Today, I have been reflecting on some important events of a hundred years ago. The ones that have most affected my life in the eternal scheme of things were the birth of my mother, Edna Hymas, exactly 100 years ago today in Liberty, Idaho to Benjamin Pitman Hymas and Elizabeth Price Hymas and the birth of my Father, Darrell Eborn, to Arthur Phipp Eborn and Nina Louise Passey Eborn about three miles south of Liberty, Idaho in Lanark on October 6, 1912. I cannot help but believe that in the preexistant realms they had discussed and chose to undertake these very events. I am grateful for them and all they have done, whether in the preexistence, mortality, or is their present state to provide opportunities for each of us to come to this earth, to learn and have experience, to develop faith and attributes of character. I, for one will be forever grateful for their love, nurture, and example. I shudder to think of where I might have been without them.
Lately, it seems I may have been a little preoccupied with the events taking place in our country and around the world. We live in perilous times, but we are hardly the first to do so, and we will not be the last. I thought someone might be interested in the events of 100 years ago, the year Dad and Mom were born into this world. The times have changed alright, but in many ways they remain the same. Each of us will have our appropriate share of challenges, just as those of past ages did. Such is the plan. They are not always easy, nor were they ever intended to be, but ultimately I am confident, that they will be worth the effort. I pray tha each of us will face each day with hope and courage, just as our parents did through the years.
1912 (MCMXII) a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) in the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Sunday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar.
Events
January
Main article: January 1912
- January 1 – The Republic of China is proclaimed.
- January 4 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by Royal Charter.
- January 5 (Old Style December 23, 1911)
- Prague Party Conference: Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party break away from the rest of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
- Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet opens.
- January 8 – The African National Congress is founded.
- January 17 – British polar explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four become the second expeditionary group to reach the South Pole.
- January 23 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
February
Main article: February 1912
- February 12 – The Qing Dynasty of China, also called the Manchu Dynasty, comes to an end after 268 years.
- February 24 – Italy makes a surprise attack on the Ottoman port of Beirut, when the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and the gunboat Volturno bombard the harbour. The attack kills 97 sailors and civilians.
- February 29 – Serbia and Bulgaria secretly sign a treaty of alliance for a term of eight years, with each pledging to come to the defense of the other during war.
March
Main article: March 1912
- March 1 – Albert Berry is reported to have made the first parachute jump from a flying airplane.
- March 5 – Italian forces are the first to use airships for a military purpose, using them for reconnaissance west of Tripoli, Libya, behind Turkish lines.
- March 7
- Roald Amundsen in Hobart, Tasmania, announces his success in reaching the South Pole the previous December.
- French aviator Henri Seimet makes the first nonstop flight from Paris to London, in three hours.
- March 12 – The Girl Scouts is founded by Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah, Georgia.
- March 16 – Lawrence Oates, dying member of Scott's South Pole expedition, leaves the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time."
- March 27 – Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo gives 3,000 cherry trees to be planted in Washington, D.C., to symbolize the friendship between the two countries.
- March 29 – The remaining members of Robert Falcon Scott's South Pole expedition die.
- March 30 – France establishes a protectorate over Morocco.
April
Main article: April 1912
- April 10 - RMS Titanic departs from Southhampton.
- April 14 – RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the northern Atlantic Ocean. She sinks the following day with the loss of 1517 lives.
- April 16 - Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
- April 20 - Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts opens.
May
Main article: May 1912
- May 1 - 'Abdu'l-Baha lays the cornerstone for the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois
- May 5 - The Olympic Games open in Stockholm, Sweden.
- May 13 – In the United Kingdom, the Royal Flying Corps (forerunner of the Royal Air Force) is established.
- May 23 – The Hamburg America Line's SS Imperator is launched in Hamburg and is the world's largest ship.
- May 31 - U.S. Marines arrive in Cuba to "protect U.S. interests".
June
Main article: June 1912
- June 4 – A fire in Istanbul destroys 1,120 buildings.
- June 5 – U.S. Marines land in Cuba.
- June 6 - The Novarupta volcano (290 miles (470 km) southwest of Anchorage) experiences a VEI 6 eruption; the largest eruption in the 20th century.
- June 8 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.
July
Main article: July 1912
- July 1 - Harriet Quimby, who set the record as the first women to fly the English Channel only 2 months before, dies in Squantum, Massachusetts after her brand-new two-seat Bleriot monoplane crashes, killing both Quimby and her passenger.
- July 12 – United States release of Sarah Bernhardt's film Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth is influential on the development of the movie feature. Adolf Zukor, who incorporates Paramount Pictures on May 8, 1914, launches his company as the distributor. Paramount celebrates its centennial in 2012.
- July 30 – Emperor Meiji of Japan dies. He is succeeded by his son Yoshihito who becomes Emperor Taishō. In Japanese History, the event marks the end of the Meiji era and the beginning of the Taishō era.
August
Main article: August 1912
- August 4 – United States occupation of Nicaragua: U.S. Marines land from the USS Annapolis in Nicaragua to support the conservative government at its request.
- August 12 – Sultan Abd Al-Hafid of Morocco abdicates.
- August 25 – The Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party, is founded.
September
Main article: September 1912
October
Main article: October 1912
- October 8 – The First Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war against the Ottoman Empire.
- October 16 – Bulgarian pilots Radul Minkov and Prodan Toprakchiev perform the first bombing with an airplane in history, at the railway station of Karaagac near Edirne against Turkey.
- October 17 – Krupp engineers Benno Strauss and Eduard Maurer patent austenitic stainless steel.
- October 18 – Italy and the Ottoman Empire sign a treaty in Ouchy near Lausanne ending the Italo-Turkish War.
- October 24 – First Balkan War: Battle of Kumanovo: Serbian forces defeat the Ottoman army in Vardar Macedonia.
- October – Edgar Rice Burroughs' character Tarzan first appears in Tarzan of the Apes in American pulp magazine The All-Story.
November
Main article: November 1912
- November 28 – Albania declares independence from the Ottoman Empire.
December
Main article: December 1912
- December 18 – Piltdown Man, thought to be the fossilized skull of a hitherto unknown form of early human, presented to the Geological Society of London. It is revealed to be a hoax in 1953.
- December 24 – Merck files patent applications in Germany for synthesis of the entactogenic drug MDMA (Ecstasy), developed by Anton Köllisch.
- December 30 – The First Balkan War ends temporarily: Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League countries) sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the two-month-long war.
