April 1914

[April 1], 1914 (Wednesday)

• Burston Strike School — British schoolteachers Annie and Tom Higdon were dismissed from the Church of England village school in Burston, Norfolk, England following disputes with the local school managing body over the conditions of the school building. Upon the firing, 66 of 72 students at the school went on strike in support of the Higdons. In defiance of the education governing body, the teachers and students formed a strike school that eventually resulted in a new building by 1917.
• Line A of the Buenos Aires Underground was extended with the addition of stations Loria, Castro Barros, Río de Janeiro, Acoyte, and Caballito.
• The Inukai railroad opened in Ōita Prefecture, Japan, with stations Nakahanda, Takio, Ōita, Kōzaki, Miyanohira, Sakanoichi, Takajō, and Tsurusaki serving the line.
• The Carpenders Park railway station opened in London.
• The association football club Strasbourg Alsace received a lease for a home field in Strasbourg, Germany that eventually became the site to build the Stade de la Meinau.
• The association football club Ljungby was formed in Ljungby, Sweden.
• Died: Rube Waddell, American baseball player, pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns, inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

  [April 2], 1914 (Thursday)

• Pancho Villa telegraphed Venustiano Carranza to report his forces had retaken Torreón, Mexico after 11 days of fighting. Villa reported his forces sustained casualties of 2,000 killed or wounded, and estimated over 12,000 federal troops dead, wounded or captured. The capture of the city gave the Mexican rebel army near complete control of north central Mexico.
• Wes Kean, captain of the SS Newfoundland, spotted survivors of 132 sealers from his ship that had been trapped on ice floes off Newfoundland for three days during a blizzard. Using an improvised distress signal, Kean alerted nearby ship SS Bellaventure to assist, with crewman venturing onto the ice with blankets, food, and drink. In total, 77 men died on the ice, with only 69 bodies recovered; another survivor died later in the hospital from complications from exposure.
• The U.S. Navy gunboat Dolphin, entered Tampico harbor in Mexico and presented a 21-gun salute to the Mexican flag three times as tribute to the celebrated occupation of Puebla in 1867 during the Second French intervention in Mexico. It was the last peaceful diplomatic exchange between the United States Government and the Mexican government under Victoriano Huerta before relations dissolved during the Tampico Affair days later.
• Some 300 Pentecostal preachers and laymen from 20 U.S. states and several countries gathered for a general council in Hot Springs, Arkansas to discuss ways to protect and preserve the results of Pentecostal revivalism through cooperative fellowship.
• Twenty people were killed and another 50 injured when a train derailed near Tanjung Priok, Indonesia. A herd of buffalo crossed the track near a bridge crossing six miles outside the city, forcing the train off the rails.
• The Australian steamer SS Kate, a renowned tug in Sydney harbor, was wrecked after 30 years of service to Australia's shipping industry. The ferry Bellubera collided with the tug and cut it in half, with all boat crew rescued.
• The Irishwomen's Council, the Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation, was formed in Dublin as an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers involving members from the Daughters of Ireland nationalist organization.
• Construction began on the Connaught Tunnel in the Selkirk Mountains under Rogers Pass on the Canadian Pacific Railway main line between Calgary and Revelstoke, British Columbia.
• The Sant'Elena Church in Rome opened for worship.
• Born:
• * Alec Guinness, British actor, best known for his collaborations with David Lean including the films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, and as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, recipient for Academy Award for Best Actor in The Bridge on the River Kwai; as Alec Guinness de Cuffe, in London, England
• * Hans Wegner, Danish furniture designer, one of the developers of Organic Functionality in furniture; in Tønder, German Empire
• * Edwin Alonzo Boyd, Canadian bank robber, leader of the Boyd Gang; in Toronto, Canada
• Died: Paul Heyse, German writer, recipient of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Literature

  [April 3], 1914 (Friday)

• The Federal University of Alfenas was established in Alfenas, Brazil as a school for dentistry and pharmacy. The school expanded into other science and medical programs and became a federal university in 2005.
• Born: Kay Stammers, British tennis player, winner of the women's doubles at the French Open in 1935 and Wimbledon women's doubles in 1935 and 1936; as Katherine Stammers, in St Albans, England

  [April 4], 1914 (Saturday)

