August 1913

August 1, 1913 (Friday)

• The federal council of Venezuela authorized President Juan Vicente Gómez to assume dictatorial powers until the revolution led by Cipriano Castro could be suppressed.
• Mexican President Victoriano Huerta announced that he had no intention of resigning.
• Russia announced that it would not participate in the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. In doing so, it joined the United Kingdom, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Egypt, Morocco and Siam. Another 27 nations had accepted the invitation to participate, including China, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, as well as most of the South American and Latin American countries. Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy and Belgium were among the 15 other invited nations that had not decided on appearing at the Exposition, to open in San Francisco in 1914.
• The British Army dissolved the XIV Brigade of the Royal Horse Artillery.
• The Children's Museum was opened in the Pinebank Mansion, Olmsted Park, Boston. It moved to its present location on the Children's Wharf at Fort Point Channel in 1979.

  August 2, 1913 (Saturday)

• The weekly newspaper Courrier d'Ethiopie began publication in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the first foreign language newspaper in the country.
• Swiss mountaineers Daniel Baud-Bovy and Frédéric Boissonnas, guided by Christos Kakkalos, made the first known ascent of Mount Olympus in Greece.
• The Social Democratic Party of Finland won the most seats in parliamentary elections in the Grand Duchy of Finland. However, the Russian Empire would suspend the Finnish parliament the following year at the start of World War I.
• Association football club Otterup was established in Otterup, Funen, Denmark.
• Pieter Cort van der Linden became the new Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
• French aviator Eugène Gilbert became the first person to fly in a single day to win the semi-annually awarded Pommery Cup. The prize was to be given to the person who "makes the longest flight across country from sunrise to sunset on one day, during which he may stop as often as he wishes to replenish fuel." Gilbert departed Paris at 4:45 am, flew seven hours non-stop to the Spanish town of Vittoria, departed again at 1:00 and arrived at the Portuguese town of Pejabo at 8:00 pm.
• The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 8–4 to reject United States Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan's proposal to sign a treaty to make Nicaragua a protectorate of the United States. Bryan dropped further discussion of the treaty for the rest of the year.
• Explosions at the East Brookside Colliery of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company mine at Tower City, Pennsylvania, killed 19 people and seriously injured 20. Thirteen men were killed in the blast, and five men who volunteered to be rescuers were killed in a second explosion in the deep mine shaft.
• Born: Hal Block, American comedian, known for his collaborations with Bob Hope, Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Milton Berle and Burns and Allen, noted panelist on the 1950s television game show What's My Line?; as Harold Leonard Block, in Chicago, United States

  August 3, 1913 (Sunday)

• The "Wheatland hop riot" began after farm workers at the hops farm at Durst Ranch, near the town of Wheatland, in Yuba County, California, gathered for a meeting with Richard "Blackie" Ford, an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World union. When the Yuba County Sheriff and his officers arrived to arrest Ford, a crowd of workers rushed the officers. Four people were killed in the melee.
• Died:
• *William Lyne, 69, Australian politician, 13th Premier of New South Wales 1899 to 1901
• *Josephine Cochrane, 74, American entrepreneur, inventor of the first commercial automatic dishwasher

  August 4, 1913 (Monday)

• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson asked Henry Lane Wilson to resign as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, and sent former Minnesota Governor John Lind as his personal representative to attempt a settlement of the Mexican Revolution. However, President Victoriano Huerta said two days later that Lind would not be allowed to enter the country unless he brought an official recognition of the Huerta government. Lind arrived in Mexico City on August 11.
• As the uprising of China's southern provinces collapsed, the Fujian province rescinded its July 20 declaration of independence, and rebel general Xu Chongzhi fled to Japan, returning control of the province to Governor Sun Daoren.
• Joseph Knowles, a 44-year-old survivalist, began his experiment of living alone in "the uncharted forests of northeastern Maine," pledging to "live as Adam lived" for two months. Before a group of reporters, Knowles removed all of his clothes, and walked into the forest without clothing, food or tools. The American press followed his progress using written notes Knowles left at prearranged locations. Knowles would emerge from the forest on October 4, 1913, wearing a bearskin robe, deerskin moccasins, and a knife, bow and arrows that he had crafted himself. However, there were rumors that Knowles' story was a hoax.
• The sports club Arromba was established in Americana, São Paulo, Brazil. It was renamed Rio Branco in 1961.
• In fiction, August 4, 1913, marks the climax of the novel The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford.
• Born: Robert Hayden, American poet; 24th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and the first African American to hold that position; as Asa Bundy Sheffey, in Detroit, United States

  August 5, 1913 (Tuesday)

• Pope Pius X reformed longstanding rules of canon law that had restricted the hearing of confession for members of certain religious orders. Previously, confessions could not be heard without prior approval by a superior.
• The sports club Cañadense was established in Cañada de Gómez, Argentina. It is now known for its association football and basketball programs.

