One Hundred Years Ago

[Walks_At_Night]

On February 1, 1916 there was a Zeppelin raid on Salonika, Greece.    Not terribly unusual but later in the year {May}  they would actually bring Zeppelin LZ85 down. 

Supposedly this a movie of the carcass of the airship:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk3L6tFBKek

Update:  The Zeppelin was actually shot down by the Battleship HMS Agamemnon.   

On the 6/May/1916 the British Battleship H.M.S. Agamemnon was anchored in the harbour at Salonica. This Battleship weighed 16,500 tons, and was armed with four 12inch guns.
Ten 9.2inch guns, Fifteen 12pounder guns, Sixteen small quick firing guns, and five torpedo tubes.
The ship was not on Action stations on the 5/May 1916 when  the LZ 85 came over the harbour
But Lt Crookshank and leading Seaman Coleman loaded and fired at it with a 12pounder gun.
that was mounted on a high carriage on the forward bridge of the “Aggememnon”.
The shell tore through the gas bags of the LZ 85 and caused it to lose buoyancy and it came down in the remote Vardar marshes.

HMS Agamemnon

The remains of the zeppelin were transported to Salonika harbour and reassembled on the harbour wall to study its construction. It was later transported to Barrow in Furness, UK by the Observation Balloon Ship HMS Canning.

LZ85 wreckage


HMS Canning w/ Balloon

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

An item from the Tonopah daily bonanza., January 31, 1916.  Photo from Wikimedia.

The Daily Bonanza seems to have done a bang up job of keeping the citizens of Nye County up to date on the latest international news.  That was a great find, and appropriate for a BellGab history thread!

[Uncle Duke]

January 31, 1916 and believe it or not, several British airmen were hunting Zeppelins and wound up chasing UFOs.  Here is a link to a fascinating website owned by David Clarke that describes the events in detail.  http://www.uk-ufo.org/condign/hist19162.htm  Here is a beautiful illustration that could easily accompany the article but is from another site.  http://a54.idata.over-blog.com/610x513/0/09/07/26/Taken/BE2C-vs-unidentified-Zeppelin-copie-1.jpg

I'd heard about this incident, but this is the first time I've seen a name and date associated with it.  Didn't see a squadron identified, but with squadron number and date one can request the Operations Record Book entry through the Public Records Office.  That might be what one of the last three references is alluding to.  Also surprised the pilot fired on the object with a handgun.  I thought by 1916 the night fighters going after Zeppelins over the UK had been fitted with angled machine guns with incendiary ammo.

[Meister_000]

Let's play a board game from 1916.  How about some Uncle Wiggily!?  :D

The game was created in 1916 using a character called Uncle Wiggily in a series of children’s books. The stories were written by American author Howard R. Garis.  He began writing the stories for the Newark News in 1910.  Garis penned an Uncle Wiggily story every day (except Sundays) for more than 30 years, and published 79 books within the author's lifetime.

The game is played with the deck of cards with partners.  The game was first published by Milton Bradley in 1916 and has seen several editions with minor modifications over the years. Uncle Wiggily remained one of the first and favorite games of childhood.

Example of the original board.

You're a "Top Gun" Shay!

This reminds me of a (much) later Milton Bradley product, Candyland.
Here's the original 1949 board of that:

[Meister_000]

Piggly Wiggly: America's 1st true Self-Service grocery store

Piggly Wiggly was founded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1916 by Clarence Saunders. In grocery stores of that time, shoppers presented their orders to clerks who then gathered the goods from the store shelves. Saunders, a dynamic and innovative man, noticed that this method resulted in wasted time and expense, so he came up with an unheard-of solution that would revolutionize the entire grocery industry: he developed a way for shoppers to serve themselves. . . Unlike any other contemporary grocery store. There were shopping baskets, open shelves, and no clerks to shop for the customer â€" all of which were previously unheard of! Piggly Wiggly Corporation, which Saunders established when he opened his first store in Memphis, secured the self-service format, and issued franchises to hundreds of grocery retailers to operate their own Piggly Wiggly® stores.

Piggly Wiggly "Firsts"
Piggly Wiggly's introduction of self-service grocery shopping truly revolutionized the grocery industry. In fact, many of the conveniences and services that American shoppers now enjoy were introduced first by Piggly Wiggly.

Piggly Wiggly was the FIRST to . . :

- Provide checkout stands.
- Price mark every item in the store.
- Give shoppers more for their food dollar through high volume/low profit margin retailing.
- Feature a full line of nationally advertised brands.
- Use refrigerated cases to keep produce fresher longer.
- Put employees in uniforms for cleaner, more sanitary food handling.
- Design and use patented fixtures and equipment throughout the store.
- Franchise independent grocers to operate under the self-service method of food merchandising.

Piggly Wiggly Corporation became the owner of all Piggly Wiggly properties - the name, the patents, etc., and Saunders began issuing company stock soon after. The stock was successfully traded on the New York Stock Exchange for some time, but through a series of trades in the early 1920s, Saunders lost control of Piggly Wiggly and had no further association with the company. Despite Saunders’ departure, Piggly Wiggly Corporation continued to prosper as a franchiser for hundreds of independently owned grocery stores operating under the Piggly Wiggly name.

[Meister_000]

Piggly Wiggly: America's 1st true Self-Service grocery store

Piggly Wiggly founded in Memphis Tennessee in 1916

Piggly Wiggly -- Part Two -- Girl Power!

Piggly Wiggly made hay with their "Women's Rights" and "Empowerment" slant advertising campaigns. The following are from the 1920's and early 30's. Head slogan hooks included phrases like: "Now, She is Free To Choose For Herself", "Today, She Makes Her Own Decisions", and "She Wants No Clerks to Tell Her What to Buy"!   

[albrecht]

Piggly Wiggly -- Part Two -- Girl Power!

Piggly Wiggly made hay with their "Women's Rights" and "Empowerment" slant advertising campaigns. The following are from the 1920's and early 30's. Head slogan hooks included phrases like: "Now, She is Free To Choose For Herself", "Today, She Makes Her Own Decisions", and "She Wants No Clerks to Tell Her What to Buy"!   

It is amazing that we still fall for the same gags. Recently here many of the stores are going with 'self checkout' and makes it seems like you are in charge, no lines, etc. Really it is just so the stores don't have to hire checkout people. Now they even are banning stores giving us bags. Praised as helping the environment but hey, the stores now charge you for a more 'durable' bag and don't have the cost for the old plastic or paper bags.

[Rix Gins]

As an item of trivia, remember those trucks that hauled the undercover equipment to Devils Tower in Close Encounters of The Third Kind?  They were Piggly Wiggly trucks.  Fascinating piece, Meiser.  I used to buy records (45s) in a Piggly Wiggly. Grocery stores had lots of innovative stuff.  I saw my first automatic door (electric eye) in a grocery store, and cable tv too.  One store Mom took us to had a cushioned couch we all sat on while our grocery items were being tallied.  All at once, the darn thing started to move in kind of a circular motion and when it stopped we stood up to get our sacks of groceries at the end of the counter. 

[pate]

As an item of trivia, remember those trucks that hauled the undercover equipment to Devils Tower in Close Encounters of The Third Kind?  They were Piggly Wiggly trucks.  Fascinating piece, Meiser.  I used to buy records (45s) in a Piggly Wiggly. Grocery stores had lots of innovative stuff.  I saw my first automatic door (electric eye) in a grocery store, and cable tv too.  One store Mom took us to had a cushioned couch we all sat on while our grocery items were being tallied.  All at once, the darn thing started to move in kind of a circular motion and when it stopped we stood up to get our sacks of groceries at the end of the counter.

The first automatic door I saw was the entrance/exit to a grocery store as well, but sans the electric eye.  As I recall it had a pressure plate, I assume of sandwiched material sort of like a capacitor.  Hmm, wonder when the first automatic door of that type was invented, surely they had capacitors 100 years ago?

edit:  found a patent dated 11-06-1931 for the street-light(?) pressure switch, again my time-machine calibration is off, 15% ERROR!  'pologies!

"Patented Mar. 13, 1934 UNITED STATES- PATENT OFFICE ELECTRIC SWITCH Continuation of application Serial No. 275,076, May 4, 1928. This application November 8,

1931, Serial No. 573,483

15 Claims.

This invention relates to electric switches and more particularly to a switch unit adapted to be placed in a street surface and actuated by the passage of vehicles. "

[Rix Gins]

The Day Book.  February 1, 1916.

[pate]

Clothes Drying Machine Patent

CLOTHES DRYING MACHINE. Petented Feb. 1, 1916.

Computing and Recording Machine

w. l. OHMER 6L 1. E, McALLlS TER. COMPUTING AND RECGRDING MACHINE.   "APPLICATION FILED SEPT-1.6, I910- 1,169,860. Patentd Feb. 1, 1916.





