February 2, 1925: Gunnar Kaasen and his dog Balto save Nome, Alaska, from diphtheriaFebruary 21, 1925: The first issue of The New Yorker is sold at newsstands.February 18, 1925: Washington's luxury Mayflower Hotel opensFebruary 8, 1925: Stop-motion film The Lost World premieres
W. T. Cosgrave, Irish President appealed to the U.S. for food aid. Ireland's potato crop had been severely curtailed by heavy rainfall the previous summer and autumn.[1]
Dr. Miguel Paz Barahona was sworn into office for a four-year term as President of Honduras, after previously being a surgeon and the Central American nation as Vice President from 1921 to 1925.
Polskie Radio Warszawa went on the air as the first radio station in Poland, doing test transmissions for 14 months, before beginning regular broadcasts on April 18, 1926.[3]
Dr. Tomisaku Kawasaki, Japanese pediatrician who first identified and described (in 1967) Kawasaki disease, the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children; in Asakusa, Tokyo[4] (d. 2020).
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed the Kelly Act (officially the Air Mail Act of 1925) into law two months after the legislation had been introduced in Congress by U.S. Representative M. Clyde Kelly. In addition to relieving the U.S. Post Office Department and the U.S. Army from responsibility for delivering airmail, the Act allowed the Postmaster General to make contracts with private air carriers, prompting multiple companies to venture into manufacturing aircraft.[8] The U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board would opine 50 years later that "The history of civil aviation in the United States in practical terms" began with the Kelly Act.[9] The Kelly Act has been described as "the foundation that commercial aviation is built upon."[10] The first contracts were awarded to Colonial Air Transport, National Air Transport, Robertson Aircraft Corporation, Western Air Express and Varney Air Lines.[11]
Previously limited to catalog sales, Sears, Roebuck, & Co. opened its first department store at 8:30 in the morning at its its headquarters at Homan Avenue and Arthington Street in Chicago. An ad proclaimed that "A sale unprecedented in Chicago's history will then begin. Never has any store in Chicago, or elsewhere, for that matter, been able to offer the savings Sears, Roebuck and Co. do! We can do it! We are the World's Largest Store."[12]
The location of the tomb of Egyptian queen Hetepheres I, mother of the Pharaoh Cheops (Khufu) and wife of the PharaohSneferu in the 26th century BC, was inadvertently discovered at Giza more than 4,500 years after her burial. A photographer with the expedition of archaeologist George Andrew Reisner was setting up a camera tripod to take photos of the Great Pyramid of Giza (where Cheops was buried) when one of the legs of the tripod slipped into a crevice in the rock which turned out to be the seal to a shaft and a staircase. Removal of debris from the staircase showed it to be an entrance to the tomb of Hetepheres.[13]
Died:Jaap Eden, 51, Dutch speed skater and bicycle racer who won the world speed skating championships in 1893, 1895 and 1896, and the track cycling world championships in 1894 and 1895[14][15]
February 3, 1925 (Tuesday)
A newspaper reporter for The Courier-Journal, a daily newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky, interviewed Floyd Collins, who had been trapped underground while exploring a cave in Kentucky. William Burke Miller, a 20-year-old employee of the newspaper, had been assigned by his editor to cover the story of the attempted rescue of Collins, who had been trapped since January 30. Small enough to climb into cave opening, and hanging upside down to get close enough to Collins to provide drinks from a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of milk, Miller talked with the trapped man on three occasions as he led rescue parties. He quoted Miller as saying "I'm not afraid to die. I've no reason to be. I believe I would go to Heaven. But I don't believe I'm going to die. I feel I'm going to be taken out alive and that I'll not lose my foot.", and reported that [16][17] Collins, unfortunately, would be dead 10 days later. Miller would receive a Pulitzer Prize in 1926 for his coverage of the Collins story.[18][19]
The discovery of the Taung Child fossilized skull in South Africa the previous November was first publicized.[20]
The first privately-owned bank in Bulgaria, Girdap, declared bankruptcy after more than 43 years of operation, and its three managers, Boncho Boev, Ivan Kovachev and Nikola Kovachev, were placed under arrest.[21]
The tunnel that was being used to reach trapped cave explorer Floyd Collins collapsed, requiring a new tunnel to be dug.[27]
