November 1, 1922: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire

Kemal Atatürk

November 1, 1922: The Grand National Assembly of Turkey votes to declare that the monarchy of the Ottoman Empire is abolished, and moves the national capital from Constantinople to Ankara.

The monarch, Sultan Mehmed VI, left the country on November 17, living in exile in Malta, and then in Sanremo on the Italian Riviera. He died in 1926, and was buried in Damascus, Syria.

The government changed the name of Constantinople -- which the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great had given to the city of Byzantium in AD 330 -- to Istanbul, meaning "to the city," in 1930.

The Empire had been founded in 1299, by Osman I, its name an anglicization of his. The term "Turk" was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, and was seen as disparaging when applied to urban, educated individuals. In Western Europe, the names Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and informal situations.

Mustafa Kemal, the Ottomans' hero of the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915, and leader of the Turkish National Movement, was elected President of Turkey in 1923. He initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a modern, progressive and secular nation-state.

He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He gave women the right to vote in 1934. That same year, the Parliament gave him the honorific name Atatürk, meaning "Father of the Turks." He died in office in 1938, having turned a nation that straddled the divide between Europe and Asia, but was so backward it was known as "the Sick Man of Europe," into a modern state that could stand on its own.

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November 1, 1922 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start until December 16.

But there was a notable sporting event that day: Edward "Mickey" Walker, a boxer from Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey, known as "the Toy Bulldog," defeated Jack Britton in a unanimous decision at the 2nd Madison Square Garden, to win the Welterweight Championship of the World.

July 18, 1873: The Execution of Vasil Levski

July 18, 1873: Vasil Levski is executed by the Ottoman Empire, which then controlled his homeland, Bulgaria. He was 35 years old.

He was born as Vasil Ivanov Kunchev on July 18, 1837 in Karlovo. He became an Orthodox monk before emigrating to join the two Bulgarian Legions in Serbia. While there, he acquired the nickname Levski, meaning "Lionlike." After working as a teacher in Bulgarian lands, he helped institute the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, composed of Bulgarian expatriates in Romania. During his tours of Bulgaria, Levski established a wide network of insurrectionary committees.

He said, "We will be free in complete liberty where the Bulgarian lives: In Bulgaria, Thrace, Macedonia; people of whatever ethnicity live in this heaven of ours, they will be equal in rights to the Bulgarian in everything." He held that all religious and ethnic groups live in a free Bulgaria enjoy equal rights.

Ottoman authorities, however, captured him at an inn near Lovech, and executed him by hanging in Sofia. It would take until 1908 for Bulgaria to gain its independence from the Ottoman Empire. During World War II, the country was allied with the Nazis; and until 1989, with the Soviet Union under a Communist government. In both cases, it flew in the face of Levski's ideals. Today, Bulgaria is a free country of about 6.5 million people.

In 2007, Vasil Levski topped a nationwide television poll as the all-time greatest Bulgarian. The country's most famous sports team, soccer club Levski Sofia, is named for him.

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July 18, 1873 was a Friday. The only professional team sport in America at this point was baseball, and the National Association had no games scheduled for this day.

April 25, 1915: The Battle of Gallipoli

April 25, 1915: At 4:00 AM local time, troops from the British Empire attempt an amphibious landing at Gallipoli (pronounced "Gah-LIH-poh-lee"), a peninsula that acts as a land guardian to the Sea of Marmara and the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the Germany Empire, Britain's main enemy in "The Great War," or World War I as it's now known.

Most of the troops come from the recently-independent (well, mostly independent) nations of Australia and New Zealand. They are known as ANZACs: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

The fighting is brutal. The Ottoman troops call out the Arabic/Turkish name for God: "Allah! Allah!" And the Aussies yell back, "Come on, you bastards! We'll give you Allah!" A story, which I hope is true, tells of a captured Ottoman prisoner, having heard the word "bastard" so many times, asked the ANZACs if "Bastard" was the English name for the Christian God.

The Gallipoli campaign had begun on February 17, 1915, and the amphibious landing was meant to end what had been a stalemate. It didn't. The fighting continued until January 9, 1916, when the British government admitted that no progress was being made, and withdrew the troops. The Ottomans lost 255,000 men, but because they had protected their capital, it was a victory for them.

