October 1910

October 1, 1910 (Saturday)

• Twenty-one employees of the Los Angeles Times were killed by the detonation of a time bomb at 1:07 a.m. local time outside of the Times offices. The 16 sticks of dynamite triggered the explosion of underground gas lines and a subsequent fire.
• Twenty-three American sailors, from the battleship, drowned when their launch capsized.
• Federico Boyd became acting president of Panama.
• A coal mine explosion at Palaú, in the Mexican state of Coahuila, killed 200 workers.
• The first mid-air collision between two airplanes occurred in Milan, when an Antoinette monoplane, piloted by René Thomas of France, rammed a Farman biplane being flown by Bertram Dickson. Both pilots were injured in the crash.
• Born: Bonnie Parker, American outlaw and partner of Clyde Barrow as part of "Bonnie and Clyde"; in Rowena, Texas.

  October 2, 1910 (Sunday)

• The asteroid Interamnia, seventh largest in the Solar System was discovered by Italian astronomer Vincenzo Cerulli from an observatory in Teramo.

  October 3, 1910 (Monday)

• The Tsucheng-yuan, also known as the Imperial Senate of China, was convened for the first time, with an opening presided over by the regent, Prince Chun. The national assembly had 202 members, of whom 100 were elected by provincial assemblies, and the others were appointed by the regent.
• Died:
• *Lucy Hobbs Taylor, 77, first American woman dentist to have received a D.D.S.
• *"Johann F.", 59, a patient of Dr. Alois Alzheimer at the University of Munich. The case of dementia in Johann F. was described by Dr. Alzheimer in 1911, and the name given to the illness was popularized. Another source describes Auguste Deter, who died in 1906, as the original patient of Dr. Alzheimer.
• *Dr. Miguel Bombarda, 59, Portuguese psychiatrist, politician and anti-monarchist, was shot and killed by one of his patients two days before his co-conspirators launched the revolution that ended Portugal's monarchy.

  October 4, 1910 (Tuesday)

• King Manuel II of Portugal and the Queen Mother were forced to flee Lisbon, after the Army and Navy joined in a coup by the Republican movement and began shelling the royal palace.
• Thirty-seven people were killed and 30 injured near Staunton, Illinois, in a collision between two interurban trolleys.

  October 5, 1910 (Wednesday)

• Teófilo Braga was named as the first President of Portugal by revolutionists who abolished the monarchy.
• Russia's Prime Minister, Pyotr Stolypin, flew as a passenger in an airplane at St. Petersburg. Six days later, former American President Theodore Roosevelt would fly as an airplane passenger in St. Louis.
• Francisco I. Madero, who had challenged Porfirio Díaz in the Mexican presidential election earlier in the year, fled to San Antonio, Texas, where he then issued the Plan de San Luis Potosí, calling for revolution against the Diaz government. Charles H. Harris and Louis R. Sadler,

  October 6, 1910 (Thursday)

• Former King Manuel II and other members of Portugal's House of Braganza arrived safely at Gibraltar on board the royal yacht Amelia.
• Eleftherios Venizelos was elected Prime Minister of Greece for the first of his seven non-consecutive terms.
• Baseball outfielder Bill Collins of the Boston Doves became the first major league player to hit for a "natural cycle". Only 13 other players have accomplished the feat, the most recent being Gary Matthews, Jr., in 2006.

  October 7, 1910 (Friday)

• Hundreds of people were killed after forest fires broke out in northern Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota, destroying the towns of Baudette, Spooner, Graceton, and Pitt Trains sent by the Canadian Pacific Railway evacuated many of the townspeople to Ontario, where the fires caused additional damage. By October 11, more than 200 bodies had been recovered, the death toll was estimated at 400, and other towns were reported destroyed.
• Born: Ngo Dinh Nhu, South Vietnamese political boss and brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem; both were assassinated in a coup in 1963.

  October 8, 1910 (Saturday)

• The "Battle of Cameron Dam" came to an end, with frontiersman John F. Deitz surrendering to a force of 60 sheriff's deputies in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, after a one-week standoff. For six years, Deitz had maintained a log dam on the Thornapple River and claimed it as his own. By the time the standoff ended, Deitz was popularly known as either a dangerous outlaw or a national hero.
• Portugal began the next phase of its republican revolution, with a decree expelling members of the clergy, particularly those of the Jesuit order.
• Born: Gus Hall, American Communist leader; general secretary of CPUSA, 1959–2000, presidential candidate 1972,1976,1980 and 1984; as Arvo Halberg, in Cherry Township, Minnesota.
• Died: Maria Konopnicka, 58, Austro-Hungarian poet and writer

  October 9, 1910 (Sunday)

• A coal mine explosion at Starkville, Colorado, killed fifty-two miners.
• Edgar Cayce first attained national fame when he became the cover subject of the New York Times Magazine
• Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers won the Chalmers Award for best batting in baseball's American League, with a batting average of.384944, narrowly edging the mark of.384084 for Nap Lajoie of the Cleveland Naps. Cobb was allowed to sit out the last two games of the season, while Lajoie got eight hits in the final game. Sixty-eight years later, baseball historian Pete Palmer discovered a miscalculation in statistics and found that Cobb had actually finished with a.383 average. Major League Baseball declined, in 1981, to revise the 1910 records.

