--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 20 number: 9 published: 1917-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Passing Events," *Improvement Era* 20, no. 9 (July 1917): 844.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2009unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2009unse start_page: 844 end_page: 844 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1917-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2009unse publication_year: 1917 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1917, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Passing Events 'iMMiimiiiiiminiiiiimiLW^ •fro.,. '; ' ' ' PASSING EVENTS The Y. M. M. I. A. have fourteen wards entered in the Church contest for the 5-acre spring wheat contest; and 28 wards in the one-acre potato con- test. The selective draft, by which an army of 500,000 people will be chosen from the registration of June 5, will begin on the first of July in Salt Lake City. It is expected that the draft then made will be called into active ser- vice about September 1. Lord Northcliffe, head of the British war mission, arrived in New York June 11. His work will be more commercial than diplomatic. He was aaccompanied by a staff of military men, and proceeded to Washington to begin his work at once. American aviators to the number of one hundred arrived in France on June 8. They were among the first of the American fighting forces to reach that country. They are from the American navy flying corps, and are ready for any duty that may present itself. The American steel ship "Mongolia" reported, through her captain, John Rice, says an Associated Press dispatch from London, that his ship sunk a German submarine April 26. The gunners made a clear hit at the range of a thousand yards. This is referred to as the first shot of the United States, in the Great War. The American Medical Unit's first contingent arrived in London June 4, comprising a number of doctors and nurses. The American Medical Unit has been leaving the United States in groups for several weeks past, and at the present writing many more units have arrived in Great Britain and France for service at the front. The American flying squadrons in France have painted on their aeros the head and feathers of the American Indian. On the wings is the circle and star, and on the tail are the red, white, and blue stripes. All these are the insignia adopted by the American Flying Squadrons in France to dis- tinguish them from the French aeroplanes. Recent aerial attacks, or raids, by the Germans on England, numbered four up to the 14th of June. Aeroplanes have been substituted for Zeppe- lins on account of the success of the British in bringing down dirigibles. Kent and other nearby districts were raided on June 5, and on June 13 one end of London was bombarded by fifteen hostile aeroplanes; 49 persons were killed and 200 injured in the city of London. Johns Hopkins Medical School, early in June, contributed more than one hundred Red Cross nurses, twenty-seven physicians and surgeons, and one hundred sixty other college men for service in France. The nurses are John Hopkins graduates, and the physicians members of the staff. The men who go with the detachment are medical students. This unit forms one of the first large hospital units to be put in the foreign field by this country. King Constantine and Crown Prince George of Greece abdicated on June 13, Prince Alexander. Constantine's second son, will take up