Jan 1 In Belgian a mining law introduces a 9.5 hour work day.
Jan 2 Charles Ebbets of the Brooklyn Dodgers announces purchase of grounds to build a concrete-and-steel stadium to seat 30,000.
Jan 31 Germany's Parliament (Reichstag) exempts royal families from tax obligations.
Feb 8 The US wants stabililty in Honduras. It backs the overthrow of General Miguel R. Dávila, President of Honduras since 1907.
Mar 25 The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers, young women, in New York City. Managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. Some of the workers died jumping from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors to the street below.
Apr 11 Albert Einstein becomes a professor at Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague. He will lecture three times a week during the summer semester on mechanics and kinetic heat theory.
Apr 17 Moroccan infantrymen rebel against the Sultan Abdelhafid at his palace in Fez. He is allied with France, and the French move troops to Morocco to "protect its citizens in Morocco."
Mar 18 In Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, International Women's Day is celebrated for the first time, inspired by the Second Socialist International.
May 3 In Britain, New Zealand chemist and physicist Ernest Rutherford deduces the existence of a compact atomic nucleus. He is to be known as the father of nuclear physics.
May 4 San Francisco's police chief, Seymour, gives instructions to notify proprietors of brothels that $2 per day will be the maximum they will be allowed to charge customers.
May 7 An appearance of weakness by Mexico's Diaz regime inspires armed anti-Diaz risings throughout Mexico.
May 9 Ten Serbs meet and form a secret organization dedicated to uniting Serbs, including those under Habsburg rule in Bosnia, into a greater Serbia. The group calls itself Unification or Death. It will be better known as the Black Hand. It is led by a military officer, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic, to be known as Apis. He is not connected with those making decisions for Serbia's government. Before the year is over he will send someone on a failed mission to assassinate Emperor Franz Joseph.
May 21 The French military rescues the Sultan of Morocco.
May 24 In Mexico City, Federal troops shoot at anti-Diaz demonstrators, killing about 200, with government officials admitting only 40 deaths.
May 25 President Porfirio Diaz signs his resignation and leaves Mexico City for Veracruz.
May 30 The first long-distance auto race in Indianapolis was won by Ray Harroun. One driver was killed and the average speed was 74.4 mph.
May 31 Porfirio Diaz sails from Veracruz to exile in France.
Jun 7 Madero enters Mexico City, accompanied by more than 100,000 supporters and celebrated by ecstatic crowds.
Jun 22 Madero's military drives an anarchist force from power in Tijuana.
Jul 1 Germany has commercial interests in Morocco. Germans want a "manly" demonstration against French military involvement in Morocco. Germany sends the warship Panther to the port of Agadri on Morocco's southwest Atlantic coast. This creates anti-German torchlight parades in France. During the crisis that follows, Oswald Spengler decides to write Decline of the West. He thinks the West is entering two centuries of wars for world power.
Jul 21 France's Commander-in-Chief Michel advocates defensive warfare against a possible German invasion. Belief in an offensive warfare is common. Michel is described as a "loony." The military's Superior Council replaces him. France's army will hold on to combat uniforms of red trousers and blue jackets, colors that the military leadership thinks match the army's élan and glory – needed, they believe, for victory.
Aug 18 Britain's Parliament Act makes it possible for the House of Commons to pass legislation without the approval of the House of Lords, revolutionizing British politics.
Sep 29 Italy responds to France's move in Morocco by seeking gains for itself in North Africa. It declares war against the Ottoman Empire, intending to take from the empire possession of Tripoli and Cyrenaica (today Libya).
Oct 1 In Mexico, Madero wins the presidency in what is described as reasonably fair voting.
Oct 10 An accidental explosion in the city of Wuchang reveals a cache of weapons and a list of military officers who belonged to a secret revolutionary group. To defend themselves following this exposure, young officers revolt. Enlisted men under them obey their commands. Government forces sent against them join the rebellion. Sun Yat-sen has been trying to make revolution against the Manchu monarchy since around 1895, with little success. Now, with military involvement, in two months most of China's provinces will proclaim independence from the Manchu monarchy.
Oct 28 For the sake of order, Madero has allied himself with Mexico's military establishment. General Huerta has been fighting "illegal" armies in the state of Morelos and has failed in an attempt to capture Zapata. Zapata's army takes the town of Milpa Alta, 24 kilometers from the heart of Mexico City. What is Madero to do? He has General Huerta fired.
Oct 31 It is one week before Madero is to assume the presidency. In the state of Chihuahua, revolutionaries to the left of Madero announce their opposition to him in a manifesto: the Plan of Takubaya. They accuse Madero of mocking promises he had made, excluding revolutionary chiefs from positions of authority, having declared revolutionaries to be "bandits," and nepotism. Meanwhile, in a speech to rail workers, Madero endorses labor unions.
Nov 1 The Italians use aerial bombing in their attempt to establish control in Libya. Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti drops several small bombs.
Nov 4 Danes launch the most advanced ocean-going diesel powered ship, the Selandia, built for the Danish trading East Asiatic Company.
Nov 4 The Treaty of Berlin brings the Agadir Crisis to a close. Morocco is to be divided between France (as a protectorate) and Spain (as a colony). Germany forfeits all claims to Morocco in return for a portion of the French Congo (as Kamerun), and Germany cedes some of German Kamerun to France's colony of Chad. Germany's hawks accuse Germany's chancellor and its secretary of state of "unforgivable" timidity.
Nov 6 Madero, 38, officially becomes President of Mexico.
Nov 8 Talks between Madero and Zapata anger Zapata. Madero, himself a wealthy landowner, appears to be supporting plantation owners rather than reforms that return lands stolen from the people Zapata is leading.
Nov 25 Having fled to his birthplace, the town of Ayala, 80 kilometers south of Mexico City, Zapata and others create the Plan of Ayala. It declares President Madero a traitor to the revolution and names Pascual Orozco as the revolution's leader, and it outlines land reform.
Dec 29 The Khalkha people of Outer Mongolia declare their independence from China. They install as a theocratic sovereign the highest authority of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, who takes of the title of "Holy Ruler."
Copyright © 1998-2018 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.