January 1909


The following events occurred in January 1909:

January 1, 1909 (Friday)

  • The Old Age Pensions Act 1908 went into effect in Great Britain, and the first payments were made to qualified persons at least 70 years old and whose income was less than 12 shillings per week. Roughly 490,000 persons received the pension during the first year.
  • The Disenfranchisement Act of 1908 took effect in Georgia, the last legislation designed to block African Americans from voting. The new law required a "literacy test", whereby a person had to explain the meaning of a section of the state constitution, if he owned less than of property. Descendants of U.S. or Confederate military veterans were exempt from the test.
  • The City of Honolulu and the County of Oahu were formally incorporated.
  • Born: Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian ultranationalist leader; in Staryi Uhryniv, Austria-Hungary

January 2, 1909 (Saturday)

January 3, 1909 (Sunday)

January 4, 1909 (Monday)

January 5, 1909 (Tuesday)

  • Mulai Abd-el-Hafid was acknowledged to be the rightful Sultan of Morocco by France and other European powers. He would reign until 1912, when Morocco was made a French protectorate by the Treaty of Fez.
  • Orville Wright told reporters, "I do not believe the aeroplane will ever take the place of trains or steamships for the carrying of passengers... I believe ultimately the aeroplane may be put to special uses in the carrying of passengers, but never in excess of 10 or 20 persons."
  • Crawford County, Pennsylvania, ordered a 100-day quarantine of the towns of Springboro, Conneautville, Meadville, Brookville and Linesville because of an outbreak of rabies in western Pennsylvania.
  • Methodist minister John H. Carmichael, of Adair, Michigan, disappeared shortly after departing for Columbus. The next day, body parts were found burning inside two stoves inside his church. Though at first it was believed to be the dismembered body of Reverend Carmichael, subsequent investigation determined that the body was of Gideon Browning, and Carmichael was suspected of being a fugitive from murder. The case, which had made front pages across America, ended when Carmichael committed suicide in Carthage, Illinois, on January 11.
  • Born: Stephen Cole Kleene, American mathematician; in Hartford, Connecticut

January 6, 1909 (Wednesday)

  • The Great White Fleet, consisting of 16 U.S. Navy battleships sailing the globe in a display of American naval power, successfully completed its passage through the Suez Canal, passing from the Indian Ocean into the Mediterranean Sea. It was the largest group of ships to pass through up to that time, and the Canal had been closed to all other traffic. The ships would return to the United States on February 22.
  • Germany assumed control of diamond mining in German Southwest Africa. Diamonds had been discovered there on June 23, 1908.
  • "Albertus", a magician who billed himself as superior to Houdini and Brindamoor, nearly drowned after attempting to escape a tightly laced straitjacket after plunging into the waters off of Atlantic City, New Jersey. A crew from the government life-saving station came to his rescue.

January 7, 1909 (Thursday)

January 8, 1909 (Friday)

  • The U.S. House of Representatives accepted, 212–35, a committee report condemning outgoing President Theodore Roosevelt, in effect voting to censure him. The same day, the U.S. Senate voted to direct its Judiciary Committee to investigate wrongdoing by the President during the Panic of 1907. Roosevelt had, on December 8, 1908, included in his annual message to Congress the statement that Congress opposed the expansion of the Secret Service because there were "criminals in the legislative branch".
  • Born: Willy Millowitsch, German actor and director; in Cologne
  • Died: Harry Seeley, 69, British paleontologist

January 9, 1909 (Saturday)

  • The Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, led by Ernest Shackleton, arrived further south than any prior expedition, at 88°23' S, within of the Pole. On the 6th, Shackleton had realized that he did not have enough rations left to reach the pole, but planted the flag of the United Kingdom within less than. The crew then made its way back to.
  • Colombia formally recognized the independence of Panama, which had seceded in 1903 with the help of the United States. Under the terms of a trilateral treaty, Panama would pay "rental" to Colombia at the rate of $250,000 per annum for ten years, and the United States would give Colombia special privileges in the use of the canal.
  • The Mauritanian emirate of Adrar became a French protectorate. Emir Shaykh al-Hasana was deposed and replaced by Sidi Ahmad wuld Ahmd 'Ayda.
  • The very first issue of La Follette's Weekly Magazine was published, and opened with an article by Lincoln Steffens. Founded by U.S. Senator Robert M. La Follette, the new magazine billed itself as "A publication that will not mince words or suppress facts, when public welfare demands plain talk, about public men, legislative measures, or social and industrial wrongs.". . In 1929, it would be re-branded as a monthly magazine and become The Progressive. Born: Anthony Mamo, the first President of Malta ; in Birkirkara

January 10, 1909 (Sunday)

  • In Sion, Switzerland, 40 worshippers were killed and 60 others injured when their church collapsed during services. The pillars of an ancient crypt beneath the church had given way.
  • The explosion at the Leiter Colliery in Zeigler, Illinois, killed 26 coal miners. Only two men survived the blast.

