December 1913

[December 1], 1913 (Monday)

• Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the Greco-Turkish War, was annexed by Greece.
• The Ford Motor Company introduced the first moving automobile assembly line, reducing chassis assembly time from hours in October to 2 hours, 40 minutes. Although Henry Ford was not the first to use an assembly line, and had started the process the month before with the assembly of magnetos, his successful adoption of the line for factories was a milestone in the beginning of the era of mass production.
• The Auckland Exhibition officially opened to the public in Auckland Domain Park, Auckland with an estimated 18,000 attendees the opening day of the world's fair.
• The first drive-in gasoline station opened in Pittsburgh.
• A record blizzard hit Colorado, with four to six feet of snow falling in the first week of December. Georgetown, in the foothills west of Denver, was the hardest hit with a record 86 inches of snow, just over seven feet.
• The Buenos Aires Underground, the subway system for Buenos Aires, opened to the public with Line A carrying 220,000 passengers on the first day. It was the 13th subway system built in the world and the first in Latin America, with stations Alberti, Alberti Norte, Congreso, Lima, Pasco, Pasco Sur, Perú, Piedras, Plaza de Mayo, Plaza Miserere, and Sáenz Peña serving Line A.
• The Victorian Rail Track Corporation opened rail stations at Rupertswood to serve the Bendigo railway line, and the Seaford to serve the Frankston railway line in Victoria, Australia.
• The London Underground extended the Bakerloo line with a new tube station at Paddington.
• Born:
• * Mary Ainsworth, American-Canadian psychologist who developed the concept of attachment theory and the strange situation procedure; as Mary Dinsmore Sadler, in Glendale, Ohio
• * Mary Martin, American actress and singer, known for stage roles in South Pacific and The Sound of Music; in Weatherford, Texas
• Died: Juhan Liiv, 49, Estonian poet and short story writer and author of Vari , died of pneumonia contracted after he had been ordered off of a train

  [December 2], 1913 (Tuesday)

• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson delivered his first State of the Union address, with a call for the end of the Victoriano Huerta regime in Mexico: "There can be no certain prospect of peace in America until Gen. Huerta has surrendered his usurped authority in Mexico."
• Louis Barthou, 78th Prime Minister of France, resigned after only eight months in office following a defeat on a budget vote.
• During a military practice in Saverne, Germany, Second Lieutenant Günter Freiherr von Forstner – the source of much of the town's outrage against the German military since the Zabern Affair began in November – was mocked by Karl Blank, a journeyman shoemaker. Eyewitnesses reported Forstner lost his temper and struck Blank with his saber, causing severe head injuries that paralyzed him on one side. Forstner was sentenced to 43 days in jail after the first trial, but an appellate trial reversed the sentence after the judge concluded Forstner had acted in self-defense.
• Archbishop José Antonio Lezcano y Ortega was ordained to the newly created Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Managua in Nicaragua, including the Roman Catholic Diocese of Granada. As well, the Vicariate Apostolic of Bluefields was established, eventually elevated to Diocese of Bluefields in 2017.
• Danish author Karen Blixen left her native Rungstedlund, Denmark to settle in Kenya where she would live for almost 28 years on her African farm.
• The Brudenell Social Club opened in Hyde Park, Leeds, England.

  [December 3], 1913 (Wednesday)

• Twenty-eight men were killed in the Arcadia Hotel fire in Boston.

  [December 4], 1913 (Thursday)

• For the first time in the history of the German Empire, the Reichstag passed a vote of no-confidence against the Chancellor, with 293 votes for, 54 against, and four abstentions against the government of Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. Leaders of each non-governing party declared the actions of the government in relation to the Zabern Affair were "not the view of the Reichstag."
• Vladimir Lenin published his paper "The Poverty of People's Teachers" in the political magazine Za Pravdu.
• Georgetown, Colorado, had the highest recorded snowfall in a 24-hour period in U.S. history, with 63 inches (5 feet, 3 inches or 1.6 metres of snow.
• The word "isotope", referring to a variation of a chemical element containing the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons, was introduced into common usage when the British scientific journal Nature published an article by Frederick Soddy, a pioneer in radiochemistry; Soddy had postulated the existence of isotopes in a February 27 address before Britain's Royal Society, referring to "atoms of the same chemical properties, non-separable by any known process," but without using the term, which was suggested to him by his friend, Edinburgh physician Margaret Todd.
• The opera L'amore medico by composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari premiered at the Hoftheater in Dresden.

