
in a suffrage parade in New York.
(HN, 10/27/98)
1917 Oct 31, William H. McNeil,
historian, was born. His work include "The Rise of the West."
(HN, 10/31/00)
1917 Oct 31, Eugene O'Neill's "In
the Zone," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1917 Oct, The British Admiralty
ordered that all naval and merchant ships be painted in dazzle
camouflage, to help reduce their visibility to German submarines. The
painting style was the idea of Norman Wilkinson (1878-1971) and came
from his familiarity with the avant garde art styles of cubism and
vorticism.
(ON, 12/05,
p.2)(www.ww2poster.co.uk/artists/Wilkinson.htm)
1917 Nov 1, First US soldiers were
killed in combat in WWI.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1917 Nov 2, In the Lansing-Ishii
Agreement the US recognized Japan's privileges in China.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1917 Nov 2, British Foreign
Secretary Arthur Balfour, in what became known as the Balfour
Declaration, expressed support for a "national home" for the Jews of
Palestine. It encouraged Jewish immigration to Israel in the decade
after WW I.
(SFC, 10/18/96, C8)(AP, 11/2/97)
1917 Nov 5, Supreme Court decision
(Buchanan vs. Warley) struck down a Louisville, Ky., ordnance requiring
blacks and whites to live in separate areas.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1917 Nov 5, General Pershing led
U.S. troops into the first American action against German forces.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1917 Nov 6, NY allowed women to
vote.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1917 Nov 6, Bolshevik "October
Revolution" (October 25 on the old Russian calendar), led by Vladimir
Lenin and Leon Trotsky, seized power in Petrograd. [see Nov 7]
(HN, 11/6/98)
1917 Nov 7, British General Sir
Edmond Allenby broke the Turkish defensive line in the Third Battle of
Gaza.
(HN, 11/7/98)
1917 Nov 7, (October 25 on the
older Julian calendar then used by Russia), the provisional government
of Premier Aleksandr Kerensky fell to the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir
Ilyich Lenin. He called his followers the Bolsheviks, meaning the
majority, when they formed for a short period the majority of a
revolutionary committee. The Bolsheviks became a majority of the ruling
group, but they were only a small part of the total Russian population.
Decades of czarist incompetence and the devastation of World War I had
wrecked the Russian economy and in March 1917, Czar Nicholas II
abdicated. Kerensky's provisional government struggled to maintain
power until Lenin's Bolshevik followers stormed Petrograd and seized
all government operations. Lenin and his lieutenant, Leon Trotsky,
quickly confiscated land and nationalized industry and in March 1918,
Russia withdrew from World War I by signing the humiliating Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk with Germany. Bloody civil war raged in Russia for the
next two years as the anti-Bolshevik White Army battled the Communists
for control. [see Nov 6]
(CFA, '96, p.58)(V.D.-H.K.p.260-261)(AP,
11/7/97)(HNPD, 11/7/98)
1917 Nov 8, The People's
Commissars "gave" authority to Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1917 Nov 10, Forty-one US
suffragettes were arrested for picketing in front of the White House.
(AP, 11/10/07)
1917 Nov 10, The assault on
Flanders, begun July 11, finally ground to a halt. The British
Expeditionary Force (BEF) had suffered losses of 300,000 men and German
losses were around 200,000--for a total gain of four miles and the
occupation of Passchendaele. The battle was later described by Edwin
Campion Vaughan in “Some Desperate Glory” (1981).
(HN, 6/7/98)(HNQ, 11/2/98)(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P12)
1917 Nov 10, New Soviet government
suspended freedom of the press.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1917 Nov 11, Lydia Kamekeha
Lili’uokalani, the last queen of the Hawaiian Islands, died. She wrote
the song "Aloha ‘Oe" and the book "Hawaii’s Story By Hawaii’s Queen."
(WUD, 1994, p.830)(ON, 11/02, p.7)
1917 Nov 12, Joseph Coors, CEO of
Adolph Coors Co Brewery, was born.
(MC, 11/12/01)
1917 Nov 15, Kerensky fled and the
Bolsheviks took command in Moscow.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1917 Nov 16, British occupied Tel
Aviv and Jaffa.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1917 Nov 16, Georges Clemenceau
(76) again became prime minister of France. He appointed himself as
minister of war as well as chief of state. For his contribution to the
victory of the Allies in World War I, premier Clemenceau was referred
to as the "Father of Victory." A physician, journalist, author and
statesman, Clemenceau was an ardent upholder of the French Third
Republic. He strove to create an indomitable "will to victory" and
proclaimed "To be entirely in unity with the soldier, to live, to
suffer, to fight with him." Clemenceau, declared he would wage war "to
the last quarter hour, for the last quarter hour will be ours." Born on
September 28,1841, Clemenceau died on November 24, 1929.
(HNQ, 3/23/99)(AP, 11/16/07)
1917 Nov 17, The French Sculptor
Rodin (77) froze to death in an unheated attic in Meudon, France. He
had applied to the government for quarters as warm as those wherein his
statues were stored, but the government turned him down. His studio was
called La Villa des Brillants. He worked with sculptor A.-E.
Carrier-Belleuse and for years spent a considerable amount of time on
decorative work for public monuments. His work included several
versions of a "Monument to Victor Hugo," "The Kiss," "The Burghers of
Calais" and "The Thinker." His famous "Balzac" wasn’t cast in bronze
until 1939. The film "Camille Claudel" told the story of Rodin’s
mistress, a brilliant sculptress who went mad after their love affair.
(SFC, 12/4/94, p. S-8)(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T10)(AP,
11/17/97)
1917 Nov 17, Lenin defended the
"temporary" removal of freedom of the press.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1917 Nov 19, Indira Gandhi was
born in Allahabad. She served as prime minister of India from 1967 to
1977 and 1978 to 1984, when she was assassinated by her own guards.
(HN, 11/19/00)(AP, 11/19/07)
1917 Nov 20, In the 1st tank
battle Britain broke through German lines.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1917 Nov 21, German ace Rudolf von
Eschwege was killed over Macedonia when he attacked a booby-trapped
observation balloon packed with explosives.
(HN, 11/21/99)
1917 Nov 21, Maxim Gorki called
Lenin a blind fanatic and unthinking adventurer.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1917 Nov 26, Bolsheviks offered
armistice between Russian and the Central Powers.
(HN, 11/26/98)
1917 Nov 28, Fred and Adele
Astaire debut on Broadway in the Sigmund Romberg revue "Over the Top".
(DT net, 11/28/97)(MC, 11/28/01)
1917 Nov, Georges Clemenceau
became premier of France at the age of 76 and appointed himself as
minister of war as well as chief of state. For his contribution to the
victory of the Allies in World War I, premier Clemenceau was referred
to as the "Father of Victory." A physician, journalist, author and
statesman, Clemenceau was an ardent upholder of the French Third
Republic. He strove to create an indomitable "will to victory" and
proclaimed "To be entirely in unity with the soldier, to live, to
suffer, to fight with him." Clemenceau, declared he would wage war "to
the last quarter hour, for the last quarter hour will be ours." Born on
September 28,1841, Clemenceau died on November 24, 1929.
(HNQ, 3/23/99)
1917 Dec 1, Boys Town founded by
Father Edward Flanagan west of Omaha Neb. [see Dec 12]
(MC, 12/1/01)
1917 Dec 6, Finland declared
independence from Russia (National Day).
(SFEM, 8/8/99, p.44)(MC, 12/6/01)
1917 Dec 6, Former Czar Nicholas
II and family were made prisoners by the Bolsheviks in Tobolsk.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1917 Dec 6, In Nova Scotia some
2000 people were killed and thousands wounded following an explosion in
Halifax harbor. The Imo, a Norwegian freighter ship, had collided with
the French munitions ship Mont Blanc and a fire soon caused a massive
explosion. A local court found Captain Le Medec of the Mont Blanc and
other defendants guilty of the collision. Canada’s Supreme Court ruled
that the captains of both ships were equally to blame. A Privy Council
in London ruled that Le Medec had done nothing illegal.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.1054)(ON, 7/05, p.7)(AP, 12/6/07)
1917 Dec 7, The US declared war on
Austria-Hungary with only one dissenting vote in Congress and became
the 13th country to do so.
(HN, 12/7/98)
1917 Dec 9, British forces under
General Allenby captured Jerusalem. He liberated the city from Turkish
control.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-12)(SFC, 10/18/96, C8)(MC, 12/9/01)
1917 Dec 9, New Finnish Republic
demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops.
(HN, 12/9/98)
1917 Dec 10, The Nobel Peace Prize
was awarded to the International Red Cross.
