The British steamer Calvados, with 200 passengers and crew, was lost in the
Sea of Marmara off of the coast of
Turkey, while traveling in a blizzard between
Istanbul and
Panderma.[3]
Soldiers of the
9th 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.[8]
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.[23]
More than 40 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.[29]
Died:E. Pauline Johnson, 51, Canadian poet, known for poetry collections on indigenous culture including The White Wampum and Flint and Feather, died of breast cancer. (b.
1861)
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.[31]
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
New York City, in the presence of more than 30 physicians and surgeons.[35]
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.[37]
Harriet Tubman, a former slave who helped thousands of other African-American slaves to freedom on the "
Underground Railroad", died at the age of 90 or 91. She was given a burial with full military honors at
Auburn, New York.[38]
March 11, 1913 (Tuesday)
Edmond Perreyon of
France set a new record for highest altitude in an airplane, reaching 19,281 feet.[39]
The last civil suits arising from the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of
March 25, 1911 were settled. Building owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris paid $75 apiece for each dead woman or girl whose family had brought a wrongful death suit.[40]
The new capital of
Australia was christened in a ceremony that saw the unveiling of three pillars of a memorial column by
Baron Denman,
Governor-General of Australia,
Andrew Fisher,
Prime Minister of Australia, 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'."[41] "Canberra", which was 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.[42]
Plans were announced by the British Prime Minister's Office to reform the
House of Lords, taking away its veto power and abolishing the hereditary succession.
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".[45]
Dr.
Simon Flexner announced to an audience of physicians at
Johns Hopkins University that he had discovered the germ that caused
polio.[46] 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.[47]
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.[49]
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.[50]
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.[57]
The first animated cartoon series made its debut in movie theaters, 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".[58]
Died:Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel, 62, French artist, best known for his illustrations for children's literature including Fables de La Fontaine and Jeanne d'Arc (b.
1850)
King George of Greece was assassinated in
Salonika while walking the streets of the city recently captured from the
Ottoman Empire. The King, who had refused bodyguards and was accompanied only by his
equerry, was shot in the back by Aleko Schinas, a Greek citizen.[60][61] The King had told a lunch guest earlier that day that he intended to abdicate in October, on the jubilee of his coronation;[62] Schinas would die two months later, after plummeting from a balcony while in police custody.[63] Coincidentally, he had been selected as King of Greece by the Greek National Assembly on March 18, 1863, on the calendar that Greece was using at the time; the date was March 30, 1863 on the Gregorian calendar which Greece had adopted by 1913.
France's 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.[64]
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.[65]
U.S. President
Woodrow 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.[66]
Fred Jackson, owner of a photography store in
Chicago, appeared before court on charges of indecency for showing in his display window a reproduction of the painting September Morn by French painter
Paul Émile Chabas (which features a nude model wading in a lake). Jackson, acting as his own defense, was able to convince the jury the painting was not indecent and he should be able to display the reproduction. A few days later,
Chicago mayorCarter Harrison Jr. went to
city council and asked for stricter obscenity laws, resulting again in a public display of the reproduction being outlawed and Jackson and other gallery owners where again charged for violating obscenity laws.[67]
Born:Smoky Dawson (stage name for Herbert Henry Brown), Australian country music singer and pioneer in introducing the genre Down Under; in
Collingwood, Victoria (d.
2008)
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.[69]
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.[76]
Phan Xích Long, the self-proclaimed
Emperor of Vietnam, was arrested for organising a revolt against the colonial rule of
French Indochina.[80] The unsuccessful revolt was carried out by his supporters the following day. [81]
On
EasterSunday,
tornadoes swept throughOmaha, 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."[82]
The 1,740-seat
Palace Theatre opened at Broadway and West 47th in
New York City.[83] Stars for the first night were comedian
Cyril Chadwick and comic singer
Mabel Berra, who performed in
Leo Fall's humorous
operettaThe Eternal Waltz, dancer
Stacia Napierkowska in the final act, "The Captive", and future television, radio and film star
Ed Wynn in "The King's Jester".[84] Now a
Broadway theatre that has hosted musicals based on La Cage aux Folles and Beauty and the Beast, the Palace Theatre originally billed itself as "The Valhalla of Vaudeville".[85]
A new
power plant began operating in
Tallinn,
Estonia. It initially used coal to generate electricity but by 1924 was modified as the first power plant in the world to use oil shale for generating power.[86]
The Battle of Adrianople was won when Bulgarian troops captured the historic city (called Edirne by the Turks, Odrin by the Bulgarians) that had once served as the capital of the
Ottoman Empire. Four months later, after the
Second Balkan War broke out between
Greece,
Serbia and
Bulgaria, the Turkish Ottoman troops would recapture the city on July 23, 1913.[90][91]
Paul Erdős, Hungarian mathematician, known for his prolific output in the field including over 1,500 articles and co-author of 500 more, in
Budapest (d.
