February 1912

February 12, 1912: China's Empress Dowager abdicates on behalf of...

February 13, 1912: Sun Yat-sen resigns as President of China...

... in favor of Yuan Shih-kai

Emperor Puyi (standing), brings end to Manchu Dynasty

February 2, 1912: Senator La Follette ends his run for President after disastrous speech

February 14, 1912: Arizona admitted as 48th state of the U.S.

The following events occurred in February 1912:

February 1, 1912 (Thursday)

• After only four years of existence, the city of Strathcona, Alberta was incorporated into Edmonton, which had been incorporated in 1904. The merger had been approved by a 518–178 margin of Strathcona voters.^[1]
• General Manuel Bonilla, elected on November 3, was sworn in as President of Honduras.^[2]
• Died: Jimmy Doyle, 30, American baseball player for the Chicago Cubs, who had led the National League in double plays and in errors; of blood poisoning following an appendectomy.

February 2, 1912 (Friday)

• The British submarine A-3, with 14 men aboard, sank off of the Isle of Wight after being rammed by the depot ship Hazard.^[3]
• Senator Robert M. La Follette had been the foremost challenger against incumbent President Taft for the 1912 Republican Party nomination, until he went ahead with a speech to the Periodical Publishers' Association, despite being ill with a stomach virus. Instead of making the planned brief remarks, La Follette made a long, rambling speech that criticized the assembled newspaper reporters, then dropped out of sight. La Follette's disastrous showing cleared the way for former President Theodore Roosevelt to get the nomination instead.^[4]
• The Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association was organized as the first intercollegiate sports conference for African-American colleges. The original members were Hampton, Howard, Lincoln, Shaw, and Virginia Union.^[5]
• Born: Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, in Branscombe, England (d. 2009); Zhu Shenghao, Chinese scholar who translated the works of William Shakespeare into the Chinese language; in Jiaxing (d. 1944); and Burton Lane, American musical composer (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever), in New York City (d. 1997)

February 3, 1912 (Saturday)

• The rules of American football were revised by a special NCAA, following two days of deliberations. Among the alterations were that the length of the field was shortened from 110 yards to 100, teams would now have four downs instead of three to try to gain ten yards, kickoffs were to be made from the 40 yard line rather than the middle of the field, and the touchdown was now worth 6 points instead of 5.^[6]
• The French government decreed that the indigenes of Algeria, male residents of Arab descent, were to be drafted for three years service into the French Army. The move was opposed by French Algerians, who did not want the indigenous population to be trained to use weapons, and the non-French Algerians themselves.^[7]

February 4, 1912 (Sunday)

• King George V and Queen Mary arrived back in Britain at Spithead after an absence of almost three months. The royal family had departed on November 10 to travel to British India.^[8]
• U.S. President Taft ordered an increase of the number of American troops guarding the nation's border with Mexico.^[9]
• An ice bridge over Niagara Falls broke and carried an Ohio teenager, and a Canadian husband and wife, to their death over the falls, as thousands of spectators watched in horror. The 1,000-foot-wide (300 m) bridge had formed two weeks earlier from the piling up of ice fields from up river, and was 60 feet thick. "This is the first time in the history of the Niagara that lives have been lost in this way." ^[10]
• Born: Byron Nelson, American golfer, in Waxahachie, Texas (d. 2006); and Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian-American conductor, in Vienna (d. 1993)
• Died: Franz Reichelt, 32, French tailor and engineer, plunged to his death after jumping from the Eiffel Tower to test a wearable parachute.^[11]

February 5, 1912 (Monday)

• Thornton Burgess published the first installment of his syndicated newspaper column "Bedtime Stories", which ran six days a week.^[12] He wrote 15,000 of the columns, along with 100 books, retiring in 1960 at the age of 86.^[13]
• The first Exhibition of Futurist Painting was held, opening in Paris.^[14]
• The first threat to the Mormon colonies in Mexico, that had been founded by Americans more than 25 years earlier, when the residents of Colonia Juárez refused a demand by a force of Mexican rebels for weapons, horses and supplies. Initially, the colonists were able to resist a takeover by pledging to remain neutral and by requesting intervention by the American consul.^[15]

February 6, 1912 (Tuesday)

• The city of Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was created, incorporated as a township.^[16]
• Born: Eva Braun, companion and wife of Adolf Hitler at the time of both their deaths in 1945; in Munich
• Died: James B. Weaver, 68, American third-party politician who was elected as U.S. Representative for Iowa as candidate for the Greenback Party (1879–89), and received 21 electoral votes as presidential candidate for the Populist Party in 1892, winning in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas and Nevada.
• Died: Mata'afa Iosefo, Paramount Chief (Ali'i Sili) of the Samoan people. Following his death, the German colonial administrators abolished the position and replaced it with two advisors (fautua), Tanumafili I and Tamasese Meaole I.