January 11, 1909 (Monday)

January 12, 1909 (Tuesday)

  • A mine explosion at Switchback, West Virginia, killed at least 105 men and trapped another 100. The blast, which occurred at 8:30 in the morning, happened fifteen days after 51 men had been killed at the same mine.
  • Died: Professor Hermann Minkowski, 44, Polish mathematician and colleague of Albert Einstein and David Hilbert ; from sepsis from appendicitis. Less than four months earlier, Minkowski had presented the mathematical framework, now known as "Minkowski spacetime", by which Einstein's theory could be explained. Before he could extend his work, however, he became ill late in 1908 and developed peritonitis. Legend has it that on his deathbed at the hospital in Göttingen, he lamented, "What a pity that I have to die in the age of relativity's development."

January 13, 1909 (Wednesday)

  • Determined to make one more demonstration of his toughness in his last months in office, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt set off to ride on horseback in one day. Accompanied by his military aide, Captain Archibald Butt, Navy Surgeon General Presley M. Rixey, and Surgeon C. D. Grayson, President Roosevelt set out at 3:40 a.m., riding to Warrenton, Virginia, and returned to the White House, the last in a blizzard, at 8:40 that evening. The press, however, gave him credit for only. When reporters asked him for a quote, the President replied, "It was bully."
  • Carrie Nation, infamous for her destruction of American saloons, was arrested at Newcastle upon Tyne for vandalizing a British pub. Nation, on a visit to the United Kingdom, was later released on bail.
  • Born:
  • *Danny Barker, American jazz banjoist; in New Orleans
  • *Marinus van der Lubbe, Dutch native who was charged with the burning of the German Reichstag in 1933; in Leiden

January 14, 1909 (Thursday)

January 15, 1909 (Friday)

January 16, 1909 (Saturday)

January 17, 1909 (Sunday)

  • In Russia, a police decree was issued banning music in all cinemas. The ban, which was soon rescinded, is believed by film historian Yuri Tsivian to have been an attempt to "extort bribes from exhibitors, since by that time music was already felt to be an essential accompaniment to films." However, censors continued to ban the playing of music during the showing of any newsreels of the Tsar or his family.

January 18, 1909 (Monday)

  • Robert Franklin Stroud of Juneau, Alaska, shot and killed Charlie Von Dahmer. Convicted of manslaughter at 18, Stroud spent the rest of his life in federal prisons. While in Leavenworth, where he murdered a guard, he raised canaries and authored two books, Diseases of Canaries and Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds. He would be immortalized as The Birdman of Alcatraz in a book and a film of the same name. However, by the time that he was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942, his work with canaries had stopped. Stroud died on November 21, 1963.
  • Congressman William Willett, Jr. denounced outgoing President Theodore Roosevelt, in terms so outrageous that the House voted 126–78 to terminate his speech. The Washington Post described the speech as "so bitter and sensational that it seemed as though its author had raked the dictionary for adjectives to vilify the chief executive". By the time that he said "the Gargoyle is about to grin its last grin", he was being ruled out of order, and he skipped to the end to say "the Nero who fiddled while Rome was burning will be out of power on March 4th." By voice vote on January 27, the House expunged the speech from the Congressional Record for "language improper".

January 19, 1909 (Tuesday)

  • The Jersey Devil returned to the Pinelands of Southern New Jersey at 2:00 a.m., after an absence of more than 35 years. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Evans of Gloucester City told a reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin that the winged lizard had spent ten minutes on the roof of their woodshed. The Bulletin story, and an accompanying sketch, were soon picked up by papers across the nation. The Washington Post described the creature as having "a head like a collie dog, and a face like a horse... a long neck, wings about 8 feet long, and it whines at intervals. Its tail is described by one Jerseyman as 'glowing like a coal of fire'. The Post commented that "Chills are running up and down the South Jersey spine like a monkey on a stick". The mysterious creature became a fixture of the state's folklore, and is now the mascot for Newark's National Hockey League team.
  • After a personal appeal from President Roosevelt, California Governor James Gillett met with state legislative leaders to stop further progress on anti-Japanese legislation. "There can be no doubt that the Japanese Government is acting absolutely in good faith in its endeavor to prevent its people from emigrating to our country", said the Governor, "and in my judgment it would be a serious mistake while they are so doing to enact any laws directed against the Japanese people." A bill proposed to limit Japanese-American residents of San Francisco to residing in its Chinatown district, to bar their children from attending public schools, and to bar them from serving as directors of a corporation.
  • Born: Hans Hotter, German opera singer; in Offenbach am Main

January 20, 1909 (Wednesday)

January 21, 1909 (Thursday)

January 22, 1909 (Friday)

January 23, 1909 (Saturday)

  • The steamer Republic, with 461 people on board, began sinking out to sea, shortly after being struck by the SS Florida. Except for 6 people killed in the collision, everyone was saved because the Republic had the latest technology, a wireless telegraph. Jack Binns sent the CQD distress signal that was picked up at a rescue station at Siasconset, Massachusetts, then relayed to other ships. At 15,378 tons, the Republic was, at the time, the largest ship to have been lost. The wreckage would be located in 1981. Binns briefly became a worldwide celebrity.
  • Centered at Darb-e Astaneh in the Lorestān Province of Iran, an earthquake destroyed 64 villages and killed more than 6,000 people. More recently, the 2006 Borujerd earthquake struck the same region on March 31, 2006.
  • The Tottenham Outrage, an armed robbery and double murder, occurred in Tottenham, Middlesex, and Walthamstow, Essex. It was perpetrated by two anarchists, Paul Helfeld and Jacob Lepidus, who both later committed suicide. Twenty-five casualties were reported, two fatal and several serious.

January 24, 1909 (Sunday)

  • Robert H. Goddard first realized the potential for explosives to raise a rocket, as he described it, "without employing the air". His insight, recorded in a daily journal, was that "if an explosive... is burned in tubes in such a way that all its energy is converted into kinetic energy of the particles expelled and the body propelled, it is, theoretically, possible to obtain propulsion". Goddard's discovery paved the way for space exploration.
  • Born: Martin Lings, British Islamic scholar; in Manchester
  • Died: Petre S. Aurelian, 75, Romanian engineer and politician who served as the nation's Prime Minister for four months in 1896 and 1897

January 25, 1909 (Monday)

January 26, 1909 (Tuesday)

  • In Heidelberg, German astronomer Max Wolf discovered SN 1909a, the first supernova observed from Earth in the Pinwheel Galaxy, and only the 11th observed overall. The nova itself happened more than 27 million years earlier in the galaxy, located that many light years distant, in the direction of Ursa Major.
  • A trial in British India brought out a conspiracy to set up an independent kingdom there.

January 27, 1909 (Wednesday)

January 28, 1909 (Thursday)

January 29, 1909 (Friday)

  • Henderson Cremeans, of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, died while walking home from a grocery store. His death made headlines across the nation, because he was reportedly 115 years old. Cremeans, said to have been born in 1794, was never verified as a supercentenarian, nor was his mother, who was said to "have died aged 120". He reportedly was survived by 70 grandchildren, 131 great-grandchildren, and 19 great-great-grandchildren, and "he never tasted liquor or tobacco in his life".
  • A minor tremor shook the Spanish city of Málaga. The Associated Press soon reported that a tidal wave had destroyed Barcelona. By Sunday, it was confirmed that "the reports emanating from England relative to a disastrous earthquake and a tidal wave are untrue".

January 30, 1909 (Saturday)

January 31, 1909 (Sunday)

  • The capsizing of the Australian steamship SS Clan Ranald killed 40 of its 64 crew off of the coast of Troubridge Island in the state of South Australia. With the exception of eight officers, nearly all of the crew were "lascars", primarily from India. Residents of the island helped save 24 who had gotten close to shore. Some who had avoided drowning died of hypothermia. An inquiry on the accident revealed that the crew of another freighter, Uganda, that could have come to rescue Clan Ranald saw distress rockets that had been fired, but that the captain of the Uganda chose to ignore the signals.
  • The New York World announced a $10,000 prize, largest to that time, for the first person who could, before October 10, 1910, fly the from New York to Albany, whether in an airship or an airplane, as part of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. Glenn Curtiss won the contest, on May 29, 1910, in a biplane.