The anti-government rebellion in southern China was brought to an end, when all six rebellious provinces surrendered to the Beiyang Army, led by General
Zhang Xun, retook
Nanjing.[1]
French aviator
Adolphe Pégoud demonstrated that he could fly an airplane upside-down on a sustained flight, traveling for 400 metres (1,300 ft). He was using a specially constructed Bleriot monoplane, and after reaching 3,000 feet (910 m), put the plane in a quarter-loop and kept it in the upside down position.[2] Pégoud, who would fly a full vertical loop on September 21, also did a "vertical-S" trick, which was reported in the press as having "looped the loop".[3][4]
Lucy Maud Montgomery published her novel The Golden Road, one of the few not involving her famous character
Anne Shirley. The story was inspired by childhood stories shared by her great aunt Mary Lawson, who Montgomery dedicated in her book.[8]
Died:Thomas Sperry, American entrepreneur, co-founder of
S&H Green Stamps (b.
1864);
Bill Miner, American outlaw, nicknamed "The Gentleman Robber", reputed for coming up with the phrase "Hands up!" (b.
1847)
A
hurricane struck
North Carolina with 85 mph (140 km/h) winds and a minimum barometric pressure of 976 mbar (28.8 inHg), causing five deaths and $4–5 million in property and crop damages.[6][15][16]
Severnaya Zemlya, a group of islands located above the
Arctic Circle, was discovered on a hydrographic expedition by the crew of the Russian icebreakers
Taimyr and
Vaigach, and was named '
Emperor Nicholas II Land' by the explorers, in honor of the
Tsar.[17] The
archipelago would prove to be the last major group of previously unknown lands on Earth to be discovered.[18]
Ernst August Wagner, a schoolteacher in the German village of
Mühlhausen,
Württemberg,
Germany, murdered his wife, four local children and eleven other adults, after setting fires in different locations.[21]
A fire in the city of
Hot Springs, Arkansas, destroyed 55 city blocks of property, causing damages of six million dollars.[23] The blaze started "in a negro dwelling on Church Street", then spread southeast, destroying the county courthouse, the city high school, four hotels, the Iron Mountain railroad station and "a hundred or more business buildings and many residences".[24]
Sergei Prokofiev's
Piano Concerto No. 2 was performed for the first time. The manuscript would be destroyed by fire in 1917 during the
Russian Revolution, and Prokofiev would reconstruct it, introducing a new version on May 8, 1924.[26]
U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson and his physician, Dr. Carey Grayson, were almost "run over by a streetcar" as they were walking back to the White House at night. "A policeman, seeing the possibility of an accident to the President, jumped in front of the car with both hands raised", and the car stopped less than 10 feet (3.0 m) from the President and physician.[32]
Outraged over the killing of Japanese nationals at
Nanjing,
China, 15,000 people protested outside the Foreign Ministry in
Tokyo and demanded military action against
China.
Japan demanded an apology and payment of damages, a request which would initially be ignored.[33]
The poem "
September 1913", by
W. B. Yeats, was first published, in the Irish Times, with the title "Romance in Ireland". The 32 line poem referred to late Irish separatist
John O'Leary, and contained the refrain, "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave."[36]
In the skies near
Kiev, Russian aviator
Pyotr Nesterov became the first person to execute a
loop. Nesterov, a pilot for the
Imperial Russian Air Service took a
Nieuport airplane aloft, and when he reached an altitude of 3,300 feet (1,000 m), shut off the engine, then took the plane on a vertical dive, restarted it at 2,000 feet (610 m), and "kept on pulling until the horizon slid up over his head", then came back to right-side up.[38] When he landed, he was arrested and spent ten days in jail for negligent use of government property.
Adolphe Pégoud of
France would make a loop nine days later and get publicity first.[39]
Chemical manufacturer
BASF started the world's first plant for the production of fertilizer based on the
Haber–Bosch process in
Ludwigshafen,
Germany, feeding today about a third of the world's population.[41]
The
United States Department of Agriculture reported an "unprecedented" yield in wheat production for 1913. "Never before in the history of the country has there been such a bountiful wheat harvest as has been gathered this year", The New York Times noted.[42]
Robert Owen Jr. was awarded U.S. patent number 1,072,980 for his invention of the
ratchet wrench, applied for on February 3.[43]
The Olivebridge Dam was completed on the
Hudson River, creating the
Ashokan Reservoir, to provide 250,000,000 gallons of water a day to New York City. In 1924, the
Gilboa Dam would open, providing twice as much water to the city.[44]
September 10 and 29, 1913: NYC Mayor Gaynor, Engine inventor Diesel, die at sea
William Jay Gaynor, the
Mayor of New York City since 1910, died suddenly while on the ocean liner
RMS Baltic, as it was nearing
Liverpool. Gaynor, who had announced his candidacy for re-election only one week earlier, had been in poor health since being wounded in an assassination attempt on
August 9, 1910, and was succeeded by
Ardolph L. Kline, who presided over the
Board of Aldermen.[46] Gaynor's body would lie in state at the Town Hall of
Liverpool, after which the body was transported back to the U.S. On September 21, his funeral would be held at the City Hall in New York.[47]
The first edition of The Frostburg Spirit weekly newspaper was published in
Frostburg, Maryland, but its time was short-lived and paper published its last edition January 1915.[53]
The proposed route for the
Lincoln Highway, which would become the first transcontinental paved highway in the
United States, was announced in newspapers across the country.[57]
Baseball pitcher
Larry Cheney of the
Chicago Cubs, set a Major League record that still stands, for most hits allowed in a shutout. Although the Cubs got only 11 hits, and the
New York Giants got 14, the Cubs still won 7–0.[58][59]
The first successful
four-wheel drive vehicle, the
Jeffery Quad, was delivered to the United States Army by the
Thomas B. Jeffery Company. With modifications, the Quad would become the transport vehicle of choice for the armies of France, Russia and the United States during World War One, and a civilian version would become popular following its debut in April 1914.[63]
In
Libya, Arab tribesmen fought with the occupying Italian Army, killing 33 officers and soldiers, including their leader, General
Alfonso Torelli. Another 73 Italians were wounded, and the Libyan losses were unknown.[64]
Mexican terrorists dynamited a railroad train, sixty miles south of
Saltillo,
Mexico, killing 40 soldiers and 10 second-class passengers. Reportedly, the rebels had set on the track two land mines, which were "set off by electricity".[68]
With the Canadian exploration ship
HMCS Karluk trapped in the
Arctic ice, expedition leader
Vilhjalmur Stefansson and a few shipmates set off on what was to be a ten-day hunt for food for the ship. Stefansson would return to find that the ice pack, and the trapped ship, had floated away.[72]
The foundation stone for the
Goetheanum, center for the
anthroposophical movement founded by
Rudolf Steiner, was set at the building site in the Switzerland town of
Dornach, though construction would not be finished for another nine years.[73]
Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old American amateur, won the
U.S. Open in a three-way playoff against five time British Open winner
Harry Vardon and defending British Open champion
Ted Ray. At the end of the regulation four rounds, all three had scores of 304 on 72 holes. In a major
upset, the relatively unknown Ouimet scored a 72, compared to Vardon's 77 and Ray's 78 in the playoff.[74][75]
Twelve days after Pyotr Nesterov's September 9 loop at
Kiev,
Adolphe Pégoud duplicated the feat. Because Nesterov's "misuse" of an airplane was not mentioned in the Russian press, Pégoud was reported to have been the first person to perform the aerial maneuver of flying an airplane in a vertical circle and inspired pilots worldwide to try similar stunts.[77]
The
Philadelphia Athletics clinched the American League baseball title, after beating the
Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader, 4-0 and 1–0, with a 12-game lead over the
Cleveland Naps and only 11 games left in the season.[78]
Roland Garros made an unprecedented airplane trip across the sea, crossing the Mediterranean from
Fréjus,
France, and landing in
Bizerte,
Tunisia, on a 558-mile (898 km) flight of slightly less than eight hours.[81] Garros took off at 5:27 in the morning and, though a cylinder head on the airplane motor broke in mid-flight, avoided landing on the islands of
Corsica or
Sardinia. With "barely 5 liters of fuel left— enough for only a few more minutes of flying", Garros sighted the French naval base at
Tunisia and landed at the parade ground.[82]
Albanian nationalist
Isa Boletini led a revolt in Serbian-occupied
Macedonia, with 6,000 fighters taking control of the western Macedonian towns of
Debar and
Ohrid, which would revert to Yugoslavian control after
World War I.[83]
At
Melun, French airman Albert Moreau demonstrated the first airplane with an
automatic pilot, winning a prize for the design for stability control. Moreau, taking a brave passenger with him, "flew 17 miles without touching the controls of the machine". "Throughout the flight", the New York Times wrote, "even when the machine banked over and rolled so much that the passenger asked him to take the controls, Moreau sat calmly, with his arms folded, and the machine always righted itself."[84]
A delegation of 500 Protestants in northern Ireland met in
Belfast to organize resistance to the proposed
Home Rule law, and pledged to resist any decrees made by an Irish Parliament.[85]
Baltimore,
Maryland became the first U.S. city to have an ordinance "requiring the use of separate
blocks for residences by white and colored people respectively", with a law going into effect creating separate zones for Whites and African-Americans to live.[89] Three previous attempts to segregate Baltimore, with the original plan being to force people to leave their homes, had been struck down as unconstitutional by the Maryland appellate courts; the 1913 ordinance would be deemed acceptable because it only applied to people moving to an area after the law took effect.[90] Similar ordinances to prohibit people from different races from living on the same city block, would soon be enacted in other Southern cities, including
Atlanta,
St. Louis and
Birmingham, Alabama.[91]
Died:Seaborn Roddenbery, American politician, U.S. Representative for
Georgia, campaigned for a constitutional amendment to outlaw interracial marriages throughout the
United States (b.
