Czar Nicholas II approved a recommendation that "laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland" be enacted by the Duma, in which Finland had a single representative, rather than its own legislative assemble. It was part of the process of Russification of the country which had commenced in 1899, reversing the original imperial policy put in place in 1808 when Sweden had lost Finland to Russia.
The Finn's have inhabited Finland since at least 9,000 BC, and probably longer. The first references to it as an entity come from Catholic sources in the 12th Century as the Church began to Christianize the country, but it had no real political organization. It came under the control of Sweden the following century, with Sweden losing it to Russia in the Finnish War of 1808-1809. The Russification policy, something the Russians have exhibited ever since the 19th Century wherever it has control, and which effectively continues to the present day, would result in the Finnish independence movement.
Canada opened up the Métis lands in Alberta to homesteaders. 250 claims by French Canadians were registered on the first day.
Professor Ross G. Marvin of Cornell became Admiral Peary's Eighth Arctic Expedition's only fatality when he drowned, maybe.
His body was found floating and appeared to have gone through thin ice, as reported by Inuit guide Kudlookto. However, in 1926 Kudlookto claimed he had shot and killed Marvin, either because Marvin had started acting irrationally, or because Marvin refused to let Kudlookto's cousin, another member of the expedition, rest. Peary's daughter (as you'll recall his sons were by his native mistress and were left up in the Arctic in the abandoned care of their mother), discounted the story, although how she would know what happened in reality is another matter. Presumably from information supplied by her father.
It's hard to imagine why Kudlookto would make the story of killing Marvin up, although people do odd things.
Peary's account.
He had been on a prior expedition. He was 29 years old at the time of his death.
Cipriano Castoro, the former President of Venezuela, was forcibly ejected from Martinique by the French.
Jonesboro, Tenn, April 10, 1909.
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