June 1912

June 1, 1912 (Saturday)

• The Stockholm Olympic Stadium was inaugurated for the 1912 Summer Olympics.
• The first air flight held in Norway was completed by Royal Norwegian Navy officer Hans Dons who piloted a monoplane designed by Etrich Taube over Borre in Vestfold county. He completed a flight a week later over Horten.
• French troops killed 600 Moroccan tribesmen who had marched on Fez to oppose the French Protectorate in Morocco. Governor Hubert Lyautey ordered artillery to be used against the lesser armed opposition.
• The first streetcars crossed the new Lechmere Viaduct and ran on the elevated Causeway Street line in Boston.
• A premature detonation of dynamite killed 18 men who were working on construction of the Canadian Northern road, near Lake Opinicon, Ontario.
• The first gasoline filling station in the United States to use an enclosed gas pump opened at Oak Street and Young Street in Columbus, Ohio, dispensing Standard Oil gas. Gas stations had opened as early in 1905 in St. Louis, with gasoline dispensed by "a hose from a tall tank."
• American pilot Philip Orin Parmelee, 24, was killed in a plane crash while performing in an air show at Yakima, Washington. Parmalee ignored requests to postpone his flight until heavy winds died down, and his plane dropped from a height of.
• The Famous Players Film Company, which would merge in 1916 with the Lasky Feature Play Company to form Paramount Pictures, was founded by Adolph Zukor.
• Born:
• * Evie Hayes, American-born Australian actress, best known for her collaborations with Will Mahoney; in Seattle, Washington
• * Justin O'Byrne, Australian politician, President of the Senate of Australia 1974 to 1975; in Launceston, Tasmania
• Died:
• * William Wilson, 67, British swimmer who developed the game water polo and was a pioneer of swimming instruction
• * Daniel Burnham, 65, American architect, co-creator of the Burnham Plan of Chicago and director of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
• * Philip Orin Parmelee, 24, American aviator, was killed in a plane crash.

  June 2, 1912 (Sunday)

• Official results of the parliamentary elections in Belgium gave the Catholic Party of Charles de Broqueville, in power for 28 years without interruption, 101 seats and increasing its majority in the Chamber of Representatives. The Catholic Party also retained a majority in the Belgian Senate. The results led to protests nationwide.
• The first contest for a human-powered flying machine was sponsored by Robert Peugeot and attracted 23 entrants, none of which were able to leave the ground. Peugeot then offered a competition on July 4 for any plane that could stay 10 centimeters off the ground for a distance of 100 meters.
• Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railroad, predecessor of the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad, began "one-car" passenger service directly to the Chicago Loop.

  June 3, 1912 (Monday)

• German warships, led by the battle cruiser SMS Moltke, were received at Hampton Roads, Virginia, by U.S. President William Howard Taft.
• A fire in Istanbul destroyed 2,000 houses, four mosques and seven schools.

  June 4, 1912 (Tuesday)

• Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to pass a law authorizing a guaranteed minimum wage; the law would take effect on July 1, 1913, provided only that a state commission would issue regulations. Eight other states followed in 1913, with Utah being third, but having its law taking effect first, immediately upon passage on March 18, 1913. The Massachusetts law applied only to women and children, and penalties for its violation were light. Oregon, whose law passed second, would become the first state to have orders implementing a wage.
• Canada agreed to join in the celebration of 100 years of Anglo-American peace since the War of 1812 had been fought in Canada and in the United States.
• The Atala-Dunlop team that finished with Carlo Galetti, Eberardo Pavesi, and Giovanni Micheletto won the 4th Giro d'Italia stage bicycle race.
• Born: Robert Jacobsen, Danish artist, member of the COBRA avant-garde movement in Denmark; in Copenhagen, Denmark
• Died: Royal C. Taft, 89, American politician, Governor of Rhode Island 1888 to 1889

  June 5, 1912 (Wednesday)

• A group of 570 U.S. Marines landed in Cuba at Caimanera, the first group sent to protect American citizens on the island. After rebel leader Evaristo Estenoz was killed on June 27, the Marines would withdraw on August 5.
• After using "whistles, trumpets, rattles, or other instruments of the most discordant character" to shout down debates over the Army Bill, 75 members of the opposition party in Hungary were expelled by police, leaving a quorum from Prime Minister István Tisza's National Party, which passed the Army Bill. By the end of October, Tisza's powers would be extended to allow him to send a guard unit to use force against Members of Parliament as necessary.
• Mexico's President Francisco I. Madero and the Standard Oil Company agreed to allow Standard Oil to operate in Mexico tax-free for ten years, and the rights to eminent domain over any private or public property it wished to obtain to support its oil fields in four Mexican states.
• Tsuruko Haraguchi was awarded a PhD in psychology from Columbia University, becoming the first Japanese woman to earn a PhD in any field.
• Died:
• *George S. Nixon, 52, American politician, U.S. Senator for Nevada since 1905, died of spinal meningitis contracted following surgery
• *Frank Gillen, 56, Australian anthropologist, known for his collaboration with Walter Baldwin Spencer on the Indigenous Australians in Central Australia

  June 6, 1912 (Thursday)

