January 1913

January 1, 1913 (Wednesday)

• The "Six Powers" agreed to a $125,000,000 loan to China at 6 percent interest.
• The Council of the Russian Empire adopted a law freeing the last of the Russian serfs. In 1861, the Caucasus had been exempt from the emancipation of serfs there.
• Parcel post was inaugurated in the United States.
• Horatio Clarence Hocken was elected 36th Mayor of Toronto in the municipal election, his first full term after serving as interim mayor following the resignation of George Reginald Geary in 1912.
• The German National Library was established in Leipzig.
• Louis Armstrong, as an 11-year-old boy in New Orleans, was arrested by police after firing his stepfather's pistol to celebrate the arrival of the new year. He was sentenced by the juvenile court to 18 months at the Colored Waifs' Home, where his musical talent would be perfected, and he would go on to fame as one of America's greatest jazz artists.
• The British Board of Censors began operations.
• Kvenvær Municipality and Otterøy Municipality were established in Norway. Both were dissolved in 1964.
• The municipality of Churchbridge, Saskatchewan was established.
• Born: Shih Kien, Chinese actor, known for his villainous roles in martial arts and wuxia films including Enter the Dragon; as Shek Wing-cheung, in Shigang Village, Guangzhou province, Republic of China

  January 2, 1913 (Thursday)

• U.S. Representative William Wedemeyer of Michigan jumped overboard from the ocean liner Panama while returning to the United States, in an apparent suicide. Wedemeyer, who had been defeated in November 1912 in his bid for reelection, had accompanied U.S. President William Howard Taft in December on a visit to Panama as part of a 30-member congressional inspection party and was treated for depression in a Canal Zone hospital before sailing for home.
• Australia initiated its own postage service with the Kangaroo and Map stamp series, which featured a kangaroo standing on a map of Australia.
• The comic strip Bringing Up Father began an 87-year run. Created by George McManus, the strip about an Irish millionaire and his wife was a daily; it became a Sunday feature beginning April 14, 1918. After McManus died in 1954, the strip continued until May 28, 2000.
• Yiddish-language weekly newspaper, The Time, began publication in Saint Petersburg. It would be shut down by the government on the eve of World War I.
• Born: Anna Lee, English-born American film actress, best known for How Green Was My Valley, Two Rode Together and Fort Apache, and in the television soap opera General Hospital; as Joan Boniface Winnifrith, in Ightham, Kent
• Died: Léon Teisserenc de Bort, 57, French meteorologist, credited for identifying the stratosphere

  January 3, 1913 (Friday)

• A coastal storm lashed the eastern coast of the United States, resulting in record low pressures and destructive winds in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Maine. Among the ships sunk in the gale were the passenger cargo ship El Dorado with 39 people and 13 people on the liner Julia Luckenbach which had collided with a British ship, Indrakuala, in a fog. Another seven died in the wreck of the American schooner Future.
• Greece completed its capture of the eastern Aegean island of Chios, as the last Ottoman forces on the island surrendered.
• Duarte Leite resigned as the 58th Prime Minister of Portugal.
• The steamer Julia Luckenbach sank after a collision with the British steamer Indrakuala in Chesapeake Bay, killing 15 of the 23 people on board.
• U.S. Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey of Texas resigned with less than two months left in his term; he was replaced by Rienzi Melville Johnston.
• A fire destroyed the famed U.S. Navy sloop-of-war at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia.
• Thomas Edison gave the first demonstration of his new invention, the kinetophone, at his laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, described as "a combination of the moving picture machine and the phonograph, with a synchronizing device that is a marvel of mechanical ingenuity."
• Died: Jeff Davis, 50, American politician, incumbent U.S. Senator for Arkansas since 1907 and Governor of Arkansas from 1901 to 1907, died of a stroke

  January 4, 1913 (Saturday)

• Rienzi Melville Johnston was appointed as U.S. Senator from Texas to serve the remaining two months of the term for Joseph Weldon Bailey. The Texas Legislature did not approve of the appointment of Johnston by Texas Governor Oscar Branch Colquitt and selected Morris Sheppard to replace him. His 29-day term was the second shortest in Senate's history, behind John N. Heiskell who served 24 days as U.S. Senator from Arkansas.
• Australasian Films merged with the General Film Company of Australasia to form The Combine, the precursor to Event Cinemas in Australia.
• Born: Malietoa Tanumafili II, Samoan state leader, Paramount Chief of Samoa from 1962 to 2007; at Apia, German Samoa
• Died: Alfred von Schlieffen, 79, German noble and army officer, Chief of the German General Staff of the Imperial German Army from 1891 to 1906, architect of the Schlieffen Plan used in the opening months of World War I

