1908
2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Years
Centuries: | 19th century - 20th century - 21st century |
Decades: | 1870s 1880s 1890s - 1900s - 1910s 1920s 1930s |
Years: | 1905 1906 1907 - 1908 - 1909 1910 1911 |
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
- 1 January
- 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
- A ball signifying New Year's Day drops in New York City's Times Square for the first time.
- 11 January - Grand Canyon National Monument is designated (becomes a National Park in February 1919).
- 12 January - A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
- 13 January - 170 people were trapped in the Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, and burned to death. The tragedy would be a catalyst for stricter fire safety laws nationwide.
- 15 January - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the first Greek-letter organization by and for black college women is established.
- 21 January - 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.
- 24 January - Robert Baden-Powell begins the Boy Scout movement.
February
- 1 February - King Carlos I of Portugal and Infante Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon.
- 3 February - Greek multisport club Panathinaikos is founded.
- 11 February - Australia regains The Ashes with a 308 run cricket victory over England.
- 12 February
- Start of the first around-the-world car race, the 1908 New York to Paris Race.
- De Meester's Dutch government leaves office.
- 18 February - Japanese immigration to the USA is forbidden.
- 25 February - Los Angeles. The Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University) founded.
March
- 4 March - The Collinwood School Fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.
- 7 March - The University of British Columbia is established by the British Columbia University Act.
- 9 March - Internazionale Football Club founded in Milan, Italy.
- 21 March - Frenchman Henri Farman pilots the first passenger flight.
- 25 March - Clube Atlético Mineiro founded in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
- 27 March - First overseas Scout Troop formed in Gibraltar.
April
- 8 April - Harvard University votes to establish Harvard Business School.
- 19 April - The Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, designed by Jens Jensen, opens to the public for the first time.
- 20 April - Sunshine train disaster in Melbourne,Australia. Two trains collide killing 44 people and injuring more than 400 (over 100 seriously).
- 21 April - Frederick Cook's claimed date to have reached North Pole
- 24 April - 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.
- 27 April - The opening ceremony of the London Olympics is held.
May
- 10 May - Mother's Day is observed for the first time (Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia).
- 24 May - 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.
- 26 May - 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
- 18 June - The University of the Philippines System is founded.
- 20 June - The Georgia Tech Alumni Association is chartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
- 30 June - The Tunguska event, also known as the "Russian explosion" occurs near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, Russian Empire.
July
- 3 July - Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire: Major Ahmed Niyazi, with 200 followers (Ottoman troops and civilians), begins open revolution by defecting from the 3rd Army Corps in Macedonia, decamping into the hill country.
- 6 July - Robert Peary sets sail for the North Pole.
- 11 July- 12 night - Steamship Amalthea, housing 80 British strikebreakers while in Malmö harbour, Sweden, bombed by Anton Nilson. 1 dead, 20 injured.
- 19 July - Feyenoord Rotterdam football club founded.
- 22 July - Automobile manufacturing company Fisher Body founded.
- 23 July - 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.
- 24 July - Young Turk Revolution: Abdul Hamid II announces the restoration of the Ottoman Empire's constitution.
- 24 July - 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.
- 26 July - 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
- 24 August - 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)
- 31 August - Charter granted for Wayland Literary and Technical Institute in Plainview, Texas, now Wayland Baptist University.
September
- 8 September - Danish minister of Justice, Peter Adler Alberti, is revealed to be an embezzler.
- 16 September - William C. Durant founds the company which will eventually become General Motors.
- 17 September - 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.
- 23 September - The University of Alberta is founded in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
- 27 September - Henry Ford produces his first Model T automobile.
October
- 5 October - Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire - Ferdinand I of Bulgaria becomes Tsar
- 6 October - The Bosnian Crisis begins after the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- 13 October - 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.
November
- 3 November - William Howard Taft defeats William Jennings Bryan in the U.S. presidential election
- 6 November - 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.
- 13 November - Andrew Fisher becomes the 5th Prime Minister of Australia.
- 14 November - Elizabeth Garrett Anderson is the first woman in England to be elected mayor (of Aldeburgh)
- 24 November - The first credit union in the United States begins operation in Manchester, New Hampshire.
- 29 November - Iraklis Thessaloniki, the historic Greek sports club is founded, named after the mythical Greek hero Hercules.
December
- 2 December - Child Emperor Pu Yi ascends the Chinese throne at the age of two.
- 28 December - A 7 Richter scale earthquake destroys Messina, Sicily and rocks Calabria killing over 75,000 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 Congo, which is his personal colony.
- The Children's Encyclopedia is first published.
- 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.
- 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 and creates the National University of Ireland at Dublin and the Queen's University of Belfast.
