General Historical Events
*****
*William Howard Taft, the only person to have served as President of the United States (the 27th) and as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (the 10th), died in Washington, D. C.
April 4
*Chinese Communists joined forces to attack Hankow.
January
January 6
*The first diesel engine automobile trip was completed (Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City) by Clessie Cummins, founder of the Cummins Motor Company.
*An early literary character licensing agreement was signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger United States and Canadian merchandising rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works.
January 13
*The Mickey Mouse comic strip made its first appearance.
January 15
*The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This was the closest moon distance at 356,397 kilometers (221,454 miles) in recorded history and the next perigee would not occur until January 1, 2257 at 356,371 kilometers (221,438 miles).
January 21
*A London Naval Conference convened. It would end three months later with a treaty signed by Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy and Japan who agreed to limit submarine tonnage and gun-caliber and scrap certain warships. Japanese militarist factions attacked the treaty.
January 26
*The Indian National Congress declared declares this date as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence).
January 28
*The first patent for a field-effect transistor was granted in the United States to Julius Edgar Lilienfeld.
January 30
*Pavel Molchanov launched a radiosonde from Pavlovsk in the Soviet Union.
January 31
*The 3M company marketed Scotch Tape, invented by Richard Gurley Drew, in the United States.
February
February 2
*The Communist Party of Vietnam was established.
February 10
*The Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang launched the Yen Bai mutiny in the hope of ending French colonial rule in Vietnam.
February 18
*While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh confirmed the existence of Pluto, a celestial body considered a planet until redefined as a dwarf planet in 2006.
*Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft, and also the first cow to be milked in an aeroplane.
March
March 2
*Mahatma Gandhi informed the British viceroy of India that civil disobedience would begin the following week.
March 5
*Danish painter Einar Wegener began sex reassignment surgery in Germany and took the name Lili Elbe.
March 6
*The first frozen foods of Clarence Birdseye went on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts.
March 8
*A United States and League of Nations commission reported that Liberia still had slavery.
*William Howard Taft, the only person to have served as President of the United States (the 27th) and as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (the 10th), died in Washington, D. C.
March 12
*Mahatma Gandhi set off on a 200-mile protest march towards the sea with 78 followers to protest the British monopoly on salt. More would join them during the Salt March that ended on April 5.
A civil disobedience campaign against the British in India began. The All-India Trade Congress empowered Mahatma Gandhi to begin the demonstrations. Called Mahatma (meaning "great soul" or "sage") for the previous decade, Gandhi led a 165 mile march to the Gujurat Coast of the Arabian Sea and produced salt by evaporation of seawater in violation of the law as a gesture of defiance against the British monopoly in salt production.
March 16
*The former Spanish dictator Primo de Rivera died at the age of 59. Students agitated for a Spanish Republic, denouncing the monarchy of Alfonso XIII.
March 28
*Turkey's President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk renamed Constantinople, Istanbul, and Angora, Ankara. The government of Turkey requested that the international community adopt Istanbul and Ankara as the official names for Constantinople and Angora.
Constantinople was a name for the great city, but it was a name which the Turks detested.
Istanbul was the common name for the city in normal speech in Turkish even since before the Ottoman conquest of 1453, but in official use by the Ottoman authorities, other names such as Constantinople were preferred in certain contexts.
After the creation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the various alternative names besides Istanbul became obsolete in the Turkish language. With the Turkish Postal Service Law of March 28, 1930, the Turkish authorities officially requested foreigners to cease referring to the city with their traditional non-Turkish names (such as Constantinople, Tsarigrad, etc.) and to adopt Istanbul as the sole name also in their own languages. Letters or packages sent to "Constantinople" instead of "Istanbul" were no longer delivered by Turkey's PTT, which contributed to the eventual worldwide adoption of the new name.
March 29
*Heinrich Bruning was appointed Chancellor of Germany.
March 31
*The Motion Picture Production Code ("Hays Code") was instituted in the United States, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence on films for the next 40 years.
April
April 4
*The Communist Party of Panama was founded.
April 5
*In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi broke the Salt laws of British India by making salt by the sea at the end of the Salt March.
April 6
*The International Left Opposition (ILO) was founded in Paris, France.
*Hostess Twinkies were invented.
April 17
*Neoprene was invented by DuPont.
April 18
*The Chittagong Rebellion began in India with the Chittagong armory raid.
*BBC Radio from London reported on this day that "There is no news".
April 19
*Warner Bros. in the United States released their first cartoon series called Looney Tunes which ran until 1969.
April 21
*A fire in the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, killed 320 people.
*The Turkestan-Siberia Railway was completed.
April 22
*The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States signed the London Naval Treaty to regulate submarine warfare and limit naval shipbuilding.
April 28
*The first night game in organized baseball history took place in Independence, Kansas.
April 30
*France enacted a workmen's insurance law.
May
May 5
*Mahatma Gandhi was re-arrested.
May 6
*The 1930 Salmas earthquake in Iran killed up to 3,000 people.
*Japan capitulated to Chinese boycotts of Japanese goods by signing a tariff agreement with China.
May 10
*The National Pan-Hellenic Council was founded in Washington, D. C.
May 14
*Chris de Broglio, a Mauritian-born South African weightlifter and anti-Apartheid activist, was born in Mauritius.
Chris de Broglio (b. Marie Christian Dubruel de Broglio, May 14, 1930, Mauritius – d. July 12, 2014, Corsica) advocated for an end to racism in sports and played a key role within the movement to expel South Africa from the in 1970, during the height of that country's Apartheid era. He joined with Dennis Brutus to co-found the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (San-Roc). According to Nelson Mandela, the expulsion of South Africa in the 1970s revitalized the anti-Apartheid movement at the time and ultimately led to the end of Apartheid twenty years later.
De Broglio was born Marie Christian Dubruel de Broglio in Mauritius on May 14, 1930, to Maurice and Suzanne de Broglio. He took up weightlifting after a longterm, mysterious illness originally left him smaller than other kids his age. De Broglio later moved to South Africa to study accounting.
De Broglio was a South African weightlifting champion from 1950 until 1962. He competed at the World Championships in Sweden in 1958 and Vienna, Austria, in 1961. However, he was disturbed that white and black weightlifters were forbidden from competing or training together in South Africa. During his tenure as the chairman and secretary of both the Natal and Transvaal Weightlifting Associations, De Broglio organized multi-racial weightlifting competitions, which were illegal under Apartheid.
In the early 1960s, De Broglio, who was employed by Air France at the time, arranged for the chairman of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (San-Roc), John Harris, to secretly leave South Africa. Harris testified against the Apartheid system before the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which resulted in the exclusion of South Africa from participation in the 1964 Summer Olympics. (Harris would later be executed for his role in the bombing of a white-only section of the Johannesburg Park Station.) In 1963, De Broglio's organization, San-Roc, successfully lobbied for the suspension of South Africa from international football. De Broglio was placed under state surveillance and forced into exile in London, settling in Twickenham. There, De Broglio and others re-established San-Roc in the basement of the Portman Court Hotel in Marble Arch. De Broglio organized a San-Roc boycott of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City by a number of African and Asian nations.
In 1997, De Broglio was awarded the Olympic Order for his work against racism in athletics and his defense of the Olympic Charter.
De Broglio lived in Corsica during his later life. He frequented the gym until he was 80 years old. He died on July 12, 2014, at the age of 84.
May 15
*Nurse Ellen Church became the world's first flight attendant, working on a Boeing Air Transport tri-motor.
May 17
*French Prime Minister Andre Tardieu decided to withdraw the remaining French troops from the Rhineland (they departed by June 30).
May 19
*South Africa's white women received the vote. However, blacks of both sexes remained disenfranchised.
May 24
*Italy's Mussolini argued that the Treaty of Versailles should be reviewed and revised.
May 24
*Amy Johnson landed in Darwin, Australia, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
May 30
*Sergei Eisenstein arrived in Hollywood to work for Paramount Pictures. They would part ways by October.
*Canadian adventurer William "Red" Hill, Sr., made a five-hour journey down the Niagara Gorge rapids.
June
June 7
*Carl Gustaf Ekman became the Prime Minister of Sweden for the second and final time.
*****
*Bob Boyd, an American collegiate men's basketball coach who was head coach at Seattle University, the University of Southern California (USC), and Mississippi State University, was born.
William Robert "Bob" Boyd (b. June 7, 1930 – d. January 14, 2015) had a long association with the University of Southern California's men's basketball, first as a player and then as its head coach. The 3-year letterman (1950–52) was USC's most valuable player as a senior in 1952. Boyd then began his coaching career, first for five years in the high school ranks (at El Segundo, California and Alhambra, California), then for six years at the junior college level at Santa Ana College (his 1959 team finished second at the state tournament) and then collegiately, first at Seattle University, where Boyd went 41-13 in 2 seasons (1964–65).
