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In the first Texas gusher, oil is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas. -
Baseball's American League declares itself a Major League. -
President William McKinley begins his second term. Theodore Roosevelt sworn in as Vice President of the United States. -
American anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley sadly ends up dying 8 days later. -
Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the 26th President of the United States, upon the death of President William McKinley. -
President Theodore Roosevelt invites African American leader Booker T. Washington to the White House. The American South reacts angrily to the visit, and racial violence increases in the region. -
Henry Ford sets a new automobile land speed record of 91.371 miles per hour (147.047 km/h). -
Republican incumbent Theodore Roosevelt defeats Democrat Alton B. Parker. -
President Roosevelt finally gets to serve a full term as the U.S. President. -
In New Hampshire, a contract intervened by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is marked by person who wins Japan and Russia. Russia cedes the isle of Sakhalin and traffic and complain rights in Manchuria to Japan. -
(Wright Flyer III) stays in the air for 39 minutes with Wilbur piloting. This is the first aeroplane flight lasting over half an hour. -
Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value. -
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating peace in the Russo-Japanese War. -
A major American financial crisis is averted when J. P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman, James Stillman, Henry Clay Frick, and other Wall Street financiers create a $25,000,000 pool to invest in the shares on the plunging New York Stock Exchange, ending the bank panic of 1907. -
Japanese immigration to the United States is restricted under the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907. -
A forty-sixth star is added to the United States flag representing the state of Oklahoma. -
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. The initial price is set at $850. -
Republican William Howard Taft defeats Democrat William Jennings Bryan. -
William Howard Taft is sworn in as the 27th President of the United States, and James S. Sherman is sworn in as Vice President of the United States. -
The first train arrives in Key West, Florida, at 10:43 a.m. with Henry M. Flagler, the railroad's creator and owner, aboard. -
Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state and the last of contiguous states to be admitted into the Union (see History of Arizona). -
Sinking of the RMS Titanic: RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the northern Atlantic Ocean and sinks with the loss of between 1,517 and 1,636 lives. The wreck will not be discovered until 1985. -
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, former President Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper John Schrank. With a bad wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt still delivers his speech. After finishing it, he goes to the hospital, where they figured out that if he had not had his speech in his breast pocket when he was shot, he almost would have died. -
Democratic challenger and Governor of New Jersey Woodrow Wilson wins a landslide victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft. Taft's base is undercut by Progressive Party candidate (and former Republican) Theodore Roosevelt, who finishes second, ahead of Taft. -
Woodrow Wilson is sworn in as the 28th President of the United States -
The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed, dictating the direct election of senators. -
President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike, ending construction on the Panama Canal. -
The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line, reducing chassis assembly time from 12½ hours in October to 2 hours, 40 minutes (although Ford is not the first to use an assembly line, his successful adoption of one sparks an era of mass production). -
The Federal Reserve is created by Woodrow Wilson. -
The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor. -
German troops invade neutral Belgium at 8:02 AM (local time). Britain declares war on Germany for this violation of Belgian neutrality. This move effectively means a declaration of war by the whole British Commonwealth and Empire against Germany. The United States declares neutrality. -
Babe Ruth hits his first career home run off of Jack Warhop. -
The RMS Lusitania is sunk on passage from New York to Britain by a German U-boat, killing 1,198. -
President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa; the 13th Cavalry regiment enters Mexican territory. -
Democratic President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeats Republican Charles E. Hughes. -
German saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion at Kingsland, New Jersey (modern-day Lyndhurst), one of the events leading to U.S. involvement in World War I. -
President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe. -
United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter H. Page, is shown the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offers to give Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico back to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States. -
President Woodrow Wilson begins his second term. -
President Woodrow Wilson asks the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany. -
U.S. Navy destroyer USS Jacob Jones is torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by German submarine U-53, killing 66 crew in the first significant American naval loss of the war. -
World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary. -
President Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech. -
The Sedition Act of 1918 is approved by the U.S. Congress. -
The end of World War I -
President of the U.S. Woodrow Wilson sails for the Paris Peace Conference, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office. -
The 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing Prohibition, goes into effect in the United States. -
Women's rights: The United States Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would guarantee suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification. -
The Steel strike of 1919 begins across the United States. -
President Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. -
The Treaty of Versailles fails a critical ratification vote in the United States Senate. It will never be ratified by the US. -
The second of the Palmer Raids takes place with another 4,025 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial in several cities. -
A bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J. P. Morgan Building in New York City and leaves 38 dead, 400 injured. -
Republican U. S. Senator Warren G. Harding defeats Democratic Governor of Ohio James M. Cox in the U.S. presidential election, the first national U.S. election in which women have the right to vote.