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Muni's predecessor gets a road test: "To demonstrate the inefficiency of the street car service rendered to the people of this city by the trolley trust, The Examiner yesterday sent a representative over several of the lines of the United Railroads. There was not a car boarded that was not behind time or consumed more time than necessary in arriving at its destination. Many of them were overcrowded. Passengers were compelled to wait long stretches of time in the bleak winds at transfer points." — Jan. 17
Berkeley makes a bid to become the state capital. — Feb. 19
Abe "Boss" Ruef, Mayor Schmitz's powerful backer and recently a fugitive of justice, is arrested at the Trocadero roadhouse by court-appointed detectives and held at the St. Francis Hotel because the city's Chief of Police is also under indictment and so not trusted to carry out justice. — March 9
All but two supervisors admit accepting bribes from the street-car company United Railroads, several telephone companies and the Gas and Electric Company. — March 19
State Sen. Tom Kennedy of San Francisco introduces legislation to chloroform to death all idiots and imbeciles. Physicians declare the proposed law humane but impossible. — April 1
Berkeley announces plans to annex Oakland. — April 19
Fighting erupts between city union streetcar workers and scabs. Four are killed and more than 20 others seriously injured. — May 8
Ignoring his lawyers' advice and weeping in the courtroom, political kingmaker Abe Ruef pleads guilty to the charge of extortion. — May 16
After a speedy deliberation, a jury convicts San Francisco Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz of extortion. A month later he is sentenced to five years in San Quentin, but the conviction is eventually overturned . — June 14
Plaintively telling the grand jury "I never sought 'the honor,'..."Supervisor Dr. Charles Boxton, elected by the supervisors to replace Schmitz as mayor, resigns a week later after admitting taking a $5,000 bribe from the Home Telephone company, among others. — July 16
The Olympic Club holds its first annual motor meet at the Tanforan race track. Ten thousand spectators and 700 machines show up for the auto and motorcycle races. — August 26
Harry Houdini visits the city, escaping police cuffs and underwater chains. "If ever there was 'star' in vaudeville, Houdini is one," writes theater critic Ashton Stevens. "He is as mysterious as a salad, and yet, apparently, as ingenious as a detective." — August 26
Wrapped in a burlap bag, a human head and hand are kicked around Oak Street by two little girls before anybody realizes what is inside. — Sept. 7
The Cliff House burns to the ground. "Its tower and its turrets, its open balconies and its secluded apartments, with all their wild romance and all their historic significance, are now a heap of blackened ruins." The Cliff House had previously burned down on Christmas Eve, 1894. — Sept. 8
In a Sunday magazine essay, playwright George Bernard Shaw attacks vivisection as not only cruel to animals but unnecessary for humans, arguing that doctors do too many invasive procedures anyway. "When it is a question of earning from $100 to $1,000 in an afternoon by performing an operation, it becomes a very strong temptation." — Oct. 6
The Examiner reports that Louise D. Yee, May W. Chew and Estelle Chew, "three little maids of Chinatown," have bucked cultural mores in their community by taking jobs. — Nov. 9
The grand jury, having had a busy year, reports it has spent $20,121.95. The heaviest bill is presented by L.H. Condon, a stenographer, who is charging $5,200 and says she used three-fourths of a ton of paper. — Dec. 7