Thursday, December 1, 1910. Diaz inaugurated. . . again. Taft introduced to society.

Porfirio Diaz was inaugurated for his eighth term as President of Mexico.  His status in that role was already disputed.  His refusal to know when to go had already started a revolution, although at this moment, it was small.

Diaz might actually be remembered as a great leader of Mexico, in spite of his anti democratic tendencies, had he stepped down in 1910.

19 year old Helen Taft, the daughter of President Taft and his wife Nellie, had her debutante ball at the White House.

Miss Taft in 1908.

She was a historian and academic, and had an extraordinarily successful career.  Her focus was history, and she obtained a doctorate from Yale.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 1: 1910  A bounty on coyotes in the amount of $1.25, a not unsubstantial amount at the time, established. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 29, 1910. Race to the Antarctic.

Labels: 1910, 1910s, Antarctic, British Antarctic Expedition, Japanese Antarctic Expedition

Tuesday, November 30, 1915. Carranza on the International Bridge.

 

Venustiano Carranza met Col. Augustus P. Blocksom on the International Bridge between Matamoros and Brownsville. People were smiling, but all was not well.

Blocksom had been in the Army since 1877. He was a cavalryman and would rise to the rank of Maj. General during World War One, although he would serve in the Great War as a training officer, completing his service as the commander of the Army in the Pacific.  His career had been very distinguished.  He retired in 1918, and died in 1931 at age 76.

 Blocksom i n1918, with the stress of the war, even stateside, very clearly showing on him.

Woodrow Wilson created the Walnut Canyon National Monument near Flagstaff, Arizona.

And for the last day of November:

Interesting that Ross went with a sporting theme. The Canadian Army had adopted a variant of the Ross as a service rifle, where it really hadn't worked out due to being too finely machined to really function well in the dirty conditions of Northern France.  In some ways, that fact would lead to the Ross' demise.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 28, 1915. Going after Zapata.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Álvaro Obregón, Constitutionalist Army, Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Revolution, Mexico

Tuesday, November 27, 1945. Slinky first sold.

The legendary toy The Slinky went on sale for the first time.  Gimbels in Philadelphia offered it.

Patrick J. Hurley, attorney and career civil servant, resigned as Ambassador of China having submitted a blistering letter of resignation the day prior.

Born in Oklahoma to Irish immigrant parents, he's started off in life as a cowboy and mule driver before becoming a lawyer. His work as a mule driver started when he was only 11 years old, and he attempted to join the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry at age 15.  He graduated with a law degree from National University School of Law in 1908 and went to work in Tulsa.  He received a second law degree from George Washington University in 1913, by which time he was already a successful businessman and rising in Republican politics.  He served in the Oklahoma National Guard during the Punitive Expedition and was a Judge Advocate during World War One, as well as serving as an artillery officer, for which he received a Silver Star.  He was the Assistant Secretary of War under Hoover.  He started of World War Two as a General before going on to be a diplomat.  He'd retire to New Mexico where he'd die in 1963.

Most assessments of his role in China are not favorable.

As the Sheridan paper makes plain, the US was busy beating itself up over Pearl Harbor, even as the early rumblings of the Cold War were beginning.

He was replaced in his role by George Marshall, a role that Marshall is generally not recalled for.

Norway adopted the UN Charter.

Last edition:

Monday, November 26, 1945. Now's the Time, Wolves and War Brides, Questionable claim about Goering, Test tube babies in Virgin hospitals, Japanese social insurance, ties for Christmas.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, Colorado, Hermann Göring, Israel, J.R. Williams, Jazz, Music, Nuremberg Trials, Pro Natalism, Science, Sex, The relationship between men and women, Wolves, Women, Yeoman's First Law of History

Saturday, November 27, 1915. Casper's Fr. McGee passes.

It was a Saturday.

An illustration by James Montgomery Flagg graced the cover of the comedic Judge, making sport of November weather, and sports.

