Monthly Archives: January 2014

31st January 1914 (Saturday)

Posted on by

BORN TODAY: in Liverpool, England – Monsignor Sidney Francis Breen.

http://www.stmaryslittlecrosby.org.uk/home.htm

Accidents: the Dutch submarine “O5 ” sinks after an inner and outer torpedo tube door are opened simultaneously.

http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/boats/boat_o5.htm

30th January 1914 (Friday)

Posted on by

BORN TODAY:

~ in Niagra, Kentucky – Louis Marshall (“grandpa”) Jones, old-time banjo picker and Hee-Haw comic.

~ In Traverse City, Michigan – Wayne James McMeekan (aka David Wayne), US actor and two time Tony winner.

~ In Vancouver, Canada – John Benjamin Ireland, US actor.

~ In New York City – Elsa Donath, “the girl who turned down the title of Miss America”.

http://www.nndb.com/people/429/000052273/

http://www.nndb.com/people/416/000131023/

http://www.nndb.com/people/499/000043370/

http://missamerica1933.com/contestants/ny-donath.html

Migration: In Vancouver, Canada – Harnam Kaur, one of a very small number of Sikh women permitted to join their immigrant husbands in Canada, dies (estimated age – 28) nine days after giving birth to a daughter.

“ Opening the door to “Hindu” (sic) women, the Vancouver immigration agent argued, ‘would carry with it the permanency of their community in Canada.’  [only] in 1919, after imperial statesmen indicated that Canada’s policy contributed to British difficulties in the Punjab, [did] the wives and children of men with established residence begin to be admitted. Sikh family formation in Canada then started.”

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/kaur_harnam_14E.html

Transportation: The first ever passenger train arrives in Fort George (now the city of Prince George) in northern British Columbia.

http://apps.gov.bc.ca/pub/bcgnws/names/21226.html

Society and Culture (“the King’s Tiger”) – In Exeter, in the west of England, the Western Times newspaper reports the arrival at the local museum, in a glass showcase, of the King’s Tiger, a present from His Majesty, and a trophy of his hunting achievements in India.

http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_events/1914-this-week.php

29th January, 1914 (Thursday)

Posted on by

BORN TODAY:

~At Castle Hill, New South Wales, – Wilbur Kentwell “Australia’s maestro of the theatre organ”.

~ in Avellaneda, Argentina – Salustiano Paco (“Hector”) Varela, tango bandoneonist, and accountant.

http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/wilbur.html

http://www.jango.com/music/Hector+Varela?l=0

Cinema:

~ in Worthing, southern England, the “Picturedrome” cinema (now the Connaught Theatre) opens, with seating for 860 people.

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/23914

~ in the US, “Little Billy’s triumph” a 10 minute film, is released. “Young Little Billy wants to buy some ice-cream with the dime his mother gave him, but the neighborhood bullies have other plans for that dime”.  Cinema has come a long way… or has it?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256886/

28th January 1914 (Wednesday)

Posted on by

BORN TODAY: In California – Beverley Hills, 90210.  Happy Centenary!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills,_California

Arms Race – At the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel, Germany – submarine U32 is launched. After sinking 36 merchant ships and 1 warship she will herself be destroyed north west of Malta, in May 1918, with the loss of 41 lives (all hands).

http://www.uboat.net/wwi/boats/index.html?boat=32

In Britain, the Admiralty [naval authorities] order a series of C Class Light Cruisers to be built by Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, including HMS Caroline, finally decommissioned in 2011.

http://www.belfastforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=46013.0

Women’s suffrage: At the Walker Theatre in Winnipeg, Manitoba (now a Canadian National Historic Site) , Nellie McClung and fellow activists stage a play in which “the women discussed a number of their own issues as if pertaining to men – whether to give men the vote, and whether to allow them equal guardianship over children. Ultimately, the play was a success and helped advance the cause of women’s suffrage. In January 1916, Manitoba became the first Canadian province to give women the right to vote”. [Canada’s historic places]

http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/pages/2_nellie_mcclung.aspx

27th January 1914 (Tuesday)

Posted on by

BORN TODAY: in Imperial Russia – Anna Larina, revolutionary. Later, Mrs Bukharin. Enemy of the Stalinist regime – internally exiled; imprisoned; informed of her husband’s death by a fellow inmate tapping on the prison walls. Released 21 years after her imprisonment, after Stalin’s death. She lived to see her husband “rehabilitated”, 50 years after his death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Larina

