1908.html



Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1908

January

January 11: Grand Canyon designated as a monument, and later, in 1919, becomes a National Park.

January 24: Boy Scout movement.

• January 1
  • British Harry Bensley leaves for his would-be trip around the world pushing a pram and wearing an iron mask, beginning from Trafalgar Square.
  • A ball signifying New Year's Day drops in New York City's Times Square for the first time.
• January 11 - Grand Canyon National Monument is designated (becomes a National Park in February 1919).
• January 12 - A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
• January 13 - A fire at the Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, kills 170 people. The tragedy is a catalyst for stricter fire safety laws nationwide.
• January 15 - The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (the first Greek-letter organization by and for black college women) is established.
• January 21 - New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only for it to be vetoed by the mayor.
• January 24 - Robert Baden-Powell begins the Boy Scout movement.

February

• February 1 - King Carlos I of Portugal and Infante Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon.
• February 3 - Greek multisport club Panathinaikos is founded.
• February 11 - Australia regains The Ashes with a 308 run cricket victory over England.
• February 12
  • The first around-the-world car race, the 1908 New York to Paris Race, begins.
  • De Meester's Dutch government leaves office.
• February 18 - Japanese immigration to the U.S.A. is forbidden.
• February 25 - The Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University) is founded.

March

• March 4 - The Collinwood School Fire, near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.
• March 7 - The University of British Columbia is established by the British Columbia University Act.
• March 9 - The Internazionale Football Club is founded in Milan, Italy.
• March 21 - Frenchman Henri Farman pilots the first passenger flight.
• March 25 - The Clube Atlético Mineiro is founded in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
• March 27 - The first overseas Scout Troop is formed in Gibraltar.

April

• April 8 - Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School.
• April 19 - The Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, designed by Jens Jensen, opens to the public for the first time.
• April 20 - Sunshine train disaster: Two trains collide in Melbourne,Australia, killing 44 people and injuring more than 400 (over 100 seriously).¹
• April 21 - Frederick Cook claims to have reached the North Pole on this date.
• April 24 - The seventh deadliest tornado in U.S. history strikes the towns of Amite, Louisiana, Pine, Louisiana and Purvis, Mississippi, killing 143 people and injuring 770.
• April 27 - The opening ceremony of the London Olympics is held.

May

• May 10 - Mother's Day is observed for the first time, at Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia.
• May 24 - Empire Day is accepted as the traditional formation date of the 1st Arundel (Earl of Arundel's) own Scout Group, although Scouting was probably active in Arundel prior to this date.
• May 26 - At Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil discovery in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.

June

Evidence of the Tunguska event (June 30). Photo taken 19 years later.

• June 18 - The University of the Philippines System is founded.
• June 20 - The Georgia Tech Alumni Association is chartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
• June 30 - The Tunguska event, also known as the Russian explosion, occurs near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, Russian Empire.

July

• July 3 - Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire: Major Ahmed Niyazi, with 200 followers (Ottoman troops and civilians), begins an open revolution by defecting from the 3rd Army Corps in Macedonia, decamping into the hill country.
• July 6 - Robert Peary sets sail for the North Pole.
• July 11-12 - The steamship Amalthea, housing 80 British strikebreakers while in Malmö harbour, Sweden, is bombed by Anton Nilson; 1 is killed, 20 injured.
• July 19 - The Feyenoord Rotterdam Football Club is founded.
• July 22 - The automobile manufacturing company Fisher Body is founded.
• July 23 - Young Turk Revolution: The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) issues a formal ultimatum to Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the constitution of 1876, within the Ottoman Empire.
• July 24 - Young Turk Revolution: Abdul Hamid II announces the restoration of the Ottoman Empire's constitution.
• July 24 - Dorando Pietri wins the Olympic marathon in London in one of the most dramatic arrivals of the Olympic history, only to be disqualified soon afterwards.
• July 26 - United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).

August

• August 24 - After an intense power struggle, Sultan Abd al-Aziz IV of Morocco is deposed, and is succeeded by his brother Abd al-Hafiz.
• August 31 - A charter is granted for Wayland Literary and Technical Institute in Plainview, Texas (now Wayland Baptist University).

September

• September 8 - The Danish minister of Justice, Peter Adler Alberti, is revealed to be an embezzler.
• September 16 - William C. Durant founds the company which eventually becomes General Motors.
• September 17 - At Ft. Myer, Virginia, Thomas Selfridge becomes the first person to die in an airplane crash. The pilot, Orville Wright, is severely injured in the crash but recovers.
• September 23 - The University of Alberta is founded in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
• September 27 - Henry Ford produces his first Model T automobile.

October

• October 5 - Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire; Ferdinand I of Bulgaria becomes Tsar.
• October 6 - The Bosnian Crisis begins after the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• October 13 - The Church of the Nazarene is organised officially at Pilot Point, Texas as the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. This is the official "birthday" of the denomination.
• October 14 - The Chicago Cubs win the World Series. They have failed to do so ever since.

November

• November 3 - U.S. presidential election, 1908: Republican William Howard Taft defeats Democrat William Jennings Bryan.
• November 6 - Western bandits Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid are supposedly killed in Bolivia, after being surrounded by a large group of soldiers. There are many rumors to the contrary however, and their grave sites are unmarked.
• November 13 - Andrew Fisher becomes the 5th Prime Minister of Australia.
• November 14 - Elizabeth Garrett Anderson is the first woman in England to be elected mayor (of Aldeburgh).
• November 24 - The first credit union in the United States begins operation in Manchester, New Hampshire.
• November 29 - Iraklis Thessaloniki (the historic Greek sports club) is founded, named after the mythical Greek hero Hercules.

December

• December 2 - Child Emperor Pu Yi ascends the Chinese throne at age 2.
• December 16 - Construction begins on the RMS Olympic at the Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast.
• December 28 - An earthquake and tsunami destroys Messina, Sicily and Calabria, killing over 70,000 people.

Undated

• British suffragettes begin a campaign for female suffrage.
• Due to the evidence collected by Roger Casement, Léopold II of Belgium is forced to make reforms in the Congo, which is his personal colony.
• The Children's Encyclopedia is first published.
• The Bureau of Investigation, forerunner of the FBI, is founded.
• Blackball, New Zealand coal miners strike for 11 weeks, an important step in the formation of the New Zealand Labour Party.
• Henri Matisse opens his own art academy in France.
• A 40,000-year-old Neanderthal boy skeleton is found at Le Moustier in southwest France.
• The Child Labour Act of Ontario is passed.
• The Irish Universities Act, 1908 is passed, creating the National University of Ireland at Dublin and the Queen's University of Belfast.
• The first Ideal Home Exhibition is held in London.
• The Manila Business School is renamed the Philippine School of Commerce (later the Polytechnic University of the Philippines).
• The University of the Philippines is founded at Manila.
• The first year of rugby league opens in Australia.
• The American Temperance University closes.
• Club Union becomes Club Deportivo Guadalajara of Mexico.
• Vimto is invented by John Noel Nichols. Originally sold under the name Vimtonic, Nichols shortens it to Vimto in 1912.
• The Converse Rubber Shoe Company (also known as the Boston Rubber Shoe Company) is formed in Malden, Massachusetts.

Ongoing

• Black Patch Tobacco Wars

Births

January-February

• January 8 - William Hartnell, British actor (d. 1975)
• January 9 - Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist writer (d. 1986)
• January 12 - Jean Delannoy, French film director (d. 2008)
• January 14 - Russ Columbo, Italian-American singer, bandleader, and composer (d. 1934)
• January 15 - Edward Teller, Hungarian-born physicist (d. 2003)
• January 22 - Lev Davidovich Landau, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
• January 26 - Stéphane Grappelli, French jazz violinist and composer (d. 1997)
• January 27 - Oran "Hot Lips" Page, American jazz musician (d. 1954)
• February 1 - George Pál, Hungarian-born animator (d. 1980)
• February 2 - Justice M. Chambers, American Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1982)
• February 5 - Daisy and Violet Hilton, English conjoined twin actresses (d. 1969)
• February 11 - Vivian Ernest Fuchs, English geologist and explorer (d. 1999)
• February 12 - Jean Effel, French painter and journalist (d. 1982)
• February 12 -August Neo, Estonian wrestler (d. 1982)
• February 17 - Red Barber, American baseball announcer and sports journalist (d. 1992)
• February 17 - Bo Yibo, Chinese politician (d. 2007)
• February 22 - John Mills, English actor (d. 2005)
• February 23 - William McMahon, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1988)
• February 26 - Tex Avery, American cartoonist (d. 1980)
• February 26 - Jean-Pierre Wimille, French race car driver (d. 1949)
• February 29 - Balthus, French painter (d. 2001)
• February 29 - Dee Brown, American writer and historian (d. 2002)

March-April

• March 2 - Walter Bruch, German engineer (d. 1990)
• March 4 - T.R.M. Howard, African-American civil rights leader & surgeon (d. 1976)
• March 5 - Rex Harrison, English actor (d. 1990)
• March 7 - Anna Magnani, Italian actress (d. 1973)
• March 12 - Rita Angus, New Zealand painter (d. 1970)
• March 12 - Ida Crowe Pollock, English writer.
• March 13 - Walter Annenberg, American publisher and philanthropist (d. 2002)
• March 17 - Brigitte Helm, German actress (d. 1996)
• March 19 - George Rodger, British photojournalist (d. 1995)
• March 20 - Michael Redgrave, English actor (d. 1985)
• March 20 - Frank Stanton, American businessman (d. 2006)
• March 22 - Louis L'Amour, American author (d. 1988)
• March 25 - Helmut Käutner, German actor and director (d. 1980)
• March 25 - David Lean, English film director (d. 1991)
• March 26 - Henry (Hank) Sylvern, U.S. radio personality (d. 1964)
• March 27 - Semprini, English musician (d. 1990)
• March 29 - Arthur O'Connell, American actor (d. 1981)
• April 1 - Abraham Maslow, American psychologist (d. 1970)
• April 2 - Buddy Ebsen, American actor and dancer (d. 2003)
• April 4 - Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, American author (d. 2006)
• April 4 - Frances Ford Seymour, American socialite (d. 1950)
• April 5 - Bette Davis, American actress (d. 1989)
• April 5 - Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor (d. 1989)
• April 5 - Jagjivan Ram, Indian politician (d. 1986)
• April 6 - John P. Davies, American diplomat (d. 1999)
• April 7 - Percy Faith, Canadian-born composer, musician (d. 1976)
• April 8 - Tito Guízar, Mexican singer and film actor (d. 1999)
• April 15 - eden ahbez, American musician (d. 1995)
• April 20 - Lionel Hampton, African-American musician and bandleader (d. 2002)
• April 24 - Józef Gosławski, Polish sculptor and medallic artist (d. 1963)
• April 25 - Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (d. 1965)
• April 28 - Oskar Schindler, Austro-Hungarian (Sudeten German) industrialist (d. 1974)
• April 29 - Jack Williamson, American science fiction author (d. 2006)
• April 30 - Bjarni Benediktsson, Icelandic prime minister (d. 1970)

May-June

• May 1 - Krystyna Skarbek, Polish-born heroine of World War II (d. 1952)
• May 5 - Kurt Böhme, German bass (d. 1989)
• May 7 - Max Grundig, German inventor and industrialist (d. 1989)
• May 8 - Cristian Vasile, Romanian singer (d. 1974)
• May 19 - Percy Williams, Canadian athlete (d. 1982)
• May 20 - James Stewart, American actor (d. 1997)
• May 23 - Max Abramovitz, American architect (d. 2004)
• May 23 - John Bardeen, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
• May 23 - Hélène Boucher, French aviatrix (d. 1934)
• May 25 - Theodore Roethke, American poet (d. 1963)
• May 26 - Nguyen Ngoc Tho, First prime minister of South Vietnam
• May 28 - Ian Fleming, English writer (d. 1964)
• May 30 - Hannes Alfvén, Swedish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
• May 30 - Mel Blanc, American voice actor (d. 1989)
• May 31 - Don Ameche, American actor (d. 1993)
• June 12 - Marina Semenova, Russian ballerina
• June 18 - Bud Collyer, American voice actor and game show host (d. 1969)
• June 20 - Billy Werber, American baseball player
• June 21 - Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against the Japanese occupation of Korea (d. 1932)
• June 24 - Alfons Rebane, Estonian military commander (d. 1976)
• June 24 - Hugo Distler, German composer (d. 1942)
• June 26 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile (d. 1973)
• June 26 - William F. Knowland, Americian politician and newspaperman (d. 1974)
• June 27 - Bill Kennedy, American actor (d. 1997)
• June 29 - Leroy Anderson, American composer (d. 1975)
• June 30 - Winston Graham, English writer (d. 2003)

