Pancho Villa's forces departed from Plaza de Namiquipa and disappeared. They would not be fully heard from again until March 9.
The German garrison at Mora surrendered after a year and a half long siege.
Last edition:
The Russians captured Ft. Tafet.
Australian troops mutinied against conditions at Casula Camp in New South Wales.
Mexican revolutionary Petra Herrera, who fought both as a soldier and worked as a spy, was shot dead by drunken revolutionaries in a bar.
She's started off as a Villista who disguised herself as a man, and then later became an acknowledged female combatant, and later a spy.
Vietnamese rebels rose up in Saigon.
Last edition:
Madero crossed back into Mexico from Texas to assume command of Mexican revolutionaries, and to evade a U.S. warrant for his arrest.
John Browning was issued a patent:
The House of Representatives approved a controversial reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and Canada, by a 221-92 margin.
Niobrara County, Wyoming, was established.
Last edition:
The Calles government in Mexico ordered all Catholic schools to close.
This is no longer the case and Catholic schools are once again common in Mexico.
The U.S. issued its first Air Mail stamp.
The Acting Secretary of State to the Governor of Texas.
Department of State,
Washington, February 13, 1911.
Your telegram of the 10th instant. Department informed by Embassy at Mexico City that Mexican Government does not just now desire to ask for permission to move troops over United States territory.
Huntington Wilson
Troops under Jose Luis Moya took Durango. 55 years old, and therefore into advanced years by the standards of the day, he was an unusual example of a wealthy man who joined the revolution. He'd lose his life in its service in May, 1911.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: 1911 Campbell County created.
A coal and hydrocarbons producing county, the population of the county has grown by a factor of nearly ten since my birth, and doubled since I graduated from high school. I vividly recall going there for swim meets in the late 70s and early 80s at which time it was an incredibly rough county.
Nicaragua's President Juan José Estrada declared martial law after an explosion in Managua destroyed a large quantity of arms and ammunition.
Last edition:
Plutarco Elías Calles nationalized all property of the Catholic church in Mexico.
The degree to which the leaders of the Mexican Revolution were anti Catholic in a very Catholic nation is hard to overestimate, although at the same time, particularly in some regions, Catholic viewpoints were very represented amongst the revolutionaries. Emiliano Zapata in particularly was notably Catholic.
Be that as it may, Madero was not a practicing Catholic and had peculiar spiritual views. He was in fact a spiritualist and a Mason. Still, his victory in the revolution, temporary though it was, was seen by Catholics as an opportunity to form a Mexican Catholic political party, which they did. The Church condemned Madero's assassination.
It was that killing that sparked the second stage of the revolution. Álvaro Obregón and Calles both featured prominently in that, and both were anti Catholic. Calles was also a Mason. In that phase of the revolution, moreover, democratic forces, which had brought about Madero's rise, started to wane and with the murder of Zapata and the victory of Carranza Mexico headed off in a much more radically leftist direction. In some ways the Mexican Revolution, in spite of its romantic portrayal in American cinema, was much more of a 20th Century European Revolution, many of which featured radically anti Catholic leaders against Catholic populations in favor of utopian leftism.
Calles fit that mold and was the sort example in the office of president of Mexico. His anti clerical laws would lead to the Cristero War the following year.
Mexico remains a very Catholic country to this day and the Mexican people are very Catholic. But like other religious communities, the period of anti religious domination hurt the religious nature of the people nonetheless and the culture of the country. Mexico has never really recovered from the anti religious views of the revolution. Ironically, one of the beneficiaries of that has been Protestant Millennialism which has been successful in drawing in religious Mexicans who are unchurched, a byproduct of the revolution.
Actor Leslie Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War Two as an aerial gunner, although he was not deployed overseas.
Last edition:
The House of Representatives approved the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, increasing the number of U.S. Representatives, beginning in 1913, from 391 to 435, the number that it has had ever since.
This has created unequal representation and something really needs to be done to change it.
Voters in the Arizona Territory approved the proposed state Constitution.
Writer Jack London, who was a Socialist, came out in support of Socialist revolutionaries in Mexico.
The Army intended to deploy lighter than air craft near El Paso in an attempt to figure out what was going on in the revolution near there.
Indentured servitude for Chinese workers in British Malaya was abolished, effective June 30, 1914.
Last edition:
Mexican Federal troops, stopped the day prior at Bauche by rebels under Pascual Orozco, abandoned the railroad and commenced marching overland towards Juarez in an effort to relieve forces besieged there.
A revolution in Haiti was put down with the capture of rebel General Montreuil Guillaume.
Last edition:
Oddly enough, given the events that had happened ten years prior, Mexican rebels, under Colonel Manuel Núñez, opened fire on board a train traveling from Guadalajara to Mexico City, ultimately destroying it and making away with 300,000 pesos. Eleven people were killed.
The Navy League of the United States released a report finding the United States Navy to be unprepared for war and short of the tonnage limitation set by the Washington Naval Treaty.
It was a Saturday.
Last edition:
Mexican troops fired on demonstrators in León, Mexico, killing at least 40.
The U.S. Army lifted a ban on U.S. servicemen marrying enemy nationals, save for Germans. The lift, therefore, applied to Austrians and Italians, as well as perhaps Hungarians and Romanians.
On Corregidor twenty Japanese soldiers, who had just learned of Japan's surrender from a newspaper, surrendered themselves to a solitary Army soldier.
