The following events occurred in October 1910:
October 1, 1910 (Saturday) Twenty-one employees of the Los Angeles Times were killed by the detonation of a time bomb at 1:07 a.m. local time outside of the Times offices. The 16 sticks of dynamite triggered the explosion of underground gas lines and a subsequent fire."Fire Kills 19; Unions Accused; Two Bombs Found After Explosion Wrecks Los Angeles Times Building", New York Times, October 2, 1910, p1; L.A. Almanac"Record of Current Events", The American Monthly Review of Reviews (November 1910), pp544–547 Twenty-three American sailors, from the battleship , drowned when their launch capsized. Federico Boyd became acting president of Panama. A coal mine explosion at Palaú, in the Mexican state of Coahuila, killed 200 workers. The first mid-air collision between two airplanes occurred in Milan, when an Antoinette monoplane, piloted by René Thomas of France, rammed a Farman biplane being flown by Bertram Dickson. Both pilots were injured in the crash."Aeroplanes in Collision", New York Times, October 2, 1910, p11; International Civil Aviation Organization Born: Bonnie Parker, American outlaw and partner of Clyde Barrow as part of "Bonnie and Clyde"; in Rowena, Texas (killed in police shootout, 1934).
October 2, 1910 (Sunday) The asteroid Interamnia, seventh largest in the Solar System (300 kilometers in diameter) was discovered by Italian astronomer Vincenzo Cerulli from an observatory in Teramo.
October 3, 1910 (Monday) The Tsucheng-yuan, also known as the Imperial Senate of China, was convened for the first time, with an opening presided over by the regent, Prince Chun. The national assembly had 202 members, of whom 100 were elected by provincial assemblies, and the others were appointed by the regent."Republican Government in China" by Chester Lloyd Jones, in China Social and Economic Conditions (American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1912) p35 Died: Lucy Hobbs Taylor, 77, first American woman dentist to have received a D.D.S. "Johann F.", 59, a patient of Dr. Alois Alzheimer at LMU Munich. The case of dementia in Johann F. was described by Dr. Alzheimer in 1911, and the name given to the illness was popularized.Howard Feldman, Atlas of Alzheimer's Disease (CRC Press, 2007) p13 Another source describes Auguste Deter, who died in 1906, as the original patient of Dr. Alzheimer.Sean Page and Tracey Fletcher, "Auguste D, One hundred years on: 'The person' not 'the case'", Dementia journal (November 2006) 571–583 Dr. Miguel Bombarda, 59, Portuguese psychiatrist, politician and anti-monarchist, was shot and killed by one of his patients two days before his co-conspirators launched the revolution that ended Portugal's monarchy.
October 4, 1910 (Tuesday) King Manuel II of Portugal and the Queen Mother were forced to flee Lisbon, after the Army and Navy joined in a coup by the Republican movement and began shelling the royal palace."Uprising in Lisbon; King Held Prisoner", Washington Post, October 5, 1910, p1 Thirty-seven people were killed and 30 injured near Staunton, Illinois, in a collision between two interurban trolleys."Trainman Held For Wreck", New York Times, October 6, 1910, p6
October 5, 1910 (Wednesday) Teófilo Braga was named as the first President of Portugal by revolutionists who abolished the monarchy. Russia's Prime Minister, Pyotr Stolypin, flew as a passenger in an airplane at St. Petersburg."Premier in an Aeroplane", New York Times, October 6, 1910, p1 Six days later, former American President Theodore Roosevelt would fly as an airplane passenger in St. Louis. Francisco I. Madero, who had challenged Porfirio Díaz in the Mexican presidential election earlier in the year, fled to San Antonio, Texas, where he then issued the Plan de San Luis Potosí, calling for revolution against the Diaz government. Charles H. Harris and Louis R. Sadler,The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910–1920 (University of New Mexico Press, 2004) p52
October 6, 1910 (Thursday) Former King Manuel II and other members of Portugal's House of Braganza arrived safely at Gibraltar on board the royal yacht Amelia."Manuel II Under the British Flag", Washington Post, October 7, 1910, p1 Eleftherios Venizelos was elected Prime Minister of Greece for the first of his seven non-consecutive terms. Baseball outfielder Bill Collins of the Boston Doves became the first major league player to hit for a "natural cycle" (a single, a double, a triple and a home run in sequential order). Only 13 other players have accomplished the feat, the most recent being Gary Matthews, Jr., in 2006.
October 7, 1910 (Friday) Hundreds of people were killed after forest fires broke out in northern Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota, destroying the towns of Baudette, Spooner, Graceton, and Pitt Trains sent by the Canadian Pacific Railway evacuated many of the townspeople to Ontario, where the fires caused additional damage."Many Die In Flame; Hundreds Are Missing and Four Minnesota Towns in Ashes", Washington Post, October 9, 1910, p1 By October 11, more than 200 bodies had been recovered, the death toll was estimated at 400, and other towns (Roosevelt, Longworth, Swift, Ziplie, Solar, Cedar Spur, Gravel Pit Spur, and Engle) were reported destroyed."Over 300 Die in Forest Fires", New York Times, October 10, 1910, p1 Born: Ngo Dinh Nhu, South Vietnamese political boss and brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem; both were assassinated in a coup in 1963.
