The airship Zeppelin LZ 54 crashed in the North Sea on its return from bombing the English midlands. All 16 crew drowned when the crew of a British fishing boat refused to rescue them.[2]
The new German cruiser SMS Emden, taking the legacy name from its famous predecessor, was launched by AG Weser in Bremen. She would survive the war but would be scuttled along with many ships with the Imperial German Navy in 1919.[5]
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition – British Antarctic expedition commander Ernest Shackleton sent a larger party to bring back the third lifeboat from the sunken polar ship Endurance in anticipation of crossing open water during the Antarctic summer thaw. The crew had been on the open ice for close to three months, with seal meat being the primary staple to preserve packaged meals. Their teams of dogs were also reduced to two teams, with the others being shot to ensure more seal meat for expedition members.[10]
A German zeppelin that disappeared on the air raid to Liverpool four days earlier was spotted by the British naval trawlerKing Stephen floating in the North Sea. After briefly speaking with Zeppelin Captain Odo Löwe and the crew, the trawler left the German air crew to their fate.[11][12]
The 3rd Australian Division was established and would become the longest serving Australian division in the country's military history.[13]
A fire killed seven people and destroyed most of the Centre Block, the home of the Parliament of Canada, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. The fire, which started in the House of Commons reading room while Parliament was in session, was likely caused from an improperly extinguished cigar or faulty electrical wiring, although an investigating commission also put forth the theory sabotage could have also been a likely cause.[16][17]
Died:Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan writer, credited as the "father of modernismo (modernism)" in Spanish literature, author of Azul..., Prosas profanas y otros poemas and Cantos de vida y esperanza (b. 1867); William Peters Hepburn, American politician, U.S. Representative from Iowa from 1881 to 1887, and from 1893 to 1909 (b. 1833)
Argentine tango composer Roberto Firpo was approached by Uruguayan musician Gerardo Matos Rodríguez at a music cafe in Montevideo with sheet music for a new tango. Firpo added arrangements from his own work and recorded it in November "La cumparsita", now considered one of the world's most recognizable tango melodies.[33]
Enlisted Canadian servicemen rioted and vandalized two businesses owned and operated by German Canadians in Calgary over two days before the city restored order, following rumors a popular diner had been hiring "illegal aliens" instead of veterans.[37]
The Romanian association football club București was founded in Bucharest as a university sports club for students and staff with programs in football, athletics and tennis. Renowned Romanian mathematician Traian Lalescu was the club's first president.[45]
Battle of Salaita Hill – South African and German colonial forces fought the first large-scale battle of the East African Campaign at Traveta in what is now modern-day Kenya. The Allied force of 6,000 was unable to take a strategic hill and sustained 172 casualties.[48]
Ross Sea party – British polar exploration ship Aurora was momentarily free from the packed ice in the Southern Ocean. It had been drifting in the ice for nearly 10 months since it lost anchor in McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea near the Antarctic, stranding 10 members of the expedition onshore. Unfortunately, the ice reformed around the ship three days later and the vessel was stuck in the ice for another two weeks before it was finally free.[49]
Erzurum Offensive – Russian forces began to advance on the Ottoman Third Army, which was too small to defend against the assault. Many Ottoman battalions averaged 350 men compared to Russian battalions made up of 1,000 soldiers.[52]
Siege of Mora – Brigadier General Frederick Hugh Cunliffe, commander of Allied forces in Central Africa, sent a message to Captain Ernst von Rabe, commander of the German colonial forces at the mountain fortress near Mora in Kamerun (now modern-day Cameroon), offering terms of surrender that included all African native soldiers to be allowed safe passage back to their home villages and all German troops interned in England. Rabe accepted the terms with an additional offer all the native soldiers be paid for their military service.[62]
Erzurum Offensive – Russia captured the city of Erzurum. The Russian column did not effectively pursue the retreating Ottoman Third Army, allowing them to set up a new defense line less than 10 km away from the city. The Ottoman Empire lost 17,000 soldiers, including 10,000 casualties and 5,000 prisoners. The Russian Empire sustained 9,000 casualties, including 1,000 dead, 4,000 wounded and 4,000 affected with frostbite.[69]
