Arizona Centennial
On this day a century ago U.S. President William Howard Taft signed a proclamation which admitted Arizona into the Union as the 48th state. Common legend has it that Arizona wanted the event to happen on February 12th, Lincoln's birthday, but Taft, not a fan of the moderate Lincoln, had no intention of honoring him. On the local level, George W.P. Hunt, who was inaugurated governor later the same day, replaced most of the appointees of the former territorial governor, a Republican, with his Democratic cronies.
The population of Arizona at statehood was around 200,000 ... now it is somewhere around 6.5 million ! A lot of growth in a century.
I got curious as to what else was happening on that date in history, so I rounded up a few (mostly unremarkable) things that were going on February 14, 1912 :
• Britain's parliament began session, with two primary issues ; Trying to quickly repair their deteriorating diplomatic relations with Germany (methinks they did not fare so well), and the disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Wales from the Church of England (Exclusion is okay in the name of God).
• British Columbia's Premier Richard McBride introduced legislature to exclude Orientals from immigrating to Canada (Hatred and racism are okay in the name of Nationalism).
• The southern Chinese area of Nanking asked European nations to recognize them as an independent nation.
• The federal government had arrested dozens of pro-Union activists, including many from the International Association of Bridge and Iron Workers as part of a so-called "dynamite conspiracy" in which the property of companies which had employed non-Union labor had been destroyed over a period of several years (Violence is okay in the name of Labor)
The population of Arizona at statehood was around 200,000 ... now it is somewhere around 6.5 million ! A lot of growth in a century.
I got curious as to what else was happening on that date in history, so I rounded up a few (mostly unremarkable) things that were going on February 14, 1912 :
• Britain's parliament began session, with two primary issues ; Trying to quickly repair their deteriorating diplomatic relations with Germany (methinks they did not fare so well), and the disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Wales from the Church of England (Exclusion is okay in the name of God).
• British Columbia's Premier Richard McBride introduced legislature to exclude Orientals from immigrating to Canada (Hatred and racism are okay in the name of Nationalism).
• The southern Chinese area of Nanking asked European nations to recognize them as an independent nation.
• The federal government had arrested dozens of pro-Union activists, including many from the International Association of Bridge and Iron Workers as part of a so-called "dynamite conspiracy" in which the property of companies which had employed non-Union labor had been destroyed over a period of several years (Violence is okay in the name of Labor)