1900s
Encyclopedia
The decade
from January 1, 1900 to December 31, 1909 is sometimes referred to as the 1900s, "the nineteen hundreds", although this term can equally be used for the years 1900–1999. "The aughts" or "naughts" (aught-aught through aught-nine) was one of the more popular contemporary terms for this decade.
The 1900s were marked by several notable assassinations and assassination attempts:
starts for the first time in 1903.
1900 • 1901 • 1902 • 1903 • 1904 • 1905 • 1906 • 1907 • 1908 • 1909
Decade
A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten. This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas and dies , which is not correct....
from January 1, 1900 to December 31, 1909 is sometimes referred to as the 1900s, "the nineteen hundreds", although this term can equally be used for the years 1900–1999. "The aughts" or "naughts" (aught-aught through aught-nine) was one of the more popular contemporary terms for this decade.
War, peace and politics
Wars
- Second Boer WarSecond Boer WarThe Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
ends. - Philippine-American WarPhilippine-American WarThe Philippine–American War, also known as the Philippine War of Independence or the Philippine Insurrection , was an armed conflict between a group of Filipino revolutionaries and the United States which arose from the struggle of the First Philippine Republic to gain independence following...
takes place (1899–1902). - Russo-Japanese WarRusso-Japanese WarThe Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
establishes the Empire of JapanEmpire of JapanThe Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
as a world power.
Internal conflicts
- The Russian Revolution of 1905Russian Revolution of 1905The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
. - Demand for Home RuleIrish Home Rule MovementThe Irish Home Rule Movement articulated a longstanding Irish desire for the repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 by a demand for self-government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The movement drew upon a legacy of patriotic thought that dated back at least to the late 17th...
for IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth... - Herero and Namaqua GenocideHerero and Namaqua GenocideThe Herero and Namaqua Genocide is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century. It took place between 1904 and 1907 in German South-West Africa , during the scramble for Africa...
in German South-West Africa (modern Namibia).
Colonization
- January 1, 1901, British colonies in Australia federate, forming the Commonwealth of Australia
Decolonization
- May 20, 1902 — CubaCubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
gains independence from the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. - June 7, 1905 — The NorwegianNorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
Parliament declares the union with SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
dissolved, and Norway achieves full independence. - October 5, 1908 — BulgariaBulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
declares its independence from the Ottoman EmpireOttoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
.
Major political changes
- The New ImperialismNew ImperialismNew Imperialism refers to the colonial expansion adopted by Europe's powers and, later, Japan and the United States, during the 19th and early 20th centuries; expansion took place from the French conquest of Algeria until World War I: approximately 1830 to 1914...
- The United Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
and the French Third RepublicFrench Third RepublicThe French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
sign Entente CordialeEntente CordialeThe Entente Cordiale was a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente Cordiale marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent...
Disasters
Natural disasters
- April 26, 1900 — The Great Lumber Fire1900 Hull-Ottawa fireThe Hull-Ottawa fire of 1900 was a devastating fire in 1900 that destroyed much of Hull, Quebec and large portions of Ottawa, Ontario. On April 26 a defective chimney on a house in Hull caught fire, which quickly spread between the wooden houses due to windy conditions...
of Ottawa–HullHull, QuebecHull is the central and oldest part of the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the west bank of the Gatineau River and the north shore of the Ottawa River, directly opposite Ottawa. As part of the Canadian National Capital Region, it contains offices for twenty thousand...
kills 7 and leaves 15,000 homeless. - June 30, 1900 — Hoboken Docks Fire1900 Hoboken Docks FireThe 1900 Hoboken Docks Fire killed at least 326 persons in and around the Hoboken, New Jersey piers of the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company...
: The German passenger shipPassenger shipA passenger ship is a ship whose primary function is to carry passengers. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freighters once common on the seas in which the transport of passengers is...
s Saale, Main, Bremen, and Kaiser William der Grosse, all owned by the North German Lloyd Steamship line, catch fire at the docks in Hoboken, New JerseyHoboken, New JerseyHoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 50,005. The city is part of the New York metropolitan area and contains Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the region...
. The fire began on a wharf and spread to the adjacent piers, warehouses, and smaller craft, killing 326 people. - September 8, 1900 — A powerful hurricaneTropical cycloneA tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low-pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain. Tropical cyclones strengthen when water evaporated from the ocean is released as the saturated air rises, resulting in condensation of water vapor...
hitsGalveston Hurricane of 1900The Hurricane of 1900 made landfall on the city of Galveston in the U.S. state of Texas, on September 8, 1900.It had estimated winds of at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale...
Galveston, TexasGalveston, TexasGalveston is a coastal city located on Galveston Island in the U.S. state of Texas. , the city had a total population of 47,743 within an area of...
killing about 8,000. - May 3, 1901 — The Great Fire of 1901Great Fire of 1901The Great Fire of 1901 in Jacksonville, Florida was one of the worst disasters in Florida history and the largest urban fire in the Southeast. It was similar in scale and destruction to the 1871 Great Chicago Fire.-Origin:...
begins in Jacksonville, FLJacksonville, FloridaJacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
. - April 19, 1902 — A magnitude 7.5 earthquakeGuatemala 1902 earthquakeThe 1902 Guatemala earthquake struck on April 18, 1902 at 20:23:50 hrs. It had an estimated magnitude of 7.5 Mw and an epicenter depth of approximately 25 km. The quake had a duration of 1 to 2 minutes and had many foreshocks and aftershocks. The area around Quetzaltenango and Sololá was...
rocks GuatemalaGuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, killing 2,000. - May 8, 1902 — In MartiniqueMartiniqueMartinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
, Mount PeléeMount PeléeMount Pelée is an active volcano at the northern end of the island and French overseas department of Martinique in the Lesser Antilles island arc of the Caribbean. Its volcanic cone is composed of layers of volcanic ash and hardened lava....
erupts, destroying the town of Saint-PierreSaint-Pierre, MartiniqueSaint-Pierre is a town and commune of France's Caribbean overseas department of Martinique, founded in 1635 by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc. Before the total destruction of Saint-Pierre in 1902 by a volcanic eruption, it was the most important city of Martinique culturally and economically, being known...
and killing over 30,000. - August 10, 1903 — Paris Métro train fireParis Metro train fireThe disastrous Paris Métro train fire occurred on the evening of August 10, 1903, on what was then Line 2 Nord of the system and is now Line 2...
. - December 30, 1903 — A fire at the Iroquois TheaterIroquois Theater FireThe Iroquois Theatre fire occurred on December 30, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois. It is the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in United States history...
in ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
kills 600. - February 7, 1904 — The Great Baltimore FireGreat Baltimore FireThe Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, on Sunday, February 7, and Monday, February 8, 1904. 1,231 firefighters were required to bring the blaze under control...
in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours. - June 15, 1904 — A fire aboard the steamboat General SlocumGeneral SlocumThe PS General Slocum was a passenger steamboat built at Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. The General Slocum was named for Civil War officer and New York Congressman Henry Warner Slocum. She operated in the New York City area as an excursion steamer for the next thirteen years under the same ownership...
in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's East River kills 1,021. - June 28, 1904 — The Danish ocean liner SS NorgeSS NorgeSS Norge was a Danish passenger liner sailing from Copenhagen, Oslo and Kristiansand to New York, mainly with emigrants, which sank off Rockall in 1904 in the biggest civilian maritime disaster in the Atlantic Ocean up to that time....
runs aground and sinks close to RockallRockallRockall is an extremely small, uninhabited, remote rocky islet in the North Atlantic Ocean. It gives its name to one of the sea areas named in the shipping forecast provided by the British Meteorological Office....
, killing 635, including 225 Norwegian emigrants. - April 7, 1906 — Mount VesuviusMount VesuviusMount Vesuvius is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years, although it is not currently erupting...
erupts and devastates NaplesNaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. - April 18, 1906 — The 1906 San Francisco earthquake1906 San Francisco earthquakeThe San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
(estimated magnitude 7.8) on the San Andreas FaultSan Andreas FaultThe San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...
destroys much of San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, USA, killing at least 3,000, with 225,000–300,000 left homeless, and $350 million in damages. - September 18, 1906 — A typhoon and tsunamiTsunamiA tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
kill an estimated 10,000 in Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. - January 14, 1907 — An earthquake in Kingston1907 Kingston earthquakeThe 1907 Kingston earthquake which shook the capital of the island of Jamaica with a magnitude of 6.5 on the moment magnitude scale on Monday January 14th, at about 3:30 pm local time , was considered by many writers of that time one of the world's deadliest earthquakes recorded in history...
, JamaicaJamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
kills more than 1,000. - December 28, 1908 — An earthquake1908 Messina earthquakeThe 1908 Messina earthquake and tsunami took some 100,000–200,000 lives on December 28, 1908 in Sicily and Calabria, southern Italy.-Quake:On December 28, 1908 from about 05:20 to 05:21 an earthquake of 7.2 on the moment magnitude scale occurred centered on the of city Messina, in Sicily. Reggio...
and tsunamiTsunamiA tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
destroys MessinaMessina, ItalyMessina is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, Italy and the capital of the province of Messina. It has a population of about 250,000 inhabitants in the city proper and about 650,000 in the province...
, SicilySicilySicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
and CalabriaCalabriaCalabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
, killing over 70,000 people.
Non-natural disasters
- January 22, 1906 — The SS ValenciaSS ValenciaThe SS Valencia was an iron-hulled passenger steamer wrecked off the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia in 1906. Built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons, she was a 1,598 ton vessel, 252 feet in length...
strikes a reef off Vancouver IslandVancouver IslandVancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
, CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, killing over 100 (officially 136) in the ensuing disaster.
- July 10, 1902 – The Rolling Mill Mine disasterRolling Mill MineThe Rolling Mill Mine was a drift portal coal mine in operation in Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, operating from approximately 1856 until 1931. It was originally owned by the Cambria Iron Company and was developed in the Westmont hillside across the Conemaugh River from the company's...
in Johnstown, PennsylvaniaJohnstown- Places :Canada* Johnstown, Nova Scotia* Johnstown, Ontario, United Counties of Leeds and Grenville* Johnstown, Hastings County, OntarioRepublic of Ireland*Johnstown, County Dublin*Johnstown, County Kildare*Johnstown, County Kilkenny...
kills 112 miners.
Assassinations
- July 29, 1900 — King Umberto I of ItalyUmberto I of ItalyUmberto I or Humbert I , nicknamed the Good , was the King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his death. He was deeply loathed in far-left circles, especially among anarchists, because of his conservatism and support of the Bava-Beccaris massacre in Milan...
is assassinated by ItalianItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
-born anarchist Gaetano BresciGaetano BresciGaetano Bresci was an Italian American anarchist who assassinated King Umberto I of Italy. Bresci was the first European regicide not to be executed, as capital punishment in Italy had been abolished since 1889.-Militancy:...
. - March 6, 1901 — In Bremen, an assassinAssassinationTo carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
attempts to kill Wilhelm II of GermanyWilliam II, German EmperorWilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
. - September 6, 1901 — American anarchist Leon CzolgoszLeon CzolgoszLeon Czolgosz was the assassin of U.S. President William McKinley.In the last few years of his life, he claimed to have been heavily influenced by anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.- Early life :...
shoots U.S. President William McKinleyWilliam McKinleyWilliam McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
at the Pan-American ExpositionPan-American ExpositionThe Pan-American Exposition was a World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York, United States, from May 1 through November 2, 1901. The fair occupied of land on the western edge of what is present day Delaware Park, extending from Delaware Ave. to Elmwood Ave and northward to Great Arrow...
in Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New YorkBuffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
. McKinley diesWilliam McKinley assassinationThe assassination of William McKinley occurred on September 6, 1901, inside the Temple of Music located on the grounds of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York...
8 days later. - June 16, 1904 — Eugen SchaumanEugen SchaumanEugen Schauman was a Finnish nationalist and nobleman who assassinated the Governor-General Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov.- Schauman's life :...
assassinates Nikolai BobrikovNikolai Ivanovich BobrikovNikolay Ivanovich Bobrikov ; born on in St. Petersburg – June 16, 1904 in Helsingfors, Grand Duchy of Finland) was a Russian soldier and politician....
, Governor-General of FinlandGovernor-General of FinlandGovernor-General of Finland ; was the military commander and the highest administrator of Finland sporadically under Swedish rule in the 17th and 18th centuries and continuously in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland between 1808 and 1917.-Swedish rule:...
. - February 1, 1908 - Carlos I of PortugalCarlos I of Portugal-Assassination:On 1 February 1908 the royal family returned from the palace of Vila Viçosa to Lisbon. They travelled by train to Barreiro and, from there, they took a steamer to cross the Tagus River and disembarked at Cais do Sodré in central Lisbon. On their way to the royal palace, the open...
is assassinated in Lisbon, Portugal. - October 26, 1909 — Korean nationalist An Jung-geunAn Jung-geunAn Jung-geun or Ahn Jung-geun was a Korean independence activist, nationalist, and pan-Asianist....
assassinates Ito HirobumiIto HirobumiPrince was a samurai of Chōshū domain, Japanese statesman, four time Prime Minister of Japan , genrō and Resident-General of Korea. Itō was assassinated by An Jung-geun, a Korean nationalist who was against the annexation of Korea by the Japanese Empire...
, a former Prime Minister of Japan, in HarbinHarbinHarbin ; Manchu language: , Harbin; Russian: Харби́н Kharbin ), is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China, lying on the southern bank of the Songhua River...
, ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, in protest of the Japanese annexation of Korea.
Science
- Planck's law of black body radiation
- EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
's theory of special relativitySpecial relativitySpecial relativity is the physical theory of measurement in an inertial frame of reference proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".It generalizes Galileo's... - Einstein explains Brownian motionBrownian motionBrownian motion or pedesis is the presumably random drifting of particles suspended in a fluid or the mathematical model used to describe such random movements, which is often called a particle theory.The mathematical model of Brownian motion has several real-world applications...
and the photoelectric effectPhotoelectric effectIn the photoelectric effect, electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation of very short wavelength, such as visible or ultraviolet light. Electrons emitted in this manner may be referred to as photoelectrons... - Seismographs built in the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, in 1900 - Practical air conditioner designed by Willis CarrierWillis CarrierWillis Haviland Carrier was an American engineer and inventor, and is known as the man who invented modern air conditioning....
in 1902 - Geiger CounterGeiger counterA Geiger counter, also called a Geiger–Müller counter, is a type of particle detector that measures ionizing radiation. They detect the emission of nuclear radiation: alpha particles, beta particles or gamma rays. A Geiger counter detects radiation by ionization produced in a low-pressure gas in a...
(measures radioactivity) invented by Hans Geiger in 1908 - Radioactivity discovered by Marie CurieMarie CurieMarie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...
- Third Law of ThermodynamicsThird law of thermodynamicsThe third law of thermodynamics is a statistical law of nature regarding entropy:For other materials, the residual entropy is not necessarily zero, although it is always zero for a perfect crystal in which there is only one possible ground state.-History:...
by Walther NernstWalther NernstWalther Hermann Nernst FRS was a German physical chemist and physicist who is known for his theories behind the calculation of chemical affinity as embodied in the third law of thermodynamics, for which he won the 1920 Nobel Prize in chemistry... - Quantum HypothesisHistory of quantum mechanicsThe history of quantum mechanics, as it interlaces with the history of quantum chemistry, began essentially with a number of different scientific discoveries: the 1838 discovery of cathode rays by Michael Faraday; the 1859-1860 winter statement of the black body radiation problem by Gustav...
by Max PlanckMax PlanckMax Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...
in 1900
- The Bacillus Calmette-GuérinBacillus Calmette-GuérinBacillus Calmette-Guérin is a vaccine against tuberculosis that is prepared from a strain of the attenuated live bovine tuberculosis bacillus, Mycobacterium bovis, that has lost its virulence in humans by being specially subcultured in an artificial medium for 13 years, and also prepared from...
(BCG) immunization for tuberculosisTuberculosisTuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
is first developed.
Technology
- Widespread application of the internal combustion engineHistory of the internal combustion engineAlthough various forms of internal combustion engines were developed before the 19th century, their use was hindered until the commercial drilling and production of petroleum began in the mid-1850s...
including mass production of the automobileAutomobileAn automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
. Rudolf DieselRudolf DieselRudolf Christian Karl Diesel was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine.-Early life:Diesel was born in Paris, France in 1858 the second of three children of Theodor and Elise Diesel. His parents were Bavarian immigrants living in Paris. Theodor...
demonstrated the diesel engineDiesel engineA diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
in the 1900 Exposition UniverselleExposition Universelle (1900)The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from April 15 to November 12, 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next...
(World's FairWorld's FairWorld's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
) in ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
using peanut oil fuel (see biodieselBiodieselBiodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol....
). The Diesel engine takes the Grand Prix. The exposition was attended by 50 million people. The same year Wilhelm MaybachWilhelm MaybachWilhelm Maybach was an early German engine designer and industrialist. During the 1890s he was hailed in France, then the world centre for car production, as the "King of constructors"....
designed an engine built at Daimler Motoren GesellschaftDaimler Motoren GesellschaftDaimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft was a German engine and later automobile manufacturer, in operation from 1890 until 1926. Founded by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, it was based first in Cannstatt...
—following the specifications of Emil JellinekEmil JellinekEmil Jellinek, known after 1903 as Emil Jellinek-Mercedes was a wealthy European entrepreneur who sat on the board of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft between 1900 and 1909. He specified an engine designed there by Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler for the first 'modern' car...
—who required the engine to be named Daimler-Mercedes after his daughter, Mercédès JellinekMércédès JellinekMercédès Adriana Manuela Ramona Jellinek called Mercédès was the daughter of Austrian automobile entrepreneur Emil Jellinek and his wife Rachel Goggmann Cenrobert. She was born on September 16, 1889 and named as a term of endearment Mercedes...
. In 1902, the Mercedes 35 hpMercedes 35 hpThe Mercedes 35 hp was a radical early car model designed in 1901 by Wilhelm Maybach and Paul Daimler, for Emil Jellinek. Produced in Stuttgart, Germany, by the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft , it began the Mercedes line of cars .A significant advancement over the previous generation of...
automobiles with that engine were put into production by DMG. - Wide popularity of home phonographPhonographThe phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
. "The market for home machines was created through technological innovation and pricing: Phonographs, gramophones, and graphophones were cleverly adapted to run by spring-motors (you wound them up), rather than by messy batteries or treadle mechanisms, while the musical records were adapted to reproduce loudly through a horn attachment. The cheap home machines sold as the $10 Eagle graphophone and the $40 (later $30) Home phonograph in 1896, the $20 Zon-o-phone in 1898, the $3 Victor Toy in 1900, and so on. Records sold because their fidelity improved, mass production processes were soon developed, advertising worked, and prices dropped from one and two dollars to around 35 cents.". In 1907, a Victor RecordsVictor Talking Machine CompanyThe Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
recording of Enrico Caruso singing Ruggero LeoncavalloRuggero LeoncavalloRuggero Leoncavallo was an Italian opera composer. His two-act work Pagliacci remains one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.-Biography:...
's "Vesti la giubbaVesti la giubba"Vesti la giubba" is a famous tenor aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's 1892 opera Pagliacci. "Vesti la giubba" is the conclusion of the first act, when Canio discovers his wife's infidelity, but must nevertheless prepare for his performance as Pagliaccio the clown because "the show must go on".The...
