What Happened in 1908 — Events, Births & Deaths

Grand Canyon National Monument is created.

The Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pennsylvania kills 171 people.

The Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority becomes the first Greek-letter organization founded and established by African American college women.

New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor.

The first Boy Scout troop is organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.

Members of the Portuguese Republican Party fail in their attempted coup d'état against the administrative dictatorship of Prime Minister João Franco.

Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is released from prison by Jan C. Smuts after being tried and sentenced to two months in jail earlier in the month.

Lisbon Regicide: King Carlos I of Portugal and Infante Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon.

James Madison University is founded at Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States as The State Normal and Industrial School for Women by the Virginia General Assembly.

The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.

Inter Milan is founded on Football Club Internazionale, following a schism from A.C. Milan.

Hauser Dam, a steel dam on the Missouri River in Montana, fails, sending a surge of water 25 to 30 feet (7.6 to 9.1 m) high downstream.

Natural Bridges National Monument is established in Utah.

Opening day of competition in the New South Wales Rugby League.

Mother's Day is observed for the first time in the United States, in Grafton, West Virginia.

The first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made at Masjed Soleyman in southwest Persia. The rights to the resource were quickly acquired by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

Japanese immigration to Brazil begins when 781 people arrive in Santos aboard the ship Kasato-Maru.

The University of the Philippines is established.

The Persian Cossack Brigade bombards the building of the National Consultative Assembly of Iran (Majles), killing hundreds of civilians.

The Tunguska Event, the largest impact event on Earth in human recorded history, resulting in a massive explosion over Eastern Siberia.

Start of the Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire, forcing Sultan Abdul Hamid II leads to restore the Constitution of 1876 and reconvene the parliament.

Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in kombu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it.

Wilbur Wright makes the Wright Brothers' first public flight, at a racecourse at Le Mans, France.

The Qing dynasty promulgates the Qinding Xianfa Dagang, the first constitutional document in the history of China, transforming the Qing empire into a constitutional monarchy.

Production of the Model T automobile begins at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit.

The Bosnian crisis erupts when Austria-Hungary formally annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Margaret Travers Symons bursts into the UK parliament and becomes the first woman to speak there.

William Howard Taft is elected the 27th President of the United States.

The Congress of Manastir establishes the Albanian alphabet.

A fire breaks out on SS Sardinia as it leaves Malta's Grand Harbour, resulting in the ship's grounding and the deaths of at least 118 people.

A mine explosion in Marianna, Pennsylvania, kills 154 men, leaving only one survivor.

Puyi becomes Emperor of China at the age of two.

The 7.1 Mw Messina earthquake shakes Southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing between about 80,000.