The British Empire lost over 31,000 men. Of these, Australia lost 7,594, and New Zealand lost 3,431. And over half of the ANZAC losses came on that one day, April 25. In both countries, it is commemorated as ANZAC Day, and is viewed as the day each country came of age. (Australia became a Federation within the Empire in 1901, and New Zealand a Dominion within it in 1907.)

On November 11, 1918, after 4 years and 4 months of war, the addition of American troops to the British Empire and the French Third Republic won the war for the Allies. The German, Austrian and Ottoman Empires were dissolved, and replaced with republics.

The Ottoman Empire was replaced by the Republic of Turkey, which moved the capital from Constantinople to Ankara in 1923, and renamed Constantinople "Istanbul" in 1930.

Alec Campbell was the last Australian survivor of the Gallipoli campaign, living until 2002. The actress Ruby Rose is his great-granddaughter. Alfred Dibley was the last New Zealand ANZAC, living until 1997. And the last surviving Ottoman soldier from the campaign was Adil Şahin, living until 1998.

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April 25, 1915 was a Sunday. In some countries, sports were already canceled for the duration of the war. England's Football Association ran its Football League and its FA Cup for the 1914-15 season, then suspended both, resuming for the 1919-20 season. But America, which did not enter the war until April 6, 1917, played baseball throughout. These were the major league scores for the day. First, for the American League:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 9-5 at Fenway Park in Boston. The losing pitcher was Ray Caldwell. The winning pitcher for the Red Sox helped his cause with a home run. He was a 20-year-old lefthander from Baltimore named George Herman Ruth, already known as "Babe."

* The Washington Senators beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-1 at National Park in Washington. (It was renamed Griffith Stadium in 1922.)

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-1 at League Park in Cleveland. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson went 2-for-4 for Cleveland, and Ty Cobb went 1-for-3 and drove in Detroit's only run.

* And the Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 1-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ewell "Reb" Russell pitched a 4-hit shutout for the South Siders.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants beat the Boston Braves, 5-0 at the Polo Grounds. William "Pol" Perritt pitched a 4-hit shutout. Dave Robertson (no, not the Yankee reliever of a century later) hit a home run, and George Burns (no, not the comedian) went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Brooklyn Robins beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. From 1914 to 1931, the once-and-future Dodgers were named for their manager, Wilbert Robinson.

* The Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago Cubs were tied 4-4, after 15 innings at West Side Park in Chicago, when the game was called due to darkness.

* And the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals were tied, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, when the game was called due to darkness.

And in the Federal League:

* The Brooklyn Tip-Tops beat the Chicago Whales,, 12 -4 at Washington Park in Brooklyn.

* The Newark Peppers beat the Kansas City Packers, 6-1 at Harrison Park, outside Newark in Harrison, New Jersey.

* The St. Louis Terriers beat the Baltimore Terrapins, 11-2 at Terrapin Park in Baltimore.

* And the Pittsburgh Rebels beat the Buffalo Blues, 6-5 at Federal League Park in Buffalo. 

April 24, 1915: The Armenian Genocide Begins

April 24, 1915: This is the date usually given as the start of the Armenian genocide, carried out by the Ottoman Empire, in an effort to wipe out Armenian identity.

Before World War I, Armenians occupied a somewhat protected, but subordinate, place in Ottoman society. Large-scale massacres of Armenians had occurred in the 1890s and in 1909. The Empire suffered a series of military defeats and territorial losses, especially in the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, against Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro. This led to fear among the Empire's Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) that the Armenians would seek independence.

During their invasion of Russian and Persian territory in 1914, Ottoman paramilitaries massacred local Armenians. Ottoman leaders took isolated instances of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread rebellion, which did not actually exist. Mass deportation was intended to permanently forestall the possibility of Armenian autonomy or independence.

On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman authorities began the arrest and deportation of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and leaders from the national capital, Constantinople. At the orders of Mehmet Talaat, a.k.a. Talaat Pasha, Minister of Finance but essentially the man who ran the Ottoman government, an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians were sent on death marches to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916.

Driven forward by paramilitary escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to robbery, rape and massacres. In the Syrian Desert, the survivors were dispersed into concentration camps -- not an early use of such facilities, but one of the earliest uses of the term. In 1916, another wave of massacres was ordered, leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of the year.

