1916 in the United States explained
Events from the year 1916 in the United States.
Incumbents
Events
January
The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the national income tax.
February
March
April
May
June
July
- July 1 - The United States Marine Corps take control of Santo Domingo.
- July 1 - 12 - At least one shark mauls five swimmers along 80miles of New Jersey coastline during the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, resulting in four deaths and the survival of one youth who required limb amputation. This event is the inspiration for author Peter Benchley, over half a century later, to write Jaws.
- July 8 - 16 - Massive flooding caused by two hurricanes devastates western North Carolina.
- July 15 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing incorporates Pacific Aero Products (later renamed The Boeing Company).
- July 22 - In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing 10 and injuring 40. Warren Billings and Tom Mooney would later be wrongfully convicted of the bombing.
- July 30 - German agents cause the Black Tom explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey, an act of sabotage destroying an ammunition depot and killing at least seven people.
August
September
- September 1 - The Keating–Owen Act, the first federal law to restrict child labor, is passed, but is ruled unconstitutional in 1918.
- September 5 - Release of D. W. Griffith's film Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages.
- September 6 - The first true self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, is founded in Memphis, Tennessee, by Clarence Saunders (opening 5 days later).
- September 7 - The Merchant Marine Act of 1916 establishes the U.S. Shipping Board (inaugurated January 1917).
- September 13 - Mary, a circus elephant, is hanged in the town of Erwin, Tennessee for killing her handler, Walter "Red" Eldridge.
- September 30 - Construction is completed on the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City.
October
- October 16 - Margaret Sanger opens a family planning and birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the U.S., a forerunner of Planned Parenthood.[3] [4] Nine days later, she is arrested for breaking a New York state law prohibiting distribution of contraceptives.[5] This same year, she publishes What Every Girl Should Know, providing information about such topics as menstruation and sexuality in adolescents.
November
Democratic President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeats Republican Charles E. Hughes.
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- November 19 – Ruth Law sets a new distance record for cross-country flight by flying 590 miles (950 km) non-stop from Chicago to New York State. She flies on to New York City the next day.
- November 21 – The U.S. rejects a German offer of £10000 per American lost in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
December
Undated
Ongoing
Births
January - June
- January 3
- January 6 - Eugene Thomas Maleska, American journalist (died 1993)[7]
- January 9 - Vic Mizzy, television theme composer (died 2009)
- January 14
- January 15 - Artie Shapiro, jazz bassist (died 2003)
- January 17 - Peter Frelinghuysen, Jr., politician (died 2011)
- January 19 - Harry Huskey, computer designer (died 2017)
- January 23 - David Douglas Duncan, photojournalist (died 2018)
- January 24 - Marvin Creamer, sailor (died 2020)
- February 7 - Floyd K. Haskell, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1973 to 1979 (died 1998)
- February 9 - Tex Hughson, baseball player (died 1993)
- February 10 - Louis Guttman, mathematician (died 1987)
- February 14 - Denham Harman, gerontologist (died 2014)
- February 20 - Jean Erdman, dancer (died 2020)
- February 23 - Retta Scott, animator (died 1990)
- February 26
- February 29 - Dinah Shore, popular singer (died 1994)
- March 1 - Emelyn Whiton, Olympic sailor (died 1962)
- March 4 - William Alland, film actor, producer, writer and director (died 1997)
- March 5 - Jack Hamm, cartoonist (died 1996)
- March 13
- March 14 - Horton Foote, writer (died 2009)
- March 15
- March 16 - Mercedes McCambridge, actress (died 2004)[10]
- March 19 - Irving Wallace, novelist (died 1990)
- March 26 - Christian B. Anfinsen, biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (died 1995)
- March 29 - Eugene McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1959 to 1971 (died 2005)
