April 1913

April 1, 1913 (Tuesday)

The first trial of the assembly line method of manufacturing was made, with the Ford Motor Company testing the process in the putting together of a magneto for a flywheel motor at its factory in Highland Park, Michigan. The assembly process was split among 29 employees, each putting together a part of the magneto and then sending it over to another employee. The production time for each magneto was lowered from 20 minutes to 13 minutes. When the height of the line was raised the next year, and a moving conveyor was added, the time dropped to eight minutes, and then five minutes, a quadrupling of the production rate.

Philippe, the Duke of Montpensier and pretender to the French throne, was proclaimed as the King of Albania by the provisional government.

Lord Northcliffe, the publisher of the British newspaper, the Daily Mail, offered a prize of £10,000 ($50,000) to the first persons who could make a direct flight across the Atlantic Ocean, within 72 hours or less. In 2013 money, the equivalent would be £730,000 or $1.1 million. The shortest trip was 1,900 miles between Ireland and Newfoundland, which John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown would accomplish on June 15, 1919.

The Turkish government approved the terms of peace to end the First Balkan War, losing 60,000 square miles of its territory to the Balkan nations.

Former U.S. President William Howard Taft began serving as a professor of law at Yale University.

April 2, 1913 (Wednesday)

The Kingdom of Montenegro rejected demands from the five major European nations (Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia) to withdraw its troops from Albania.

The release was made of Apache Indians who had been held by the U.S. government as prisoners of war at the Fort Sill Military Reservation in Oklahoma since 1894. Of the group, 163 elected to be relocated to New Mexico, while another 76 received allotments of land in Oklahoma, and the last Apaches would leave Fort Sill on March 7, 1914.

April 3, 1913 (Thursday)

The 550 foot long German dirigible Z-4, flying near the boundary with France in order to inspect French border defenses, strayed into French territory, ran out of fuel, and went down at the airfield at Lunéville, where the French Army seized control of the ship and detained its crew of eleven. France allowed civilian repairmen to cross over from Germany, and the Z-4 left the next day, but not before it was photographed and measured in detail.

Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the British suffrage movement, was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of the conspiracy to bomb the country home of David Lloyd-George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She went on a hunger strike and was released nine days later.

Real County, Texas, named for Julius Real, was established from southeast Edwards County, southwest Kerr County, and western Bandera County.

Born: Per Borten, Prime Minister of Norway from 1965 to 1971 (d. 2005)

Died: Thomas Q. Seabrooke, 52, American comedian and actor

April 4, 1913 (Friday)

Born: Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield), African-American blues musician, in Issaquena County, Mississippi (d. 1983); Jerome Weidman, American playwright, in New York City (d. 1998); Frances Langford, American singer, in Lakeland, Florida (d. 2005); and Gene Ramey, American jazz bass player, in Austin, Texas (d. 1984)

Died: Edward Dowden, 69, Irish critic and poet; and Emmanouil Argyropoulos, 23, first Greek pilot, in a plane crash

April 5, 1913 (Saturday)

Ebbetts Field opened as the new home of baseball's Brooklyn Superbas (later the Dodgers), who played an exhibition game against the New York City team from the rival American League. The former "New York Highlanders" had a new name, the New York Yankees. The Superbas won, 3-2, before 25,000 fans.

The United States Soccer Federation (USSF) was founded, with the name the United States of America Foot Ball Association". The word "soccer" would not be made part of the organization name until 1945 (as the United States Soccer Football Association), and the word "football" would not be dropped until the USSF adopted its present name in 1974.

Physicist Niels Bohr completed his groundbreaking paper concerning quantum theory of the hydrogen atom.

The new constitution for the Republic of Nicaragua came into effect, providing for a 40-member Chamber of Deputies and a 13-member Senate.

Died: Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino, 89, Prime Minister of Romania 1899–1900 and 1906–1907, and reported to be the wealthiest man in the Kingdom.

April 6, 1913 (Sunday)

Died: Otto Schmitt, 84, American engineer, inventor and founder of biometrics

April 7, 1913 (Monday)

Champ Clark was re-elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

April 8, 1913 (Tuesday)

The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified by Connecticut, which became the 36th of the 48 states to favor the amendment for direct election of United States senators. The measure passed the state House, 150-77, and then passed unanimously by the state Senate.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson broke a 100-year tradition and personally appeared before a joint session of Congress to speak in support of a bill on tariffs.

