1912

January

 * January 1 – The Republic of China is proclaimed.
 * January 4 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by Royal Charter.
 * January 5 – Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet opens.
 * January 6 – New Mexico becomes the 47th state of the United States.
 * January 6  – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.
 * January 8 – The African National Congress is founded as the South African Native National Congress at the Waaihoek Wesleyan Church in Bloemfontein to promote improved rights for black South Africans, with John Langalibalele Dube as its first president.
 * January 14 – Raymond Poincaré forms a coalition government in France, beginning his first term of office as Prime Minister on 21 January.
 * January 17 – British polar explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four become the second expeditionary group to reach the South Pole.
 * January 18 – (Old Style January 5) Prague Party Conference: Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party break away from the rest of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
 * January 22 – The Overseas Railroad opens and the first train arrives in Key West, Florida, with Henry M. Flagler, the railroad's creator and owner, aboard.
 * January 23 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.

February

 * February 12 – The Manchu Qing dynasty of China comes to an end after 268 years with the abdication of Emperor Puyi in favour of the Republic of China.
 * February 14 – Arizona becomes the 48th U.S. state and the last of the contiguous United States which pushed the American frontier to the brink.
 * February 24 – Battle of Beirut: Italy makes a surprise attack on the Ottoman port of Beirut, when the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and the gunboat Volturno bombard the harbour, killing 97 sailors and civilians.
 * February 29 – Serbia and Bulgaria secretly sign a treaty of alliance for a term of eight years, with each pledging to come to the defense of the other during war.

March

 * March 1 – Albert Berry is reported to have made the first parachute jump from a flying airplane.
 * March 6 – Italian forces became the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles dropped bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 6,000 feet.
 * March 7 – Roald Amundsen in Hobart, Tasmania, announces his success in reaching the South Pole the previous December.


 * March 12 – The Girl Scouts is founded by Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah, Georgia.
 * March 16 – Lawrence Oates, dying member of Scott's South Pole expedition, leaves the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time."
 * March 22 – State of Bihar is formed out of the ertswhile State of Bengal in British India.
 * March 27 – Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo gives 3,000 cherry trees to be planted in Washington, D.C., to symbolize the friendship between the two countries.
 * March 29 – The remaining members of Robert Falcon Scott's South Pole expedition die.
 * March 30 – The French Third Republic establishes the French protectorate in Morocco.

April

 * April 10 – White Star liner RMS Titanic departs from Southampton with 2225 passengers and crew on her maiden voyage bound for New York.
 * April 11 – RMS Titanic makes her last call, at Queenstown in Ireland.
 * April 14–15 – Sinking of the RMS Titanic: RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the northern Atlantic Ocean and sinks with the loss of 1517 lives. The wreck will not be discovered until 1985.
 * April 16 – Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
 * April 17 – 500 striking gold miners in Siberia are killed or wounded by troops in the Lena massacre.
 * April 18 – Cunard Line vessel RMS Carpathia arrives in New York with the 708 RMS Titanic survivors.
 * April 20 – Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, opens.
 * April 30 – Carl Laemmle founds Universal Studios as the Universal Film and Manufacturing Company in the United States.

May



 * May 1 – `Abdu'l-Bahá lays the cornerstone for the Bahá'í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois.
 * May 5 – The Olympic Games open in Stockholm, Sweden.
 * May 11 – Alaska becomes a territory of the United States.
 * May 13 – In the United Kingdom, the Royal Flying Corps (forerunner of the Royal Air Force) is established.
 * May 23 – The Hamburg America Line's SS Imperator is launched in Hamburg and is the world's largest ship.
 * May 30 – Wilbur Wright (of the Wright brothers) dies with a case of typhoid fever.

June

 * June 6 – The Novarupta volcano (290 miles (470 km) southwest of Anchorage) experiences a VEI 6 eruption; the largest eruption in the 20th century.

July

 * July 1 – Harriet Quimby, who set the record as the first woman to fly the English Channel only 2 months before, dies in Squantum, Massachusetts after her brand-new two-seat Bleriot monoplane crashes, killing both Quimby and her passenger.
 * July 12 – United States release of Sarah Bernhardt's film Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth is influential on the development of the movie feature. Adolph Zukor, who incorporates Paramount Pictures on May 8, 1914, launches his company as the distributor. Paramount celebrates its centennial in 2012.
 * July 30 – Emperor Meiji of Japan dies. He is succeeded by his son Yoshihito who becomes Emperor Taishō. In the history of Japan, the event marks the end of the Meiji period and the beginning of the Taishō period.

August

 * August 4 – United States occupation of Nicaragua: U.S. Marines land from the USS Annapolis in Nicaragua to support the conservative government at its request.
 * August 12 – Sultan Abd al-Hafid of Morocco abdicates.
 * August 21 – First Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America).
 * August 25 – The Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party, is founded.

September

 * September 4 – The government of the Ottoman Empire agrees to the demands put forward in the Albanian Revolt of 1912.
 * September 28 – W. C. Handy publishes "The Memphis Blues" in the United States.

October

 * October 8 – The First Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war against the Ottoman Empire.
 * October 10 – The Maternity Allowance Act goes into effect in Australia, but excludes minorities.
 * October 14 – John Flammang Schrank attempts to assassinate Theodore Roosevelt.
 * October 16 – Bulgarian pilots Radul Minkov and Prodan Toprakchiev perform the first bombing with an airplane in history, at the railway station of Karaagac near Edirne against Turkey.
 * October 17 – Krupp engineers Benno Strauss and Eduard Maurer patent austenitic stainless steel.
 * October 18 – Italy and the Ottoman Empire sign a treaty in Ouchy near Lausanne ending the Italo-Turkish War.
 * October 24 – First Balkan War: Battle of Kumanovo: Serbian forces defeat the Ottoman army in Vardar Macedonia.
 * October
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs' character Tarzan first appears in Tarzan of the Apes in American pulp magazine The All-Story.
 * Sax Rohmer's character Fu Manchu first appears in the first story of The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu in English pulp magazine Story-Teller.

November
.
 * November 8 – Governor of New Jersey Woodrow Wilson wins U.S. presidential election.
 * November 11 – William Lawrence Bragg presents his derivation of Bragg's law for the angles for coherent and incoherent scattering from a crystal lattice, creating the field of x-ray crystallography, and making possible the eventual imaging of the double helix of DNA
 * November 28 – Albania declares independence from the Ottoman Empire.

December

 * December 18 – Piltdown Man, thought to be the fossilized skull of a hitherto unknown form of early human, presented to the Geological Society of London. It is revealed to be a hoax in 1953.
 * December 24 – Merck files patent applications in Germany for synthesis of the entactogenic drug MDMA (Ecstasy), developed by Anton Köllisch.
 * December 30 – The First Balkan War ends temporarily: Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League countries) sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the two-month-long war.

Date unknown

 * Casimir Funk identifies vitamins.
 * The Scoville Unit (used to measure the heat of peppers) is devised and tested by Wilbur Scoville.
 * Alfred Wegener proposes the theory of continental drift.
 * Wilfrid Voynich discovers the eponymous manuscript in the Villa Mondragone.
 * The Government College of Technology, Rasul was established.

January–February

 * January 1 – Kim Philby, British spy (d. 1988)
 * January 2 – Hans Leussink, German politician (d. 2008)
 * January 3 – Armand Lohikoski, Finnish director (d. 2005)
 * January 5 – Gilbert Ralston, British-American screenwriter and television producer (d. 1999)
 * January 6
 * Jacques Ellul, French philosopher (d. 1994)
 * Danny Thomas, American actor and comedian (d. 1991)
 * January 7
 * Charles Addams, American cartoonist (d. 1988)
 * Ivan Yakubovsky, Marshal of Soviet Union (d. 1976)
 * January 8
 * José Ferrer, Puerto Rican actor (d. 1992)
 * Lawrence E. Walsh, American jurist (d. 2014)
 * January 9 – Basil Langton, English actor and authority on the stage works of George Bernard Shaw (d. 2003)
 * January 19 – Leonid Kantorovich, Russian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
 * January 21 – Konrad Emil Bloch, German-born biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2000)
 * January 23 – Susan French, American actess (d. 2003)
 * January 27
 * Marc Daniels, American television director (d. 1989)
 * Arne Næss, Norwegian philosopher (d. 2009)
 * Francis Rogallo, American aeronautical engineer (d. 2009)
 * January 28 – Jackson Pollock, American painter (d. 1956)
 * January 30
 * Werner Hartmann, German physicist (d. 1988)
 * Barbara Tuchman, American historian (d. 1989)
 * Francis Schaeffer, American Evangelical theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor (d. 1984)
 * February 2 – Millvina Dean, youngest passenger and survivor of the Sinking of the RMS Titanic (d. 2009)
 * February 4
 * Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian conductor (d. 1993)
 * Byron Nelson, American golfer (d. 2006)
 * February 6 – Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's mistress (d. 1945)
 * February 7 – Roberta Wright McCain, wife of four-star Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. and mother of Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
 * February 11 – Roy Fuller, English poet and novelist (d. 1991)
 * February 14 – Juan Pujol García, Spanish Catalan double agent (d. 1988)
 * February 19 – Ursula Torday, British writer (d. 1997)
 * February 20 – Pierre Boulle, French author (d. 1994)
 * February 27 – Lawrence Durrell, British writer (d. 1990)
 * February 28 – Bertil, Swedish prince, Duke of Halland (d. 1997)

March–April

 * March 1 – Boris Chertok, Polish-born Russian rocket designer (d. 2011)
 * March 4
 * Afro Basaldella, Italian painter (d. 1976)
 * Judith Furse, British character actress (d. 1974)
 * Carl Marzani, American documentarian (d. 1994)
 * March 5 – David Astor, British newspaper publisher (d. 2001)
 * March 6 – George Webb, British actor (d. 1998)
 * March 8
 * Joachim Schepke, German submarine commander (d. 1941)
 * Preston Smith, Governor of Texas (d. 2003)
 * March 12 – Irving Layton, Canadian poet (d. 2006)
 * March 13 – Charles Schepens, Belgian-American ophthalmologist (d. 2006)
 * March 14
 * Les Brown, American band leader (d. 2001)
 * W. Graham Claytor, Jr., American railroad executive (d. 1994)
 * W. Willard Wirtz, American administrator (d. 2010)
 * March 15 – Lightnin' Hopkins, American musician (d. 1982)
 * March 16 – Pat Nixon, First Lady of the United States (d. 1993)
 * March 17 – Bayard Rustin, American civil rights activist (d. 1987)
 * March 18
 * Lucien Laurin, Canadian horse trainer (d. 2000)
 * Art Gilmore, American radio and television announcer (d. 2010)
 * March 19 – Adolf Galland, German general and World War II fighter ace (d. 1996)
 * March 22 – Karl Malden, American actor (d. 2009)
 * March 23 – Wernher von Braun, German-born American physicist and engineer (d. 1977)
 * March 24 – Dorothy Height, American activist (d. 2010)
 * March 25 – Jean Vilar, French stage actor (d. 1971)
 * March 27 – James Callaghan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2005)
 * March 29 – Hanna Reitsch, German aviator (d. 1979)
 * March 31 – William Lederer, American writer (d. 2009)
 * April 2 – Herbert Mills, American singer, "Mills Brothers" tenor (d. 1989)
 * April 5 – John Le Mesurier, British actor (d. 1983)
 * April 7 – Jack Lawrence, American composer (d. 2009)
 * April 8
 * Alois Brunner, Austrian captain (disappeared in 2001)
 * Sonja Henie, Norwegian figure skater (d. 1969)
 * April 11 – Gusti Wolf, Austrian actress (d. 2007)
 * April 12 – Walt Gorney, American actor (d. 2004)
 * April 13 – William J. Tuttle, American makeup artist (d. 2007)
 * April 15 – Kim Il-sung, President of North Korea (d. 1994)
 * April 16
 * David Langton, British actor, (d. 1994)
 * Catherine Scorsese, Italian-American actress (d. 1997)
 * April 17 – Marta Eggerth, Hungarian-born actress and singer, naturalized citizen of the United States (d. 2013)
 * April 19 – Glenn T. Seaborg, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
 * April 22
 * Kathleen Ferrier, British contralto (d. 1953)
 * Kaneto Shindō, Japanese film director (d. 2012)
 * April 26 – A. E. van Vogt, Canadian-born writer (d. 2000)
 * April 27 – Zohra Sehgal, Indian stage and film actress (d. 2014)
 * April 28 – Odette Sansom, French World War II heroine (d. 1995)

