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Top Song(s)
• John McCormack - Somewhere a Voice is Calling
• Billy Murray - Pretty Baby
• Al Jolson - I Sent My Wife to the Thousand Isles
• Peerless Quartet - The Lights of My Home Town
• Prince's Orchestra - The Star Spangled Banner
Top Film(s)
• Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
• The Rink
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• The Pawnshop
• One A.M.
Best Selling Book(s)
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
• Rinkitink in Oz - L. Frank Baum
• Relativity: The Special and the General Theory - Albert Einstein
• The Real Mother Goose - Blanche Fisher Wright
• Understood Betsy - Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Famous Deaths
• January 18 – Lorenzo Latorre, Uruguayan officer and politician, 11th President of Uruguay.
• February 20 – Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
• March 2 – Elisabeth of Wied, Queen consort of Romania.
• March 9 – Arnold Spencer-Smith, British explorer, clergyman, and amateur photographer.
• April 14 – Gina Krog, Norwegian suffragist, activist and editor.
• May 3 - Patrick Pearse, Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, political activist, and nationalist.
• June 5 – Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British field marshal and statesman.
• September 7 – Annie Le Porte Diggs, Canadian-born American activist and librarian.
• October 31 - Huang Xing, Chinese revolutionary leader and politician, 1st commander-in-chief of the Republic of China.
• November 25 – Inez Milholland, American suffragist, labor lawyer, World War I correspondent and public speaker.
Medical/Science/Technology
• The British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that has been stored and cooled.
• The toggle light switch is invented, by William J. Newton and Morris Goldberg.
• Korea Tungsten is founded in Daegu, predecessor of leading steel producer in Asia, POSCO (Pohang Steel Company).
• Jan Czochralski invents a method for growing single crystals of metals.
• Margaret Sanger opens a family planning and birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn, the 1st of its kind in the U.S.
• Medication Suramin against African sleeping sickness and river blindness is first made by German company Bayer AG.
• Georges Guillain, Jean Alexandre Barré and André Strohl diagnose two soldiers with Guillain–Barré syndrome.
• Sydney Chapman and David Enskog systematically develop a kinetic theory of gases.
• Chemist Chika Kuroda becomes the first woman in Japan to receive a Bachelor of Science degree.
• Stahlhelm steel helmet first issued to German soldiers.
Political Events
• March 6 – Newton D. Baker appointed Secretary of War.
• May 22 – The case of United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola is decided.
• June 3 – Division of Militia Affairs renamed Militia Bureau.
• June 5 – Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• June 15 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America.
• August 29 - Council of National Defense formed.
• August 29 - The United States passes the Philippine Autonomy Act.
• September 1 – The Keating–Owen Act, the first federal law to restrict child labor, is passed, ruled unconstitutional in 1918.
• September 7 – The Merchant Marine Act of 1916 establishes the U.S. Shipping Board.
• November 7 - Democratic President Woodrow Wilson defeats Republican Charles E. Hughes.
National Events
• February 11 - Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
• February 11 - The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert.
• May 19 – Norman Rockwell's first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, Boy with Baby Carriage.
• June 24 – Mary Pickford becomes the first movie star to sign a million-dollar contract.
• July 1 – The United States Marine Corps take control of Santo Domingo.
• July 8–16 – Massive flooding caused by two hurricanes devastates western North Carolina.
• July 1–12 – At least one shark attacks 5 swimmers along 80 miles of New Jersey coastline.
• July 22 – In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a parade, killing 10 and injuring 40.
• November 5 – An armed confrontation in Everett, Washington, between local authorities and members of the Industrial Workers of the World.
• November 21 – The U.S. rejects a German offer of £10000 per American lost in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
Worldwide Events
• January 10 – Erzurum Offensive – Russia defeats the Ottoman Empire.
• January 29 – Paris is bombed by German zeppelins.
• March 8–9 – Pancho Villa leads about 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 12 U.S. soldiers.
• April 20 - The Escadrille Americaine, later to be known as the Lafayette Escadrille, is established.
• April 22 – The Chinese troop transport SS Hsin-Yu capsizes off the Chinese coast; at least 1,000 are killed.
• April 24–30 – The Easter Rising occurs in Ireland. Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood proclaim an Irish Republic.
• May 5 – United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–24) begins.
• June 10 – The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, to create a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo to Aden.
• July 2 – Battle of Erzincan – Russian forces defeat troops of the Ottoman Empire in Armenia.
• July 29 – In Ontario, Canada, a lightning strike ignites a forest fire that destroys the towns of Cochrane and Matheson, killing 233.