• The Novarupta volcano was formed by an eruption in Alaska, dumping a foot of ashes at Kodiak and on other villages on Woody Island, killing hundreds of people. The 200 inhabitants of villages on the mainland near Shelikof Strait were gone when the tugboat Redondas arrived. The villages of Kanatuk, Savinodsky, Douglas, Cold Bay, Kamgamute and Katmai were empty. The revenue cutter Manning rescued 500 survivors left homeless by the volcano. This was the largest eruption of the century and produced 35 cubic kilometers of pumice, burying the Ukak River valley to a depth of 200 meters within sixty hours; steam and gas persisted for decades in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The explosion was heard in Juneau, Alaska, 750 miles away, and spread an ash cloud of 100,000 square miles, with traces of dust found as far east as Algeria. Eruptions lasted until July 8.
• The tanker SS Ottawa recovered the body of steward William Thomas Kerley, who died in the sinking of the Titanic. After identification, his body was buried at sea.
• Born: Maria Montez, Dominican-American actress, known for her lead roles in Arabian Nights and Cobra Woman; as María África Gracia Vidal in Barahona, Dominican Republic

  June 7, 1912 (Friday)

• Gyula Kovács, a legislator in the Hungarian House of Deputies, fired three gunshots at Prime Minister István Tisza on the floor of Parliament, missed, and then shot himself. Tisza had just rid the chamber of opposition deputies and remarked, "Now that the House is cleared... we will proceed to work." Kovacs shouted out, "There is still a member of the Opposition in the House," while firing his gun before turning it on himself.
• A 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook Alaska at 9:26 pm, as eruptions of Mount Katmai continued.
• Thirty soldiers and workmen were killed and 100 injured in an explosion of gunpowder at the Wöllersdorf ammunition factory near Wiener Neustadt, Austria-Hungary.
• Died: Hubert Latham, 29, French aviation pioneer, was fatally injured by a water buffalo while hunting in Africa. Latham had been with natives deep into the French Sudan, near the Bahr as Salamat and Lake Chad on the Chari River, when he shot the buffalo. The wounded animal then charged Latham, goring and then trampling him. News did not reach the French Equatorial Africa Governor-General, Martial Henri Merlin, until six weeks later.

  June 8, 1912 (Saturday)

• An Italian force of 12,000 soldiers were defeated by Turkish-Arab troops at Zanzur in Tripolitania during the Italo-Turkish War, despite suffering between 1,000 and 1,400 casualties.
• The French submarine Vendémiaire was rammed by the battleship Saint Louis, drowning 25 sailors near Cherbourg, France.
• The first annual Aerial Derby took place, sponsored by the Daily Mail. Seven participants flying a single circuit of an 81-mile course, starting and finishing at Hendon Aerodrome in London, with control points at Kempton Park, Esher, Purley, and Purfleet. A crowd of 45,000 spectators paid to attend the event, and larger numbers of people watched the race along its route. Thomas Sopwith won the derby flying a Bleriot aircraft with a time of 1 hour 23 minutes 8.4 seconds, winning £250 and a gold cup.
• Governor Slavko Cuvaj of Croatia escaped an assassination attempt by Bosnian law student Lukas Vukica. The bullet instead struck and killed a fellow cabinet minister.
• The body of steward William Frederick Cheverton, a Titanic victim, was recovered by the steamer Ilford, then buried at sea. He was the last Titanic victim to be recovered.
• Universal Pictures was incorporated by Carl Laemmle as the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, bringing together a consortium of seven motion picture companies: Laemmle's Independent/IMP, Powers, Rex, Champion, Centaur, Nestor and New York. According to Bernard Dick, the original name of the company was going to be the Mutual Film Manufacturing Company, but Laemmle changed it after seeing a wagon of the Universal Pipe Fittings company pass beneath his window, inspiring him to drop Mutual from the company name and replacing it with Universal.
• Max von Laue presented the confirmation of the theory of the diffraction of radiation by a three-dimensional lattice, describing the April 21 experiment by Walter Friedrich and Paul Knipping to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich.
• Abel Kiviat of the United States broke the world record for running the 1,500 meter race, and set the first record recognized by the IAAF, with a time of 3:55.8 at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The record would stand for five years.
• The Lithgow Small Arms Factory began producing rifles and other armaments to reduce Australia's reliance on defense weapons from the United Kingdom.
• French composer Maurice Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloé was first performed by Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
• Columbus Fountain, a monument to Christopher Columbus, was unveiled outside Union Station in Washington, D.C. U.S. President William Howard Taft eulogized Columbus as "the greatest mariner in history," before 100,000 visitors, many of them members of the Knights of Columbus.
• The Baltimore County Union weekly newspaper published its final edition in Towson, Maryland.
• Born:
• * Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Scottish artist, member of the Penwith Society of Arts; in St Andrews, Scotland
• * Harry Holtzman, American painter, founder of the American Abstract Artists; in New York City, United States
• * J. Walter Kennedy, American sports executive, former mayor of Stamford, second Commissioner of the NBA who oversaw the National Basketball Association expand from 9 teams to 22; in Stamford, Connecticut, United States