June 1912


The following events occurred in June 1912:

June 1, 1912 (Saturday)

June 2, 1912 (Sunday)

June 3, 1912 (Monday)

June 4, 1912 (Tuesday)

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)

June 9, 1912 (Sunday)

June 10, 1912 (Monday)

June 11, 1912 (Tuesday)

June 12, 1912 (Wednesday)

June 13, 1912 (Thursday)

June 14, 1912 (Friday)

June 15, 1912 (Saturday)

June 16, 1912 (Sunday)

June 17, 1912 (Monday)

  • The Republic of China's first Prime Minister Tang Shaoyi, announced that he would resign.
  • U.S. President William Howard Taft vetoed the Army appropriation bill that had been passed by Congress with cuts of defense spending. It was reported that Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had threatened to resign if the bill was not vetoed.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada held that the Parliament of Canada could not pass a national law governing marriage, and that mixed marriages solemnized by a Protestant clergyman could not be outlawed.
  • More than 60 people were killed in Guanajuato, Mexico after floodwaters swept through the town.
  • The largest payoff in American horse racing history, according to the American Racing Manual, took place when "Wishing Ring", at 941-1 odds, won a race at the Latonia Race Track near Florence, Kentucky. A $2 bet would have returned $1,885.50 to the bettor.
  • Died: Julia Clark, the third American woman to receive a pilot's license, was killed in a plane crash at an airshow in Springfield, Illinois. Crashing into a tall tree while flying in a fog, she was the third woman to die in a plane crash, after Mme. Deniz Moore in July, 1911, and Suzanne Bernard on March 11, both at Étampes, France.

June 18, 1912 (Tuesday)

June 19, 1912 (Wednesday)

  • Lazar Tomanović resigned as Prime Minister of Montenegro, along with his entire cabinet. A new ministry was later formed by General Mitar Martinović.
  • U.S. President William Howard Taft signed into law a provision that workers on U.S. government contracts would be limited to an eight-hour workday.
  • Near Douai, France, Captain Marcel Dubois and Lt. Albert Peignan, each piloting a different vehicle, were killed in the first fatal mid-air collision between two airplanes, and only the second mid-air airplane collision in history. The first, on September 27, 1911, between Eugene Ely and Harry Atwood, did not seriously injure either pilot.
  • Tennessee State University began its first classes, as the State Agricultural and Industrial Normal School, with 147 African American students in its first summer class.
  • William D. Coolidge of General Electric laboratories applied for a patent for his process of treating brittle tungsten with heat in order to fashion it into fine wire. U.S. Patent 1,082,933 would be granted in 1913.
  • A new training school for military fliers was established at Upavon, England.

June 20, 1912 (Thursday)

June 21, 1912 (Friday)

June 22, 1912 (Saturday)

June 23, 1912 (Sunday)

June 24, 1912 (Monday)

June 25, 1912 (Tuesday)

June 26, 1912 (Wednesday)

June 27, 1912 (Thursday)

June 28, 1912 (Friday)

  • On the first ballot at the Democratic Party convention, former House Speaker Champ Clark received votes, New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson 324, Judson Harmon 148, Oscar Underwood and Thomas R. Marshall 31. Thirteen more ballots were taken without any candidate receiving the 2/3rds majority of delegates.
  • The resignation of Premier Tang Shaoyi was accepted by President Yuan Shikai.
  • The "Korean Conspiracy Trial" began for 123 defendants, mostly Christians, accused of inciting rebellion against the Japanese colonial government. On September 28, 106 would be convicted of treason and sentenced to terms of five years or more, although worldwide criticism of the unfairness of the trial would lead to the release of most of them the following year.Born: Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, German physicist, member of the Werner Heisenberg nuclear physics research team during World War II; in Kiel, German Empire

June 29, 1912 (Saturday)

June 30, 1912 (Sunday)