  January 5, 1913 (Sunday)

• Gottlieb von Jagow was named as the new State Secretary of the German Foreign Office.
• Died: Lewis A. Swift, 92, American astronomer who discovered 13 comets and over 1,200 nebulae, second only to German astronomer William Herschel

  January 6, 1913 (Monday)

• The explosion of a boiler on the French battleship Massena killed eight members of the crew.
• Great Southern Railway completed the Ongerup branch railway, connecting Tambellup to Ongerup, Australia.
• Born:
• *Edward Gierek, Polish Communist politician, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party and de facto leader from 1970 to 1980; in Porąbka, Congress Poland, Russian Empire
• *Loretta Young, American actress, known for her film roles in The Bishop's Wife and Come to the Stable, and her 1950s television series The Loretta Young Show, recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Farmer's Daughter; as Gretchen Young, in Salt Lake City, Utah

  January 7, 1913 (Tuesday)

• The American steamship Rosecrans was wrecked in a gale and ran aground on Peacock Spit, a spit off the coast of Oregon, killing 33 of the crew of 36.
• The Canadian steamship Cheslakee capsized in the Strait of Georgia near Van Anda, British Columbia, killing seven people on board. It was salvaged on January 20 to examine why it capsized before it was re-commissioned into service.
• William Merriam Burton was awarded U.S. Patent No. 1,049,667 for his thermal cracking process, that would dramatically increase the supply of gasoline that could be developed from crude oil.
• Born: Shirley Ross, American actress and singer known for her musical roles in Manhattan Melodrama and The Big Broadcast of 1938; as Bernice Gaunt, in Omaha, Nebraska

  January 8, 1913 (Wednesday)

• Serbia gave up its demand for a port on the Adriatic Sea as part of its negotiation at the London Peace Conference to end the Balkan Wars.
• Afonso Costa became the 13th Prime Minister of Portugal.
• Alfred Deakin resigned as Leader of the Opposition in Australia.
• Swiss polar explorer Xavier Mertz, the second member of the Far Eastern Party for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, died after going in a coma brought on by medical experts later believed to be hypervitaminosis A due to eating dog liver when food rations were low, leaving party leader Douglas Mawson the sole survivor of the expedition team. Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis, the third member of the party, died after he fell into a crevasse while the team crossed a glacier on December 14, 1912.
• English poet Harold Monro founded the Poetry Bookshop in London, where it became a significant literary meeting place.
• The Hotel McAlpin, largest in New York City, opened with rooms for 2,500 guests. An unusual feature of the 25-story hotel was that was one floor was reserved exclusively for men, another for women, and the "sleepy sixteenth" floor was to be kept "quiet as a tomb" during the daytime.
• Sports club BUL was established in Oslo and has become known for its leading track and field and skiing programs in Norway.

  January 9, 1913 (Thursday)

• The passenger cargo ship SS Rosecrans broke in two after crashing during a storm against rocks off of the coast of the U.S. state of Washington. Two members of the crew survived and another 35 drowned in the storm.
• Born:
• *Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974, only U.S. president to resign from office; in Yorba Linda, California
• *Eric Berry, British actor, best for his stage roles in The Boy Friend and films such as The Red Shoes; in London]

  January 10, 1913 (Friday)

• Moroccan rebels, under the command of Ahmed al-Hiba ambushed and killed a Mauritanian detachment of the French camel cavalry, the méhariste corps.
• Romania demanded that Bulgaria cede all territory between the town of Silistra and the Black Sea at the London Peace Conference.
• The explosion of a boiler on the riverboat James T. Staples killed 26 people and injured 21 others.
• Excavating in Egypt near Giza, German architect Hermann Junker and his colleagues from the Austrian Academy of Sciences discovered the Mastaba of Kaninisut, the tomb of Ka-ni-nisut, a high state official in Egypt during the 25th century BC. Over the next 12 years, the burial chamber and its ornate carved walls were dismantled and shipped to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where they were reassembled, opening to the public on June 17, 1925.
• The city of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, Philippines was established.
• Born:
• *Gustáv Husák, Slovak state leader, President of Czechoslovakia from 1975 to 1989 and General Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party from 1969 to 1987; in Pozsonyhidegkút, Austria-Hungary
• *Mehmet Shehu, Albanian state leader, Prime Minister of Albania from 1954 to 1981; in Çorrush, Albania
• *Franco Bordoni, Italian air force officer and race car driver, member of the Corpo Aereo Italiano during World War II, recipient of the Silver Medal of Military Valor and War Merit Cross; as Franco Bordoni-Bisleri, in Milan, Kingdom of Italy]