March 1913

March 1, 1913 (Saturday)

The German Navy dreadnought SMS König, first of a new line of ships with the capacity to fire 30.5 cm (12 inch) shells, was launched.

The British steamer Calvados, with 200 passengers and crew, was lost in the Sea of Marmora off of the coast of Turkey, while traveling in a blizzard between Istanbul and Panderma.

New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson resigned three days before his scheduled inauguration as United States President. Wilson was succeeded by State Senate President James F. Fielder.

Born: Ralph Ellison, African-American writer, in Oklahoma City (d. 1994); R. S. R. Fitter, British writer (d. 2005); and Helmut Gernsheim, German photographer, in Munich (d. 1995)

Died: Mario Pieri, 52, Italian mathematician

March 2, 1913 (Sunday)

Soldiers of the Ninth U.S. Cavalry, stationed in Douglas, Arizona, traded gunfire with Mexican Army troops who were across the border in Agua Prieta, in a skirmish between the border patrols of both nations. Reportedly, four Mexican federal soldiers were killed, and some of the U.S. Army soldiers charged across the border into Mexico to pursue the retreating Mexican troops.

March 3, 1913 (Monday)

Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913: A group of 8,000 supporters of granting women the right to vote in the United States, led by Alice Paul of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, was besieged by a mob as the marchers, mostly women, paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, on the eve of the presidential inauguration.

March 4, 1913 (Tuesday)

Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as the 28th President of the United States at 1:34 p.m., 94 minutes after the expiration of the term of President Taft.

Hours before leaving office, outgoing President William H. Taft signed legislation creating the United States Department of Labor. The former U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor was renamed as the U.S. Department of Commerce. Taft's signing came with a statement that "I think that nine departments are enough for the proper administration of the government".

Born: John Garfield, blacklisted American film actor, as Jacob Garfinkle in New York City (d. 1952)

March 5, 1913 (Wednesday)

Seventy-one men were drowned when the German destroyer S-178 was rammed by the German cruiser Yorck in the North Sea off of Helgoland.

March 6, 1913 (Thursday)

Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had been living at the Hotel Roma in El Paso, Texas under the alias "Doroteo Arango", crossed the Rio Grande back into Mexico, along with eight companions, to rebuild his army and to overthrow Mexican President Victoriano Huerta. By year's end, Villa would have control of the state of Chihuahua, which served as his base for anti-government raids.

The tercentenary of the reign of the Romanov dynasty was celebrated across the Russian Empire, although on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia and 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar used in the rest of the world, the date was February 21. Tsar Nicholas II, the last of the dynasty, would be deposed less than five years later.

William B. Wilson, no relation to newly inaugurated President Woodrow Wilson, took office as the first United States Secretary of Labor. On the same day, William C. Redfield was sworn in as the first United States Secretary of Commerce, moving into the offices of Charles Nagel, the last Secretary of Commerce and Labor.

March 7, 1913 (Friday)

More than forty people were killed in Baltimore when 340 tons of dynamite on the steamship Alum Chine exploded. Most of the dead were on the tugboat Atlantic, which had returned to the ship to rescue two sailors who had not been evacuated.

Born: Elmer Lower, American television news executive, in Kansas City, Missouri (d. 2011)

Died: Pauline Johnson, 51, Canadian-Mohawk author

March 8, 1913 (Saturday)

The second criminal trial of renowned lawyer Clarence Darrow, on charges of attempted bribery, ended in a hung jury, with 8 of the 12 jurors in favor of conviction, less than the unanimous vote necessary. After the first two trials failed to reach a verdict, a third trial was not attempted and Darrow would return to practice.

The Federal League, intended as a third major baseball league to challenge the existing National and American Leagues, was founded in Indianapolis by John T. Powers. It would last for two seasons, 1914 and 1915.

Died: Louis Saint-Gaudens, 59, French sculptor

March 9, 1913 (Sunday)

Dr. Friedrich Friedmann of Germany, who had announced that he had developed a cure for tuberculosis that he would sell for one million dollars, gave the first demonstration of his treatment before U.S. government officials. Seven patients were injected with the Friedmann vaccine at the Mount Sinai hospital, in the presence of more than 30 physicians and surgeons.

The Liberal Party won a majority of seats in the Cortes in Spanish elections.