In an additional method of wiping out Armenian identity, around 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children, previously Eastern Orthodox Catholics, were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. Massacres and ethnic cleansing of Armenian survivors continued through the Turkish War of Independence after World War I, carried out by Turkish nationalists.

Despite their victory at Gallipoli, the day after the genocide began, the Ottoman Empire was devastated by World War I. It was broken up, and Anatolia, its centerpiece, became the officially secular Republic of Turkey (in their language, "Türkiye") in 1922, and abolished the Ottoman Empire, its Sultanate, and its Caliphate.

The new nation in an old civilization -- one of many places in the world that can be described as such, including Israel, India, and the People's Republic of China -- moved the capital from Constantinople to Ankara, and changed the name of Constantinople to Istanbul in 1930.

The Turkish government maintains that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action that cannot be described as genocide. As of 2022, 34 countries have recognized it as such. One that has not is the United States of America, due to Turkey's strategic importance, first during the Cold War, and now in the War On Terror. Having the dictatorial Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a hyper-nationalist, as President of Turkey since 2014 doesn't help.

The Republic of Armenia separated from the Ottoman Empire, declaring its independence on May 28, 1918. The Soviet Union conquered it on November 29, 1920. As the Soviet Union collapsed, the Republic of Armenia declared independence again on September 23, 1991. Today, it is a free country of about 3 million people.

About half that many people, 1.5 million, are believed to be of Armenian descent and living in America, mostly in California and Nevada. Their numbers have included singer-actress Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian), novelist William Saroyan, songwriter David Seville (real name Ross Bagdasarian, the creator of cartoon characters The Chipmunks), music producer Michael Omartian, tennis star Andre Agassi, former Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian, former Nevada-Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, sportswriter Tim Kurkjian, the real estate-developing Hovnanian family, and the Kardashian family.

In a story that may be apocryphal, when told that history might condemn him for the Jewish Holocaust he was planning, Adolf Hitler said, "Nobody remembers what happened to the Armenians."

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April 24, 1915 was a Saturday. It was the 2nd and last season of baseball's Federal League, so there were 3 major leagues at the time. These games were played in the American League:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 4-0 at the Polo Grounds. Ray Caldwell pitched a 2-hit shutout, to beat Walter Johnson. Roy Hartzell went 3-for-4.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Nap Lajoie went 1-for-4 for the A's. Tris Speaker did the same for the Sox. Babe Ruth came in to pitch in relief of Dutch Leonard, going 3 1/3rd innings, allowing 1 run on a walk, but no hits.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-0 at League Park in Cleveland. Bernie Boland pitched a 5-hit shutout for the Tigers. Shoeless Joe Jackson had 2 of those hits. Bobby Veach went 4-for-4. Ty Cobb went 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

* And the Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Eddie Collins went 0-for-2 with a walk.

In the National League:

* The Brooklyn Robins -- as the Dodgers were known when Wilbert Robinson managed them from 1914 to 1931 -- beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 7-5 at Ebbets Field. George Cutshaw went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The Boston Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-2 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* The Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates were tied 1-1 after 8 innings at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, when the game was called due to rain. Honus Wagner went 1-for-2 with a walk and an RBI.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-0 at Robison Field in St. Louis. Slim Sallee pitched a 2-hit shutout.

And in the Federal League:

* The Newark Peppers beat, I suppose, their regional rivals, the Brooklyn Tip-Tops, 7-2 at Harrison Park in Harrison, Hudson County, New Jersey. It was across the Passaic River from Newark, Essex County; and on the opposite corner from where Red Bull Arena, home of Major League Soccer's New York Red Bulls, was built in 2010. After the Federal League folded, the 21,000-seat Harrison Park continued to host minor-league baseball, professional soccer, and prizefights until it burned down in 1923.

* The Baltimore Terrapins beat the Buffalo Blues, 10-4 at Federal League Park in Buffalo.

* The Pittsburgh Rebels beat the St. Louis Terriers, 2-0 at Handlan's Park in St. Louis. Frank Allen pitched a no-hitter for the Rebels. It was 1 of 5 no-hitters pitched in the FL. The others: Ed Lafitte of Brooklyn vs. Kansas City, September 19, 1914; Claude Hendrix of Chicago vs. Pittsburgh, May 15, 1915; Alex Main of Kansas City vs. Buffalo, August 16, 1915; and Dave Davenport of St. Louis vs. Chicago, September 7, 1915.

