1908

1908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January 1 - A ball signifying New Year's Day drops in New York City's Times Square for the first time
January 8 - A train collision occurs in the Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City killing 17, injuring 38 and leading to increased demand for electric trains.
January 11 - Grand Canyon National Monument is created
January 12 - A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
January 21 - New York City passes a law, the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public only to be vetoed by the mayor.
January 24 - Robert Baden-Powell begins the Boy Scout movement
February 1 - King Carlos I of Portugal and Crown Prince Luis shot in Lisbon
February 11 - Australia regain The Ashes with a 308 run cricket victory over England.
February 18 - Japanese immigration to USA forbidden

April 7 - Herbert Henry Asquith takes office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
April 14 - In Denmark, suffrage of every tax-paying citizen
April 21 - Friedrich A Cook's claimed date to have reached North Pole
April 27 - The 1908 Summer Olympics open in London.
May 10 - Mother's Day is observed for the first time (Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virgina).
May 26 - At Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.
June 30 - The Tunguska impact event occurs in Siberia.

July 6 - Robert Peary sets sail for the Arctic North Pole.
July 11-12 night - Explosion of a ship Amalthea in the Malmö harbor in Sweden, housing 80 British strikebreakers. 1 dead, 20 injured.
July 22 - Albert Fisher establishes the Fisher Body Company to manufacture carriage and automobile bodies.
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).
October 5 - Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire - Ferdinand I of Bulgaria becomes Tsar
December 28 - An 7 Richter scale earthquake destroys Messina, Sicily and rocks Calabria killing over 75,000.
November - William Howard Taft defeats William Jennings Bryan in the U.S. presidential election

First Zionist colony in Palestine
British suffragettes begin a campaign for female suffrage
Due to the evidence collected by Roger Casement, Leopold II of Belgium is forced to make reforms in Congo, which is his personal colony
Danish minister of Justice, Alberti, is revealed to be an embezzler
The Children's Encyclopedia
Bureau of Investigation, forerunner of FBI, founded
Blackball coal miner strike in New Zealand lasts 11 weeks
Isak Saba, the first Sami in the Norwegian parliament
Henri Matisse open his own art academy
Serial killer Belle Guinness disappears in Laporte
Young Turks revolution in the Ottoman Empire
Change of Emperor of Qing Dynasty from Guangxu Emperor of China (1875-1908) to Henry Puyi (1909-1911)
Henry Ford produces its first Model T automobile.
A 40,000-year-old Neandertal 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 and creates the National University of Ireland at Dublin and the Queen's University of Belfast.
First Ideal Home Exhibition held.
De Meester's Dutch government resigns.