Born:Arne Åhman, Swedish track athlete and 1948 Olympic gold medalist for the triple jump; in Nordingrå (d. 2022)
Died:
Robert Koldewey, 69, German architect and archaeologist known for his excavations of the ancient city of Babylon in modern-day Iraq from 1899 to 1914, including the discovery of the foundations of the Ishtar Gate[28]
Ten people were arrested in the Soviet Union for conspiring to assassinate Grigory Zinoviev.[31]
U.S. Attorney General Harlan F. Stone was confirmed as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in order to replace Justice Joseph McKenna, who had resigned on January 5 because of cognitive problems caused by a stroke. The U.S. Senate voted, 71 to 6, in favor of confirming Stone, who would later serve as Chief Justice of the United States.[32]
Died:
Julius Fleischmann, 53, President of The Fleischmann Company (makers of Fleischmann's Yeast) since 1897, and Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, from 1900 to 1905, died of a heart attack while he was playing polo in Miami.[33]
Former German Chancellor Gustav Bauer resigned his Reichstag seat in disgrace, becoming the most prominent German politician to lose his job because of his involvement in the Barmat corruption scandal.[36]
In the U.S. state of New Jersey, the basketball team of Passaic High School lost after 159 consecutive victories since in almost six years, falling to the Hackensack High School Comets, 39 to 35, at Hackensack. The Passaic Indians' streak began after it had lost the New Jersey state high school championship on March 15, 1919. In the seasons since then, Passaic had outscored its opponents, by 9,413 points to 3,237.[37]
The end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ failed to take place despite a prediction of Margaret W. Rowen of California and Robert Reidt of New York, both members of the Reformed Seventh-day Adventist Church, that the world would end on February 6, 1925.[38][39] Mrs. Rowen had made the prediction as early as January 20, 1924, to a gathering of followers at Pomona, California.[40]
The first elections were held in Trinidad and Tobago, at the time a British crown colony, as some residents were allowed to vote for seven of the 12 seats of the Legislative Council. However, the right to vote was limited to persons who owned rental property worth at least $60. Men had to be at least 21 years old, and women at least 30, and all voters were required to understand spoken English. People who had received poor relief six months before election day were ineligible. As a result, only six percent of the population could vote. The local candidates had to be men, literate in English, who owned property worth at least $12,000 or who received at least $960 of rent from tenants.[42]
The American fantasy adventure film The Lost World, notable for being the first to include special effects, premiered at the Astor Theatre in New York City before being released to other cinemas. Willis O'Brien used the stop motion technique to create the illusion of dinosaurs and other extinct creatures in action.[46][47]
Died: "Diana of the Dunes" (Alice Mabel Gray), 43, American conservationist whose life alone in the sand dunes of the U.S. state of Indiana was instrumental in preserving the Indiana Dunes, died of kidney failure.[52]
February 9, 1925 (Monday)
Germany presented a conciliatory memorandum to France proposing a mutual guarantee of the existing border between the two countries.[53]
Emanuel Edward Klein, 80, Croatian-born British bacteriologist referred to as "the father of British microbiology"[58]
Prince Asdang Dejavudh, 35, heir to the throne of Thailand as the brother of King Vajiravudh, died of a chronic illness less than 10 months before Vajiravudh's death. As a result, their younger brother Prajadhipok would become the King of Thailand on November 25.[59]
The Roman Catholic Church, represented by Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, signed a concordat with Poland, represented by Stanisław Grabski, establishing diplomatic relations, guaranteeing the full protection by the Polish government of the Catholic Church, in return for the solemn oath of allegiance by Catholic clerics to the Polish government.[61]
The U.S.-Canadian Fishing Agreement was signed, outlining fishing rights for the respective countries.[62]
Dr. Anton Höfle, Germany's Minister of Posts, was arrested on charges of bribery the day after resigning his office after being charged with accepting 120,000 Reichsmarks the year before from Julius and Henry Barmat in return for Höfle's approval of a loan of 14.5 million Marks.[63] Höfle committed suicide two months later by an overdose of sleeping pills drugs before he could be brought to trial.
