ROTARIANS UNITE (Feb. 23): At 37, Paul P. Harris could look back on an itinerant past as a cowboy, actor, reporter, merchant, coal dealer and mining engineer. Now, as a civic-minded lawyer in bustling Chicago, he meets with three friends downtown to form a community service organization. They agree to meet in rotation at one another's offices, spawning the group's name -- the Rotary Club.

	Ty Cobb

ROOSEVELT MARRIAGE (March 17): Franklin Delano Roosevelt is married to Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, a fifth cousin and niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, in New York City.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN FORUM (May 5): The Chicago Defender, the nation's first influential black newspaper, begins publication.

SUPERSTAR DEBUT (Aug. 30): Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb makes his major league debut with the Detroit Tigers. The "Georgia Peach" will play 22 seasons for the Tigers, two for the Philadelphia Athletics and record a .366 lifetime batting average, winning the batting title 12 times.

WAR ENDS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE (Sept. 5): A peace accord signed at Portsmouth, N.H., officially ends the Russo-Japanese War, the first major conflict of the 20th century, and establishes Japan as an industrialized military power. The war erupted in 1904 as a power struggle for control of northeast Asia.

JEWISH ANNIVERSARY (Nov. 26): Special synagogue services are held throughout the country to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the settlement of Jews in America in 1654 at New Amsterdam (now New York) and their role in the discovery of the New World. Speakers note that two Jewish merchants helped Queen Isabella of Spain to pay for Columbus' voyage in 1492, and that Columbus' expedition included Louis de Torres, a Jewish interpreter.