- First Ideal Home Exhibition held.
- The Manila Business School was made into national school since the majority of its student came from different parts of the Philippines; renaming as the Philippine School of Commerce; which later to be the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
- The University of the Philippines is founded at Manila.
- First year of rugby league in Australia.
- American Temperance University closes.
- Club Union becomes Chivas de Guadalajara.
- Vimto is invented by John Noel Nichols. Originally sold under the name Vimtonic, Nichols shortened it to Vimto in 1912.
Ongoing
- Black Patch Tobacco Wars
Births
Gregorian calendar | 1908 MCMVIII |
Ab urbe condita | 2661 |
Armenian calendar | 1357 ԹՎ ՌՅԾԷ |
Bahá'í calendar | 64 – 65 |
Berber calendar | 2858 |
Buddhist calendar | 2452 |
Burmese calendar | 1270 |
Byzantine calendar | 7416 – 7417 |
Chinese calendar | 丁未年十一月廿八日 (4544/4604-11-28) — to — 戊申年十二月初九日(4545/4605-12-9) |
Coptic calendar | 1624 – 1625 |
Ethiopian calendar | 1900 – 1901 |
Hebrew calendar | 5668 – 5669 |
Hindu calendars | |
- Vikram Samvat | 1963 – 1964 |
- Shaka Samvat | 1830 – 1831 |
- Kali Yuga | 5009 – 5010 |
Holocene calendar | 11908 |
Iranian calendar | 1286 – 1287 |
Islamic calendar | 1325 – 1326 |
Japanese calendar | Meiji 41 (明治41年) |
Korean calendar | 4241 |
Thai solar calendar | 2451 |
January-February
- 8 January - William Hartnell, British actor (d. 1975)
- 9 January - Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist writer (d. 1986)
- 12 January - Jean Delannoy, French film director (d. 2008)
- 14 January - Russ Columbo, singer, bandleader, and composer (d. 1934)
- 15 January - Edward Teller, Hungarian-born physicist (d. 2003)
- 22 January - Lev Davidovich Landau, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
- 26 January - Stéphane Grappelli, French jazz violinist and composer (d. 1997)
- 27 January - Oran "Hot Lips" Page, American jazz musician (d. 1954)
- 1 February - George Pál, Hungarian-born animator (d. 1980)
- 2 February - Justice M. Chambers, Medal of Honour recipient (d. 1982)
- 5 February - Daisy and Violet Hilton, English conjoined twin actresses (d. 1969)
- 11 February - Vivian Ernest Fuchs, English geologist and explorer (d. 1999)
- 12 February - Jean Effel, French painter and journalist (d. 1982)
- 12 February - August Neo, Estonian wrestler, Olympic medalist (d. 1982)
- 17 February - Red Barber, American baseball announcer and sports journalist (d. 1992)
- 17 February - Bo Yibo, Chinese politician and one of the Eight Immortals of the Communist Party of China (d. 2007)
- 22 February - John Mills, English actor (d. 2005)
- 23 February - William McMahon, twentieth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1988)
- 26 February - Tex Avery, American cartoonist (d. 1980)
- 26 February - Jean-Pierre Wimille, French race car driver (d. 1949)
- 29 February - Balthus, French painter (d. 2001)
- 29 February - Dee Brown, American writer and historian (d. 2002)
March-April
- 2 March - Walter Bruch, German engineer (d. 1990)
- 4 March - T.R.M. Howard, civil rights leader & surgeon (d. 1976)
- 5 March - Rex Harrison, English actor (d. 1990)
- 7 March - Anna Magnani, Italian actress (d. 1973)
- 12 March - Rita Angus, New Zealand painter (d. 1970)
- 13 March - Walter Annenberg, American publisher and philanthropist (d. 2002)
- 17 March - Brigitte Helm, German actress (d. 1996)
- 19 March - George Rodger, British photojournalist (d. 1995)
- 20 March - Michael Redgrave, English actor (d. 1985)
- 20 March - Frank Stanton, American businessman (d. 2006)
- 22 March - Louis L'Amour, American author (d. 1988)
- 25 March - Helmut Käutner, German actor and director (d. 1980)
- 25 March - David Lean, English film director (d. 1991)
- 27 March - Semprini, English musician (d. 1990)
- 29 March - Arthur O'Connell, American actor (d. 1981)
- 1 April - Abraham Maslow, American psychologist (d. 1970)
- 2 April - Buddy Ebsen, American actor and dancer (d. 2003)
- 4 April - Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, American author (d. 2006)
- 4 April - Frances Ford Seymour, American socialite (d. 1950)
- 5 April - Bette Davis, American actress (d. 1989)
- 5 April - Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor (d. 1989)
- 5 April - Jagjivan Ram, Indian politician (d. 1986)
- 6 April - John P. Davies, American diplomat (d. 1999)
- 7 April - Percy Faith, Canadian-born composer, musician (d. 1976)
- 8 April - Tito Guízar, Mexican singer and film actor (d. 1999)
- 15 April - Eden Ahbez, American musician (d. 1995)
- 20 April - Lionel Hampton, American musician and bandleader (d. 2002)
- 24 April - Józef Gosławski, Polish sculptor and medallic artist (d. 1963)
- 25 April - Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (d. 1965)
- 28 April - Oskar Schindler, Austria-Hungary industrialist (d. 1974)
- 29 April - Jack Williamson, American science fiction author (d. 2006)
- 30 April - Bjarni Benediktsson, Icelandic prime minister (d. 1970)
May-June
- 1 May - Krystyna Skarbek, Polish-born heroine of World War II (d. 1952)
- 5 May - Kurt Böhme, German bass (d. 1989)
- 7 May - Max Grundig, German inventor and industrialist (d. 1989)
- 8 May - Cristian Vasile, Romanian singer (d. 1974)
- 19 May - Percy Williams, Canadian athlete (d. 1982)
- 20 May - James Stewart, American actor (d. 1997)
- 23 May - Max Abramovitz, American architect (d. 2004)
- 23 May - John Bardeen, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
- 23 May - Hélène Boucher, French aviatrix (d. 1934)
- 25 May - Theodore Roethke, American poet (d. 1963)
- 26 May - Nguyen Ngoc Tho, first prime minister of South Vietnam.
- 28 May - Ian Fleming, English writer (d. 1964)
- 30 May - Hannes Alfvén, Swedish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
- 30 May - Mel Blanc, American voice actor (d. 1989)
- 31 May - Don Ameche, American actor (d. 1993)
- 12 June - Marina Semenova, Russian ballerina
- 18 June - Bud Collyer, American voice actor and game show host (d. 1969)
- 20 June - Billy Werber, American baseball player
- 21 June - Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against Japanese occupation of Korea (d. 1932)
- 24 June - Hugo Distler, German composer (d. 1942)
- 26 June - Salvador Allende, President of Chile (d. 1973)
- 26 June - William F. Knowland, Americian politician, U.S. Senate Leader, newspaperman (d. 1974)
- 27 June - Bill Kennedy, American actor (d. 1997)
- 29 June - Leroy Anderson, American composer (d. 1975)
- 30 June - Winston Graham, English writer (d. 2003)
July-August
- 12 July - Milton Berle, American comedian (d. 2002)
- 25 July - Bill Bowes, English cricketer (d. 1987)
- 25 July - Kathryn Eames, American actress (d. 2004)
- 27 July - Joseph Mitchell, American writer (d. 1996)
- 2 August - Al Alquist, California politician (d. 2006)
- 4 August - Kurt Eichhorn, German conductor (d. 1994)
- 5 August - Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1967)
- 9 August - A. I. Bezzerides, American screenwriter (d. 2007)
- 10 August - Rica Erickson, Australian botanist
- 16 August - William Maxwell, American novelist and editor (d. 2000)
- 20 August - Al Lopez, baseball player and manager (d. 2005)
- 21 August - M. M. Kaye, British writer (d. 2004)
- 22 August - Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer (d. 2004)
- 23 August - Hannah Frank, Scottish artist and sculptor
- 27 August - Donald Bradman, Australian cricketer (d. 2001)
- 27 August - Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States (d. 1973)
- 28 August - Roger Tory Peterson, American naturalist, artist, and educator (d. 1996)
- 28 August - Robert Merle, French writer (d. 2004)
- 30 August - Leonor Fini, Argentine artist (d. 1996)
- 31 August - William Saroyan, American writer (d. 1981)
September-October
- 2 September - Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev, Russian astronomer/astrophysicist. (d.1983)
- 3 September - Lev Semenovich Pontryagin, Russian mathematician (d. 1988)
- 4 September - Richard Wright, American author (d. 1960)
- 6 September - Louis Essen, English physicist (d. 1997)
- 6 September - Korczak Ziolkowski, American sculptor (d. 1982)
- 7 September - Paul Brown, American football coach (d. 1991)
- 7 September - Michael E. DeBakey, American surgeon and medical researcher. (d. 2008)
- 10 September - Raymond Scott, composer, bandleader, electronic music pioneer (d. 1994)
- 12 September - Reginald C. Fuller, Roman Catholic priest and writer in England
- 13 September - Mae Questel, American actress (d. 1998)
- 15 September - Penny Singleton, American actress (d. 2003)
- 15 September - Miško Kranjec, Slovenian writer (d. 1983)
- 19 September - Paul Bénichou, French intellectual (d. 2001)
- 21 September - Charles Upham, New Zealand soldier (d. 1994)
- 29 September - Eddie Tolan, American athlete (d. 1967)
- 30 September - David Oistrakh, Ukrainian-born violinist (d. 1974)
- 1 October - Umar Dimayev, Chechen folk singer (d. 1972)
- 6 October - Carole Lombard, American actress (d.1942)