October 8, 1910 (Saturday)
The "Battle of Cameron Dam" came to an end, with frontiersman John F. Deitz (sometimes spelled "Dietz") surrendering to a force of 60 sheriff's deputies in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, after a one-week standoff. For six years, Deitz had maintained a log dam on the Thornapple River and claimed it as his own. By the time the standoff ended, Deitz was popularly known as either a dangerous outlaw or a national hero."Dietz Surrenders; He and Son Wounded", New York Times, October 9, 1910, p1; Wisconsin Historical Society ; "1924: Wisconsin King", New York Times, May 10, 1999 Portugal began the next phase of its republican revolution, with a decree expelling members of the clergy, particularly those of the Jesuit order.Bertrand M. Roehner and Tony Syme, Pattern and Repertoire in History (Harvard University Press, 2002) p80 Born: Gus Hall, American Communist leader; general secretary of CPUSA, 1959–2000, presidential candidate 1972,1976,1980 and 1984; as Arvo Halberg, in Cherry Township, Minnesota. (d.2000) Died: Maria Konopnicka, 58, Austro-Hungarian poet and writer
October 9, 1910 (Sunday) A coal mine explosion at Starkville, Colorado, killed fifty-two miners."Rescuers in Peril; Overcome by Gas While Seeking 52 Entombed Miners", Washington Post, October 10, 1910, p1 Edgar Cayce first attained national fame when he became the cover subject of the New York Times MagazineEdgar Cayce and A. Robert Smith, My life as a seer: the lost memoirs (St. Martin's Press, 1999) p18; "Illiterate Man Becomes a Doctor When Hypnotized", New York Times Magazine, October 9, 1910
Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers won the Chalmers Award for best batting in baseball's American League, with a batting average of .384944 (based on 196 hits on 509 at bats, rounded to .385), narrowly edging the mark of .384084 for Nap Lajoie of the Cleveland Naps (227 out of 591). Cobb was allowed to sit out the last two games of the season, while Lajoie got eight hits in the final game. Sixty-eight years later, baseball historian Pete Palmer discovered a miscalculation in statistics and found that Cobb had actually finished with a .383 average. Major League Baseball declined, in 1981, to revise the 1910 records.David L. Porter, Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball (Greenwood Press, 2000) p842; "Cobb is Champion Batsman of World", New York Times, October 16, 1910, p C-7
October 10, 1910 (Monday) Charles Evans Hughes was sworn in as the 62nd person to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Rebels in Manaus, Brazil, seized control of the government of the State of Amazonas, until driven out by federal troops."Time's Diary", Every Where Magazine (November 1910), p175 The city of Vinton, Louisiana, was incorporated. The Kaiserbrücke suspension bridge in Breslau, designed by Richard Plüddemann, was dedicated. Born: Julius Shulman, American architectural photographer (d. 2009)
October 11, 1910 (Tuesday) Theodore Roosevelt flew as a passenger in an airplane, piloted by Arch Hoxsey, at Kinloch aviation field near St. Louis. The former president of the United States remained aloft for more than three minutes."Roosevelt in Aero", Washington Post, October 12, 1910, p1; Smithsonian/Air & Space magazine, November 6, 2008 Less than two months later, on December 31, the same plane would crash, killing Hoxsey. Russia's prime minister Stolypin had been the first world leader to fly in an airplane, going up six days earlier. The first incumbent U.S. President to fly would be Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sun Yat-sen convened a meeting of the Chinese revolutionary group, Tongmenghui, in the city of Georgetown capital of the British colony of Penang in the Straits Settlements, where the group set a date of March 29, 1911, to begin an uprising against the Imperial government.H. H. Chang, Chiang Kai Shek – Asia's Man of Destiny (Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1944) pp88–89 Veteran City, Florida (later renamed as Gulfport) was incorporated.
October 12, 1910 (Wednesday) Roque Sáenz Peña was inaugurated as President of Argentina, and Victorino de la Plaza (who would become President in 1914) became Vice-President. In New York, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, funded by John D. Rockefeller, opened its first hospital, with 75 beds.
October 13, 1910 (Thursday) The Interstate Commerce Commission issued the first regulations requiring ladders, sill steps and hand brakes on all railroad cars in the United States.p11 "The Federal Railroad Safety Program" by Charles W. McDonald (U.S. Department of Transportation), p10 In fiction (Stephen King's short story "1408"), October 13, 1910, was the date that Kevin O'Malley leaped to his death from Room 1408 of the New York's Hotel Dolphin, becoming the first of 42 fatalities associated with the haunted room."1408", by Stephen King, in Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales (Simon & Schuster, 2007) p475 Born: H. W. L. Poonja, Hindu spiritual leader;, in Gujranwala, Punjab Province, British India (d. 1997)
October 14, 1910 (Friday) English aviator Claude Grahame-White landed his airplane on the street between the White House and the Old Executive Office Building, which housed the U.S. Departments of State, War and the Navy. Grahame-White had been invited as the guest of the Army Signal Corps. After being greeted by top-ranking officials, he took off again."Remarkable Flight by the English Aviator", The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York), October 15, 1910, p1 The French steamer Ville de Rochefort sank with 23 of its 25 crew after being rammed by the British steamer Peveril, off of the coast of Île de Noirmoutier. The ship went down within three minutes, and only two of its crew were rescued."Steamer Rammed; 23 Drown", Indianapolis Star, October 15, 1910, p1 A hurricane in the Caribbean Sea near Cuba sank numerous vessels, at least two of which were known to have been in the area and which never reached their destinations. The cargo feighter Arkadia had departed from New Orleans on October 11 with 33 crew and four passengers, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico,SS Arkadia, Wrecksite.eu and the British cargo ship Silverdale had left New York City on October 7 toward Havana.SS Silverdale, Wrecksite.eu Born: John Wooden, American college basketball coach who guided UCLA to ten NCAA championships; in Hall, Indiana (d. 2010) Died: Sydney Ringer, 75, British physician who invented Ringer's solution of sodium chloride, potassium and calcium.
October 15, 1910 (Saturday)