August 1911

August 1, 1911 (Tuesday)

• Harriet Quimby became the first American woman to receive an airplane pilot's license, and only the second in the world. She was one of only 37 certified pilots in the world at that time.

  August 2, 1911 (Wednesday)

• President François C. Antoine Simon of Haiti fled from his palace at Port-au-Prince as rebels approached, and took refuge on the Haitian cruiser 17 Decembre. The next day, he and 43 relatives and associates departed on the Dutch steamer Prinz Nederlanden bound for Jamaica.
• Born:
• *Ann Dvorak, American stage and film actress; as Annabelle McKim in New York City.
• *Rusty Wescoatt, American character actor; on the island of Maui, in Hawaii Territory
• Died:
• *Arabella Mansfield, 65, the first female lawyer in the United States.
• *Bob Cole, 43, African-American composer and comedian, by suicide.
• *Ioryi Mucitano, 29, Aromanian revolutionary within the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in the Ottoman Empire and Apostol Petkov, 42, Bulgarian Macedonian revolutionary within IMRO. Both Mucitano and Petkov were poisoned along with Vasa Pufkata.

  August 3, 1911 (Thursday)

• The United States signed arbitration treaties with both the United Kingdom and France in separate ceremonies at the White House office of U.S. President William Taft. At 3:10 pm, British Ambassador James Bryce and U.S. Secretary of State Philander Knox signed the first pact. French Ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand and Knox signed the second treaty. Based on the concept of "unlimited arbitration" of disputes between these three great powers, the "Taft-Knox Treaties" were favored by the American public, but the U.S. Senate amended both agreements beyond recognition. Taft refused to renegotiate the terms with the other nations.
• Allvar Gullstrand first demonstrated the slit lamp. His invention's introduction has been described as "an occasion of tremendous significance to ophthalmology."
• Born: Manuel Esperon, Mexican composer and songwriter, in Mexico City.
• Died:
• *Edward Murphy Jr., former U.S. Senator from New York.

  August 4, 1911 (Friday)

• Japan's Admiral Count Tōgō Heihachirō, commander of the Japanese fleet during the Russo-Japanese War, was welcomed to New York City as a guest of the United States. After arriving the night before on the Lusitania at 11:40 pm, he transferred to two smaller boats and stayed at the Hotel Knickerbocker. Meeting Mayor William J. Gaynor later in the day, he departed on a train for Washington, D.C. that afternoon, where he was hosted at a state dinner by President Taft.

  August 5, 1911 (Saturday)

• Colombian and Peruvian troops fought a battle in Caquetá Department, with the Colombian forces being defeated and reportedly sustaining large losses.
• The sinking of an overcrowded passenger boat on the Nile River killed 100 people. Most of the victims were on their way to a festival in Desouk.
• Born: Robert Taylor, American film and TV actor known for the title role of the 1952 film Ivanhoe and as the star of The Detectives and as the second host of Death Valley Days; in Filley, Nebraska.

  August 6, 1911 (Sunday)

• General Cincinnatus Leconte was proclaimed as President of Haiti, rather than General Anténor Firmin, who had also led an attack on the capital, replacing President Simon. Leconte was formally elected on August 14.
• Born:
• *Lucille Ball, American comedian and television executive ; in Celoron, New York .

  August 7, 1911 (Monday)

• Leader of the Opposition Arthur Balfour's vote of censure on the government of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith failed to pass in the House of Commons, by a margin of 246 to 365. A similar measure in the House of Lords had passed 282-68.
• Born: Nicholas Ray ; in Galesville, Wisconsin.
• Died: Elizabeth Akers Allen, 78, American poet.

  August 8, 1911 (Tuesday)

• Pope Pius X lowered the age for First Communion in the Roman Catholic Church to seven years old, with the papal decree quam singulari.
• The first American newsreel, Pathé's Weekly, was shown in North American cinemas. Promotional material described it as "issued every Tuesday, made up of short scenes of great international events of universal interest from all over the world."
• The United States Senate approved statehood for Arizona and New Mexico, 53 to 18. Earlier a proposed amendment by Senator Nelson of Minnesota, proposing to condition Arizona statehood on removing judicial recall from its constitution, failed 26 to 43.
• Died: William P. Frye, 79, President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate since 1896; U.S. Representative from Maine 1871 to 1881) and U.S. Senator for Maine since 1911.