Last edition:
Basil III (الأنبا باسيليوس, Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲓⲟⲥ) bebame the 17th Metropolitan of the Holy and Great City of Our Lord, Jerusalem (Holy Zion), and Archbishop of the Holy and Ancient Archdiocese of Jerusalem, all Palestine and the Near East.
A mine explosion killed 52 coal miners in Palaú, in the Mexican state of Coahuila.
Last edition:
The news reported a Villa defeat.
Henry Ford Abandons His Peace Ship
Last edition:
Commanding General of the U.S. Army William Tecumseh Sherman wrote to Lt. Gen. Philip Sheridan :
I know that the matter of the Black Hills was settled in all events for this year. In the spring it may result in collision and trouble.. . . I understand that the president and the Interior Department will wink at it.
Texas Ranger Captain Leander McNelly and his men crossed into Mexico to retrieve more than 200 stolen cattle. He was backed by troops of the U.S. Army, but they did not cross. The Rangers advanced on the stronghold of Juan Flores Salinas, local leader of the rural guard at the Rincon de Cucharras outpost of the Las Cuevas ranch and a battle ensued in which about 80 Mexican militiamen were killed, and McNelly ordered a retreat back across the river. The Army covered his retreat across the river with a Gatling Gun.
At that point, Major A. J. Alexander from Fort Ringgold arrived with a message from Colonel Potter at Fort Brown, which read:
Advise Captain McNelly to return at once to this side of the river. Inform him that you are directed not to support him in any way while he remains on Mexican territory. If McNelly is attacked by Mexican forces on Mexican soil, do not render him any assistance. Let me know if McNelly acts on this advice.
McNelly advised the Army that he would not comply.
At sundown, another message arrived:
Major Alexander, commanding: Secretary of War Belknap orders you to demand McNelly return at once to Texas. Do not support him in any manner. Inform the Secretary if McNelly acts on these orders and returns to Texas. Signed, Colonel Potter.
McNelly issued the reply, which was:
In less than a minute, Captain McNelly penned his now famous reply:
Near Las Cuevas, Mexico, Nov. 20 1875. I shall remain in Mexico with my rangers and cross back at my discretion. Give my compliments to the Secretary of War and tell him and his United States soldiers to go to hell. Signed, Lee H. McNelly, commanding.
Over the Rio Grande his force encountered resistance. Up to 80 Mexicans were killed in the battle before he retreated. A smaller force of Rangers would cross the border the following day and recover over 400 stolen cattle.
McNelly's troops crossed again on the 21st and proceeded to a customs house where the cattle had been moved to, and which were now promised to be returned. The Mexican officer in charge refused to treat with him on a Sunday, which it now was and was taken prisoner. The prisoner was threatened with death and around 400 cattle were crossed into Texas.
McNelly died of tuberculosis in 1877 at age 33. A liberty ship was named after him during World War Two.
Last edition:
The impact of Woodrow Wilsons' administration recognizing Carranza, whose followers had blown off the Convention of Aguascalientes, and who personally hated the United States, was becoming immediately clear.
While Wilson had his hand on the scale of the Mexican Revolution, he was issuing a proclaimation about American Thanksgiving.
President Wilson issued a proclamation regarding Thanksgiving.
Proclamation 1316—Thanksgiving Day, 1915
October 20, 1915
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
It has long been the honoured custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. The year that is now drawing to a close since we last observed our day of national thanksgiving has been, while a year of discipline because of the mighty forces of war and of change which have disturbed the world, also a year of special blessing for us.
Another year of peace has been vouchsafed us; another year in which not only to take thought of our duty to ourselves and to mankind but also to adjust ourselves to the many responsibilities thrust upon us by a war which has involved almost the whole of Europe. We have been able to assert our rights and the rights of mankind without breach of friendship with the great nations with whom we have had to deal; and while we have asserted rights we have been able also to perform duties and exercise privileges of succour and helpfulness which should serve to demonstrate our desire to make the offices of friendship the means of truly disinterested and unselfish service. Our ability to serve all who could avail themselves of our services in the midst of crisis has been increased, by a gracious Providence, by more and more abundant crops. our ample financial resources have enabled us to steady the markets of the world and facilitate necessary movements of commerce which the war might otherwise have rendered impossible; and our people have come more and more to a sober realization of the part they have been called upon to play in a time when all the world is shaken by unparalleled distresses and disasters. The extraordinary circumstances of such a time have done much to quicken our national consciousness and deepen and confirm our confidence in the principles of peace and freedom by which we have always sought to be guided. Out of darkness and perplexity have come firmer counsels of policy and clearer perceptions of the essential welfare of the nation. We have prospered while other peoples were at war, but our prosperity has been vouchsafed us, we believe, only that we might the better perform the functions which war rendered it impossible for them to perform.
Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday the twenty-fifth of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease from their wonted occupations and in their several homes and places of worship render thanks to Almighty God.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington this twentieth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifteen and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and fortieth.
Signature of Woodrow Wilson
Louis Botha, once a Boer General, of the South African Party won the 1915 South African general election and retained power.
French forces reached the town of Krivolak on the Vardar river in Vardar Macedonia. The British dug in at a mountain pass near Kosturino and Doiran Like.
The Ottoman Empire brought an end to Armenian resistance at Urfa.
The British Commonwealth recognized women as bus and tram operators for the duration, something that had been going on for some time.
Sweden established the Swedish Infantry Officers College.
Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 20, 1915: With bleeding heart ...: Headline of the Day -100: Male voters in New Jersey reject women’s suffrage in the referendum by roughly 133,000 to 184,000. It los...
Last edition:
