RETURN TO INDEX
Top Song(s)
• Frank Stanley - Auld Lang Syne
• Byron G Harlan - My Gal Sal
• Harry MacDonough - My Dear
• Florrie Ford - I Do Like to Be Beside The Seaside
• May Irwin - The Bully
Top Film(s)
• The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon
• Tunneling the Channel
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• The Red Spectre
• The Golden Beetle
Best Selling Book(s)
• Ozma of Oz - L. Frank Baum
• The Tale of Tom Kitten - Beatrix Potter
• Cautionary Tales for Children - Hilaire Belloc
• The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
• The Longest Journey - E.M. Forster
Famous Deaths
• January 31 – Timothy Eaton, Canadian department store founder.
• February 7 – Preston Leslie, 26th Governor of Kentucky and 9th territorial Governor of Montana.
• March 11 - Jean Casimir-Perier, 6th President of France.
• April 14 – Frank Manly Thorn, American lawyer, politician, government official, inventor.
• May 27 – Kevork Chavush, Armenian national hero.
• June 25 – Sir John Hall, 12th Prime Minister of New Zealand.
• August 1 - Lucy Mabel Hall-Brown, American physician and writer.
• September 15 – William Wales (optician), English-American inventor.
• November 17 – Sir Francis McClintock, Irish explorer and admiral in British Royal Navy.
• December 8 – King Oscar II of Sweden.
Medical/Science/Technology
• Persil laundry detergent is first marketed by Henkel of Düsseldorf, Germany.
• Emil Fischer artificially synthesizes peptide amino acid chains.
• Georges Urbain discovers Lutetium.
• Bertram Boltwood proposes that the amount of lead in uranium ore might be used to determine the Earth's age.
• The rare phosphate mineral tarbuttite is first discovered at Broken Hill, Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia.
• Paul Ehrlich develops a chemotherapeutic cure for sleeping sickness.
• George Soper identifies "Typhoid Mary" Mallon as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid in New York.
• Dengue fever becomes the second disease shown to be caused by a virus.
• Foreign accent syndrome is first described by French neurologist Pierre Marie.
• Albert Einstein introduces the principle of equivalence of gravitation and inertia.
Political Events
• January 1 - US President Theodore Roosevelt shakes a record 8,513 hands in 1 day.
• January 26 - 1st US federal corrupt election practices law passed.
• January 29 - Republican Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the 1st Native American US Senator.
• February 7 – The "Mud March", organized by The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies takes place in London.
• February 25 - US proclaims protectorate over Dominican Republic.
• February 26 - US Congress raise their own salaries to $7,500.
• March 11 – The Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Dimitar Petkov, is assassinated by an anarchist in Sofia.
• May 13 – The 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party convenes in secret in London.
• June 15 – The Second Hague Peace Conference opens at The Hague.
• November 16 - President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims that Oklahoma has become the 46th U.S. state.
National Events
• February 12 – The steamship Larchmont collides with the Harry Hamilton in Long Island Sound; 183 lives are lost.
• February 14 - 1st US foxhound association forms in NYC.
• April 7 – Hershey Park opens in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
• April 17 - Ellis Island, New York records 11,745 immigrants.
• May 27 - Bubonic Plague breaks out in San Francisco.
• July 21 – The SS Columbia sinks after colliding with the schooner San Pedro, in California, resulting in 88 deaths.
• August 28 – UPS is founded by James E. (Jim) Casey in Seattle, Washington.
• December 6 – A coal mine explosion kills 362 workers in Monongah, West Virginia.
• December 16 – The American Great White Fleet begins its circumnavigation of the world.
• December 31 – The first ever "ball drop" is held in Times Square, in New York City.
Worldwide Events
• February 11 – The French warship Jean Bart sinks off the coast of Morocco.
• February 16 – SKF, a worldwide mechanical parts manufacturing brand is founded in Gothenburg, Sweden.
• March 22 – The first taxicabs with taximeters begin operating in London.
• June 22 – The London Underground's Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway opens.
• July 6 – Guardians of the Irish Crown Jewels notice that they have been stolen.
• August 29 – The partially completed Quebec Bridge collapses.
• September 7 – British Cunard Line passenger liner RMS Lusitania sets out on her maiden voyage, from Liverpool.
• October 17 – Guglielmo Marconi initiates commercial transatlantic radio communications.
• October 27 – Fifteen people are shot during the consecration of a Catholic church in Hungary.
• December 21 – In Chile, soldiers fire at striking mineworkers gathered in the Santa María School in Iquique; over 2,000 are killed.