THE YEAR OF 1908
                                                                                
                                                                                
 Born :   JAN  9  Simone de Beauvoir, French author (The Mandarins, The Second Sex)
 Born :       10  Paul Henreid, Australian actor.
 Born :       15  Edward Teller, fathered the H-bomb.
 Born :       26  Stephane Grappelli, French jazz violinist.
               1  Alcohol was banned in Georgia followed by North Carolina.
              22  Socialism was adopted by the British Labour Party in Hull.
              24  Robert Baden-Powell formed world's first scout troop in Britain.
              30  Mahatma Ghandi was freed from prison in Johannesburg.
 Born :   FEB 11  Vivian Fuchs, British Antarctic explorer.
 Born :       22  John Mills, English actor.
 Died :        1  King Carlos and the Crown Prince of Portugal assassinated.
               8  Boy Scouts of America founded.
              27  Oklahoma becomes the 46th state.
 Born :   MAR  5  Rex Harrison, English actor.
 Born :       12  Max Wall, English actor and comedian.
 Born :       20  Michael Redgrave, English actor.
 Born :       25  David Lean, English film director.
               5  First ascent of Mt. Erebus, Antarctica
               7  First German Dreadnought battleship, armed with heavy guns.
 Born :   APR  5  Bette Davies, US actress.
 Born :        5  Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic conductor
 Born :       11  Dan Maskell, British tennis player, coach, and commentator.
 Born :       25  Edward R. Murrow, set the standard for TV correspondents.
 Died :       22  Henry Campbell-Bannerman, British politician.
               1  The British Territorial Army was started by Liberal War Secretary Haldane.
               8  Herbert Asquith became prime minister of Britain.
              27  The 4th Olympic Games opened in London, GB topped medals table.
 Born :   MAY 20  Ian Fleming, a shaken, not stirred, British writer.
 Born :       20  James Stewart, actor, home-town boy (It's a Wonderful Life)
 Born :       28  Ian Fleming, gave James Bond a job.
 Born :       31  Don Ameche, US film actor.
              14  Franco-British exhibition at White City, largest yet.
              15  Claude Monet destroyed £20,000 of his own paintings,
                  he thought they were 'unsatisfactory'.
              22  A flying machine was patented by the Wright brothers.
              23  Dirigible explodes over SF Bay, 16 passengers fall, none die.
              26  North Carolina banned alcohol, Georgia first on 1st jan.
 Died :   JUN 20  Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer.
 Died :       24  Stephen Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the USA.
               6  Divorce was legalised in France after 3 years separation.
              11  The Rotherhithe Tunnel under the Thames,London, was opened.
              21  Protest by 200,000 British suffragettes on 'Women's Sunday'
              30  Giant fireball impacts in Central Siberia (the Tunguska Event)
              30  Meteorite hits Siberia, largest ever recorded explosion.
 Born :   JUL 12  Milton Berle, "Uncle Miltie"
 Born :       26  Salvadore Allende Gossens, Chilean president.
 Died :        3  Joel Chandler Harris, US author.
              26  Federal Bureau of Investigation established
              27  Fourth modern Olympic Games opened at London's White City.
              30  The US team won the Round-the-world Automobile race.
              30  US John Hayes won the olympic marathon in 2 hrs 55 mins.
 Born :   AUG  4  Osbert Lancaster, English cartoonist and writer.
 Born :       22  Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer.
 Born :       27  Donald Bradman, Australian cricketer.
 Born :       27  Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President (1963-1969)
 Born :       30  Fred MacMurray, US film actor.
              12  First $900 Model T Ford came out of the factory in Detroit.
              14  The first International beauty contest in Britain was held at
                  the Pier Hippodrome in Folkestone .
 Born :   SEP  4  Richard Wright, American author (Native Son)
 Born :        7  Dr. Michael E. De Bakey, artificial heart pioneer
              13  The Champagne harvest in France was destroyed.
              16  General Motors formed by a merger of Buick and Oldsmobile.
              16  William Crapo Durant incorporates General Motors
              17  Thomas Selfridge becomes first fatality of powered flight
              29  Switzerland banned night shift working for children.
 Born :   OCT  5  Joshua Logan, Broadway producer
 Born :        9  Jacques Tati, French film director.
 Born :       15  John Kenneth Galbraith, economist
               1  Henry Ford introduces the Model T car at a price of $ 850 .
               5  Austria annexed Bosnia and Hertzegovina, Russia approved.
               5  Bulgaria proclaimed independence from the Ottoman Empire.
               6  Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovinia.
               8  Kenneth Grahames's Wind in the Willows was published.
 Born :   NOV 12  Harry A. Blackmun, U.S. Supreme Court justice
 Born :       20  Alistair Cooke, raconteur
 Born :       26  Lord Forte, business magnate.
 Born :       28  Claude Levi-Strauss, French anthropologist.
 Died :        8  Victorien Sardou, French dramatist.
               3  William 'Big Bill' Taft retained the Republican Presidency.
               7  Hans Geiger's counter unveiled at Manchester.
               9  Britain's first female mayor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson,
                  elected at Aldeburgh.
              14  Berne,Albert Einstein proposed the Quantum theory of light.
              15  Pu Yi, youngest ever Chinese emperor (2 yrs old), took the throne
 Born :   DEC  5  Otto Preminger, Austrian film director.
 Born :       10  Olivier Messaien, French composer and organist.
 Born :       28  Lew Ayres, US film actor.
 Born :       31  Simon Weisental, Nazi hunter, architect.
               5  First American football game with players numbered, at Pittsburgh
              26  Galveston Jack Johnson knocked out Tommy Burns in Australia, to
                  become the first black boxer to win the world heavyweight title.
              28  Biggest earthquake ever recorded in Europe, Messina,Sicily.
              28  Messina in Italy destroyed by earthquake,  150,000 dead.