* And the Chicago Whales and the Kansas City Packers were rained out at Gordon and Koppel Field in Kansas City. It was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Whales won the opener, 10-3. The Packers won the nightcap, 4-2.

And at the Arsenal Stadium, later known as Highbury for its neighborhood in North London, Arsenal Football Club defeated Nottingham Forest Football Club, 7-0. It was the last game of the season.

England's Football Association then suspended Football League games for the duration of World War I. Since the Armistice happened on November 11, 1918, it was too late to organize and start the 1918-19 season. Therefore, Arsenal did not play another League game after this until August 30, 1919, a 1-0 home loss to Newcastle United.

And since Arsenal were promoted from the Football League's Division Two to its Division One for the 1919-20 season, and they have not been relegated since, this game, on April 24, 1915, remains the last League game they have played outside the top division, the longest such run in British soccer.

It is somewhat appropriate that it was against Forest, for it was a former Forest player, goalkeeper Peter Beardsley, who, as the club that would become Arsenal was founded in 1886, wrote to his former club and asked them to send any leftover uniforms they might have. And that's why Arsenal wear red to this day, because Forest also did (and still do).

February 14, 1896: Theodor Herzl Publishes "Der Judenstaat"

February 14, 1896: Theodor Herzl publishes his pamphlet Der Judenstaat, meaning The Jewish State, in Leipzig, Germany.

Born on May 2, 1860 in Pest, in the Austrian Empire -- now the east bank of the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary -- Herzl had a brief legal career in the Austrian capital of Vienna. He became the Paris correspondent for the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Press (The New Free Press). Confronted with anti-Semitic events in Vienna, he reached the conclusion that anti-Jewish sentiment would make Jewish assimilation impossible, and that the only solution for Jews was the establishment of a Jewish state.

The term "Zionism" had been coined by Austrian journalist Nathan Birnbaum in 1890, to mean the struggle for a secure homeland for the Jewish people. Ironically, later in life, Birnbaum became an Orthodox Jew, and a fervent anti-Zionist. It would be Herzl who popularized the term.

In Der Judenstaat, Herzl elaborated his visions of a Jewish homeland. He envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state at some point during the coming 20th Century, thinking it the best way to avoid anti-Semitism in Europe. He encouraged Jews to purchase land in the land then known as Palestine, the historic homeland of the Jews, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire. His ideas attracted international attention, and rapidly established him as a major figure in the Jewish world.

The book was published while the Dreyfus Affair was ongoing in France. So Herzl was being direct when he wrote:

The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. This is the case, and will inevitably be so, everywhere, even in highly civilised countries -- see, for instance, France -- so long as the Jewish question is not solved on the political level.

He concluded the book as follows:

Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again.

Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it.

We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes.

The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness.

And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.

Herzl planned to deliver his pamphlet as a speech to the Rothschild family, well-known throughout the world as bankers and among world's the best-known Jews, then based in Boulogne, France. But, though himself a Zionist, Baron Edmond de Rothschild rejected Herzl's plan, feeling that it threatened Jews in the Diaspora. He also thought it would put his own settlements in Palestine at risk.

In 1897, Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress at the Stadtcasino in Basel, Switzerland, and was elected president of the Zionist Organization. He began a series of diplomatic initiatives to build support for a Jewish state, appealing unsuccessfully to German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

He sought out seemingly friendly ears in the South American nation of Argentina and the African nation of Uganda -- which will sound ironic to people familiar with the former's welcome of Nazi war criminals after World War II and the latter's dictatorship of Idi Amin and his alliance with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Neither country was willing to listen.

On January 26, 1904, Herzl visited Rome, and met with Pope Pius X. The Pope received Herzl with respect, but declined to help. Herzl was soon diagnosed with a heart ailment, and died on July 3, only 44 years old. In Reichenau an der Rax, Austria. He was buried in Vienna.

Further Zionist attempts to negotiate with the Ottoman authorities failed, but with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, and the subsequent creation of Mandatory Palestine under the control of Britain, the Zionists gained success: Britain issued the Balfour Declaration that supported the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

In 1948, the British Mandate of Palestine ran out, and the State of Israel was declared. Ever since, "Zionism" has meant the protection of what that country already had, and the repatriation of formerly Jewish lands nearby, which was satisfied with the Six-Day War of 1967. In 1949, Herzl's remains were taken to Israel, and reinterred on a location renamed Mount Herzl.