After a year out of coaching while working for Converse athletic shoes, Boyd embarked on a 13-year career (1967–79) as head coach of the USC basketball team. Boyd's teams went 216-131 overall and played in the post-season four times (the 1979 NCAA, the 1973 NIT, and the 1974 and 1975 Commissioner's Conference tourney). Boyd's 1971 team, which went 24-2 and was ranked fifth in the nation (USC was ranked first at midseason), is regarded among USC's best (Boyd also won 24 games in 1974). Boyd's wins over UCLA in 1969 and 1970 were UCLA's first losses in Pauley Pavilion, UCLA's home court built in 1966. Boyd was twice named the conference Coach of the Year and he sent ten players into the NBA, including Paul Westphal and Gus Williams.
After USC, Boyd went on to be the head coach at Mississippi State University (1982-1986) , Riverside Community College (1989) and Chapman University (1990-92), and then was an assistant at LSU and Utah State University.
Boyd is a member of the University of Southern California's Athletic Hall of Fame and the Pac-12 Conference Men's Basketball Hall of Honor. Boyd died of natural causes in Palm Desert, California, on January 14, 2015.
June 8
*Romania's boy king Michael was removed after a three year reign and was succeeded by his father, now 37, who returned from exile on June 6 and who would reign until 1940 as Carol II. The new king electrified the country by arriving from Paris by airplane and was soon joined by his mistress Magda Lupeseu, 26, who would have great influence.
June 9
*Chicago Tribune journalist Jake Lingle was shot in Chicago, Illinois. Newspapers promised a $55,000 reward for information. Lingle was later found to have had contacts with organized crime.
June 14
*The Bureau of Narcotics was established under the United States Department of the Treasury, replacing the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit.
June 17
*President of the United States Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.
June 20
*Thomas Blanton, one of the bombers who was responsible for the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four young African-American girls, was born. .
Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. (b. June 20, 1930) was convicted in 2001 of murder for his role as conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. The bombing killed four young African-American girls (Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair). Blanton was thirty-three years old at the time of the bombing.
Blanton is the son of Thomas Edwin "Pops" Blanton Sr., who was a notorious racist in the Birmingham, Alabama area. Blanton was born on the same day as Bobby Frank Cherry, one of his co-conspirators.
Blanton was convicted of murder in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison, with the eventual possibility of parole.
June 21
*The one-year conscription came into force in France.
June 25
*James Vardaman, a Governor and Senator of the State of Mississippi, died in Birmingham, Alabama.
James Kimble Vardaman (b. July 26, 1861, Jackson County, Texas – d. June 25, 1930, Birmingham, Alabama) was an American politician from the United States state of Mississippi and was the Governor of Mississippi from 1904 to 1908. A Democrat, Vardaman was elected in 1912 to the United States Senate in the first popular vote for the office, following adoption of the 17th Amendment which mandated the popular election of Senators. He defeated incumbent LeRoy Percy, a member of the planter elite. Vardaman served from 1913 to 1919.
Known as "The Great White Chief", Vardaman had gained electoral support for his advocacy of populism and white supremacy, saying: "If it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy." He appealed to the poorer whites, yeomen farmers and factory workers.
Vardaman was born in Jackson County, Texas, in July 1861. He moved to Mississippi, where he studied law and passed the bar. He settled in Greenwood, Mississippi, becoming editor of The Greenwood Commonwealth.
Mississippi election campaigns were frequently marked by violence and fraud after Reconstruction. A biracial coalition of Republicans and Populists had briefly controlled the governorship and Mississippi House in the late 1880s.
As a Democrat, Vardaman served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1890 to 1896 and was elected as speaker of that body in 1894. He was known for his populist appeal to the common man. The Democrats took action to ensure they did not lose power again in the state. After having gained control of the legislature by suppressing the black vote, they passed a new constitution in 1890 with provisions, such as a poll tax and literacy test, that raised barriers to voter registration and in practice disenfranchised most blacks.
Referring to the 1890 Mississippi state constitution, Vardaman said:
Vardaman was commissioned as a major in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War. He served in Puerto Rico.
Vardaman ran twice in Democratic primaries for governor, in 1895 and 1899, but was not successful. The state was virtually one-party, and winning the Democratic primary established a candidate as the winning candidate for office. In 1903 Vardaman won the primary and the governorship, serving one four-year term (1904–1908).
In late December 1906, he went to Scooba, Mississippi, in rural Kemper County with state militia, to ensure control was established. Whites had rioted against blacks there, and in Wahalak, and they feared retaliation. In total, two white men were killed and 13 blacks.
By 1910, Vardaman's political coalition, comprising chiefly poor white farmers and industrial workers, began to identify proudly as "rednecks". They began to wear red neckerchiefs to political rallies and picnics.
Vardaman advocated a policy of state-sponsored racism against African Americans, saying that he supported lynching in order to maintain his vision of white supremacy. From 1877 to 1950, Mississippi had the highest number of lynchings in the nation. He was known as the "Great White Chief".
Vardaman was elected to the United States Senate in 1912 in the first popular election of senators, defeating the incumbent LeRoy Percy, a member of the planter elite. Vardaman served one term, from 1913 until 1919. He was defeated in his primary re-election bid in 1918. The main factor in Vardaman's defeat was his vote against the United States' Declaration of War on Germany and entry into World War I. Only five other Senators voted with him.
Vardaman ran in the Democratic primary for the United States Senate in 1922, but was defeated in the primary runoff by Congressman Hubert Stephens by 9,000 votes.
Vardaman was known for his provocative speeches and quotes, once calling Theodore Roosevelt a "little, mean, coon-flavored miscegenationist." In reference to the education of black children, he remarked, "The only effect of Negro education is to spoil a good field hand and make an insolent cook."
After Tuskegee University president Booker T. Washington had dined with Roosevelt, Vardaman said the White House was "so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable."
Referring to Washington's role in politics, Vardaman said: "I am just as much opposed to Booker T. Washington as a voter as I am to the coconut-headed, chocolate-colored typical little coon who blacks my shoes every morning."
Vardaman married Anna Burleson Robinson. Their son, James K. Vardaman, Jr., later was appointed as Governor of the Federal Reserve System, serving from 1946 to 1958.
Vardaman died on June 25, 1930 at the age of 68 at Birmingham Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama.
June 25
*James Vardaman, a Governor and Senator of the State of Mississippi, died in Birmingham, Alabama.
James Kimble Vardaman (b. July 26, 1861, Jackson County, Texas – d. June 25, 1930, Birmingham, Alabama) was an American politician from the United States state of Mississippi and was the Governor of Mississippi from 1904 to 1908. A Democrat, Vardaman was elected in 1912 to the United States Senate in the first popular vote for the office, following adoption of the 17th Amendment which mandated the popular election of Senators. He defeated incumbent LeRoy Percy, a member of the planter elite. Vardaman served from 1913 to 1919.
Known as "The Great White Chief", Vardaman had gained electoral support for his advocacy of populism and white supremacy, saying: "If it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy." He appealed to the poorer whites, yeomen farmers and factory workers.
Vardaman was born in Jackson County, Texas, in July 1861. He moved to Mississippi, where he studied law and passed the bar. He settled in Greenwood, Mississippi, becoming editor of The Greenwood Commonwealth.
Mississippi election campaigns were frequently marked by violence and fraud after Reconstruction. A biracial coalition of Republicans and Populists had briefly controlled the governorship and Mississippi House in the late 1880s.
As a Democrat, Vardaman served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1890 to 1896 and was elected as speaker of that body in 1894. He was known for his populist appeal to the common man. The Democrats took action to ensure they did not lose power again in the state. After having gained control of the legislature by suppressing the black vote, they passed a new constitution in 1890 with provisions, such as a poll tax and literacy test, that raised barriers to voter registration and in practice disenfranchised most blacks.
Referring to the 1890 Mississippi state constitution, Vardaman said:
Vardaman was commissioned as a major in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War. He served in Puerto Rico.
Vardaman ran twice in Democratic primaries for governor, in 1895 and 1899, but was not successful. The state was virtually one-party, and winning the Democratic primary established a candidate as the winning candidate for office. In 1903 Vardaman won the primary and the governorship, serving one four-year term (1904–1908).
In late December 1906, he went to Scooba, Mississippi, in rural Kemper County with state militia, to ensure control was established. Whites had rioted against blacks there, and in Wahalak, and they feared retaliation. In total, two white men were killed and 13 blacks.
By 1910, Vardaman's political coalition, comprising chiefly poor white farmers and industrial workers, began to identify proudly as "rednecks". They began to wear red neckerchiefs to political rallies and picnics.
Vardaman advocated a policy of state-sponsored racism against African Americans, saying that he supported lynching in order to maintain his vision of white supremacy. From 1877 to 1950, Mississippi had the highest number of lynchings in the nation. He was known as the "Great White Chief".
Vardaman was elected to the United States Senate in 1912 in the first popular election of senators, defeating the incumbent LeRoy Percy, a member of the planter elite. Vardaman served one term, from 1913 until 1919. He was defeated in his primary re-election bid in 1918. The main factor in Vardaman's defeat was his vote against the United States' Declaration of War on Germany and entry into World War I. Only five other Senators voted with him.
Vardaman ran in the Democratic primary for the United States Senate in 1922, but was defeated in the primary runoff by Congressman Hubert Stephens by 9,000 votes.