" becomes the first to sell a million copies. - 1899–1900 - Thomas Alva Edison of Milan, OhioMilan, OhioMilan is a village in Erie and Huron counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. The population was 1,445 at the 2000 census.The Erie County portion of Milan is part of the Sandusky Metropolitan Statistical Area, while the Huron County portion is part of the Norwalk Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History...
invents the nickel-alkaline storage batteryHistory of the batteryThe history of the development of electrochemical cells is crucial to the scientific study and industrial applications of electricity, for prior to the rise of electrical grids around the end of the 19th century, they were the main source of electricity...
. On May 27, 1901, Edison establishes the Edison Storage Battery CompanyEdison Storage Battery CompanyThe Edison Storage Battery Company was organized in New Jersey on May 27, 1901, to develop, manufacture, and sell Thomas Edison's alkaline storage battery. It produced batteries for mining lamps, train lighting and signaling, submarines, electric vehicles, and other uses...
to develop and manufacture them., "It proved to be Edison's most difficult project, taking ten years to develop a practical alkaline battery. By the time Edison introduced his new alkaline battery, the gasolineGasolineGasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
powered car had so improved that electric vehicleElectric vehicleAn electric vehicle , also referred to as an electric drive vehicle, uses one or more electric motors or traction motors for propulsion...
s were becoming increasingly less common, being used mainly as delivery vehiclesDelivery (commerce)Delivery is the process of transporting goods. Most goods are delivered through a transportation network. Cargo are primarily delivered via roads and railroads on land, shipping lanes on the sea and airline networks in the air...
in cities. However, the Edison alkaline battery proved useful for lighting railway carsRailroad carA railroad car or railway vehicle , also known as a bogie in Indian English, is a vehicle on a rail transport system that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives...
and signalsRailway signalA signal is a mechanical or electrical device erected beside a railway line to pass information relating to the state of the line ahead to train/engine drivers. The driver interprets the signal's indication and acts accordingly...
, maritime buoyBuoyA buoy is a floating device that can have many different purposes. It can be anchored or allowed to drift. The word, of Old French or Middle Dutch origin, is now most commonly in UK English, although some orthoepists have traditionally prescribed the pronunciation...
s, and miners lampsDavy lampThe Davy lamp is a safety lamp with a wick and oil vessel burning originally a heavy vegetable oil, devised in 1815 by Sir Humphry Davy. It was created for use in coal mines, allowing deep seams to be mined despite the presence of methane and other flammable gases, called firedamp or minedamp.Sir...
. Unlike iron ore miningMiningMining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
with the Edison Ore-Milling CompanyEdison Ore-Milling CompanyThe Edison Ore-Milling Company was a venture by Thomas Edison that began in 1881. Edison introduced some significant technological developments to the iron ore milling industry but the company ultimately proved to be unprofitable...
, the heavy investment Edison made over ten years was repaid handsomely, and the storage battery eventually became Edison's most profitable product. Further, Edison's work paved the way for the modern alkaline battery." - 1900 - The BrownieBrownie (camera)Brownie is the name of a long-running and extremely popular series of simple and inexpensive cameras made by Eastman Kodak. The Brownie popularized low-cost photography and introduced the concept of the snapshot. The first Brownie, introduced in February, 1900, was a very basic cardboard box camera...
cameraCameraA camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
is invented; this was the beginning of the Eastman KodakEastman KodakEastman Kodak Company is a multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquarted in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1892....
company. The Brownie popularized low-cost photographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
and introduced the concept of the snapshotSnapshot (photography)A snapshot is popularly defined as a photograph that is "shot" spontaneously and quickly, most often without artistic or journalistic intent. Snapshots are commonly considered to be technically "imperfect" or amateurish—out of focus or poorly framed or composed...
. The first Brownie was introduced in February, 1900,
- 1900 - The first zeppelinZeppelinA Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899...
flight occurs over Lake ConstanceLake ConstanceLake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee , the Untersee , and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein.The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps...
near FriedrichshafenFriedrichshafenThis article is about a German town. For the Danish town, see Frederikshavn, and for the Finnish town, see Fredrikshamn .Friedrichshafen is a university city on the northern side of Lake Constance in Southern Germany, near the borders with Switzerland and Austria.It is the district capital of the...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
on July 2, 1900.
- 1901 - First electric typewriterTypewriterA typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
is invented by George Canfield Blickensderfer of Erie, PennsylvaniaErie, PennsylvaniaErie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...
