1908

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

Events

January-February

* January 1 - British Harry Bensley leaves for his would-be trip around the world pushing a pram and wearing an iron mask, beginning from the Trafalgar Square
* 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 15 - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the first Greek-letter organization by and for Black college women is established.
* January 21 - New York City passes a law, the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for aliens 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 12 - Start of the first around-the-world car race, from New York to Paris.
* February 18 - Japanese immigration to USA forbidden
* February 25 - Los Angeles. The Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University) founded.

March

* March 25 - Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Clube Atlético Mineiro founded in Minas Gerais, today one of biggest clubs in Brazil

April-June

* April 19 - The Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, designed by Jens Jensen (landscape architect), opens to the public for the first time.
* April 21 - Friedrich A Cook's claimed date to have reached North Pole
* May 10 - Mother's Day is observed for the first time (Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia).
* 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, also known as the "Russian explosion" occurs in Siberia.

July-December

* 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 13 - Women compete in modern Olympic Games for the first time.
* July 19 - Feyenoord Rotterdam was founded.
* 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).
* August 15 - Winston Churchill is ordained as a Druid in England.
* August 24 - After an intense power struggle, Abd al-Aziz IV, sultan of Morocco is deposed and is succeeded by his brother Abd al-Hafiz. (Date of proclamation)
* September 8 - Danish minister of Justice, Alberti, is revealed to be an embezzler
* September 23 - The University of Alberta is founded in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
* September 27 - Henry Ford produces his first Model T automobile.
* October 5 - Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire - Ferdinand I of Bulgaria becomes Tsar
* October 14 - The Chicago Cubs win the World Series by defeating the Detroit Tigers 2-0 in the fifth game. They haven't won the World Series since.
* November 3 - William Howard Taft defeats William Jennings Bryan in the U.S. presidential election
* November 6 - Western bandits Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid are supposedly killed in Bolivia, after being surrounded by a large group of Mexican soldiers. There are many rumours to the contrary however, and the 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)
* December 5 - Sunderland F.C. set a record for an away victory when they humiliate local rivals Newcastle United 9-1 at St. James Park.
* December 28 - An 7 Richter scale earthquake destroys Messina, Sicily and rocks Calabria killing over 75,000.

Unknown dates

* First Zionist colony in Palestine
* 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 Congo, which is his personal colony
* The Children's Encyclopedia first published
* 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)
*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.
* Discovery of oil deposits near the Persian city of Abadan.
* The Young Turks rebel and force sultan Abd al-Hamid II to adhere to the constitution of 1876.
* The University of the Philippines is founded at Manila.
* First year of rugby league in Australia
* American Temperance University closes.
* Panathinaikos, the Athenian sports club, is founded.
* Club Union becomes Chivas Guadalajara

Births

January

* 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
* January 14 - Russ Columbo, 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

*February 1 - George Pál, Hungarian-born animator (d. 1980)
*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 - August Neo, Estonian wrestler, Olympic medalist (d. 1982)
*February 17 - Red Barber, American baseball announcer and sports journalist (d. 1992)
*February 22 - John Mills, English actor (d. 2005)
*February 23 - William McMahon, twentieth 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

*March 2 - Walter Bruch, German engineer (d. 1990)
*March 4 - T.R.M. Howard, 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 13 - Walter Annenberg, American publisher and philanthropist (d. 2002)
*March 17 - Brigitte Helm, German actress (d. 1996)
*March 20 - Sir Michael Redgrave, English actor (d. 1985)
*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 29 - Arthur O'Connell, American actor (d. 1981)

April

*April 1 - Abraham Maslow, American psychologist (d. 1970)
*April 2 - Buddy Ebsen, American actor and dancer (d. 2003)
*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 15 - Eden Ahbez, American musician (d. 1995)
*April 20 - Lionel Hampton, American musician and bandleader (d. 2002)
*April 25 - Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (d. 1965)
*April 25 - Jack Williamson, American science fiction author
*April 28 - Oskar Schindler, Austria-Hungary industrialist (d. 1974)
*April 30 - Bjarni Benediktsson, Icelandic foreign and later prime minister (d. 1970)

May

*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 - John Bardeen, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
*May 25 - Theodore Roethke, American poet (d. 1963)
*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-July

*June 12 - Marina Semenova, Russian ballerina
*June 18 - Bud Collyer, American voice actor and game show host (d. 1969)
*June 21 - Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against Japanese occupation of Korea (d. 1932)
*June 24 - Hugo Distler, German composer (d. 1942)
*June 29 - Leroy Anderson, American composer (d. 1975)
*June 30 - Winston Graham, English writer (d. 2003)
*July 12 - Milton Berle, American comedian (d. 2002)
*July 25 - Bill Bowes, English cricketer (d. 1987)
*July 27 - Joseph Mitchell, American writer (d. 1996)

August-September

*August 4 - Kurt Eichhorn, German conductor (d. 1994)
*August 5 - Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1967)
*August 20 - Al Lopez, 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 27 - Sir 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 30 - Leonor Fini, Argentine artist (d. 1996)
*September 3 - Lev Semenovich Pontryagin, Russian mathematician (d. 1988)
*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 physician
*September 13 - Mae Questel, American actress (d. 1998)
*September 15 - Penny Singleton, American actress (d. 2003)
*September 19 - Paul Bénichou, French intellectual (d. 2001)
*September 29 - Eddie Tolan, American athlete (d. 1967)
*September 30 - David Oistrakh, Ukrainian-born violinist (d. 1974)

October-December

*October 6 - Carole Lombard, American actress (d.1942)
*October 14 - Ruth Hale, American playwright and actress (d. 2003)
*October 14 - Allan Jones, American actor and singer (d. 1992)
*October 15 - John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian economist (d. 2006)
*October 16 - Enver Hoxha, dictator of Albania (d. 1985)
*October 19 - Sydney MacEwan, Scottish singer (d. 1990)
*October 19 - Geirr Tveitt, Norwegian composer (d. 1981)
*October 23 - Ilya Frank, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
*October 25 - Edmond Pidoux, Swiss writer (d. 2004)
*November 2 - Fred Bakewell, English cricketer (d. 1983)
*November 4 - Józef Rotblat, Polish physicist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 2005)
*November 12 - Harry Blackmun, American judge (d. 1999)
*November 18 - Imogene Coca, American actress (d. 2001)
*November 20 - Alistair Cooke, English-born journalist (d. 2004)
*November 28 - Claude Lévi-Strauss, Belgian-born anthropologist
*December 4 - Alfred Hershey, American bacteriologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (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 17 - Willard Libby, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1980)
*December 31 - Simon Wiesenthal, Austrian Nazi-hunter (d. 2005)

Unknown date

*Jorge Oteiza, Spanish painter(d. 2003)
*George Rodger, British photojournalist (d. 1995)
*Carl Stuart Hamblen, American musician and Presidential candidate
*Frances Ford Seymour, American socialite