1906
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s - 1900s - 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s
Years: 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 - 1906 - 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911
Events
- February 15 - The British Labour Party is organized
- March 15 - Rolls-Royce Ltd. is registered
- March 18 - Traian Vuia flies first self-propelled heavier than air aircraft
- April 7 - Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.
- April 18 - 1906 San Francisco earthquake on the San Andreas Fault destroys much of San Francisco, California. The estimated magnitude of the earthquake is 7.8.
- September 18 - Typhoon with tsunami killed an estimated 10.000 persons in Hong Kong
- October 11 - San Francisco public school board sparks United States diplomatic crisis with Japan by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.
- November 9 - US President Theodore Roosevelt leaves for a trip to Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal (this was the first time a sitting President of the United States made an official trip outside of the United States).
- December 24 - Reginald Fessenden makes the first radio broadcast: a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech.
- BCG (Bacilli-Calmette-Guerin) immunization for Tuberculosis first developed
- Richard Oldham argues that the Earth has a molten interior
- Second Geneva Convention
Year in topic
Births
- January 11 - Albert Hofmann, chemist, discoverer of LSD
- January 14 - William Bendix, actor (d. 1964)
- January 15 - Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipowner (d. 1975)
- January 22 - Robert E. Howard, American fantasy author (d. 1936)
- January 23- Her Serene Highness Princess May of Teck (later styled Lady May Cambridge
- February 1 - Hildegarde, actress, singer
- February 2 - Gale Gordon, actor (d. 1995)
- February 4 - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian (d. 1945)
- February 4 - Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer (d. 1997)
- February 5 - John Carradine, actor (d. 1988)
- February 10 - Lon Chaney Jr., actor (d. 1973)
- February 11 - Denis Barnett, British air chief marshal.
- February 28 - Bugsy Siegel, gangster (d. 1947)
- March 6 - Lou Costello, actor, comedian (d. 1959)
- March 16 - Henny Youngman, comedian (d. 1998)
- March 19 - Adolf Eichmann, Nazi official responsible for the execution of the holocaust
- March 20 - Ozzie Nelson, actor, band leader (d. 1975)
- March 25 - Jean Sablon, French singer (d. 1994)
- April 4 - John Cameron Swayze, journalist, television host (d. 1995)
- April 4 - Bea Benaderet, actress (d. 1968)
- April 6 - Virginia Hall, American SOE agent, WW II heroine (d. 1982)
- April 13 - Samuel Beckett, writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1969
- April 28 - Gödel, Austrian/US mathematician
- May 3 - Anna E. Roosevelt, radio personality (d. 1975)
- May 8 - Roberto Rossellini, director (d. 1977)
- May 11 - Jacqueline Cochran, American aviatrix (d. 1980)
- May 19 - Gerd Bucerius, publisher and publicist (d. 1995)
- May 20 - Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, senior cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (d. 1989)
- June 27 - Catherine Cookson, author (d. 1998)
- July 29 - Diana Vreeland, fashion editor (d. 1989)
- August 5 - Wassily Leontief, economist (d. 1999)
- August 7 - Nelson Goodman, philosopher and coiner of the term "irrealism"
- August 27 - Ed Gein, serial killer
- August 31 - Raymond Sommer, Grand Prix motor racing driver
- September 4 - Max Delbrück, German biologist
- September 22 - Ilse Koch, wife of Karl Koch, commandant of the concentration camp Buchenwald (d. 1967)
- September 25 - Dmitri Shostakovich, Russian composer
- September 30 - Mireille, French singer (d. 1996)
- October 14 - Hannah Arendt, German/US intellectual
- October 23 - Gertrude Ederle, American swimmer
- October 30 - Giuseppe Farina, Italian F1 driver
- November 3 - Carl Benjamin Boyer, US historian of mathematics
- November 14 - Louise Brooks, American dancer, actor and writer. (d. 1985)
- December 17 - Simo Häyhä, most successful sniper in history
- December 27 - Oscar Levant, pianist and actor (d. 1972)
Deaths
- January 29 - King Christian IX of Denmark
- February 9 - Paul Laurence Dunbar, poet.
- February 27 - Samuel Pierpont Langley, American astronomer, physicist and aeronautics pioneer.
- March 13 - Susan Brownell Anthony , civil rights and women's suffrage activist
- April 11 - Francis Pharcellus Church, American editor and publisher
- May 14 - Carl Schurz, German revolutionist and American statesman, (* 1929)
- May 23 - Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright
- September 5 - Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist