Celebrations Today – May 12
Holidays and observances
- 2nd Amendment Day (Pennsylvania, United States)
- Christian feast day:
- Day of the Finnish Identity (Finland)
- International Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day
- International Nurses Day
- Saint Andrea the First Day (Georgia)
Celebrations Today – USA: May 12
National Fibromyalgia Awareness Day
National Limerick Day
National Nutty Fudge Day
National Odometer Day
National Eat What You Want Day
National Hostess Cupcake Day
Today in US History: May 12
Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge, (1850-1924).
American Leaders Speak, 1918-1920
On May 12, 1850, Republican statesman and noted historian Henry Cabot Lodge was born in Boston, Massachusetts. One of the first students at Harvard to graduate with a Ph.D. in history and government (1876), Lodge represented his home state in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1887 to 1893, and in the Senate from 1893 to 1924. As chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he led the successful fight against American participation in the League of Nations, proposed by President Woodrow Wilson at the close of World War I.
Lodge maintained that membership in the world peacekeeping organization would threaten the sovereignty of the United States by binding the nation to international commitments it would not or could not keep.
The American Memory collection American Leaders Speak, 1918-1920 includes a recording of Senator Lodge’s 1919 argument against the League. “The United States is the world’s best hope,” Lodge allowed:
but if you fetter her in the interest through quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her powerful good, and endanger her very existence. Leave her to march freely through the centuries to come, as in the years that have gone. Strong, generous, and confident, she has nobly served mankind. Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance—this great land of ordered liberty. For if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.Henry Cabot Lodge, League of Nations, American Leaders Speak, 1918-1920
The League of Nations was established without U.S. participation in 1920. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it remained active until World War II. After the war, it was replaced by the United Nations, which assumed many of the League’s procedures and peacekeeping functions. In 1953, Henry Cabot Lodge’s grandson, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., was named U.S. ambassador to the U.N. He left the position in 1960 to run for vice president on the Republican ticket headed by Richard M. Nixon. The duo lost the election to Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, who had taken over Lodge’s Senate seat in 1952.
- Search on League of Nations in American Leaders Speak, 1918-1920 to hear contemporaries of Henry Cabot Lodge voice their opinions on the organization.
- For more information on this collection of recorded speeches, see the summary of related resourceson the Teachers Page.
- Also, don’t miss the special presentation From War to Normalcy: An Introduction to the Nation’s Forum Collection.
- Search for articles written by Henry Cabot Lodge in The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicalscollection.
- Locate additional information about World War I and the League of Nations in The Stars and Stripes: The American Soldiers’ Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919.
Theodore Roosevelt on Film
The President’s Carriage,
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, filmed May 12, 1903.
Great Earthquake and Fire: San Francisco, 1897-1916.
On Tuesday, May 12, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt paid an official visit to San Francisco. Cameraman H. J. Miles captured the president’s arrival parade on film, and later released the footage as The President’s Carriage.
Two days after the Market Street procession, Roosevelt was filmed again as he dedicated Dewey Monument in the city’s Union Square. The monument, which is still in place, commemorates the victory of Admiral George Dewey and the American fleet over Spanish forces at Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War. It is also a tribute to the sailors of the U.S. Navy.
Called actuality films, short documentaries such as these of Roosevelt, appeared in nickelodeons throughout America alongside policemen and firemen in action, buildings under construction, and new inventions at work. The themes and conventions of these short films were borrowed from nineteenth century commercial photography. Early audiences, while amazed by the moving images, were very familiar with the subject matter. What is perhaps most interesting about these two actuality films is the view they offer of a city devastated by a massive earthquake and fire just three years after the president’s 1903 visit.
Panorama, Union Square, San Francisco,
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, filmed May 14, 1903.
Great Earthquake and Fire: San Francisco, 1897-1916
- Great Earthquake and Fire: San Francisco, 1897-1916 offers 26 films of San Francisco before and after the 1906 disaster. To see the range of films available, browse the collection’s Subject Index. Read the description of turn-of-the-century America and the Selected Bibliography on early motion pictures.
- Theodore Roosevelt: His Life and Times on Film features 104 films which record events in Roosevelt’s life from the Spanish-American War in 1898 to his death in 1919; 8 of these films have previously appeared in other American Memory presentations. The majority of films (87) are from the Theodore Roosevelt Association Collection. Besides containing scenes of Roosevelt, these films include views of world figures, politicians, monarchs, and friends and family members of Roosevelt who influenced his life and the era in which he lived. See the essay T. R. on Film: The Theodore Roosevelt Association Collection at the Library of Congress by Veronica M. Gillespie for insight into this photogenic president’s history in front of the motion picture camera.
- Another film collection, The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures, includes footage of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. This volunteer cavalry unit, which included the flamboyant Theodore Roosevelt himself, is best known for their role on San Juan Hill in the Battle of Santiago. Search the collection on Roosevelt to find more clips of the future president taken during the first U.S. war in which the motion picture camera played a role.
- Learn more about the history of filmmaking. See Edison Motion Pictures, a section of the collection Inventing Entertainment: the Edison Companies. See also the Today in History features on Thomas Edison and cameraman Billy Bitzer.
- For more on Teddy Roosevelt, search the Today in History Archive on Theodore Roosevelt.
Today in History – May 12-External Links
Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia