Dashed left edge = started before June 1908 ·
Dashed right edge = ongoing beyond June 1908
Events in June 1908 5
1837 – 1908Grover Cleveland22nd & 24th President — only non-consecutive termsGrover Cleveland (Mar 18, 1837 – Jun 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th President — the only US president to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897). Known for his honesty and opposition to corruption.
1844 – 1908Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)Died 21 June 1908, aged 64Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer and a member of "The Five," known for orchestral works including "Scheherazade" and "Capriccio Espagnol." He also taught composition and orchestration, influencing generations of Russian composers including Stravinsky. He died at his estate near Luga, Russia.
1908Bombardment of the Persian MajlisShah Mohammad Ali suppresses Iran's constitutional parliamentPersian Cossack Brigade forces loyal to Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar shelled the parliament building in Tehran, crushing the constitutionalist movement. Many constitutionalist leaders were arrested or executed in the aftermath. The event marked a setback for Iran's constitutional revolution, though it would be reversed in 1909.
1908 – 2000Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000)Died 25 December 2000, aged 92W. V. O. Quine was among the most influential analytic philosophers of the twentieth century, teaching at Harvard for most of his career. His essay "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" attacked the analytic-synthetic distinction, and his work on the indeterminacy of translation and on ontological commitment reshaped philosophy of language and logic.
1908The Tunguska eventTwo thousand square kilometres, flattenedSomething explodes several kilometres above the Podkamennaya Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of a large hydrogen bomb, levelling an estimated eighty million trees. Windows break hundreds of kilometres away and the night sky over Europe stays light enough to read by for days. Nobody investigates on the ground until 1927, and no crater is ever found — the consensus is an asteroid or comet fragment that burst before impact. It is the largest impact event in recorded history, and it happened over one of the emptiest places on earth.