(HN, 12/10/98)
1917 Dec 11, Aviator Katherine
Stinson landed at the SF Presidio and established a new endurance
record by flying from San Diego.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W5)
1917 Dec 12, Father Edward J.
Flanagan (31) founded Boys Town outside Omaha, Neb. A half-dozen boys
entered to seek a better life. [see Dec 1]
(AP, 12/12/97)(MC, 12/12/01)
1917 Dec 12, In Modane,
France a troop train derailed near the entrance of Mt. Cenis tunnel and
543 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1917 Dec 16, Arthur C. Clark,
English science fiction writer, was born. "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic." He is best remembered for
his book "The Sentinel," the source of Kubrick’s film "2001: A Space
Odyssey."
(AP, 12/16/97)(HN,
12/16/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke)
1917 Dec 17, The US federal
government took over the railroads until Mar, 1920, because of WW
I.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)
1917 Dec 17, Pilots who flew solo
before this date, the 13th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first
flight, were eligible to join the exclusive Early Birds, founded in
1928. [see Dec 11, 1903]
(SFC,12/5/97, p.A22)(SFC, 5/26/98, p.B2)
1917 Dec 18, Ossie Davis, actor,
playwright (Hot Stuff, Man Called Adam), was born in Cogdell, Ga.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1917 Dec 18, The Soviet regiment
under Stalin and Lenin declared Finland Independent.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1917 Dec 20, Russian secret police
in Czechoslovakia was formed under Felix Dzerzhinsky. He helped lead
the Bolshevik revolution and set up the communist secret police, the
Cheka, which later became the KGB.
(MC, 12/20/01)(WSJ, 10/15/02, p.D6)
1917 Dec 21, Andre Eglevsky,
choreographer (Limelight), was born.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1917 Dec 24, The Kaiser warned
Russia that he would use "iron fist" and "shining sword" if peace was
spurned.
(HN, 12/24/98)
1917 Dec 26, Rosemary Woods, Pres.
Nixon's secretary, was born.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1917 Dec 26, As a wartime measure,
President Wilson placed railroads under government control, with
Secretary of War William McAdoo as director general.
(AP, 12/26/97)(HN, 12/26/98)
1917 Dec 28, The New York Evening
Mail published "A Neglected Anniversary," a facetious essay by H. L.
Mencken supposedly recounting the history of bathtubs in America. For
example, Mencken "claimed" the first American bathtub made its debut in
the Cincinnati home of grain dealer Adam Thompson on Dec. 20, 1842, and
that the first White House bathtub was installed in 1851 at the order
of President Millard Fillmore.
(AP, 12/28/99)
1917 Dec 29, Tom Bradley, future
mayor of Los Angeles, was born on a cotton plantation in Calvert, Texas.
(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A13)
1917 John Grillo, abstract artist,
was born. Much of his work was done in Provincetown with 2 years in SF,
1946-47.
(SFC, 3/2/02, p.D1)
1917 William Mandel was born. He
lived with his family in Russia between 1931-1932. In 2000 he authored
"Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and
Thinker."
(SFEC, 9/24/00, BR p.4)
1917 Byron White, US supreme Court
Justice from 1962-1993, was born in Colorado. In 1998 Dennis J.
Hutchinson published the biography: "The Man Who Once Was Whizzer
White."
(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A16)
1917 Theresa Bernstein, artist,
helped found the Philadelphia Ten, a female art group. It was created
in response to the Eight, a male-dominated group later called the
Ashcan School.
(SFC, 3/1/01, p.E2)
1917 In France Marcel Duchamp
christened his supine “readymade” urinal as a work of art, "Fountain,"
and signed it with the fictitious name R. Mutt. The original was lost
but he authorized an edition of 8 replicas in 1964.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A17)(WSJ, 2/18/05, p.A10)
1917 Piet Mondrian and three other
painters founded the movement known as De Stijl, which became
synonymous with Mondrian.
(HNQ, 7/16/01)
1917 James Montgomery Flagg,
American painter, created the famous poster of Uncle Sam as the stern,
compelling figure saying "I Want You For U.S. Army."
(Hem., 7/95, p.89)
1917 Gustav Klimt, Austrian
modernist, created his oil painting "Garden of Flowers."
(WSJ, 7/17/02, p.D12)
1917 Andre Lhote painted his
cubist "Rugby Game" in brilliant planes of orange gold and green.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)
1917 Piet Mondrian painted his
first total abstraction "Composition In Line."
(WSJ, 6/6/95, p.A-14)
1917 Emil Nolde, German
expressionist, created his painting "Blumengarten (Utenwarf)." In 2009
it was sold to a European art collector for an undisclosed amount to
the heirs of Otto Nathan Deutsch, a Jewish businessman who lost it when
he fled Germany to escape Nazi persecution in 1939. The was estimated
to be worth between $4-6 million. A Swedish museum had bought the
artwork from a Swiss gallery in 1967, unaware of its history.
(AP, 9/9/09)
1917 Georgia O’Keeffe painted
"Nude Series VII."
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.T5)
1917 Picasso got involved in the
design of the ballet "Par" produced by Diaghilev, with a book by Jean
Cocteau and music by Eric Satie.
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A20)
1917 Diego Rivera painted his
Cubist "Still Life with Bread and Fruit" while studying in Paris.
(WSJ, 3/17/00, p.W12)
1917 Egon Schiele, Viennese
artist, made his "Kneeling Girl Propped on Her Elbows."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1917 Julian Dimock, photographer,
upon the death of his father quit photography and donated some 6,000
images to the American Museum of Natural History.
(NH, 8/96, p.78)
1917 The French architect Tony
Garnier embellished British theory on city planning in his book: "Etude
pour la construction des villes," and in twenty years his book "Cite
Industrielle."
(Hem., Nov.’95, p.91)
1917 Edgar Rice Burroughs
published his sci-fi book "Princess of Mars."
(NH, 10/96, p.75)
1917 Somerset Maugham wrote his
play "Our Betters."
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.E3)
1917 Ethel Richardson Robertson
wrote "The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney." "It was a critique of snobbery
and a celebration of a woman’s devotion to family."
(SFEC, 11/17/96, DB p.40)
1917 D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
(1860-1948), Scottish classicist, mathematician and biologist, produced
his work "On Growth and Form," the first formal attempt to
analyze patterns and shapes in nature. His work also included "A
Glossary of Greek Birds" and "A Glossary of Greek Fishes."
(NH, 12/98, p.10)(Econ, 3/7/09, p.92)
1917 Edith Wharton authored the
novel "Summer." It was the story of a woman's sexual awakening. In 1999
it premiered as an opera by the Berkshire Opera Company.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.A42)
1917 A recording by Sophie Tucker
of W.C. Handy's "The Saint Louis Blues" sold a million copies.
(ON, 1/03, p.9)
1917 Jascha Heifetz, 17 year-old
violinist from Russia, made his debut at Carnegie Hall.
(WSJ, 12/21/94, A-16)
1917 In Germany Hans Pfitzner
premiered his opera "Palestrina," about the life of the 16th cent.
composer and how Palestrina supposedly saved polyphony in church music
during the Council of Trent.
(WSJ, 7/1/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)
1917 Giocomo Puccini composed his
opera "La Rondine."
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A20)
1917 Igor Stravinsky composed the
ballet "Les Noces" (The Wedding).
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.35)
1917 The Military Ordinariate was
established. It was a Roman Catholic position under the authority of
the Archdiocese of New York to administer to the US military services.
(SFC, 8/28/96, C2)
1917 L.L. Nunn, self-made American
millionaire in mining and hydro-power, founded Deep Springs College in
eastern California. It is a very small liberal arts institution with
only a couple dozen students (all male). There is no tuition, but the
students are required to work at least 20 hours per week. It is on
3,500 acres and the academic year consists of six seven-week terms.
(Smith., 4/1995, p.115-117)
1917 At the settlement of Nenana,
Alaska, a group of men placed bets on when the ice would break apart on
the Tenana River. Thus began the Nenana Ice Classic where a tripod is
inserted into the ice and bets are placed as to the exact time that it
breaks on the river’s melting ice.
(WSJ, 5/7/96, p.A-16)
1917 A Neclassic church was built
at 651 Dolores in SF. In 2008 the Second Church of Christ, Scientist,
planned to replace the building due to lack of funds for earthquake
reinforcement.
(SFC, 10/16/08, p.B5)
1917 The Cafe des Artistes opened
in New York City on W. 67th St.
(Hem, 4/96, p.54)
1917 The Univ. of Calif. entered
the medical business with a small $750,000 facility that was little
more than a community hospital [in San Francisco?].
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-10)
1917 The San Francisco Board of
Supervisors changed the Richmond District name to Park-Presidio
District, over concerns of confusion with the city of Richmond in the
East Bay. Australian George Turner Marsh, one of the district’s
earliest residents, called his home the Richmond House in honor of his
old Melbourne suburb. In 2009 legislation was introduced to change the
name back to Richmond.
