August 1912

August 1, 1912 (Thursday)

• The Yuaikai, later called the Nihon Rōdō Sodomei or Japan Federation of Labor, was founded by Bunji Suzuki. At its peak, it would have 100,000 workers in its ranks.
• The Jungfrau Railway was inaugurated with the opening of underground Jungfraujoch railway station in Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.
• A rail line of in length opened between Malenge and Franklin, Cape, South Africa.
• A train accident at Rio de Janeiro killed 10 people and injured 50.
• Alfred A. Cunningham of the United States Marine Corps made his first solo flight, after 2 hours and 40 minutes of instruction, of an airplane, becoming the first U.S. Marine pilot.
• The Progressive Party announced that it would not allow African Americans from Southern states to be delegates at its organizing convention in Chicago, with the approval of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt emphasized that from Northern states, "there would be a number of negro delegates; more, in fact, than ever before figured in a National convention."
• Golfer John McDermott successfully defended his championship title at the 18th U.S. Open, beating runner-up Tom McNamara by two strokes.
• Born:
• * David Brand, Australian politician, 19th Premier of Western Australia; in Dongara, Western Australia
• * Frank K. Edmondson, American astronomer, established the Indiana Asteroid Program; in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,

  August 2, 1912 (Friday)

• Chinese soldiers routed Tibetans at Lhasa.
• The throwing of a bomb in the Ottoman Empire city of Kotschana led to a riot by the residents there, with 140 people killed by Turkish soldiers who suppressed it. Eleven people died when a bomb went off in the town square, followed a few minutes later by another fatal attack.
• Competition for new aircraft models that met the for the requirements of the newly formed Royal Flying Corps began on the Salisbury Plain near Larkhill, England. Samuel Franklin Cody won the competition, which attracted 32 entrants, with his Cody V biplane.
• The United States Senate voted 51–4 to extend the Monroe Doctrine to protect the Americas from foreign corporations.
• The gunboat USS Tacoma was ordered to proceed from Guantánamo to Bluefields, Nicaragua.

  August 3, 1912 (Saturday)

• An attack by soldiers of Montenegro against a Turkish border post killed 30 Turks and 12 Montenegrins.
• "Baby Seals Blues" was published in the form of sheet music; according to historian Rudi Blesh, the song by Arthur "Baby" Seales was the first blues song to use the word "blues" in its title, with "Dallas Blues" appearing the next month on September 28, while other sources describe "Dallas Blues" as having been introduced in March 1912.

  August 4, 1912 (Sunday)

• Turkey's Senate voted to give the sultan power to dissolve parliament, after which it was dissolved with a vote of no confidence.
• Mount Etna erupted in Sicily.
• Nine members of an English boy scout troop, between the ages of 11 and 14, drowned along with their scoutmaster, when their boat capsized in the sea near the Isle of Sheppey, off the coast of the county of Kent. Britain mourned the deaths of the scouts as a national tragedy, and then First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had the destroyer HMS Fervent bring their flag-draped coffins to London for the funeral.
• One hundred U.S. Marines and Navy men on the USS Annapolis landed at Corinto, Nicaragua, to protect American interests, while the USS Tacoma arrived at Bluefields on Tuesday. The forces assisted in the defeat, on September 24, of the rebel forces led by General Luis Mena.
• Born:
• * Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov, Soviet mathematician, known for his theorems including the Alexandrov's uniqueness theorem; in Volyn, Ryazan Governorate, Russian Empire
• * Virgilio Piñera, Cuban writer, known for his short story collection Cold Tales and novels such as René's Flesh and Pressures and Diamonds; in Cárdenas
• * Jandhyala Papayya Sastry, Indian poet, known for works including Pushpa Vilapam and Kunthi Kumari; in Kommuru village, Guntur district, Madras Presidency, British India
• * Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat, credited for rescuing tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during The Holocaust, before being taken captive by the Soviets during the Siege of Budapest; in Lidingö Municipality

  August 5, 1912 (Monday)

• In Chicago, the Progressive Party, nicknamed the "Bull Moose" Party to rival the Republican elephant and Democrat donkey, called itself to order as its founding convention opened at noon.
• Born: Abbé Pierre, French clergy, founder of Emmaus, recipient of the Legion of Honour; in Lyon, Rhone departement

  August 6, 1912 (Tuesday)

• U.S. President William Howard Taft asked the United States Congress to fix maximum tolls for the Panama Canal.
• Theodore Roosevelt announced his 1912 platform at the Chicago convention of the Progressive Party.
• The Manistee Watch Company sold off all of its property, assets and machinery at auction following its closure in Manistee, Michigan. It had produced around 60,000 pocket watches in its three-year existence.

  August 7, 1912 (Wednesday)

• Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev first performed his Piano Concerto No. 1 for the public in Moscow.
• Physicist Victor Francis Hess, of the Institute for Radium Research in Vienna, became the first person to discover cosmic rays. Hoping to build upon the research of Theodor Wulf, who had found that radioactive emission from Earth decreased measurably at higher altitudes, Hess sought to measure the decrease by venturing to greater heights in a balloon. On his seventh flight, he lifted off with a pilot and a meteorologist from Aussig. To his surprise, the electroscopes on his balloon began measuring an increase in radiation at, after a steady decrease during the ascent, and at the amount doubled, showing that penetrating radiation was entering the atmosphere from a source other than the Sun. Hess called the rays Höhenstrahlung, or radiation from above.
• Woodrow Wilson accepted the Democratic nomination for president, which had offered the previous month at the convention in Baltimore. The New Jersey Governor spoke at his home in Sea Girt, New Jersey, before a group of other Democrats who were state governors, and a crowd of 6,000 supporters. New technology was used to capture the moment on phonographic records and films, so that American voters could see and hear the candidate.
• The Progressive Party nominated Theodore Roosevelt as its candidate for President of the United States and California Governor Hiram Johnson for vice-president.
• Three employees of the Union American Cigar Company at 28th and Smallman in Pittsburgh were killed, and 12 seriously injured, after a 24-ton water tank fell through the roof and the sixth floor, then into the fifth.
• Born: Võ Chí Công, Vietnamese state leader, third President of Vietnam; in Quảng Nam Province, French Indochina
• Died: François-Alphonse Forel, 71, Swiss biologist, credited for the creation of limnology, the study of the ecology of freshwater lakes

  August 8, 1912 (Thursday)

• A mine explosion in the village of Gerthe, in the Westphalia region of Germany, killed 103 men at the Lothringen Coal Company.
• Friederich Krupp AG, the Krupp family armaments company, celebrated its centennial with the Kaiser giving the address. Accompanying the Kaiser to the ceremony at Essen were the Chancellor and many of his cabinet, and Prince Henry.
• Pope Pius X issued an encyclical about abuse of the indigenous tribes in the Putumayo region of Peru.
• Cincinnatus Leconte, President of Haiti, was killed in an accidental explosion at the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince. The President shared his residence with an arsenal of gunpowder in the basement, and the first blast occurred after an early morning fire had started. The legislature named General Tancrède Auguste as the new president that afternoon.
• Born: B. V. Raman, Indian astrologer, promoter of modern Hindu astrology; in Bangalore, Mysore princely state, British India
• Died: Ross Winn, 40, American publisher, known for his work with the anarchist magazine ''Free Society''

  August 9, 1912 (Friday)

• An earthquake in Turkey near the Dardanelles killed 3,000 people, and injured another 1,575. There was a total destruction of the towns of Şarköy and Çorlu, and 300 dead in Mürefte and 80 in Ganos-Hora. Çorlu was consumed by fire, reportedly by a lantern being toppled by the quake. In total, 5,540 homes were destroyed.
• Kosovo Albanian rebel leaders presented a list of 14 demands to one of the viziers of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish leadership would agree to most of the proposals.
• The Panama Canal bill passed the United States Senate 47–15.
• Born:
• * Anne Brown, American opera singer, first singer to portray "Bess" in the opera Porgy and Bess; in Baltimore, Maryland
• * Alex Stevenson, Irish association football player, forward for Everton from 1934 to 1949, and the Republic of Ireland national football team from 1932 to 1948; in Dublin
• Died: Candida Maria of Jesus, 67, Spanish clergy, founder of the Hijas de Jesús, canonized at a saint in 2010

  August 10, 1912 (Saturday)

• The Republic of China's provisional government enacted its election law, creating a lower house of parliament, and limiting voting rights to male citizens who were at least 21, had two years residency in their district, and met property and educational restrictions.
• Frank McClean flew a Short Brothers floatplane up the River Thames between the upper and lower parts of Tower Bridge and underneath London Bridge.
• English author Adeline Virginia Stephen married author Leonard Woolf to become Virginia Woolf.
• The Sharon Giants minor baseball team moved to Bridgeport, Ohio to finish off its final season with Ohio–Pennsylvania League, which broke apart afterward.
• Born:
• * Jorge Amado, Brazilian writer, author of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands; in Itabuna, Bahia state, Brazil]
• * Romain Maes, Belgian cyclist, winner of the 1935 Tour de France; in Zerkegem
• Died: Paul Wallot, German architect, designer for the Reichstag building in Berlin