. It was part of a line of Blickensderfer typewriterBlickensderfer typewriterThe Blickensderfer Typewriter was designed by George C Blickensderfer in 1893. It was originally intended to compete with Remington desk typewriters, but ended up being known for its portability. Blickensderfer's typewriter contained only 250 parts compared to the 2,500 parts of a standard...
s, known for its portability. - 1901 - Wilhelm KressWilhelm KressWilhelm Kress was a pioneer in aviations and constructor of aircraft.-Life:Kress came to Vienna in 1873, where he developed the first modern delta-flying hang glider in 1877...
of Saint PetersburgSaint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, RussiaRussian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
creates his Kress Drachenflieger in Austria-HungaryAustria-HungaryAustria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. It was built with the assistance of a 5,000-kroneAustro-Hungarian kroneThe Krone or korona was the official currency of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1892 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918...
grant from Kaiser Franz JosefFranz Joseph I of AustriaFranz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...
in an attempt to create the first heavier-than-air flying machine. The aircraft was constructed as a large, open-truss structure of steel tubing with three sets of wire-braced monoplane wings placed in tandem along its length. The sets of wings were placed at uneven heights with respect to the major axis of the aircraft to prevent aerodynamic interference between them The undercarriage consisted of two aluminium pontoons with hardened keels, intended to allow the Drachenflieger to take off from and land on water or ice. Three rudders were linked to a common control stick and were to provide steering on water and in the air. Power was provided by a Daimler petrol engine driving two large augerAugerAn auger is a drilling device, or drill bit, that usually includes a rotating helical screw blade called a "flighting" to act as a screw conveyor to remove the drilled out material...
-style two-bladed propellers, the first attempt to use an internal combustion engine to power a heavier-than-air aircraft. The fabric-covered propellers were mounted pusher-fashion on pylons above and on either side of the main truss, between the second and third sets of wings, and were designed to counter-rotateCounter-rotating propellersCounter-rotating propellers, found on twin- and multi-engine propeller-driven aircraft, spin in directions opposite one another.The propellers on both engines of most conventional twin-engined aircraft spin clockwise . Counter-rotating propellers generally spin clockwise on the left engine and...
. The engine would prove to be the aircraft's downfall. Kress had originally intended to have an engine specially built, calculating that he needed 37 kW from an engine weighing not more than 220 kg (475 lb). When the cost of this proved prohibitive, he purchased an automobile engine already in production which had an output of just 22 kW (30 hp) but weighing nearly twice as much as Kress' calculations allowed for. Initial trials on water as early as March 1901 confirmed that the poorer power-to-weight ratio would be a problem. Nevertheless, other elements of the design proved sound, and the Drachenflieger was successfully controlled while taxiing, even against a headwind. Unable to afford to replace the engine, Kress continued taxiing trials. The last of these was on 3 October on the WienerwaldseeWienerwaldseeThe Wienerwaldsee is a shallow reservoir, located 20 kilometres west of Vienna, Austria.It is located just north of Austria's main motorway, the West Autobahn, between Tullnerbach and Neu-Purkersdorf. It was created over three years, 1895-1897, by damming the Wienfluss and letting it fill the...
reservoir at TullnerbachTullnerbachTullnerbach is a municipality in the district of Wien-Umgebung in Lower Austria, Austria. It was here in 1901 that Wilhelm Kress failed at his attempt of motorized seaplane flight on the Wienerwaldsee....
, in which he was forced to swerve suddenly to avoid a groyneGroyneA groyne is a rigid hydraulic structure built from an ocean shore or from a bank that interrupts water flow and limits the movement of sediment. In the ocean, groynes create beaches, or avoid having them washed away by longshore drift. In a river, groynes prevent erosion and ice-jamming, which...
. As a result of the violent maneuver, the supports for one of the pontoons failed, causing the Drachenflieger to capsize and sink.
- 1901 - Gustave WhiteheadGustave WhiteheadGustave Albin Whitehead, born Gustav Albin Weisskopf was an aviation pioneer who emigrated from Germany to the U.S., where he designed and built early flying machines and engines meant to power them....
, a German AmericanGerman AmericanGerman Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
from BavariaBavariaBavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, flies his Whitehead No. 21 on August 14, 1901. The flight took place near Bridgeport, ConnecticutBridgeport, ConnecticutBridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
. According to the Bridgeport Herald newspaper and a few witnesses who gave their statements more than 30 years later, Whitehead made a powered, controlled airplane flight in his "Number 21Number 21 (plane)Number 21 was the name of an aircraft that aviation pioneer Gustave Whitehead claimed to have flown near Bridgeport, Connecticut on August 14, 1901....
" aircraft for a distance of 800 meters (2,625 feet) at 15 m (49 ft) height and landedLandingthumb|A [[Mute Swan]] alighting. Note the ruffled feathers on top of the wings indicate that the swan is flying at the [[Stall |stall]]ing speed...
safely. The feat, if true, exceeded the best of the Wright brothers first powered flights by 540 m (1770 ft) and preceded the Kitty HawkKitty Hawk, North CarolinaKitty Hawk is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,000 at the 2000 census. It was established in the early 18th century as Chickahawk....
flights by more than two years. Herald sports reporter Dick Howell wrote the eyewitness account and drew a sketch showing the airplane in flight, but to the lasting frustration of Whitehead supporters, no photographs were taken. The newspaper, a Sunday weekly, published the article a few days later in its next edition, and the report was also reprinted in the New York HeraldNew York HeraldThe New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
and Boston Transcript. - 1901 - The first radio receiverReceiver (radio)A radio receiver converts signals from a radio antenna to a usable form. It uses electronic filters to separate a wanted radio frequency signal from all other signals, the electronic amplifier increases the level suitable for further processing, and finally recovers the desired information through...
