Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
As a member of the Republican Party, Roosevelt had served as President from 1901 to 1909, becoming increasingly progressive in the later years of his presidency. In the 1908 presidential election, Roosevelt helped ensure that he would be succeeded by Secretary of War Taft. After Taft took office, he hewed closer to the conservative wing of the party and this and other actions alienated Roosevelt from his former friend. Progressive Republican leader Robert La Follette had already announced a challenge to Taft for the 1912 Republican nomination, but many of his supporters shifted to Roosevelt after the former President decided to seek a third presidential term, which was permissible under the Constitution prior to the ratification of the Twenty-second Amendment. At the 1912 Republican National Convention, Taft narrowly defeated Roosevelt for the party's presidential nomination. After the convention, Roosevelt, Frank Munsey, George Walbridge Perkins and other progressive Republicans established the Progressive Party and nominated a ticket of Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson of California at the 1912 Progressive National Convention. The new party attracted several Republican officeholders, although nearly all of them remained loyal to the Republican Party—in California, Johnson and the Progressives took control of the Republican Party.
Bull running
The earliest documented instance of bull running appears in 1389, among medieval guild records collected by Joshua Toulmin Smith. The document—from Stamford's "Gild of St. Martin"—states that "on the feast of St. Martin, this gild, by custom beyond reach of memory, has a bull; which bull is hunted [not "baited"] by dogs, and then sold; whereupon the bretheren and sisteren sit down to feast." The phrase "custom beyond reach of memory" leaves uncertainty about whether the custom pre-dated the guild—which was established by 1329—or was instituted by the guild itself. Local folklore in Stamford maintained that the tradition was begun by William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey, during the reign of King John (1199—1216). The story, recorded by Richard Butcher in his "The Survey and Antiquitie of Stamford Towne" (1646), and described by Walsh as "patently fictional", relates how Warenne:
A similar origin-story involving a noble is found at Tutbury, Staffordshire, where the tradition was said to have been started by John of Gaunt shortly after he married his Spanish wife, Constance of Castile, in 1372, in an effort to remind her of her home. The story was first advanced—purely as speculation—by Robert Plot in his "The Natural History of Stafford-Shire" (1686), where he writes:
Samuel Pegge, addressing the Society of Antiquaries in 1765, dismissed Plot's conjecture as "entirely mistaken", while lamenting that it had become received wisdom in the interim. While John of Gaunt had established a Court of Minstrels at Tutbury in 1381, the bull running appears instead to have been instituted by the prior of Tutbury Priory (founded c.1080 as a dependency of the abbey at Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives) as part of the Feast of the Assumption celebrations which, as early as 1230, required the prior to provide "a great feast". Pegge also notes that the bull used for running was provided by the prior, and that the animal "was turned out antiently at the abbey-gate, and by the prior; John of Gaunt or his officers being no way employed in that service."