Vardaman was known for his provocative speeches and quotes, once calling Theodore Roosevelt a "little, mean, coon-flavored miscegenationist." In reference to the education of black children, he remarked, "The only effect of Negro education is to spoil a good field hand and make an insolent cook."
After Tuskegee University president Booker T. Washington had dined with Roosevelt, Vardaman said the White House was "so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable."
Referring to Washington's role in politics, Vardaman said: "I am just as much opposed to Booker T. Washington as a voter as I am to the coconut-headed, chocolate-colored typical little coon who blacks my shoes every morning."
Vardaman married Anna Burleson Robinson. Their son, James K. Vardaman, Jr., later was appointed as Governor of the Federal Reserve System, serving from 1946 to 1958.
Vardaman died on June 25, 1930 at the age of 68 at Birmingham Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama.
June 30
*The last remaining Allied troops of occupation departed from the Rhineland five years ahead of the date set by the Treaty of Versailles and, as history would soon show, prematurely.
June 30
July
*Chinese Communists joined forces to attack Hankow.
July 4
*The dedication of George Washington's sculpted head was held at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
July 5
*The Seventh Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops opened. This conference approved the use of birth control in limited circumstances, a move away from the Christian views on contraception expressed by the Sixth Conference a decade earlier
July 7
*The Lapua Movement marched in Helsinki, Finland.
*The building of the Boulder Dam (later known as the Hoover Dam) was started on the Colorado River in the United States.
July 11
*Australian cricketer Donald Bradman scored a world record 309 runs in one day, on his way to the highest individual Test innings of 334, during a Test match against England.
July 13
*The first FIFA World Cup started. Lucien Laurent scored the first goal, for France against Mexico.
July 14
*Maurice Bessinger, an American restaurateur and politician noted for his defense of racial segregation, was born in Orangeburg County, South Carolina (July 14).
Lloyd Maurice Bessinger, Sr. (b. July 14, 1930, Orangeburg County, South Carolina – d. February 22, 2014) served in Army on the front lines of the Korean War, returning to the United States in 1952.
Bessinger, along with his brother Joe Jr., opened their first drive-in restaurant, Maurice's Piggie Park, in West Columbia, South Carolina, in 1953. By 1968, he had four drive-ins, and by 2002 the chain had grown to nine restaurants. The barbecue was well-regarded, and Piggie Park was included in multiple compilations of the best barbecue in the United States.
Bessinger also sold BBQ sauce under the Carolina Gold brand whose recipe included mustard, brown sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar. By 1999, this had become the largest BBQ operation in the United States.
Piggie Park restaurants were segregated, such that African-Americans were not allowed to eat inside the restaurants, until a lawsuit, Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. won an injunction in 1968.
In 1964, Anne Newman, the wife of an African-American minister, sued Piggie Park after Bessinger refused her entry to his restaurant. Newman sued under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and won an injunction against the chain requiring them to stop refusing service to African-Americans. At the Supreme Court, this case also set a precedent assigning attorney's fees to someone who successfully sues for an injunction under the Act.
In 2000, the state of South Carolina stopped flying the Confederate Flag over the capitol, following a vote earlier that year. In response, Bessinger raised Confederate flags over his restaurants, also calling the flags "a real Christian symbol... fighting tyranny and terror and suppressive government."
A number of grocery chains responded by dropping his Carolina Gold sauce from their shelves. The Council of Conservative Citizens and the South Carolina Heritage Coalition responded with a call to boycott Wal-Mart, and Bessinger filed a lawsuit against Bi-Lo, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, and Winn-Dixie, arguing that their refusal to carry his products violated South Carolina's Unfair Trading Practices Act and intruded onto his right to free speech. Bessinger asked for $50 million in damages. The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected his claims in 2007.
After Bessinger's children took over the operation, they took down the flags, the last of them in 2013.
Bessinger was a Baptist, and argued in Newman that requiring that he serve African-American customers was a violation of his religious beliefs.
Bessinger believed that "God gave slaves to whites", and claimed that South Carolina had had a gentler "Biblical slavery".
Bessinger also notably opposed flying flags at half-mast following the death of Martin Luther King, saying King had only been in Memphis "to stir hatred, violence, and discord."
Bessinger ran for a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1964, narrowly losing by a margin of around 100 votes. A 1974 run for governor was far less successful, drawing only 2.5% of the vote in the Democratic primary.
Behind the scenes, in 1964, Bessinger was Chairman of the George Wallace presidential campaign.
In the 1970s, he was also the chairman of the South Carolina Independent Party.
In 2001, Bessinger published his autobiography, Defending My Heritage.
July 19
*Georges Simenon's detective character Inspector Jules Maigret made his first appearance in print under Simenon's own name when the novel Pietr-le-Letton (known in English as The Strange Case of Peter the Lett) began serialization in a French weekly magazine. Simenon would eventually write 75 novels (as well as 28 short stories) featuring the pipe-smoking Paris detective.
July 21
*The United States Department of Veterans Affairs was established.
July 24
*Alfred Balk, an American reporter who wrote groundbreaking articles about housing segregation, the Nation of Islam, the environment and Illinois politics, was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa (July 24).
The refusal of Alfred Balk (b. July 24, 1930, Oskaloosa, Iowa – d. November 25, 2010, Huntley, Illinois) to identify a confidential source led to a landmark court case. During a career-long emphasis on media improvement, he served on the Twentieth Century Fund's task force that established a National News Council, consulted for several foundations, served as secretary of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's Committee on the Employment of Minority Groups in the News Media, and produced a film, That the People Shall Know: The Challenge of Journalism, narrated by Walter Cronkite. He wrote and co-authored books on a variety of topics, ranging from the tax exempt status of religious organizations to globalization to the history of radio.
Alfred William Balk was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, on July 24, 1930, the son of Leslie William Balk and Clara Buell Balk. He grew up in Muscatine, Iowa and Rock Island, Illinois. He began his journalistic career writing for his high school paper, and also landed a job as a sports reporter for the local paper, The Rock Island Argus.
After high school, he enrolled at Augustana College in Rock Island and transferred to Northwestern University after a year where he graduated from the Medill School of Journalism with both bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism (1952 and 1953, respectively). He later served in the United States Army as a journalist and was stationed in Japan during 1954-1955. He began freelance writing for various magazines while in Japan, and also wrote for a variety of military newspapers during his service.
In 1958, after serving as a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, he began freelancing full-time.
During eight years of full-time freelancing his most influential articles appeared in the era’s leading magazines, including Harper's, The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest and others. Balk was a member of the Society of Magazine Writers, which elected him president in 1969.
While working at the weekly Saturday Evening Post, which for a time retained him under contract as a lead writer, he wrote on subjects such as Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, victims of the fallout-shelter craze, how a television jackpot almost ruined the winners, and defections among Protestant ministers. He co-authored a report on the rise of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam with Alex Haley of future Roots fame. The pioneering article, "Black Merchants of Hate," later led to Haley's classic and bestseller The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Balk rose to prominence in 1962 after writing an article for the Saturday Evening Post titled “Confession of a Block-Buster” which chronicled a Chicago real estate speculator’s strategy of frightening white homeowners into selling their property at a loss and then re-selling to black buyers at inflated prices. The article made legal history when a group of black homeowners subsequently tried to compel disclosure of his confidential source, pseudonymous speculator ("Norris Vitchek"). In Baker v. F&F Investment, a U.S. District Court upheld his right to confidentiality, and in 1972 the United States Supreme Court declined to review the decision, and the press pronounced the case a landmark.
Among other prominent articles, for The Reader’s Digest he reported on nursing-home neglect, threats to public parkland, Great Lakes water problems, boating-boom safety hazards, and Thomas Edison remembered by a son; for The Reporter, the social significance of Ebony magazine founder John Johnson's success; and for The New York Times Magazine, the “Dust Bowl” revisited.
For Harper’s, his subjects included zoning abuses, a builder who made integration pay, and two high-profile cover stories. One, a collaboration with then-State Senator Paul Simon on “The Illinois Legislature: A Study in Corruption” (September 1964), spurred ethics reforms and vaulted Simon to national prominence, a United States Senate seat, and a legacy including helping foster President-to-be Barack Obama's political rise. The other, “God Is Rich” (October 1967), on religious organizations’ tax exemptions, led to the book The Religion Business (John Knox Press) and, under a Foundation fellowship, a nationwide study The Free List: Property Without Taxes (Russell Sage Foundation), which Time, in a two-page report (May 3, 1971), described as “a penetrating new book.”
Balk moved to New York in 1966 as features editor and editor at large of Saturday Review under Norman Cousins. Three years later, he became editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and also taught at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.
Balk left Columbia in 1973 to serve as founding editor of World Press Review, a monthly foreign press digest, hiring Marion K. Sanders of Harper's and other distinguished journalists to build a successful publication, which was later acquired by The Stanley Foundation. His last magazine position, from 1989 to 1991, was as managing editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' publication, IEEE Spectrum. He also was an Executive Committee member of the American Society of Magazine Editors, Overseas Press Club, as well as a consultant to the Twentieth Century Fund, the Ford Foundation and the Markle Foundation. In the mid-1970s, he delivered media commentaries on CBS Morning News. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, his writing on media appeared in Nieman Reports, Columbia Journalism Review, Editor and Publisher, Folio, and other journalism organs.
