June 1925

June 1, 1925 (Monday)

• The U.S. Supreme Court rendered its landmark decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, expanding the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to apply to personal civil liberties within U.S. states. The unanimous holding struck down the 1922 Oregon Compulsory Education Act, which required all school-age children in the state to attend public school.
• The Tangier International Zone was formally established in the Kingdom of Morocco, at the time a protectorate of France.
• Babe Ruth returned to the New York Yankees for his first game of the season after a long illness. He went 0-for-2 with a walk as the visiting Washington Senators won 5–3. Lou Gehrig's consecutive games-played record streak began in the same game, as the Yankees' Gehrig was sent in as a pinch-hitter for Pee-Wee Wanninger for the first of 2,130 games in a row.
• Canada's Minister of the Interior, Charles Stewart, announced to the House of Commons that Canada claimed all land between Alaska and Greenland up to the North Pole, with the exception of Wrangel Island.
• An intense and deadly heat wave began in parts of the United States.
• American hotel owner Raymond Orteig revived the Orteig Prize of $25,000— equivalent to $451,000 in 2025— to be awarded to the first aviator, or aviators, who could fly non-stop by airplane between New York City and Paris. The five-year term of the original prize had expired on May 22, 1924. Orteig deposited $25,000 in negotiable securities at the Bryant Bank, to be controlled by a seven-member board of trustees and available to anyone who could make the crossing by May 31, 1930.
• Union City, New Jersey, was created in the U.S. by the merger of Union Hill and West Hoboken Township.
• Workers' newspaper Davar began publication in British mandated Palestine.
• Born: Dilia Díaz Cisneros, Venezuelan teacher and poet, in El Hatillo
• Died:
• *Thomas R. Marshall, 71, Vice President of the United States from 1913 to 1921
• *Lucien Guitry, 64, French stage actor

  June 2, 1925 (Tuesday)

• Elections were held for the 92-member Philippine House of Representatives and for 11 members of the 24-member Philippine Senate. While the Nacionalista Party had been split into two factions before reuniting, and the party lost Senate seats to the Democrata Party, the Nacionalistas retained a 12 to 10 majority in the Senate and had a 64-22 majority in the House.
• The New York Yankees' starting first baseman, Wally Pipp arrived at a game with a severe headache, and after asking for two aspirins, was replaced by the relatively unknown Lou Gehrig, who played so well that he permanently took Pipp's position and went on to a Hall of Fame career. Pipp would later be quoted to have said, "I took the two most expensive aspirin in history."
• Eddie Collins of the Chicago White Sox became only the sixth player in major league baseball history to get 3,000 hits in his career, doing so on a pitch from Warren "Rip" Collins of the Detroit Tigers, in a 12 to 7 Chicago win. During the historic hit, the Tigers had Ty Cobb, who had gotten his 3,000th hit in 1921, playing centerfield.
• Born:
• *Melvin J. Glimcher, American biomedical engineer known for developing the Boston Arm, the electronically-operated artificial limb; in Brookline, Massachusetts
• *Gertrude Michelson, American business executive and the first woman to serve on the Board of Directors of multiple Fortune 500 corporations; in Jamestown, New York
• *Michael P. W. Stone, British-born U.S. Secretary of the Army from 1989 to 1993, veteran of the British Royal Navy before moving to the U.S.; in London
• Died:
• *Lue Gim Gong, Chinese-born American farmer known for revolutionizing the citrus fruit industry in Florida with his cross-breeding and pollination techniques on improving oranges, grapefruits, apples and tomatoes
• *John Kennedy Tod, 72, Scottish-born American banker and railway executive, formerly a rugby union player for the Scottish national team
• *James Ellsworth, 75, American mine owner and banker

  June 3, 1925 (Wednesday)

• The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, launched its first "Goodyear Blimp", a non-rigid airship dubbed "the Pilgrim", beginning one of the most well-known advertising and public relations campaigns in history.
• Turkey's Progressive Republican Party, led by Kâzım Karabekir, was ordered closed by an Independence Tribunal on grounds that the party had supported the protection of Islamic religious customs that had caused the recently suppressed Sheikh Said rebellion. Karabekir and other 82 other members of the Terakkiperver were arrested two days later on June 5. Sarrail had the nine delegates arrested on July 21 and the Sultan al-Atrash called for the Arab uprising.
• Born:
• *Tony Curtis American film actor known for Some Like It Hot, The Defiant Ones and The Great Impostor ; as Bernard Schwartz in New York City
• *Air Marshal David Evans, Chief of Staff of the Royal Australian Air Force from 1982 to 1985; in Paddington, New South Wales

  June 4, 1925 (Thursday)