  August 6, 1913 (Wednesday)

• John Henry Mears set a new record for traveling around the world, arriving back in New York City after 35 days, 21 hours and 35 minutes. Sponsored by the New York Evening Sun, Mears broke Andre Jaeger-Schmidt's record, set in 1911, by four days. Mears, who had departed the newspaper's offices in the early morning hours of July 2 returned to the same spot "at 10:10 o'clock" in the evening five weeks later.
• Venezuela's President Juan Vicente Gómez temporarily left office in order to personally lead the nation's army against the rebels of Cipriano Castro. José Gil Fortoul of the Federal Council was designated by Gomez to act as President during Gomez's absence.
• Sun Yat-sen, the first President of the Republic of China, fled to the island of Taiwan, which at that time was the Japanese colony of Formosa, after being threatened by President Yuan Shikai.
• The Peruvian towns of Caravelí and Quicacha were destroyed by an earthquake that struck the Arequipa Province.
• U.S. Navy destroyer was launched by Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, and would serve in World War I before it was transferred to the United States Coast Guard. It was decommissioned in 1932.
• Association football club Jugoslavija was established in Belgrade.

  August 7, 1913 (Thursday)

• The Senate of France voted 245–37 to pass the Three Years Act, extending compulsory military service from two years to three years.
• El Salvador and the United States signed a five-year treaty, pledging to submit all disputes between them "for investigation and report to an International Commission" composed of representatives from five nations. The proposed Commission would have one year to render its report, during which participating nations would withhold from going to war. The agreement was the first of the international peace treaties that Secretary Bryan had proposed in a "plan for world-wide peace.
• Wild west showman and pioneer aviator Samuel Franklin Cody was killed along with English cricketer William Evans when an experimental Cody Floatplane crashed during a test flight near Mytchett, England.
• The Wiri railway station opened to serve the Southern Line of Auckland. It closed in 2005.

  August 8, 1913 (Friday)

• Venustiano Carranza, leader of Mexico's rebellion against the government of President Victoriano Huerta, and Governor of the State of Coahuila, sent a reply to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's proposal for a ceasefire until elections could be held in October. Carranza said that he did not recognize President Huerta's authority as legal and that his "comrades in arms in the just defense of our constitutional rights" would continue to fight.
• The new Bloomfield Public Library, funded by the Carnegie Foundation, opened in Bloomfield, Iowa. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
• Born: Robert Stafford, American politician, Governor of Vermont 1959 to 1961, later U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator ; in Rutland, Vermont

  August 9, 1913 (Saturday)

• Slightly less than one year before the outbreak of World War I, a diplomat from Austria-Hungary told representatives from Italy and Germany that his Empire intended to plan an invasion of Serbia. The private discussion would be revealed on December 5, 1914, by Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti, who said that Italy refused to participate.
• Born: Herman Talmadge, American politician, Governor of Georgia 1947, 1948–1955, later U.S. Senator ; in McRae, Georgia, United States

  August 10, 1913 (Sunday)

• The Treaty of Bucharest was signed at 10:30 a.m., ending the Second Balkan War. Serbia and Greece agreed to withdraw their troops from Bulgaria within three days, and Romania agreed to withdraw from Bulgaria within 15 days. In return, Bulgaria, which had won control of most of the region of Macedonia from Turkey in the First Balkan War, gave up 90% of its gains. Serbia increased its size by 80% with the acquisition of northern Macedonia, and Greece increased in size by 68% with the southern half of Macedonia. Bulgaria also ceded Southern Dobruja to Romania, and agreed to demobilize its armed forces immediately. The parties also agreed to submit any future disputes over their borders for arbitration by Belgium, the Netherlands or Switzerland.
• Born:
• *Wolfgang Paul, German physicist, recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing the ion trap used to capture electrons for study; in Lorenzkirch, German Empire
• *Noah Beery Jr., American actor, best known for his supporting role in the television crime series The Rockford Files; in New York City, United States