13th July, 1914 (Monday)

BORN TODAY:

~ In Leuk, Switzerland – Franz Xaver Baron von Werra, fighter pilot and flying ace shot down and captured over Britain. Incarcerated in a Canadian POW camp, and “generally regarded as the only Axis POW  to succeed in escaping from a Canadian prisoner of war camp and returning to Germany”.  He arrived back in Germany in 1941, via the US, Mexico, South America and Spain. [Wikipedia].

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

~ In Surrey, England – Squadron Leader Wilfrid Thomas Page, mentioned in despatches, June 1942, shot down and killed in the English Channel, November 1943.

http://www.bbm.org.uk/PageWT.htm

World Affairs:  From Sarajevo, the Austrian investigators of the Archduke’s assassination report that “there is nothing to prove or even to suppose that the Serbian government is accessory to the inducement for the crime, its preparations, or the furnishing of weapons. On the contrary, there are reasons to believe that this is altogether out of the question” [Fromkin – “Europe’s Last Summer – Why the World went to War in 1914].

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Europes-Last-Summer-World-Went-ebook/dp/B0031RS3G2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1403336625&sr=1-1&keywords=Fromkin

Crime: In the village of Camerata Cornello in Northern Italy,  56 year old Simone Pianetti shoots and kills seven people who have ruined his life and reputation, including the town clerk, the priest and the doctor. He escapes to the mountains, and is never brought to justice.

http://www.italianarea.it/opera.php?w=1367934962-15.JPG&artista=GICC&let=

Society and culture: In London, at the Kensington Registrar’s office, Novelist D.H.Lawrence marries Frieda Weekley (nee von Richthofen), the former wife of his erstwhile modern languages professor at University College, Nottingham.

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/dhlawrence/study-materials/biography/anewlife.aspx

~ In Milwaukee, Senators are busy investigating the causes of prostitution in Wisconsin (“Prostitutes testimony”),  and “committee staff questioned several madams and prostitutes about how they got into ‘the sporting life’ and what caused men and women to engage in it”

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1568

2nd July 1914 (Thursday)

BORN TODAY: in Cleveland, Ohio – Frederick Fennell, conductor, composer and author.

http://www.discogs.com/artist/1528152-Frederick-Fennell

Europe’s “July Crisis”: The Saxon ambassador in Berlin reports to his home government that  following the assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand the German military is pressing for an immediate war while Russia and France are still unready. [David Fromkin – “Europe’s Last Summer – Why the World Went to War in 1914”].

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Europes-Last-Summer-World-Went-ebook/dp/B0031RS3G2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1402943061&sr=1-1&keywords=fromkin+last+summer

The British Ambassador to Belgrade praises the Serbian government for their restrained behaviour following recent anti-Serbian demonstrations in Sarajevo and Vienna.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/first_world_war/p_archduke_assassination.htm

Society and culture: At the Woking mosque in the South of England,  Mr. Usman-el-Mehdi (also known as Mr. John Barlington Fisher) marries Rasheeda (also known as  Miss Margaret Ross) the unmarried daughter of John Ross, of Tarbet, Argyllshire, in accordance with muslim marriage rites.

http://www.wokingmuslim.org/work/wedding.htm

 

29th June, 1914 (Monday)

BORN TODAY:   in Little Tew, in Oxfordshire – Nancy Sandars, archaeologist.

http://www.nancysandars.org.uk/biography_early_life.php

World Affairs: In Sarajevo, Catholic Croats and Muslims riot (together), attacking Serbians and their homes and businesses. [“Almanac of World War 1“]. Fifty are injured, and one is killed. There are also anti-Serbian riots in Vienna.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Almanac-World-War-David-Burg/dp/081319087*

~ in Pokrovskoye, in the Tyumen Oblast, in Russia – Khioniya Guseva tries to assassinate Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, the Russian mystic, faith healer and private adviser to the Romanovs. She is judged to be insane and committed to an asylum until 1917.

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

A wandering archaeologist: Thomas Edward Lawrence, a twenty five year old Oxford graduate and archaeologist, is taking a break in England and writes to a friend that he will be in England for another 2 or 3 weeks, after which he expects to return to his duties at Carchemish in Syria. [“Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East”, by Scott Anderson].

