Today -100: August 20, 1915: Proudly and without fear we look into the future!

A u-boat torpedoes the White Star liner Arabic shortly after it left Britain for the US, killing 44 (including 3 Americans). No warning is given, which the White House is trying to confirm, because it’s an important factor in how pissed off it will decide to be.

Job Title of the Day -100:

One of the Arabic passengers, a J.F. Rowley of Chicago and/or Kansas City, who was visiting Britain to set up an artificial limb factory.

At the opening of the German Reichstag, Chancellor Theobald Bethmann-Hollweg explains at length how the war was all Britain’s fault and Germany is fighting in self-defense against half the world, but it’s going swimmingly. A German victory, he says, will mean a Poland freed from the Russian yoke, Balkan nations freed from Russian oppression, and a “new Europe, delivered from French intrigues, Muscovite lust of conquest, and British tutelage.” “Proudly and without fear we look into the future!”

Turkey is locking Armenians in barns and burning them, and putting chains around Armenians and drowning them in lakes.

Georgia Gov. Nathaniel Harris offers a reward of $1,500 for the first three convictions of members of the Leo Frank lynch mob.

Anna Howard Shaw of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association denies that the Leo Frank lynching had anything to do with chivalry, noting that Georgia’s age of consent is still 10.

Jacques Lebaudy, the Emperor of Sahara, escapes from the Knickerbocker Sanitarium (evidently the preferred loony bin for royalty: past residents have included the King of Europe and the Empress of Africa).

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