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January 8 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system.[1]
January 12 – Henry Ford sets a new automobileland speed record of 91.37 mph.
January 16 – The first large-scale bodybuilding competition in America takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
February 7 – The Great Baltimore Fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
February 23 – For $10 million, the United States gains control of the Panama Canal Zone.
April–June[]
April 8 – Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
April 30 – The Louisiana Purchase ExpositionWorld's Fair opens in St. Louis, Missouri (closes December 1).
May 4 – U.S. Army engineers begin work on The Panama Canal.
May 5 – Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
May 30 – Alpha Gamma Delta women's fraternity is founded at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.
June 15 – A fire aboard the steamboat General Slocum in New York City's East River kills 1,021.
July–September[]
July 1 – The third Modern Olympic Games opens in St. Louis, Missouri, United States as part of the World's Fair.
July 23 – In St. Louis, Missouri, the ice cream cone is invented during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
August 7 – Eden train wreck in Colorado: a bridge is washed away by a flash flood as a train crosses, resulting in at least 88 deaths.
September – Stuyvesant High School opens in New York City as Manhattan's first manual trade school for boys.
September 24 – New Market train wreck in Tennessee: two trains collide head-on at speed, resulting in at least 56 deaths.
September 25 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Joseph F. Smith issues a Second Manifesto against polygamy.
October–December[]
October – The Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, predecessor of Bethune–Cookman University, is opened in Florida by Mary McLeod Bethune.
October 1 – Phi Delta Epsilon, the international medical fraternity, is founded by Aaron Brown and eight of his friends at Cornell University Medical College.
October 5 – Alpha Kappa Psi, the co-ed Professional Business fraternity, is founded on the campus of New York University
October 15 – Theta Tau, the Professional Engineering Fraternity, is founded at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
October 17 – Amadeo Giannini founds the Bank of Italy in San Francisco, predecessor of the Bank of America.
October 19 – Polytechnic University of the Philippines is founded as Manila Business School through the superintendence of the American Gabriel A. O'Reilly.
October 27 – The first underground line of the New York City Subway opens.
November 8 – U.S. presidential election, 1904: Republican incumbent Theodore Roosevelt defeats Democrat Alton B. Parker.
December 10 – The Pi Kappa Phi fraternity is founded at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.
December 30 – The East Boston Tunnel opens.
December 31 – In New York City, the first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square.
"Domestic Chronology", Statistician and Economist, San Francisco: Louis P. McCarty, 1905, pp. 227–347 – via HathiTrust. (Covers events May 1898-June 1905.)