The Soviet Union and Weimar Germany pledged to remain neutral if either nation got into a war in the next five years.
A Flapper Fanny cartoon for the day:
The Al-Baqi' cemetery in Medina was razed under orders of Saudi King Abdulaziz ibn Saud in what some Muslims recall as The Day of Sorrow (Persian: روز غم Ruz-e Gham, Urdu: یوم غم Yaum-e Gham). The act was done primarily to enforce Wahhabi doctrine forbidding building structures over graves, viewing that as idolatry.
A really interesting topic (and actually on point for the supposed purpose of this blog):
It was a Saturday.
Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.
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Colonel John Gibbon enlisted 23 Crow men at Crow Agency (then located on Mission Creek, present day Livingston, MT) to serve as scouts for his Montana Column moving east along the Yellowstone River.
These included the famous Crow Scout Curly (Ashishishe).
Early Colorado brewers celebrated the centennial with a commemorative bock beer
This week in 1876: The Denver Brewing Company markets its ‘peculiar and superior beverage’ to local saloons
Violet Gibson shot Benito Mussolini, but only grazed his nose. The attack seems to have been a lone wolf type event with Gibson not being mentally well.
On the same day, although unrelated, three staffers of anti-Fascist newspapers were murdered in the country and journalist Giovanni Amendola died from injuries sustained nearly a year earlier.
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Eamon de Valera proposed the name "Fianna Fáil" for his new political party which was scheduled to organize on May 16. "Fianna" (soldiers) and the Lia Fáil, the coronation stone for the ancient kings of Ireland, formed the basis of the name.
The hard to characterize republican party is still around. It's political positions have shifted a great degree over the past century and indeed the ability to do so is a self acknowledged feature of the party.
Watts residents voted to become part of Los Angeles.
Calvin Coolidge declined an invitation to send American delegates to a League of Nations conference in Geneva to discuss America's reservations about joining the World Court.
Coolidge gave a press conference.
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The first guard, during daylight hours only, was posted on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
More on that:
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Centennial: 100 Years Since the First Military Guard Posted March 26, 1926: This feature commemorates the centennial of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier guard, marking 100 years since the first sentinel was posted March 26, 1926. The story traces the origins of the Unknown Soldier of World War I, the expansion of the tradition to honor unidentified service members from World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, and the enduring mission of the Soldiers who maintain an unbroken vigil at Arlington National Cemetery.
Coolidge gave a press conference.
Montgomery: That is a bill in which the Government makes refunds on the tariffs –
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General Chiang Kai-shek carried out a purge of Communists from the Republic of China's military and the Kuomintang party, In doing it, Chiang declared martial law in the Republic's capital at Guangzhou essentially effecting a coup.
While a major event, it's surprisingly understudied and the details are murky. At the time, Chiang maintained he was acting first in the face of an impending Communist coup. While its not at all clear that was the case, and many people assert it was a pretext, even the Communist have never had all that much to say about this event.
It was a Saturday.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department released 27 paris of Hungarian Partridges
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I had no idea that this is what this train was called. Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know!
I've been looking into local passenger train travel as part of my efforts with a novel. What I found is that I knew very little about it. Probably more than your average bear, but that's about it. I'd long assumed that a person could board a train in Casper in 1916 and take the train to Douglas or Cheyenne, and then return that evening, but the more I looked into it, that was just an assumption.
I'm not the one who figured out how it really worked. That goes to MKTH. the result is fascinating.
It turns out I was right sort of. The Burlington Northern ran a train from Denver Colorado, to Billings Montana, and vice versa, daily. This article takes a look at it.
What I imagined, for novel purposes, was boarding in Casper, and traveling to Douglas. I may, as I work at it, make it Cheyenne.
Anyhow, this is a really interesting article and give a really good look at what traveling on the Denver to Billings night train was like, complete with stops for food, which is something I hadn't considered. It also picked up mail, and my source indicates, cream, something I also hadn't figured, but that may explain why the creamery my family owned was just one block from the Burlington Northern. In fact it probably does.
The trip took 19 hours. It take 8 hours today by car, assuming good weather conditions, and not figuring in stops for food, etc. The train moved about 34 miles an hour.
We'll look at the return trip first. The train having come up from Cheyenne boarded there at 12:49 in the morning. Uff.
It got to Casper at 6:20 in the morning, having made a couple of stops along the way.
What I imagined?
Not really. And I also had no idea that there was a major cafe right off the railroad. This article deals with the early 1960s, but I can see that some variant of it was there decades prior. That makes piles of sense, really. Of course there would be. How else would people eat if they were making the long journey?
It simply hadn't occurred to me.
In my imaginary trip., that'd be it. If I stuck with the Douglas variant of this, my protagonist would be boarding the train in the early, early morning hours and get in a couple of fitful hours of sleep, probably interrupted by a stop in little Glenrock. Indeed, this train stopped everywhere to pick up mail, and a few passengers.
What about the other way around?
Well that was a day trip, but as we can see, the 19 hours the train traveled in total meat that it took a good 6.5 hours to travel just from Cheyenne to Casper. Going the other way would mean the same thing, and likely a bit in reverse. The 6.5 hour trip from Cheyenne to Casper was the second major leg of the trip (it'd still stop in numerous small towns in between), the first being Denver to Cheyenne. Going the other way around meant that the Cheyenne to Denver leg was about five hours. The article notes that the train actually arrived from Billings 40 minutes before its 7:00 p.m. departure. So it arrived, more or less, at 6:00 p.m. and changed crews. That would have meant that it left Cheyenne, on the way to Denver, at about 1:00 p.m. or so, which makes sense. Passengers traveling all the way to Denver would have eaten lunch there.
By extension, however, that meant that the train left Casper at about 6;00 in the morning, approximately.
These times are almost unimaginable now. When we had good air travel to Denver I'd frequently board United Express here about 6;00 a.m. and be in Denver about 8:30, and take the train downtown and be to work by 9. I'd be back in Casper on the redeye about 10:00, or if I was lucky, 6:00.
And when I go to Cheyenne, I drive. Normally that takes me a little under three hours. I haven't stayed overnight in Cheyenne for years, although I recently had an instance which should really cause me to.
Anyhow, if I'm looking at 1916, why not just drive?
Well, in 1916 most Americans, including most Wyomingites, didn't own automobiles, and those who did, didn't normally make long trips with them. They frankly weren't that reliable, even though they were simple. Roads also tended to be primitive, and not really maintained for weather. Could a person have driven from Casper to Cheyenne in a Model T, the most likely car they would have had? Yes, but it wouldn't have been any faster. It may well have been slower, quite frankly, as well as much riskier.
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