February 7, 1912 (Wednesday)

• One day after announcing that federal appellate Judge William C. Hook would be his nominee to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court that had been caused by the death of John Marshall Harlan, President Taft withdrew Hook's name because of protests by the NAACP and other African-American organizations.^[17] Mahlon Pitney was selected by the President in place of Hook.^[18]
• U.S. Marines landed at Puerto Cortés in the Honduras.^[8]
• Born: Russell Drysdale, Australian artist (d. 1981); and Roy Sullivan, American park ranger known for being struck on multiple occasions by lightning (d. 1983)
• Died: Edward Wilmot Blyden, 79, proponent of Pan-Africanism

February 8, 1912 (Thursday)

• Robert G. Fowler landed his airplane in Jacksonville after starting from Los Angeles on October 19, becoming the first pilot to fly across the United States from west to east (California to Florida), and the second overall, after Cal Rodgers.^[19]
• Emmanouel Argyoropoulos became the first Greek pilot, taking a Nieuport airplane aloft at Athens. On his second flight of the day, he was accompanied by Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos as his co-pilot.^[20]
• Australia inaugurated its first wireless telegraphic station, at Melbourne, as part of a plan to establish a network of 19 stations nationwide.^[21]

February 9, 1912 (Friday)

• Japan began shipment of 6,040 cherry blossom seedlings to America. The shipment arrived in Washington, D.C. the following month.^[22]
• Born: Thomas H. Moorer, U.S Navy Admiral who commanded military forces during the Vietnam war; in Mount Willing, Alabama (d. 2004)
• Died: Hyacinthe Loyson, 84, former Roman Catholic priest who was excommunicated after questioning the doctrine of papal infallibility.

February 10, 1912 (Saturday)

• The French Senate ratified the Morocco agreement.^[8]
• Seven state governors sent former President Theodore Roosevelt a letter urging him to declare that he would accept the Republican nomination for the presidency. Roosevelt would answer on February 24.^[23]
• Born: Henry Krips, Austrian Australian composer, in Vienna
• Died: Sir Joseph Lister, 84, British surgeon who introduced the practice of sterilization of wounds and surgical instruments' and José Paranhos, Baron of Rio Branco, 67, Brazilian Foreign Minister since 1902.

February 11, 1912 (Sunday)

• The Niger-Chad border was created by French military commanders and the Governors-General of French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa.^[24]
• Born: Roy Fuller, English writer (d. 1991)
• Died: Agustin Lizarraga, who found Machu Picchu in 1902 before Hiram Bingham, drowned after falling off of a bridge

February 12, 1912 (Monday)

• The Qing Dynasty of China, also called the Manchu Dynasty came to an end after 268 years as the Empress Dowager Longyu signed an agreement on behalf of Puyi, the 6 year old Emperor of China, making General Yuan Shih-kai the President of the new Republic. The end came on "the 25th day of the 12th moon of the 3rd year of Hsuan Tung". In return for the peaceful transition, the Republicans signed the "Articles of Favorable Treatment". The Emperor was allowed to keep his title, his palace and servants, and to continue to live the Imperial life. The arrangement lasted until 1924, when Feng Yuxiang forced the Imperial family to flee from the Forbidden City to the Japanese Embassy.^[25]
• China's Foreign Ministry wired its diplomats around the world, directing them to abandon their traditional Chinese clothing in favor of "the usual dress of American civil officials". At home, many Chinese citizens began accepting foreign attire as well.^[26]
• The Vancouver Sun published its first issue.^[27]
• Born: Anton Buttigieg, second President of Malta (1976–81) (d. 1983); and Edith Houghton, pioneering woman baseball player, and first female Major League Baseball scout (for the Philadelphia Phillies, 1946–52; in Philadelphia.^[28]

