This year’s Grand Marshal, Sweet Potato Queen Aunt Faye of Texas, recently celebrated her 100th birthday. In her honor, the parade theme is “we’ve still got a lotta zip in our doo dah!” Aunt Faye has seen a lot in her century on earth. Here are a few events that took place 100 years ago, in 1913.
Jan. 1 – Post office begins parcel-post deliveries.
Jan. 2 – The National Woman’s Party forms.
Jan. 11 – The Bread & Roses Strike begins.
Jan. 16 – The British House of Commons accepts home rule for Ireland.
Jan. 29 – Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority incorporates at Howard University.
Feb. 2 – NYC’s Grand Central Terminal opens.
Feb. 17 – The first minimum-wage law in US takes effect (Oregon).
Feb. 19 – The first prize inserted into a Cracker Jack box.
March 3 – Ida B. Wells-Barnett demonstrates for female suffrage in Washington, D.C.
March 4 – Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as 28th president.
March 13 – Kansas Legislature approves censorship of motion pictures.
March 15 – Woodrow Wilson holds the first presidential press conference.
April 29 – Swedish engineer Gideon Sundback of Hoboken patents the all-purpose zipper.
May 7 – British House of Commons rejects women’s right to vote.
May 26 – Emily Duncan becomes Great Britain’s first woman magistrate.
May 29 – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score “The Rite of Spring” premieres in Paris, provoking a riot.
May 30 – The new country of Albania forms.
June 21 – Tiny Broadwick is first woman to parachute from an airplane.
July 10 – Death Valley, Calif., hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C), which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States.
Aug. 13 – Harry Brearley invents stainless steel.
Sept. 10 – The Lincoln Highway opens as the first paved coast-to-coast highway.
Oct. 3 – Federal Income Tax is signed into law (at 1 percent).
Oct. 27 – President Wilson says the U.S. will never attack another country.
Oct. 31 – The first U.S. paved coast-to-coast highway, the Lincoln Highway, is dedicated.
Nov. 6 – Mohandas K. Gandhi is arrested for leading an Indian miners march in South Africa.
Nov. 13 – Mary Phelps Jacob patents the first modern elastic brassiere.
Nov. 17 – The first U.S. dental hygienists course forms in Bridgeport, Conn.
Dec. 1 – The first drive-up gasoline station opens.
Dec. 1 – Ford introduces the continuous moving assembly line (producing a car every 2:38).
Dec. 11 – The “Mona Lisa,” stolen from the Louvre Museum in 1911, is recovered.
Dec. 16 – Charlie Chaplin begins his film career for $150 a week.
Dec. 21 – The first crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) is printed in the New York World paper.
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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.