Passenger pigeons once numbered in the billions, but the last one, Martha, died on 1 September 1914 — a month after World War I began.
The events
- Death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon1914 · Cincinnati Zoo. On 1 September 1914 Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. In the 19th century it was perhaps North America's most numerous bird, with flocks of billions darkening the sky. The world barely noticed: World War I had begun a month earlier.
- World War I1914–1918 · Sarajevo. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 drew the great powers into a war of the Entente against Germany and its allies. It killed millions and brought down the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires.
More amazing facts
- 1893 · 1918 Women in New Zealand have voted in parliamentary elections since 1893, a quarter of a century before those in Britain, Germany or Russia.
- 1895 In 1895 Popov demonstrated a radio receiver in St Petersburg, and the Lumière brothers held the first paid film screening in Paris.
- 1903 · 1961 · 1969 Just 58 years separate the Wright brothers' first flight from Gagarin's, and 66 from the Moon landing — some who saw the first airplanes lived to see the Moon.
- 1908 1908: the Tunguska blast flattened 2,000 km² of Siberian forest, and the Messina earthquake killed some 80,000 people.
- 1922 In November 1922 Howard Carter peered into Tutankhamun's tomb; just over a month later the USSR was founded.
- 1927 · 1952 The last wild European bison was killed in the Caucasus in 1927.