February 13, 1912 (Tuesday)

• The stern of the battleship USS Maine was raised from Havana Harbor, where it had exploded and sunk on February 15, 1898. After the stern was refloated, the ship's hulk was, on March 16, towed to the Straits of Florida, and following a ceremony, sunk in 620 fathoms of water within American territorial limits.^[29]
• Dr. Sun Yat-sen informed the National Assembly at Nanjing of his resignation as President of China, and asked the legislators "to elect a good and talented man as the new president", Yuan Shih-kai. Yuan was sworn in as President in Beijing on March 10.^[30]
• Bulgaria and Serbia signed an agreement forming the Balkan League^[31]
• Born: Antonia Pozzi, Italian poet, in Milan (d. 1938)
• Died: Antonio Garcia Cubas, 80, Mexican geographer

February 14, 1912 (Wednesday)

• Arizona was admitted as the 48th state of the United States, at 10:00 in the morning Washington D.C. time (and 8:00 am in Arizona), as President Taft signed a proclamation in the morning. At noon, George W. P. Hunt was inaugurated as the first State Governor.^[32]
• Amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson wrote a letter to British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward, describing his finding of "part of a thick human skull" in "a very old Pleistocene bed" between Uckfield and Crowborough in East Sussex. Dawson's "discovery", the "Piltdown man", became one of the great hoaxes of the 20th century.^[33]
• The Times of London announced that Captain W.S. Patton, a British physician in Madras, had discovered the parasite that caused black fever.^[34]
• Born: Juan Pujol, Spanish hotel manager who served as a double agent for Britain's MI5 (code-named "Garbo") after infiltrating Nazi Germany's Abwehr (as "Arabel"). He diverted attention away from Normandy during the D-Day invasion by providing false information to German intelligence received the Order of the British Empire and the Iron Cross. Pujol's secret was not revealed until 1984, four years before his death in 1988.
• Born: Ollie Harrington, African-American political cartoonist, in Valhalla, New York (d. 1995)

February 15, 1912 (Thursday)

• Yuan Shih-kai, who had been leader of North China from Beijing was declared as President of the Republic of China by the assembly that controlled South China from Nanjing, at the recommendation of President Sun Yat-sen. Sun "had committed himself to put the unity of China before his own position and, had he not done so, the consequence would almost certainly have been civil war".^[35]
• Born: George Mikes, Hungarian-British comedian, in Siklos (d. 1987)

February 16, 1912 (Friday)

• Residents of La Mesa Springs voted 249–60 to incorporate the city of La Mesa, California. Now a suburb of San Diego, the city grew in one century from 700 people to over 57,000.^[36]
• The Mexican town of Garza Galán, in Coahuila State and across the Rio Grande from Del Rio, Texas, was renamed in honor of poet Manuel Acuña. The name was shortened to Villa Manuel Acuña to Ciudad Acuña on September 16, 1957.^[37]
• Died: Nicholas of Japan, 75, Russian Orthodox missionary and saint who introduced Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Japan; and Thomas Jennings, the first American criminal to be convicted by fingerprint evidence, by hanging.^[38]

February 17, 1912 (Saturday)

• The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, commonly called the "B&O", reversed a decision to have separate waiting rooms for black and white passengers at its stations. On January 25, the managing editor of the Baltimore Afro-American, John H. Murphy, Sr., had written to B&O President Daniel Willard and pledged to use his influence to divert the black tourist and convention business to other railroad lines.^[39]
• A plot against Count Terauchi, the Korean Governor-General, was discovered.^[8]
• Robert G. Fowler landed his airplane at Pablo Beach, Florida, becoming the second person to fly an airplane across the United States, and the first to travel from west to east. He had started from Pasadena on October 20, after Cal Rodgers had flown east to west in 1911.^[40]
• Born: Andre Norton (Alice Mary Norton), American science fiction and fantasy author, in Cleveland
• Died: Edgar Evans, 35, the first of the five members of Robert Falcon Scott's South Pole group to perish during as the group attempted to return to their base; John Nelson Hyde, 46, American missionary to India; George Fuller Golden, 43, American vaudeville entertainer; and Count Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, 57, Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister since 1906

February 18, 1912 (Sunday)