China inaugurated its first elected Parliament at Beijing, with more than 500 of the 596 Representatives and 177 of the 274 Senators present when the assembly opened at 11:00 am.

April 9, 1913 (Wednesday)

Ebbets Field, the new home of baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers at 55 Sullivan Place, hosted its first official game. The stadium, new, but still the smallest in the National League, could hold 25,000 people, and bad weather limited the attendance to 10,000 in a 1-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. The Dodgers would play their last game there on September 24, 1957, and the last baseball game there would be a Negro League contest, with the Havana Cubans defeating the Kansas City Monarchs, 6-4 on August 23, 1959. Demolition would begin on February 23, 1960, and apartments now stand on the site.

April 10, 1913 (Thursday)

The New York Yankees played their first official game with their new name, losing 2-1 in Washington to the Senators.

April 11, 1913 (Friday)

Albert S. Burleson, the new Postmaster General of the United States, proposed the segregation of white and black federal employees in the postal service, at a cabinet meeting with President Woodrow Wilson. Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels wrote in his diary that Burleson advocated separation of the races in the railway mail service, "and he was anxious to segregate White and Negro employees in all Departments of the Government". President Wilson made no objection to Burleson's suggestion, implying that segregation within a federal office was left to the choice of each cabinet member. By the end of the year, separate bathrooms and lunchrooms were set aside for black and white workers at the Post Office Department. U.S. Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo implemented racial segregation at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and Daniels had done the same at the office of the Auditor of the Navy, and layoffs of Negro federal employees took place in the South during 1914.

Nathaniel Griffith Lerotholi was named as the new Paramount Chief of Basutoland (now the Kingdom of Lesotho) with the agreement of other tribal chiefs and the British Resident Commissioner. Chief Griffith would reign until his death on June 23, 1939.

Born: Oleg Cassini, French-born American fashion designer, as Oleg Cassini Loiewski, in Paris (d. 2006)

April 12, 1913 (Saturday)

The British weekly magazine New Statesman was founded by Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, with financial backing by George Bernard Shaw.

The British Ecological Society, an environmentalist organization that was the first of its kind in history, was founded by 47 persons who had been invited by the British Vegetation Committee. An American counterpart, the Ecological Society of America, would be created in 1915.

The city of San Marino, California, was incorporated by Henry E. Huntington, who owned 75 percent of the land on which the city was built, and other landowners. George S. Patton, Sr., father of the more famous U.S. Army General, served as the city's first mayor.

Died: John Brooks Henderson, 86, former U.S. Senator from Missouri and co-author of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery. "XIII. Amendment Author Expires", Milwaukee Journal, April 13, 1913, p1

April 13, 1913 (Sunday)

The ocean liner SS Vaterland, the largest ever built by Germany, was launched for the Hamburg America Line. The ship would only be used for Germany briefly, and would be captured by on April 6, 1917, by the United States while in the harbor at Hoboken, New Jersey, on the day of the American declaration of war against Germany in World War I, and would be renamed the SS Leviathan.

Anarchist Rafael Sancho Alegre fired three shots at King Alfonso XIII of Spain as the King was riding through the streets of Madrid. It was the eighth attempt on the life of the King, who was uninjured and would reign until 1931.

José Bordas Valdés was elected as President of the Dominican Republic by the national legislature.

Mexican Army troops under the command of General Pedro Ojeda, who had been fighting rebels at the border town of Naco, Sonora state, fled across the border into Naco, Arizona in order to surrender to the U.S. Army.

Born: Charlie Whittingham, American horse trainer, in Chula Vista, California (d. 1999); and John E. Moss, U.S. Congressman for California 1953–1979 (d. 1997)

Died: Auguste Verneuil, 56, French chemist who created the Verneuil process for the first commercially successful manufacture of synthetic gemstones

April 14, 1913 (Monday)

A group of 200,000 Belgian men went on strike in protest over the government's failure to approve the abolition of the "plural vote" system. Under the existing law, Belgian men who were 25 or older could have as many as three votes, with extra voting rights awarded for marriage, land ownership, a university degree or government employment. The Socialist party had sought a rule for one vote for any Belgian citizen over the age of 21. The Belgian government revised the constitution a week later and the strike ended.

Born: Jean Fournet, French conductor, in Rouen (d. 2008)

Died: Carl Hagenbeck, 68, German zoologist

April 15, 1913 (Tuesday)

The first issue of Scouting, the magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, was published, originally as a semi-weekly newsletter. In its 100th year, the magazine would be published five times a year.