• Floyd Russel, 43, shot to death eight members of his family in a mass shooting in Hamilton, Ohio, then attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest. He waited until the family was asleep and killed his mother, his brother, and the brother's wife and five of six children. Russel told police that he was afraid that the family would be evicted and believed that there was a past-due mortgage on the family home.
• Banco Venezolano de Crédito, the oldest private bank in Venezuela, was established in Caracas by bankers Henrique Pérez Dupuy, Santiago Alfonso Rivas, Félix Guerrero, Juan Santos González and Alejandro Lara and introduced credit to the South American nation's commerce."
• Born:
• *Odette Ferreira, Portuguese microbiologist known for her identification of the HIV-2 virus and for coordinating the Portuguese health campaign to end AIDS; in Lisbon
• *György Harag, Romanian actor and director; in Marghita
• Died:
• *John Addison Fordyce, 67, American dermatologist and professor, kown for his identification of the Fordyce's spot and for Fox–Fordyce disease
• *V. V. S. Aiyar, 44, Tamil Indian independence activist and short story writer, drowned in the Ambasamudram waterfall of the Thamirabarani River while trying to save his daughter Subhadra.

  June 5, 1925 (Friday)

• In Germany, the Rentenmark, which had been issued in 1923 in an attempt to control the problem of hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic, became obsolete as the deadline for exchanging the currency for the new Reichsmark was reached.
• In British India, Jiwajirao Scindia became the last Maharaja of the princely state of Gwalior upon the death of his father, the Maharaja Madho Rao Scindia. Knighted in British India as Sir George Jiwajirao Scindia, he ruled until May 28, 1948, when the Gwalior State was absorbed into what is now the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
• Scottish pro Willie Macfarlane won the U.S. Open golf tournament.
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki was founded.
• Born:
• *Jephsis Hitler, Indian comedian, playwright and stage actor; in Chinchinim, Goa, Portuguese India
• *Maharani Wisma Susana Siregar, British-born Indonesian wife of President Sukarno who served as the First Lady of Indonesia from 1958 to 1962; in Liverpool
• Died: Jenny Apolant, 60, German Jewish feminist and politician, died from heart disease.

  June 6, 1925 (Saturday)

• The U.S. automaker Chrysler Corporation was incorporated by Walter P. Chrysler, who had acquired the assets of the defunct Maxwell Motor Company.
• The Great Syrian Revolt against the French occupation of the Mandate of Syria was triggered when representatives of the Jabal Druze State were treated poorly by the French administrator. The Druze delegation arrived in Beirut in the French Mandate of Lebanon to present their request to General Maurice Sarrail, the High Commissioner of the Levant. Rather than listening to a request that a Druze governor be appointed to replace the French Governor Carbillet, General Sarrail ordered the delegation to leave Beirut or to be arrested and exiled to the Syrian city of Palmyra.
• Norway sent out two planes and two steamships to search for the North Pole seaplane expedition of Roald Amundsen which had been missing for over two weeks.
• Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 2 in D minor was performed for the first time, premiering in Paris as part of the Concdrts Koussevitzky conducted by Serge Koussevitzky.
• Born: Michael ffolkes, British illustrator and cartoonist;
• Died: Pierre Louÿs, 54, French poet and writer

  June 7, 1925 (Sunday)

• At the Waldstadion in Frankfurt, 1. FC Nürnberg defeated FSV Frankfurt, 1 to 0 after extra time, to win the Viktoria Trophy, the championship of German fußball at the end of a 16-team playoff that had started on May 3.
• The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial was unveiled in France on grounds where the Battle of the Somme was fought in July 1916, commemorating the Dominion of Newfoundland forces who were killed in the Great War.
• German mass murderer Wilhelm Brückner committed suicide after killing nine members of his family overnight.
• Born:
• *John Biddle, American yachting cinematographer; in Philadelphia
• *Alan R. Pearlman, American engineer and founder of ARP Instruments, manufacturer of musical synthesizers; in New York City
• Died: Fredrik Rosing Bull, 42, Norwegian information technology scientist known for his improvement of the technology for punched card data reading, died of cancer.

  June 8, 1925 (Monday)

• The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the landmark case of Gitlow v. New York, holding that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution extended the First Amendment protections of freedom and speech and freedom of the press to individual state governments. Specifically, the Court upheld a New York law that made it a crime to advocate the overthrow of a government by force.
• An explosion in a coal mine in Sturgis, Kentucky killed 17 people.
• The Noël Coward comic play Hay Fever opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the City of Westminster, England.
• Born:
• * Barbara Bush, First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, wife of President George H. W. Bush and mother of President George W. Bush; as Barbara Pierce in New York City
• *Del Ennis, American baseball player, 1950 National League leader with 126 runs batted in for the Philadelphia Phillies; in Philadelphia
• *Eddie Gaedel, American variety artist known for being the shortest player in Major League Baseball history; in Chicago. Gaedel made a single appearance at bat, for the St. Louis Browns against the Detroit Tigers on August 19, 1951, as part of a publicity stunt by Browns' owner Bill Veeck