• The 13th Dalai Lama declared Tibet independent of the Republic of China. The Buddhist kingdom would resist several invasions until being conquered in 1959.^[41]
• Under pressure from Russia and Britain, the government of Persia (Iran) restored a pension to former King, Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar, and granted amnesty to the followers who had attempted to return him to the throne.^[42]

February 19, 1912 (Monday)

• Carl Hayden was sworn in as the first U.S. Representative for the newly admitted state of Arizona. In 1927, he became one of the state's U.S. Senators, and became the first person to serve fifty years in the U.S. Congress, serving until 1969.^[43]
• For the first time, a small prize was placed in every box of Cracker Jack, the caramel, popcorn and peanuts snack introduced in 1896.^[44]
• Mahlon Pitney was nominated by President Taft to become a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He would be confirmed by the Senate on March 14 by a vote of 50–26.^[45]
• Fifty people drowned in the sinking of a boat at Rangoon.^[8]
• Born: Hermann Flohn, German climatologist, at Frankfurt (d. 1997); and Adolf Rudnicki, Polish Jewish novelist, in Żabno (d. 1990)

February 20, 1912 (Tuesday)

• Jens Bratlie became the fifth Prime Minister of Norway, replacing Wollert Konow.^[8]
• Count Berchtold replaced Count Aerenthal as the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister.^[8]
• A cyclone swept through Louisiana and Mississippi, killing 20 people, mostly African-Americans. The heaviest damage was in Shreveport, where eight died.^[46]
• Born: Pierre Boulle, French novelist (The Bridge over the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes), in Avignon (d. 1994); Muriel Humphrey, U.S. Senator for Minnesota from January to November 1978 following the death of her husband, Hubert Humphrey, in Huron, South Dakota (d. 1998); and George Devol, American inventor of the first industrial robot, in Louisville, Kentucky (d. 2011)

February 21, 1912 (Wednesday)

• Construction workers successfully bored a nearly six mile tunnel through the Swiss Alps to make possible the Jungfraubahn railway. The tunnel was made beneath the Eiger and Mönch mountains, both more than 13,000 feet tall. The line, at the time the highest in Europe, would open on August 1, 1912.^[47]
• The city of Houston was heavily damaged by a fire that destroyed 19 businesses and destroyed 200 buildings in the downtown. Nobody died, but 1,000 people were left homeless. The blaze, which started in an empty rooming house, was spread by a gale across the Texas city.^[48]
• Captain Fesa Bey became the first member of the Turkish Army to complete flight training and to be awarded a pilot's license.^[49]
• The Palmyra Atoll was successfully claimed as a possession of the United States, by the USS West Virginia, under the command of Rear Admiral W. H. H. Southerland.^[50]
• Born: Solomon Schonfeld, British rabbi who rescued thousands of European Jews from the Holocaust, in Stoke Newington (d. 1984)
• Died: Osborne Reynolds, 69, Irish chemist and physicist and pioneer in the study of fluid dynamics

February 22, 1912 (Thursday)

• Jules Vedrines became the first airplane pilot to fly faster than 100 miles per hour.^[51]
• In Vernon, California, Johnny Kilbane defeated champion Abe Attell for the world featherweight boxing championship. Attell had held the title for 11 years, and Kilbane would hold it for 11 more.^[52]
• A fire at the No. 5 mine of Western Coal Company in Lehigh, Oklahoma, killed nine people. The death toll would have been higher, but for Rufino Rodrigues, who saved as many as 259 miners, by venturing further into the mine to warn his fellow employees. Rodrigues, a 22-year-old native of Mexico, was awarded a bronze medal by the Carnegie Hero Fund.^[53]
• Born: Harold Keith Johnson, American general; U.S. Army Chief of Staff during height of Vietnam War, 1964–1968; in Bowesmont, North Dakota (d. 1983); and Henry S. Reuss, U.S. Congressman (D-Wisconsin) from 1955–1983), in Milwaukee (d. 2002)

February 23, 1912 (Friday)

• The Italian Chamber of Deputies voted 431–38 in favor of approving the royal proclamation to annex Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, both part of modern-day Libya.^[54] The Italian Senate approved the measure unanimously the next day.^[55]

February 24, 1912 (Saturday)