  August 9, 1911 (Wednesday)

• The sinking of the French ship Emir killed 86 people. The Emir collided with the British ship Silverton while passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, five miles east of Tarifa, after sailing from Gibraltar to Tangier. Only 15 people survived from the Emir. The Silverton had been on its way from Newport to Taranto.
• The Australian ship Fifeshire wrecked at Cape Guardafui in the Gulf of Aden, killing 24 of the 99 people on board.
• A record for the hottest day in the history of the United Kingdom was set when a temperature of 36.7 °C was measured at Raunds, Northamptonshire, England. The record was broken on August 3, 1990 and again on August 10, 2003.
• Born: William Alfred Fowler, American astrophysicist, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1983, for his work on stellar nucleosynthesis; in Pittsburgh.
• Died:
• *John Warne Gates, 56, American financier who went from a salesman of barbed wire to a multimillionaire.
• *George W. Gordon, 75, Commander of the United Confederate Veterans, and, as U.S. Representative from Tennessee, the last Confederate general to serve in Congress.

  August 10, 1911 (Thursday)

• By a margin of 131-114, the House of Lords passed the Parliament Act 1911, also called the "Veto Bill" because it allowed the United Kingdom House of Commons to put limits on the Lords' power. More than 300 eligible peers declined to participate. However, the 88 Liberal peers were joined in voting in favor by 29 Tories and 13 of the 15 Anglican archbishops and bishops who cast votes. Conservative MP George Wyndham would later remark, "We were beaten by the bishops and the rats."
• Born: A.N. Sherwin-White, British historian; in Fifield, Oxfordshire.

  August 11, 1911 (Friday)

• U.S. President William H. Taft began a three-month-long stay away from Washington, D.C., starting with a monthlong vacation in Beverly, Massachusetts, where the Taft family rented Paramatta from Mrs. Lucy Peabody for use as his "Summer White House". On September 15, he began a 15,000 mile tour of 30 of the 46 states, and did not return to the White House until November 12.
• Born: Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn, Prime Minister of Thailand in 1958, and as a military dictator from 1963 to 1973; in Mueang Tak district, Tak province.

  August 12, 1911 (Saturday)

• "For a period of one year from and after the date hereof, the landing in Canada shall be, and the same is prohibited, of any immigrants belonging to the Negro race", declared an Order in Council approved by the Cabinet of Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier on this date, "which race is deemed unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada." The racist order, made in response to hundreds of African-Americans moving to the Canadian prairies from Oklahoma, was never enforced, and repealed on October 5.
• Duke Kahanamoku broke three world swimming records in his very first meet, in Honolulu. Besides taking 1.6 seconds off of the 50 yard freestyle, he became the first person to swim 100 yards in under a minute, swimming in 55.4 seconds, 4.6 less than the AAU record.
• Henry Percival James, British Assistant Commissioner of Nigeria, was shot and killed along with five other people while traveling along the Forcados River on government business.
• John Muir set off from Brooklyn to begin a voyage of exploration of the Amazon River.
• Born: Cantinflas, Mexican film comedian; in Mexico City.
• Died:
• *General Jules Brunet, 73, French Army officer.
• *Jozef Israëls, 87, Dutch painter.
• *Henry C. Loudenslager, 59, U.S. Congressman for New Jersey since 1893, died from typhoid.

  August 13, 1911 (Sunday)

• A lynch mob in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, burned an African-American to death after he was accused of murder. Three men were arrested on August 16. The night before, Zachariah Walker had shot and killed Edgar Rice, a private policeman, then injured himself in a suicide attempt while fleeing. While recovering in custody at the local hospital and restrained to a cot, Rice was seized by an angry mob. A fire was set and Walker, still chained to his hospital bed, was tossed into the flames. Pennsylvania Governor John K. Tener would later say that the charter of Coatesville should be revoked, declaring "Had her officers or her citizens done their duty, the Commonwealth would not have been disgraced and her fair name dishonored.
• Matilde E. Moisant became the 3rd woman licensed airplane pilot in history. Unlike the first two, Raymonde de la Roche and Harriet Quimby, Moisant avoided death in a plane crash, and would live until 1964, to the age of 85.
• Born:
• *William Bernbach, American advertising executive and co-founder of Doyle Dayne Bernbach; in New York City.
• *Bert Combs, reformist Governor of Kentucky from 1959 to 1963, state and federal appellate court judge; in Manchester, Kentucky.

  August 14, 1911 (Monday)

• Edgar Rice Burroughs, a 35-year-old salesman for a manufacturer of pencil sharpeners, submitted a partial manuscript for "Dejah Thoris, Martian Princess" to Argosy magazine. The title would be changed and the story lengthened to six installments in All-Story Magazine with the title Under the Moons of Mars, starting the literary career of Burroughs.
• Harry Atwood took off from St. Louis at 7:05 in the morning local time to begin a 1,265 mile trip to New York City. Making 20 stops, and logging 28½ hours flying time, he reached New York at 2:38 pm on August 25.
• Born: Ethel L. Payne, African-American journalist who earned the nickname "First Lady of the Black Press" for her tough reporting for the ''Chicago Defender''