March 10, 1913 (Monday)

The Quebec Bulldogs, champions of the NHL-forerunner National Hockey Association kept the Stanley Cup in a two-game sweep in a challenge by the Sydney Millionaires of the Maritime Professional Hockey League. After winning the first game 14-3, the Bulldogs won the second one, 6-2.

French sculptor Camille Claudel was committed to a mental hospital at Ville-Evrard near Paris, where she would spend the remaining 30 years of her life.

Died: Harriet Tubman, 98, former slave famous for conducting thousands to freedom on the "underground railroad". She was given a burial with full military honors at Auburn, New York.

March 11, 1913 (Tuesday)

Edmond Perreyon of France set a new record for highest altitude in an airplane, reaching 19,281 feet.

The last civil suits arising from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of March 25, 1911. Building owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris paid $75 apiece for each dead woman or girl whose family had brought a wrongful death suit.

Died: Godfrey Morgan, 1st Viscount Tredegar, 82, commander of forces who led his men and survived the Charge of the Light Brigadel and Dr. John Shaw Billings, 74, first director of the New York Public Library

March 12, 1913 (Wednesday)

The new capital of Australia was christened in a ceremony that saw the unveiling of three pillars of a memorial column by Governor-General Denman, Prime Minister Fisher, and Minister for Home Affairs King O'Malley. At noon, Lady Denman opened a gold cigarette case, withdrew the paper inside, and announced "I name the Capital of Australia 'Canberra'." "Canberra", which among almost 1,000 suggestions submitted to the federal government, had first been used in 1826 by J. J. Moore in an application to purchase land in what would become the Australian Capital Territory. Other suggestions had been Kangaremu, Blueducks, Eucalypta, Myola, Gonebroke, Swindleville and Cooeeoomoo, and the second most popular proposal had been Shakespeare.

Plans were announced by the British Prime Minister to reform the House of Lords, taking away its veto power and abolishing the hereditary succession.

March 13, 1913 (Thursday)

Film stuntman and daredevil Rodman Law, who billed himself as "The Human Bullet", attempted to become the first passenger in a manned rocket flight. Law constructed a 44 foot long steel missile, set it up on a vacant lot in Jersey City, set the angle at 45 degrees and aimed the craft at Elizabeth, New Jersey, twelve miles away. Wearing a parachute, he then climbed into a seat on the rocket and told his assistant, fireworks factory manager Samuel Serpico, to light the fuse to ignite of 900 pounds of gunpowder. Law told the crowd that his plan was to bail out when he reached an altitude of 3,500 feet, but the rocket exploded on the launchpad. Law was only slightly injured in the blast, and no spectators were hurt, and he "continued to perform stunts, though never again in a rocket".

Dr. Simon Flexner announced to an audience of physicians at Johns Hopkins University that he had discovered the germ that caused infantile paralysis (polio). The germ proved to be a virus, although Flexner's discovery that antibodies, yet to be discovered, could successfully attack the disease would send research in the direction of finding a means of developing the immunization against the poliomyelitis virus.

Born: William J. Casey, 13th Director of Central Intelligence for the American CIA (1981-1987), in New York City (d. 1987); and H. P. Grice, British-American philosopher, in Birmingham (d. 1988)

Died: Thomas Krag, 44, Norwegian novelist

March 14, 1913 (Friday)

The first esophagectomy and resection was performed by Dr. Franz Torek at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, as Dr. Torek operated upon a patient with esophageal cancer and performed a bypass. The unidentified patient survived for 13 more years after the operation.

In South Africa, Justice Malcolm Searle ruled that only Christian marriages were legal under the nation's laws, effectively invalidating the marital status of most of the British Indian residents.

Born: Smoky Dawson, Australian country music singer, in Collingwood, Victoria (d. 2008); and Sergey Mikhalkov, Soviet-Russian writer and lyricist, in Moscow (d. 2009)

Died: William Hale White, 81, British novelist,

March 15, 1913 (Saturday)

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson assembled about 100 reporters in his office and began the practice of holding a regular "presidential press conference". President Wilson's secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, arranged the first and subsequent events and introduced the President on each occasion, becoming, in effect, the first White House Press Secretary.