(SFC, 1/28/09, p.B1)
1917 Charlie Chaplin signed the
movie industry's first million-dollar contract to direct and star in 8
films.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1917 Bertie Charles Forbes
(1880-1954), financial journalist and author, founded Forbes Magazine.
(Econ, 8/12/06,
p.50)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.C._Forbes)
1917 Joseph Pulitzer established
the Pulitzer Prize for achievements in journalism and letters.
(SFC, 12/27/99, p.E3)(HNQ, 1/29/02)
1917 Karl Gjellerup (b.1857),
Danish poet, novelist won the Nobel Prize.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1917 The Chicago White Sox won the
Baseball World Series.
(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A7)
1917 A Paris to Peking road race
was held.
(WSJ, 7/19/02, p.W9)
1917 The Espionage Act of this
year was used to ban Marxist magazines from the mails. It was soon
followed by the Sedition Act. Eugene Debs was sent to prison for
opposing the war under the Espionage Act.
(WSJ, 10/29/98, p.A20)
1917 The US passed special rules
to allow Mexican to enter the US due to the expanding economy.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.5)
1917 The US Fort Ord Army
installation was opened just north of Monterey, Ca. It lasted to 1994
when it was closed by Congress.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.C-11)
1917 Storyville, the New Orleans
brothel district, was closed under federal insistence to protect the
sailors soon to influx due to American entry into WW I.
(WSJ, 2/3/95, p.A-11)
1917 A US congressional select
committee revoked the medal of Honor from Dr. Mary Walker on the
grounds that her actions during the civil war had not constituted real
heroism. She refused to give it up and wore it for 2 more years until
she died. The Army restored the medal in 1977.
(SFC, 7/17/96, p.E10)
1917 In Alaska the territorial
Legislature created the Univ. of Alaska in Fairbanks and specified that
it include a museum. In 1978 the state Legislature paid for a
building designed to hold exhibits. In 1980 a 39,000-square-foot
space opened as the Univ. of Alaska Museum of the North.
(SSFC, 5/6/07, p.G7)
1917 Denali National Park in
Alaska was established. It covered 9,300 square miles. Denali was the
native name for Mt. McKinley.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.T6)(SSFC, 3/28/04, p.D9)
1917 In Ashland, Mass., a plant
run by various textile companies began operations. Nyanza Inc. operated
it as a dye manufacturing plant from 1965 until the company went
bankrupt in 1978. during this period Nyanza released manufacturing
waste containing such substances as mercury, chromium, lead and cadmium
into unlined lagoons and nearby streams. The site was added to the
federal Superfund list in 1983. In 2006 a 7-year study confirmed that
children who swam or waded in the water near the now-closed dye plant
ran an increased risk of cancer.
(AP, 5/11/06)
1917 Frank Hague (1876-1956) was
elected mayor of Jersey City and served until he retired 1947. He built
an $8 million fortune out of an annual salary of $7,500. During his
tenure city workers gave a kickback, known as “rice pudding,” to City
Hall of 3% of their salaries.
(www.jerseycityonline.com)(Econ, 1/20/07, p.24)
1917 Henry Leland formed the
Lincoln Motor Co.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1917 The Fleetwood Body Corp.
began building exteriors for the carmakers.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.D1)
1917 The Electric Welding Co.
renamed to the Steel Products Company introduced the first one-piece
forged engine valve.
(F, 10/7/96, p.67)
1917 The Ideal Novelty Company
produced the doughboy doll designed by one of its founders, Morris
Michtom.
(SFC, 3/25/98, Z1 p.7)
1917 An update of the zipper from
1893, very much like the modern one, was patented. [see Apr 29, 1913]
(Wired, Dec., ‘95, p.138)
1917 Schick developed the electric
razor.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.7)
1917 Commercial sturgeon fishing
was outlawed in California because of overfishing.
(SFC, 6/5/96, zz1p.8)
1917 Columbus Salame was founded
in San Francisco. In 1967 its Salami making operation was moved to
South San Francisco.
(SFC, 7/24/09, p.D2)
1917 There was a poor wheat
harvest in the US.
(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1917 A world-wide influenza
pandemic occurred and is later thought to have been caused by the leap
of a swine virus to humans. In 1999 Gina Kolata authored "Flu: The
Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the
Virus That Caused It." The 1918-1919 Spanish flu killed 20-100 million
people worldwide and 550,000 in the US.
(WSJ, 11/30/95, p.B10)(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W12)
1917 In Brazil Ernesto de Santos
Donga wrote the song "Pela telefone." It was considered to be the first
recorded samba.