May–June

 * May 1 – Otto Kretschmer, German submarine commander and Bundesmarine admiral (d. 1998)
 * May 2
 * Axel Springer, German journalist and the founder and owner of Axel Springer AG (d. 1985)
 * Marten Toonder, Dutch comic creator (d. 2005)
 * May 3
 * Virgil Fox, American organist (d. 1980)
 * John Bryan Ward-Perkins, British archaeologist (d. 1981)
 * May 6 – Bill Quinn, American actor (d. 1994)
 * May 9 – Pedro Armendáriz, Mexican actor (d. 1963)
 * May 11 – Foster Brooks, American actor and comedian (d. 2001)
 * May 12 – Mayavaram V. R. Govindaraja Pillai, Carnatic violinist from Tamil Nadu, Southern India (d. 1979)
 * May 16 – Studs Terkel, American writer and broadcaster (d. 2008)
 * May 17
 * Archibald Cox, American Watergate special prosecutor (d. 2004)
 * Ace Parker, American baseball and football player (d. 2013)
 * May 18
 * Perry Como, American singer (d. 2001)
 * Walter Sisulu, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 2003)
 * May 21
 * Monty Stratton, American baseball player (d. 1982)
 * Akiva Vroman, Dutch-born Israeli geologist and Israel Prize recipient (d. 1989)
 * May 22 – Herbert C. Brown, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
 * May 23
 * Betty Astell, British actress (d. 2005)
 * Jean Françaix, French composer (d. 1997)
 * John Payne, American actor (d. 1989)
 * May 25 – Princess Deokhye of Korea (d. 1989)
 * May 26
 * János Kádár, Hungarian Communist politician (d. 1989)
 * Jay Silverheels, American actor (The Lone Ranger) (d. 1980)
 * May 27
 * John Cheever, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1982)
 * Cedric Phatudi, Chief Minister of Lebowa bantustan (d. 1987)
 * Sam Snead, American golfer (d. 2002)
 * May 28
 * Herman Johannes, Indonesian professor, scientist and politician (d. 1992)
 * Patrick White, Australian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
 * May 29 – Pamela Hansford Johnson, English poet, novelist, playwright, literary and social critic (d. 1981)
 * May 30
 * Julius Axelrod, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
 * Joseph Stein, American librettist (d. 2010)
 * May 31
 * Alfred Deller, English countertenor (d. 1979)
 * Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, American politician (d. 1983)
 * June 4 – Robert Jacobsen, Danish artist (d. 1993)
 * June 5 – Dean Amadon, American ornithologist (d. 2003)
 * June 6 – Maria Montez, Dominican actress (d. 1951)
 * June 8
 * Harry Holtzman, American artist (d. 1987)
 * Walter Kennedy, former NBA commissioner (d. 1977)
 * June 9 – Philip Simmons, American ornamental ironworker (d. 2009)
 * June 11 – Phạm Hùng, Vietnamese prime minister (d. 1988)
 * June 15 – Oscar Natzka, New Zealand singer (d. 1951)
 * June 16 – Enoch Powell, British politician (d. 1998)
 * June 21 – Kazimierz Leski, Polish engineer, fighter pilot, and intelligence and counter-intelligence officer (d. 2000)
 * June 23 – Alan Turing, British mathematician (d. 1954)
 * June 24 – Brian Johnston, British cricket commentator (d. 1994)
 * June 25 – William T. Cahill, American politician (d. 1996)
 * June 27
 * E. R. Braithwaite, Guyanese novelist, writer, teacher, and diplomat
 * Chen Kenmin, Japanese chef (d. 1990)
 * June 30 – Ludwig Bölkow, German aeronautical engineer (d. 2003)

