13th December 1914 (Sunday)

BORN TODAY:

~ in the Bronx – Ralph DiGia, “World War 2 conscientious objector, lifelong pacifist and social justice activist, and staffer for 52 years at the War Resisters League” [Wikipedia].

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

~ at Moama, New South Wales, Alexander Noel Constantine, survivor of the Battle of Britain, shot down and killed in Indonesia in 1947 by Dutch counter-insurgent P-40 Kittyhawks while he was flying an Indian transport plane (C-47 Dakota) carrying medicines donated by the Malayan Red Cross.

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

War!

War at Sea: A British submarine (B11) penetrates the Dardanelle Straits and destroys the Turkish (British built) Battleship “Mesudiye”, killing 37,  before escaping back into the open waters of the Northern Aegean [Burg & Purcell].

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

http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/5environment/submarines/screen/holbrook_b11.html

 

28th October 1914 (Wednesday)

BORN TODAY: in New York City – Dr Jonas Edward Salk, who brought the world an effective vaccine against polio:

“In the five years before 1955, when mass inoculations with the vaccine began, cases of paralytic polio averaged about 25,000 a year in the United States. A few years after polio vaccination became routine, the annual number of cases dropped to a dozen or so, sometimes fewer.” [NY TImes obituary].

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1028.html

War!

Eastern Front: Russian troops recapture Lodz and Radon from German forces. [Burg & Purcell]

War at Sea: The German cruiser “Emden” makes a surprise attack on Penang in Malaya (now Malaysia), sinking the Russian Cruiser “Zemtchug” and the French destroyer “Mousquet”.

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

Society and Culture: At the Bank of England (the UK’s central bank) – one of the City’s most traditional bastions –  the Treasury Committee minutes provide a brief glimpse of the impact of war on the labour market, as now recorded on the contemporary bank’s web-site:

“The impact of the war on the Bank is illustrated by a change in the workforce between 1914 and 1918. In August 1914, women clerks at the Bank numbered just 66 and their work was predominantly typing and counting notes. As a result of the enlistment of many of the  Bank’s junior male clerks, the number of temporary and permanent women clerks increased to a peak of 2,463 in June 1919. The responsibilities of the women clerks was (sic) also changing. An extract from the Committee of Treasury minutes on 28 October 1914 discusses that as it was now, ‘desirable to employ women clerks permanently on the coupon work of the Securities Office, the Committee agreed to recommend to the Court of Directors that the staff of the Women Clerks Department be increased by eight clerks.’ ”  [Bank of England archives].

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Pages/digitalcontent/archivedocs/ww1servicerecords.aspx