~ Also, in Chicago, Illinois – William Edward McManus, Catholic Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana.

http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bmcmanusw.html

World Affairs: The Austro-Hungarian consul in Prizren in Serbian Kosovo (previously part of the Ottoman Empire) reports back to his government about Serbian discrimination against muslims and catholics, and on how the Serbians fear an attack from nearby Albania.

http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts20_1/AH1914_6.html

Society and culture: Catholic missionaries from South Africa cross the border and begin their work in Mbabane, in Swaziland.

http://bhubesi.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-countdown-has-begun.html

Women’s rights: In Manitoba, Canada, activist and writer Nellie McClung is rebuffed by the Manitoban Premier, who tells her he believes that “woman suffrage would break up the home and send women to mix up in political meetings”.

Meanwhile, black women in South Africa protest at their inclusion in Pass legislation (restricting rights of movement) previously reserved for African men only.

frogley.wikispaces.com/file/view/Nellie+McClung.doc

http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/women-draw-petition-against-pass-laws

26th January 1914 (Monday)

Posted on by

BORN TODAY:  In  the Çamlıca Palace, Uskudar, Istanbul, Turkey – Her Imperial and Exalted Highness The Princess Hatice Hayriye Ayşe Dürrüşehvar Sultan, Imperial Princess of the Ottoman Empire, Princess of Berar. Daughter of the (not yet) deposed Ottoman Caliphs, and by 1931 the wife of the richest ruler in the world, after previously being sought by the Shah of Persia and King Fuad I of Egypt. “She believed that women should earn their own living” (!) [Wikipedia].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Durru_Shehvar

Accidents: In Liverpool, England, a gas cylinder explodes while the Cunard Line’s SS Mauretania is undergoing its annual service. Four men die and six more are injured.

http://chriscunard.com/mauretania1.php

23rd January 1914 (Friday)

Posted on by

BORN TODAY: in Brussels, Belgium – Louis Prince Napoleon – Pretender to the Imperial throne of France from 3rd May 1926 to 3rd May 1997. French Legionnaire with a difference. You couldn’t make it up.

His grandson and heir, Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon, who is the great-great-great-grandnephew of the original Corsican, “worked and lived in New York as an investment banking analyst for Morgan Stanley” – from Master of Europe to Master of the Universe in just five generations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis,_Prince_Napol%C3%A9on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Christophe_Napol%C3%A9on

Science and technology:  Meanwhile, New Zealand farmer and diarist is getting to grips with ticks, using Cooper’s Liquid Carbolic Dip –  at the rate of 1 gallon of dip to 150 gallons of water.

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/theme.aspx?irn=4523

Global Finance: the front cover of the French magazine “Excelsior” features a cartoon under the headline “La Dette Publique de L’Europe” showing a frenchman staggering under the heaviest public debt burden in Europe.

Vive la Republique!

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Europe-s-Public-Debt-cover-of-Excelsior-Magazine-23rd-January-1914-Posters_i6240386_.htm

22nd January, 1914 (Thursday)

Posted on by

BORN TODAY:

~ in Bà Rịa, in French Indochina (now in Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province in South East Vietnam) – Jacques Nguyễn Văn Mầu, Vietnamese bishop of the Roman Catholic church. Died 31 January 2013, aged 99 years.

~ In Phnom Penh, in French Indochina (now in Cambodia) – Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, a member of the Cambodian Royal Family, who renounced his royal title after helping to bring about a right wing coup d’etat in 1970, but retained his military uniform and his swagger stick.

~ in Aurangabad, Maharastra in British India – Sikandar Ali Wajd, urdu poet. civil servant, judge, parliamentarian and President of Anjuman Taraqqī-ē-Urdū, an organisation dedicated to promotion of urdu language and literature and Indian muslim cultural heritage.

~ In Wyndham, Southland, South Island, New Zealand – Ronald James McLean, saviour of Lake Manapouri.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Nguy%E1%BB%85n_V%C4%83n_M%E1%BA%A7u

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisowath_Sirik_Matak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikandar_Ali_Wajd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anjuman_Taraqqi-i-Urdu

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5m23/mclean-ronald-james