September 1911

September 1, 1911 (Friday)

• Dutch aviation pioneer Anton Fokker, whose aircraft factory would produce many of the aircraft used by Germany during World War I, made a successful public demonstration of his very first airplane model, the Fokker Spin. Taking off from a field near his home in the Netherlands city of Haarlem, he took de Spin, Fokker demonstrated the Spin's maneuverability by flying a circle around the town's tallest structure, the steeple of the Sint Bavokerk, the Church of Saint Bavo of Ghent.
• Emilio Estrada was inaugurated as the 23rd President of Ecuador. He would die less than four months into his term.
• Died: Bradford Lee Gilbert, 58, architect who designed the 13-story tall Tower Building, New York's first skyscraper.

  September 2, 1911 (Saturday)

• The Russian icebreaker ships and landed at Wrangel Island as part of the coast of Antarctica, and claimed it for the Russian Empire.
• João Pinheiro Chagas became the new Prime Minister of Portugal.
• A statue of Baron von Steuben, Prussian leader during the American Revolutionary War, was presented by U.S. Congressman Richard Bartholdt from the United States to Germany, and was unveiled at Potsdam by Kaiser Wilhelm II.
• Self-taught aviation pioneer Albin K. Longren of Kansas flew the first successful trial of his handmade aircraft.
• Born:
• *William F. Harrah, founder of Harrah's casino empire; in South Pasadena, California.
• *Romare Bearden, African-American painter; in Charlotte, North Carolina.

  September 3, 1911 (Sunday)

• As the Agadir Crisis continued, the Kaiser and the Chancellor departed for Kiel for a display of German naval might, a crowd of 200,000 turned out for an anti-war rally at Treptower Park in Berlin. Speakers from the Social Democrats, included August Bebel and Karl Liebknecht, who criticized Germany's aggressive moves in Morocco.

  September 4, 1911 (Monday)

• A professional wrestling match at Chicago's Comiskey Park attracted a sellout crowd of 30,000 people, pitting world champion Frank Gotch against George Hackenschmidt, from whom Gotch had won the title on April 3, 1908. The original bout had taken 2 hours. In the rematch, Gotch kept his title, defeating Hackenschmidt in 30 minutes.
• Harriet Quimby won her first air race, receiving $1,500 at the Richmond County Fair on New York's Staten Island.
• Delray Beach, Florida, population 250, became a city after its charter was approved by the 56 voters participating. A century later, the city population had grown to 65,000.
• France's most powerful naval fleet ever, with 50 warships, was reviewed by President Armand Fallières at Toulon. Théophile Delcassé, the French Minister of the Navy, declared in a speech that "Their powder magazines are full, and all of them could be mobilized immediately."
• Roland G. Garros broke the altitude record, flying to 4,250 meters at Parame, France.

  September 5, 1911 (Tuesday)

• Reports of the flood that would drown 200,000 people were relayed to the world by Western missionaries, after China's Yangtze River overflowed its banks. The American Mission at Wuhu initially reported that 100,000 people had drowned in the Ngan-hwei and that 95% of crops along the banks had been destroyed. Follow-up reports were that the destruction extended from I-Chang in the Hu-peh province and down to Shanghai for 700 miles. Estimates of the number of people who died have been as high as 200,000 who drowned and another 100,000 who starved or were murdered during the subsequent famine.
• The day after France showed off its 50 warships, Kaiser Wilhelm II reviewed a fleet of 99 warships of the German Navy at Kiel. The procession, which did not include three of the four s, was seen by American observers as proof that Germany had displaced the United States as having the second most powerful navy in the world.
• At the Battle of Imamzadeh Ja'far, Persian troops successfully routed rebels seeking to restore the deposed Shah, Mohammed Ali Mirza, to the throne. The outcome was reported later to have been as a result of superior weapons, with the government forces using machine guns under the direction of German adviser Major Haas. Rebel leader Arshad ed Dowleh was captured, and executed the next day. Seized with him was a large amount of gold used by the ex-Shah, who fled with his remaining 7 followers to Gumesh Tepe at the border.
• The first adult literacy program in the United States, when Cora Wilson Stewart, the school superintendent in Rowan County, Kentucky, began a program that she called the Moonlight School. The night classes at the county's 50 schools would take place as long as the Moon was bright enough for students to safely travel. She had expected that 150 adults might want to learn to read. Instead, 1,200 men and women signed up.

