September 27, 1923. Disaster at Cole Creek.

Today In Wyoming's History: September 27: 1923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

It was a horrific event.

Flooding had taken out the railroad bridge over Cole Creek near Casper Wyoming, which was unknown to the railroad.   The night train to Denver approached the bridge on a blind curve, and the headlights detected its absence too late to stop the train.  Half of the people on the train were killed.

It's the worst disaster in Wyoming's railroad history.

Italian forces withdrew from Corfu.

Bulgarian troops took Ferdinand, ending the September Uprising.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court allowed a referendum to proceed to recall the legislature to take up impeachment.

German Army Maj. Bruno Buchrucker sent out an order directing 4,500 men of the paramilitary Black Reichswehr to assemble to overthrow the government on September 30.

The Soviet Union deported anarchists Senya Fleshin and Molly Steimer to Germany after they went on a hunger strike.

Col. M.C. Buckey & Laddee Buck, the the half-brother of President Warren Harding’s Laddie Boy, who belonged to the Coolidge family. Mrs. Coolidge changed his name to Paul. September 27, 1923.

Sunday, September 9, 1923. Greece takes it on the chin.

 

Greece accepted the humiliating suggestions of the Allied Commissioners. What else could it do, having just lost a war to Turkey and having undergone a quasi violent change in government.

Of course, this was a step towards World War Two.

Saturday, September 8, 1923. The Honda Point Disaster.

Captain Edward H. Watson ordered a squadron of 14 ships to make a fast passage to San Diego in heavy fog resulting in the USS Delphy, USS S. P. Lee, USS Young, USS Woodbury, USS Nicholas, USS Fuller and USS Chauncey beaching and sustaining irreparable damage. 

It remains the largest peacetime loss in U.S. Navy History.

Watson was court-martialed for the event.  He was not universally condemned for the disaster, which some attributed to a failure in newly developed technology.  He went on to be Assistant Commandant of the Fourteenth Naval District in Hawaii until he left active duty in November 1929.  He died at age 67 in 1942.

After killing innocent people to achieve them, Italy's demands were adopted by the ambassadors appointed to mediate the dispute.

Boston's Logan airport opened.

Thursday, Sepember 6, 1923. Conference takes up Corfu. The Hunchback of Notre Dame released.

The League of Nations delegated the Corfu Incident to the Conference of Ambassadors, with Italy indicating it would abide by their decision.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was released on this day in 1923.

Saturday, September 1, 1923. The Great Kantō Earthquake (関東大地震).

An earthquake struck Tokyo, measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, that killed over 120,000 people.

Much of that would have been due to construction conditions. 

Nihonbashi and Kanda seen from the roof of Dai-ichi Sogo building.

President Coolidge sent a message to the Emperor of Japan as a result of the earthquake

Washington, September 1, 1923.

At the moment when the news of the great disaster which has befallen the people of Japan is being received I am moved to offer you in my own name and in that of the American people the most heartfelt sympathy and to express to your Majesty my sincere desire to be of any possible assistance in alleviating the terrible suffering to your people.

Calvin Coolidge

The League of Nations met to discuss Italian aggression at Corfu.  Italy let the League know that it would ignore the League.

Rocco Marchegiano, better known as Rocky Marcianao, was born in Brockton, Massachusetts.

September 1, 1923.

 

Friday, August 31, 1923. Diplomatic relations with Mexico restored.

Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Mexico were restored.

They had ended during the long Mexican Revolution, during which, for a long period of time, it was unclear who would govern Mexico, and the US found many of the options distasteful.

The Italian Navy shelled the Greek island of Corfu and then landed over 5,000 troops on the islands.  Civilians were injured and killed in the bombardment.  Following the landing, the Greek administration was arrested, but the small Greek garrison did not surrender and instead retreated to the interior of the island.

Mussolini declared that the island had always been Venetian.

An Anti KKK riot broke out in New Castle, Delaware.

Lake Charles, Louisiana, was photographed.

Thursday, August 30, 1923. Italians overreact.

Having learned utterly nothing, apparently, from World War One, Italy was having a massive overreaction, or perhaps fascism, thinking it was immune from history, was taking advantage of Greek weakness.

A mob attacked a Ku Klux Klan meeting at Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

Wednesday, August 29, 1923 Scaling Heights.

Teton's, 1902.

The South Teton was scaled for the first time. The climbers were Albert R. Ellingwood and Eleanor Davis. That same day, Ellingwood became the first person to climb the 12,809 feet (3,904 m) high Middle Teton.

Granite Peak, in Montana, was scaled for the first time.  The climbers were Elers Koch, James C. Whitham, and R.T. Ferguson, 

Italy, taking a page out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's book, delivered a seven point ultimatum to Greece, in response to the assassination in an ambush of an Italian general on a League of Nations', not an Italian, mission from the day prior.

It demanded:

• An official apology at the Italian legation in Athens, even though guilt was not established.
• A solemn funeral in the Catholic cathedral in Athens in the presence of the whole of the Greek government, quite a demand for anti-religious Mussolini to an Orthodox republic.
• Military honors for the bodies of the victims, who were Italian, and who deserved an Italian funeral, not a Greek one.
• Full honors by the Greek fleet to the Italian fleet which would be sent to Piraeus, as if that had anything to do with his at all.
• Capital punishment for the guilty, who were not known in the first place.
• An indemnity of 50 million lire within five days.

A reply was demanded within 24 hours. Surprisingly, Greece replied on August 30, 1923, accepting four of the demands which with modifications as follows:

• The Piraeus commandant would express the Greek Government's sorrow to the Italian Minister.
• A memorial service would be held in the presence of members of the government,
• A detachment of the guard would salute the Italian flag at the Italian legation
• The Greek military would render honors to the remains of the victims when they were transferred to an Italian warship.

The conditional acceptance was beyond reasonable.

Monday, August 27, 1923. Irish Free State's first election.

The Irish Free State held its first election.  The Cumann na nGaedheal party, led by Prime Minister W. T. Cosgrave, won 63 seats and the Irish Republicans led by Éamon de Valera received 44.   That left Cosgrave short of the 77 seats he needed for a majority, but the Republicans, exercising the goofball strategy of abstentionism, refused to take their seats, and the Irish Farmers Party joined Cosgrave in a coalition.

The Farmers Party was an agrarian party that faded in the 20s, ceasing to exist in 1932.

Italian General Enrico Tellini, on a League of Nation's mission to inspect the border between Greece and Albania, was ambushed and killed.  The Italians blamed the Greeks which would soon result in a crisis, although they identity of the killers was never established. 

Miss Washington, D.C. Lorraine Bunch was photographed.

A train derailed at Suman, Indiana.