1912 — Casimir Funk, a Polish biochemist, identifies the first vitamin. He names it vitamin for Latin vita “life” + amine, because he thought they were amines.

Elsewhere that year:

• The first patent is issued for the adjusting table now known as the Zenith Hylo.
• The Titanic collides with an iceberg and sinks in the Atlantic Ocean
• New Mexico becomes the 47th state and Arizona becomes the 48th state/
• Congress passes an eight-hour day labor law for federal employees, while New York passes a 54-hour work-week labor law.
• George Bernard Shaw writes Pygmalion, a popular play about a Cockney girl who is changed into a lady by Professor Henry Higgins.
• Alfred Wegener, a German geologist, proposes that the modern continents were once part of a huge land mass which eventually split up. This theory is called continental drift.
• A spreading fad for ragtime introduces a series of “animal dances.” Among them are the: fox trot, crab step, kangaroo dip, camel walk, fish walk, chicken scratch, lame duck, snake, grizzly bear, turkey trot and bunny hug.
• The first arrest for speeding in an automobile results in a jail sentence.