April 16, 1913 (Wednesday)

Dr. Albert Schweitzer of Germany arrived in Lambaréné in Gabon, beginning his mission to Africa, combining evangelism with the founding of a hospital.

The term neuropsychology was coined by a Canadian physician, Sir William Osler, in a speech made at the opening ceremonies of the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins University.

California's House of Representatives passed the Webb-Heney Alien Land Act, prohibiting Japanese aliens from owning real estate in that state, and causing mob protests in Japan. Despite appeals from President Wilson and an address to the legislature by U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, the state Senate would pass the bill on May 9, and the measure would be signed into law, with the Japanese government protest being so strong that the U.S. made preparations for a possible war with Japan.

Born: Les Tremayne, British-born American radio actor, in London (d. 2003)

April 17, 1913 (Thursday)

Born: Miss Read (Dora Saint), British novelist, in London (d. 2012)

Died: Lester Frank Ward, 71, American sociologist; and Agnes McLaren, 78, Scottish physician

April 18, 1913 (Friday)

France's General Joseph Joffre presented "Plan XVII" to the Supreme War Council, in what would become the basis for French military strategy during World War I in the event of an invasion by Germany. General Joffre's plan, approved by the War Ministry on May 2, assumed that the German Army would come across the German-French border, and failed to have any contingency for what Germany would do in 1914- Germany invading Belgium and then crossing Belgium's border with France.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Ivan Geshov informed the parliament, the Naradno Sabranie, that the Kingdom had accepted the proposal of the Great Powers to end the war with Turkey.

April 19, 1913 (Saturday)

The two children of dancer Isadora Duncan were killed in an automobile accident, shortly after having dined with her in Paris. Deirdre Duncan, 6, and Patrick Duncan, 3, were drowned along with their governess, Annie Sim, when the car they were in rolled down a hill into the river Seine. Duncan herself would be killed in a freak accident on September 14, 1927, while a passenger in an automobile.

U.S. President of Wilson sent a message to the California state Senate and House, urging the members not to pass legislation aimed at barring Japanese persons from owning land in that state, requesting them to pass a broader law that would affect all aliens.

Bulgaria and Serbia signed an armistice with Turkey, but Montenegro refused to participate.

Luis Mena, rebel general who had briefly served as the President of Nicaragua in August 1910 before being ousted by American intervention, was released from confinement in the Panama Canal Zone by orders of President Wilson.

Died: Hugo Winckler, 49, German archaeologist who reconstructed the history of the Hittites

April 20, 1913 (Sunday)

Romania formed its first air force, the Corpul Aerian Romana.

April 21, 1913 (Monday)

The 900 foot long Cunard luxury ocean liner RMS Aquitania, the largest British liner built up to that time, was launched on the River Clyde in front of a crowd of 100,000 .

Quo Vadis? became the first motion picture to be shown in a Broadway theater, normally reserved for plays, and attracted thousands of spectators at a time, all willing to pay one dollar to watch a two-hour feature film.

Mario García Menocal was certified as the new President of Cuba.

Born: Dr. Richard Beeching, British engineer who redesigned that nation's railway system as Chairman of British Rail; in Sheerness (d. 1985)

Died: Raymond Callemin, André Soudy and Élie Monier, the only three members of France's infamous Bonnot Gang to be executed. All three went to the guillotine at 4:30 a.m. and were executed within 40 seconds.

April 22, 1913 (Tuesday)

The strike of 500,000 Belgian workers, seeking the right to vote, was ended after the Prime Minister accepted a compromise proposed by the leader of Liberals in Parliament.

April 23, 1913 (Wednesday)

An explosion at the Pittsburgh Coal Company mine at Courtney, Pennsylvania, killed 96 miners.

Mexico's government began the increased printing of paper currency in order to finance its armies during the revolution. The first issue put an additional five million pesos into circulation, but within two years, the government had printed 672,000,000 pesos, and other factions issued their own paper money. Between April and July, the inflation rate rose from 10% to 100%, and to nearly 1000% by April 1915 and 10,000% by April 1916 and more than 100,000% by September 1916.

The Ottoman Turkish city of Iskodra (referred to as "Scutari" in the English-language press and "Shkodra" by Montenegro) surrendered to Montenegrin troops after 6 months.

Born: Dhananjay Keer (Anant Vithal), Indian author specializing in biographies; in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra state (d. 1984)

Died: Sir Richard William Scott, 88, Canadian politician who served as Opposition Leader in the Canadian Senate, 1896–1906

April 24, 1913 (Thursday)

The 55 story Woolworth Building, located at 233 Broadway Street in New York City, officially opened as the tallest skyscraper in the world. At 7:30 pm in Washington, U.S. President Wilson pushed a button that lit the 80,000 lights in the 792 foot high structure. The event, one commentator would write later, "ushered in the era of the great skyscraper" The architect was Cass Gilbert. The Woolworth Building's reign as the tallest in the world would last until 1930.

U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan met with diplomats in Washington, D.C. to present his plan for world peace, with the provision that all controversies between nations had to be submitted for investigation before a war could be declared.

Born: Joe Vogler, American political activist and founder (in 1974) of the Alaskan Independence Party, near Barnes, Kansas (d. 1993)

April 25, 1913 (Friday)

The "Cat and Mouse Act", officially named the Prisoners' Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health Act, was given royal assent in the United Kingdom. Proposed by Home Secretary Reginald McKenna in response to the use of the hunger strike by imprisoned suffragettes, the law provided that if a prisoner has a "condition of health... due in whole or in part to the prisoner's own conduct in prison", the Secretary of State could "authorise the temporary discharge of the prisoner" who, after recuperation, would return to prison to serve the remainder of the sentence, extended by the time on leave.

Born: Douglas Mackiernan, American spy, and first CIA agent to be killed in the line of duty (d. 1950)

April 26, 1913 (Saturday)

Leo Frank case: Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old employee of the National Pencil Company factory in Atlanta, disappeared after collecting her weekly pay at the factory, which was closed for a holiday. Her body was found the next morning at the bottom of an elevator shaft. Leo Frank, the 29-year-old factory superintendent who had been the last person to admit seeing Mary alive, was arrested on April 29 for her murder. Frank, a prominent Jew in Atlanta and president of the city's B'nai B'rith, would be convicted of Mary's murder despite the absence of evidence linking him to the killing. Although his death sentence would be commuted in 1915 to life imprisonment, a mob of angry citizens would kidnap him from the prison farm and lynch him.

King Albert of Belgium opened the international exposition at Ghent.

Born: Sigrid Hunke, German author, in Kiel (d. 1999); Karl George, American trumpet player, in St. Louis (d. 1978); and Mario Visintini, Italian World War II ace, in Parenzo (killed 1941)

April 27, 1913 (Sunday)

Essad Pasha Toptani, former commander of the Turkish troops that had surrendered to Montenegro in the Battle of Scutari, then proclaimed himself as King of Albania.

The agreement for a $125,000,000 (£25,000,000) loan to China, from banks in five European nations, was signed in Beijing by the Chinese Prime Minister. The loan was at an interest rate of 5 percent per annum. Although the agreement was unconstitutional because it was not approved by the Parliament, President Yuan Shikai was able to use the funding to defeat his opponents in the civil war that followed.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer opened his first hospital facility, a day after supplies had arrived at his remote location in Gabon, and began the first major medical treatment for the native African population.

Born: Philip Hauge Abelson, American physicist, writer, and editor, in Tacoma, Washington (d. 2004)

April 28, 1913 (Monday)

Four weeks after having been offered the Albanian throne, Ferdinand, Duke of Montpensier announced that he was declining the chance to become King of Albania. The Duke, whose candidacy was opposed by Italy and Austria-Hungary, announced his decision in a letter published in the newspaper Le Figaro. Ferdinand would die on January 30, 1924.

After receiving a demand from the United Kingdom to pay $10,000,000 to settle a bond indebtedness, Guatemala appealed the United States for aid.

April 29, 1913 (Tuesday)

Germany's Foreign Minister, Gottlieb von Jagow, said in a speech at the Reichstag that German would respect the guarantees of Belgium's neutrality, followed by Minister of War Josias von Heeringen, who pledged that "Germany will not lose sight of the fact that the neutrality of Belgium is guaranteed by international treaty." Germany would invade Belgium fifteen months later on its entry into World War I on August 2, 1914.

April 30, 1913 (Wednesday)

Franklin K. Lane, the new United States Secretary of the Interior, rescinded an order that had banned automobiles from entering Yosemite National Park and other parks, increasing the tourism in those areas. Lane wrote that "This form of transportation has come to stay, and to close the park against automobiles would be as absurd as the fight for many years made by old naval men against the adoption of steam in the navy."

Born: Edith Fowke, Canadian folklorist, in Lumsden, Saskatchewan (d. 1996)