1912 was a year for many significant events

The Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph got their start in 1912, but there were many significant events happening across the world and in the United States about that same time. Here are a few of the highlights:

Robert Scott at the South Pole

Jan. 1, the Republic of China is established.

Jan. 6, New Mexico becomes the 47th state. Just seven years later, Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph will begin teaching there.

Jan. 18, English explorer Robert Scott

Girl Scouts in 1912

and his expedition reach the
South Pole, only to learn that Roald Amundsen had arrived a month earlier. Scott dies on March 29.

 

Feb. 8, the first eastbound U.S. transcontinental flight lands in Jacksonville, Fla.

Feb. 14, Arizona becomes the 48th state.

March 12, the Girl Scouts are founded in Savannah, Ga. (Ursuline Sister Sharon Sullivan, current congregational leader, is a lifetime member and serves on the state Girl Scout board.) 

March 16, Mrs. William Howard Taft plants the first cherry tree in Washington, D.C.

April 14, the Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic, killing 1,523 people.

April 16, Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly across the English Channel.

Opening Day at Fenway Park

April 20, Fenway Park opens in Boston. It remains the oldest continuously operating baseball park in America.

May 5, the Summer Olympics open in Stockholm, Sweden. American Jim Thorpe wins the pentathlon and decathlon, but is stripped of his medals after claims that he was not an amateur. He was reinstated as the true winner in 1982.

May 7, Joseph Pulitzer establishes the Pulitzer Prize through Columbia University.

May 8, Paramount Pictures is founded by Adolph Zukor in Hollywood, Calif.

May 30, aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright dies.

June 4, Massachusetts passes the first U.S. minimum wage law.

Official meteorite debris from Holbrook, Ariz.

June 6, the eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The amount of the ejecta was 30 times greater than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.

July 19, a meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over Holbrook, Ariz., causing 16,000 pieces of debris to rain on the town.

Aug. 22, Pope Gregory IX dies.

Aug. 24, Alaska becomes a U.S. territory.

Aug. 27, Edgar Rice Burroughs publishes “Tarzan of the Apes.”

Sept. 27, W.C. Handy publishes “Memphis Blues,” the first blues song.

Oct. 8, the first Balkan War begins.

Nov. 5, Woodrow Wilson is elected president, defeating President William Taft and Bull Moose candidate Theodore Roosevelt.

Dec. 7, a bust of Queen Nefertete is found in El-Amarna, Egypt.

Dec. 16, the first U.S. postage stamp featuring an airplane is released.