The Saturday Evening Post just went with an illustration of contemporary beauty.

Country Gentleman had an illustration of a white turkey, but I can't find a good image of it to post.

The British government introduced legislation to restrict housing rents to their pre Great War levels  following Glasgow rent strikes.

A second KKK chapter was established in Stone Mountain, Georgia, showing the rapid growth of the racist organization.  Of note, a newspaper in Colorado that was black owned and operated campaigned on this day for keeping Birth of a Nation out of Colorado.

In Casper, a tragedy struck the local Catholic community with the death of Fr. McGee, who was just 27 years old.

I'd heard or read of Fr. McGee, but I didn't know anything about him, including that he died so young.

The local paper also reported that troops were headed to the border in light of the Second Battle of Nogales having just occured.

A rather grim photograph was taken of French soldiers gathering up battlefield dead, French and German.

Weather at Gallipoli continued to be bad.

The Great Blizzard at Gallipoli

Last edition:

Friday, November 26, 1915. Battle of Nogales.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Arizona (Nogales), Gallipoli, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mining, Nogales Arizona-Sonora, panoramic, Second Battle of Nogales, Sonora (Nogales), Whatever It Is I'm against it, Wisconsin, World War One

Wednesday, November 24, 1915. Withdrawals at Ctesiphon.

Both sides withdrew in the Battle of Ctesiphon.

Pristina fell to the Bulgarians.

William Joseph Simmons, inspired Birth of a Nation, founded the second variant of the Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia.  The event included the burning of a cross, something the original Klan did not do, but which the film had depicted.

Simmons would run the organization until 1922, at which point he'd be removed from power  The organization reached its peak membership in 1925, and declined thereafter due to scandal.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 23, 1915. Turned back at Ctesiphon.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Battle for Pristina, Battle of Ctesiphon, British Army, German Army, Ottoman Army, World War One

Today In Wyoming's History: November 22, 2025. Retiring a number.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 22: 2025.  Former University of Wyoming football player and now player for the Buffalo Bills in the NFL, Josh Allen, had his UW uniform number retired prior to a UW football game against Nevada with the Pokes lost, 13 to 7.

Also, he's married to Hailee Steinfeld.

Sunday, November 20, 1910. Madero crosses. . . and then returns.

Modero in San Antonio.

Francisco I. Madero crossed into Mexico from Texas somewhere between Laredo and Eagle Pass at 6:00 p.m. with ten men and 100 rifles in order to start an armed insurrection against the sitting Mexican government.  

Upon crossing, he found only ten additional men, and then returned to Texas to regroup.  

It was, nonetheless, the beginning of the Mexican Revolution and it is celebrated today as Revolution Day in Mexico.

We have said elsewhere:

1910  Francisco Madero declares a revolution in Mexico.  Madero's revolution was a success in that Diaz fled the country in 1911. He died in France in 1915, but Madero died well before him, as he was assassinated by those loyal to Gen. Huerta, who had no sympathy with Madero's views.

 

Diaz's long life was one that featured many interesting turns. He joined the Mexican army in the first instance in order to fight against the United States in the Mexican War. He lead guerrillas against Santa Ana upon his return to Mexico. He fought the French with Juarez but was an opponent, sometimes a revolutionary, against Juarez thereafter. He came to rule Mexico in 1877 by popular election, and ironically stepped down after one term having run on that platform. He ran again in 1884 and remained in power until the revolution. While he ultimately was toppled in a revolution, his authoritarian rule of Mexico was the first real period of peace in Mexico since the revolution against Spain, and the country generally prospered. Had he stepped down, as he had indicated he was willing to do, he would be well remembered today.

 

Heurta would die in El Paso Texas, in exile, in 1916, where he was under house arrest after having been detected negotiating with the Germans for arms in violation of the Neutrality Act.

