Today -100: April 9, 1914: Of friendly expressions of regret, deportations, and airplanes

The US and Colombia sign a treaty to put to rest all that unpleasantness over the former’s role in splitting off a bit of the latter in order to build a canal through it. The US will pay a $25 million indemnity and make a “friendly expression of regret” for the role Roosevelt never admitted having taken in the Panamanian revolt. (Spoiler alert: Republicans will torpedo this treaty, although Harding will negotiate a similar one, with the $25 million but without the regret.)

The NYT says the Illinois elections show that women don’t vote as a bloc.

Pancho Villa seizes the largest banks in Torreón. The banks had already removed their money, so he’s basically seized some buildings and furniture. Villa is also deporting Spaniards, 700 of whom arrive in El Paso. Carranza, who some looked to to rein Villa in, fully backs the deportations.

Today’s aviation deaths: 1) A sergeant in Britain’s Army Flying Corps attempted a sharp spiral descent and lost control of his plane. 2) A Belgian aviator hit bad weather and crashed. 3) And, just for a change of pace, the engine fails in a plane being flown by a French military aviator with a passenger over the Moroccan desert, but they glide safely to earth, and are then seized by Moorish rebels, tortured and hacked into pieces. As was their plane.

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