30th August 1915 (Monday)

BORN TODAY: In Swansea, Wales – Lillian May Davies, fashion model, and later Princess Lilian, Duchess of Halland, after her marriage into the Swedish Royal Family in 1976.

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Princess_Lilian,_Duchess_of_Halland

DIED TODAY:

~ On the Thames Estuary in Purfleet, Essex – 16 cadets and their training officer on His Majesty’s Training Ship “Cornwall” when it is struck by a government tug.

https://www.thurrock.gov.uk/news/museum-and-heritage/marking-great-war-disaster-at-purfleet

~ in Mardin, near (what is now) the Turkish/ Syrian border, Ignatius Abded Mshiho II, the 61 year old Patriarch of Antioch, Head of the Syriac Orthodox Church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_Abded_Mshiho_II

~ At Gallipoli – Brigadier General P.A.Kenna VC DSO, 21st Lancers, 3rd Mounted Brigade and Lewis Leonard Grant, a labourer from Allansford, Victoria, Australia… and many others.

http://battlefields1418.50megs.com/lala_baba_cemetery.htm

https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=116811

24th July 1915 (Saturday)

BORN TODAY: In Uelzen, Germany – Günther Schwägermann – nazi Hauptsturmführer and adjutant to doctor Joseph Goebells.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnther_Schw%C3%A4germann

Accidents and disasters: at the dockside on the Chicago River, the steamship “Eastland”, which is boarding passengers for a Western Electric works outing across Lake Michigan, rolls over and capsizes. 844 passengers and crew are drowned, over 200 of them Czech immigrants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland

War!

In the Middle East: In Turkish Mesopotamia (now Iraq)  British forces take the town of Nasiriya from the Turks, and begin to prepare plans for an advance  northward to Baghdad. [Roger Ford: “Eden to Armageddon; World War 1 in the Middle East”]

13th January 1915 (Wednesday)

BORN TODAY: in Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania – Dominec Petrore, son of Italian immigrants: Peter Petroro, born 1884 in Abruzzo, and Antonia Saia Petroro, born in Italy in 1886. 

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=93852343

Earthquake: In central Italy, near the city of Aquila, a major earthquake sends tremors as far as Rome. Near the epicentre, especially at the town of Avezzano, around 30,000 people perish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_Avezzano_earthquake

Extreme Weather: In Naples harbour, the cargo ship “Amalia Scotto” is driven against the quayside and sunk by a gale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_January_1915

4th April 1914 (Saturday)

BORN TODAY: in Litomyšl in Czechoslovakia, Zdeněk Kopal, Cambridge, Harvard and Manchester astronomer after whom asteroid 2628 Kopal is named.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zden%C4%9Bk_Kopal

Disasters: In St John’s, Newfoundland, the sealing vessel, SS Bellaventure arrives in port with a gruesome cargo of 69 sealers from the vessel SS Newfoundland, who perished while stranded in a North Atlantic blizzard.

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/sealing_disaster_impact_sealers.html

Transportation: in the north of England, the 11 mile railway from Carlisle to Port Carlisle, on the Solway Firth sees the final day of its horse drawn railway service. The route was originally (1823) a canal, replaced by horse drawn railway carriages in 1854. In two days from now a steam train service will open, and will run until 1932, when this branch line will permanently close.

http://www.cumbria-railways.co.uk/port-carlisle-railway.html

 

20th February 1914 (Friday)

BORN TODAY: in Johannesburg, South Africa – John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly, Jr., game-show host.

http://www.nndb.com/people/652/000059475/

Society and culture: In Frankfurt, Germany, Rosa Luxemburg stands trial for encouraging public disobedience by making anti-war speeches in which she called on young German men to refuse to take up arms against their French brothers. She is given a one year prison sentence.

http://rosaluxemburgblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/on-this-day-20-feb-1914-frankfurt/

Shipping accidents: The Fethard lifeboat is destroyed in a storm off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 9 of its 14 crew while attempting to rescue the crew of the cargo ship “Mexico” with a cargo of South American mahogany.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/02/24/indie-band-or-trawler-survivors/