July-August

• July 12 - Milton Berle, American comedian (d. 2002)
• July 25 - Bill Bowes, English cricketer (d. 1987)
• July 25 - Kathryn Eames, American actress (d. 2004)
• July 27 - Joseph Mitchell, American writer (d. 1996)
• August 2 - Al Alquist, California politician (d. 2006)
• August 4 - Kurt Eichhorn, German conductor (d. 1994)
• August 5 - Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1967)
• August 9 - A. I. Bezzerides, American screenwriter (d. 2007)
• August 10 - Rica Erickson, Australian botanist
• August 16 - William Maxwell, American novelist and editor (d. 2000)
• August 20 - Al Lopez, American baseball player and manager (d. 2005)
• August 21 - M. M. Kaye, British writer (d. 2004)
• August 22 - Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer (d. 2004)
• August 23 - Hannah Frank, Scottish artist and sculptor (d.2008)
• August 27 - Donald Bradman, Australian cricketer (d. 2001)
• August 27 - Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States (d. 1973)
• August 28 - Roger Tory Peterson, American naturalist, artist and educator (d. 1996)
• August 28 - Robert Merle, French writer (d. 2004)
• August 30 - Leonor Fini, Argentine artist (d. 1996)
• August 31 - William Saroyan, American writer (d. 1981)

September-October

• September 2 - Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev, Russian astronomer/astrophysicist (d.1983)
• September 3 - Lev Semenovich Pontryagin, Russian mathematician (d. 1988)
• September 4 - Richard Wright, African-American author (d. 1960)
• September 6 - Louis Essen, English physicist (d. 1997)
• September 6 - Korczak Ziolkowski, American sculptor (d. 1982)
• September 7 - Paul Brown, American football coach (d. 1991)
• September 7 - Michael E. DeBakey, American surgeon and medical researcher (d. 2008)
• September 10 - Raymond Scott, American composer, bandleader, electronic music pioneer (d. 1994)
• September 12 - Reginald C. Fuller, English Roman Catholic priest and writer
• September 13 - Mae Questel, American actress (d. 1998)
• September 15 - Penny Singleton, American actress (d. 2003)
• September 15 - Miško Kranjec, Slovenian writer (d. 1983)
• September 19 - Paul Bénichou, French intellectual (d. 2001)
• September 21 - Charles Upham, New Zealand soldier (d. 1994)
• September 29 - Eddie Tolan, American athlete (d. 1967)
• September 30 - David Oistrakh, Ukrainian-born violinist (d. 1974)
• October 1 - Umar Dimayev, Chechen folk singer (d. 1972)
• October 6 - Carole Lombard, American actress (d.1942)
• October 9 - Lee Wiley, American jazz singer (d. 1975)
• October 14 - Ruth Hale, American playwright and actress (d. 2003)
• October 15 - John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian economist (d. 2006)
• October 16 - Enver Hoxha, Albanian dictator (d. 1985)
• October 17 - Kenji Miyamoto, Japanese politician (d. 2007)
• October 19 - Sydney MacEwan, Scottish singer (d. 1990)
• October 19 - Geirr Tveitt, Norwegian composer (d. 1981)
• October 20 - Carl Stuart Hamblen, American musician and presidential candidate (d. 1989)
• October 21 - Jorge Oteiza, Spanish painter (d. 2003)
• October 22 - John Gould, American humorist, essayist, and columnist (d. 2003)
• October 23 - Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, Chechen historian (d. 1997)
• October 23 - Ilya Frank, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
• October 25 - Tauno Palo, Finnish actor (d. 1982)
• October 25 - Edmond Pidoux, Swiss writer (d. 2004)
• October 28 - Arturo Frondizi, President of Argentina (d. 1995)