In 1991, Balk moved to Syracuse in upstate New York to teach journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. There he wrote his eighth book, The Rise of Radio: From Marconi Through the Golden Age (McFarland, 2006) which received positive reviews from other media professionals, including Mike Wallace of CBS.
All told, during his lifetime, Balk wrote more than 100 magazine articles and eight books.
Balk married Phyllis Munter, of Moline, Illinois, in 1953. They met while in high school representing rival schools on a local radio program. His wife served as an important support throughout her husband's career, as indicated in Balk's scholarly papers in the collections of the Newberry Library in Chicago and Syracuse University. She was also known in her own right for extensive volunteer and charitable work.
Balk died of colon cancer on November 25, 2010, in his home in Huntley, Illinois. He was survived by his wife, two daughters and two grandchildren. His wife, Phyllis, died on May 4, 2011.
*****
July 25
*Laurence Olivier married actress Jill Esmond.
July 26
*Charles Creighton and James Hargis of Missouri began their return journey to Los Angeles using only a reverse gear; the 11,555 kilometer (7180 mile) trip lasted 42 days.
July 28
*R. B. Bennett defeated William Lyon Mackenzie King in federal elections and became the Prime Minister of Canada.
July 29
*The British airship R100 set out for a successful 78-hour passage to Canada.
July 30
*Uruguay beat Argentina 4–2 to win the first Association football (soccer) FIFA World Cup final.
*New York station W2XBS was put in charge of NBC broadcast engineers.
July 31
*The radio drama The Shadow aired for the first time in the United States.
August
August 6
*Judge Joseph Force Crater disappeared.
August 7
*R. B. Bennett took office as the eleventh Prime Minister of Canada.
*Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were lynched in Marion, Indiana. There were hanged. James Cameron survived. This would be the last recorded lynching of African Americans in the Northern United States.
August 9
*Betty Boop premiered in the animated film Dizzy Dishes.
August 12
*Turkish and Russian forces launched an offensive against Kurdish rebels.
*Horace Smith-Dorrien, one of the few British survivors of the Battle of Isandlwana, died at Chippenham, Wiltshire, England.
Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien (b. May 26, 1858 – d. August 12, 1930) held senior commands in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the First World War. He commanded II Corps at the Battle of Mons, the first major action fought by the BEF, and the Battle of Le Cateau, where he fought a vigorous and successful defensive action contrary to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief Sir John French, with whom he had had a personality clash dating back some years. In the spring of 1915, he commanded the Second Army at the Second Battle of Ypres. He was relieved of command by French for requesting permission to retreat from the Ypres Salient to a more defensible position.
Horace Smith-Dorrien was born at Haresfoot, a house near Berkhamsted, to Colonel Robert Algernon Smith-Dorrien and Mary Ann Drever. He was the twelfth child of sixteen. His eldest brother was Thomas Algernon Smith-Dorrien-Smith, the Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly from 1872 to 1918. He was educated at Harrow, and on February 26, 1876 entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He had hoped to join the 95th Rifle Brigade of Peninsular War fame. After passing out he was commissioned in 1877 as a subaltern to the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot, later to become the Sherwood Foresters.
On November 1, 1878, he was posted to South Africa where he worked as a transport officer. In this role he encountered, and fought against, corruption in the army.
Smith-Dorrien was present at the Battle of Isandlwana during the Zulu Wars on January 22, 1879, serving with the British invasion force as a transport officer for the army's Royal Artillery detachment. As Zulu forces overran the British forces, Smith-Dorrien narrowly escaped on his transport pony over 20 miles of rough terrain with twenty Zulu warriors in hot pursuit, crossing the Buffalo River, 80 yards wide and with a strong current, by holding the tail of a loose horse. Smith-Dorrien was one of fewer than fifty British survivors of the battle (many more native African troops on the British side also survived), and one of only five Imperial officers to escape the Zulu bloodbath. Because of his conduct in trying to help other soldiers escape from the battlefield, including a colonial commisariat officer named Hamer whose life he saved, he was recommended for a Victoria Cross, but, as the recommendation did not go through the proper channels, he never received it. Nevertheless, Smith-Dorrien continued to take part in the rest of that war. Indeed, his observations on the difficulty of opening ammunition boxes led to changes in British practice for the rest of the war, though modern commentators argue that this was not as important a factor in the defeat as was thought at the time.
***
The Battle of Isandlwana (alternative spelling: Isandhlwana) on January 22, 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zululand in South Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1,800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians. The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and old rifles, though they were not formally trained in their use. The British and colonial troops were armed with the state-of-the-art Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle and two 7-pounder (3-inch, 76mm) mountain guns deployed as field guns, as well as a Hale rocket battery. Despite a vast disadvantage in weapons technology, the numerically superior Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the poorly led and badly deployed British, killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The Zulu army suffered around a thousand killed.
The battle was a decisive victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand. The British Army had suffered its worst defeat against an indigenous foe with vastly inferior military technology. Isandlwana resulted in the British taking a much more aggressive approach in the Anglo–Zulu War, leading to a heavily reinforced second invasion and the destruction of King Cetshwayo's hopes of a negotiated peace.
***
After South Africa, Smith-Dorrien served in Egypt under Evelyn Wood. He was promoted captain on April 1, 1882, appointed assistant chief of police in Alexandria on August 22, 1882, then given command of Mounted Infantry in Egypt on September 3, 1882. He was then seconded to the Egyptian army (February 1, 1884). During this time, he forged a lifelong friendship with the then Major (later Lord) Herbert Kitchener. He met Charles Gordon more than once, but his bad knee kept him off the expedition to relieve Khartoum. However, he did serve on the Suakin Expedition. On December 30, 1885, he witnessed the Battle of Gennis, where the British Army fought in red coats for the last time. The next day (December 31, 1885), Smith-Dorrien was given his first independent command, 150 men (a mixture of hussars, mounted infantry and Egyptians) with fifty infantry in reserve. His task was to capture nine Arab river supply boats (nuggars), which, in order to achieve, he had to exceed his orders by going beyond the village of Surda, making a 60-mile journey on horseback in 24 hours. For this, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1886.
Smith-Dorrien then left active command to go to the Staff College, Camberley (1887–9). At the time, Staff College was not much respected, and Smith-Dorrien, instead of studying, devoted much of his time to sport whilst there.
Smith-Dorrien was posted to India, and promoted to major on May 1, 1892. He became Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General, Bengal, on April 1, 1893 and then Assistant Adjutant General, Bengal, on October 27, 1894. He returned to his regiment where he commanded troops during the Tirah Campaign of 1897–98.
In 1898, he transferred back to Egypt. He was promoted to brevet lieutenant-colonel on May 20, 1898 and appointed Commanding Officer of the 13th Sudanese Battalion (July 16, 1898). He fought at the Battle of Omdurman (September 2, 1898), where his infantry fired at Devishes from entrenched positions. He commanded the British troops during the Fashoda Incident. He was then promoted to brevet colonel 16 November 16, 1898 and Commanding Officer of the Sherwood Foresters and substantive lieutenant-colonel (January 1, 1899).
***
At the Battle of Omdurman (September 2, 1898), an army commanded by the British General Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, Kitchener was seeking revenge for the 1885 death of General Charles Gordon. It was a demonstration of the superiority of a highly disciplined army equipped with modern rifles, machine guns, and artillery over a force twice their size armed with older weapons, and marked the success of British efforts to re-conquer the Sudan. However, it was not until the 1899 Battle of Umm Diwaykarat that the final Mahdist forces were defeated.
The village of Omdurman was chosen in 1884 as the base of operations by the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. After the Mahdi's death in 1885, following the successful siege of Khartoum, his successor (Khalifa) Abdullah retained it as his capital.
***
On October 31, 1899, he shipped to South Africa for the Second Boer War, arriving at Durban December 13, 1899, in the middle of "Black Week".
***
In a disastrous week, dubbed Black Week, from December 10-17, 1899, the British Army suffered three devastating defeats at the hands of the Boer Republics at the battles of Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso, with a total of 2,776 men killed, wounded and captured. The events were an eye opener for the government and troops, who had thought that the war could be won very easily.
British units were armed with then-modern magazine-fed small arms, the .303 caliber Lee Enfield and Lee Metford, and breech-loading field artillery. Boers were armed with the 7mm 1893 Mauser rifle, and fielded German-built breech-loading field artillery. The British, however, were accustomed to fighting tribal wars with tactics more suited to the Napoleonic era, and had no tactical doctrine in place to fight against a foe also armed with the same modern weapons. The British suffered accordingly.
With new, modernized troops came new tactics. Only a few months after Black Week, one of the main cavalry divisions led a flanking march that ended with a victory. Besides equipping the cavalry with rapid-firing rifles instead of lances, the new British military doctrine also started using artillery as a defensive unit of the army, and saw innovation in the use of machine guns.
