August 1910

August 1, 1910 (Monday)

• An aviator, known only as Monsieur Baeder, became the first pilot to carry three passengers in an airplane. The total weight lifted into the air was. Baeder was killed nine days later, one of 53 aviators killed in the worst year for flying to that time.
• Thomas Wood, a 15-year-old boy in Sunderland, England, became the second person in history to be killed on the ground by an airplane. French aviator Mathilde Franck clipped a flagpole and her plane struck the crowd watching at the Boldon racecourse. On October 18, 1909, a woman in France had become the first such fatality.

  August 2, 1910 (Tuesday)

• Oklahoma's state constitution was amended to require literacy tests for all persons except descendants of persons who were free prior to the end of slavery, disenfranchising 30,000 African Americans.

  August 3, 1910 (Wednesday)

• The last of the United Kingdom's "Anti-Catholic Oaths", the 1672 Declaration of Attestation, was repealed by Act of Parliament and Royal Assent. The House of Commons had approved the legislation on July 27 by a vote of 410 to 84 and the House of Lords unanimously followed suit on August 2.

  August 4, 1910 (Thursday)

• Alexander Guchkov, Russia's highest-ranking legislator as President of the Duma, began a four-week jail sentence after being convicted of fighting a duel with opposition leader Count Uvaroff on November 30. He was released after five days.
• Born:
• *Anita Page, American silent film actress, as Anita Pomares in Flushing, Queens, New York City
• *William Schuman, American classical music and opera composer, known for the 1950 Martha Graham ballet Judith, the libretto for The Mighty Casey ; in Manhattan, New York City

  August 5, 1910 (Friday)

• Flooding in and around Tokyo killed more than 1,000 people and left 100,000 homeless.
• Prime Minister of Canada Wilfrid Laurier was injured when the train he was on crashed head-on with a freight train. A crewmember was killed, while Laurier's injuries were described as minor.

  August 6, 1910 (Saturday)

• , first of the "super-Dreadnought" class of Royal Navy battlecruisers, was launched at Devonport. The largest warship to date, the Lion was 700 feet long.
• Brazil announced its intention to build the largest and most powerful battleship in history, the Rio de Janeiro. However, a downturn in the economy required Brazil to scale back its plans, and a smaller version of the ship was sold by Brazil to Turkey.
• Outside a café in Leiden, Netherlands, Gustav Mahler met Sigmund Freud, and they conversed for four hours, before parting forever. Their encounter would be dramatized a century later in the German documentary film ''Mahler on the Couch''

  August 7, 1910 (Sunday)

• The government issued an ultimatum to the Mujahidin in Tehran to turn in their weapons on August 4, 1910, and government troops attacked the residence of Sattar Khan in Tehran on August 7, 1910. Government troops attacked the Mujahidin in Atabak Park in Tehran on August 7, 1910, resulting in the deaths of some 30 Mujahidin.
• Residents of Council Bluffs, Iowa, were shaken by the sight and impact of a large meteor that impacted near the town during the afternoon.
• Born: Lucien Hervé, Hungarian-born French photographer, as László Elkán, in Hódmezővásárhely

  August 8, 1910 (Monday)

• Pope Pius X issued the papal edict Quam singulari, which specified that children could receive their First Communion at age 7.
• A project begun in 1903, to raise the city of Galveston, Texas, above sea level, was completed.
• A railroad collision at Ignacio, California, killed 13 people.
• The city of Bethany, Oklahoma, was incorporated.

  August 9, 1910 (Tuesday)

• William Jay Gaynor, the Mayor of New York City, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt. Mayor Gaynor was preparing to board a liner for a European vacation, when a recently fired city employee shot him.
• The first commercially successful, automatic, washing machine, invented by Alva J. Fisher, was granted U.S. Patent No. 966,677. The "Thor" machine was marketed by the Hurley Machine Company.
• The Sungari agreement, between Russia and China, was signed at Beijing, with China giving up claims for free trade on the border between the two empires.
• Explorer Roald Amundsen departed Norway on what was announced as his third expedition to the North Pole. As it turned out, Amundsen and his crew were planning to race against Britain's Robert F. Scott to reach the South Pole.
• Died: Huo Yuanjia, 43, Chinese martial artist, subject of Jet Li film Fearless, died of hemoptysis

  August 10, 1910 (Wednesday)

• The first oil well in Malaysia began yielding oil. Located at Miri, on Sarawak, Shell Oil Well No. 1 produced 600,000 barrels of oil from 1910 to 1962.
• Fifteen separate persons were indicted for murder by a jury in Newark, Ohio, as the result of a lynching on July 8.
• Aviator Walter Brookins crashed into a crowd while flying in an airshow at Asbury Park, New Jersey, injuring eight people.
• Born: Aldo Buzzi, Italian author architect screenwriter, in Como