The Antarctic ship Aurora arrived in Tasmania, Australia at Hobart, with the news of the deaths of two of the three members of the Far Eastern Party of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz) and the stranding of Douglas Mawson.

Died: William Hale White, 84, British author who wrote under the nom-de-plume Mark Rutherford

March 16, 1913 (Sunday)

The first animated cartoon series made its debut in movie theatresn, as filmmaker Émile Cohl produced 13 episodes adapting The Newlyweds, a comic strip by George McManus. The first installment, featuring the characters of "Maggie and Jiggs" from what would later be called Bringing Up Father, was entitled "When He Wants a Dog, He Wants a Dog".

A crowd of 120,000 demonstrators turned out at Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, near Paris, to protest a recent decision by French Army officials to require three years of military service.

Died: Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel, 63, French painter

March 17, 1913 (Monday)

New York State Senator Franklin D. Roosevelt, 31, was sworn into office as the youngest Assistant Secretary of the Navy in American history, and the first federal government job for the future United States President.

March 18, 1913 (Tuesday)

Exactly 50 years after his March 18, 1863 selection, King George I of Greece was assassinated in Salonika while walking the streets of the city recently captured from Turkey. The King, who had refused bodyguards and was accompanied only by his equerry, was shot in the back by Aleko Schinas, a Greek citizen. The King had told a lunch guest earlier that day that he intended to abdicate in October, on the jubilee of his coronation; Schinas would die two months later, after plummeting from a balcony while in police custody.

Prime Minister Aristide Briand, who had recently taken office after Raymond Poincaré's election as President, resigned along with his entire cabinet after a vote that undid the new electoral reform law.

Utah became the first U.S. state to have a minimum wage law take effect, with the authorization for a wage, and creation of a commission to regulate it, taking effect upon enactment. Massachusetts and Oregon had enacted laws earlier, which would go into effect during the summer.

U.S. President Wilson announced that the U.S. government was withdrawing approval of American banks in the proposed six-nation loan to China. The bankers withdrew the next day.

Born: René Clément, French film director, in Bordeaux (d. 1996); and Werner Mölders, German fighter pilot who was first to shoot down 100 enemy airplanes; in Gelsenkirchen (killed in air accident 1941)

Died: Louis André, 75, former French Minister of War

March 19, 1913 (Wednesday)

The opera Boris Godunov was performed for the first time in the United States, at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

March 20, 1913 (Thursday)

Song Jiaoren (Sung Chiao-jen), the President of the Kuomintang Party in the Republic of China, was shot and fatally wounded while waiting for a train in Shanghai; Song would die two days later. Song's killer, Wu Shiying, had been assisted by Ying Guixing, and a search of their apartments found documents linking the murder to cabinet Minister Hong Shuzu, Interior Minister Zhao Bingjun, and even President Yuan Shikai. Ying would be murdered in January after escaping from prison, and Wu would be found dead in his cell shortly afterward.

Kansas became the first of the United States to legalize the practice of chiropractors. Massachusetts would become the last, legalizing chiropractic treatment in 1966.

March 21, 1913 (Friday)

Constantine I took the oath of office as the new King of Greece.

Louis Barthou became the new Prime Minister of France.

Albert Schweitzer set out from France as a medical missionary to establish a leper hospital at Lambaréné.

Died: Manuel Bonilla, 62, President of Honduras. He was succeeded by his Vice-President.

March 22, 1913 (Saturday)

Wireless communication between the United States and France began when the U.S. station at Arlington, Maryland sent a message received at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Vajiravudh, King Rama VI of Siam, decreed two laws governing the surnames and the citizenship of subjects in what is now Thailand. Besides requiring all persons to have the family name of their father or husband, Rama VI also decreed that all persons born to a Siamese father, anywhere in the world, were Siamese citizens, as were all persons born to a Siamese mother when the father was unknown, and any foreign woman with a Siamese husband.

Born: Lew Wasserman, American studio executive, in Cleveland (d. 2002); and Chuck Dederich, American cultist and founder of the religious movement Church of Synanon, in Toledo, Ohio (d. 1997)

March 23, 1913 (Sunday)

On Easter Sunday, tornadoes swept through Omaha, Nebraska and killed 150 people. The storm activity was followed by heavy rainfall as it moved eastward over the next four days, killing more than 1,000 people in "the most widespread natural disaster the United States had ever endured."