(successfully received a radio transmission). This receiver was developed by Guglielmo MarconiGuglielmo MarconiGuglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...
. Marconi established a wireless transmitting station at Marconi House, Rosslare StrandRosslare StrandRosslare Strand, or simply Rosslare , is a village and Seaside resort in County Wexford, Ireland. The name Rosslare Strand is used to distinguish it from the nearby community of Rosslare Harbour, site of the Rosslare Europort....
, County WexfordCounty WexfordCounty Wexford is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wexford. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnselaig, whose capital was at Ferns. Wexford County Council is the local...
, IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
in 1901 to act as a link between PoldhuPoldhuPoldhu is a small area in south Cornwall, England, UK, situated on the Lizard Peninsula; it comprises Poldhu Point and Poldhu Cove. It lies on the coast west of Goonhilly Downs, with Mullion to the south and Porthleven to the north...
in CornwallCornwallCornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
and ClifdenClifdenClifden is a town on the coast of County Galway, Ireland and being Connemara's largest town, it is often referred to as "the Capital of Connemara". It is located on the Owenglen River where it flows into Clifden Bay...
in County GalwayCounty GalwayCounty Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...
. He soon made the announcement that on 12 December 1901, using a 152.4 metres (500 ft) kite-supported antenna for reception, the message was received at Signal Hill in St JohnSt. John's, Newfoundland and LabradorSt. John's is the capital and largest city in Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the oldest English-founded city in North America. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. With a population of 192,326 as of July 1, 2010, the St...
's, NewfoundlandNewfoundland and LabradorNewfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
(now part of Canada), signals transmitted by the company's new high-power station at Poldhu, Cornwall. The distance between the two points was about 3500 kilometres (2,174.8 mi). Heralded as a great scientific advance, there was—and continues to be—some skepticism about this claim, partly because the signals had been heard faintly and sporadically. There was no independent confirmation of the reported reception, and the transmissions, consisting of the Morse codeMorse codeMorse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
letter S sent repeatedly, were difficult to distinguish from atmospheric noiseAtmospheric noiseAtmospheric noise is radio noise caused by natural atmospheric processes, primarily lightning discharges in thunderstorms. On a worldwide scale, eight million lightning discharges per day — about 100 lightning flashes per second.-History:...
. (A detailed technical review of Marconi's early transatlantic work appears in John S. Belrose's work of 1995.) The Poldhu transmitter was a two-stage circuit. The first stage operated at lower voltage and provided the energy for the second stage to spark at a higher voltage. Nikola TeslaNikola TeslaNikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
, a rival in transatlantic transmission, stated after being told of Marconi's reported transmission that "Marconi [... was] using seventeen of my patents." - 1902 - Willis CarrierWillis CarrierWillis Haviland Carrier was an American engineer and inventor, and is known as the man who invented modern air conditioning....
of Angola, New YorkAngola, New YorkAngola is a village in Erie County, New York, United States. The population was 2,266 at the 2000 census. The name is reportedly derived from the South-central African country of Angola...
invented the first indoor air conditioningAir conditioningAn air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...
. "He designed his spray driven air conditioning system which controlled both temperature and humidity using a nozzleNozzleA nozzle is a device designed to control the direction or characteristics of a fluid flow as it exits an enclosed chamber or pipe via an orifice....
originally designed to spray insecticideInsecticideAn insecticide is a pesticide used against insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the eggs and larvae of insects respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and the household. The use of insecticides is believed to be one of the major factors behind...
. He built his "Apparatus for Treating Air" (U.S. Pat. #808897) which was patented in 1906 and using chilled coils which not only controlled heat but could lower the humidity to as low as 55%. The device was even able to adjust the humidity level to a desired setting creating what would become the framework for the modern air conditioner. By adjusting the air movement and temperature level to the refrigeration coils he was able to determine the size and capacity of the unit to match the need of his customers. While Carrier was not the first to design a system like this his was much more stable, successful and safer that other versions and took air conditioning out of the Dark Ages and into the realm of science." - 1902/1906/1908 - Sir James MackenzieSir James MackenzieSir James Mackenzie FRS was a Scottish cardiologist, pioneer in the study of cardiac arrhythmias.-Biography:James Mackenzie was born in Scone, where his father was a farmer...
of Scone, ScotlandScone, ScotlandScone is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. The medieval village of Scone, which grew up around the monastery and royal residence, was abandoned in the early 19th century when the residents were removed and a new palace was built on the site by the Earl of Mansfield...
invented an early lie detectorLie detectionLie detection is the practice of attempting to determine whether someone is lying. Activities of the body not easily controlled by the conscious mind are compared under different circumstances. Usually this involves asking the subject control questions where the answers are known to the examiner...
or polygraphPolygraphA polygraph measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while the subject is asked and answers a series of questions...
