Harry Lauder has a hit in the USA with his recording of I Love a Lassie

US cartoonist Bud Fisher creates Mutt and Jeff for the San Francisco Chronicle, in the world's first daily comic strip

A midwest region, including what remains of the reserved Indian Territory, is included in Oklahoma when it joins the Union as the 46th state

President Roosevelt sends a fleet of warships on a goodwill tour of the world that also demonstrates US power

Jack London's novel Iron Heel foresees a future repressive capitalist regime in the USA

Jack Norworth and Albert von Tilzer write Take Me Out to the Ball Game, which becomes one of the most popular songs in the USA

The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is set up in Washington

Ezra Pound's first book of poems, A Lume Spento, is published in Italy

The Polyscope Film Company releases the first horror movie, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, filmed from a popular stage production

Jack Norworth and Nora Bayes write "Shine on, Harvest Moon" for The Follies of 1908

Lucy Maud Montgomery's first novel, Anne of Green Gables, brings her instant fame and fortune

The first Model T Ford rolls off the production line at the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit

Gideons International place their first bible in a hotel bedroom, in Montana, USA

William Howard Taft, the Republican candidate, is elected to follow Roosevelt as president

US boxer Jack Johnson becomes the first black heavyweight champion when he knocks out Tommy Burns in Australia

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded in response to two lynchings in Illinois

Leo Baekeland announces his discovery of Bakelite, calling it 'the material of a thousand uses'

Mary Pickford begins her film career at sixteen, when she is hired by D.W. Griffith

Jack London publishes his most autobiographical novel, Martin Eden

President Taft builds the first Oval Office, in the new west wing of the White House

US physicist Robert A. Millikan devises an oil drop experiment that determines the charge of an electron

The Selig Polyscope Company sets up the first film studio in the Los Angeles region, at Edendale

Joshua Slocum, the most famous sailor of the day, vanishes on another lone voyage

D.W. Griffith directs In Old California, the first film shot in the California village of Hollywood

Lee De Forest broadcasts Enrico Caruso live from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, but with mixed success owing to the poor quality