September 3, 1913: Russians discover the last uncharted major islands on Earth, the Severnaya ZemlyaA pre-1913 map of the area
The anti-government rebellion in southern China was brought to an end, when all six rebellious provinces surrendered to the Beiyang Army, led by General Zhang Xun, retook Nanjing.[1]
French aviator Adolphe Pégoud demonstrated that he could fly an airplane upside-down on a sustained flight, traveling for 400 metres (1,300ft). He was using a specially constructed Bleriot monoplane, and after reaching 3,000 feet (910m), put the plane in a quarter-loop and kept it in the upside down position.[2] Pégoud, who would fly a full vertical loop on September 21, also did a "vertical-S" trick, which was reported in the press as having "looped the loop".[3][4]
Lucy Maud Montgomery published her novel The Golden Road, one of the few not involving her famous character Anne Shirley. The story was inspired by childhood stories shared by her great aunt Mary Lawson, who Montgomery dedicated in her book.[8]
A rear-end collision between two sections of the London-Scotland express at Carlisle, England caused a fire that burned 15 passengers to death.[14][15]
Bill Miner, American outlaw, nicknamed "The Gentleman Robber", reputed for coming up with the phrase "Hands up!" (b. 1847)[citation needed]
A hurricane struck North Carolina with 85mph (140km/h) winds and a minimum barometric pressure of 976mbar (28.8inHg), causing five deaths and $4–5 million in property and crop damages.[6][17][18]
Severnaya Zemlya, a group of islands located above the Arctic Circle, was discovered on a hydrographic expedition by the crew of the Russian icebreakers Taimyr and Vaigach, and was named 'Emperor Nicholas II Land' by the explorers, in honor of the Tsar.[19] The archipelago would prove to be the last major group of previously unknown lands on Earth to be discovered.[20]
A fire in the city of Hot Springs, Arkansas, destroyed 55 city blocks of property, causing damages of six million dollars.[11] The blaze started "in a negro dwelling on Church Street," then spread southeast, destroying the county courthouse, the city high school, four hotels, the Iron Mountain railroad station and "a hundred or more business buildings and many residences."[26]
Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 was performed for the first time. The manuscript would be destroyed by fire in 1917 during the Russian Revolution, and Prokofiev would reconstruct it, introducing a new version on May 8, 1924.[28]
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and his physician, Dr. Carey Grayson, were almost run over by a streetcar while walking back to the White House at night. To avoid an accident, a policeman jumped in front of the streetcar, raising both of his hands to signal it to stop. The car stopped within 10 feet (3.0m) from the President and physician.[34]
Outraged over the killing of Japanese nationals at Nanjing, China, 15,000 people protested outside the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and demanded military action against China. Japan demanded an apology and payment of damages, a request which would initially be ignored.[35]
The poem "September 1913", by W. B. Yeats, was first published, in The Irish Times, with the title "Romance in Ireland." The 32 line poem referred to late Irish separatist John O'Leary, and contained the refrain, "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave."[38]
Commemorative stamp of Russian aviator Pyotr Nesterov
In the skies near Kiev, Russian aviator Pyotr Nesterov became the first person to execute a loop. Nesterov, a pilot for the Imperial Russian Air Service took a Nieuport airplane aloft, and when he reached an altitude of 3,300 feet (1,000m), shut off the engine, then took the plane on a vertical dive, restarted it at 2,000 feet (610m), and "kept on pulling until the horizon slid up over his head," then came back to right-side up.[40] When he landed, he was arrested and spent ten days in jail for negligent use of government property. Adolphe Pégoud of France would make a loop nine days later and get publicity first.[41]
Chemical manufacturer BASF started the world's first plant for the production of fertilizer based on the Haber–Bosch process in Ludwigshafen, Germany, feeding today about a third of the world's population.[43]
The United States Department of Agriculture reported an "unprecedented" yield in wheat production for 1913. "Never before in the history of the country has there been such a bountiful wheat harvest as has been gathered this year," The New York Times noted.[44]
Robert Owen Jr. was awarded U.S. patent number 1,072,980 for his invention of the ratchet wrench, applied for on February 3.[45]
The Olivebridge Dam was completed on the Hudson River, creating the Ashokan Reservoir, to provide 250,000,000 gallons of water a day to New York City. In 1924, the Gilboa Dam would open, providing twice as much water to the city.[46][pageneeded]
September 10 and 29, 1913: NYC Mayor Gaynor, Engine inventor Diesel, die at sea
William Jay Gaynor, the Mayor of New York City since 1910, died suddenly while on the ocean liner RMS Baltic, as it was nearing Liverpool. Gaynor, who had announced his candidacy for re-election only one week earlier, had been in poor health since being wounded in an assassination attempt on August 9, 1910, and was succeeded by Ardolph L. Kline, who presided over the Board of Aldermen.[48] Gaynor's body would lie in state at the Town Hall of Liverpool, after which the body was transported back to the U.S. On September 21, his funeral would be held at the City Hall in New York.[49]
The first edition of The Frostburg Spirit weekly newspaper was published in Frostburg, Maryland, but its time was short-lived and paper published its last edition January 1915.[54]
The proposed route for the Lincoln Highway, which would become the first transcontinental paved highway in the United States, was announced in newspapers across the country.[57][pageneeded][58]
Baseball pitcher Larry Cheney of the Chicago Cubs, set a Major League record that still stands, for most hits allowed in a shutout. Although the Cubs got only 11 hits, and the New York Giants got 14, the Cubs still won 7–0.[59][60]
September 15, 1913: The first successful 4-wheel drive vehicle, the Jeffrey Quad, delivered to the U.S. Army (picture from 1916)
The first successful four-wheel drive vehicle, the Jeffery Quad, was delivered to the United States Army by the Thomas B. Jeffery Company. With modifications, the Quad would become the transport vehicle of choice for the armies of France, Russia and the United States during World War One, and a civilian version would become popular following its debut in April 1914.[64]
In Libya, Arab tribesmen fought with the occupying Italian Army, killing 33 officers and soldiers, including their leader, General Alfonso Torelli. Another 73 Italians were wounded, and the Libyan losses were unknown.[65]
Mexican terrorists dynamited a railroad train, sixty miles south of Saltillo, Mexico, killing 40 soldiers and 10 second-class passengers. Reportedly, the rebels had set on the track two land mines, which were "set off by electricity."[69]
With the Canadian exploration ship HMCS Karluk trapped in the Arctic ice, expedition leader Vilhjalmur Stefansson and a few shipmates set off on what was to be a ten-day hunt for food for the ship. Stefansson would return to find that the ice pack, and the trapped ship, had floated away.[72]
The foundation stone for the Goetheanum, center for the anthroposophical movement founded by Rudolf Steiner, was set at the building site in the Switzerland town of Dornach, though construction would not be finished for another nine years.[73]
Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old American amateur, won the U.S. Open in a three-way playoff against five time British Open winner Harry Vardon and defending British Open champion Ted Ray. At the end of the regulation four rounds, all three had scores of 304 on 72 holes. In a major upset, the relatively unknown Ouimet scored a 72, compared to Vardon's 77 and Ray's 78 in the playoff.[74][75][pageneeded]
Twelve days after Pyotr Nesterov's September 9 loop at Kiev, Adolphe Pégoud duplicated the feat. Because Nesterov's "misuse" of an airplane was not mentioned in the Russian press, Pégoud was reported to have been the first person to perform the aerial maneuver of flying an airplane in a vertical circle and inspired pilots worldwide to try similar stunts.[77]
The Philadelphia Athletics clinched the American League baseball title, after beating the Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader, 4-0 and 1–0, with a 12-game lead over the Cleveland Naps and only 11 games left in the season.[78]
Roland Garros made an unprecedented airplane trip across the sea, crossing the Mediterranean from Fréjus, France, and landing in Bizerte, Tunisia, on a 558-mile (898km) flight of slightly less than eight hours.[81] Garros took off at 5:27 in the morning and, though a cylinder head on the airplane motor broke in mid-flight, avoided landing on the islands of Corsica or Sardinia. With "barely 5 liters of fuel left— enough for only a few more minutes of flying," Garros sighted the French naval base at Tunisia and landed at the parade ground.[82]
Albanian nationalist Isa Boletini led a revolt in Serbian-occupied Macedonia, with 6,000 fighters taking control of the western Macedonian towns of Debar and Ohrid, which would revert to Yugoslavian control after World War I.[83]
At Melun, French airman Albert Moreau demonstrated the first airplane with an automatic pilot, winning a prize for the design for stability control. Moreau, taking a brave passenger with him, "flew 17 miles without touching the controls of the machine." "Throughout the flight," the New York Times wrote, "even when the machine banked over and rolled so much that the passenger asked him to take the controls, Moreau sat calmly, with his arms folded, and the machine always righted itself."[84]
