November 1909


The following events occurred in November 1909:

November 1, 1909 (Monday)

November 2, 1909 (Tuesday)

November 3, 1909 (Wednesday)

  • In Paris, Henry Farman broke the duration record for an airplane flight, staying airborne for four hours over.
  • Lt. George C. Sweet became the first U.S. Navy officer to fly in an airplane, as a passenger for nine minutes on the Wright Flyer, piloted by Army Lt. Frank P. Lahm.
  • The city of Limon, Colorado, was incorporated.

November 4, 1909 (Thursday)

  • The Finance Bill that governed the budget for British reforms was passed by the British House of Commons by a wide margin, 379–149, and proceeded to the House of Lords, where it was less likely to pass.
  • The day "when pigs fly" arrived, when British aviator Lord Brabazon carried a small pig aloft on an airplane flight, marking also the first "live cargo" flight.
  • The first airplane flight in Wisconsin took place, as Arthur P. Warner piloted his own Warner-Curtiss aircraft over Beloit.
  • The city of Spooner, Wisconsin, was chartered.

November 5, 1909 (Friday)

  • The United States Armed Forces lost its only airplane, when the Army's Wright Military Flyer, was severely damaged during a landing at the College Park Airport in Maryland. A year later, when a Congressional investigation determined "that our entire Air Force consisted of one wrecked plane, one pilot, and 9 enlisted men", funding was voted for the purchase of new aircraft on March 3, 1911.
  • At New Orleans, passengers arriving from Belize reported that the entire Navy of Honduras had been sunk. The warship Tatumbia, a converted tugboat, collided with a freighter at the Puerto Cortés and sank, but there were no deaths.
  • William Henry Pickering, the Harvard University astronomer, announced that Earth would pass through the tail of Halley's Comet on May 18, 1910.
  • Federal Judge Frank Hutton ruled, in Los Angeles, that Arabs and other Middle Easterners were of the White race. American immigration authorities had denied a Mr. Shishim a petition to become a citizen on the grounds that Arabs were Asiatic, and barred under a law against the naturalization of "Mongolians".
  • The first Woolworth's department store in Britain opened in Liverpool, as the American chain expanded into Europe.

November 6, 1909 (Saturday)

  • Notre Dame defeated Michigan 11–3 at Ann Arbor. Wolverines' coach Fielding H. Yost commented "I take my hat off to the Irishmen", and reporter E.A. Batchelor of the Detroit Free Press gave Notre Dame a nickname that stuck. Beneath the headline "U. of M. Outplayed and Beaten By the Notre Dame Eleven" was the subhead "Shorty Longman's Fighting Irishmen Humble the Wolverines to Tune of 11 to 3".
  • , the first U.S. Navy submarine and first of the s, was decommissioned.

November 7, 1909 (Sunday)

November 8, 1909 (Monday)

November 9, 1909 (Tuesday)

  • Louis Chevrolet won the inaugural stock chassis race at the Atlanta motor raceway, becoming the first person to go that distance in less than three hours. He drove a Buick, and would soon have an entire line of General Motors automobiles named for him. Lewis Strang bettered, by five seconds, Barney Oldfield's record for one mile, covering it in 37.30 seconds.
  • Born: Paweł Jasienica, Polish dissident author, in Simbirsk, Russia

November 10, 1909 (Wednesday)

November 11, 1909 (Thursday)

  • The river town of Cairo, Illinois, was the scene of one of the most gruesome lynchings in American history. Will "Froggy" James, an African-American charged with the murder of a white woman, was taken from the Sheriff's custody by a mob, then hanged from an arch at 8th and Commercial Street, in front of thousands of cheering spectators, at. The rope broke and men in the mob riddled Mr. James with hundreds of bullets, then butchered the body, placing the severed head upon a pole and cutting the rest for souvenirs, before burning what remained. Three hours later, Henry Salzner, a white man charged with murdering his wife, was taken from the county jail and hanged from a telegraph pole at 21st and Washington Street. Order was restored only after the state militia was called out by Governor Deneen.
  • Born: Robert Ryan, American actor, in Chicago

November 12, 1909 (Friday)

November 13, 1909 (Saturday)

November 14, 1909 (Sunday)

  • The sinking of the French mail steamer La Seyne killed 93 people aboard, after the ship collided with the British India ocean liner Onda and went down within 90 seconds.
  • Joshua Slocum had, in 1898, made the first solo circumnavigation of the globe, sailing in his yacht, the Spray. After refitting the Spray for another voyage, Slocum departed from Martha's Vineyard and was never seen again.
  • Marguerite Steinheil, a wealthy socialite, was acquitted in Paris of charges of the murder of her husband, Adolphe Steinheil, and her mother, Mme. Edouard Japy.
  • Buenos Aires Police Chief Ramón Lorenzo Falcón, 54, was assassinated by Simon Radowitzky, a Russian Jewish anarchist. The backlash that followed against immigrants, Jews and labor organizers was later described as the first of the "Buenos Aires Pogroms".