 

Of note here, the involvement in the US in the Mexican Revolution proved to be almost inevitable. The border region was chosen by participants in both sides as a place of refuge, to include both the humble and the conspiratory. Madero, Villa, and Huerta all chose the US as a place of refuge, and a place to base themselves in the hope to return to Mexico and achieve power. Tensions on the US border started with the revolution being declared in 1910, and as early as the first day of the revolution Mexican authorities were assuring the US not to have worries. Tensions would last long after World War One, and the cross border action that started before the war would continue on briefly after the war.

The Wyoming National Guard, like that of every other state, would see border service in this period, first being mustered to serve on the border in 1915.  National Guard service involved nearly constant active duty from March 1915 through World War One.

Leo Tolstoy, age 82, died.

A great novelist, he was also an oddball in more than one way.

Last edition:

Friday, November 18, 1910. Riots. Suffrage Black Friday

Labels: 1910, 1910s, Aquiles Serdán, Black Friday (British Suffrage), Francisco I. Madero, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mexico (Puebla), suffrage, The roles of men and women, Women

Friday, November 19, 1915. Joe Hill executed.

Trade Union leader and member of the IWW was executed for the murder of John and Arling Morrison in Salt Lake City  in 1914.  His guilt continues to be contested, and Hill became sort of a martyr for trade union activism.

Hill was a Swede born as Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in an era when a lot of Scandinavian and Eastern European immigrants were fairly radicalized.  

Hill may in fact have not been guilty of the murder he was accused of.  Morrison, a former policeman and grocer, along with his son, was shot and killed by two men.  Later that evening Hill arrived at a doctor's office with a gunshot wound and claimed it was sustained in a fight over a women.  He refused to say more, even later.  Evidence developed as late as 2011 suggest that Hill was telling the truth initially, and that he was shot by Otto Appelquist, a friend of his.  Both Appelquist and Hill were lodgers of the Erickson family, and rivals for her attentions.  Hill apparently told Erickson that Appelquist had shot him before going to seek medical attention, but he never revealed the details for his defense at trial, which is peculiar.

Hill, who was a songwriter himself, was famously memorialized in the balled "Joe Hill".

It's a bit much, frankly, particularly if he was shot by a fellow Swede over the affection of a Swedish American girl. That's drama, but not that sort of drama.

It's interesting that he never revealed the details of what would have been a pretty good alibi. Given the immigrant connection, he may have felt that he simply didn't want to get them in trouble.

Richard Bell Davies of the Royal Naval Air Service landed his Nieuport to rescue downed airman Gilbert Smylie in the first example of an air combat rescue mission.

He won the Victoria Cross.

The KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the grant of the Victoria Cross to Squadron-Commander Richard Bell Davies, D.S.O., R.N., and of the Distinguished Service Cross to Flight Sub-Lieutenant Gilbert Formby Smylie, R.N., in recognition of their behaviour in the following circumstances:—

On the 19th November these two officers carried out an air attack on Ferrijik Junction. Flight Sub-Lieutenant Smylie's machine was received by very heavy fire and brought down. The pilot planed down over the station, releasing all his bombs except one, which failed to drop, simultaneously at the station from a very low altitude. Thence he continued his descent into the marsh. On alighting he saw the one unexploded bomb, and set fire to his machine, knowing that the bomb would ensure its destruction. He then proceeded towards Turkish territory.

At this moment he perceived Squadron-Commander Davies descending, and fearing that he would come down near the burning machine and thus risk destruction from the bomb, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Smylie ran back and from a short distance exploded the bomb by means of a pistol bullet. Squadron-Commander Davies descended at a safe distance from the burning machine, took up Sub-Lieutenant Smylie, in spite of the near approach of a party of the enemy, and returned to the aerodrome, a feat of airmanship that can seldom have been equalled for skill and gallantry.

He'd earlier won the DSO. 

For services rendered in the aerial attack on Dunkirk, 23rd January, 1915:—

Squadron Commander Richard Bell Davies

Flight Lieutenant Richard Edmund Charles Peirse

These Officers have repeatedly attacked the German submarine station at Ostend and Zeebrugge, being subjected on each occasion to heavy and accurate fire, their machines being frequently hit. In particular, on 23rd January, they each discharged eight bombs in an attack upon submarines alongside the mole at Zeebrugge, flying down to close range. At the outset of this flight Lieutenant Davies was severely wounded by a bullet in the thigh, but nevertheless he accomplished his task, handling his machine for an hour with great skill in spite of pain and loss of blood.

He remained in the Royal Navy until retiring in 1941, at which time he joined the Royal Navy Reserve, taking a reduction in rank to Commander from Vice Admiral in order to do so.  He retied a second time in 1944.  He died in 1966 at age 79.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 17, 1915. Fighting in Haiti and Egypt.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, American Occupation of Haiti, Ancient Egypt, boats and ships, Haiti, Red Cross, Smedley Butler, United States Marine Corps, World War One

Sunday, November 18, 1975. The return of Eldridge Cleaver.

Fugitive member of the Black Panthers returned from self imposed exile in Paris in order to face murder charges.

During his time in Paris, he'd become a born again Christian and a clothing designer, having designed trousers with a prominent codpiece to free men, he said, from "penis binding".

They did not become popular.

Cleaver was  highly eccentric.  During his lifetime he swung widely in political views and he spent time in a wide variety of nations, including North Korea, Cuba, China and Algeria.  He'd go on to a variety of religions after being a born again Christian before converting to Mormonism. About the same time he became a conservative Republican, and twice ran for the Senate.  He'd end up, in spite of this, being convicted of drug possession.  He died in 1998 at age 62.  His ex wife, Kathleen, remains living and became a lawyer following their divorce in 1987.

He also left behind a son, Dr.Ahmad Maceo ibn Eldridge Cleaver, who was born in Algeria who passed away in Saudi Arabia in 2018 leaving himself three wives and 14 children.  His daughter, Joju Cleaver, born in North Korea, is a professor at Georgia State University.

Last edition:

Friday, November 14, 1975. The Madrid Accords.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Diplomacy, Mauritania, Morocco, Sahara, Spain, Spanish Empire

Saturday, November 17, 1945. Charles De Gaulle says Non to the Communists.

Charles de Gaulle made a broadcast to the people of France announcing that he rejecting the position of president of FRance due to the "excessive demands regarding ministerial posts."  He further announced that he would continue serving but would refuse to appoint any  Communist to "any post related to foreign affairs."

Communist had done extremely well in the recent election and were a major component of the coalition government, taking more votes that any other party.  The French Section of the Workers International, a French Socialist Party, had done very well also, coming in third.  Coming in just behind the Communists, however, was the Catholic Popular Republican Movement. All three parties were in coalition that dates back to the election, with the coalition having De Gaulle's support at the time.

France was, quite frankly, on the very verge of becoming a Communist state, given the strong left wing turnout in the election.  If it had, it would have been a disaster of epic proportions for the West.  Most people looking at it objectively would have supposed that France would fall to the Communist.

This helps put in context, to a certain extent, the degree to which French military and political figures were proactive in trying to reestablish French colonialism, which was cast, with some credibility, as a war between Western ideals and Communism, although only imperfectly so. That France didn't go into a civil war is in no small part due to DeGaulle.  DeGaulle would whether the leftist Third Republic, after which France would pull back from the brink. Still, having said that, why France fought it out in Indochina, and Algeria, makes a lot more sense if that history is grasped.

Josef Kramer, Irma Grese, Dr. Fritz Klein and eight others were sentenced to death by a British military court as Nazi war criminals for their roles in the concentration camps.  

Kramer had come up in the concentration camp system, having been in the SS prior to World War Two.He was the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen Belsen.

Grese was 22 years old making her the youngest person to die under British law in the 20th Century. She'd joined the  Bund Deutscher Mädel in 1937 at age 13, causing a rift with her father who did not approve of the Nazi Party. She left home at age 14 and entered the SS at age 18, having already worked for Karl Gelbardt by that time.  In the camps she gained responsibility and became incredibly sadistic as well as extremely perverted perverted sadistic bisexual who had affairs with imprisoned Jewish women, and who is rumored to have a had one with Josef Kramer, until he learned of that. She was a sadist, and clearly an extremely tortured soul mentally. 

Regarding her, inmate Auschwitz Romanian Jewish gynecologist Gisella Perl stated:

She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her body was perfect in every line, her face clear and angelic and her blue eyes the gayest, the most innocent eyes one can imagine. And yet, Irma Greze was the most depraved, cruel, imaginative sexual pervert I ever came across.

Perl relocated to Israel after the war with her daughter, whom she hid from the Naizs, and died there on December 16, 1988, at the age of 81

Kramer and Grese, August 8, 1945.

Frankly, a lot of Nazism was an absolute perversion.

News of Grese's death sentence hit the front pages in the United States. The Sheridan newspaper used one of her two common nicknames, the Beast of Belsen (the Hyena of Belsen was the other), its story on her.

The ongoing investigation on Pearl Harbor also made the front news, as did the French political scene.

A selection of Saturday cartoons from the paper:

The Saturday Evening Post ran a cover with a hunting and puppy theme.

This would be subject to copyright, but we run it here under the fair use exception to note how common hunting themes were at the time.

Last edition:

Friday, November 16, 1945. UNESCO founded. USS Laramie decommissioned.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, boats and ships, Dwight Eisenhower, Iran, Scientific and Cultural Organization, The Cold War, United Nations, United Nations Educational, USSR

Sunday, November 14, 1915. Great Americans.

Native American Jim Thorpe played his first professional football game in a 16–0 Canton Bulldogs' loss to the Massillon Tigers.

Thorpe would win Olympic gold medals, and played professional football baseball and basketball.  He was he most versatile athlete of all time.  He served as a merchant marine in World War Two, but descended into alcoholism and died nearly penniless in 1953 at age 65.

Booker T. Washington died at age 59 in Tuskegee, Alabama of overwork, Bright's disease and congestive heart failure.

Last edition:

Saturday, November 13, 1915. French fall back in Macedonia.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Art, Battle of Krivolak, Bulgarian Army, French Army, Macedonia, Thanksgiving, World War One

Monday, November 14, 1910. First Ship Launch.

Eugene B. Ely took off in an airplane from the USS Birmingham in the first shipboard takeoff.

He landed in Hampton Roads.

He'd follow that up by being the first person to land an airplane on a ship on January 18, 1911.

Not too surprisingly, he died in an aviation accident on October 19, 1911. He received a posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross on February 16, 1933.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 8, 1910. The Republican Party loses the House.

Labels: 1910, 1910s, 62nd Congress, Democratic Party, Progressive Party, Republican Party, Socialism

Tuesday, November 9, 1875. Indian troubles?

Indian Inspector E. C. Watkins issued a report to the Secretary of the Interior which would end up helping to bring about Gen. Terry's campaign of 1876.  Indeed, on the same day, Gen. Sheridan issued a confidential letter to Terry informing him that he had met with President Grant, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of War, and that the Grant had decided that the military should no longer try to keep miners from occupying the Black Hills: "it being his belief that such resistance only increased their desire and complicated the troubles." 

Watkins was a lawyer and businessman by profession who has served in the Civil War, where he obtained the rank of Major.  He'd been appointed Inspector of Indian Affairs in in 1875 and occupied that position for four years before returning to private life

Philip Sheridan was in command of the Military District of Missouri at the time.  Interestingly, he had only been  married, at age 44, for a few months, to Irene Rucker, who was 22.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 4, 1875. A Proclamation of Thanksgiving.

Labels: 1870s, 1873, 1875, John Allen Campbell, Personalities, Republican Party, Thanksgiving, U.S. Grant, Wyoming, Wyoming (Campbell County)