1870)
A tugboat became the first vessel to pass through the
locks of the Panama Canal, sailing from the
Atlantic Ocean and arriving at the
Gatun Lake after being raised to the lake's level through three chambers.[95] The old tugboat was, appropriately, named the Gatún.[96]
Japan sent a three-day ultimatum to
China, demanding reparations and an apology for the deaths of more Japanese citizens in
Nanjing and for "insults to the flag".[97] General Chang Hsun, commander of government troops at
Nanjing, apologized two days later, appearing before the Japanese consulate "accompanied by a bodyguard of 800 men".[98]
Died:H. G. Pélissier, British comedian, member of the comedic troupe Pelissier's Follies (b.
1874)
Philadelphia became the first American city to implement the use of
chlorine for
disenfection of its drinking water, a process that would become the standard in the United States by 1941.[99]
Baseball's
New York Giants captured the
National League pennant, despite losing 4–0 to the
Brooklyn Dodgers, because the second place
Philadelphia Phillies lost as well. As The New York Times put it, "The Phillies may now win all of their remaining games and the Giants lose all of theirs and the New Yorks will be victors by one full game. Hurrah!" [102]
Maurice Prévost of France set a new speed record, traveling 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) in an airplane at the International Aeroplane Cup race at
Reims.[106]
Thomas Mott Osborne, the Chairman of New York's State Commission on Prison Reform, began his personal investigation of prison conditions by spending a week as prisoner "Tom Brown" at the
Auburn State Prison. At a chapel service the day before, Osborne and Auburn's warden informed the prisoners of what he was doing but did not let the guards know. After witnessing conditions from the inside for a week, Osborne recommended immediate reforms.[108]
Rudolf Diesel, the German engineer who invented the
diesel engine, was last seen alive after retiring to his cabin on the passenger steamer
SS Dresden. He was found missing the next day; his cabin bed had not been slept in and his hat and neatly folded overcoat were discovered beneath the afterdeck railing. His body would be found in the ocean on October 10.[109]
The
United Kingdom withdrew its support for the five-nation banking loan to
China for railroad construction.[110]
All 54 passengers and crew of the British freighter Templemore were rescued after a wireless distress call was sent from the ship, sinking in the mid-Atlantic. The ship Arcadia received the signal and carried out the evacuation.[111]
^"14 Dead in English Train", New York Times, September 3, 1913; Benedict Le Vay, Bradt Britain from the Rails: A Window Gazer's Guide (Bradt Travel Guides, 2009) pp. 89-90
^Christopher W. Landsea; et al. (December 2012).
Documentation of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Changes in HURDAT. Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (Report). Miami, Florida: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved July 23, 2014.
^Vladimir A. Volkov, Polar Seas Oceanography: An Integrated Case Study of the Kara Sea (Springer, 2002) pp. 4-5
^"Severnaya Zemlya: The Last Major Discovery", by William Barr, The Geographical Journal (March, 1975), pp. 59-71
^"Taft Elected Head of Bar Association", New York Times, September 4, 1913, p. 8
^Burt, R. A. (2012). British Battleships of World War One. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.
ISBN978-1-59114-053-5, p. 256
^Thomas L. Karnes, Asphalt and Politics: A History of the American Highway System (McFarland, 2009); The Lincoln Highway: Main Street Across America (University of Iowa Press, 1999) p. xxv
^"Cheney, Laurance Russell 'Larry'", in Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball, Volume 1, by David L. Porter (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000) p. 253
^"Giants Drop First Game to the Cubs; McGraw's Men Make Fourteen Hits, but Fail to Score a Run and Lose, 7–0", New York Times, September 15, 1913, p. 10
^Rodolfo Rodrigues (2009). Escudos dos Times do Mundo Inteiro. Panda Books. p. 35.
^Charles Hyde, Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors (Wayne State University Press, 2009) pp. 17-18
^"Italian General Slain", New York Times, September 18, 1913
^"Jews in War on Ridicule", New York Times, September 18, 1913
^Sean Dennis Cashman, America Ascendant: From Theodore Roosevelt to FDR in the Century of American Power, 1901–1945 (New York University Press, 1998) p. 44
^"Record of Current Events" October 1913, pp. 422-425
^Charles I. Bevans, ed., Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776–1949, Volume 2 (U.S. Department of State, 1968) p. 387
^Richard Diubaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999) p. 82
^Rudolf Grosse, The Christmas Foundation: Beginning of a New Cosmic Age (SteinerBooks, 1984) p. 30
^"The Greenbrier". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from
the original on December 31, 2007. Retrieved October 13, 2007.
^"First Boat Raised in Panama Locks", New York Times, September 27, 1913
^Lesley A. Dutemple, The Panama Canal: Great Building Feats Series (Twenty-First Century Books, 2002) p. 79
^"Japan Warns China", New York Times, September 28, 1913
^"Gen. Hsun Apologizes", New York Times, September 29, 1913
^Frank Chapelle, Wellsprings: A Natural History Of Bottled Spring Waters (Rutgers University Press, 2005) p. 3
^"Record of Current Events" November 1913, pp. 551-554