These new volunteers served as a "new face, untainted by defeat and accusations of defeatism…to breathe life back into the campaigns and restore hope at home." Other changes enacted by the British immediately following the Black Week disaster were the mobilization of two more divisions, the calling up of the army reserves, raising a force of mounted cavalry for better mobility, and most importantly by sending volunteers from home overseas which added more than one hundred thousand additional troops by the end of the war.
***
On February 2, 1900, Lord Roberts put Smith-Dorrien in command of the 19th Brigade and, on February 11, he was promoted to major general, making him one of youngest generals in the British Army at the time. He later commanded a division in South Africa.
Smith-Dorrien provided covering fire for French's Cavalry Division at Klipsdrift, and played an important role at the Battle of Paardeberg (February 18 to 27, 1900), where he was summoned by Lord Roberts and asked for his views in the presence of Lord Kitchener, French and Henry Colville. He argued for the use of sapping and fire support, rather than attacking the entrenched enemy over open ground. Kitchener followed him to his horse to remonstrate that he would be "a made man" if he attacked as Kitchener wished, to which he replied he had given his views and would only attack if ordered to do so. A week later he took the laager after careful assault.
At Sanna's Post (March 31, 1900), Smith-Dorrien ignored inept orders from Colville to leave wounded largely unprotected and managed an orderly retreat without further casualties. He took part in the Battle of Leliefontein (November 7, 1900). On February 6, 1901, Smith-Dorrien's troops were attacked in the Battle of Chrissiesmeer.
Smith-Dorrien's qualities as a commander meant he was one of the few British commanders to enhance his reputation during this war. Smith-Dorrien was mentioned three times in dispatches in the “London Gazette” (including by Lord Kitchener dated June 23, 1902). He was at the top of a list (September 21, 1901) of eighteen successful commanders of columns or groups of columns, including Haig and Allenby, whom French commended to Lord Roberts.
Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien (b. May 26, 1858 – d. August 12, 1930) held senior commands in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the First World War. He commanded II Corps at the Battle of Mons, the first major action fought by the BEF, and the Battle of Le Cateau, where he fought a vigorous and successful defensive action contrary to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief Sir John French, with whom he had had a personality clash dating back some years. In the spring of 1915, he commanded the Second Army at the Second Battle of Ypres. He was relieved of command by French for requesting permission to retreat from the Ypres Salient to a more defensible position.
Horace Smith-Dorrien was born at Haresfoot, a house near Berkhamsted, to Colonel Robert Algernon Smith-Dorrien and Mary Ann Drever. He was the twelfth child of sixteen. His eldest brother was Thomas Algernon Smith-Dorrien-Smith, the Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly from 1872 to 1918. He was educated at Harrow, and on February 26, 1876 entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He had hoped to join the 95th Rifle Brigade of Peninsular War fame. After passing out he was commissioned in 1877 as a subaltern to the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot, later to become the Sherwood Foresters.
On November 1, 1878, he was posted to South Africa where he worked as a transport officer. In this role he encountered, and fought against, corruption in the army.
Smith-Dorrien was present at the Battle of Isandlwana during the Zulu Wars on January 22, 1879, serving with the British invasion force as a transport officer for the army's Royal Artillery detachment. As Zulu forces overran the British forces, Smith-Dorrien narrowly escaped on his transport pony over 20 miles of rough terrain with twenty Zulu warriors in hot pursuit, crossing the Buffalo River, 80 yards wide and with a strong current, by holding the tail of a loose horse. Smith-Dorrien was one of fewer than fifty British survivors of the battle (many more native African troops on the British side also survived), and one of only five Imperial officers to escape the Zulu bloodbath. Because of his conduct in trying to help other soldiers escape from the battlefield, including a colonial commisariat officer named Hamer whose life he saved, he was recommended for a Victoria Cross, but, as the recommendation did not go through the proper channels, he never received it. Nevertheless, Smith-Dorrien continued to take part in the rest of that war. Indeed, his observations on the difficulty of opening ammunition boxes led to changes in British practice for the rest of the war, though modern commentators argue that this was not as important a factor in the defeat as was thought at the time.
***
The Battle of Isandlwana (alternative spelling: Isandhlwana) on January 22, 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zululand in South Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1,800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians. The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and old rifles, though they were not formally trained in their use. The British and colonial troops were armed with the state-of-the-art Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle and two 7-pounder (3-inch, 76mm) mountain guns deployed as field guns, as well as a Hale rocket battery. Despite a vast disadvantage in weapons technology, the numerically superior Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the poorly led and badly deployed British, killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The Zulu army suffered around a thousand killed.
The battle was a decisive victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand. The British Army had suffered its worst defeat against an indigenous foe with vastly inferior military technology. Isandlwana resulted in the British taking a much more aggressive approach in the Anglo–Zulu War, leading to a heavily reinforced second invasion and the destruction of King Cetshwayo's hopes of a negotiated peace.
***
After South Africa, Smith-Dorrien served in Egypt under Evelyn Wood. He was promoted captain on April 1, 1882, appointed assistant chief of police in Alexandria on August 22, 1882, then given command of Mounted Infantry in Egypt on September 3, 1882. He was then seconded to the Egyptian army (February 1, 1884). During this time, he forged a lifelong friendship with the then Major (later Lord) Herbert Kitchener. He met Charles Gordon more than once, but his bad knee kept him off the expedition to relieve Khartoum. However, he did serve on the Suakin Expedition. On December 30, 1885, he witnessed the Battle of Gennis, where the British Army fought in red coats for the last time. The next day (December 31, 1885), Smith-Dorrien was given his first independent command, 150 men (a mixture of hussars, mounted infantry and Egyptians) with fifty infantry in reserve. His task was to capture nine Arab river supply boats (nuggars), which, in order to achieve, he had to exceed his orders by going beyond the village of Surda, making a 60-mile journey on horseback in 24 hours. For this, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1886.
Smith-Dorrien then left active command to go to the Staff College, Camberley (1887–9). At the time, Staff College was not much respected, and Smith-Dorrien, instead of studying, devoted much of his time to sport whilst there.
Smith-Dorrien was posted to India, and promoted to major on May 1, 1892. He became Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General, Bengal, on April 1, 1893 and then Assistant Adjutant General, Bengal, on October 27, 1894. He returned to his regiment where he commanded troops during the Tirah Campaign of 1897–98.
In 1898, he transferred back to Egypt. He was promoted to brevet lieutenant-colonel on May 20, 1898 and appointed Commanding Officer of the 13th Sudanese Battalion (July 16, 1898). He fought at the Battle of Omdurman (September 2, 1898), where his infantry fired at Devishes from entrenched positions. He commanded the British troops during the Fashoda Incident. He was then promoted to brevet colonel 16 November 16, 1898 and Commanding Officer of the Sherwood Foresters and substantive lieutenant-colonel (January 1, 1899).
***
At the Battle of Omdurman (September 2, 1898), an army commanded by the British General Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, Kitchener was seeking revenge for the 1885 death of General Charles Gordon. It was a demonstration of the superiority of a highly disciplined army equipped with modern rifles, machine guns, and artillery over a force twice their size armed with older weapons, and marked the success of British efforts to re-conquer the Sudan. However, it was not until the 1899 Battle of Umm Diwaykarat that the final Mahdist forces were defeated.
The village of Omdurman was chosen in 1884 as the base of operations by the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. After the Mahdi's death in 1885, following the successful siege of Khartoum, his successor (Khalifa) Abdullah retained it as his capital.
***
On October 31, 1899, he shipped to South Africa for the Second Boer War, arriving at Durban December 13, 1899, in the middle of "Black Week".
***
In a disastrous week, dubbed Black Week, from December 10-17, 1899, the British Army suffered three devastating defeats at the hands of the Boer Republics at the battles of Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso, with a total of 2,776 men killed, wounded and captured. The events were an eye opener for the government and troops, who had thought that the war could be won very easily.
British units were armed with then-modern magazine-fed small arms, the .303 caliber Lee Enfield and Lee Metford, and breech-loading field artillery. Boers were armed with the 7mm 1893 Mauser rifle, and fielded German-built breech-loading field artillery. The British, however, were accustomed to fighting tribal wars with tactics more suited to the Napoleonic era, and had no tactical doctrine in place to fight against a foe also armed with the same modern weapons. The British suffered accordingly.
With new, modernized troops came new tactics. Only a few months after Black Week, one of the main cavalry divisions led a flanking march that ended with a victory. Besides equipping the cavalry with rapid-firing rifles instead of lances, the new British military doctrine also started using artillery as a defensive unit of the army, and saw innovation in the use of machine guns.
These new volunteers served as a "new face, untainted by defeat and accusations of defeatism…to breathe life back into the campaigns and restore hope at home." Other changes enacted by the British immediately following the Black Week disaster were the mobilization of two more divisions, the calling up of the army reserves, raising a force of mounted cavalry for better mobility, and most importantly by sending volunteers from home overseas which added more than one hundred thousand additional troops by the end of the war.
***
On February 2, 1900, Lord Roberts put Smith-Dorrien in command of the 19th Brigade and, on February 11, he was promoted to major general, making him one of youngest generals in the British Army at the time. He later commanded a division in South Africa.
Smith-Dorrien provided covering fire for French's Cavalry Division at Klipsdrift, and played an important role at the Battle of Paardeberg (February 18 to 27, 1900), where he was summoned by Lord Roberts and asked for his views in the presence of Lord Kitchener, French and Henry Colville. He argued for the use of sapping and fire support, rather than attacking the entrenched enemy over open ground. Kitchener followed him to his horse to remonstrate that he would be "a made man" if he attacked as Kitchener wished, to which he replied he had given his views and would only attack if ordered to do so. A week later he took the laager after careful assault.
At Sanna's Post (March 31, 1900), Smith-Dorrien ignored inept orders from Colville to leave wounded largely unprotected and managed an orderly retreat without further casualties. He took part in the Battle of Leliefontein (November 7, 1900). On February 6, 1901, Smith-Dorrien's troops were attacked in the Battle of Chrissiesmeer.
Smith-Dorrien's qualities as a commander meant he was one of the few British commanders to enhance his reputation during this war. Smith-Dorrien was mentioned three times in dispatches in the “London Gazette” (including by Lord Kitchener dated June 23, 1902). He was at the top of a list (September 21, 1901) of eighteen successful commanders of columns or groups of columns, including Haig and Allenby, whom French commended to Lord Roberts.
August 14
August 16
*The first British Empire Games opened in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
August 18
*Gene Bartow, the long time coach and athletic director at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was born in Browning, Missouri.
Bobby Gene Bartow (b. August 18, 1930, Browning, Missouri - d. January 3, 2012, Birmingham, Alabama) coached 36 years at six universities after coaching two high schools in Missouri for six years. In 1972, Bartow coached the Puerto Rico national basketball team in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Bartow began his coaching at the prep level in Missouri, coaching Shelbina an St. Charles High School basketball squads to a 145–39 win-loss mark in six seasons. His 1957 St. Charles team won the state championship, defeating North Kansas City in the Class L finals by a score of 60–54.
Bartow coached at Central Missouri State University from 1961 to 1964, Valparaiso University from 1964 to 1970, and Memphis State University from 1970 until 1974, and he led the Memphis State Tigers to the 1973 NCAA national championship game and consecutive Missouri Valley Conference titles in the 1971–72 and 1972–73 seasons. He coached the United States national team in the 1974 FIBA World Championship, winning the bronze medal.
Bartow signed a five-year contract to replace Hary Schmidt at the University of Illinois in 1974. A last-place team the previous campaign, the Fighting Illini finished tied for ninth in the Big Ten at 8–18 (4–14 in the conference) in 1975, Bartow's only season there. Despite this, he was the first Illini coach to extensively recruit talented African American high school players from the Chicago area. He was succeeded by Lou Henson.
Bartow left his position to succeed John Wooden as the head coach of UCLA. Bartow coached at UCLA from 1975 to 1977, guiding them to a 52–9 record, including a berth in the 1976 Final Four. He coached the 1977 College Player of the Year, Marques Johnson. As of 2008, he was the second winningest coach at UCLA by percentage of wins to losses at .852, putting him behind Gary Cunningham at .862 and above John Wooden at .808.
Bartow left UCLA after the 1977 season to take over the job of creating an athletic program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, more commonly known as UAB. He served as the school's first head basketball coach and athletic director for 18 years. Bartow led UAB to the National Invitational Tournament (the NIT) in the program's second year of existence, and followed that up with seven straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including trips to the Sweet 16 in 1981 and the Elite Eight in 1982.
Bartow retired from coaching in 1996, and in 1997, UAB renamed its basketball venue, Bartow Arena, in his honor. His son Murry, a UAB assistant, became the coach upon Bartow's retirement. Bartow was later president of Hoops, LP, the company that runs the Memphis Grizzlies and the FedEx Forum.
On April 15, 2009, a UAB spokesman revealed that Bartow had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. On January 3, 2012, Gene Bartow died at his home in Birmingham after a two-year battle with the disease.
In 1989, Bartow was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, ten (10) years later, in 1999, Central Missouri State (now the University of Central Missouri) also elected him to theirs. Bartow was also voted one of Valparaiso University's 150 most influential people in October 2009. Bartow was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City on November 22, 2009, along with fellow inductees Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Wayman Tisdale, Jud Heathcote, Walter Byers, Travis Grant and Bill Wall. In 2013, Bartow was selected for induction into the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) Hall of Fame.
August 21
*Princess Margaret Rose was born in Glamis Castle in Scotland, younger daughter of Prince Albert, Duke of York (second son of King George V and Queen Mary, and later King George VI) and Elizabeth, Duchess of York, and sister to The Princess Elizabeth.
August 25
*Augusto Leguia, President of Peru, resigned and fled the country after holding office for eleven (11) years. He was driven out by a military insurrection led by Colonel Luis Cerro, who would be elected President in 1931.
August 27
*A military junta took over in Peru.
September
September 3
*A huge hurricane in the Caribbean demolished most of the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
September 5
*There was a military coup in Argentina.
September 6
*Jose Felix Uriburu carried out a military coup, overthrowing Hipolito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina.
September 12
*England cricketer Wilfred Rhodes ended his 1,110-game first-class career by taking 5 for 95 for H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI against the Australians.
September 14
*In the German Reichstag elections, the Nazi Party won almost 6.5 million votes (up from 800,000 in 1928), compared with the 8.4 million garnered by the Socialists. The Nazis won 107 seats, up from 12 in the old Reichstag. However, Adolf Hitler was barred from taking his seat because of his Austrian citizenship.
*In the German Reichstag elections, the Nazi Party won almost 6.5 million votes (up from 800,000 in 1928), compared with the 8.4 million garnered by the Socialists. The Nazis won 107 seats, up from 12 in the old Reichstag. However, Adolf Hitler was barred from taking his seat because of his Austrian citizenship.
September 20
*The Eastern Catholic Rite Syro-Malankara Catholic Church was formed.
September 27
*Ismet Inonu formed a new government in Turkey (6th government).
October
*The Indochinese Communist Party was formed.
*A revolution in Brazil was led by Getulio Dornelles Vargas, the Provincial Governor of Rio Grande do Sul.
October 3
*The German Socialist Labor Party in Poland - Left was founded following a split in DSAP in Lodz.
October 5
*British airship R101 crashed in France en route to India on its maiden long-range flight resulting in the loss of 48 lives.
October 13
*Nazi deputies showed up in uniform violating the rules and creating an uproar.
October 20
*A British White Paper demanded restrictions on Jewish immigration into Mandatory Palestine.
The Passfield Paper on Palestine suggested that a halt in Jewish immigration to Palestine was warranted so long as unemployment persisted among the Arabs. Sidney James Webb, the first baron of Passfield, was the British secretary for colonies.
October 24
*The Brazilian Revolution of 1930 occurred. Getulio Vargas established a dictatorship.
October 26
*Getulio Vargas accepted the Presidency of Brazil and would serve as President of Brazil until 1945.
October 27
*Ratifications were exchanged in London on the first London Naval Treaty signed in April modifying the Washington Naval Treaty of 1925. Its arms limitation provisions went into effect immediately, hence putting more limits on the expensive naval arms race between its five signatories (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Japanese Empire, France, and Italy).
October 30
*Washington Luis Pereira de Souza, the former President of Brazil, was forced to resign.
*Bob Adelman, an American photographer known for his images of the Civil Rights movement, was born (October 30).
Robert Melvin "Bob" Adelman (b. October 30, 1930 – d. March 19, 2016) was r
aised on Long Island, New York. He earned his bachelor of arts degree at Rutgers University and a master of arts degree in philosophy from Columbia University.
Adelman used his background as a graduate student in Applied Aesthetics from Columbia University to forge close ties with leading figures of art and literature, including Andy Warhol and Samuel Beckett. After studying photography for several years under the tutelage of Harper's Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch, Adelman volunteered as a photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality in the early 1960s, a position which granted him access to key leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including Malcolm X. Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Baldwin. Adelman's work captured a decade of racial strife during the 1960s, including portraits of Martin Luther King reciting his "I Have a Dream" speech, the 50 mile March from Selma to Montgomery, and King resting in his casket after the assassination. His photos, some of which are archived at the Library of Congress, captured segregation and civil unrest in the South. In 2007, he published his book Mine Eyes Have Seen: Bearing Witness to the Struggle for Civil Rights.
Westwood Gallery in New York City presented the premiere gallery exhibition for Bob Adelman's civil rights photographs in 2008, curated by James Cavello. During the exhibition the gallery held an event on April 4, 2008 marking the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. The actress and civil rights advocate Ruby Dee read from Dr. King’s "Beyond Vietnam" speech. The gallery also exhibited and represented Adelman’s photographs of New York artists, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist, Robert Indiana, Adolph Gottlieb, Andy Warhol, other artists and social photographic essays.
Adelman died March 19, 2016, in Miami Beach, Florida, at the age of 85.