The March 23 date was the earliest Easter Sunday during the 20th Century. March 23 would also be the earliest date for Easter in the 21st Century (March 23, 2008) and will be the earliest in the 22nd Century (March 23, 2160). March 22 is the very earliest possible date for Easter (as the first Sunday after the first full Moon after the spring equinox), with the last occurrence on March 22, 1818, and the next one not to happen until March 22, 2285.

March 24, 1913 (Monday)

Born: Ralph Fox, American mathematician specializing in differential topology and knot theory, in Morrisville, Pennsylvania (d. 1973)

March 25, 1913 (Tuesday)

Great Dayton Flood/Great Flood of 1913: The Ohio River valley was flooded by heavy rains, rising to the highest recorded levels to that time and killing more than 500 people. Hardest hit was Dayton, Ohio, where 400 drowned, on the Great Miami River and the Mad River. There was heavy damage to other cities in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois in what would prove to be "The second-worst flood of the 20th century in America", exceeded only by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

Born: William G. Gray, English occultist, in Harrow (d. 1992)

Died: Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, 79, retired British Field Marshal; May C. Brooke, 69, the last surviving castmember of the troupe that performed Our American Cousin for President Lincoln on the night of his assassination;

March 26, 1913 (Wednesday)

Battle of Adrianople (1913): The Turkish city of Adrianople (Edirne in Turkish, Odrin in Bulgaria), at one time the capital of the Ottoman Empire, was captured by Bulgarian troops under the command of General Savov. Four months later, after the Second Balkan War broke out between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, the Turkish Ottoman troops would recapture on July 23, 1913.

Mexican Revolution: Venustiano Carranza announced his Plan of Guadalupe, and began his rebellion against Victoriano Huerta's government as head of the Constitutionals.

The Illinois state legislature filled the vacancies in both of its United States Senate seats by electing Republican Lawrence Y. Sherman and Democrat James Hamilton Lewis.

Born: Paul Erdős, Hungarian mathematician, in Budapest (d. 1996); and Jacqueline de Romilly, French philologist, in Chartres (d. 2010)

Died: Sir Garnet Wolseley, 79, British Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, 1895-1900

March 27, 1913 (Thursday)

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Futrell v. Oldham that State Senate President pro tempore Junius Futrell was the Governor of Arkansas, after Futrell and former President pro tempore William Kavanaugh Oldham had both claimed the office. Joseph Taylor Robinson had resigned on March 8, and Oldham had acted as Governor. When Futrell was selected as President pro tempore five days later, on March 13, Oldham claimed that he was still the Acting Governor, while Futrell sued on grounds that only the President pro tem could serve in the Governor's duties. For the next two weeks, Governor Futrell kept his offices in the south wing of the State Capitol at Little Rock, while Governor Oldham served in the north wing.

March 28, 1913 (Friday)

Died: Floyd Allen and his son, Claud Allen, who had murdered the judge, sheriff, county prosecutor and three other people in Carroll County, Virginia on March 14, 1912 after Floyd had been convicted of obstruction of justice. The two were put to death in the electric chair, with Floyd going first and Claud second.

March 29, 1913 (Saturday)

Born: R. S. Thomas, Welsh poet, in Cardiff (d. 2000)

March 30, 1913 (Sunday)

Born: Richard Helms, 8th Director of Central Intelligence for the American CIA (1966-1973), in St. Davids, Pennsylvania (d. 2002); Frankie Laine, American singer, as Francesco LoVechhio in Chicago (d. 2007); Marc Davis, American animator for Disney films (d. 2000); and Ċensu Tabone, 4th President of Malta, in Città Victoria (d. 2012)

March 31, 1913 (Monday)

The "Skandalkonzert" took place in Vienna when the first concert performance of a song cycle by Alban Berg, Funf Orchesterlieder nach Ansichtskartentexten von Peter Altenberg, ended prematurely as a result of fights breaking out between audience members and the Vienna Orchestra, conducted by Arnold Schoenberg.

Jim Hogg County, Texas was established from portions of Brooks County and Duval County, with Hebbronville as its seat.

Born: Etta Baker, American Piedmont Blues musician, as Etta Reid in Caldwell County, North Carolina (d. 2006)

Died: J. P. Morgan, 75, American multimillionaire financier