July 1912 was a great month. This might seem like a strange statement, given that there were three tragic railroad crashes in the USA in the space of a fortnight, a huge colliery explosion in Yorkshire, and a pier collapse in Rugen, Germany…but seriously, for the purposes of this article, it was GREAT. I’ve been writing Back In Time for almost a year now, and I can’t actually remember another month with so many different news stories, which, for whatever reason, have stood the test of time. So, let’s get cracking…
Probably the most crucial story coming out of July 1912 was one which may well not have even been a big story back in its day. We hear stories about troop movement and military threats fairly often these days, many of which the general public don’t pay much attention to, and which generally lead nowhere anyway (although it is all too possible that I believe they lead nowhere because of the fact that I wasn’t paying attention…there’s a thought). You have to wonder, therefore, just how many British people really paid close attention to a story about the Royal Navy boosting its North Sea fleet in response to the growing build up of German ships. In the same month, Winston Churchill requested a larger naval budget, also aimed at keeping pace with the Germans. It’s a story which, at the time, was possibly worthy of a passing glance in a newspaper, but after a decade of both treaties and disagreements between most of Europe’s major powers being reported, it’s unlikely to have caused a major stir. Just 25 months later, though, and thanks partly to the growing tension over German naval expansion, Europe was at war. There’ll no doubt be more of these stories coming up over the next few months as the threat of war begins to loom ever larger, and it’ll be interesting to track the growing intensity.
Another story of great interest to those of us who studied GCSE History: it was in July 1912 that Governor Woodrow Wilson received the Democratic nomination for the November presidential election. Wilson would, of course, go on to become President during one of the most difficult times in modern world history, and his name will forever be synonomous with Allied victory in World War I, the Treaty of Versailles and the creation of the League of Nations. That’s quite the legacy for a man who only received the Democratic nomination after an exhausting five days of voting and 46 ballots.
So, two pretty major world history stories there. One will have been widely reported worldwide, the other not, but both ended up having very major repercussions for the twentieth century. The final story this month certainly had no impact in military or political history, but it concerns a man who, despite having died almost a century ago, still holds a major place in the history of popular culture: Harry Houdini. On July 7th 1912, Houdini performed his riskiest stunt to date: lying in a weighted wooden box with a nailed-down lid, while locked in handcuffs and leg irons, he was thrown into New York’s East River. It took him just 57 seconds to escape, leaving the crate still intact. Incredibly, this was ultimately not the most dangerous of Houdini’s 1912 stunts-just a couple of months later he would perform the Chinese Water Torture Cell trick for the first time. It was, though, one of his most popular escapes, and one that he would perform again many times around the world. Houdini is an example of a figure who has endured in public consciousness, being as big a name now as he was in his heyday, but as always, I have to wonder just how many people expected this to be the case. One thing I’ve learnt in writing Back in Time is that it’s pretty difficult to second-guess what or who will endure, so just remember this next time you mock the cast of Geordie Shore. Come 2112, they might have turned out to be this generation’s biggest legacy.