A delegation of 500 Protestants in northern Ireland met in Belfast to organize resistance to the proposed Home Rule law, and pledged to resist any decrees made by an Irish Parliament.[49]
Baltimore, Maryland became the first U.S. city to have an ordinance "requiring the use of separate blocks for residences by white and colored people respectively," with a law going into effect creating separate zones for Whites and African-Americans to live.[88] Three previous attempts to segregate Baltimore, with the original plan being to force people to leave their homes, had been struck down as unconstitutional by the Maryland appellate courts; the 1913 ordinance would be deemed acceptable because it only applied to people moving to an area after the law took effect.[89][pageneeded] Similar ordinances to prohibit people from different races from living on the same city block, would soon be enacted in other Southern cities, including Atlanta, St. Louis and Birmingham, Alabama.[90]
A tugboat became the first vessel to pass through the locks of the Panama Canal, sailing from the Atlantic Ocean and arriving at the Gatun Lake after being raised to the lake's level through three chambers.[94] The old tugboat was, appropriately, named the Gatún.[95]
Japan sent a three-day ultimatum to China, demanding reparations and an apology for the deaths of more Japanese citizens in Nanjing and for "insults to the flag".[96] General Chang Hsun, commander of government troops at Nanjing, apologized two days later, appearing before the Japanese consulate "accompanied by a bodyguard of 800 men".[97]
Born:Terence Patrick O'Sullivan, British engineer, founder of T. P. O'Sullivan and Partners which were involved in many industrial projects for Asia and Africa as well as the modernization of the British railway system in 1955, in London (d. 1970)[citation needed]
Philadelphia became the first American city to implement the use of chlorine for disenfection of its drinking water, a process that would become the standard in the United States by 1941.[98]
Baseball's New York Giants captured the National League pennant, despite losing 4–0 to the Brooklyn Dodgers, because the second place Philadelphia Phillies lost as well. As The New York Times put it, "The Phillies may now win all of their remaining games and the Giants lose all of theirs and the New Yorks will be victors by one full game. Hurrah!" [101]
Maurice Prévost of France set a new speed record, traveling 125 miles per hour (201km/h) in an airplane at the International Aeroplane Cup race at Reims.[49]
Commissioner Osborne, also known as inmate Tom Brown
Thomas Mott Osborne, the Chairman of New York's State Commission on Prison Reform, began his personal investigation of prison conditions by spending a week as prisoner "Tom Brown" at the Auburn State Prison. At a chapel service the day before, Osborne and Auburn's warden informed the prisoners of what he was doing but did not let the guards know. After witnessing conditions from the inside for a week, Osborne recommended immediate reforms.[104]
Rudolf Diesel, the German engineer who invented the diesel engine, was last seen alive after retiring to his cabin on the passenger steamer SS Dresden. He was found missing the next day; his cabin bed had not been slept in and his hat and neatly folded overcoat were discovered beneath the afterdeck railing. His body would be found in the ocean on October 10.[105]
The United Kingdom withdrew its support for the five-nation banking loan to China for railroad construction.[11]
All 54 passengers and crew of the British freighter Templemore were rescued after a wireless distress call was sent from the ship, sinking in the mid-Atlantic. The ship Arcadia received the signal and carried out the evacuation.[11]
Robert Nisbet, American conservative sociologist, known for his research into individualism and community, author of The Quest for Community; in Los Angeles, United States (d. 1996)[citation needed]
Landsea, Christopher W.; etal. (December 2012). Documentation of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Changes in HURDAT. Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (Report). Miami, Florida: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved July 23, 2014.
"Giants Drop First Game to the Cubs; McGraw's Men Make Fourteen Hits, but Fail to Score a Run and Lose, 7–0". New York Times. September 15, 1913. p. 10.
Cashman, Sean Dennis (1998). America Ascendant: From Theodore Roosevelt to FDR in the Century of American Power, 1901–1945. New York University Press. p.44. ISBN978-0814715-66-6.
Bevans, Charles I., ed. (1968). Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776–1949. Vol.2. U.S. Department of State. p.387.
"The Greenbrier". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on December 31, 2007. Retrieved October 13, 2007.