July–August

 * July 1
 * David R. Brower, American environmentalist (d. 2000)
 * Sally Kirkland, American fashion editor (d. 1989)
 * July 3 – Remo Galli, Italian professional football player and coach
 * July 6 – Heinrich Harrer, Austrian mountaineer and explorer (d. 2006)
 * July 11 – William F. Walsh, American politician (d. 2011)
 * July 14 – Woody Guthrie, American folk musician (This Land Is Your Land) (d. 1967)
 * July 17 – Art Linkletter, American television host (House Party) (d. 2010)
 * July 18 – Max Rousié, French rugby footballer (d. 1959)
 * July 24 – Essie Summers, New Zealand writer (d. 1998)
 * July 28 – George Cisar, American actor (d. 1979)
 * July 31
 * Milton Friedman, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2006)
 * Irv Kupcinet, American newspaper columnist (d. 2003)
 * August 1
 * Frank K. Edmondson, American astronomer (d. 2008)
 * Donald Seawell, American theater producer and newspaper publisher (d. 2015)
 * August 2 – Palle Huld, Danish actor (d. 2010)
 * August 3 – Fritz Hellwig, German politician (CDU) and former European Commissioner for Science & Research
 * August 4 – Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish humanitarian (d. 1947)
 * August 7 – Võ Chí Công, Vietnamese Communist politician (d. 2011)
 * August 9 – Anne Brown, American soprano (d. 2009)
 * August 10 – Jorge Amado, Brazilian author (d. 2001)
 * August 11 – Norman Levinson, American mathematician (d. 1975)
 * August 13
 * Ben Hogan, American golfer (d. 1997)
 * Salvador Luria, Italian-born biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1991)
 * August 15
 * Julia Child, American TV chef (d. 2004)
 * Ustad Amir Khan, Indian classical vocal singer (d. 1974)
 * Naoto Tajima, Japanese athlete (d. 1990)
 * August 16
 * Ted Drake, English footballer (d. 1995)
 * Wendy Hiller, English actress (d. 2003)
 * August 18 – Otto Ernst Remer, German Wehrmacht officer (d. 1997)
 * August 23 – Gene Kelly, American actor and film director (d. 1996)
 * August 25 – Erich Honecker, East German politician (d. 1994)
 * August 27 – Gloria Guinness, Mexican-born English fashion icon (d. 1980)
 * August 29 – Son Kitei, Japanese athlete (d. 2002)
 * August 30
 * Edward Mills Purcell, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1997)
 * Nancy Wake, New Zealand World War II heroine (d. 2011)
 * August 31 – Katsumi Tezuka, Japanese actor

September–October

 * September 1 – Gwynfor Evans, Welsh politician (d. 2005)
 * September 5
 * John Cage, American composer (d. 1992)
 * Kristina Söderbaum, German actress (d. 2001)
 * Frank Thomas, American animator (d. 2004)
 * September 7 – David Packard, American electrical engineer (d. 1996)
 * September 10 – Mary Walter, Filipino actress (d. 1993)
 * September 13 – Reta Shaw, American actress (d. 1982)
 * September 15 – Ismail Yassine, Egyptian comedian and actor (d. 1972)
 * September 16 – Don A. Jones, American admiral and civil engineer, seventh Director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and second Director of the Environmental Science Services Administration Corps (d. 2000)
 * September 19 – Kurt Sanderling, German conductor (d. 2011)
 * September 21
 * Chuck Jones, American animator (Warner Brothers) (d. 2002)
 * György Sándor, Hungarian pianist (d. 2005)
 * September 22
 * Herbert Mataré, German physicist and European co-inventor of the transistor (d. 2011)
 * Martha Scott, American actress (d. 2003)
 * September 24 – Don Porter, American actor (d. 1997)
 * September 27 – Tauno Marttinen, Finnish composer (d. 2008)
 * September 29 – Michelangelo Antonioni, Italian film director (d. 2007)
 * October 1 – Kathleen Ollerenshaw, English mathematician (d. 2014)
 * October 5 – Karl Hass, German Nazi war criminal (d. 2004)
 * October 6 – Perkins Bass, American politician (d. 2011)
 * October 7 – Fernando Belaúnde Terry, 42nd and 43rd President of Peru (d. 2002)
 * October 13 – Cornel Wilde, Hungarian actor and film director (d. 1989)
 * October 15 – Nellie Lutcher, American singer (d. 2007)
 * October 16 – Clifford Hansen, American politician (d. 2009)
 * October 17 – Pope John Paul I, Italian churchman (d. 1978)
 * October 21 – Georg Solti, Hungarian conductor (d. 1997)
 * October 22 – Johan Hendrik Weidner, Belgian World War II resistance fighter (d. 1994)
 * October 24 – Murray Golden, American television director (d. 1991)
 * October 25 – Minnie Pearl, American humorist (d. 1996)
 * October 26 – Ed Reimers, American actor and television announcer (d. 2009)
 * October 27 – Conlon Nancarrow, American composer (d. 1997)
 * October 28 – Richard Doll, English physiologist and one of the foremost epidemiologists of the 20th century (d. 2005)
 * October 30 – Preston Lockwood, English actor/writer (d. 1996)
 * October 31 – Ollie Johnston, American animator (d. 2008)

November–December

 * November 1 – Gunther Plaut, German-born Canadian rabbi and writer (d. 2012)
 * November 3 – Alfredo Stroessner, President of Paraguay (d. 2006)
 * November 4 – Vadim Salmanov, Russian composer (d. 1978)
 * November 6 – Toke Townley, English actor (d. 1984)
 * November 8 – June Havoc, Canadian actress (d. 2010)
 * November 10
 * Birdie Tebbetts, baseball player and manager (d. 1999)
 * Jean-Hilaire Aubame, Gabonese politician (d. 1989)
 * November 11 – Larry LaPrise, American songwriter (d. 1996)
 * November 13 – Claude Pompidou, wife of French President Georges Pompidou (d. 2007)
 * November 14
 * Barbara Hutton, American socialite (d. 1979)
 * T. Y. Lin, Chinese-born civil engineer (d. 2003)
 * November 16
 * George O. Petrie, American actor (d. 1997)
 * W. E. D. Ross, Canadian writer (d. 1995)
 * November 18 – Hilda Nickson, née Hilda Pressley, British novelist (d. 1977)
 * November 19 – George Emil Palade, Romanian microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2008)
 * November 20 – Otto von Habsburg, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary in exile (d. 2011)
 * November 21 – Eleanor Powell, American actress and dancer (d. 1982)
 * November 23
 * Virginia Prince, American transgender activist (d. 2009)
 * George O'Hanlon, American actor and TV writer (d. 1989)
 * Paul Rivière, French Resistance fighter and politician (d. 1998)
 * November 24 – Bernard Delfgaauw, Dutch philosopher (d. 1993)
 * November 30
 * Hugo del Carril, Argentine film actor, film director and tango singer (d. 1989)
 * Gordon Parks, African-American photographer and artist (d. 2006)
 * December 1 – Minoru Yamasaki, Japanese-American architect of the World Trade Center (d. 1986)
 * December 4 – Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, American pilot, United States Marine Corps fighter ace (d. 1988)
 * December 5 – Keisuke Kinoshita, Japanese film director (d. 1998)
 * December 10 – Philip Hart, Democratic United States Senator from Michigan from 1959 to 1976 (d. 1976)
 * December 11 – Carlo Ponti, Italian film producer (d. 2007)
 * December 12
 * Henry Armstrong, American boxer (d. 1988)
 * René Toribio, Guadeloupean politician (d. 1990)
 * December 17 – Edward Short, British politician (d. 2012)
 * December 21 – Jean Conan Doyle, British military officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and the Women's Royal Air Force (d. 1997). Also legal copyright holder to the works of her father Arthur Conan Doyle. (d. 1997)
 * December 22 – Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the United States (d. 2007)
 * December 24 – Natalino Otto, Italian singer (d. 1969)
 * December 26 – Arsenio Lacson, Filipino politician and sportswriter (d. 1962)
 * December 27 – Conroy Maddox, British painter (d. 2005)

Date unknown

 * Walt Partymiller – American cartoonist (d. 1991)

January–March

 * January 3
 * Felix Dahn, Spanish writer (b. 1834)
 * Robley Dunglison Evans, American admiral (b. 1846)
 * January 4 – Clarence Dutton, American geologist (b. 1841)
 * January 14
 * Samuel W. Johnson, British railway engineer (b. 1831)
 * Otto Liebmann, German philosopher (Kant & Epigones) (b. 1840)
 * January 16 – Georg Heym, writer (b. 1887)
 * January 28
 * Gustave de Molinari, Belgian economist (b. 1819)
 * Eloy Alfaro Delgado Gabriel, 2-Time President of Ecuador (b. 1842)
 * January 29 – Herman Bang, writer (b. 1857)
 * February 4 – Franz Reichelt, Austrian-born French tailor and inventor (b. 1879)
 * February 10 – Joseph Lister, English surgeon (b. 1827)
 * February 16 – Nikolai of Japan, Eastern Orthodox monk and saint (b. 1836)
 * February 17
 * Count Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, foreign minister (Austria-Hungary) (b. 1854)
 * Edgar Evans, Welsh naval officer, member of the Scott expedition to the South Pole (b. 1876)
 * February 21 – Osborne Reynolds, Irish physicist (b. 1842)
 * February 25 – Guillaume IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (b. 1852)
 * February 28 – Bill Storer, English footballer and cricketer (b. 1867)
 * March 1 – George Grossmith, English actor and comic writer (b. 1847)
 * March 3 – Oskar Enkvist, Russian admiral (b. 1849)
 * March 4 – Augusto Aubry, Italian admiral and politician (b. 1849)
 * March 17 – Laurence Oates, English army officer, member of the Scott expedition to the South Pole (b. 1880)
 * March 22 – Ruggero Oddi, Italian physiologist and anatomist (b. 1864)
 * March 29 – Remaining members of the Scott expedition to the South Pole:
 * Henry Robertson Bowers, Scottish naval officer (b. 1883)
 * Robert Falcon Scott, British naval officer and explorer (b. 1868)
 * Edward Adrian Wilson, English physician and naturalist (b. 1872)
 * March 30 – Karl May, German author (b. 1842)