  [December 5], 1913 (Friday)

• Isabella Newman of Mordialloc, Victoria, Australia, was arrested on suspicion of several reported disappearances of infants in Melbourne. Investigators connected her to several advertisements that took in infants born out of wedlock for adoption in exchange for fee of services. Upon learning that she was to be taken into Melbourne for further questioning, Newman asked to be excused to change into traveling clothes before locking herself in her bedroom and taking strychnine. Investigation following her suicide uncovered at least three infant bodies, two on the Newman farm property and a third in a different location.

  [December 6], 1913 (Saturday)

• William Holman, the Premier of the Australian state of New South Wales, retained his membership in the state general assembly by defeating challenger Charles Wade in state elections.
• The World Baseball Tour for 1913–14 began, with the National League champion New York Giants and the American League's fifth-place finishing Chicago White Sox starting their Asian visit in Tokyo. Although an exhibition game, it was the first Major League Baseball game to be played in Japan. The White Sox beat the Giants 9 to 4. The 46-game tour had started in the U.S. on October 18, soon after the end of the World Series, with the Giants and White Sox starting in Cincinnati and ending in Portland, Oregon, on November 19, before the players boarded the ship SS Empress of Japan to sail to Asia.
• The Park Ridge Public Library opened in Park Ridge, Illinois, which was funded by the Carnegie Foundation.
• Born:
• *Nikolai Amosov, Ukrainian heart surgeon, inventor, best-selling author, and exercise enthusiast; in Olkhovo, Russian Empire
• *Eleanor Holm, American Olympic swimmer, gold medalist at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, who was later barred from the 1936 Olympics for conduct; in New York City
• Died: Alec Hurley, 42, British music hall performer who was married to Marie Lloyd, died of pneumonia

  [December 7], 1913 (Sunday)

• The first direct elections were held in Costa Rica since 1844, with Máximo Fernández Alvarado of the National Republican Party defeating Carlos Durán Cartín of the National Union Party. However, both leaders resigned in May 1914 and Alfredo González Flores was appointed President of Costa Rica.
• Three men were shot during the Copper Country Strike at a boarding house in Painesdale, Michigan. Boarding house owner, Thomas Dally and English brothers Arthur and Harry Jane who were renting rooms from Dally, were killed by random rifle shots fired into the house from nearby woods. The Jane brothers had arrived in Michigan with the intention of crossing strike lines to work. Later, two Finnish immigrant brothers and an Austrian were charged with first degree murder in connection with the shooting, but the third suspect escaped from custody and was never recaptured.
• The first baseball game between Major League Baseball players and a Japanese team took place in Tokyo as a combined Giants and White Sox team beat Keio University 16 to 3.
• A film adaptation of The Sea-Wolf by Jack London went into wide release, starring and directed by Hobart Bosworth, through the Balboa Amusement Producing Company. The film is now considered lost.
• Born: Donald C. MacDonald, Canadian politician, President of Canada's New Democratic Party from 1953 to 1970; in Cranbrook, British Columbia
• Died:
• *Aaron Montgomery Ward, 70, American entrepreneur, pioneered mail order catalog sales, founder of the Montgomery Ward department store chain
• *Luigi Oreglia di Santo Stefano, Italian priest, 85, Dean of the College of Cardinals from 1896 to 1913

  [December 8], 1913 (Monday)

• William J. McNamara defeated incumbent William Short to become the 12th Mayor of Edmonton during the municipal election, the first time a sitting mayor in the city was defeated.
• Construction began on the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco for the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
• The School of Compounding Medicine at Royal Medical College was established in Bangkok. It became part of the Chulalongkorn University when the educational institution was established in 1916.
• U.S. President William Howard Taft and John A. Denison, former Mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts, presided over the opening ceremonies for the Springfield Municipal Group, which includes three public buildings for the city – City Hall, Symphony Hall, and a clock tower designed by American architect Harvey Wiley Corbett. Taft remarked the three public buildings were "one of the most distinctive civic centers in the United States, and indeed the world."
• Born: Delmore Schwartz, American poet, notable collections including In Dreams Begin; in New York City