1908
| File:Decade.png ( 1900s: ) 1908 link | |
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 Officially this was about law enforcement, but soon director for life J. Edgar Hoover used it as a private goon squad. | |
| year 1908 |
Events
- January 24 – Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys begins publication in London. The book eventually sold over 100 million copies, and effectively begins the worldwide Boy Scout movement.
- February 1 – Lisbon Regicide: King Carlos I of Portugal and Prince Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon.
- April 8 – H. H. Asquith of the Liberal Party takes office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, succeeding Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
- May 14–October 31 – The Franco-British Exhibition (1908) is held in London.
- May 26 – At Masjed Soleyman in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil discovery in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.
- June 30 (June 17 OS) – The Tunguska event or "Russian explosion" near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, Russian Empire, is believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment, at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3–6 mi) above the Earth's surface.
- July 23 – Young Turk Revolution: The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) issues a formal ultimatum to Sultan Abdul Hamid II, to restore the constitution of 1876 within the Ottoman Empire (it is restored the following day).
- October 1 – Official launch of Henry Ford's Ford Model T automobile, the first having left the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan, on September 27.
- October 5– Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire; Ferdinand I of Bulgaria becomes Tsar.
- October 6 – The Bosnian crisis begins, after the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Ottoman Empire.
- November 3 – 1908 United States presidential election: Republican candidate William Howard Taft defeats William Jennings Bryan, 321 electoral votes to 162.
- November 15 – King Leopold II of Belgium formally relinquishes his personal control of the Congo Free State (becoming Belgian Congo) to Belgium, following evidence collected by Roger Casement of maladministration.