1912 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: William Howard Taft
• Vice President: James S. Sherman , vacant
• Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark
• Congress: 62nd

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January

• January 6 - New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U.S. state.
• January 11–March 12 - 1912 Lawrence textile strike : Immigrant textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, strike in response to a pay cut corresponding to a new law shortening the working week.
• January 22 - The Overseas Railroad opens: the first train arrives in Key West, Florida, at 10:43 a.m. with Henry M. Flagler, the railroad's creator and owner, aboard.

  February

• February 14 - Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.

  March

• March 1 - Albert Berry makes the world's first or second parachute jump from an airplane in flight, at Jefferson Barracks Military Post in Missouri.
• March 6 - Oreo cookies introduced.
• March 12 - The Girl Scouts of the USA are founded by Juliette Gordon Low, in Savannah, Georgia.
• March 27 - Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo gives 3,000 cherry blossom trees to be planted in Washington, D.C., to symbolize the friendship between the two countries.

April

• April 10 - The British ocean liner leaves Southampton, England on her maiden voyage for New York City.
• April 14–15 - Sinking of the RMS Titanic: strikes an iceberg in the northern Atlantic Ocean and sinks with the loss of between 1,517 and 1,636 lives. The wreck will not be discovered until 1985.
• April 18 - The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrives in New York City with Titanics 706 survivors.
• April 19 - The United States Senate initiates an official inquiry into the Titanic disaster, hastily issuing subpoenas for White Star personnel before they can return to the United Kingdom.
• April 20 - Baseball parks opened:
• *Tiger Stadium as Navin Field.
• *Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.

  May

• May 6 - Suffragettes and their supporters parade in New York City.
• May 11 - Alaska is constituted as a territory of the U.S.
• May 18 - The Detroit Tigers go on strike to protest the suspension of Ty Cobb. A replacement team recruited from the coaching staff and local colleges is fielded to avoid a forfeiture to the Philadelphia A's in a lopsided loss.
• May 30 - Joe Dawson wins the 1912 Indianapolis 500-Mile Race for automobiles after Ralph DePalma's Mercedes breaks down within sight of the finish.

  June

• June 5 - U.S. Marines land in Cuba.
• June 6–8 - Mount Novarupta erupts in Alaska.
• June 8 - Carl Laemmle founds Universal Studios as the Universal Film and Manufacturing Company in New York City, moving production to Hollywood by the end of the year
• June 18 - The Republican National Convention nominates incumbent President William Howard Taft in Chicago, defeating a challenge by former President Theodore Roosevelt, whose delegates bolt the convention.
• June 25 - The Democratic National Convention nominates New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson in Baltimore.

  July

• July 1 - Harriet Quimby, who set the record as the first woman to fly the English Channel only 2 months before, dies in Squantum, Massachusetts after her brand-new two-seat Bleriot monoplane crashes, killing both Quimby and her passenger.
• July 19 - A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing thousands of pieces of debris to rain down on the town.

  August

• August 4 - United States occupation of Nicaragua: U.S. Marines land from the USS Annapolis in Nicaragua, to support the conservative government at its request.
• August 5 - Dissident U.S. Republicans form the Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party, and nominate former President Theodore Roosevelt as their presidential candidate.
• August 21 - The first Eagle Scout earns his rank.

  September

• September 25 - The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is founded in New York City.
• September 28 - Composer W. C. Handy publishes his "Southern rag" "The Memphis Blues".

  October

• October 14 - While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, former President Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper John Schrank. With a fresh flesh wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt delivers his scheduled speech. After finishing it, he goes to the hospital, where it is deduced that if he had not had his speech in his breast pocket when he was shot, he most likely would have died.
• October 16 - The Boston Red Sox, assisted by a famous error, defeat the New York Giants in extra innings to win the 1912 World Series in what is considered one of the greatest games of baseball ever played.
• October 30 - Vice President James S. Sherman dies in office just days prior to the 1912 presidential election.

  November

• November 5 - U.S. presidential election, 1912: Democratic challenger and Governor of New Jersey Woodrow Wilson wins a landslide victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft. Taft's base is undercut by Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt, who finishes second, ahead of Taft.

  Undated

• The American Little Theatre Movement begins with the founding of the Toy Theatre in Boston and the Little Theatre of Chicago.
• Remaining residents of Malaga Island, off the coast of Maine, are forcibly evicted.
• First Sea Scout groups under the aegis of the Boy Scouts of America established this summer.

