Directory

1906 CE

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires devastate the city, killing thousands and displacing many more; The Courrières mine disaster in France kills over 1,000 miners, one of Europe’s worst industrial tragedies; The 1906 Atlanta race massacre leaves dozens dead amid racial tensions; The Algeciras Conference attempts to resolve European disputes over Morocco; The Denshawai incident in Egypt sparks nationalist outrage after harsh British reprisals; The Bambatha Rebellion in Natal sees Zulu resistance crushed by colonial forces.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, and establish a national assembly, the Majlis.source
  • April 23 – In the Russian Empire, the Fundamental Laws are announced at the first state Duma.source
  • May 27 – The first inmates are moved to the Culion leper colony by the American Insular Government of the Philippine Islands.source
  • May 29 – Karl Staaff steps down as Prime Minister of Sweden over the issue of expanded voting rights. He is replaced by right-wing naval officer and public official Arvid Lindman.source
  • July 6 – The Second Geneva Convention meets.source
  • July 12 – Alfred Dreyfus is exonerated. He is reinstalled in the French Army on July 21, thus ending the Dreyfus affair.source
  • July 20 – In the Grand Duchy of Finland, a new electoral law is ratified, guaranteeing full women's suffrage, the first in modern Europe. Women can also stand in national elections.source
  • October 6 – The National Consultative Assembly (Majlis) of Iran convenes for the first time.source
  • December 6 – The Transvaal Colony is granted responsible self-government by Britain.source
  • December 13 – The United Kingdom, France and Italy sign an agreement to preserve, in Ethiopia, the integrity of the ancient empire of Abyssinia.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 11 – Two British members of a poll tax collecting expedition are killed near Richmond, Natal, sparking the Bambatha Rebellion.source
  • August 23 – Unable to control a rebellion, Cuban President Tomás Estrada Palma requests United States intervention. This leads to the Second Occupation of Cuba, which lasts until 1909.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • November 1 – International Exhibition opens in Christchurch, New Zealand.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 16–April 7 – The Algeciras Conference convenes, to resolve the First Moroccan Crisis between France and Germany.source
  • February 11 – Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical Vehementer Nos, denouncing the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State.source
  • April 14 – The Azusa Street Revival, the primary catalyst for the revival of Pentecostalism this century, opens in Los Angeles.source
  • Construction begins on the modern-day Great Mosque of Djenné.source

Economy & Finance

  • April 18 – Xerox, the global digital office machine brand, is founded in Rochester, New York as the Haloid Photographic Company.source
  • October 28 – The Union Minière du Haut Katanga, a mining trust, is created in the Belgian Congo.source
  • The Simplo Filler Pen Company is founded, later to become the Montblanc Company in Germany.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 18 – In France, Romanian inventor Traian Vuia becomes the first person to achieve an unassisted takeoff in a heavier-than-air powered monoplane, but it is incapable of sustained flight.source
  • June 26 – The first autombile racing Grand Prix is the 1906 French Grand Prix held at Le Mans.source
  • August 4 – The first Imperial German Navy submarine, U-1, is launched.source
  • October 23 – An aeroplane of Alberto Santos-Dumont takes off at Bagatelle in France, and flies 60 meters (200 feet). This is the first officially recorded powered flight in Europe.source
  • November 3 – becomes adopted internationally as a distress signal (originally for ship-to-shore wireless telegraphy) on inclusion in the service regulations of the first International Radiotelegraph Convention signed in Berlin and coming into effect on 1 July 1908.source
  • December 15 – The London Underground's Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opens.source
  • December 24 – Reginald Fessenden makes the first radio broadcast: a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech, from Brant Rock, Massachusetts.source

Science & Discovery

  • February 7 – is launched, sparking a naval race between Britain and Germany.source
  • June 7 – Cunard liner is launched in Glasgow, as the world's largest ship.source
  • September 20 – The RMS Mauretania is launched on the River Tyne, becoming the world's largest ship.source

Health & Medicine

  • October 11 – A United States diplomatic crisis with Japan arises when the San Francisco public school board orders Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools (it is resolved by next year).source
  • The BCG vaccine for tuberculosis is first developed.source

Crime & Justice

  • April 25 – Georgian Socialist-Federalist Revolutionary Party under the leadership of Leo Kereselidze successfully robs the Dusheti treasury of the Russian Empire, one of the largest expropriations of the time.source
  • October 16 – Imposter Wilhelm Voigt impersonates a Prussian officer and takes over the city hall in Köpenick for a short time.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 22 – The strikes a reef off Vancouver Island, Canada, killing over 100 (officially 136) in the ensuing disaster.source
  • March 10 – Courrières mine disaster: An explosion in a coal mine in France kills 1,060.source
  • October 28 – A train falls off a drawbridge in New Jersey, drowning 53 people, and results in what is widely considered the first ever press release.source
  • November 18 – The steamboat Dix sinks en route from Seattle to Port Blakely claiming the lives of approximately 50 passengers and crew.source

Climate & Environment

  • January 31 – The Ecuador–Colombia earthquake (8.8 on the Moment magnitude scale), and associated tsunami, cause at least 500 deaths.source
  • April 18 – The San Francisco Earthquake (estimated magnitude 7.8) on the San Andreas Fault destroys much of San Francisco, California, killing at least 3,000, with 225,000–300,000 left homeless, and $350 million in damages.source
  • August 16 – 1906 Aleutian Islands earthquake: An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 8.35 occurs off the Rat Islands in Alaska.source
  • August 16 – 1906 Valparaíso earthquake: A magnitude 8.2 earthquake in Valparaíso, Chile leaves nearly 4,000 dead and approximately 20,000 injured.source
  • September 18 – A typhoon and tsunami kill an estimated 10,000 in Hong Kong.source
  • December 22 – The 7.9 1906 Manasi earthquake in Xinjiang, China, kills nearly 300 people.source

Culture & Society

  • May 27 – Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 6 receives its premiere at the Saalbau Essen in Germany conducted by the composer.source
  • May 31 – Morral affair: The attempted regicide of Spanish King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenie on their wedding day instead kills 24 bystanders.source
  • September 11 – Mahatma Gandhi coins the term Satyagraha, to characterize the nonviolence movement in South Africa.source
  • September 30 – The first Gordon Bennett Cup in ballooning is held, starting in Paris. The winning team, piloting the balloon United States, lands in Fylingdales, Yorkshire, England.source
  • October 1 – The Grand Duchy of Finland becomes the first nation to include the right of women to stand as candidates when it adopts universal suffrage.source
  • December 4 – Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity forms at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; it is the first Black Greek-lettered collegiate order of its kind.source
  • December 26 – The world's first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, is first shown, at the Melbourne Athenaeum in Australia.source
  • December 30 – The All-India Muslim League is founded as a political party in Dhaka in the British Raj; it becomes a driving force for the creation of an independent Pakistan.source
  • HaRishon Le Zion-Yafo Association is officially founded as a sports club in Palestine, predecessor of Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel).source

Births

  • January 22 – Robert E. Howard, American pulp fiction writer (suicide 1936)source
  • February 4 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German religious, resistance leader (executed 1945)source
  • April 6 – Virginia Hall, American spy with the Special Operations Executive during WWII (d. 1982)source
  • April 13 – Samuel Beckett, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)source
  • April 25 – William J. Brennan Jr., Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1997)source
  • July 1 – Ivan Neill, British Army officer and Irish Unionist politician (d. 2001)source
  • July 2 – Hans Bethe, German-born American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)source
  • August 5 – John Huston, American film director, screenwriter, and actor (d. 1987)source
  • August 5 – Wassily Leontief, Russian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)source
  • September 1 – Joaquín Balaguer, 41st, 45th, & 49th President of the Dominican Republic, writer (d. 2002)source
  • September 26 – José Figueres Ferrer, 32nd, 34th, & 38th President of Costa Rica (d. 1990)source
  • October 14 – Hannah Arendt, German political theorist (d. 1975)source
  • November 15 – Curtis LeMay, United States Air Force general, vice-presidential candidate (d. 1990)source
  • December 9 – Grace Hopper, American computer scientist, naval officer (d. 1992)source

Deaths

  • January 20 – Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception Brando, Italian Roman Catholic nun, saint (b. 1856)source
  • February 8 – Giuseppina Gabriella Bonino, Italian Roman Catholic religious professed (b. 1843)source
  • February 9 – Paul Laurence Dunbar, American poet and publisher (b. 1872)source
  • February 27 – Samuel Langley, American astronomer, physicist, and aeronautics pioneer (b. 1834)source
  • May 14 – Carl Schurz, German revolutionary, American statesman (b. 1829)source
  • June 10 – Richard Seddon, 15th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1845)source
  • July 17 – Carlos Pellegrini, 11th President of Argentina (b. 1846)source
  • August 6 – George Waterhouse, 7th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1824)source
  • August 19 – Ezequiél Moreno y Díaz, Colombian Roman Catholic priest, saint (b. 1848)source
  • October 16 – Varina Davis, First Lady of the Confederate States of America (b. 1826)source
  • October 19 – Charles Pfizer, German-American chemist, co-founder of Pfizer (b. 1824)source
  • October 22 – Paul Cézanne, French painter (b. 1839)source
  • October 30 – Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook, British politician (b. 1814)source
  • December 30 – Josephine Butler, British feminist, social reformer (b. 1828)source