• Former President Theodore Roosevelt replied to the February 10 letter from several state governors, and declared that he would be willing to accept the Republican party nomination for President "if it is tendered to me", and added that "I will adhere to this decision until the convention has expressed its preference". The letter was released the next day.^[56]
• Italo-Turkish War: In an attempt to force the Ottoman Empire to accept the annexation of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, Italy made a surprise attack on Beirut, at the time a part of the Empire. The cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and the gunboat Volturno sailed into the Lebanese port and demanded the surrender of the Turkish ships Angora and Aronillah. Before the Ottoman provincial governor could reply, the Italian ships began bombardment. The final death toll was 97 sailors and civilians.^[57]

February 25, 1912 (Sunday)

• The first Boy Scout troop in China was organized, by the Reverend Yen Chia-lin, in the city of Wuchang. The organization, now called the Scouts of China, is limited to the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan.^[58]
• Born: Al Tomaini, American circus performer billed as "The Tallest Man in the World", (standing 8'4" in 1931); in Long Branch, New Jersey. He and his wife, 2'6" Jeanie Tomiani, were later billed as "The World's Strangest Married Couple" (d. 1962)

February 26, 1912 (Monday)

• Coal miners in Great Britain walked out on strike, beginning with employees of the Alfretor coal pits in Derbyshire. By Thursday, 600,000 miners had stopped work. The walkout lasted for seven weeks.^[59] By the end of the week, one million miners joined the strike, seeking a minimum wage guarantee.^[60]
• After announcing that he would run against President Taft for the 1912 Republican nomination, former President Theodore Roosevelt was asked at a press conference in Boston whether he intended "to support the Republican nominee, whoever he may be" and replied that he would.^[61] After Taft received the nomination, Roosevelt ran against him as candidate of the Progressive Party.
• Born: Hugues Panassié, American jazz producer (d. 1974)
• Died: William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg since 1905, at age 59. He was succeeded by his 17-year-old daughter, Marie-Adélaïde, who reigned over the European nation as Grand Duchess until 1919.

February 27, 1912 (Tuesday)

• Eladio Victoria was sworn in as President of the Dominican Republic after his nephew, General Alfredo Victoria, pressured the Dominican Congress to elect his uncle. As a result, Horacio Vasquez returned from exile and led his followers, the "Horacistas", in a revolt against the government.^[62]
• General Electric Company obtained the U.S. Patent 1,018,502 for a tungsten filament lamp that had been invented by Austrian scientists Alexander Just and Franz Hanaman.^[63]
• Liberato Marcial Rojas was forced out of office as President of Paraguay and replaced by Pedro Peña.^[8]
• The towns of Grant, Iowa and Pollasky, California were incorporated.
• Born: Lawrence Durrell, British novelist and poet, in Jalandhar, British India (d. 1990); Hilton Smith, American Negro League baseball player (1932–48), Baseball Hall of Fame inductee in 2001, in Giddings, Texas (d. 1983); and James Klugmann, British Communist writer, in Hampstead (d. 1977)

February 28, 1912 (Wednesday)

• Hill County, Montana was created from the northern part of Chouteau County. Its county seat is Havre^[64]
• A storm at Lake Tamehua, within the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, caused a barge to overturn, killing 35 people. Many of the drowning victims were American employees of the Pearson Oil Company.^[65]
• Born: Clara Petacci, mistress of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini; she and he would be executed together in 1945

February 29, 1912 (Thursday)

• Russian gold miners at the Lena Mining Company in Siberia went out on strike, originally in protest about the quality of food sold to them by the company.^[66]
• Serbia and Bulgaria secretly signed a treaty of alliance for a term of eight years, with each pledging to come to the defense of the other during war. The two nations fought together against the Ottoman Empire later that year during the First Balkan War, then against each other in the Second Balkan War and in World War One.^[67]
• King Vajiravudh of Siam (now Thailand) was overseeing military maneuvers at Nakhon Pathom, when he was informed by his army chief of staff, Prince Chakrabongse, that several junior officers were plotting his overthrow. There were 92 men arrested, and most of them had been in the class of 1909 at the military academy.^[68]
• Walter Wagner filed for a patent for the "bayonet and valve closed reservoir system", granted as U.S. Patent No. 1,142,210 but not put into use for water coolers until 80 years later. The invention reduced the possibility of contamination of bottled water during the filling and dispensing process.^[69]

References