/1916, In the US, the Republican Convention nominated Charles E Hughes as presidential candidate.
15/3/1916. The US mounted a punitive raid into Mexico in revenge for the raids of Pancho Villa into New Mexico on 9/3/1916.
28/9/1915. Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg was born (see 19/6/1953).
7/5/1915. The Lusitania, captained by William Thomas Turner, was torpedoed. 1,400 people drowned 8 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, near Cork. 128 Americans were among the 1,208 casualties, including friends of President Woodrow Wilson and the millionaire yachtsman Alfred Vanderbilt, as the ship made its way back to Liverpool on a voyage from New York. America condemned the torpedoing of the ship by a German submarine as an act of piracy and this brought the USA into the War.
The 30,000 tonne Lusitania had sailed from New York on 1/5/1915. She carried 1,257 passengers, including 128 Americans; 702 crew; and an estimated 3 stowaways. Her cargo list, later a source of controversy, included small arms cartridges, uncharged shrapnel shells, cheese, furs, and, oddly, 205 barrels of oysters. The Germans later claimed the ‘oysters’ were actually heavy munitions whose explosion had doomed the ship. However there was no second explosion after the torpedo hit; there were no heavy munitions and rifle rounds burned harmlessly, like firecrackers, and did not explode.
Cunard had shut down the Lusitania’s fourth boiler room to save on coal but even at the reduced maximum speed of 21 knots it was reckoned she could outrun any German U-boat. Passengers ignored warnings from the German Embassy published in the New York Press not to cross the Atlantic under a belligerent flag, and the lifeboat drills on board were palpably inadequate. The Lusitania had plenty of lifeboats but most were unlaunchable because the ship listed heavily as water poured through lower deck portholes, opened for air despite orders to close them. She sank within 18 minutes of being hit.
The sinking of the Lusitania deepened American hostility towards Germany but President Woodrow Wilson’s administration was split between the hawks and doves, and it was another 2 years before America entered the war.
6/5/1915, Orson Wells, American actor and film director, was born,
20/4/1915. President Wilson declared the USA to be strictly neutral in the Great War.
2/1/1915, John Hope Franklin, US historian, was born.
15/3/1915, US soldiers under General Pershing entered Mexico to hunt down the revolutionary Pancho Villa.
15/8/1914, The 40-mile long Panama Canal opened; construction work had begun on 4/7/1914. The first ship to pass through the canal, this day, was the SS Ancon.
31/7/1914. The New York stock exchange closed with the outbreak of World War One.
8/5/1914, The US Congress officially recognised Mothers’ Day, setting it as the second Sunday in May thereafter.
21/4/1914, US troops occupied the Mexican city of Vera Cruz to prevent German weaponry reaching the Mexican military.
1913, The United States Department of Labor was created, to promote the welfare of US workers.
1913, The Woolworth Building, designed by Cass Gilbert, was completed. Until 1930 it was the highest skyscraper in the city.
24/12/1913, The Italian Hall Disaster. A stampede at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan killed 73 people (59 of them children) during a Christmas Eve celebration for over 400 striking miners and their families. An unknown person had yelled "Fire!" (even though there wasn't one). Speculation included the theory that an anti-union ally of mine management had yelled out the false alarm in order to disrupt the party.
23/12/1913, The Federal Reserve, the Central Banking system of the USA, was established.
17/11/1913. The steamship Louise became the first ship through the Panama Canal.
10/10/1913. The Panama Canal was completed.
8/4/1913, The 17th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. This provided for the election of US Senators by direct popular vote, so ending the ‘millionaire’s club’ that had dominated the US Senate.
31/3/1913, New York’s Ellis Island, where new migrants were processed, received 