November 15, 1909 (Monday)

  • The U.S. Secret Service broke the last remains of the counterfeiting ring operated by the Joseph Morello syndicate, rounding up 14 Mafiosi at locations across New York

November 16, 1909 (Tuesday)

  • AT&T acquired a 25 percent ownership of the Western Union Telegraph Company by purchasing the stock owned by George J. Gould.
  • The University of Pittsburgh Publicity Committee officially adopted the nickname "Panthers" for its athletic teams, on suggestion from undergraduate student George Baird.
  • Representatives from Britain, the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain and Austria-Hungary met in London as part of the Ninth International Geographic Conference project for "the standardization of an international map on the scale of 1:1,000,000".
  • Born: Khalifatul Mashih III of the Ahmadiyya Community
  • The First Airliner DELAG has founded.

November 17, 1909 (Wednesday)

November 18, 1909 (Thursday)

November 19, 1909 (Friday)

November 20, 1909 (Saturday)

  • Standard Oil of New Jersey, the megacorporation that controlled most of the oil industry, was ordered dissolved by the federal court for the Eastern District of Missouri, on grounds that the company was "a combination and conspiracy in restraint of trade and its continued execution" in violation of antitrust law. Appeal was taken directly to the United States Supreme Court, which would uphold the decision on May 15, 1911, breaking up the Standard Oil trust.
  • Yale, with a 9–0–0 record and nine straight shutouts, traveled to Cambridge to meet unbeaten Harvard in the final game of the season for both teams. Yale won, 8–0, and was acknowledged as college football's champion.
  • Liliuokalani, the last Queen of Hawaii, filed suit in the United States Court of Claims to seek $450,000 compensation for confiscation of the owned by the monarchy until its abolition in 1893. The Court would rule against her on May 16, 1910, in Liliuokalani v. United States of America.
  • A.F. Draper, New York Commissioner of Education, prohibited Bible readings in the state's public schools. The complaint had been brought two years earlier by Father Charles Logue, a Catholic priest from Freeport, on Long Island.

November 21, 1909 (Sunday)

November 22, 1909 (Monday)

November 23, 1909 (Tuesday)

November 24, 1909 (Wednesday)

November 25, 1909 (Thursday)

  • The Rusjan Brothers, Edvard and Josip, of Slovenia, flew the first Eastern European airplane, the EDA I, at Görz, Austria-Hungary. With Edvard piloting, the EDA I flew 60 meters. Coincidentally, future World War II ace Cvitan Galić was born on November 29, 1909, in Gorica.
  • Dan Patch, the legendary harness racing horse, ran his final race, at a track in New Orleans, at the age of 13. The horse would die in 1916.

November 26, 1909 (Friday)

November 27, 1909 (Saturday)

  • The Hague Convention of 1907 was ratified by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, the Netherlands and other nations "to adapt to maritime warfare the principles of the Geneva Convention of the 6th July, 1906"
  • U.S. forces arrived at Nicaragua, landing at Bluefields, to prepare an invasion. Nicaraguan President Zelaya was given an ultimatum of, November 28, to guarantee protection of American citizens and to explain the execution of two American mercenaries the week before.
  • The North American Interfraternity Conference was organized by 26 fraternities.
  • Born: James Agee, American author, in Knoxville, Tennessee

November 28, 1909 (Sunday)

November 29, 1909 (Monday)

  • The United Kingdom moved forward in the arms race as it began production of the first "super-dreadnought" battleships, as the keel was laid for. The ships were the first to carry the BL 13.5 inch Mk V naval guns, which could fire a 1,250-pound, armor-piercing shell a distance of.
  • The Taube, Austria-Hungary's first aircraft, was flown by its designer, Igo Etrich, at Wiener Neustadt.
  • In a celebrated murder case, Ocey Snead was drugged and drowned by her wealthy aunts, the Wardlow sisters, who were trying to collect on $20,000 of insurance.
  • Born: Cvitan Galić, Croatian World War II ace, at Görz, Austria-Hungary ;. On the very same day in Görz, the new Eastern European airplane, the EDA I, made its second flight, traveling 600 meters, ten times the distance achieved in its first flight the week before.

November 30, 1909 (Tuesday)