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lawrence-Arabia-Deceit-Imperial-Making-ebook/dp/B00HK5DZG4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1402758365&sr=1-1&keywords=lawrence+in+arabia

 

 

28th June 1914 (Sunday)

BORN TODAY: A century of strife…

World Affairs: In Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 19 year old Gavrilo Princip, Serbian by descent, Bosnian by birth, and Austro-Hungarian by Habsburg diktat, steps into the sunlight from a crowd of onlookers and fires two shots from his Belgian John Browning pistol, killing both the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife, Sophia Maria Josephine Albina Countess Chotek of Chotkova and Wognin and Duchess of Hohenberg. This single act unleashes the accumulated political tensions of the last twenty years, triggering a hundred years of conflict, analysis, accusations and debate. The rest, as they say, is history.

At his trial Princip declared: “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be freed from Austria”…

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

 

25th June 1914 (Thursday)

BORN TODAY: in Gelsenkirche, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany – Lorenz Marie Hackenholt, “gas chamber expert”.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/Tregenza/Tregenza02.shtml

World Affairs: Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, heir to the thrones of Austria-Hungary, arrives by train in the town of Ilidza, a suburb of Sarajevo, where he is joined by his wife,  Sophie. He will spend the weekend inspecting military manoeuvres while she visits (catholic) churches, schools, charities etc.

http://h.etf.unsa.ba/vmuzej-atentata/galerija/gallery.htm

Fire: In Massachusetts, the Great Salem fire destroys  1376 buildings, making 20,000 homeless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Salem_Fire_of_1914

Postcard from Salem

http://digitalcommons.salemstate.edu/fire_photos/10/

Society and Culture:  At Number 8, Second Avenue, in Forest Town, in England’s industrial midlands, Elijah Mottishaw, miner, and his wife Sarah, get a “surprise” visit from George Frederick Ernest Albert Windsor and his wife, Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes, better known as King George V of the United Kingdom and Dominions (and Emperor of India), and his wife, Queen Mary.

http://www.ourmansfieldandarea.org.uk/page/royal_visit_to_a_miners_cottage

 

1st June 1914 (Monday)

BORN TODAY: in Vienna, Austria-Hungary – Franz Kraemer, Canadian broadcaster, and “pioneer of opera on TV”.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/franz-kraemer-emc/

Society and Culture: In Vienna, Generalmajor Viktor Weber von Webenau becomes a member of the “Supreme Military Court”, quickly rising to the position of Vice President in July.

http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/biog/weber.html

World Affairs: On a quiet Monday evening in the Balkans, 19 year old Gavrilo Princip and 18 year old Trifun Grabež, two young men with dreams of a better world, cross over the Drina River from Serbia to Bosnia with assassination on their minds.

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

Women’s suffrage: In the village of Wargrave in central England, suffragettes are suspected of starting the blaze which destroys the village church. (more dreams of a better world?).

http://www.berksfhs.org.uk/cms/

Irish suffragettes: In Belfast, in British Ireland, suffragettes stage a “counter demonstration” when large numbers of mill-girls turn out to welcome the Unionist leader, Sir Edward Carson. In the ensuing fracas, “the [mill] girls caught one of the militant women, and, stripping her of nearly all clothing, spanked her with her own shoes. It was only with difficulty that the police,who were stopped by the mill hands, rescued the suffragette from her painful predicament.”  [The Melbourne Argus, 3rd June 1914]

(multiple dreams of a better world…)

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/724523t

16th July 1913 (Wednesday)

BORN TODAY: in the Achhati district of Basti in Uttar Predesh, India – Swami Guru Shantanand Sarawait Ji Maharaj, swami (ascetic, yogi).

Also – In Livno (then in Austria-Hungary, soon in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later in Yugoslavia and now in Bosnia-Herzegovina) – Hasan Brkić, Bosnian Muslim and Yugoslav partisan who served as President of the Executive Council of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (part of Yugoslavia) from 1963 to 1965.

Labour Relations: in England’s “Black country” (industrial Midland region) a strike of over 30.000 men is called off after employers to agree to a raise in pay which will meet the strikers demands in full subject to 6 months satisfactory working.

28th June 1913 (Saturday)

BORN TODAY: in Byton, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, in the Province of Wloclawek (Poland) – Leon Nowakowski, Priest of the diocese of Wloclawek. Killed by the nazis in October 1939 (aged 26).

