Jan 6 In the French colony of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) people of the Abé ethnicity rebel. They attack railway stations and cut the railway line at twenty-five points. Troops will suppress the rebellion.
Jan 7 President Taft fires a Roosevelt appointee, Gifford Pinchot, head of the forest service. He had criticized Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard Ballinger, concerning hostility to conservation. A split within the Republican Party will be credited as causing the party's defeat in 1912.
Jan 10 Rioting erupts between Sunnis and Shi'ite students in Bukhara, in the Russian tsar's empire (today Uzbekistan). Russian troops move in to maintain order.
Feb 5 Eleven men, all but one of them Hungarian, are killed at the Jefferson Clearfield Coal Company mine at Ernest, Pennsylvania. Another 110 were able to escape.
Feb 15 Female garment workers have been roughed up on a picket line outside the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York. The strike ends without workers able to win their demand to stop management's practice of locking the workers inside during business hours.
Feb 28 The last legal bare-knuckle boxing bout in the United States occurs at Passaic, New Jersey. Leo Baker and Dave Smith fight 32 rounds with the match ending in a draw.
Mar 3 The Sultan of Morocco, Abdelhafid, permits the French to occupy Casablanca and Oujda in return for training his military and refinancing loans.
Mar 10 In China slavery has been legal for something like 3000 years, but, in keeping with a changing world, slavery is now declared illegal.
Mar 23 After eight months of fighting, Spain has crushed a rebellion in the area of northern Morocco that it considers its possession. An estimated 8,000 Berbers and 2,000 Spanish soldiers have been killed.
Apr 30 New taxes levied by Ottoman authorities on Albanians have led to another uprising against Ottoman rule. Albanian leaders demand self-government for Albania, rejected by Turkey's government. In June, Turkey's army will crush the rebellion. Populations in various regions will be disarmed and Albanian schools and publications will be shut down.
Apr 30 The Transandine Railway is under construction. It will link Chile and Argentina. The first train has passed through the 31⁄2 km tunnel straddling the border.
May 6 In England, King Edward VII dies at age 69 six days after catching a cold. The raging cold germs produced bronchitis and then pneumonia.
May 12 In England, an explosion at the Wellington Coal Mine near Manchester kills 137.
May 31 The British create Union of South Africa, the unification of four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Natal Colony, Transvaal Colony and Orange River Colony. The Union of South Africa is created as a dominion of the British Empire.
Jun 12 In New York, anarchists create the Francisco Ferrer cultural center and school, a community that plans to act on issues only after discussions that result in consensus. Anyone will be free to leave or join, with no questions asked. In keeping with their anarchist philosophy, there is no declaration of principles. The association is to last into the early 1950s.
Jul 4 Russia and Japan agree on "spheres of influence" in Manchuria, where both nations are building railroads.
Jul 4 African-American boxer Jack Johnson defeats American boxer James J. Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match, sparking race riots across the United States.
Jul 11 In the US, enforcement of the Pure Food and Drug Act continues. US marshals seize 4.5 million ice cream cones from a warehouse because of contamination with boric acid.
Aug 20 In Nicaragua, President José Madriz resigns under pressure from the United States, which is still supporting its ally, the rebel conservative Liberal Party. Madriz is going into exile. The US will call for a constituent assembly in Nicaragua to write a constitution, and the vacant presidency will be filled by a series of politicians friendly to the US occupation.
Aug 22 With no objection from Russia, the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty is signed. Korea's prime minister signs on behalf of Korea's monarch. The annexation will take effect in seven days, the 29th. Korea will become a Japanese colony with the name of Chosen. Japanese will run the entire government in Korea. Japan's government will declare the absorption of members of Korea's royal Yi family into Japan's royal peerage.
Aug 25 Kaiser Wilhelm II, a devout Lutheran, in a speech in Königsberg affirms his belief in the divine right of kings. He says that his grandfather received the Prussian crown "by God's grace alone and not by parliaments, assemblages of the people, or resolutions of the people."
Sep 1 The Vatican introduces a compulsory oath against modernism, to be taken by all priests upon ordination. The requirement will be mandatory until 1967.
Sep 2 The strike of 70,000 of New York's garment workers ends after nine weeks. Garment manufacturers will now be required to have a union shop and to guarantee a 50-hour work week – 9 hours per day for five days and a 5-hour day on the 6th day.
Sep 7 At The Hague in the Netherlands, the International Court of Justice resolves a 25-year fisheries conflict that had the United States against Britain, Canada and Newfoundland.
Oct 1 The Los Angeles Times is anti-union. Its building is bombed at one in the morning. Twenty-one employees are killed.
Oct 3 In Portugal a group of republicans led by Machado Santos begins a revolt that will be supported by several army units of the Lisbon garrison. The rebellion will be joined by a large segment of the population and by the sailors of the cruisers São Raphael and Adamastor. King Manuel II flees to England.
Oct 5 Portugal is declared a republic.
Oct 12 In New York, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research opens its first hospital, with 75 beds.
Oct 18 Islanders on Ponape revolt after a German overseer strikes a road worker with a whip. They kill the German governor, Gustav Boeder, and other colonial officials.
Oct 29 This year In Palestine, ten young Jewish men and two young Jewish women established the first kibbutz, at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee near the Arab village of Umm Juni.
Nov 1 Tsar Nicholas II agrees to extending the area in which Jews may reside.
Nov 4 Tsar Nicholas arrives in at the royal palace in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, as the guest of his cousin "Willy"– Kaiser Wilhelm II. They agree where to divide their spheres of influence in Iran.
Nov 5 In London, the paintings of Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Paul Gaugin and Vincent van Gogh, on display at the Grafton Gallery, elicit a comparison of Post-Impressionism with anarchism.
Nov 7 In Ohio, the first air flight for the purpose of delivering commercial freight takes place, between Dayton and Columbus.
Nov 20 Francisco Madero proclaims Mexico's presidential elections null and void and calls for an armed revolution against President Porfirio Díaz.
Nov 26 A fire at a building in Newark, New Jersey, housing several factories, kills 24 women and girls employed by the Wolf Muslin Undergarment Company.
Dec 12 In silent films, actors have teen using language to be described as vile and profane. In Cleveland, Ohio, a deaf education teacher files a complaint with the film censorship bureau.
Dec 13 Levi R. Lupton, an internationally renowned Pentecostal leader who was celebrated by his followers as the "20th Century Apostle of the Gift of Tongues," admits to adultery in a letter to his "sisters" and "brothers" within the movement. He had let his emotions run and described himself as having "been sorely tempted and fallen." His wife, he claims, has forgiven him.
Dec 21 In England, near Bolton, an explosion kills 360 coal miners: the Pretoria Pit Disaster.
Dec 25 A form of pneumonic plague has been spreading in Manchuria since November. It will continue into March and will have killed more than 40,000.
Copyright © 1998-2018 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.