- 9 October - Lee Wiley, American jazz singer (d. 1975)
- 14 October - Ruth Hale, American playwright and actress (d. 2003)
- 15 October - John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian economist (d. 2006)
- 16 October - Enver Hoxha, dictator of Albania (d. 1985)
- 17 October - Kenji Miyamoto, Japanese politician (d. 2007)
- 19 October - Sydney MacEwan, Scottish singer (d. 1990)
- 19 October - Geirr Tveitt, Norwegian composer (d. 1981)
- 20 October - Carl Stuart Hamblen, American musician and U.S. presidential candidate (d. 1989)
- 21 October - Jorge Oteiza, Spanish painter (d. 2003)
- 22 October - John Gould, American humorist, essayist, and columnist (d. 2003)
- 23 October - Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, Chechen historian (d. 1997)
- 23 October - Ilya Frank, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
- 25 October - Tauno Palo, Finnish actor (d. 1982)
- 25 October - Edmond Pidoux, Swiss writer (d. 2004)
- 28 October - Arturo Frondizi, President of Argentina (d. 1995)
November-December
- 2 November - Fred Bakewell, English cricketer (d. 1983)
- 4 November - Józef Rotblat, Polish physicist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 2005)
- 10 November - Charles Merritt, Canadian Army officer and recipient of the Victoria Cross during World War II (d. 2000)
- 12 November - Harry Blackmun, American judge (d. 1999)
- 16 November - Sœur Emmanuelle, French nun
- 18 November - Imogene Coca, American actress (d. 2001)
- 20 November - Alistair Cooke, English-born American journalist (d. 2004)
- 23 November - Nelson S. Bond, American science fiction writer (d. 2006)
- 26 November - Charles Forte, Scottish businessman (d. 2007)
- 28 November - Claude Lévi-Strauss, Belgian-born anthropologist
- 3 December - Edward Underdown, film and stage veteran (d. 1989)
- 4 December - Alfred Hershey, American bacteriologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1997)
- 6 December - Pierre Graber, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 2003)
- 10 December - Olivier Messiaen, French composer (d. 1992)
- 11 December - Elliott Carter, American composer
- 11 December - Manoel de Oliveira, Portuguese film director
- 17 December - Willard Libby, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1980)
- 22 December - Kočo Racin, Macedonian poet and revolutionary (d. 1943)
- 23 December - Sol Carter, American baseball player (d. 2006)
- 31 December - 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
- 9 January - Wilhelm Busch, German painter and poet (b. 1832)
- 17 January - Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1835)
- 25 January - Ouida, English writer (b. 1839)
- 1 February - King Carlos I of Portugal (b. 1863)
- 20 April - Henry Chadwick, English-born baseball writer and historian (b. 1824)
- 22 April - Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1836)
- 26 April - Karl Möbius, ecologist (b. 1825)
- 24 May - Old Tom Morris, Scottish golfer (b. 1821)
- 26 May - Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam (b. 1835)
- 13 June - Henry Lomb, German-American optician who co-founded Bausch & Lomb (b. 1848)
- 14 June - Frederick Stanley, founder of the Stanley Cup, the NHL Championship Trophy (b. 1841)
- 21 June - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (b. 1844)
- 24 June - Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (b. 1837)
July - December
- 3 July - Joel Chandler Harris, author (b. 1848)
- 5 July - Jonas Lie, Norwegian author (b. 1833)
- 6 July - Felipe Calderón y Roca, Filipino politician (b. 1868)
- 10 July - Phoebe Knapp, American hymn composer (b. 1839)
- 20 July - Demetrius Vikelas, Greek International Olympic Committee president (b. 1835)
- 22 July - William Randal Cremer, English politician and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1828)
- 4 August - Radoje Domanović, controversial Serbian writer (b. 1873)
- 25 August - Henri Becquerel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
- 26 August - Tony Pastor, American vaudeville and theatre impresario (b. 1837)
- 20 September - Pablo de Sarasate, Spanish violinist and composer (b. 1844)
- 29 September - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazilian author (b. 1839)
- 30 October - Caroline Astor, American socialite (b. 1830)
- 3 November - Harro Magnussen, German sculptor (b. 1861)
- 4 November
- 14 November - The Guangxu Emperor of China (b. 1871)
- 15 November - 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