Also: in Nowy Sącz (then in Austria-Hungarian Galicia, soon to be annexed by Russia, then occupied by Germany [WW1], briefly claimed by Ukraine, then part of Poland, before being re-occupied by Germany [WW2] and finally (?) settling in Poland, just north of the Slovakian border) – Efraim Racker, “Austrian” biochemist who grew up in Vienna, but fled to Britain before settling in the USA. “the regional Jewish community [of Nowy Sącz] numbered about 25,000 before World War 2… ninety percent of them died or did not return” [Wikipedia].

World Affairs: the Bulgarian king Ferdinand I orders his army to march into the disputed areas of Macedonia which were  taken from the Ottoman Empire by Greece and Serbia during the First Balkan War. This action destroys the Balkan League, and also forces Russia to rethink its strategic positions in the southern Balkans between the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. the Second Balkan War will be short but bloody, and leave all parties dis-satisfied and with their objectives in the Balkans and the Aegean unresolved. In exactly one year from today the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand will be assassinated in Sarajevo…

King George of V of Great Britain and Ireland is visited by a delegation of four Tibetan boys bearing letters and gifts from the 13th Dalai Lama.

Accidents: In London’s Hyde Park, Captain Matthew Meiklejohn, who lost his right arm but gained the Victoria Cross at the Battle of Elandslaagte in the Boer War, in 1899, is out riding when his horse bolts. Unable to control the horse with just one  arm he narrowly prevents the horse from trampling a group of children by forcing it up against the railings of Rotten Row. Impaled on the railings, he dies of his injuries on 4th July.

Society and Culture: At London’s “Olympia” Exhibition Centre, Londoners are enjoying the 7th International Horse Show.

27th May 1913 (Tuesday)

BORN TODAY: In Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now just in Hungary) – Enver Colakovic, Bosnian novelist, poet and translator.

Arms Race: At Horten, on the Oslofjord in Norway, the Norwegian Royal Navy launches the destroyer Garm. Destroyed by the Luftwaffe on 26th April 1940 during the German invasion of Norway.

Women’s Suffrage: Sylvia Pankhurst establishes the East London Federation of Suffragettes. It is considered by many – including her own family – to be too democratic and working class, and six months later is excluded from the Women’s Social and Political Union.

Science and technology: At Montrose Scotland, Desmond Arthur becomes the first fatality from an aircrash in Scotland when the right wing of his aircraft snaps off at 2500 feet. He is killed instantly on impact and buried in Sleepyhillock Cemetery in Montrose. Later he participated in the one of the most famous ghost stories from World War I  after multiple sightings of the ‘Irish Apparition’ or the ‘Montrose Ghost’, starting in 1916 and recurring as recently as 2012.

“On 27 May 1963, Sir Peter Maselfield, was flying his Chipmunk monoplane close to Montrose while en route from Dalcross to Shoreham, when he saw what he believed was a 70 horsepower B.E.2 biplane; the pilot was wearing a leather flying helmet, goggles and a flying scarf. Masefield landed when he believed he had seen it crashing, but on reaching the ground discovered that there was no plane or crash site”. [Wikipedia].

17th February 1913 (Monday)

BORN TODAY, in Sarajevo (then) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire – Oskar Danon, Bosnian Jewish conductor and composer, Professor at the Belgrade music academy and president of the Association of Musical Arts of Serbia. Died in Belgrade in 2009, aged 96.

World Affairs: The US President provides assurances to President Madero of Mexico that the US has no plans to interfere in the Mexican Revolution except to protect the lives of US citizens. Meanwhile, south of the border US Ambassador Wilson communicates that General Huerta has communicated that President Madero will be removed from power imminently.

Science and Technology: In Columbus Ohio, a speed test is held by the city’s fire department between four of the best horse drawn fire engines and a new motor driven apparatus. In a three mile race the new technology proves to be around twice as fast, and the city places early orders for the new machines.

The US Army tests its first “automatic pilot” device which is called a gyrostabiliser by its inventor, Lawrence Sperry.

Labour Relations: The State of Oregon becomes the first ever US State to introduce a minimum wage law.

Society & Culture: At the 69th Regiment Armory in New York CIty, the “International Exhibition of Modern Art” provides US Citizens with a first major viewing of hundreds of avant garde paintings and sculptures etc. This exhibition (“the Armory Show”) wil come to be seen as the introduction of modern art to America.