- March 31 - Lucille Bliss, voice actress (died 2012)
- April 3
- April 4 - Robert S. McMillan, architect (died 2001)
- April 5
- April 12
- April 13 - Phyllis Fraser, actress and publisher (died 2006)
- April 16 - Ted Mann, businessman (d. 2001)
- April 15 - Alfred S. Bloomingdale, department store heir (died 1982)
- April 20 - Phil Walters, race car driver and pilot (died 2000)
- April 22 - Yehudi Menuhin, violinist (died 1999)
- April 24
- April 25 - R. J. Rushdoony, founder of Christian Reconstructionism (died 2001)
- April 26
- April 30
- May 2 - Two Ton Baker (Richard Baker), entertainer (died 1975)
- May 4 - Jane Jacobs, née Butzner, urban activist (died 2006 in Canada)
- May 6
- May 10 - Milton Babbitt, composer (died 2011)
- May 21
- May 28 - Dorothy McGuire, film actress (died 2001)
- June 3 - Jack Manning, actor (died 2009)
- June 4 - Robert F. Furchgott, biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 2009)
- June 5 - Eddie Joost, baseball player and manager (died 2011)
- June 6 - Jack Miller, U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1961 to 1973 (died 1994)
- June 12 - Raúl Héctor Castro, politician (died 2015)
- June 14 - John Ciardi, poet, translator and etymologist (died 1986)
- June 15
- June 16 - Phil Chambers, film and television actor (died 1993)
- June 17 - David "Stringbean" Akeman, country music banjo player (died 1973)
- June 24 - William B. Saxbe, politician (died 2010)
- June 29
July - December
- July 1
- July 3 - John Kundla, basketball coach (died 2017)
- July 4 - Iva Toguri D'Aquino ("Tokyo Rose"), propaganda broadcaster (died 2006)
- July 6 - Harold Norse, writer (died 2009)
- July 8 - Jean Rouverol, actress, screenwriter and author (died 2017)
- July 18
- July 19 - Phil Cavarretta, baseball player (died 2010)
- July 25 - Fred Lasswell, cartoonist (died 2001)
- July 27 - Elizabeth Hardwick, literary critic and novelist (died 2007)
- July 28 - David Brown, producer (died 2010)
- July 31 - Bill Todman, game show producer (died 1979)
- August 5 - Kermit Love, puppeteer (died 2008)
- August 14 - Ralph de Toledano, conservationist and author (died 2007)
- August 16 - Iggy Katona, race car driver (died 2003)
- August 21 - Frank O. Braynard, maritime writer and historian (died 2007)
- August 24 - Hal Smith, actor (died 1994)
- August 25
- August 27 - Martha Raye, film actress (died 1994)
- August 28 - Jack Vance, writer (died 2013)
- August 29 - Luther Davis, screenwriter (died 2008)
- August 30 - Shag Crawford, baseball umpire (died 2007)
- August 31
- September 1
- September 13 - John Malcolm Brinnin, poet and literary critic (died 1998)
- September 15 Frederick C. Weyand, U.S. Army General (died 2010)
- September 18 - John Jacob Rhodes, politician and lawyer (died 2003)
- September 24 - Ruth Leach Amonette, businesswoman (died 2004)
- September 27 - Frank Handlen, marine artist (died 2023)
- October 3 - Shelby Storck, television producer (died 1969)
- October 8 - Spark Matsunaga, U.S. Senator from Hawaii from 1977 to 1990 (died 1990)
- October 9 - Robert Brubaker, television Western actor (died 2010)
- October 12 - Alice Childress, actress, playwright and novelist (died 1994)
- October 28 - Bill Harris, jazz trombonist (died 1973)
- October 29 - Hadda Brooks, pianist, singer and composer (died 2002)
- October 30
- November 4 - Walter Cronkite, television journalist (died 2009)
- November 5 - Bill Fisk, football player and coach (died 2007)
- November 6 - Ray Conniff, trombonist and bandleader (died 2002)
- November 10 - Billy May, composer and arranger (died 2004)
- November 14 - Sherwood Schwartz, television writer and producer (died 2011)
- November 15 - Bill Melendez, animator (died 2008)
- November 16 - Daws Butler, voice actor (died 1988)
- November 17 - Shelby Foote, historian and novelist, author of (died 2005)
- November 24 - Forrest J. Ackerman, writer (died 2008)
- November 27 - Chick Hearn, basketball announcer (died 2002)
- November 29 - Fran Ryan, actress (died 2000)
- November 30 - John C. Harkness, architect (died 2016)
Deaths
- January 1 - Alfred W. Benson, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1906 to 1907 (born 1843)
- January 9 - Ada Rehan, Shakespearean actress (born 1859 in Ireland)
- January 16 - Charles A. Zimmermann, band composer (born 1861)
- January 17
- February 3 - Bowman Brown Law, politician (born 1855)
- February 12 - John Townsend Trowbridge, author (born 1827)
- February 28 - Henry James, naturalised English novelist (born 1843)
- March 20
- March 25 - Ishi, last known member of the Yana people (born c. 1860)
- April 11 - Richard Harding Davis, journalist and author (born 1864)
- April 15 - Joanna P. Moore, Baptist missionary and educator (born 1832)
- April 19 - Ephraim Shay, inventor (born 1839)
- April 21 - John Surratt, suspected of involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, son of Mary Surratt (born 1844)
- May 12 - Fred T. Perris, railroad civil engineer (born 1836)
- May 13
- May 29 - James J. Hill, financier (born 1838)
- May 30 - John S. Mosby, Confederate army cavalry battalion commander in the American Civil War (born 1833)
- June 9 - Richard C. Saufley, naval aviation pioneer, killed in aviation accident (born 1884)
- June 22 - Oliver Ernesto Branch, politician (born 1847)
- June 24 - Victor Chapman, fighter pilot in the French Air Force, killed in action (born 1890)
- June 25 - Thomas Eakins, realist painter (born 1844)
- June - Addison Hutton, architect (born 1834)
- July 3 - Hetty Green, financier and miser (born 1834)
- July 4 - Alan Seeger, poet, killed in action (born 1888)
- July 22 - James Whitcomb Riley, poet (born 1849)
- July 23 - Thomas M. Patterson, newspaper publisher and U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1901 to 1907 (born 1839 in Ireland)
- August 31 - Martha McClellan Brown, temperance activist (born 1838)
- September 8 - James Gray, journalist and 19th Mayor of Minneapolis (born 1862)
- September 9 - Sydney Ayres, silent film actor (born 1879)
- October 1 - James Paul Clarke, 18th Governor of Arkansas from 1895 to 1897 and U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 1903 to 1916 (born 1854)
- October 12 - Tony Jannus, aviator and aircraft designer, killed in aviation accident in Russia (born 1889)
- October 25 - William Merritt Chase, Impressionist painter (born 1849)
- October 28 - Cleveland Abbe, meteorologist (born 1838)
- October 29 - John Sebastian Little, politician and congressman (born 1851)
- October 31 - Charles Taze Russell, Protestant evangelist, forerunner of Jehovah's Witnesses (born 1852)
- November 4 - James D. Moffat, 3rd president of Washington & Jefferson College (born 1846)
- November 10 - Walter Sutton, geneticist and surgeon (born 1877)
- November 13 - Percival Lowell, astronomer (born 1855)
- November 14
- November 15 - Molly Elliot Seawell, novelist (born 1860)
- November 22
- Ida Dixon, socialite and golf course architect (born 1854)
- Jack London, writer (born 1876)
- November 24 - Sir Hiram Maxim, firearms inventor (born 1840)
- November - Charlie Case, vaudeville entertainer (born c. 1860)
- December 8 - John Porter Merrell, admiral (born 1846)
- December 20 - William Gilchrist, composer (born 1846)
- December 31 - Alice Ball, African-American chemist (born 1892)
See also
External links
- Web site: . 1916 . Timeline . https://archive.today/20141122203513/http://dp.la/timeline%231916. November 22, 2014 . dead.
Notes and References
- The Journal of Negro History. Project Gutenberg. Woodson, Carter G.. I . 2013-05-21 . January 1916.
- Web site: Chartered Organizations and the Boy Scouts of America . www.scouting.org . 17 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080317112711/http://www.scouting.org/Media/FactSheets/02-507.aspx . 17 March 2008 . dead.
- Book: The selected papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 1: The Woman Rebel, 1900–1928. University of Illinois Press. 2003. 199.
- Book: Baker, Jean H.. 2011. Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion. Macmillan. 115.
- Book: Engelman, Peter C.. 2011. A History of the Birth Control Movement in America. ABC-CLIO. 978-0-313-36509-6. 101.
- News: The long legacy of the U.S. occupation of Haiti . Washington Post . 19 August 2022.
- News: James. Barron. Eugene T. Maleska, Crossword Editor, Dies at 77 . The New York Times . August 5, 1993 . 2009-03-08 .
- Web site: Glen Simmons - Glade Skiffs . Historical Museum of Southern Florida . Florida Folklife. 2012-10-20.
- Web site: Glenn J. Simmons in household of Maud E. Simmons, Homestead, Election Precinct 113, Dade, Florida . . . 1940. 2012-10-20.
- News: . Mercedes McCambridge, 87, Actress Known for Strong Roles . 24 October 2021 . The New York Times . 18 March 2004 . subscription.