News and Events of 1912

World Events

population by decade

Nobel Peace Prize:
Elihu Root (US)

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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.).

President: William H. Taft
Vice President: James S. Sherman
Population: 95,335,000

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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.

Federal spending:   $0.69 billion
Unemployment:   4.6%
Cost of a first-class stamp:   $0.02

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Boston Red Sox d. NY Giants (4-3-1)

Quebec Bulldogs

Women: Ethel Larcombe d. C. Sterry (6-3 6-1)
Men: Tony Wilding d. A. Gore (6-4 6-4 4-6 6-4)

Worth

Harvard (CFRA, HF) (9-0-0) & Penn St. (NCF) (8-0-0)

Nobel Prize for Literature: Gerhart Hauptmann (Germany)

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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.

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

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.