• Hundreds of anxious spectators gathered in St. John's, Newfoundland harbor to meet the SS Bellaventure as it arrived with the frozen bodies of 69 sealers who died while caught in a blizzard on ice floes two days earlier. Another 63 survivors disembarked with injuries from frostbite or exposure to cold.
• 'Komagata Maru incident – Merchant fisherman Baba Gurdit Singh chartered the Japanese vessel Komagata Maru to pick up 165 passengers in Hong Kong on the first leg of the voyage to Vancouver.
• Canadian Arctic Expedition — Captain Robert Bartlett of the shipwreck Karluk and his Inuk guide Kataktovik reached the Siberian coast after weeks on the Arctic ice searching for other members of the polar expedition that had left Wrangel Island where the main party were camped. The two followed a sledge track to a Chukchi village where they were given food and shelter for a night.
• Scotland beat England 3–1 in the final association football game of the British Home Championship in Glasgow, but under the aggregate point system Ireland was the champion, the first time in the championship's history. The start of World War I would put the annual championship on hold for six years.
• Edgar Rice Burroughs published his fantasy serial novel At the Earth's Core in four parts through All-Story Weekly. The hardcover would be published in 1922.
• Born:
• * Sam Manekshaw, Indian military officer, field marshal for the Indian Army; in Amritsar, British India
• * Marguerite Duras, French writer and film director, author of The Sea Wall and Hiroshima mon amour; as Marguerite Donnadieu, in Gia Định, French Indochina
• * Richard Coogan, American actor, best known for the title role in the film serial Captain Video and His Video Rangers from 1949 to 1950; in Short Hills, New Jersey, United States
• * David Goodall, British-Australian biologist, editor of the Ecosystems of the World book series; in Edmonton, London, England
• Died:''' Friedrich Weyerhäuser, German-American business leader, founder of Weyerhaeuser, the world's largest private owner of timberlands

  [April 5], 1914 (Sunday)

• A commission set up by Venustiano Carranza formally implicated Pancho Villa's favorite officer Major Rudolfo Fierro for the death of British rancher William S. Benton while under custody by the Mexican revolutionary leader.
• A bomb exploded in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, causing major property damage. British suffragists were suspected to be behind the bombing but no firm evidence was obtained.
• Italian cyclist Ugo Agostoni won the 8th Milan–San Remo cycling race in Sanremo, Italy.
• The Hokusei railroad opened in Mie Prefecture, Japan, with stations Anoh, Ariyoshi, Hoshikawa, Nanawa, Nishibessho, Ōyamada, Rengeji, Sohara, and Umamichi serving the line.

  [April 6], 1914 (Monday)

• The Roman Catholic Diocese of Shantou was established in Guangzhou, China.
• A federation of four provincial councils in Catalonia, Spain, together formed the Commonwealth of Catalonia as a means to bolster the eastern Spanish region's political influence in Spanish Parliament and strengthen economic growth in the region.
• British General Charles W. H. Douglas replaced Field-Marshal Sir John French as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, serving in the command position during the first three months of World War I.
• An explosion in the forward fireroom of U.S. Navy destroyer killed three sailors.
• Radio inventor Hiram Percy Maxim of Hartford, Connecticut, founded the American Radio Relay League, the largest membership association of amateur radio enthusiasts in the United States.
• The second film adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop was released, starring Alma Taylor.
• Died:
• * Józef Chełmoński, Polish painter, member of the realist movement
• * Lillian M. N. Stevens, American activist, president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union from 1898 to 1914

  [April 7], 1914 (Tuesday)

• General elections in Sweden ended with the General Electoral League emerging as the largest party, winning 86 of the 230 seats in the Second Chamber. It allowed Hjalmar Hammarskjöld to retain his position as Prime Minister that he had held as interim in February.
• The last spike was driven on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway at Fort Fraser, British Columbia, 93 miles west of Prince George, completing the line between Winnipeg and Prince Rupert.
• Canadian Arctic Expedition — Karluk Captain Robert Bartlett and his Inuk guide Kataktovik set off for East Cape, located on the Bering Sea coast, where the polar explorer hoped to find passage back to Alaska to arrange a rescue mission for the remaining main party camped on Wrangel Island. The journey was hampered by hurricane-force winds and extreme cold, but a network of Chukchi villages along the Siberian coastline allowed Bartlett to trade for provisions.
• Al McCoy defeated George Chip with a surprise first-round knockout in Brooklyn, New York City, to take the World Middleweight Championship, holding onto the title until 1917.
• Born: Arthur Hezlet, South African-British naval officer, youngest officer to achieve rank of captain and rank of admiral in the Royal Navy, recipient of the Order of the British Empire, Order of the Bath, Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Service Cross, and Legion of Merit; in Pretoria, South Africa
• Died: Ayub Khan, Emir of Afghanistan from 1879 to 1880, leader of the Afghans in the Second Anglo-Afghan War ; Charlie Ganzel, American baseball player, catcher for the Detroit Wolverines and Boston Beaneaters