(Wired, 2/98, p.128)
1917 Chechens formed their 1st
independent state, the Confederation of North Caucasian Peoples,
following the Bolshevik Revolution. [see May 1]
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.A11)
1917 Darfur was an independent
sultanate until 1917, when it was the last region to be incorporated
into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The Fur, largely peasant farmers, occupy
the central belt of the region Also in this central zone are the
non-Arab Masalit, Berti, Bargu, Bergid, Tama and Tunjur peoples, who
are all sedentary farmers.
(www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/PEOPLES/Darf.htm)
1917 In England two young girls in
the Yorkshire countryside took photographs that seemed to capture a
group of fairies, the Cottingley fairies. The photos were challenged,
mocked by the press and defended by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and derided
by Harry Houdini. In 1997 the film "Fairytale: A True Story" was
released based on the events.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.D6)(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.A20)
1917 W.B. Yeats (52) married
Bertha Georgie Hyde-Lees (d.1968), his young spirit-medium (25). She
became the oracular voice of his philosophy and poetry. In 2002 Ann
Saddlemeyer authored "Becoming George: The Life of Mrs. W.B. Yeats."
(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.7)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M2)
1917 Auguste Moreau (b.1834),
French sculptor, died. He and 4 other members of his family designed
light fixtures based on sculptured figures.
(SFC, 1/16/08,
p.G4)(www.aspireauctions.com/auction30/details/4195.html)
1917 Eamon de Valera was released
from prison after serving 14 months for his role in the 1916 Irish
Easter Uprising. He soon won a seat in the British Parliament
representing County Clare, and was elected leader of Sinn Fein and
president of the Irish Volunteers.
(ON, 9/04, p.5)
1917 In Japan the Nikon
Corporation was established.
(PR, Neopath Corp., 7/2/96)
1917 The 2 main soy sauce families
of Noda, the Mogi and Takanashi, banded together to form Noda Shoyu Co.
Ltd. and became the premier soy sauce maker in Japan. In 1980 the
company was renamed Kikkoman.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.B7)
1917 In Japan the Toyo Toki
(Oriental Ceramic) company was founded and introduced Western-style
sit-down lavatories to Japan. The company, later know as Toto, grew to
become one of the world’s biggest bathroom and kitchen ceramics
companies in the world.
(Econ, 7/25/09, p.66)
1917 Karlis Ulmanis founded the
Farmer’s Party. He later became president and is considered by many as
the "father of independent Latvia."
(BN, 10/97, p.1)
1917 In Mongolia just after the
Russian Revolution, defeated anti-Communist forces under "Mad Baron"
Ungern-Sternberg took Ulan Bator, then called Urga. The mad Baron
undertook city-wide arson and mass executions.
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.28)
1917 When the tsarist regime fell,
Mongolia reverted to Chinese control.
(www.gobiexpeditions.com)
1917 In Russia the Bolsheviks
tried banning money in favor of barter after the revolution, but chaos
resulted and they accepted money as a necessary evil.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.B3)
1917 In Russia the Don Cossacks
declared their own independent republic during the unrest that led to
the Bolshevik Revolution.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1916 Independent sultanates ruled
the Darfur region of Sudan until this year.
(WPR, 3/04, p.32)
1917 In Sweden Knut Wallenburg set
up a foundation as a tax saving way to keep the family together.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)
1917 Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932)
exited his construction and engineering business and founded the
Swedish Match Company, which he used to monopolize the match industry
and swindle numerous investors up to his suicide in 1932.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.116)
1917 The Catholic Church’s Code of
Canon Law of this year stated that “An ecumenical council enjoys
supreme power over the universal church.
(WSJ, 12/26/08, p.A11)
1917-1918 "The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of
Emergencies" was the 3rd volume on Hoover’s life by George H, Nash
published in 1996.
(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1917-1918 A severe winter in the US prevented farmers
from getting their corn to market, so much of it went to the pigs.
(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1917-1918 Paul Robeson at Rutgers Univ. became an
All-American football star.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A19)
1917-1920 Sir Robert Borden, changed to the Unionist
Party and continued to serve as the 8th Prime Minister of Canada.
1917-1922 Fur trappers in Australia killed 8 million
koalas and almost wiped out the species.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.E3)
1917-1986 Sydney J. Harris, American journalist:
"Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes
counterfeit men."
(AP, 8/8/97)
1917-1991 This period in Russia was later covered by
Martin Malia in "The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia,
1917-1991."
(WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A20)
Go to 1918-1919