January 1912 in History

Events in History

Jan 1 1st running of San Francisco's famed "Bay to Breakers" footrace (7.63 miles/12.3 km); first winner Robert Vlught 44:10

Event of Interest

Jan 1 Sun Yat-sen forms the Republic of China

Liberty Bell

Jan 3 Southern Pacific Railroad offers to bring the Liberty Bell to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco for free

Jan 4 Smallest earth-moon distance this century, 356,375 km center-to-ctr
Jan 4 The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by Royal Charter.
Jan 5 1st National Hockey Association game (Victoria)
Jan 5 The Prague Party Conference takes place.

Event of Interest

Jan 6 Geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener presents his controversial theory of continental drift in a lecture at the Geological Association (Geologischen Vereinigung) at the Senckenberg-Museum, Frankfurt

Jan 6 New Mexico becomes 47th state of the Union
Jan 8 Chiefs, representatives of people's and church organisations, and other prominent individuals form the African National Congress and declare its aim to bring all Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms
Jan 9 US Marines send troops to Honduras
Jan 10 Caillaux government in France resigns
Jan 10 World's 1st flying boat's maiden flight, (Glenn Curtiss in NY)
Jan 11 Bread & Roses Strike begins in Lawrence, Massachusetts following a pay cut
Jan 12 -47°F (-44°C), Washta, Iowa (state record)
Jan 13 -40°F (-40°C), Oakland, Maryland (state record)
Jan 14 Raymond Poincaré becomes Premier of France

Heartbreak and Tragedy for Captain Scott

Jan 17 Captain Robert Scott's expedition arrives at the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen

The British party, l-r Scott, Oates, Wilson and Evans reach Amundsen's tent. Photo: Henry Bowers/British Library

Jan 23 The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague
Jan 29 Martial law declared in textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts

Birthdays in History

Jan 1 Boris Vladimirovich Gnedenko, Russian mathematician (d. 1995)

Kim Philby (1912-1988)

Jan 1 British spy and Soviet mole who was a member of the "Cambridge Five", born in Ambala, Punjab, India

Jan 1 Victor Reuther, American labor leader (United Automobile Workers union), born in Wheeling, West Virginia (d. 2004) [1]
Jan 3 Armand Lohikoski, Finnish director (d. 2005)
Jan 3 Renaude Lapointe, Canadian journalist and senator (d. 2002)
Jan 5 Frank Pace Jr., US Secretary of Army (1950-53), born in Little Rock, Arkansas (d. 1988)
Jan 6 Jacques Cesar Ellul, French philosopher & sociologist, born in Bordeaux, France (d. 1994)
Jan 7 Charles Addams, American artist and cartoonist (New Yorker, The Addams Family) known for darkly humorous and macabre characters, born in Westfield, New Jersey (d. 1988)
Jan 9 Ralph Tubbs, British architect, born in Hadley Wood, United Kingdom (d. 1996)
Jan 10 Maria Mandel, Camp leader at Auschwitz, born in Münzkirchen, Austria (d. 1948)
Jan 11 Roger Lewis, American businessman (CEO of Amtrak, Pan Am), born in Los Angeles, California (d. 1987)
Jan 12 Charles Moeller, Belgian theologist (Humanism et saintete), born in Brussels, Belgium (d. 1986)
Jan 15 Michel Debré, French politician, born in Paris, France (d. 1996)
Jan 16 Franz Tumler, Austrian writer (Cloak, Aufruf), born in Gries near Bozen, South Tyrol (d. 1998)
Jan 18 William Sansom, English writer (Loving Eye), born in London, United Kingdom (d. 1976)
Jan 19 Leonid Kantorovich, Russian Soviet economist (Father of linear programming, Nobel Prize for Economics 1975), born in St Petersburg, Russia (d. 1986)
Jan 21 Konrad Emil Bloch, German-American biochemist (1964 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for work on cholesterol), born in Neisse, Germany (d. 2000)
Jan 25 Lucius E. Burch Jr., American attorney, born in Nashville, Tennessee (d. 1996)
Jan 26 Cora Baird, American puppeteer (Kukla, Fran & Ollie), born in NYC, New York (d. 1967)
Jan 27 Arne Næss, Norwegian philosopher, born in Oslo, Norway (d. 2009)
Jan 27 E. R. Braithwaite, diplomat and writer (To Sir with Love), born in Georgetown, British Guiana (d. 2016)

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)

Jan 28 American expressionist painter (Lavender Mist), born in Cody, Wyoming

Jan 30 Barbara Tuchman, American historian & author (Pulitzer, Guns of August), born in New York (d. 1989)
Jan 30 Francis Schaeffer, American Evangelical theologian and pastor, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1984)

Deaths in History

Jan 3 Felix Dahn, German historian, jurist and poet, dies at 77
Jan 7 Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake, English physician and feminist who was one of the first female medical students at a British university, dies at 71
Jan 14 Otto Liebmann, German philosopher (Kant & Epigones), dies at 71
Jan 16 Georg Heym, German writer, dies in an ice skating accident at 24
Jan 24 James Allen, English writer (As a Man Thinketh), dies at 47
Jan 28 Gustave de Molinari, Belgian economist (b. 1819)
Jan 29 Hermann Bang, Danish writer, dies at 54