November-December

• November 2 - Fred Bakewell, English cricketer (d. 1983)
• November 4 - Józef Rotblat, Polish physicist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (d. 2005)
• November 10 - Charles Merritt, Canadian Army officer (d. 2000)
• November 12 - Harry Blackmun, American judge (d. 1999)
• November 16 - Sœur Emmanuelle, French nun (d. 2008)
• November 18 - Imogene Coca, American actress (d. 2001)
• November 20 - Alistair Cooke, English-born American journalist (d. 2004)
• November 23 - Nelson S. Bond, American science fiction writer (d. 2006)
• November 26 - Charles Forte, Scottish businessman (d. 2007)
• November 28 - Claude Lévi-Strauss, Belgian-born anthropologist
• November 29 - Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., American politician (d. 1972)
• December 3 - Edward Underdown, American film and stage actor (d. 1989)
• December 4 - Alfred Hershey, American bacteriologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1997)
• December 6 - Pierre Graber, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 2003)
• December 10 - Olivier Messiaen, French composer (d. 1992)
• December 11 - Elliott Carter, American composer
• December 11 - Manoel de Oliveira, Portuguese film director
• December 17 - Willard Libby, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1980)
• December 22 - Kočo Racin, Macedonian poet and revolutionary (d. 1943)
• December 22 - Giovanni Luigi Bonelli, Italian comic book author and writer (d. 2001)
• December 23 - Sol Carter, American baseball player (d. 2006)
• December 31 - Simon Wiesenthal, Austrian Nazi-hunter (d. 2005)

Date unknown

• Howard Cary, American engineer (d. 1991)
• Aden Abdullah Osman Daar, Somali politician (d. 2007)

Deaths

January - June

• January 9 - Wilhelm Busch, German painter and poet (b. 1832)
• January 17 - Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1835)
• January 25 - Ouida, English writer (b. 1839)
• February 1 - King Carlos I of Portugal (b. 1863)
• April 20 - Henry Chadwick, English-born baseball writer and historian (b. 1824)
• April 22 - Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1836)
• April 26 - Karl Möbius, German ecologist (b. 1825)
• May 24 - Old Tom Morris, Scottish golfer (b. 1821)
• May 26 - Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam (b. 1835)
• June 13 - Henry Lomb, German-American optician who co-founded Bausch & Lomb (b. 1848)
• June 14 - Frederick Stanley, founder of the Stanley Cup, the NHL Championship Trophy (b. 1841)
• June 21 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (b. 1844)
• June 24 - Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (b. 1837)

July - December

• July 3 - Joel Chandler Harris, author (Br'er Rabbit) (b. 1848)
• July 5 - Jonas Lie, Norwegian author (b. 1833)
• July 6 - Felipe Calderón y Roca, Filipino politician (b. 1868)
• July 10 - Phoebe Knapp, American hymn composer (b. 1839)
• July 20 - Demetrius Vikelas, Greek International Olympic Committee president (b. 1835)
• July 22 - William Randal Cremer, English politician and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1828)
• August 4 - Radoje Domanović, controversial Serbian writer (b. 1873)
• August 25 - Henri Becquerel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
• August 26 - Tony Pastor, American vaudeville and theater impresario (b. 1837)
• September 20 - Pablo de Sarasate, Spanish violinist and composer (b. 1844)
• September 29 - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazilian author (b. 1839)
• October 30 - Caroline Astor, American socialite (b. 1830)
• November 3 - Harro Magnussen, German sculptor (b. 1861)
• November 4
  • Richard Gerstl, Austrian artist (b. 1883)
  • Tomás Estrada Palma, first President of Cuba (b. 1832)
• November 14 - The Guangxu Emperor of China (b. 1871)
• November 15 - Empress Dowager Cixi, ruler of China (b. 1835)

Unknown date

• Qasim Amin, Egyptian writer (b. 1863)

Nobel prizes

• Physics - Gabriel Lippmann
• Chemistry - Ernest Rutherford
• Medicine - Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, Paul Ehrlich
• Literature - Rudolf Christoph Eucken
• Peace - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Fredrik Bajer

See also

• Boy Scouts of America - founded circa this time period.

Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1908

1. ^ Ballarat Genealogy: Newspaper Report of the accident

External links