1996)
The
Arkansas Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Futrell v. Oldham that State Senate President pro tempore
Junius Marion 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, Arkansas, while Governor Oldham served in the north wing.[94]
The daily newspaper Le Droit began publication in
Ottawa, primarily to provide an editorial response to
Regulation 17, a piece of legislation by the
Government of Ontario that was criticized for shutting French-language schools in eastern
Ontario. It continues to the
Ontario's top selling francophone newspaper.[95]
Finnish composer
Jean Sibelius first conducted his orchestral composition The Bard with the Philharmonic Society Orchestra in
Helsinki but revised it 1914 and conducted it again in 1916.[96]
March 28, 1913 (Friday)
The
car factory at
Cowley, Oxfordshire, where the
BMW MINI Cooper automobile is now manufactured, turned out its very first car, as
Morris Motors opened Britain's first motor vehicle assembly line to produce the
Morris Oxford, nicknamed the "bullnose".[97] Celebrating 100 years of continuous operation in 2013, Plant Oxford is the oldest assembly plant in the world.[98]
Floyd Allen and his son, Claud Allen, were executed by electric chair for the murder 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.[99]
Nearing the end of his life, American novelist
Henry James published the first installment of his
autobiographical series, with the release of A Small Boy and Others by Charles Scribner's Sons to booksellers in the United States. The sequel, Notes of a Son and Brother would come out a year later; James would pass away at the age of 72 on February 28, 1916 before he could complete
The Middle Years.[102]
R. S. Thomas, Welsh clergy and poet, known for his poetry collections including Song at the Year's Turning and Blwyddyn yn Llŷn (A Year in Llŷn); in
Cardiff (d.
2000)
J. P. Morgan, the architect of the modern American financial industry, died in his sleep just short of the age of 76 while staying at the Grand Hotel Plaza in
Rome. In
New York City, flags were flown at half-staff on
Wall Street and the
New York Stock Exchange closed for two hours in honor of his passing.[107]
^Ristovski, Blaže (1995). Македонија и македонската нација [Macedonia and the Macedonian Nation] (in Macedonian). Skopje: Detska Radost.
ISBN9989-30-057-7.
^"New German Dreadnought", New York Times, March 2, 1913, p. 1
^"Over 200 Lost in Storm", New York Times, March 8, 1913
^"Record of Current Events", The American Monthly Review of Reviews (April 1913), pp. 414-417
^Elena Anne Marchisotto and James T. Smith, The Legacy of Mario Pieri in Geometry and Arithmetic (Birkhäuser Boston, 2007) p. 46
^"Mexicans Killed by U.S. Troopers Near the Border", The Milwaukee Sentinel, March 3, 1913, p. 1
^Craig R. Smith, Silencing the Opposition: How the U.S. Government Suppressed Freedom of Expression During Major Crises (SUNY Press, 2011) p. 162-163; Elizabeth Frost-Knappman and Kathryn Cullen-DuPont, Women's Suffrage in America (Infobase Publishing, 2009) pp. 295-296
^Statement Showing, in Chronological Order, the Date of Opening and the Mileage of Each Section of Railway, Statement No. 19, p. 187, ref. no. 200954-13
^Patricia Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire: Vodka & Politics in Late Imperial Russia (Oxford University Press, 2002) p. 138
^Eileen Welsome, The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution and Revenge (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) p. 36
^"Ship Blows Up; 40 Die, 100 Hurt", New York Times, March 8, 1913; Robert C. Keith, Baltimore Harbor: A Pictorial History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) pp. 39-42
^"Uncle Sam Makes Test of Friedmann", Meriden (CT) Morning Record, March 10, 1913, p. 1
^Coleman, Charles (1966). The Trail of the Stanley Cup, Vol. 1, 1893–1926 inc. NHL. p. 125.
^Delia Gaze, Concise Dictionary of Women Artists (Taylor & Francis, 2001) p. 262
^"Tubman, Harriet", in Making It in America: A Sourcebook on Eminent Ethnic Americans, Elliott R. Barkan, ed. (ABC-CLIO, 2001) p. 383
^"New Altitude Record", New York Times, March 12, 1913; Tom D. Crouch, Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age (W. W. Norton & Company, 2003) p. 121
^"Triangle Shirtwaist Fire", in Work in America: An Encyclopedia of History, Policy and Society (ABC-CLIO, 2003) p. 567
^Carroll, Brian (2004). Australia's Governors General: From Hopetoun to Jeffery. Rosenberg Publishing. p. 64.
^Machen, Mary (2000). Pictorial History Canberra. Kingsclear Books. p. 42.
^"History". FC Dornbirn (in German). Retrieved 5 November 2019.
^Herzog, Lawrence (21 October 2010).
"Strathcona Public Library". Real Estate Weekly. 28 (42). Archived from
the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
^"Transthoracic Resection of the Esophagus", by Jerry L. Port, et al., in General Thoracic Surgery, Volume II (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2004) p. 1987
^James W. Douglass, Gandhi and the Unspeakable: His Final Experiment With Truth (Orbis Books, 2012) p. 18; Sean Chabot, Transnational Roots of the Civil Rights Movement: African American Explorations of the Gandhian Repertoire (Lexington Books, 2011) p. 25
^"
Heryford Brothers Building", National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form, Statewide Inventory of Historic Sites and Buildings, Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, Salem, Oregon, 21 February 1980.
^W. Dale Nelson, Who Speaks for the President?: The White House Press Secretary from Cleveland to Clinton (Syracuse University Press, 2000) pp. 29-30
^Robert Dixon, Photography, Early Cinema and Colonial Modernity: Frank Hurley's Synchronized Lecture Entertainments (Anthem Press, 2011) p. 20
^Christopher Hailey: 'Franz Schreker: A cultural biography' (Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 55-57
^"History". Phoenix Centenary Blog. 11 March 2013. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
^"Historia" (in Spanish). Old Official Website. Archived from
the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2015.
^Michael Curtis, Three Against the Third Republic: Sorel, Barrès and Maurras (Transaction Publishers, 2010) p. 43
^Donald Crafton, Before Mickey: The Animated Film (University of Chicago Press, 1993) pp. 81-83
^William H. Garzke and Robert O. Dulin, Battleships: United States Battleships, 1935-1992 (Naval Institute Press, 1995) p. 293