Top News Stories from 1912
World Events
World Statistics
Population: 4.378 billion
population by decade Nobel Peace Prize: Elihu Root (US)
More World Statistics... - The "unsinkable" oceanliner Titanic sinks on maiden voyage after colliding with an iceberg; over 1,500 drown (April 15).
- Balkan Wars begin, resulting from territorial disputes: Turkey defeated by alliance of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro (Oct.).
U.S. Events
U.S. Statistics
President: William H. Taft
Vice President: James S. Sherman
Population: 95,335,000
More U.S. Statistics... - New Mexico and Arizona are admitted as states No. 47 and 48.
- Woodrow Wilson is elected president.
- William Randolph Hearst begins to acquire his media empire that will include 18 newspapers and nine magazines within two decades.
- Girl Scouts of America founded by Juliette Gordon Low.
Economics
Federal spending: $0.69 billion
Unemployment: 4.6%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.02
Sports
World Series
Boston Red Sox d. NY Giants (4-3-1)Stanley Cup
Quebec BulldogsWimbledon
Women: Ethel Larcombe d. C. Sterry (6-3 6-1)Men: Tony Wilding d. A. Gore (6-4 6-4 4-6 6-4)
Kentucky Derby Champion
WorthNCAA Football Champions
Harvard (CFRA, HF) (9-0-0) & Penn St. (NCF) (8-0-0) 1912 Summer OlympicsEntertainment
Entertainment Awards
Nobel Prize for Literature: Gerhart Hauptmann (Germany)
More Entertainment Awards... Events
- The Radio Act of 1912 assigns three- and four-letter codes to radio stations and limits broadcasting to the 360m wavelength, which jams signals.
- Photoplay debuts as the first magazine for movie fans.
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Victor Grignard (France), for reagent discovered by him; and Paul Sabatier (France), for methods of hydrogenating organic compounds
Physics: Gustaf Dalén (Sweden), for discovery of automatic regulators used in lighting lighthouses and light buoys
Physiology or Medicine: Alexis Carrel (France), for work on vascular ligature and grafting of blood vessels and organs
More Nobel Prizes in 1998... - American Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt discovers a correlation between Cepheids' periods and luminosity, a relationship that becomes important to the measurement of interstellar and intergalactic distances.
- German meteorologist and geophysicist Alfred Wegener proposes the idea of continental drift.
- Piltdown Man hoax perpetuated. Supposed fossils said to be "missing link" in evolution. In 1953 it was found that human and ape bones were fraudulently aged.
