1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) in the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Sunday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar.
Winsor McCay (September 26, 1869 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator.
A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades. His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which ran from 1905–1914 and 1924–1927, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, which he created in 1914.
His comic strip work has influenced generations of artists, including creators such as William Joyce, André LeBlanc, Moebius, Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware and Bill Watterson.
McCay was the son of Robert McKay (later changed to McCay) and Janet Murray McKay; Robert at various times worked as a teamster, a grocer, and a real estate agent. Winsor's exact place and year of birth are uncertain — he claimed to have been born in Spring Lake, Michigan in 1871, but his gravestone says 1869, and census reports state that he was born in Canada in 1867. He was originally named Zenas Winsor McKay, in honor of his father's employer, Zenas G. Winsor. He later dropped the name Zenas.
Dorothy Elizabeth Gish (March 11, 1898 – June 4, 1968) was an American actress, and the younger sister of actress Lillian Gish.
Gish was born in Dayton, Ohio. She had an older sister, Lillian. The Gish sisters' mother, Mary Robinson McConnell "Gish", supported the family after her husband, James Leigh Gish, abandoned the family. When they were old enough, Dorothy and Lillian were brought into their mother's act, and they also modeled. In 1912, their childhood friend, actress Mary Pickford, introduced them to director D.W. Griffith, and the sisters began acting at the Biograph Studios. Dorothy and Lillian Gish both debuted in Griffith's An Unseen Enemy. Dorothy would go on to star in over 100 short films and features, many of them with Lillian.
Linda Arvidson, Griffith's wife recalled in her autobiography, When The Movies Were Young:
Go faster they say
No time to turn from the ice
To turn is too late
The damage is done
There's no way
Hear the chimney cry
One last time
Before they'll die
In the Atlantic sea
All will go tonight
Away (into the night)
[Chorus:]
She was said to be unsinkable
But she's made of iron
Nothing else could take her down
Until that tragic night
Nineteen twelve
The number of lifeboats
Compared to the people on board
There's not enough room
For us all, half must die
Hear the children cry
One more time
Before they'll die
In the Atlantic sea
They will go tonight
Away (into the night)
[Chorus 2x]
[Solo]
Hear the children cry
One more time
Before they'll die
In the Atlantic sea
They will go tonight
Away!