An explosion killed 138 German miners at Dortmund.[65]
Scheduled round-trip long-distance coach bus service began in Britain as Greyhound Motors (not related to Greyhound Lines in the U.S.) inaugurated its route between London and Bristol and places in between, with the 115 miles (185km) trip taking four hours from one point to the other.[66]
In the British House of Commons, Ellen Wilkinson, an MP from the Labour party, took the unprecedented step of addressing the House without wearing a hat, a requirement not expected of men addressing the Commons. Reginald Applin of the Conservatives asked for a ruling from the Speaker of the House on whether her non-compliance with the expected dress code was in order, and the Speaker ruled in Wilkinson's favor, setting a precedent for women MPs.[68]
During a live performance on Broadway of the play Hell's Bells, actor Eddie Garvie accidentally shot another actor, Clifton Self, after being handed a loaded gun by the prop department. The bullet narrowly missed actress Shirley Booth, who was waiting off stage and preparing to make an entrance. Self received a flesh wound in his left arm but was able to resume performing after a 20-minute intermission.[69]
The Belgian airline SABENA (Societé anonyme belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation aérienne) pioneered the first air travel between Europe and central Africa as aviators Edmond Thieffry, Léopold Roger and Joseph De Brycker succeeded in flying a Handley Page W8 F biplane from Brussels, capital of Belgium, to Léopoldville (now Kinshasa), capital of the Belgian Congo.[73]
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed the Federal Arbitration Act into law, allowing contractual facilitation of resolving private disputes through arbitration. The law excludes certain classes of workers involved in foreign or interstate commerce, such as longshoremen and railroad employees.
Nikolai Golitsyn, the last Prime Minister of Imperial Russia prior to the October Revolution of 1917, was arrested by the Russian SFSR's secret police, the GPU, on suspicion of association with "counterrevolutionaries",[citation needed] and would be convicted and executed five months later.
Thousands of miners around Dortmund stopped work as both a sympathy gesture for the victims of the Stein mine explosion and a protest against dangerous mining conditions.[65]
Born:Lev Naumov, Soviet Russian classical pianist and composer; in Rostov, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (d. 2005)
Former British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, who headed the government from 1908 to 1916, took his seat in the House of Lords as the Earl of Oxford and Asquith.[82]
The ashar, a tax on farm products that had been used in the Ottoman Empire for centuries, was abolished by the Republic of Turkey.[83] Although the term literally meant "one tenth", the amount of agricultural produce turned over to the government varied depending on local law and on the time of crop, with the result that farmers would turn to alternative crops in order to be taxed at a lower rate.
Died:Robert Coryndon, 54, British colonial administrator who served as the Governor of Uganda from 1918 to 1922 and as the Governor of Kenya since 1922
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge suggested that an international conference be held to set limits on the size of naval vessels.[31]
New Zealand's rugby union team defeated the visiting Canadian team from Victoria, British Columbia, 68 to 4, in Toulouse, France to complete a perfect 32–0 record in their 1924–25 tour of Britain, Ireland and France. New Zealand scored a total of 838 points with only 116 points scored against them.
In a cricket match played in Melbourne, the English team defeated Australia in the 4th Test for their first win against the Australians since 1912.[31]
Bulgarian Prime Minister Aleksandar Tsankov declared that a state of war existed throughout the country amid fighting between Bulgarian and Serbian irregulars attributed to communist agitators.[97]
The first issue of The New Yorker, dated February 21, 1925, was read by the public. The cover date of the issue, released earlier in the week, bore the later date based on publication industry standards of dating the cover ahead of time in order to avoid the appearance of being out of date.[98]
American film actor Gary Cooper appeared in his first film, The Trail Rider, albeit as a stunt rider, but soon got his first screen credit in the movie Tricks.[105]
Nina Salaman, 47, British Jewish poet and feminist, known for her translations of Hebrew language texts into English, died of colorectal cancer[109]
February 23, 1925 (Monday)
Four months after being stripped of all of his imperial titles and privileges as the former Emperor of China, Puyi accepted an offer by the Japanese Empire to receive protection from his enemies, and left the Chinese capital of Beijing on a train bound for Tianjin.[110]
Sam Berger, 40, American boxing promoter known for promoting the 1910 Jack Johnson vs. James J. Jeffries bout, as well as being the first heavyweight champion to win an Olympic gold medal, died after an illness of more than a year.[113]
The United States and Canada signed the Lake of the Woods Convention and Protocol, defining the lake's boundary line more accurately, regulating its water level, and arranging for the settlement of port damages caused by overflowing that arose from work done on the Canadian side. The agreement confirmed the U.S. ownership of the geographical anomaly known as the Northwest Angle, a landlocked 123.09 square miles (318.8km2) area of the U.S. state of Minnesota that is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario, but not by the rest of Minnesota.[114]
Germany's President Friedrich Ebert underwent an emergency appendectomy performed by August Bier, one of the foremost surgeons in Germany.[115]
The Guna Revolution broke out in Panama when chiefs Nele Kantule and Ologintipipilele led attacks on police on the islands of Tupile and Ukupseni in an attempt to create their own nation. After a few days, a U.S. Navy cruiser arrived and a truce was negotiated to make the San Blas Islands autonomous within Panamanian rule.[118]
Illinois U.S. Senator Medill McCormick, 47, American businessman and politician, committed suicide in his hotel room at the Hamilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., one week before his term was set to expire after losing his bid for re-election. Charles S. Deneen, who had defeated McCormick in the 1924 Republican primary, was sworn in as U.S. Senator the next day.
