October 1925

October 1, 1925 (Thursday)

• Chile's President Arturo Alessandri resigned, and Vice President Luis Barros Borgoño took over as the acting president.
• Thousands of people in the Mexican state of Guanajuato were left homeless after the Lerma River flooded.
• In Lubbock, Texas, Texas Technological College, later to be renamed Texas Tech University, opened for its first classes with 914 students.
• The Kraków University of Economics opened in Poland as Wyższe Studium Handlowe in the city of Kraków.
• Born:
• *Christine Pullein-Thompson and Diana Pullein-Thompson ; twin sisters and British writers of pony books
• *Yang Hyong-sop, Chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly of North Korea from 1983 to 1998; in Hamhung, Kankyōnan Province, Japanese Korea

  October 2, 1925 (Friday)

• The first television transmission was made by Scottish inventor John Logie Baird at his laboratory in at 22 Frith Street in London. Baird's camera captured the 32-line vertically greyscale scanned image of the head of a ventriloquist's dummy, which he had nicknamed "Stooky Bill". An office worker in the same building, 20-year-old William Edward Taynton, appeared before Baird's camera the same day and became the first person to have his image on television.
• Spanish troops entered the Rif Republic capital of Ajdir.
• The first branch of the Islamic Ahmadiyya sect in what is now Indonesia was established in the Dutch East Indies by Rahmat Ali, an Ahmadiyya missionary, along with 13 adherents in the town of Tapaktuan.
• The Pact of the Vidoni Palace was signed at the Palazzo Vidoni-Caffarelli in Rome between the Fascist-dominated General Confederation of Italian Industry) and the Fascist-controlled National Confederation of Trade Union Corporations labor union.
• La Revue nègre, an all-Black cabaret production starring African-American dancer and actress Josephine Baker, premiered in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and made Baker popular worldwide. After two months in Paris, Baker and the troupe of dancers went on tour to Brussels and Berlin.
• In Richmond, Virginia, three workers of a 40-member crew were killed when they were buried alive by the collapse of the Church Hill Tunnel. The tragedy gave rise to an urban legend more than 80 years later, the "Richmond Vampire".
• Born:
• *Paul Goldsmith American race car driver who won the U.S. Auto Club Stock Car championship in 1961 and 1962; in Parkersburg, West Virginia
• *Sadao Kondoh, Japanese baseball pitcher and manager and inductee to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame; in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture
• *Anne Ranasinghe, German-born Sri Lankan poet; in Essen

  October 3, 1925 (Saturday)

• The first conference of Western Hemisphere nations to discuss the building of a Pan-American Highway opened at Buenos Aires in Argentina.
• The American aircraft carrier was launched.
• Only two days after the inauguration of the first classes of Texas Technological College, the college's first sports event was played as the Texas Tech Matadors and the McMurry College Indians played to a 0 to 0 tie before about 8,000 spectators at the South Plains Fairgrounds in Lubbock, Texas.
• Born:
• *Gore Vidal, American novelist known for the Narratives of Empire series and for Myra Breckinridge in 1968; in West Point, New York
• *George Wein, American jazz pianist and promoter who founded the Newport Jazz Festival; in Lynn, Massachusetts
• Died: C. Web Gilbert, 58, Australian sculptor, died while working on a full-size model for a war memorial.

  October 4, 1925 (Sunday)

• All 53 crew of the Finland Navy's torpedo boat S2 were killed when the vessel sank during a fierce storm near the coast of Pori in the Gulf of Bothnia.
• After 11 years of limited prohibition of alcohol, the Soviet Union removed all restrictions on the alcohol content of beverages.
• The Hama uprising broke out in Syria as rebel assault led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji against French mandate security installations in the city of Hama. Heavy French bombardment of Hama led to negotiations between a delegation of Hama's leading families and the French authorities, and the rebels withdrew the next day.
• Baseball legend Ty Cobb, known for his abilities as a hitter and a center fielder, appeared as a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers against St. Louis Browns first baseman George Sisler in a rare game where both teams allowed pitching to be handled by non-pitchers. Cobb pitched one inning and Sisler two as the Tigers beat the Browns, 11 to 6. The appearance of non-pitchers on the mound for both teams would not occur again until almost 92 years later, with a game on May 7, 2017 in the Baltimore Orioles' 9 to 6 win over the Boston Red Sox.
• Born:
• *Richard Moore, American cinematographer and co-founder of Panavision; in Jacksonville, Illinois
• *Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, German-born leader in Reform Judaism as president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations; in Munich
• Died: Gevorg Bashinjaghian, 68, Armenian landscape painter

  October 5, 1925 (Monday)