  October 10, 1910 (Monday)

• Charles Evans Hughes was sworn in as the 62nd person to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
• Rebels in Manaus, Brazil, seized control of the government of the State of Amazonas, until driven out by federal troops.
• The city of Vinton, Louisiana, was incorporated.
• The Kaiserbrücke suspension bridge in Breslau, designed by Richard Plüddemann, was dedicated.
• Born: Julius Shulman, American architectural photographer

  October 11, 1910 (Tuesday)

• Theodore Roosevelt flew as a passenger in an airplane, piloted by Arch Hoxsey, at Kinloch aviation field near St. Louis. The former president of the United States remained aloft for more than three minutes. Less than two months later, on December 31, the same plane would crash, killing Hoxsey. Russia's prime minister Stolypin had been the first world leader to fly in an airplane, going up six days earlier. The first incumbent U.S. President to fly would be Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Sun Yat-sen convened a meeting of the Chinese revolutionary group, Tongmenghui, in the city of Georgetown capital of the British colony of Penang in the Straits Settlements, where the group set a date of March 29, 1911, to begin an uprising against the Imperial government.
• Veteran City, Florida was incorporated.

  October 12, 1910 (Wednesday)

• Roque Sáenz Peña was inaugurated as President of Argentina, and Victorino de la Plaza became Vice-President.
• In New York, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, funded by John D. Rockefeller, opened its first hospital, with 75 beds.

  October 13, 1910 (Thursday)

• The Interstate Commerce Commission issued the first regulations requiring ladders, sill steps and hand brakes on all railroad cars in the United States.
• In fiction, October 13, 1910, was the date that Kevin O'Malley leaped to his death from Room 1408 of the New York's Hotel Dolphin, becoming the first of 42 fatalities associated with the haunted room.
• Born: H. W. L. Poonja, Hindu spiritual leader;, in Gujranwala, Punjab Province, British India

  October 14, 1910 (Friday)

• English aviator Claude Grahame-White landed his airplane on the street between the White House and the Old Executive Office Building, which housed the U.S. Departments of State, War and the Navy. Grahame-White had been invited as the guest of the Army Signal Corps. After being greeted by top-ranking officials, he took off again.
• The French steamer Ville de Rochefort sank with 23 of its 25 crew after being rammed by the British steamer Peveril, off of the coast of Île de Noirmoutier. The ship went down within three minutes, and only two of its crew were rescued.
• A hurricane in the Caribbean Sea near Cuba sank numerous vessels, at least two of which were known to have been in the area and which never reached their destinations. The cargo feighter Arkadia had departed from New Orleans on October 11 with 33 crew and four passengers, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the British cargo ship Silverdale had left New York City on October 7 toward Havana.
• Born: John Wooden, American college basketball coach who guided UCLA to ten NCAA championships; in Hall, Indiana
• Died: Sydney Ringer, 75, British physician who invented Ringer's solution of sodium chloride, potassium and calcium.

  October 15, 1910 (Saturday)

• At 8:00 am, Walter Wellman and five crewmates took off from Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the dirigible America on an attempt to become the first people to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. The flight ended after and three days, and the six men were rescued by the ship Trent.
• A homecoming weekend was first held at the University of Illinois, as alumni were invited to watch the Illini's 3–0 win over the University of Chicago. Some sources claim that the idea originated at Illinois, while others cite the origin as a November 24, 1909 game at Baylor University. The first "Homecoming Weekend" by that name took place at the University of Missouri in 1911.
• After 35 years, France lifted a ban against the importation of American potatoes. In 1875, the ban had been imposed because of a blight believed to be carried by the American product, and a generation of Frenchmen had grown up without the "pomme de terre".
• Japan launched its largest battleship to that time, the 20,800-ton Kawachi, from the Kure naval yard.
• At a convention of Episcopalians in Cincinnati, a proposal to change the name of the body from the "Protestant Episcopal Church" to the "Holy Catholic Episcopal Church" failed by one vote. The motion was passed 42–25 by the clergy, but declined 31–32 by the laymen.
• Ramon Barros Luco was elected President of Chile.
• French aviator Louis Baillod crashed his monoplane into a crowd, decapitating a girl and injuring several at Limoges, France.
• Died:
• *Jonathan P. Dolliver, 52, U.S. Senator from Iowa since 1900, died of heart failure from pneumonia
• *Stanley Ketchel, 24, American boxer, world middleweight champion since 1908, was murdered at his ranch in Conway, Missouri.