  September 6, 1911 (Wednesday)

• Thomas W. Burgess became only the second person to swim across the English Channel, and the first in 36 years, after Matthew Webb had crossed on August 25, 1875. Burgess, who had failed in 15 prior attempts, arrived at Cape Grisnez on the French coast at 9:50 a.m., 22 hours and 35 minutes after setting off from South Foreland the day before.
• Recently released from prison and exiled to Vologda, Joseph Stalin made an illegal trip to Saint Petersburg to link up with the Bolshevik organization. Stalin boarded a train with the identity papers of Pyotr Chizhikov, but the Okhrana police, arrested Chizhikov and alerted the Russian capital that Stalin was on the way. Stalin was captured three days later.
• Born: Harry Danning, Jewish MLB player nicknamed "Harry the Horse"; in Los Angeles.
• Died:
• *Katherine Cecil Thurston, 37, Irish American novelist famous for The Masquerader, died of a seizure.
• *Armand Cochefort, 61, French chief of detectives during the Dreyfus Affair.

  September 7, 1911 (Thursday)

• French poet Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested in Paris and charged with the theft of the Mona Lisa, but released after a week. Pablo Picasso was brought in for questioning by the police, but not detained.
• The first U.S. Navy aviation unit was organized, with Lt. Theodore Gordon Ellyson as its commanding officer.
• Portugal assembled 12,000 troops at its northern border to fend off a monarchist invasion. Airplane reconnaissance estimated that 5,000 rebels were concentrated at Ourense.
• Born: Todor Zhivkov, First Secretary of Bulgarian Communist Party and President ; in Pravets.
• Died: Professor Masuchika Shimose, 52, Japanese chemist who invented "Shimose powder", a powerful explosive successfully used in shells and torpedoes by the Imperial Japanese Navy.

  September 8, 1911 (Friday)

• A day after the temperature at his Antarctic camp at Framheim rose to -7.6 °F, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, seven men and 86 dogs began the journey toward the South Pole. Four days later, the temperature dropped to -68 °F, forcing Amundsen's return.
• General John J. Pershing, serving in the Philippines as U.S. Military Governor of the Moro Province issued Executive Order No. 24 to disarm the Moro residents. The rule made it unlawful for anyone in the province "to acquire, possess, or have the custody of any rifle, musket, carbine, shotgun, revolve, pistol or other deadly weapon from which a bullet, ball, shot, shell or other missile or missiles may be discharged by means of gunpowder or other explosive" and prohibited people from carrying "any bowie knife, dirk, dagger, kris, campilan, spear, or other deadly cutting or thrusting weapon, except tools used exclusively for working purposes having blades less than 15 inches in length."
• The collapse of the El Dorado Theatre at Nice killed 11 construction workers.
• Lt. Col. Henry Galway was appointed as the British colonial Governor of The Gambia.

  September 9, 1911 (Saturday)

• The first test of air mail service in Britain was done by an airplane flight between Hendon Aerodrome and Windsor.
• Governor Judson Harmon of Ohio opposed President William Howard Taft at a campaign speech in Boston, and did not rule out a run for the Democratic nomination in 1912, with New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson as his running mate.
• Fourteen people were killed in a motorboat accident on Lake Trasimene in Italy.
• Born:
• *Sir John Gorton, Prime Minister of Australia from 1968 to 1971; in Melbourne.
• *Paul Goodman, American social critic; in New York City.

  September 10, 1911 (Sunday)

• The Lakeview Gusher, which had erupted in California on March 14, 1910, ceased as suddenly as it started, as oil stopped flowing from it in the early morning hours.
• `Abdu'l-Bahá, leader of the Baháʼí Faith since 1892, gave his first lecture in the West, speaking at the City Temple in London at the request of the pastor, the Reverend John Campbell.
• Died:
• *Ed Butler, 73, St. Louis political boss and owner of a chain of blacksmith shops.
• *Samantha Breniholz, chief telegrapher for Union Army at Battle of Gettysburg.

  September 11, 1911 (Monday)

• California State University, Fresno, popularly known as Fresno State, began classes as the Fresno State Normal School.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates, on the way from St. Louis to Cincinnati, stopped in West Baden, Indiana, and played an exhibition game against a local African-American team, the West Baden Sprudels. The all-white Pirates, third place in the National League at the time with a record of 76-56, lost to the all-black Sprudels, 2-1.
• The Bird of Paradise, a musical credited with introducing Hawaiian music to the mainland United States, was first performed.
• With 900,000 men on the battlefield, the German Army began the largest maneuvers in history, drilling at Prenzlau at Pomerania. Exceeding any war games that had ever been done, the demonstration of German military might concluded on September 13.
• The eruption of Mount Etna in Italy sent a lava stream 2000 feet wide and four feet deep, and leaving 20,000 homeless, between Linguaglossa and Randazzo.
• After a ten-day voyage from England, the became the first Chinese warship to visit the United States, sailing into the port of New York City. The ship, with Rear Admiral Chin Pih Kwang on board, and anchored in the Hudson River.
• Born: Lala Amarnath, first captain of Indian National cricket team after India's independence from the United Kingdom.