Other Patents from this day

Google Patents Feb, 1 1916

[Meister_000]

Popular Mechanics: May 1916, p175-6

Hobo Hot-Plate (Electric!)

Homeless people are resourceful. This story begins with the assumption that one "resides" in or around a city or route that had electrified trains or trollys. If so, those set-ups employed an overhead-strung electric traction contact wire or line (hot! -- live, juice). The train "rains" are "grounded" by making solid contact with earth. A complete DC circuit of electric power is thus available between the rails and the overhead line.

Our tricky tramp from California in this story from 1916 would attach 2 long wires (insulated where needed) one to a rail, and the other to the traction-wire overhead (using a long pole with metal hook at the end). Those wires were then in turn attached to a piece of 'iron grate" to make an instant red hot glowing heating-element to cook on, i.e. an improvised electric hot-plate -- rather than to have to build a fire to do the same thing.

[Walks_At_Night]

The Day Book.  February 1, 1916.

Good to see Everett back in form and dealing out justice

[Meister_000]

As an item of trivia, remember those trucks that hauled the undercover equipment to Devils Tower in Close Encounters of The Third Kind?  They were Piggly Wiggly trucks.  Fascinating piece, Meiser.  I used to buy records (45s) in a Piggly Wiggly. Grocery stores had lots of innovative stuff.  I saw my first automatic door (electric eye) in a grocery store, and cable tv too.  One store Mom took us to had a cushioned couch we all sat on while our grocery items were being tallied.  All at once, the darn thing started to move in kind of a circular motion and when it stopped we stood up to get our sacks of groceries at the end of the counter.

I didn't remember the movie cameo till you mentioned it. That last bit about a rotating couch delivering you to your waiting packed bags has me scratching my head?!  wtf? 

[Rix Gins]

Some items from the Tonopah Daily Bonanza, February 1, 1916.  Re: Sir Clements Roberts Markham..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clements_Markham

[Rix Gins]

Here is an item from the February 1, 1916 Webster City Freeman.  (Iowa)

[Rix Gins]

I didn't remember the movie cameo till you mentioned it. That last bit about a rotating couch delivering you to your waiting packed bags has me scratching my head?!  wtf? 

I was very young at the time but I do remember moving on that couch.  Of course I also remember seeing President Eisenhower in a limo, madly waiving at a crowd during a parade, and Roy Rogers on Trigger, racing down a stadium, holding his hand out so that the kids could reach out and high five him. (The size of my small, childhood town marks these remembrances as being suspect.) At a county fair, Dad swooped me up and plopped me down on the back of an elephant. Or was it a camel?  Oh, and this one really did happen...I was at a zoo and I knelt down to get a close look at a racoon.  He came over to get a close look at me.  I noticed an empty peanut shell so I picked it up and carefully poked it though a hole in the chicken wire fencing.  The racoon took the shell and rolled it around in his hands.  When he realized that the shell was empty, he carefully poked the shell back at me, through the fence.  I had witnesses.  A young couple saw it happen and I remember them laughing. 

[Meister_000]

. . . Oh, and this one really did happen...I was at a zoo and I knelt down to get a close look at a racoon.  He came over to get a close look at me.  I noticed an empty peanut shell so I picked it up and carefully poked it though a hole in the chicken wire fencing.  The racoon took the shell and rolled it around in his hands.  When he realized that the shell was empty, he carefully poked the shell back at me, through the fence.  I had witnesses.  A young couple saw it happen and I remember them laughing.

That is funny, and so civil of him. 
Roy Rogers! That must have been cool. Wholesome friendly kind upstanding folk them cowboy role-models, loved um. I still have a Roy Rogers horse-n-rider toy model I got from my uncle as a kid. Today, I love hearing "The Sons of the Pioneers" with Roy as their singing front-man. And "Happy Trails", the closing theme song, almost forgot!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eEqUyNaSdvg

[Walks_At_Night]

Everett True:  The Movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3NRwR9yqwA

[Rix Gins]

That is funny, and so civil of him. 
Roy Rogers! That must have been cool. Wholesome friendly kind upstanding folk them cowboy role-models, loved um. I still have a Roy Rogers horse-n-rider toy model I got from my uncle as a kid. 

Those models are something else, mint condition from the looks of them.  I bet they are worth quite a bit but I'm sure you are like me...no way would you sell them.  I don't have much, most of my toys got played to death, and other things, like my army men, got all shot to pcs by my older brother's B-B guns.  lol

[Rix Gins]

Everett True:  The Movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3NRwR9yqwA

Ha!  I'll be darned.  Had no idea that Everett made it to the movies...great find Walks!  Guess I'd better rustle up Everett's latest appearance. 