On March 20, 2017, the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division officially acquired the Bob Adelman photographic archives which included the full spectrum of his work from his famed Civil Rights captures to his less celebrated pornographic bondage images. The archive includes approximately 50,000 prints and 525,000 image negatives and slides.
November
November 1
*Getulio Vargas dissolved the Brazilian Congress. He would rule as Dictator.
November 2
*Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia.
Ras Tafari, who took the name Haile Selassie when he was proclaimed Negus (King) in June 1928, was crowned King of Kings at Addis Adaba. He would reign until 1974 and be regarded by Jamaican Rastafarians as the living God. He was seen as fulfilling a prophecy of Marcus Garvey, "Look to Africa, where a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near."
November 3
*Getulio Vargas became president of Brazil.
November 5
*Nationalist troops launched an encirclement campaign in parts of Hunan, Hubei, and Jianzi provinces.
November 12
*Molly Blackburn, a South African anti-apartheid activist, was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa
November 14
*Molly Blackburn, a South African anti-apartheid activist, was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Molly Bellhouse Blackburn (b. November 12, 1930, Port Elizabeth, South Africa – d. December 28, 1985, between Oudshoorn and Port Elizabeth, South Africa) was born Molly Bellhouse in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the daughter of Elgar Bellhouse (Buller) Pagden, a one-time chairperson of the Progressive Party (PP) of Port Elizabeth who instilled liberal and progressive ideals in his daughter.
Graduating from Rhodes University College with a bachelor of arts degree, Blackburn spent time teaching in London before settling in Belgium. Seven years later, however, she returned to Port Elizabeth. She joined the Black Sash, an activist group founded in 1955 by six women (Jean Sinclair, Elizabeth McLaren, Ruth Foley, Tertia Pybus, Jean Bosazza and Helen Newton-Thompson), but eventually left due to what she perceived as the Sash's "inactivity".
In 1981, Blackburn started her political career by winning the Provincial Council seat of Walmer, Port Elizabeth, for the Progressive Federal Party (PFP). Di Bishop, who would become a lifelong friend and fellow activist also won a council seat that year. Di Bishop had joined the Black Sash in 1978 and Blackburn returned to the order in 1982 with a lot of ideas of her own
Blackburn rejoined the Black Sash to campaign for justice and the upliftment of black communities in South Africa. Blackburn and Bishop began investigating rent restructuring and controversial police shootings. Blackburn got the reputation of being caring and understanding, and was soon being approached by black groups who sought her assistance. In 1983, she was asked by Matthew Goniwe to officially inquire about rent restructuring in the Lingelihle township near Cradock. She, together with Di Bishop, brought the problem to the attention of the councils, and they highlighted the changing situation and growing resentment of the people in these areas. Blackburn and Bishop also, with the support of PFP members in parliament, convinced the National Party government to inquire into the police shootings at Langa on March 21, 1985. This turned out to be one of the most important investigations since the investigation into the 1976 Soweto revolt.
Blackburn started to be seen as a troublemaker, not just by members of the National Party but also by some liberals. She started to receive death threats and was arrested a couple of times.
On December 28, 1985, while driving back to Port Elizabeth from Oudshoorn, Blackburn, her sister, Di Bishop and her husband, Brian Bishop, were all involved in an accident. Blackburn and Brian Bishop were killed. She was 55 years old and Brian Bishop was 51.
At her funeral which was held at St John's Church in Port Elizabeth on January 1, 1986. As a sign of her close relationship with the black communities where she worked, a crowd of 20,000 mostly black South Africans gathered to mourn her loss. Blackburn received tributes from both local and international sources.She was survived by her husband and their seven children.
The Molly Blackburn High School was named in her honor in Kwanobuhle, as well as the Molly Blackburn Memorial Hall at the University of Cape Town.
November 14
*Japan's Prime Minister Yuko Hamaguchi was shot be a right wing militant and would die in six months. Hamaguchi had supported acceptance of the London Naval Conference treaty. (See January 21 above.)
November 22
*Wilhelm Sander, an architect known for building castles in Namibia, died.
Wilhelm Sander (b. December 10, 1860, Berlin, Germany – d. November 22, 1930, Luderitz, German South West Africa [Namibia]) was a master architect and contractor working for Sander & Kock known for his work in German South West Africa, today's Namibia.
Sander studied civil engineering in Hoxter, Germany. He worked in Berlin before joining the German Colonial Society for South West Africa (Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft für Südwestafrika) and repatriating to German South West Africa in 1901.
One on his first works were the Swakopmund Railway Station, built in 1901, and the Swakopmund Lighthouse, built in 1902. Also in Windhoek, his buildings today are all famous landmarks. The castles of Windhoek, Heinitzburg, Schwerinsburg and Sanderburg, are what he is best known for here but he also built the Gathemann and Erkrath buildings and was involved in the erection of the Tintenpalast. Sander also designed Duwisib Castle near Helmeringhausen, the German Lutheran church in Keetmanshoop, and many others.
Wilhelm Sander was married twice: 1910 to Paola née Eck and 1921 to Else née Fröbel. He moved to Lüderitz in 1922, where he stayed until his death in 1930
November 25
An earthquake in the Izu Peninsula of Japan killed 223 people and destroyed 650 buildings.
Cecil George Paine, a pathologist at the Sheffied Royal Infirmary in England, achieves the first recorded cure (of an eye infection) using penicillin.
December
December
*All adult Turkish women were given the right to vote in elections.
December 2
*Great Depression: President Herbert Hoover went before the United States Congress to ask for a $150 million public works program to help create jobs and to stimulate the American economy.
December 7
*The television station W1XAV in Boston broadcasts video and audio from the radio orchestra program The Fox Trappers. This broadcast also included the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for the I. J. Fox Furriers company which sponsored the telecast.
December 12
*The last allied troops left the Saar.
December 19
*Mount Merapi volcano in central Java, Indonesia, erupted destroying numerous villages and killing thirteen hundred people.
December 23
*Albert Pillsbury, the drafter of the bylaws for the NAACP, died in Newton, Massachusetts.
Albert Enoch Pillsbury (b. August 19, 1849, Milford, New Hampshire – d. December 23, 1930, Newton, Massachusetts) was a Boston lawyer who served in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature, President of the Massachusetts State Senate, and as the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1891 to 1894. In addition to being a member of the National Negro Committee, the precursor to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), Pillsbury was a member of the Boston Committee to Advance the Cause of the Negro, which in 1911 became a branch of the NAACP. It was Pillsbury who drafted the bylaws of the NAACP. In 1913, Pillsbury resigned his membership in the American Bar Association when that organization rejected the membership of William H. Lewis, a black assistant United States attorney and supporter of Booker T. Washington. In 1913, Pillsbury was awarded an honorary LL.D. degree from Howard University. It was there he delivered his speech illuminating, defending and praising President Lincoln's role in ending slavery that became a small book, Lincoln and Slavery.
December 24
*In London, inventor Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrated his device to project pictures on clouds.
December 29
*Muhammad Iqbal's presidential address in Allahabad introduced the two-nation theory, outlining a vision for the creation of Pakistan.
December 31
*The Papal encyclical Casti connubii issued by Pope Pius XI stressed the sanctity of marriage, prohibited Roman Catholics from using any form of artificial birth control, and reaffirmed the Catholic prohibition on abortion.
December 19
*Mount Merapi volcano in central Java, Indonesia, erupted destroying numerous villages and killing thirteen hundred people.
December 23
*Albert Pillsbury, the drafter of the bylaws for the NAACP, died in Newton, Massachusetts.
Albert Enoch Pillsbury (b. August 19, 1849, Milford, New Hampshire – d. December 23, 1930, Newton, Massachusetts) was a Boston lawyer who served in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature, President of the Massachusetts State Senate, and as the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1891 to 1894. In addition to being a member of the National Negro Committee, the precursor to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), Pillsbury was a member of the Boston Committee to Advance the Cause of the Negro, which in 1911 became a branch of the NAACP. It was Pillsbury who drafted the bylaws of the NAACP. In 1913, Pillsbury resigned his membership in the American Bar Association when that organization rejected the membership of William H. Lewis, a black assistant United States attorney and supporter of Booker T. Washington. In 1913, Pillsbury was awarded an honorary LL.D. degree from Howard University. It was there he delivered his speech illuminating, defending and praising President Lincoln's role in ending slavery that became a small book, Lincoln and Slavery.
In 1916, the Massachusetts legislature and electorate approved the calling of a Constitutional Convention. In May 1917, Pillsbury was elected to serve as a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1917, representing the Ninth Norfolk District of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
*In London, inventor Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrated his device to project pictures on clouds.
December 29
*Muhammad Iqbal's presidential address in Allahabad introduced the two-nation theory, outlining a vision for the creation of Pakistan.
December 31
*The Papal encyclical Casti connubii issued by Pope Pius XI stressed the sanctity of marriage, prohibited Roman Catholics from using any form of artificial birth control, and reaffirmed the Catholic prohibition on abortion.
Date unknown
*A "Jake paralysis" outbreak occurred in the United States resulting from adulterated Jamaica ginger sold as an alcohol substitute during Prohibition.
