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Top Song(s)
• American Quartet - Moonlight Bay
• Al Jolson - Ragging the Baby to Sleep
• Enrico Caruso - Love is Mine
• Lillian Russell - Come Down, Ma Ev'ning Star
• Bob Roberts - Ragtime Cowboy Joe
Top Film(s)
• The Cameraman's Revenge
• Falling Leaves
• The Conquest of the Pole
• The Musketeers of Pig Alley
• Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
Best Selling Book(s)
• Daddy-Long-Legs - Jean Webster
• A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Chronicles of Avonlea - L.M. Montgomery
• The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle
• Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
Famous Deaths
• January 7 – Sophia Jex-Blake, English physician and feminist.
• February 11 – Agustin Lizarraga, Peruvian explorer and farmer, discoverer of Machu Picchu.
• March 31 – Robert Love Taylor, American congressman, senator and Governor from Tennessee.
• April 3 – Calbraith Perry Rodgers, American aviation pioneer, in aircraft accident.
• May 30 – Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer.
• August 20 - William Booth, English founder of the Salvation Army.
• September 6 – Sir Charles John Stanley Gough, British general and Victoria Cross recipient.
• October 6 – Susie King Taylor, African-American army nurse. First nurse of the Black Army.
• October 30 – James S. Sherman, 27th Vice President of the United States.
• December 15 – Sir Thomas Charles Scanlen, South African politician, Prime Minister of Cape Colony.
Medical/Science/Technology
• The Nefertiti Bust is found at Amarna in Egypt by the German Oriental Company.
• Casimir Funk introduces the concept of vitamins.
• Fritz Klatte, a German chemist working for Griesheim-Elektron, discovers polyvinyl acetate.
• Wilbur Scoville devises the Scoville scale for measuring the heat of peppers.
• Merck files patent applications for synthesis of the entactogenic drug MDMA.
• The Novarupta volcano on the Alaska Peninsula comes into being through a VEI 6 eruption, the largest this century.
• Voynich manuscript discovered.
• Harvey Cushing identifies Cushing's disease, caused by a malfunction of the pituitary gland.
• Solomon Carter Fuller first names Alzheimer's disease.
• Victor Hess discovers that the ionization of air increases with altitude, indicating the existence of cosmic radiation.
Political Events
• January 14 - Raymond Poincare becomes Prime Minister of France for the first time.
• February 14 – Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.
• April 19 – The United States Senate initiates an official inquiry into the Titanic disaster.
• May 11 – Alaska is constituted as a territory of the U.S.
• June 18 – The Republican National Convention nominates incumbent President William Howard Taft in Chicago.
• June 25 – The Democratic National Convention nominates New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson in Baltimore.
• August 4 – United States occupation of Nicaragua: U.S. Marines land from the USS Annapolis in Nicaragua.
• October 14 – While campaigning in Milwaukee, former President Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper John Schrank.
• October 30 – Vice President James S. Sherman dies of kidney failure just days prior to the U.S. presidential election.
• November 5 – Democratic challenger Woodrow Wilson wins a landslide victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft.
National Events
• January 3 - Southern Pacific Railroad offers to bring the Liberty Bell to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco for free.
• January 22 – The Overseas Railroad opens: the first train arrives in Key West, Florida.
• March 1 – Albert Berry makes the world's first or second parachute jump from an airplane in flight.
• March 6 – Oreo cookies introduced.
• March 12 – The Girl Scouts of the USA are founded by Juliette Gordon Low, in Savannah, Georgia.
• May 6 – Suffragettes and their supporters parade in New York City.
• May 8 – Adolph Zukor founds Famous Players Film Company, now Paramount Pictures.
• June 6–8 – Mount Novarupta erupts in Alaska.
• August 21 – The first Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) earns his rank.
• October - Edgar Rice Burroughs' character Tarzan first appears in Tarzan of the Apes, in American pulp magazine The All-Story.
Worldwide Events
• January 1 – The Republic of China is established.
• February 27 - Lord Kitchener opens Khartoum-El Obeid (Nyala) railway.
• March 13 - Bulgaria and Serbia conclude an alliance pact ostensibly against Austria.
• March 22 – The State of Bihar is formed out of the erstwhile State of Bengal, in British India.
• April 16 – Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
• April 17 - Lena massacre: Russian troops kill or wound 500 striking gold miners in Siberia.
• May 13 – In the United Kingdom, the Royal Flying Corps (forerunner of the Royal Air Force) is established.
• June 5 – U.S. Marines land in Cuba.
• June 30 – Canada's deadliest tornado strikes Regina, Saskatchewan killing 28 people.
• October 8 – The First Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war against the Ottoman Empire.