  August 11, 1910 (Thursday)

• At the Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires, the participating nations voted to create a Pan-American Union, to be led by the U.S. Secretary of State.
• The boundaries between the Belgian Congo, and German East Africa were established by a Belgian-German treaty.
• Robert Fox of Putney, England, was granted a U.K. Patent for "means of producing cinematograph effects ... by means of the motion of a railway carriage". Though never used, the system called for images on the side of underground subway tunnels, to be viewed in succession like frames on a film. A later commentator noted "Not quite flat-screen video panels, but a bold effort that had to wait almost a century to be realised."
• A military air base was established near Saint-Dizier, France.

  August 12, 1910 (Friday)

• One of the most popular songs of the early 20th century, "Down by the Old Mill Stream", by Tell Taylor, was introduced by the Forster Music company, with 4,000,000 copies of the sheet music for the piano being sold. At the time, relatively few Americans purchased phonographs or recordings, and most new music was taken home to be played on the family piano.
• Uhlan became the first racehorse to run a mile in less than two minutes, running at 1 minute, seconds at the North Randall racetrack near Cleveland. The prior world record had been 2:01.
• Born:
• *Yusof bin Ishak, the first President of Singapore, from 1965 to 1970, in Perak state
• *Jane Wyatt, American film and TV actress best known for Father Knows Best; in Mahwah, New Jersey

  August 13, 1910 (Saturday)

• What George F. Will has called the "baseball game of perfect symmetry" took place as the Brooklyn Superbas and the Pittsburgh Pirates played an 8–8 tie before the game was called for darkness. Each team had 8 runs, 13 hits, 2 errors, 12 assists, 5 strikeouts, 3 walks, one base hit, and one passed ball.
• Died: Florence Nightingale, 90, English founder of professional nursing

  August 14, 1910 (Sunday)

• A collision between an excursion train and a freight train, at Saujon, France, killed 37 people and injured 58 others.
• A fire at the World's Fair in Brussels destroyed the Belgian, English and French exhibition buildings and caused ten million dollars damage.
• Vaika Birds' Reserve was founded by Estonia on the Vilsandi.
• Dutch Zwilling, the last Major League Baseball player, made his major league debut, for the Chicago White Sox.
• Born: Pierre Schaeffer, French composer, in Nancy
• Died:
• *Mayor William F. Robinson of El Paso, Texas, was killed, along with a fireman, when a wall at Calisher's Department Store collapsed during the blaze.

  August 15, 1910 (Monday)

• The National Association of Rotary Clubs was created at a convention in Chicago. At that time, there were 15 Rotary Clubs. A century later there would be more than 32,000 worldwide.
• Fifteen college registrars and nine college accountants gathered at Detroit and founded the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers.

  August 16, 1910 (Tuesday)

• The Campbell Brothers Circus was traveling between towns on a train, when a passenger train crashed into it at Babcock, Wisconsin, at 8:30 in the morning. One man was killed, along with six camels, six ponies and two elephants. Another two elephants ran off into the woods before being recaptured. The event is commemorated by a at Babcock.
• Died: Pedro Montt Montt, the 15th President of Chile, died at the age of 64, a few hours after arriving in Bremen, Germany, on the liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. Elías Fernández Albano, who was sworn in to succeed Montt, died three weeks later on September 6.

  August 17, 1910 (Wednesday)

• Freiheit, a German-language anarchist newspaper which Johann Most had established on January 4, 1879, published its final issue. From 1882 until his death in 1906, Most published it weekly in the United States.
• George White made his Broadway debut as a vaudeville performer. Within nine years, he would become producer of his own star-studded Broadway revue, George White's Scandals, which would be the chief competitor against the Ziegfeld Follies during the 1920s and 1930s.

  August 18, 1910 (Thursday)

• Florists' Transworld Delivery, known at flower shops as FTD, was founded by fifteen flower shop owners in various cities, who inaugurated the first system of "wiring flowers", whereby a person in one city could arrange with one florist for the delivery of flowers, long distance, by another florist. In 1965, international deliveries began.
• Rickwood Field, the oldest professional baseball park in America, opened with 10,000 fans watching the minor league Birmingham Barons play a Southern League game. The park also hosted the Negro league Birmingham Black Barons between 1923 and 1960, while the SL Barons played there until 1987. The park continues to host one Barons' game each season, with the players wearing "throwback" uniforms.
• The 80th birthday of His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, was celebrated throughout Austria-Hungary.