1912

Years: 1909 1910 1911 - 1912 - 1913 1914 1915

Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s - 1910s - 1920s 1930s 1940s

Events of 1912

January

• January 1 – The Republic of China is established.
• January 4 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by Royal Charter.
• January 5 – Prague Party Conference: Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party break away from the rest of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
• January 6 – New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U.S. state.
• January 8 – The African National Congress is founded.
• January 17 – British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott and a team of 4 become the second expeditionary group to reach the South Pole.
• January 23 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
• January 27 – The city of Chandler, Quebec is founded.

February

• February 14 – Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.

March

• March 1 – Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from a moving airplane.
• March 5 – Italian forces are the first to use airships for a military purpose by using them for reconnaissance west of Tripoli behind Turkish lines.
• March 7
  • Roald Amundsen announces his success in reaching the South Pole.
  • French aviator Henri Seimet makes the first non-stop flight from Paris to London in three hours.
• March 12 – The Girl Scouts of the USA are founded.
• 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 blossom trees to be planted in Washington, D.C., to symbolize the friendship between the two countries.
• March 30 – France establishes a protectorate over Morocco.

April

• April 10 – The British ocean liner RMS Titanic leaves Southampton, England on her maiden voyage for New York City.
• April 11 – Titanic arrives at Queenstown, Ireland (today known as Cobh) picking up her final complement of passengers before steaming westward for New York.
• April 14 – Titanic strikes an iceberg in the northern Atlantic Ocean at 11:40 pm. She will sink at 2:20 am the following morning, taking with her the lives of more than 1,500.
• April 16
  • Harriet Quimby becomes first woman to fly across the English Channel.
  • The Royal Ontario Museum is established in Toronto, Ontario.
• April 17 – A solar eclipse is seen across Europe.
• April 18 – The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrives in New York with Titanic's 706 survivors.
• April 19 – The United States Senate initiates an official inquiry into the Titanic disaster, hastily issuing subpoenas for White Star personnel before they can return to the United Kingdom.
• April 20
  • Tiger Stadium opens in Detroit.
  • Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, opens.
• April 30 – The cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett arrives in Halifax, Nova Scotia carrying the bodies of 306 victims of the Titanic disaster recovered from the North Atlantic.

May

• May 2 – The British Board of Trade inquiry into the Titanic disaster begins, presided over by Lord Mersey.
• May 5 – The 1912 Summer Olympics open in Stockholm, Sweden.
• May 6 – Suffragettes and their supporters parade in New York City,
• May 13 – In the United Kingdom, the Royal Flying Corps (forerunner of the Royal Air Force) is established.
• May 25 – After more than a month and thousands of hours of testimony, the American inquiry into the Titanic disaster concludes, placing the bulk of the blame upon the White Star Line, J. Bruce Ismay, and Captain Edward Smith.
• May 30 – Joe Dawson wins the second Indianapolis 500-Mile Race after Ralph DePalma's Mercedes breaks down within sight of the finish.

June

• June 4 – A fire in Constantinople destroys 1,120 buildings.
• June 5 – U.S. Marines land in Cuba.
• June 6-June 8 – Mount Novarupta erupts in Alaska.
• June 8 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.
• June 18 – The Republican National Convention nominates incumbent President William Howard Taft in Chicago, defeating a challenge by former President Theodore Roosevelt, whose delegates bolt the convention.
• June 25 – The Democratic National Convention nominates New Jersey Gov. Thomas Woodrow Wilson in Baltimore.

July

• July 3 – The British inquiry into the Titanic disaster concludes.
• July 19 – A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing thousands of pieces of debris to rain down on the town.
• 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

• August 1 – The Jungfraubahn rack railway is inaugurated in Switzerland.
• August 5 – Dissident U.S. Republicans form the Progressive or Bull Moose Party, and nominate former President Theodore Roosevelt as their presidential candidate.
• August 12 – Sultan Abd Al-Hafid of Morocco abdicates.
• August 25 – The Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party, is founded.

September

• September 25 – The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York City, New York.

October

• October 8 – The First Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war against Turkey.
• October 14 – While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, former President Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper John Schrank. With a fresh flesh wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt delivers his scheduled speech. After finishing his speech, he went to the hospital, where it was deduced that if he had not had his speech in his breast pocket when he was shot, he most likely would have died.
• 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.
  • The Boston Red Sox, assisted by a famous error, defeat the New York Giants in extra innings to win the 1912 World Series, in what is considered one of the greatest games of baseball ever played.

November

• November 5 – U.S. presidential election, 1912: Democratic challenger Woodrow Wilson wins a landslide victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft. Taft's base is undercut by Progressive Party candidate (and former Republican) Theodore Roosevelt, who finishes second, ahead of Taft.
• November 28 – Albania declares independence from the Ottoman Empire.

December

• December 20 – Piltdown Man is presented in Britain.
• December 30 – The First Balkan War ends temporarily: Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the two-month long war.

Births

• March 29 - Hanna Reitsch, German test pilot (d. 1979)
• August 18 - Otto Remer, German general who foiled the July 20th plot against Hitler. (d. 1997)

Deaths

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