January 1st – U.S. President William H. Taft opens the New Year by shaking hands with 5,575 members of the general public at The White House
January 11th – Charcot Island is discovered by Antarctic expedition led by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot, while sailing on the ship Pourquoi Pas
January 13th – The first radio broadcast of a live musical performance takes place from New York’s Metropolitan Opera, inaugurating the use of a new system set up by Lee DeForest
January 21st – Two days after heavy rains, the Seine overflows its banks at 10-50 a.m. Over the next few days waters rise 24 feet, overrun power stations and black out the city, forcing thousands to flee
February 19th – Old Trafford, the stadium for Manchester United, is opened. A crowd estimated at 80,000 watch as the Red Devils lose to visiting Liverpool F.C., 4—3
February 23rd – In a scene that would be repeated in 1959, troops from China invade the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, and the Dalai Lama flees to India.
February 28th – The Wellington, Washington avalanche, the worst in the history of the United States in terms of lives lost, kills 96 people
March 17th – The National Museum of Natural History, second of the museums of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., opens to the public for the first time
March 24th – Hind Swaraj, a pamphlet by Mohandas K. Gandhi advocating disobedience to British rule in India, is banned by colonial authorities upon recommendation by Sir H.A. Stuart
April 20th – Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to the Sun since 1835, and is visible to the naked eye through the rest of May
May 13th – Woolworth’s becomes the first large retail chain to sell ice cream cones, test-marketing the treat at counters at several sites that had been supplied with modern refrigerator-freezers
May 27th – At the Palace Theatre in London, the first newsreel is shown. Produced by Sir Charles Urban, the Kinemacolor film showes a portion of the funeral procession of King Edward VII
June 1st – The British Antarctic Expedition, led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott on the steamer Terra Nova, departs London with 55 people and a goal of reaching the South Pole in December
July 4th – Black challenger Jack Johnson defeats white world heavyweight boxing champion James J. Jeffries in the 15th round at Reno
July 12th – Aviator Charles Stewart Rolls is killed at Bournemouth after his airplane suddenly drops from a height of 40 feet. His partnership with Henry Royce lives on as Rolls-Royce
July 19th – In Washington, D.C., Cy Young of the Cleveland Naps becomes the first–and to date, the only–Major League Baseball pitcher to record 500 wins, in a 5—2 win over the Washington Senators
July 26th – The comic strip character Krazy Kat debuts as a companion feature to George Herriman’s strip The Dingbat Family
August 9th – The Thor, the first commercially successful, automatic, washing machine, invented by Alva J. Fisher, is granted U.S. Patent No. 966,677
August 22nd – The Japan—Korea Annexation Treaty is signed by Yi Wan-Yong, Prime Minister of Korea, and by the Japanese Resident-General, Terauchi Masatake – this changes Korea into the Japanese territory of Cho-Sen
September 5th – Marie Curie announces to the French Academy of Sciences that she has found a process to isolate pure radium from its naturally occurring salt, radium chloride, making large scale production feasible
September 8th – Manhattan and Long Island are linked by subway as the East River Tunnels opens at ten minutes after midnight
October 4th – King Manuel II of Portugal and the Queen Mother are forced to flee Lisbon, after the Army and Navy join a coup by the Republican movement and begin shelling the royal palace
October 5th – Teófilo Braga is named as the first President of Portugal by revolutionists who abolish the monarchy
October 30th – A mob in Shiraz, Persia, drives out most of the 6,000 members of the Jewish community, after a false rumor has been spread that a Muslim child has been murdered as part of a ritual killing
November 14th – Eugene B. Ely demonstrates the feasibility of an aircarft carrier, launching his airplane from the deck of the cruiser USS Birmingham, then flying five miles before landing at Hampton Roads, Virginia
November 27th – Penn Station, hub of the New York City mass transit system, is opened as the Pennsylvania Railroad inaugurated train service between New Jersey and Manhattan
December 3rd – Neon lighting is first demonstrated publicly by French inventor Georges Claude at The Paris Motor Show
December 21st – 360 British coal miners are killed in an explosion at the Hulton Colliery Company, near Bolton. The blast and the subsequent filling of the mine with carbon monoxide kill all but three people in the pits