No longer outlawed, Germany's Nazi Party was officially re-established at a convention in the same hall in Munich where Adolf Hitler had launched his failed putsch. With its launch, the organization called itself the Nationalsozialistische Freiheitspartei ("National Socialist Freedom Party"). Hitler made his first speech since his release from prison to a packed audience of over 4,000 in the hall as another 1,000 stood outside.[120]
The explosion of 38 tons of dynamite at Caju, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil's Guanabara Bay killed as many as 50 people but far less than what had originally been reported by Brazilian officials. While the first reports were that 621 people were killed and 1,379 injured,[121] a figure repeated nearly one century later online,[122] the announced death toll was revised a few days later to "less than fifty."[123]
An Ostehøvel
Norwegian carpenter and inventor Thor Bjørklund received the patent for the cheese slicer using the principles of the hand plane, with the blade located inside a slot in the utensil an "Ostehøvel", Norwegian for cheese (oste) and the plane (høvel).
A 6.2 magnitude earthquake, one of the most powerful measured in Canada in the 20th century, struck in the province of Quebec at 9:19 in the morning local time, with an epicenter in the St. Lawrence River near La Malbaie and caused damage in villages along the shores in the areas of Charlevoix and Kamouraska, but no major casualties.[127]
At Simferopol, the Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the Crimean Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, led by Veli Ibraimov voted to prohibit Jewish resettlement in Crimea. The resolution failed to stop the Soviet Union's efforts to relocate Soviet Jews to Crimea.[128]
↑ Civil Aeronautics Board Practices and Procedures: Report of the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate (U.S. Government Printing Office) p.195
↑ M. S. Nolan, Fundamentals of Air Traffic Control (Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks Cole Publishing Company, 1999)
↑ Avramov, Rumen (2007). Komunalniyat kapitalism (Communal Capitalism) (in Bulgarian). Vol.II. Sofia: Bulgarian Science and Culture Foundation, Center for Liberal Strategies. pp.509–515. ISBN978-954-90758-8-5.
↑ William M. Calder III, "Koldewey, Robert, 1855–1925"; in Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology, ed. Nancy Thomson de Grummond; Oxon: Routledge, 1996; ISBN1-884964 80 X; p.?.
↑ Dieter Nohlen, et al. Die Wahl der Parlamente und andere Staatsorgane (Walter de Gruyter, 1969) p784
↑ "Chanin's Theater at 46th Street Opens With "Is Zat So?": Playhouse Dedicated by Borough President Miller Is Leased to Shuberts for Twenty-one Years". The New York Herald, New York Tribune. February 8, 1925. p.16. ProQuest1113242883.
↑ David Ray Griffin, "John B. Cobb Jr.: A Theological Biography," in Theology and the University: Essays in Honor of John B. Cobb Jr., ed. David Ray Griffin and Joseph C. Hough Jr. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 225.
↑ Fritz Hartung: Jurist unter vier Reichen. Heymann, Köln 1971, ISBN3-452-17216-3, S. 67–68.
↑ Réveillaud de Lens, Aline (2007). Journal 1902-1924. " L'amour, je le supplie de m'épargner… ". Paris: La Cause des Livres. p.339. ISBN978-2-9519363-8-6.
↑ "Alice Mürer" (in Norwegian). Store norske leksikon. February 14, 2009. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
↑ Silvestre Marchão Ferro, Vultos na Toponímia de Lagos (" Figures in the Toponymy of Lagos"), (Câmara Municipal de Lagos, 2007) p.258 ( ISBN972-8773-00-5)
↑ "Salaman, Nina Ruth", by Todd M. Endelman, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
↑ Behr, Edward (1987). The Last Emperor. Toronto: Futura. pp.153–156. ISBN9780773680258.
↑ "Obituary— William Keene", Los Angeles Times, January 27, 2018
↑ "Obituary—Marion Fahey", Boston Globe, January 26, 2022
↑ "U.S. and Canada Sign Lake of the Woods Treaties". Chicago Daily Tribune. February 25, 1925. p.11.
↑ "German president has appendicitis". The Evening Record. Ellensburg, Washington: Ellensburg Daily Record. Associated Press. 24 February 1925. p.2. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
↑ "German president has appendicitis". The Evening Record. Ellensburg, Washington: Ellensburg Daily Record. Associated Press. 24 February 1925. p.2. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
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