Roald Amundsen becomes first explorer to reach the South Pole | December 14, 1911 | HISTORY

On February 6, future president Ronald Reagan is born in Tampico, Illinois.

On March 18, 1911, composer Irving Berlin copyrights “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” the multimillion-selling smash hit that helped turn American popular music into a major international phenomenon, both culturally and economically.

In one of the darkest moments of America’s industrial history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burns, killing 146 workers, on March 25, 1911. The tragedy led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of factory workers.

Six years after the First Moroccan Crisis, during which Kaiser Wilhelm’s sensational appearance in Morocco provoked international outrage and led to a strengthening of the bonds between Britain and France against Germany, French troops occupy the Moroccan city of Fez on May 21, 1911, sparking German wrath and a second Moroccan Crisis.

In a ceremony presided over by President William Howard Taft, the New York Public Library, the largest marble structure ever constructed in the United States, is dedicated in New York City. Occupying a two-block section of Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, the monumental beaux-arts structure took 14 years to complete at a cost of $9 million. The day after its dedication, the library opened its doors to the public, and some 40,000 citizens passed through to make use of a collection that already consisted of more than a million books.

On May 30, 1911, Ray Harroun drives his single-seater Marmon Wasp to victory in the inaugural Indianapolis 500, now one of the world’s most famous motor racing competitions.

On July 5, 1911, the mercury in Nashua, New Hampshire peaks at 106 degrees Fahrenheit, one of many record temperatures that are set in the northeastern United States as a deadly, 11-day heat wave hits the area. It would go on to kill at least 380 people—and by some estimates, as many as 2,000.

On July 24, 1911, American history scholar Hiram Bingham gets his first look at the ruins of Machu Picchu, an ancient Inca settlement in Peru that is now one of the world’s top tourist destinations.

On August 6, 1911, Lucille Desiree Ball, one of America’s most famous redheads and beloved comic actresses, is born near Jamestown, New York.

On August 20, 1911, a dispatcher in the New York Times office sends a blazingly fast telegram around the world via commercial service. Exactly 66 years later, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sends a different kind of message—a phonograph record containing information about Earth for extraterrestrial beings—shooting into space aboard the unmanned spacecraft Voyager II.

An amateur painter sets up his easel near Leonardo da Vinci’s "Mona Lisa" at the Louvre in Paris, only to discover that the masterpiece is missing. Earlier in the day, in perhaps the most brazen art theft of all time, Vincenzo Peruggia had walked into the Louvre, removed the famed painting from the wall, hid it beneath his clothes, and escaped.

Early in the morning of August 29, 1911, two butchers hear dogs barking in the corral of their slaughterhouse outside Oroville, California. When they go out to check, they encounter Ishi, believed to be the last surviving member of the Native American Yahi tribe.

French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and jailed on suspicion of stealing Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum in Paris.

On November 1, 1911, Italian army lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, while flying over Libya, tosses three grenades out of his plane over a Turkish camp, effectively dropping the world’s first aerial bomb.

On November 27, 1911, Elizabeth Jaffray, a White House housekeeper, writes in her diary about a conversation she’d had with President William Howard Taft and his wife about the commander in chief’s ever-expanding waistline.

On December 14, 1911, Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott.