1908 was the first peaceful year ending nearly three years of revolutionary tumult and, like it often happens in history, crisis was making way for stability and industrial growth. The economic upturn was largely the result of the successful economic reforms initiated by Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin and his government. In some economic areas, like iron smelting, coal-mining and railway cargo traffic, Russia was already leading the world. Agricultural production was also going up with Russia now accounting for a staggering 40 percent of the world's grain output. Agricultural production in Siberia was also going up fast despite the adverse climatic conditions there with Siberian butter exports to Britain alone exceeding by twice the cost of Siberian gold mined that same year.
In a sign of growing educational demands, the State Duma passed a law, earlier than in Britain and France, guaranteeing free tuition for children aged 8 to 12.
Sportsmanship was also on the rise in the year 1908. Sports clubs were opening everywhere with the rich going in for tennis and yachting and the less affluent public setting up football and gymnastics-lovers clubs. Another big craze were wrestling competitions held on circus arenas. Famous wrestlers were enjoying nationwide popularity as were winter sports with skating being the best loved pastime for the urban youngsters. This massive crush eventually translated into success when Nikolai Panin-Kolomenkin became the first Russian to win the Olympic figure-skating title in 1908 which is also the birthday of the International Hockey Federation. Ice hockey, as we all know, comes from Canada while bandy is a traditionally Russian sport.
1908 is also the birthday of the World Scout Organization started for the purpose of training boys and girls in the essentials of good citizenship, character, friendship, camping and similar outdoor activities. The organization was founded in Britain by Lieut. Gen. Robert Baden-Powell and consists of four age groups from 6 to 20.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Federal Bureau of Investigations was set up in the United States as a branch for the Justice Department investigating domestic security cases. For 48 years the FBI was directed by George Edgar Hoover.
At about 7 o'clock in the morning local time on June 30, 1908, an explosion of gigantic proportions shook Eastern Siberia - a mysterious natural phenomenon which, more than 90 years on, continues to stir minds everywhere. The so-called Tunguska explosion resulted from a bright fireball which raced across the sky for several seconds and could be seen from 800 kilometers away. The sound of the explosion was heard 1,000 kilometers away from the epicenter and was registered by meteorological stations in St.Petersburg and Britain. One of the many hypotheses portrays the bolide as a giant snowball 300 meters across which allegedly turned into gas 10 kilometers above the Earth. The resulting shock wave felled trees on a large swath of the taiga forest. Happily, there were no human casualties because, back then, the area was virtually uninhabited.
In another development, the New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest Rutherford won the Nobel Prize for chemistry. His researches in radiation and atomic structure were basic to the later 20th-century developments in nuclear physics. Ernest Rutherford discovered the alpha, beta and gamma radiation, gave the name to the atomic nucleus and was the first to recognize the atom's nuclear structure.
And now we'll speak about the famous people born in the year 1908. Topping the list is the outstanding Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan. At various times he was artistic director of the Vienna Opera, the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Zalzburg Festival. Herbert von Karajan recorded three full cycles of symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven.
The great Russian sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich was also born in 1908. His best known works is a series of monuments to the fallen Soviet soldiers in Berlin's Treptow Park and a majestic sculptural ensemble in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad.
Pilot Nikolai Kamanin was also born in Russia in 1908. He became one of the first Heroes of the Soviet Union for taking part in the valiant 1934 rescue of the crew and passengers of the steamship Chelyuskin, ice-bound in the Arctic Ocean. For many years General Nikolai Kamanin headed a cosmonauts training center near Moscow.
We end this program with a flashback to a major cinematic breakthrough when the first animated cartoon hit the screens in Paris in 1908. Next time we'll take a look at what was happening in Russia and elsewhere in the world in the year 1909.


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