Charles Fort: A Fortean Chronology, 1906.

Year 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar.

January

  • January 1: British India officially adopts Indian Standard Time.
  • January 8: A landslide in Haverstraw, New York kills 21.
  • January 22: The SS Valencia strikes a reef off Vancouver Island, killing over 100 passengers in the ensuing disaster.
  • January 31: An earthquake (8.6 on the Richter scale) strikes Ecuador.
  • 8 February – The Liberal Party, led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman, wins the United Kingdom general election with a large majority.

 

February

  • February 11: Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical Vehementer Nos.
  • February 15: Representatives of the Labour Representation Committee in the U.K. Parliament take the name Parliamentary Labour Party.
  • February 28: Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, a novel depicting the life of an immigrant family in Chicago during the early 1900s.

 

March

  • The March issue of Tom Watson's Magazine carries Fort's short story "A Radical Corpuscle".
  • March 3: A sentry at Windsor Castle saw something and fired at it! (Books647)
  • March 10: An explosion in a coal mine in Courrières, France kills 1,060.
  • March 15: Rolls-Royce Ltd. is registered.  
  • March 18: Traian Vuia flies a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft.
San Francisco earthquake and fire
San Francisco earthquake and fire

April

  • The April edition of Tom Watson's Magazine publishes Fort's short story "Those That Are Joined Together".
  • April 7: Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.
  • April 14: The first service is held at African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, CA by W.J. Seymour, in a series later known as the Azusa Street Revival, an event which launches the Pentecostal Movement in Christianity.
  • April 18: The 1906 San Francisco earthquake (estimated magnitude 7.8) on the San Andreas Fault destroys much of San Francisco, California, killing at least 3,000, with 225,000-300,000 left homeless, and $350 million in damages. (Books812)

 

May

  • The May edition of Tom Watson's Magazine publishes the short story "Ructions" by Charles Fort.
  • Jack London's novel White Fang is serialized in The Outing Magazine.

 

June

  • Charles Fort's short story"Mrs Bonticue and Another Landlord" is published in June's edition of Tom Watson's Magazine.
  • June 6: Durham and Southern Railway operates its first revenue train, Bonsal to Durham, North Carolina.
  • June 7: The RMS Lusitania is launched in Glasgow. It is the world's largest ship.
  • June 9-10: Riots in Stockholm, Ladugårsdgärden end with 50 policemen injured.
  • June 25: Harry K. Thaw shoots architect Stanford White.
  • June 30: The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.

 

July

  • July 6: The Second Geneva Convention meets.
  • July 12: Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer hastily and wrongly convicted of treason in 1899, is exonerated. He is reinstalled in the French Army July 21, ending the Dreyfus Affair that exposed anti-Semitism in French society.

 

August

  • August 16: A "terrible darkness" occurs followed by a magnitude 8.2 earthquake in Valparaíso, Chile the quake leaves approximately 20,000 dead. (Books766) 
  • August 22: The first Victor Victrola, a phonographic record player, is manufactured.
  • August 23: Unable to control a rebellion in the newly-formed Cuban Republic, Pres. Tomás Estrada Palma requests U.S. intervention.

 

September

  • September 11: Mahatma Gandhi coins the term Satyagraha to characterize the Non-Violence movement in South Africa.
  • September 18: A typhoon with a tsunami kills an estimated 10,000 persons in Hong Kong.
  • September 22: Race riots in Atlanta, Georgia result in 27 people killed and the black-owned business district severely damaged.
  • September 24: U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower the nation's first National Monument.
  • September 26: The first concert of the Telharmonium, the first music synthesizer, is presented at Telharmonic Hall, Broadway at 39th St., New York City.
  • September 30: The first Gordon Bennett Cup in ballooning is held, starting in Paris. The winning team, piloting the balloon United States, lands in Fylingdales, Yorkshire.

 

October

  • Smith's Magazine publishes Fort's short story "And Now the Old Scow May Slant As It Pleases".
  • October 1: The Grand Duchy of Finland becomes the first nation to adopt universal suffrage, giving women the right to vote.
  • October 6: The Majlis of Iran convenes for the first time.
  • October 9: At Baintree, Essex, England; a piece of smelted iron is reported to have fallen from the sky. (Books286) 
  • October 11: The San Francisco public school board sparks a United States diplomatic crisis with Japan, by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.
  • October 16: Imposter Wilhelm Voigt impersonates a Prussian officer and takes over city hall in Köpenick for a short time, amusing all of Germany and other countries.
  • October 23: An aeroplane of Alberto Santos-Dumont takes off at Bagatelle in France and flies 60 meters (200 feet).

 

November

  • November 9: U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt leaves for a trip to Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal (the first time a sitting President of the United States makes an official trip outside of the United States).

 

December

  • December 2: The HMS Dreadnought (the first all-big-gun warship) is commissioned.
  • December 8: The Petrified Forest, Arizona is designated a National Monument.
  • December 14: The first German submarine, U-1, enters the German Imperial Navy.
  • December 24: Reginald Fessenden makes the first radio broadcast: a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech.
  • December 26: The world's first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, is released.
  • December 30: The All-India Muslim League, a political organization that represents the interests of Indian Muslims, is formed.