May 12th 1908 - Wireless Radio Broadcasting is patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield.

Life was harder 100 years ago.

If you read the book of Otto L. Bettmann's 'The Good Old Days...They Were Terrible', life was harder and worse than it is now...it's just that we have different obsticales to get through.

What would there be to talk about? William Howard Taft became president 100 years ago this November? Automobiles still weren't mainstream? Things still largely resembled the 1800's? A more appropriate title would be "the 80 years ago thread", because the 1920's were really the first true decade of the 20th century - they were all about materialism, they occurred right after the US emerged a victor of a major international war, they were the first decade to have a pop culture, they saw the emergence of major cities and the introduction of profane and provocative novels, and they were the first years that "Black" music (Jazz, Rock n' Roll, Soul, Funk, Hip-hop) seeped into the American mainstream with Jazz. The 1900's and 1910's seemed very primitive by comparison.

Maybe this is why I'm only the second to post  ;)

May 23rd 1908 - Part of Great White Fleet arrives in Puget Sound, Washington

May 26th 1908 - At Masjed Soleyman (مسجد سليمان) in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.

May 27th 1908 - Maulana Hakeem Noor-ud-Din elected first Khalifa of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

May 30th 1908 - Paris advocate E Archdeacon is 1st passenger in a airplane.

So Mankind can claim quite an achievment as Planet Earth 4 billion years in the making & mankind only needed 100 years to wreck it!

I know that in May 1908 James Stewart was born.  ;D A hundred years ago, he'd be 2 months old today.  :)

And it was just a waiting game until he made all the movies I loved:

Harvey,
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
Vertigo
Rear Window
Bandelero!

Yippee!

Sorry, I just love Jimmy.  ;D

June 30th 1908 – A massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, knocking over 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi).

SOS is the commonly used description for the International Morse code distress signal (· · · — — — · · ·). This distress signal was first adopted by the German government in radio regulations effective April 1, 1905, and became the worldwide standard when it was included in the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention, which was signed on November 3, 1906, and became effective on July 1, 1908.

July 6th 1908 - Robert Peary sets sail for the Arctic on the expedition on which he later reaches the North Pole.

July 19th 1908 – Feyenoord Rotterdam, today one of the "big three" professional football teams in the Netherlands, was founded as the club Wilhelmina in a pub.

July 25th 1908 - Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in Konbu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it.

July 26th 1908 – Unable to use the services of U.S. Secret Service agents as investigators because of a federal law, U.S. Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte established what is now known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation to organize his own staff of special agents.

Well...I know that 1908 was the last time that the Chicago Cubs won a World Series. Being a big baseball fan, I should know that.

I sure hope they do it this year.

August 8th 1908 - Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It's the Wright Brothers' first public flight and the French public goes wild.

August 12th 1908 - First Model T Ford built.

August 14th 1908 - First beauty contest held in Folkestone, England.

August 17th 1908 - Projection in Paris of the very first cartoon, Fantasmagorie realized by Émile Cohl.

Sep. 7th, 1908-my grandmother was born.



Cat