24th July 1913 (Thursday)

BORN TODAY: in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania – Britton Chance, The Eldridge Reeves Johnson Emeritus Professor of Biophysics, Physical Chemistry, and Radiologic Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, – “for more than 50 years one of the giants of biochemistry and biophysics and a world leader in transforming theoretical science into useful biomedical and clinical applications”. [ http://www.brittonchance.org ].

World Affairs: A Dutch newspaper reports disturbances at the Russian monastery Panteleimon on Mount Athos, near Salonica (Thessaloniki) in disputed Macedonia (now Greece). “a Russian detachment went ashore, using violence to restore the order. All  troublemakers have been brought to Russia” [ http://athosweblog.com ].

Empire & Ireland: At Six Roads Ends in North Down, Belfast, Sir Edward Carson inspects 2500 members of the Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) set up in opposition to plans for Home Rule in (Catholic) Ireland. [ http://www.historyireland.com ]

Sport: At  Crystal Palace in London, Edward Aston becomes the first recorded Englishman to lift 300 lb overhead with one hand. [ http://www.davidgentle.com ].

1st May 1913 (Thursday)

BORN TODAY, in Andhra Pradesh, India – Puchalapalli Sundaraiah, founding member of the Communist Party of India and leader of the Telengana Rebellion (peasants’ revolt) in Hyderabad between 1946 and 1951.

Also Felicity Watts (later Felicity Hanbury, and later still Air Commandant Dame Felicity Peake, DBE  – Dame of the British Empire), founding director of the UK’s (second) Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) in 1949. An earlier WRAF existed briefly between 1918 and 1920, and the name was revived in 1949.

World Affairs: Montenegro agrees to end its occupation of Skadar (Scutari) in northern Albania if it is compensated with land elsewhere.

In a border skirmish in the remote region where Kenya and Abyssinia share an ill defined border, Kenyan Political Officer Leycester Aylmer and two of his soldiers are shot and killed by Abyssinian outlaws after a failed attempt to parley.

Transport: In London, England, a committee on London traffic accidents publishes its findings after investigating the sharp increase in serious accidents in recent years involving motor buses. Recommendations include fitting buses with gongs (they are too quiet when compared to horse drawn vehicles) and using “street orderly boys” to clear away mud more quickly. And (of course) “rules should be circulated widely by way of education and warning”.

Mysteries: Six miles north of the Seal Rock off New South Wales, Mr Thomas Brown, a passenger on the steam ship “Fitzroy” who has been locked in his cabin by the captain because of his strange behaviour, escapes while the captain is bringing him tea, and throws himself overboard. The vessel is stopped and a search undertaken, but Mr Brown is not found.

11th March 1913 (Tuesday)

BORN TODAY, in Schrimm, Posen (then in Germany – now Srem, Poznan, in Poland) – Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke, World War 2 fighter ace, shot down and killed in May 1944 after being credited with shooting down 162 enemy aircraft, 137 of which were on the Eastern Front.

World Affairs: Under the “Anglo-German Agreement of 11th March 1913”, these two countries agree the frontiers of Cameroon and Nigeria (the boundary was still in dispute in October 2002).

News reaches Australia, via London, that the empress Taitu, consort and widow of the Emperor  Menelek of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), aged 69, has been released after being interned in the imperial palace for three years. The “Barrier Miner” of Broken Hill, NSW, describes her as having “married Menelek in 1883. She was a princess of Tigre and had already been married four times previously…a woman of great influence”.

Music and entertainment: Luigi Russolo publishes “The Art of Noises” an avant garde exploration of electronic music.

1st January 1913 (Wednesday)

BORN TODAY, in Kinganjo, Kenya – Nigel Gray Leakey.  Awarded the VC for attacking Italian tanks single handedly in Abyssinia on 19th May 1941, in which venture he lost his life (aged 28), but he played a key part in the Allied victory over the Italians that day.

World Affairs: In the First Balkan War, the Ottoman peace proposal acknowledges the loss of all Ottoman territory west of Adrianople [Edirne], but is rejected by Bulgaria and Greece who also want to take control of Thrace and the Aegean Islands respectively. Meantime the Turkish cruiser Hamidiye evades Greek lookout ships blockading the Dardanelles and slips out into the Aegean.

Europe: The  Council of the Russian empire frees the last of the Russian serfs.

Britain: Bolton Wanderers beat Sheffield United 4-2, at home in the (old) English first (soccer) division.

The Americas: The US Post Office introduces a domestic parcel service, the foundations by rail and road for later mail order services.

Africa: In Cameroon, in the recently established Roman Catholic Diocese of Kumbo, German missionaries of the Sacred Heart celebrate their first mass, in Shisong, where they will later establish a chapel, school, dormitory and kitchen.