Charles Fort: A Fortean Chronology, 1909.

The Outcast Manufacturers by Charles Fort is published by B.W. Dodge and Company.

January

  • The Old Age Pensions Act 1908 comes into force in Britain.
  • January 5: Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.
  • January 16: Ernest Shackleton's expedition claims to have found the magnetic South Pole, but the location recorded for it may be incorrect.
  • January 21: A woman fears a fire in the New York hotel in which she is staying, an exasperated clerk reassures her. Later, a fire breaks out in an unoccupied room. (Books911) 
  • January 28: United States troops leave Cuba after being there since the Spanish-American War.

 

February

  • February 12: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded, commemorating the 100th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's birth.
  • February 20: The Futurist Manifesto, written by Filippo Marinetti, is published in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro.
  • February 23: The Silver Dart makes the first powered flight in Canada.
The Outcast Manufacturers, Charles Fort.
The Outcast Manufacturers, Charles Fort.

March

  • March: The Outcast Manufacturers is published by W.B. Dodge and Company. On 13th March, the New York Times announced the book, "by a new writer, Charles Fort": "This is a story of slum life, the main feature of the book being the portrayal of the characters and conditions existing in what is generally known as the underworld."
  • March 4: William Howard Taft succeeds Theodore Roosevelt as the 27th President of the United States.
  • March 18: Einar Dessau uses a short-wave radio transmitter, becoming the first radio broadcaster.
  • March 23: A bright spot is seen next to the lunar crater of Picard. (Books506)
  • March 23: Two constables in different parts of Peterborough, England, report an object flying over the city, carrying a light and the sounds of a motor. (Books630)
  • March 23: Theodore Roosevelt leaves New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
  • March 26: A bright spott is seen on the moon, close to the launar impact crater of Picard. (Books506) 
  • March 31: Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  • March 31: Construction begins on the RMS Titanic at Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast.

 

April

  • April 6: Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, and 4 Eskimo explorers come within a few miles of the North Pole.
  • April 11: The city of Tel Aviv (then known as Ahuzat Bayit) is founded.
  • April 19: The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, now BP, is incorporated.

 

May

  • May 7: At least five men and a woman are jabbed with something like a hat pin in Upper Broadway, New York. (Books884)
  • May 15: A constable in Northampton, England, reports of seeing lights in the sky. The lights are blamed upon a 'fire balloon'. (Books631)

 

June

  • June 1: The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition opens in Seattle.
  • June 2: Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
  • June 9: Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, becomes the first woman to drive across the United States. With 3 female companions, none of whom could drive a car, for 59 days she drives a Maxwell automobile 3,800 miles, from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California.
  • June 10: Captain Gabe of the ship Bintang, which was steaming through the Malacca, saw a revolving wheel of light flat upon the water - "long arms issuing from a centre around which the whole system appeared to rotate." (Books278) 
  • June 15: Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.
  • June 22: Construction begins on the Cape Cod Canal, which would separate Cape Cod from mainland Massachusetts, United States.
  • June 26: The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity.

 

July

  • July 13: Gold is discovered near Cochrane, Ontario.
  • July 16: A revolution forces Mohammad Ali Shah, Persian Shah of the Qajar dynasty to abdicate in favor of his son Ahmad Shah Qajar. He proceeds to leave Persia for Imperial Russia, reportedly seeking the assistance of Nicholas II of Russia in regaining the throne.
  • July 25: Louis Bleriot is the first man to fly across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air craft.

 

August

  • August 2: The United States Army Signal Corp Division purchases the world's first military airplane. They buy the Wright Military Flyer from the Wright Brothers.
  • August 8: The Rosicrucian Fellowship ia launched at Seattle, Washington.
  • August 8: Flashes in a clear sky seen over Epsom, Surrey, and other places in southeast England. (Books504) 

 

September

  • September 4: Japan and China sign the Jiandao/Gando Treaty, which gives Imperial Japan a way to receive railroad concessions in Manchuria.
  • September 8: A luminous object is seen sailing over New England, a sound like a motor eminating from it. (Books508) 

 

October

  • October 8: The first rugby football match to be played at Twickenham Stadium is won by the Harlequins when they defeat Richmond at the brand new ground.
  • October 13: An agreement by Germany, Italy and Switzerland gives the Germans and Italians access to the St. Gotthard Railway tunnel.
  • October 26: Korean nationalist An Jung-geun assassinates Ito Hirobumi, a former Prime Minister of Japan, in Harbin, China, in protest of the Japanese annexation of Korea.

 

November

  • November 11: The U.S. Navy founds a navy base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  
  • November 18: Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including 2 Americans) are executed by order of dictator Jose Santos Zelaya.

 

December

  • December 20: Immigration Inspector Hoe, of Boston, reports an airship of some kind, "a bright light passing over the harbour. (Books509)
  • December 31: Over West Virginia, USA, pass "three huge lights of almost uniform dimensions appeared in the early morning sky." (Books510)