April–June

 * April 3 – Calbraith Perry Rodgers, American aviation pioneer (b. 1879)
 * April 6 – Giovanni Pascoli, Italian poet (b. 1855)
 * April 12 – Clara Barton, American nurse (b. 1821)
 * April 13 – Ishikawa Takuboku, Japanese author (b. 1886)
 * April 14 – Henri Brisson, French statesman (b. 1835)
 * April 15 – 1,517 victims of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, including:
 * Thomas Andrews, Jr., Irish shipbuilder (b. 1873)
 * John Jacob Astor IV, American businessman (b. 1864)
 * Archibald Butt, American presidential aide (b. 1865)
 * Thomas Byles, British Catholic priest (b. 1870)
 * Jacques Futrelle, American mystery author and journalist (b. 1875)
 * Benjamin Guggenheim, American businessman (b. 1865)
 * Henry B. Harris, American theater producer (b. 1866)
 * Wallace Hartley, English ship's bandleader and violinist (b. 1878)
 * Francis Davis Millet, American painter, sculptor and writer (b. 1846)
 * Jack Phillips, English ship's senior wireless officer (b. 1887)
 * Edward Smith, English ship's captain (b. 1850)
 * William Thomas Stead, English campaigning journalist (b. 1849)
 * Isidor Straus, German American department store owner (Macy's) (b. 1845)
 * Ida Straus, German American wife of Isidor Straus (1 of only 5 Titanic first-class female fatalities) (b. 1849)
 * Harry Elkins Widener, American bibliophile (b. 1885)
 * April 19 – Patricio Escobar, 9th President of Paraguay (b. 1843)
 * April 20 – Bram Stoker, Irish writer (Dracula) (b. 1847)
 * May 5 – Rafael Pombo, Colombian poet (b. 1833)
 * May 14
 * August Strindberg, Swedish playwright and painter (b. 1849)
 * Frederick VIII, King of Denmark (b. 1843)
 * May 25 – Austin Lane Crothers, American politician (b. 1860)
 * May 30 – Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer (b. 1867)
 * June 1 – Philip Parmalee, American aviator (b. 1887)
 * June 9 – Ion Luca Caragiale, Romanian writer (b. 1852)
 * June 10 – Anton Aškerc, Slovene poet (b. 1856)
 * June 11 – Léon Dierx, French poet (Amants)
 * June 12 – Frédéric Passy, French economist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1822)
 * June 16 – Thomas Pollock Anshutz, American painter (b. 1851)
 * June 24 – Sir George Stuart White, British field marshal (b. 1835)
 * June 25
 * Hubert Latham, French aviator, (b. 1883)
 * Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Dutch/British painter
 * Louis Antoine, Belgian miner/sect leader
 * June 27 – George Bonnor, cricketer (once ran three before he was caught)

July–September

 * July 1 – Harriet Quimby, American aviator (b. 1875)
 * July 2 – Tom Richardson, English cricketer (b. 1870)
 * July 15 – Francisco Lázaro, Portuguese marathon runner (Olympics)
 * July 17 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician (b. 1854)
 * July 30 – Emperor Meiji of Japan (b. 1852)
 * July 31 – Allan Octavian Hume, British civil servant (b. 1829)
 * August 7 – François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss hydrologist (b. 1841)
 * August 8 – Ross Winn, American anarchist writer and publisher (b. 1871)
 * August 13 – Jules Massenet, French composer (b. 1842)
 * August 20
 * Walter Goodman, British painter, illustrator and author (b. 1838)
 * William Booth, English founder of the Salvation Army (b. 1829)
 * September 1 – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, African-British composer
 * September 5 – Arthur MacArthur, Jr., U.S. Army general (b. 1845)
 * September 6 – Charles John Stanley Gough, British general and Victoria Cross recipient (b. 1832)
 * September 7 – Martin Kähler, German theologian (b. 1835)
 * September 12 – Pierre-Hector Coullié, Cardinal-Archbishop of Lyon
 * September 13 – Nogi Maresuke, Japanese general (suicide) (b. 1849)
 * September 30 – Mary Frances Allitsen, composer

October–December

 * October 6 – Auguste Marie François Beernaert, Belgian statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1829)
 * October 8 – Wilhelm Kuhe, German composer (b. 1823)
 * October 24 – Mykola Lysenko, Ukrainian composer (b. 1842)
 * October 30 – James S. Sherman, 27th Vice President of the United States (b. 1855)
 * November 8 – Dugald Drummond, British railway engineer (b. 1840)
 * November 10 – Louis Cyr, Canadian strongman (b. 1863)
 * November 12 – José Canalejas, Prime Minister of Spain (b. 1854) (assassinated)
 * November 17 – Richard Norman Shaw, British architect (b. 1831)
 * November 26 – Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople (b. 1834)
 * November 28 – Walter Benona Sharp, American oil pioneer (b. 1870)
 * December 12 – Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, (b. 1821)
 * December 18 – William McKendree Carleton, American poet (b. 1845)
 * December 23 – Otto Schoetensack, German anthropologist (b. 1850)
 * December 29 – Philip H. Cooper, American admiral (b. 1844)

Nobel Prizes

 * Physics – Nils Gustaf Dalén
 * Chemistry – Victor Grignard, Paul Sabatier
 * Medicine – Alexis Carrel
 * Literature – Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann
 * Peace – Elihu Root