• The Locarno Conference began in Locarno in Switzerland between several of the European adversaries of World War One to negotiate Germany's entry into the League of Nations.
• Born:
• *Paul Wild, Swiss astronomer known for his discovery of the 81P/Wild periodic comet later explored by NASA's Stardust mission and six other comets, 94 asteroids, and 41 supernovas
• *Antoine Gizenga, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1960 to 1961 and 2006 to 2008; in Mbanze, Belgian Congo
• *Herbert Kretzmer, South African-born English lyricist known for his 1985 adaptation of the songs of the West End presentation of the musical Les Misérables, including the rendering of "J'avais rêvé d'une autre vie" to "I Dreamed a Dream"; in Kroonstad
• *Gail Davis, American TV actress best known for playing the title role in the TV series Annie Oakley from 1954 to 1957; as Betty Jeanne Grayson in Little Rock, Arkansas
• *Raisa Struchkova, Soviet ballet dancer; in Moscow
• *Besedka Johnson, American model and actress who became a film star at the age of 85 as co-star of her first and only film, Starlet in 2012; in Detroit
• *Emiliano Aguirre, Spanish paleontologist; in Ferrol

  October 6, 1925 (Tuesday)

• A breakthrough in the reproduction of recorded music, the Victor Orthophonic Victrola, was demonstrated to the public for the first time, allowing others to hear the first phonograph specifically designed to play electrically-recorded phonograph records.
• The Locarno Conference debated the matter of France wanting assurance of the right to cross through Germany to help Poland and Czechoslovakia in the event of war.
• Born:
• *Manuel Ochoa, Cuban musician and orchestra conductor known for being the co-founder of the Miami Symphony Orchestra; in Holguín
• *Shana Alexander, American journalist who was the first woman staffwriter and columnist for Life magazine, and was well-known for the liberal arguments in the " "Point-Counterpoint" segment of the 60 Minutes TV show; in New York City
• Died: Israel Abrahams, 66, British Jewish scholar

  October 7, 1925 (Wednesday)

• Germany and France reached a deadlock in Locarno over the Poland and Czechoslovakia matter.
• Born:
• *Mildred Earp, American AAGPBL baseball pitcher for the Grand Rapids Chicks, ERA leader in 1947 with a mark of 0.68; in West Fork, Arkansas
• *Alex Duthart, Scottish drummer; in Cambusnethan, North Lanarkshire
• Died: Christy Mathewson, 45, American baseball pitcher and inaugural inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame, known for a record 373 wins over 17 seasons and being the National League's ERA leader for five seasons and 5-time NL strikeout leader, died of tuberculosis that developed six years afer his exposure to chemical weapons during World War One.

  October 8, 1925 (Thursday)

• At the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, the Hilldale Club, a Philadelphia team and pennant winner of the Eastern Colored League won the second annual Colored World Series, defeating the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League 2 to 1, winning the best 4-of-7 series, four games to one. The sixth and seventh scheduled games were played on October 10 and 11 for additional revenue.
• The city of Belgrade in Serbia was awarded the Czechoslovak War Cross 1918.
• Born: Andrei Sinyavsky, Soviet Russian literary critic for Novy Mir magazine and later dissident and co-defendant with Yuri Daniel in the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial of 1966; in Moscow
• Died: Vincenzo Peruggia, 44, Italian art thief known for having stolen the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum on August 21, 1911, and having kept it for more than two years until his 1913 arrest, died of a heart attack on his birthday.

  October 9, 1925 (Friday)

• The Italian state prosecutor absolved 24 officials of any responsibility for the June 1924 murder of Giacomo Matteotti, ruling that they might have ordered the "sequestration" of Matteotti but not his death, and they would not have had any knowledge of the crime.
• Lithuania held the first day of a three-day mourning period for the loss of Vilnius to Poland in 1920. Many demonstrations were staged in which speakers declared that Lithuania would not have any relations with Poland until Vilnius was returned.
• Born:
• *Richard Jenkin, Cornish politician and co-founder of the Cornish Nationalist political party Mebyon Kernow ; in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, England
• *David Macmillan, Scottish historian known for stealing thousands of historical documents over a 30-year period between 1949 and 1981; in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire.
• *John Crosthwaite, English race car designer; in Thornaby-on-Tees, North Yorkshire
• Died:
• *George Obrenović, 35, Son of King Milan I of Serbia and pretender to the throne of Serbia after the 1903 assassination of his half-brother, King Alexander I, died in poverty in Hungary.
• *Hugo Preuss, 64, German lawyer and politician who had authored the 1919 Weimar Constitution of the first Republic of Germany