1915

Today in History 04/24/18

Armenians are marched to a prison in Mezireh by armed Turkish soldiers in Kharpert, Armenia, April 1915 (Public domain)(1915) Armenian Genocide begins with arrests in Constantinople
Turkey’s Ottoman government arrests 250 intellectuals and leaders of the minority Armenian population. Within a week most will be executed, and within a few years an estimated 1.5 million Armenians will be killed in the 20th century’s first genocide.
The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, was the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, mostly citizens within the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, the Republic of Turkey. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported from Constantinople to the region of Ankara 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom were eventually murdered. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases—the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian Desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. Other ethnic groups were similarly targeted for extermination in the Assyrian genocide and the Greek genocide, and their treatment is considered by some historians to be part of the same genocidal policy. Most Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.
Start date: Apr 24, 1915
End date: 1917

NY Times Armenian genocide
Headline of The New York Times, 15 December 1915
wiki/Armenian_Genocide
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(1915) Armenian Genocide begins with arrests in Constantinople.
Also on this day,
1885 | Annie Oakley
1987 | Stern fights FCC
1990 | Hubble Space Telescope

Today in History 04/22/18

French troops wearing an early form of gas mask in the trenches during the Second Battle of Ypres, 1915 (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)(1915) WWI’s Second Battle of Ypres shocks with chemical weapon use
A battle to secure the Belgian town of Ypres introduces the world to the large-scale use of chemical weapons when the Germans release 168 long tons of chlorine gas on the Allied lines. Wind-borne poison gas kills 6,000 French troops in minutes.
During World War I, the Second Battle of Ypres was fought from 22 April – 25 May 1915 for control of the strategic Flemish town of Ypres in western Belgium after the First Battle of Ypres the previous autumn. It was the first mass use by Germany of poison gas on the Western Front. For the first time, a former colonial force defeated a European power on European soil.
Start date: Apr 22, 1915
End date: May 25, 1915

Belgian Troops with Early Gas Masks
Belgian machinegunners with very early gas masks during World War I.
wiki/Second_Battle_of_Ypres
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(1915) WWI’s Second Battle of Ypres shocks with chemical weapon use.
Also on this day,
1969 | Solo sail round the world
1970 | First Earth Day
2004 | Pat Tillman killed

Today in History 03/27/18

Mary Mallon, aka 'Typhoid Mary,' during her first quarantine, 1907-1910 (Public domain)(1915) ‘Typhoid Mary’ is quarantined for life
Irish immigrant Mary Mallon is isolated on North Brother Island in New York’s East River. As an asymptomatic typhus carrier she is believed to have unwittingly infected 51 people and killed three in her role as a family cook. She will spend nearly three decades in isolation before dying of pneumonia.
Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever. She was presumed to have infected 51 people, three of whom died, over the course of her career as a cook. She was twice forcibly isolated by public health authorities and died after a total of nearly three decades in isolation.
Born: Sep 23, 1869 · Cookstown, United Kingdom
Died: Nov 11, 1938 · North and South Brother Islands, New York City, NY
Buried: Saint Raymond’s Cemetery
Parents: Catherine ” Kate ” Igo · John Mallon
Highlights
  • 1900: In 1900, she worked in Mamaroneck, New York, where, within two weeks of her employment, residents developed typhoid fever.

  • 1901: In 1901, she moved to Manhattan, where members of the family for whom she worked developed fevers and diarrhea, and the laundress died.

  • 1906: In 1906, she took a position in Oyster Bay, Long Island, and within two weeks 10 of the 11 family members were hospitalized with typhoid.

  • 1915: In 1915, Mallon started another major outbreak, this time at Sloane Hospital for Women in New York City.

  • 1915: After arresting her, public health authorities returned her to quarantine on North Brother Island on March 27, 1915.

  • 1938: On November 11, 1938, she died of pneumonia at age 69.

Mary Mallon (1870-1938) was nicknamed
Typhoid Mary in a 1909 newspaper illustration. Note the skulls she casts into the skillet.
wiki/Typhoid_Mary
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Today in History 01/19/18

Bentwick Street in King's Lynn, England, in ruins after a Zeppelin bombing raid by the Germans in Jan. 1915 (© Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)(1915) First major aerial bombardment targeting civilians
Two WWI German zeppelins drop bombs over the English coastal towns of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, resulting in more than 20 deaths. Aerial bombing raids beginning 25 years later, during WWII, will cause hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in Europe and Asia.
The aerial bombing of cities in warfare is an optional element of strategic bombing which became widespread during World War I. The bombing of cities grew to a vast scale in World War II, and is still practiced today. The development of aerial bombardment marked an increased capacity of armed forces to deliver ordnance from the air against combatants, military bases, and factories, with a greatly reduced risk to its ground forces. Civilian and non-combatant casualties in bombed cities have variously been a purposeful result of the bombings, or unavoidable collateral damage depending on intent and technology. A number of multilateral efforts have been made to restrict the use of aerial bombardment so as to protect non-combatants.
German airship bombing Warsaw
German airship Schütte Lanz SL2 bombing Warsaw in 1914.

wiki/Aerial_bombing_of_cities
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Today in History 04/24/17

Annie Oakley circa 1880s (Public domain)(1885) Buffalo Bill’s show hires sharpshooter Annie Oakley
At 25, standing just 5 feet tall, and the daughter of Pennsylvania Quakers, Annie Oakley is nicknamed ‘Little Sure Shot’ by Sitting Bull after she’s hired on as a sharpshooter in Buffalo Bill’s popular, and lucrative, Wild West show.
Annie Oakley was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Her “amazing talent” first came to light when the then-15-year-old won a shooting match with traveling-show marksman Frank E. Butler. The couple joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show a few years later. Oakley became a renowned international star, performing before royalty and heads of state.
Born: Aug 13, 1860 · Patterson Township, OH
Died: Nov 03, 1926 · Greenville, OH
Height: 4′ 11″ (1.51 m)
Spouse: Frank E. Butler (m. 1876 – 1926)
Parents: Susan Wise Moses (Mother) · Jacob Moses (Father)
Highlights
  • 1870: On March 15, 1870, at age nine, Annie was admitted to the Darke County Infirmary, along with elder sister Sarah Ellen.

  • 1875: The Annie Oakley Center Foundation mentions Oakley visiting her married sister, Lydia Stein, at her home near Cincinnati in 1875.

  • 1876: Assuming their marriage had been in 1876, Oakley and Butler had been married just over 50 years.

  • 1882: A certificate is currently on file with the Archives of Ontario, Registration Number 49594, reporting Butler and Oakley being wed on June 20, 1882, in Windsor, Ontario.

  • 1894: In 1894, Oakley and Butler performed in Edison’s Kinetoscope film, The “Little Sure Shot of the Wild West,” an exhibition of rifle shooting at glass balls, etc.

  • 1902: She left the Buffalo Bill show and in 1902 began a quieter acting career in a stage play written especially for her, The Western Girl.

wiki/Annie_Oakley
Armenians are marched to a prison in Mezireh by armed Turkish soldiers in Kharpert, Armenia, April 1915 (Public domain)(1915) Armenian Genocide begins with arrests in Constantinople
Turkey’s Ottoman government arrests 250 intellectuals and leaders of the minority Armenian population. Within a week most will be executed, and within a few years an estimated 1.5 million Armenians will be killed in the 20th century’s first genocide.
The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, was the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, mostly Ottoman citizens within the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, the Republic of Turkey. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders from Constantinople to the region of Ankara, the majority of whom were eventually murdered. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. Other indigenous and Christian ethnic groups such as the Assyrians and the Ottoman Greeks were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government in the Assyrian genocide and the Greek genocide, and their treatment is considered by some historians to be part of the same genocidal policy. Most Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.
Start date: Apr 24, 1915
End date: 1917

wiki/Armenian_Genocide
Howard Stern speaks at a rally in New York's Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in front of more than 2,000 fans. (© Richard Drew/AP)(1987) Howard Stern rallies against FCC
Controversial radio host Howard Stern holds a rally in New York’s Dag Hammarskjold Plaza to protest the FCC’s decision that he aired indecent material. Stern’s battles with the agency would continue through 2005 when he will begin broadcasting via satellite radio.
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio and television personality, producer, author, actor, and photographer. He is best known for his radio show The Howard Stern Show, which gained popularity when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from 1986 to 2005. Stern has broadcast on Sirius XM Radio since 2006. Stern first wished to be on the radio at five years of age. He landed his first radio jobs while at Boston University. From 1976 to 1982, Stern developed his on-air personality through morning positions at WRNW in Briarcliff Manor, New York, WCCC in Hartford, Connecticut, WWWW in Detroit, Michigan, and WWDC in Washington, D.C. Stern worked afternoons at WNBC in New York City from 1982 until his firing in 1985.
Born: Jan 12, 1954 (age 63) · Jackson Heights, NY
Height: 6′ 5″ (1.96 m)
Spouse: Beth Ostrosky Stern (m. 2008) · Alison Stern (m. 1978 – 2001)
Children: Emily Beth Stern (Daughter) · Deborah Jennifer Stern (Daughter) · Ashley Jade Stern (Daughter)
Education: Boston University · Roosevelt High School · South Side High School
Parents: Ben Stern (Father) · Ray Stern (Mother)

wiki/Howard_Stern
The Hubble Space Telescope is suspended in space by Discovery's Remote Manipulator System on April 25, 1990 (© NASA/AP)(1990) Hubble Space Telescope launched into Earth’s orbit
Riding on the Space Shuttle ‘Discovery,’ a 24,000-pound space telescope with an almost 8-foot mirror will be deployed to a low Earth orbit. It will transmit spectacular images of distant galaxies, black holes, nebulas, and other deep-space wonders.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble, and is one of NASA’s Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Website: www.nasa.gov/hubble
Launched: Apr 24, 1990
Orbital height: 347 miles (559 km)
Weight: 24,493 pound (11,110 kg)
Orbital period: 96.50 minutes
Orbital speed: 4.66 miles/s (7.50 km/s)
Launch vehicle: STS-31

wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope
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