*Bernhard Schmidt invented the Schmidt camera.
*The chocolate chip cookies was invented by Ruth Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.
*The experimental television station, W9XAP, in Chicago, broadcasted the election for the United States Senate, the first time that a senatorial race, with continual tallies of the votes, was televised.
*Greater Sudbury was incorporated as a city in northern Ontario.
*The world's population reached close to 2 billion with much of it in the grip of an economic depression.
*Emigration from the United States for the first time in history exceeded immigration.
*****
*Simha Arom, a French-Israeli ethnomusicologist who is recognized as a world expert on the music of central Africa, especially that of the Central African Republic, was born.
*****
*Peter Hagan, the sheriff of Putnam County, Florida, who is best known for opposing the Ku Klux Klan and mob violence, died.
Peter Monroe Hagan (1871–1930) was sheriff of Putnam County, Florida, from 1916 to 1924 and from 1928 to 1930. He is known for opposing the Ku Klux Klan and mob violence in the county in the violent period between 1915 and 1930. His thwarting of lynching attempts and his winning the pivotal 1928 election became a referendum against Klan and mob violence.
*****
*Simha Arom, a French-Israeli ethnomusicologist who is recognized as a world expert on the music of central Africa, especially that of the Central African Republic, was born.
In the 1960s, Simha Arom (b. 1930) was sent by the Government of Israel to establish a brass band in the Central African Republic. He became fascinated by the traditional music of this country, especially the vocal polyphonies of the Aka Pygmies 2. He entered the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1968 and in 1984 he received its Silver Medal. He did field work every year from 1971 to 1991, accompanied by ethnolinguists and students, to record this music to study it and preserve it.
Simha Arom was awarded a First Prize for French Horn at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Paris before becoming an ethnomusicologist. Using interactive experiments, he worked on uncovering implicit musical systems and the way in which cultures build cognitive categories as attested in their music. His work is based on the postulate that, in order for it to be valid, data collected in the field must be corroborated by cognitive data specific to the holders of the culture studied. His research topics include the temporal organization of music, musical scales, polyphonic techniques, music in the social system and the elaboration of conceptual tools for the categorization, analysis and modeling of traditional music. From a mostly descriptive discipline, he tried to build a science in the full sense of the word, with all of its attributes: experimentation, verification, validation, modeling, conceptualization and reconstitution by means of synthesis. He was a Visiting Professor at many universities– particularly Montreal, UCLA, Vancouver, M.I.T., Cambridge (U.K.), Tel-Aviv, Bar-Ilan, Haifa, Basel, Zurich, Siena, and Venice, and his work inspired contemporary composers such as Luciano Berio (Coro), György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Fabien Lévy and Fabian Panisello.
Simha Arom became Research Director Emeritus at the CNRS, a founding member of the Société française d'ethnomusicologie, the Société française d'analyse musicale, the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) and the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology. He also became a member of the Société française de musicologie and served on the Board of directors of The Universe of Music project (UNESCO). His sound archives were deposited in 2011 at the sound library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The books of Simha Arom include African Polyphony and Polyrhythm: Musical Structure and Methodology (1991). He also made some historical field recordings of the Aka Pygmy music.
*****
*Peter Hagan, the sheriff of Putnam County, Florida, who is best known for opposing the Ku Klux Klan and mob violence, died.
Peter Monroe Hagan (1871–1930) was sheriff of Putnam County, Florida, from 1916 to 1924 and from 1928 to 1930. He is known for opposing the Ku Klux Klan and mob violence in the county in the violent period between 1915 and 1930. His thwarting of lynching attempts and his winning the pivotal 1928 election became a referendum against Klan and mob violence.
In the decades after World War I, mob violence and lynchings directed at African American citizens was on the increase in Florida (in contrast to much of the rest of the United States) and the Ku Klux Klan was a mainstream organization. On June 8, 1922, the Palatka Daily News reported on a public event staged by the Klan the previous night in Palatka, Florida, which was attended by large crowds. Over 200 Klansmen from across the county gathered in the city's stadium to initiate twenty new members and performed a ceremony including a burning cross and banners reading "White Supremacy". On October 16, 1922 the Daily News reported another Klan event at Palatka’s leading Methodist church where six Klansmen marched through the building and presented a $50 contribution to the church's building fund. Included with the donation was a letter, quoted in the article, which read:
The letter was read out loud to the congregation and the reverend "offered fervent thanks" to the Klan.
Hagan was elected sheriff of Putnam County in 1916. In the aftermath of World War I, mob violence directed by the Ku Klux Klan and other white vigilantes against blacks, Catholics and women they accused of transgressing the social order was on the increase. This combined with Prohibition led to the highest crime rates in Putnam County's history. Hagan was faced with two lynching attempts in 1919 alone, after which he wrote in the Palatka Daily News:
Hagan was re-elected in 1920, but racist mob violence only continued to increase.
In March 1923, a band of white road crew workers from Gainesville attempted to storm the Putnam County Jail with the intention of lynching Arthur Johnson, a black man awaiting trial on accusations of murdering their white co-worker Hugh C. Cross. The sheriff's official residence was on the site of the county jail. The would-be lynch mob fired weapons at the building, injuring Sheriff Hagan, but fled when the sheriff and deputy held their ground. Hagan and his deputies notified Sheriff Ramsey in Alachua County, leading to the arrest of eighteen men on their way back to Gainesville after the failed attack on the county jail. Hagan was praised by legislators and the press for his actions in stopping the attack, but of the eighteen culprits arrested only nine made it to trial and they were swiftly acquitted by the white jury.
In the 1924 election Hagan ran unsuccessfully against Israel James Fennell, a candidate supported by the racist mob, for re-election as the county's sheriff. Announcing his campaign for re-election on March 7, 1924, Hagan stated his position on the Ku Klux Klan:
The KKK would reach the peak of its local influence two years later, but by 1928 public opinion was shifting and Sheriff Hagan was voted back into office after a four-year absence. He died two years later.
*****
*Emilie Bigelow Hapgood, a theatrical produced in New York City and the one time president of the Stage Society, died.
Emilie Bigelow Hapgood (unknown-1930) founded the Circle of War Relief for Negro Soldiers in November 1917 during World War I, and led it for some time. She herself was white. She married Norman Hapgood in 1896. They were divorced in 1915. Georgia Douglas Johnson, one of the noted poets of the Harlem Renaissance, wrote a poem titled "TO EMILIE BIGELOW HAPGOOD - PHILANTHROPIST", which Johnson included in Bronze: A Book of Verse, published in 1922.
*****
*Paul Merab, a Georgian physician and researcher of Ethiopia, died in Paris, France.
*****
*Marion Stevenson, a Scottish missionary with the Church of Scotland Mission in British East Africa (Kenya), died.
*Emilie Bigelow Hapgood, a theatrical produced in New York City and the one time president of the Stage Society, died.
Emilie Bigelow Hapgood (unknown-1930) founded the Circle of War Relief for Negro Soldiers in November 1917 during World War I, and led it for some time. She herself was white. She married Norman Hapgood in 1896. They were divorced in 1915. Georgia Douglas Johnson, one of the noted poets of the Harlem Renaissance, wrote a poem titled "TO EMILIE BIGELOW HAPGOOD - PHILANTHROPIST", which Johnson included in Bronze: A Book of Verse, published in 1922.
*****
*Paul Merab, a Georgian physician and researcher of Ethiopia, died in Paris, France.
Paul Merab (real name: Petre Merabishvili) (b. 1876, Ude, Georgia – d. 1930, Paris, France), was born in a Georgian Roman Catholic community, now Samtskhe-Javakheti region in south Georgia. A Sorbonne graduate, Merab was hired in Constantinople to work as a physician for the Ethiopian Emperor Menilek II for several years. He lived in Ethiopia from 1908 to 1929, except for the years of the First World War when he volunteered in the French military. In 1910, he founded the first pharmacy in Addis Ababa which he called "Pharmacie de la Géorgie". In 1929, he finally resettled to France, where he published his informative researches and memories of Ethiopia.
*****
*Marion Stevenson, a Scottish missionary with the Church of Scotland Mission in British East Africa (Kenya), died.
Marion Scott Stevenson (b. May 19, 1871, Forfar, Scotland – d. 1930) was a Scottish missionary with the Church of Scotland Mission in British East Africa (Kenya) from 1907 until 1929.
Stevenson worked at first for the church's Kikuyu mission at Thogoto, then from 1912 for its mission at Tumutumu in Karatina, set up by Reverend Henry Scott and Dr. John Arthur in 1908. She established and ran a girls' school, which became Tumutumu Girls' High School, taught sewing, knitting and hygiene, worked in the hospital, trained teachers and helped to translate the Bible.
In 1929 Stevenson coined the term "sexual mutilation of women" to describe female circumcision, a practice of great importance to the Kikuyu people, Kenya's largest tribe. The Kenya Missionary Council followed suit, and began referring to it that year as sexual mutilation, rather than as circumcision or initiation. It is now widely known as female genital mutilation.
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