Albany, New York are killed when the building collapses suddenly. August 9 – The peace conference to end the Russo-Japanese War between Russia and Japan begins at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. August 11 – The Russian Council appointed by Tsar Nicholas II meets at Peterhoff and approves a plan for a national Duma, the first representative assembly in the Empire. August 12 – The first running takes place of the Shelsley Walsh Speed Hill Climb in England, the world's oldest motorsport event to be staged continuously on its original course. August 13 – At a referendum in Norway, voters opt almost unanimously for dissolution of the union with Sweden. August 15 – Mexican-American prospector Pablo Valencia gets lost in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona with no water. Enduring almost eight days of dehydration, Valencia wanders until he is discovered on August 23 by anthropologist William J. McGee and McGee's Papago Indian assistant, Jose. August 20 – Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen forms the first chapter of T'ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchu dynasty. August 21 – The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention takes place in Muskogee in the U.S. Indian Territory and approves a constitution for the proposed State of Sequoyah, seeking admission as the only Native American majority state in the U.S. President Roosevelt will reject the idea in favor of joining the Indian Territory with the white-ruled Oklahoma Territory to create the 46th U.S. state. August 22 – The sinking of the Japanese ferry Kinjo Maru kills 160 people after the British ship HMS Baralong collides with it in the Sea of Japan. August 23 – A. Roy Knabenshue introduces the dirigible to the skies of New York City, piloting the lighter-than-air vehicle within view of hundreds of thousands of spectators. August 24 – Frederick D. White becomes the first Commissioner of the Northwest Territories in Canada, and will serve until his death in 1918. August 25 – Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to travel underwater, after boarding the Navy submarine USS Plunger. August 26 – Near Point Barrow, Alaska, the crew of the Norwegian ship Gjoa, led by Roald Amundsen, make the breakthrough of finding the long-sought "Northwest Passage" from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. August 27 – Tsar Nicholas II issues a decree restoring to Russia's universities the autonomy that had been taken away from them