Milestones: Aug. 11, 1930

Born. To Herbert von Thaden, airplane manufacturer, and Mrs. Louise McPhetridge Thaden, noted aviatrix; a son. Last year Mrs. Thaden won the women’s air derby from Santa Monica, Calif, to Cleveland, Ohio in 21 hr. 29 min. flying time; once held a women’s endurance record of 22 hr. subsequently bettered by the late Marvel Crosson.

Engaged. Capt. John Henry Towers, pioneer aeronaut (commander of the Navy’s NC-4, first successful trans-Atlantic flight, 1919), assistant director of U. S. Naval aviation during the War; to Mile Anne Pierre de Grandmont, of Paris. Capt. Tower’s first wife (divorced 1923) was Miss Lily Carstairs of Philadelphia, now Mrs. Martin B. Saportas of Manhattan.

Engaged. Henry Louis Mencken of Baltimore, 50 come Sept. 12, editor of the American Mercury; and a Miss Sara Powell Haardt, thirtyish, of Montgomery, Ala. and Baltimore, one of his contributors. Bachelor Mencken in the past on marriage:

“No woman has ever pursued me with sufficient zeal.

“To be in love is to be in a state of perpetual anesthesia.”

Last month he said if ever he married he would draw up this contract: “I hereby promise to do my damndest. You are hereby notified that I expect you to be polite.”

Married. General Plutarco Elias Calles, 52, onetime President of Mexico; to a Senorita Lenora Llorente, 28: in a civil ceremony at General Calles’ ranch at Santa Barbara, 15 miles from Mexico City. His first wife, Natalia Chacon, died in Los Angeles in 1927.

Married. Vivian Duncan, dancer (punched in the eye two weeks ago, TIME, Aug. 4); to Nils Asther, Swedish film star; in Reno, Nev.

Absolved. Rudolph Spreckels, San Francisco financier: of charges of “rigging the market” in Kolster radio of which he was board chairman, and withholding information from stockholders. Said Special Master in Chancery John A. Bernhard: “The question is: were Mr. Spreckels and his associates under a moral or legal duty to disclose to stockholders the disposition of their shares? … I have concluded they were under no legal obligations.”

Birthday. Dictator Benito Mussolini; at Milan. Age: 47. Date: July 29.

Birthday. Stanley Baldwin, British politician, leader of the Conservative party; at London. Age: 63. Date: Aug. 3.

Killed. Harvey Powers, 47, “all around daredevil” (flagpole sitting, air clowning, skyscraper climbing); when, shot from a cannon on an airplane over the ocean at Atlantic City, his parachute failed to open. He had been doing the stunt daily for five weeks, waiting longer and longer before pulling the ripcord.

Died. Mrs. Swan Donoho Beaty of Manhattan, wife of Board Chairman Amos Leonidas Beaty of Transcontinental Oil Co.; at St. André-de-Cubzac, a village near Bordeaux on the Paris-Biarritz road, immediately after an auto accident in which her husband was also injured.

Died. Hazel Lee Roberts Johnson, 36, daughter of famed Mayor-Judge Edwin Ewing Roberts of Reno, Nev., wife of Walter Perry (“Big Train”) Johnson, famed oldtime baseball pitcher, now manager of the Washington “Senators”; of pleurisy after a short illness; in Washington.

Died. Meyer Lissner, 59, Los Angeles lawyer, founder of the Los Angeles City Club, famed oldtime Republican reformer, director of the campaigns for Theodore Roosevelt (1912) and Hiram Johnson (1919), member of the U. S. Shipping Board from 1921 to 1926; after a heart attack; in Los Angeles.

Died. Siegfried Wagner, 61, orchestra conductor, composer of unsuccessful operas, son of the late great Composer Richard Wagner, director of the memorial festivals at Bayreuth; of pneumonia; at Bayreuth.

Died. Alfred Thomson Martin, 65, oldtime Chicago grainbroker, vice president of Bartlett Frazier Co., after a year’s illness; in Wheaton, Ill.

Died. Richard Sutro, 66, Manhattan financier and railroad man, after a five month illness; in Port Chester, N. Y.

Died. William Mehard Davidson, 67, author, educator, Superintendent of Pittsburgh’s schools; of influenza, after the recurrence of an old infection; in Pittsburgh.

Died. Professor Allvar Gullstrand, 68, famed Swedish ophthalmologist, Nobel Prizeman for Medicine in 1911, holder of degrees from the Universities of Upsala, Jena, Dublin; in Stockholm.

Died. Charles C. Bolton, 75, Cleveland financier and philanthropist, business associate of the late great Marcus Alonzo Hanna, father of Congressman Chester Castle Bolton; after a long illness; in Cleveland.

Died. Joseph Gilpin Pyle, 77, of St. Paul, Minn., librarian of the James Jerome Hill Reference Library; onetime (1899-1903) editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and of the St. Paul Globe (1895-98, 1903-05); in St. Paul.

Died. Capt. Charles Russell Davis, 80, Minnesota lawyer, U. S. Representative (Republican) from the 3rd Minnesota District from 1903 to 1925; at Washington.

Died. James Morford Taylor, 86, professor emeritus and head of the mathematics department of Colgate University (Hamilton, N. Y.), teacher of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick; at a sanitarium in Greenwich, Conn.