  Ongoing

• Progressive Era
• Lochner era

  Births

• January 7 - Charles Addams, cartoonist
• January 20 - Walter Briggs, Jr., businessman
• January 27 - Francis Rogallo, aeronautical engineer
• January 28 - Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionist painter
• January 30
• * Francis Schaeffer, evangelical theologian, philosopher and Presbyterian pastor
• * Barbara Tuchman, historian
• February 7 - Roy Sullivan, park ranger, world record holder for lightning strikes survived
• February 20 - Muriel Humphrey Brown, U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1978, Second Lady of the United States
• March 13 - Charles Schepens, ophthalmologist, "the father of retinal surgery" and a Nazi resistance movement leader
• March 14
• * Les Brown, bandleader
• * W. Graham Claytor, Jr., naval officer and railroad executive
• * W. Willard Wirtz, administrator
• March 15 - Lightnin' Hopkins, African American country blues musician
• March 16 - Pat Nixon, First Lady of the United States, Second Lady of the United States
• March 17 - Bayard Rustin, African American civil rights activist
• March 24 - Dorothy Height, African American activist
• March 26 - Opaline Deveraux Wadkins, African American nurse educator
• April 1 - Donald Nyrop, businessman
• April 7 - Jack Lawrence, songwriter
• April 13 - William J. Tuttle, makeup artist
• April 19 - Glenn T. Seaborg, nuclear chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1951
• May 3 - May Sarton, poet, novelist and memoirist
• May 11 - Foster Brooks, comic actor
• May 16 - Studs Terkel, writer and broadcaster
• May 18 - Perry Como, singer
• May 27
• * John Cheever, fiction writer
• * Sam Snead, golfer
• May 30
• * Julius Axelrod, biochemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970
• * Joseph Stein, librettist
• May 31 - Henry M. Jackson, politician
• June 5 - Dean Amadon, ornithologist
• June 9 - Philip Simmons, ornamental ironworker
• June 21 - Mary McCarthy, novelist, critic and political activist
• June 25 - William T. Cahill, politician
• June 29 - John Toland, historian and biographer, recipient of Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1971
• July 1
• * David R. Brower, environmentalist
• * Sally Kirkland, fashion editor
• July 11 - William F. Walsh, politician
• July 14 - Woody Guthrie, folk musician
• July 17 - Art Linkletter, television host
• July 28 - George Cisar, screen character actor
• July 31
• * Milton Friedman, economist, recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1976
• * Irv Kupcinet, newspaper columnist
• August 1
• * Frank K. Edmondson, astronomer
• * Donald Seawell, theater producer and newspaper publisher
• August 2 - Ann Dvorak, actress
• August 9 - Anne Brown, African American soprano
• August 11 - Norman Levinson, mathematician
• August 13 - Ben Hogan, golfer
• August 15 - Julia Child, television chef
• August 23 - Gene Kelly, entertainer
• August 30 - Edward Mills Purcell, physicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952
• September 5
• * John Cage, avant-garde composer
• * Frank Thomas, animator
• September 7 - David Packard, electrical engineer
• September 10 - William Everson, poet
• September 13 - Reta Shaw, character actress
• September 16 - Don A. Jones, admiral and environmental engineer
• September 21 - Chuck Jones, animator
• October 6 - Perkins Bass, politician
• October 15 - Nellie Lutcher, African American jazz singer
• October 16 - Clifford Hansen, politician
• October 25 - Minnie Pearl, humorist
• October 27 - Conlon Nancarrow, composer
• October 31 - Ollie Johnston, animator
• November 14 - Barbara Hutton, socialite
• November 21 - Eleanor Powell, film tap dancer
• November 22 - Paul Zamecnik, molecular biologist
• November 23
• * George O'Hanlon, film and voice actor and television writer
• * Virginia Prince, born Arnold Lowman, transgender activist
• November 28 - Morris Louis, Color Field painter
• November 30 - Gordon Parks, African American photographer and artist
• December 1 - Minoru Yamasaki, architect
• December 4 - Pappy Boyington, U.S. Marine Corps fighter ace
• December 12 - Henry Armstrong, African American boxer
• December 15 - Ray Eames, born Ray-Bernice Kaiser, designer,
• December 22 - Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon B. Johnson, First Lady of the United States, Second Lady of the United States
• December 28 - James Allen, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1969 to 1978
• Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein, mathematician and cryptanalyst
• Walt Partymiller, cartoonist and watercolorist

  Deaths

• January 3 - Robley Dunglison Evans, admiral
• January 4 - Clarence Dutton, geologist
• March 19 - Thomas Harrison Montgomery, Jr., zoologist and cell biologist
• April 3 - Calbraith Perry Rodgers, aviation pioneer
• April 4 - Charles Brantley Aycock, 50th Governor of North Carolina
• April 12 - Clara Barton, nurse
• April 15 - Sinking of the RMS Titanic
• * John Jacob Astor IV, businessman
• * Archibald Butt, presidential aide
• * Jacques Futrelle, mystery author
• * Benjamin Guggenheim, businessman
• * Francis Davis Millet, painter, sculptor and writer
• * Isidor Straus, owner of Macy's
• * Harry Elkins Widener, bibliophile
• April 18 - Martha Ripley, physician
• May 4 - Nettie Stevens, geneticist
• May 18 - Ferdinand Ludwig Herff, German-American physician
• May 25 - Austin Lane Crothers, politician
• May 30 - Wilbur Wright, aviation pioneer
• June 1
• * Daniel Burnham, architect and urban planner
• * Philip Parmalee, aviator
• June 16 - Thomas Pollock Anshutz, painter
• June 26 - Anthony Higgins, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1889 to 1895
• June 27 - Frank Furness, Philadelphia architect
• July 1 - Harriet Quimby, aviator
• July 7 - Sarah Platt-Decker, suffragist
• July 24 - Addison Peale Russell, essayist
• July 29 - William D. Washburn, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1889 to 1895 and businessman
• Emperor Meji of Japan
• August 13 - Horace Howard Furness, Shakespeare scholar
• August 8 - Ross Winn, anarchist writer and publisher
• September 18 - Hernando Money, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1897 to 1911
• October 5 - Lewis Boss, astronomer
• October 6 - William A. Peffer, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1891 to 1897
• October 30 - James S. Sherman, 27th Vice President of the United States from 1909 to 1912
• November 28 - Walter Benona Sharp, oil pioneer
• December 18 - Will Carleton, poet
• December 29 - Philip H. Cooper, admiral