Top News Stories from 1908
World Events
World Statistics
Population: 4.378 billion
population by decade Nobel Peace Prize: Klas P. Arnoldson (Sweden) and Frederik Bajer (Denmark)
More World Statistics... - Earthquake and resulting tsunami kill 70,000 to 100,000 in southern Italy and Sicily.
- Petroleum production starts in Middle East.
- Mysterious Siberian explosion levels hundreds of square miles of forest. Explanations include a comet, meteorite, natural atomic explosion, or crashed UFO.
U.S. Events
U.S. Statistics
President: Theodore Roosevelt
Vice President: Charles W. Fairbanks
Population: 88,710,000
More U.S. Statistics... - U.S. Supreme Court, in Danbury Hatters' case, outlaws secondary union boycotts.
- President Roosevelt holds White House Conservation Conference, which leads to establishment of the National Conservation Commission.
Economics
Federal spending: $0.66 billion
Unemployment: 8.0%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.02
Sports
World Series
Chicago Cubs d. Detroit (4-1)Stanley Cup
Montreal WanderersWimbledon
Women: Charlotte Sterry d. A. Morton (6-4 6-4)Men: Arthur Gore d. R. Barrett (6-3 6-2 4-6 3-6 6-4)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Stone StreetNCAA Football Champions
Penn (CFRA, HF) (11-0-1) & LSU (NCF) (10-0-0) 1908 Summer OlympicsEntertainment
Entertainment Awards
Nobel Prize for Literature: Rudolf Eucken (Germany)
More Entertainment Awards... Events
- Arnold Schoenberg's Book of Hanging Gardens released, bringing new style to classical music. Harmony and tonality are replaced by dissonance, creating what many listeners consider to be noise.
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Sir Ernest Rutherford (UK), for investigations into disintegration of elements
Physics: Gabriel Lippmann (France), for method of reproducing colors by photography
Physiology or Medicine: Paul Ehrlich (Germany) and Elie Metchnikoff (USSR), for work on immunity
More Nobel Prizes in 1998... - Henry Ford develops the first Model T automobile, which sells for $850.