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A group of wealthy residents of San Mateo County petitions the Board of Supervisors to create "Hillsboro," the "Municipality of Millionaires." — Jan. 19
Mark Twain dies in his Connecticut home of angina pectoris and, it is said, a broken heart over the deaths of a close friend and one of his daughters. Local journalists reminisce about his early career in California, when he was still known as Samuel Clemens telling of the time "some of the boys" from the Sacramento Union set up a fake hold-up and relieved Clemens of $400 in gold coin — and didn't give it back for two days, "amid much merriment." — April 22
Heralded Halley's Comet, "gloriously brilliant spectacle far out over the Pacific ......... like a broad scimitar of silver flame," is a bust in the city because of fog: "Not even a star could be seen from San Francisco." — May 21
The annual 100-man frosh-soph "pushball" game at the University of California ends abruptly when the 6-foot diameter rubber balloon bursts with the sophomores up a point. Freshman suspicions that the ball was slit with a concealed knife can't be confirmed. — Sept. 4
School teacher Eva Swan, 26, who disappeared April 20, is found by police buried under a basement. The corpse has been soaking in nitric acid and every joint is sawed through. Dr. James Grant, with offices on Golden Gate Avenue, and his nurse, Marie Messerschmidt are arrested on murder charges. It seems Grant had performed a failed surgery on Swan "that would save her from the consequences of indiscretion." — Sept. 24
The San Francisco Grand Jury bans dancing in the cafes of the Tenderloin and orders that all entertainment in the district be performed on stage. — Sept. 30
By the almost unanimous vote of 4,687 to 297, San Franciscans approve a $5 million city bond for "the greatest exposition that the world ever beheld," the Panama-Pacific International Exposition scheduled for 1915. — Nov. 16
Six men and a woman are arrested in the city for stealing $50,000 in gold bars from the steamship Humboldt three months earlier. The "peculiarly yellow" bullion from the Tanana gold fields of Alaska is recovered in a series of raids on rooming houses and hotels near Sixth and Howard streets. — Dec. 11