[Rix Gins]

From the Day Book.  February 2, 1916.

[Rix Gins]

Here is a sad thing that happened 100 years ago in Chicago.  From the Day Book.  Second image is from Google, showing what could possibly be the officer's actual house. 

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

Here is a sad thing that happened 100 years ago in Chicago.  From the Day Book.  Second image is from Google, showing what could possibly be the officer's actual house.

That's most likely not the officer's house, Rix, because Lockport is about thirty-five miles from Chicago. That would have been a lengthy commute in 1916.

[Rix Gins]

That's most likely not the officer's house, Rix, because Lockport is about thirty-five miles from Chicago. That would have been a lengthy commute in 1916.

Yeah, it was a crap shoot regarding the house.  The only East 19th I could find.  Neat old house though, huh?  Here are some candidates for the scene of the shooting.  (Probably the empty lots.)

[Meister_000]

Indian Motorcycles USA, 1916 -- Part One -- Ladies First

Sisters Augusta and Adeline Van Buren (decedents of Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the United States), age 32 and 27 (born 1884 and 1889) , society girls with a mission, rode coast to coast on Indian Power Plus motorcycles in 1916, becoming the first women to ride motorized vehicles to the summit of Pikes Peak along the way*.

Both women were active in the National Preparedness Movement, an effort to make ready for the U.S.'s inevitable entry into World War I. They wanted to prove that women could ride as well as men and were capable of serving as military dispatch riders, delivering communications on the war front, and thus freeing-up men to provide combat support or other tasks. This would also remove one of the primary arguments for denying women the right to vote â€" women were historically non-participants in war efforts. They would have to prove this point by showing without doubt that a woman could handle the difficulties of motorcycling over long distances and harsh conditions. Thus, before superhighways or even paved roads (for the most part), they conceived their plan.

Gussie and Addie, as they were known, set off on July 4, 1916 from the Sheepshead Bay racetrack in Brooklyn New York, wearing men's military style full "leathers", coats, britches and boots, and traveled west through Buffalo, Akron, Chicago, on to Omaha and Denver, and up the narrow dirt switchbacks of a road climbing to Pike’s Peak.

Their Model F Power Plus Indians were powered by 1000 cc  V-twin engines, had “webbed vanadium steel Cradle Spring frames,” gas headlights, and Firestone tires. These were Indian’s top of the line bikes selling for around $275 at the time.

Sixty days, 5,500 miles, and numerous arrests for wearing men's clothes! later, they arrived in San Francisco on September 2 and completed their transcontinental trip arriving in Los Angeles on September 8. For good measure, they decided to continue to Tijuana for a final crossing of the border.

After completing their journey, Adeline’s application to the army as a dispatch rider was rejected. Both Augusta and Adeline eventually married. Adeline, became an English teacher, eventually earned her law degree from NYU. Augusta became a pilot, flying with the women’s flying group founded by Amelia Earhart, called the 99s.

The Van Buren sisters were inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002.

*[Note: The previous year, 1915, Effie Hotchkiss and her mother Avis traveled 9,000 miles on a Harley-Davidson V-twin with sidecar from New York on 3 May 1915 to San Francisco in mid-August, and then back to New York.]

[Walks_At_Night]

From 2/16/1916

[Walks_At_Night]

A little Caruso from February 1916:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_ybjI6KIcs

[Walks_At_Night]

On January 2, 1916 His Majesty's Ship J4 was  launched.     The J4 was a J-Class submarine of the Royal Navy.   
It would serve in the Royal Navy until April of 1919 when it [along with 5 other J-class boats] would be given to
Australia for use in the Pacific.  The expense of maintaining and operating the boats would be too much and they
would be decommissioned in June 1922.   Eventually the J4 would be scuttled in Port Phillip Bay and today is
a popular destination for divers.

[Walks_At_Night]

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna Romanov of Russia would write this in her diary on 2/3/1916:

3 February. Had lessons in the morning. Breakfast 5 and Mama on the couch. Went to our infirmary with Anya. Rode with A. and Shura. Had tea with Mama and A. and Anya. Did homework. Had a French reading [lesson]. Had dinner 4 with Mama on the couch. Anya was here. Our [army] took [the town of] Erzerum.

She was the 3rd daughter of Czar Nicholas II and of course she would not survive the revolution.   

A rather attractive young lady I think: