Charles Fort: A Fortean Chronology, 1907.

The year of 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar.

January

  • Broadway magazine publishes "Chritmas Waifs", Forts short Christmas story about lonely reporters.
  • The British steamship Pengwern founders in the North Sea; the crew and 24 men are lost.
  • The Prinz Waldemar (Hamburg-American line) runs aground at Kingston, Jamaica, after an earthquake; 3 lives are lost.
  • January 1: Daniel J. Tobin becomes president of the Teamsters, beginning a 45-year presidency.
  • January 9: At the home of Mr McLaughlin of Magilligan, County Derry, Ireland, an odd and curious phenomena occurs - flows of soot from undetectables sources and bombardments of stones. (Books575)
  • January 14: An earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica kills more than 1,000.
  • January 23: Charles Curtis from Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator.

 

February

  • February 11: The French warship Jean Bart sinks off the coast of Morocco.
  • February 7: The Mud March, the first large procession organized by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), takes place in London.
  • February 12: The steamship Larchmont collides with the Harry Hamilton in Long Island Sound; 183 lives are lost.
  • February 21: The English mail steamship Berlin is wrecked off the Hook of Holland; 142 lives are lost.
  • February 24: The Austrian Lloyd steamship Imperatrix, from Trieste to Bombay, is wrecked on Cape of Crete and sinks; 137 lives are lost.

 

March

  • The steamship Congo collides at the mouth of the Ems River with the German steamship Nerissa; 7 lives are lost.
  • The French warship Jena is blown up at Toulon; 120 lives are lost.
  • March 5: The new State Duma opens in St. Petersburg, Russia; 40,000 demonstrators have to be dispersed by Russian troops.
  • March 14: The crew of steamship Delta are witness to a phosphphorescent spectacle in the Malacca Straight, "...shafts which seemed to move round a centre - like the spokes of a wheel - and appeared to be 300 yards long." (Books277)
  • March 15-16: The parliamentary elections in Finland are the first in the world with woman candidates, as well as the first elections in Europe where universal suffrage is applied.
  • March 22: The first taxicabs with taxi meters begin operating in London.

 

April

  • April 7: Hershey Park opens in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

 

May

  • May 26: A shower of large hailstones at Remiremont, France. Upon some of these were representations of the Virgin of the Hermits. (Books959&967)

 

June

 

  • June 1: Colin Blythe takes 17 wickets for 48 runs against Northamptonshire at Northampton in one day. It is the best analysis ever recorded for a county cricket match (or for a single day's bowling), and not bettered in first-class cricket until 1956.
  • June 5: Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, a sect of Hinduism, is established by Swami Yagnapurushdas.
  • June 11: George Dennett, aided by Gilbert Jessop, dismisses Northamptonshire for 12 runs, the lowest total in first-class cricket.
  • June 15: The Second Hague Peace Conference is held.

 

July

  • The steamship Columbia sinks off Shelton Cove, California, in collision with the steamship San Pedro; 50 lives are lost.
  • July 2: In the town of Burlington, Vermont a terrific explosion is heard. A ball of light is seen to fall from a torpedo-shaped thing in the sky. (Books292) 
  • July 25: Korea becomes a protectorate of Japan.

 

August

  • August 1-9: Baden-Powell leads the first Scout camp on Brownsea Island, England.
  • August 22: A horse is mutilated near Wyrley, Staffordshire, England. (Books880)  
  • August 24-31: The International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam meets in the Netherlands.
  • August 31 – Count Alexander Izvolsky and Sir Arthur Nicolson sign the St. Petersburg Convention, which results in the establishment of the Triple Entente.

 

September

  • September 7: The new passenger liner RMS Lusitania makes its maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.
  • September 8: A horse is slashed at Breenwood, Staffordshire, England. For about a month injuries and mutilations to horses are reported. (Books880) 
  • September 22: The transatlantic passenger ship Princess Yolanda sinks during its launch.
  • September 26: New Zealand and Newfoundland become dominions.

 

October

  • A committee of the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language, made up of academics including Otto Jespersen, Wilhelm Ostwald and Roland Eotvos meet in Paris to select a language for international use. The committee ultimately decides to reform Esperanto.
  • October 17: Guglielmo Marconi initiates commercial transatlantic radio communications between his high power longwave wireless telegraphy stations in Clifden Ireland and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.
  • October 24: 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.
  • October 27: Černová tragedy: Fifteen people are shot during the consecration of the Catholic church in Slovakia.

 

November

 

December

  • Charles Fort wrote in his diary: "Have not been paid for one story since may. Have two dollars left. Watson's has cheated me out of $155. Drieser has sent back two stories he told me he would buy, one even advertised to appear in his next number. There will be no money from the house next month. I owe $15 since July on the mortgage. Everything is pawned. W. led me to believe he would buy the house and now backs out. I am unable to write. I can do nothing else for a living. My mind is filled with pictures of myself cutting my throat or leaping out the widow, headfirst."