Today -100: August 19, 1913: Too lazy to read

Mexican dictator Huerta gives the US until midnight to recognize his regime.

French aviator Adolphe Pégoud bails out of his airplane at 900 feet, parachuting safely to earth. Although a few people had parachuted from planes (and lived) since 1911, I believe this was the first successful use of a parachute in an airplane emergency situation, although balloonists had been using parachutes since 1785.

Robert Donald, editor of the Daily Chronicle (London) and president of the Institute of Journalists, predicts the future of journalism: fewer newspapers, which will be distributed in the major cities by pneumatic tubes; reporters will carry wireless telephones; news will be delivered directly via “the cinematograph and the gramophone or some other more agreeable instrument of mechanical speech.” “People may become too lazy to read, and news will be laid on to house or office just as gas and water are now.”

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