Siege of Mora – The German colonial force of 155 men at the mountain fortress near Mora in German Cameroon surrendered after a year and a half under siege by Allied forces. The surrender effectively ended the Kamerun campaign, as most of the remaining German troops escaped into neighboring Spanish Guinea weeks before under orders of German colonial commander Carl Heinrich Zimmermann.[76]
Hans Schmidt, a Roman Catholic priest in New York City was executed by hanging at Sing Sing prison for the murder of housekeeper Anna Aumüller, whom he had a secret affair with. He was only priest ever to be executed in the United States.[80]
During the construction of a subway tunnel under the East River to Brooklyn Heights, New York City, two sandhogs were killed in an accident when a compressed air pocket burst out of its chamber. A third man, 28-year-old Marshall Mabey, survived being blown through the riverbed for 12 feet (3.7 m), up through the river and to the top of a 25-foot (7.6 m) waterspout. He would continue working as a sandhog for 25 years.[81]
Battle of Verdun – The Imperial German Army launched one of the biggest offenses of World War I, mobilizing 1.25 million soldiers in 50 divisions to assault and break the French line at Verdun, France, which was being defended by 1.14 million French soldiers. The fearsome army and aerial assault involved using storm troopers for the first time, slinging hand grenades or using flamethrowers to destroy French defenses as opposed to firing their rifles.[83]
Italian hospital ship HS Marechiaro was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine SM UC-12 near the Albanian port of Durrës, killing 33 people.[84]
To support the morale of French troops defending against the German offensive at Verdun, French fighter pilot Jean Navarre began daily aerobatic flights over the front line in a Nieuport fighter with its fuselage painted in French red, white, and blue.[85]
Battle of Verdun – German forces advanced 5 km (3.1 mi) past the French to the edge of the village of Flabas, France, with only light casualties. Two French battalions led by Colonel Émile Driant tried to hold the line but were pushed back to the village of Samogneux where he was killed.[87]
Cochinchina uprising – French colonial authorities executed Vietnamese revolutionary Phan Xích Long following an attempted prison breakout days earlier. The uprising was put down around the same time with 51 dissidents executed and hundreds more imprisoned.[88]
Battle of Verdun – The French failed to retake Fort Douaumont, forcing General Philippe Pétain to call off further attacks and have defenses consolidated around the remaining forts.[99] The Germans had advanced 3 km (1.9 mi) on a 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) front; French losses were 24,000 men and German losses were c. 25,000 men..[100]
Action of Agagia – British forces in North Africa fought Senussi militia backed by the Central Powers east of the Egyptian port town of Sidi Barrani. The British force of 1,400 defeated a Senussi force estimated at between 1,500 and 1,600. The Senussi lost an estimated 500 men and horses while the British sustained 47 killed and 137 wounded.[101]
French ocean liner turned auxiliary cruiser SS La Provence II was sunk by German submarine SM U-35 while transporting French troops, killing 990 out of the 1,732 passengers and crew on board.[102]
French air force pilot Jean Navarre induced a German two-seat aircraft to land in French-held territory and surrender without ever firing a shot merely by appearing behind them over the Verdun battlefield. Later that morning, Navarre shot down a German bomber for his fifth victory.[103]
Battle of Verdun – The spring thaw turned the ground to swamp and slowed German advances, allowing French time to regroup. German soldiers began suffering from exhaustion and lost 500 soldiers to one day of fighting around the village of Douaumont, France.[106]
Battle of Verdun – The Germans were further delayed by a sudden snowstorm, allowing the French time to bring 90,000 men and 23,000 short tons (21,000 t) of ammunition by rail from Bar-le-Duc, France, to Verdun.[113]
The German auxiliary cruiser SMS Greif was intercepted and attacked by four Royal Navy ships in the North Sea, including RMS Alcantara and HMS Comus, after it broke through the Allies naval blockade. Greif sank Alcantara thanks to superior firepower when the smaller ship got too close, killing 72 British sailors before it was destroyed by the other three ships. In total, 220 out of the 360 crew on Greif were captured and another 130 were killed.[114]
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