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February 14, 1896 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season, and basketball barely existed. But there was 1 notable hockey game played: The Winnipeg Victorias beat the Montreal Victorias, 2-0 at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, and won the Stanley Cup.

January 8, 1918: Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points

January 8, 1918: President Woodrow Wilson delivers his State of the Union Address. Nine months earlier, he had asked Congress for a Declaration of War on Imperial Germany. Now, in another Joint Session of Congress, he offers a plan for peace after the war.

He declared fourteen points, which he regarded as the only possible basis of an enduring peace:

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. In other words, the nations of the world should not negotiate treaties in secret.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. This one was done in reaction to German attacks on Allied ships, including the 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance. This, sort-of, predicted the European Common Market, which led to the European Union.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

XI. Romania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Ottoman rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. This "access to the sea" became "The Polish Corridor," with the former German port city of Danzig, which became the Polish port city of Gdańsk, which eventually became the flashpoint of Poland's struggle to free itself from Soviet control.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. This became the League of Nations.

As a major public statement of war aims, it became the basis for the terms of the German surrender at the end of the war. After the speech, House worked to secure the acceptance of the Fourteen Points by Allied leaders. The report was made as negotiation points, and the Fourteen Points were later accepted by France and Italy on November 1, 1918.

But there were doubts about the Fourteen Points. Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France, who would lead France's part in the peace negotiations, said, "The good Lord had only ten!" meaning the Ten Commandments, and humanity had managed to make a mess of those.

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January 8, 1918 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. This was the 1st season of the NHL, but no games were scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

January 3, 1916: The Sykes-Picot Agreement

January 3, 1916: The Sykes-Picot Agreement is approved, essentially dividing control of the Ottoman Empire between Great Britain and France -- while World War I was ongoing, and both of them were fighting the Ottomans, who, at the time, showed no signs of accepting this "agreement." Italy and Russia, however, as allies to Britain and France, did accept it.

The British negotiator was Colonel Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes, a protégé of Lord Kitchener, and the 6th Baronet Sykes. Like Colonel T.E. Lawrence, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia, he believed in an "Arab Spirit" that resisted both Ottoman control from Turkey and Westernization, and so he wanted the region to be under a colonial system similar to India's: Princelings under the command of the British Empire.

The French negotiator was François Marie Denis Georges-Picot, the Consul-General of France in Beirut at the time. He supported a French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, desiring what he called an "integral Syria."

Once the war was over, and Britain and France were on the winning side, the Sykes-Picot Agreement led to English influence over the nations of Egypt, Transjordan (which became Jordan), Iraq; French influence over the nations of Lebanon (making Beirut "the Paris of the Middle East," including the region's fashion center) and Syria; and the influence of both over Iran. It also created the modern nations of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, with more British influence than French.

All of this would create more problems than it would solve, as none of these nations' peoples fully trusted either the British or the French. Indeed, the "secret agreement" was one of the reason that, once America entered the war, President Woodrow Wilson made one of his Fourteen Points for postwar peace, in his words, "Open covenants, openly arrived at."

In 1917, Mark Sykes was a part of the negotiations that led to the Balfour Declaration, which led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. On February 16, 1919, only 39 years old, he died as a result of the Spanish Flu Epidemic. He was hailed as a hero by the British, the Jews, and -- at the time -- the Arabs.

François Marie Denis Georges-Picot died in 1951. His grandnephew, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, served as President of France from 1974 to 1981. 

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL -- often incorrectly called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS) -- claimed that one of the goals of its insurgency was is to reverse the effects of the Sykes-Picot Agreement,  for the purpose of building a united Islamic state.

In 2014, in a speech at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, Iraq, ISIL's then-leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said, "This blessed advance will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of the Sykes-Picot conspiracy." In his case, it stopped in 2019, when, faced with an American attack, he chose not to be taken alive, and committed suicide.

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January 3, 1916 was a Sunday. Betty Furness, an actress in the 1930s and '40s, and a prominent consumer advocate thereafter, was born.

Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And while the National Hockey Association and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association seasons were in progress, neither league scheduled any games. So there were no scores on this historic day.