. MacKenzie's polygraph "could be used to monitor the cardiovascularCirculatory systemThe circulatory system is an organ system that passes nutrients , gases, hormones, blood cells, etc...
responses of his patients by taking their pulsePulseIn medicine, one's pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the heartbeat by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed against a bone, such as at the neck , at the wrist , behind the knee , on the inside of the elbow , and near the...
and blood pressureBlood pressureBlood pressure is the pressure exerted by circulating blood upon the walls of blood vessels, and is one of the principal vital signs. When used without further specification, "blood pressure" usually refers to the arterial pressure of the systemic circulation. During each heartbeat, BP varies...
. He had developed an early version of his device in the 1890s, but had Sebastian Shaw, a LancashireLancashireLancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
watchmaker, improve it further. "This instrument used a clockwork mechanism for the paper-rolling and time-marker movements and it produced ink recordings of physiological functions that were easier to acquire and to interpret. Interestingly, it has been written that the modern polygraph is really a modification of Dr. Mackenzie's clinical ink polygraph." A more modern and effective polygraph machine would be invented by John Larson in 1921. - 1902 - Georges ClaudeGeorges ClaudeGeorges Claude was a French engineer and inventor. He is noted for his early work on the industrial liquefaction of air, for the invention and commercialization of neon lighting, and for a large experiment on generating energy by pumping cold seawater up from the depths...
invented the neon lampNeon lampA neon lamp is a miniature gas discharge lamp that typically contains neon gas at a low pressure in a glass capsule. Only a thin region adjacent to the electrodes glows in these lamps, which distinguishes them from the much longer and brighter neon tubes used for signage...
. He applied "an electrical discharge to a sealed tube of neonNeonNeon is the chemical element that has the symbol Ne and an atomic number of 10. Although a very common element in the universe, it is rare on Earth. A colorless, inert noble gas under standard conditions, neon gives a distinct reddish-orange glow when used in either low-voltage neon glow lamps or...
gas", resulting in a red glow. Claudes started working on neon tubes which could be put to use as orbinary light bulbs. His first public displace of a neon lamp took place on December 11, 1910, in ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1912, Claude's associate began selling neon discharge tubes as advertising signsNeon signNeon signs are made using electrified, luminous tube lights that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in December, 1910 by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show. While they are used worldwide, neon signs...
. They were introduced to U.S. in 1923, when two large neon signs were bought by a Los AngelesLos ÁngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
PackardPackardPackard was an American luxury-type automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana...
car dealership. The glow and arresting red color made neon advertising completely different from the competition. - 1902 - Gustave WhiteheadGustave WhiteheadGustave Albin Whitehead, born Gustav Albin Weisskopf was an aviation pioneer who emigrated from Germany to the U.S., where he designed and built early flying machines and engines meant to power them....
claimed two spectacular flights on January 17, 1902 in his improved Number 22, with a 40 HorsepowerHorsepowerHorsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...
(30 kilowattWattThe watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
) motor instead of the 20 hp (15 kW) in the Number 21 aircraft and aluminiumAluminiumAluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
instead of bambooBambooBamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
. In two published letters he wrote to American Inventor magazine he said the flights took place over Long Island SoundLong Island SoundLong Island Sound is an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean, located in the United States between Connecticut to the north and Long Island, New York to the south. The mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Saybrook, Connecticut, empties into the sound. On its western end the sound is bounded by the Bronx...
and covered distances of about two miles (3 kilometers) and seven miles (11 km) at heights up to 200 ft (61 m), ending with safe landings in the water by the boat-like fuselageFuselageThe fuselage is an aircraft's main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. In single-engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage which in turn is used as a floating hull...
. Whitehead said he tried the propeller differential speed system and the "rudderRudderA rudder is a device used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft or other conveyance that moves through a medium . On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane...
" on the second flight and they worked well for making a big circle and a return to shore where his helpers waited. He expressed pride in the accomplishment: "...as I successfully returned to my starting place with a machine hithero untried and heavier than air, I consider the trip quite a success. To my knowledge it is the first of its kind. This matter has so far never been published." A. Pruckner affidavit: "I saw him make the flight across the Sound to which he refers." - 1902 - TeasmadeTeasmadeA teasmade is a machine for making tea automatically. It was once common in the United Kingdom and some of its former colonies. Teasmades generally include an analogue alarm clock and are designed to be used at the bedside, to ensure tea is ready first thing in the morning...
, a device for making teaTeaTea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
automatically, is patented on 7 April 1902 by gunsmithGunsmithA gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds firearms. This occupation is different from an armorer. The armorer primarily maintains weapons and limited repairs involving parts replacement and possibly work involving accurization...
Frank Clarke of BirminghamBirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England. He called it "An Apparatus Whereby a Cup of Tea or Coffee is Automatically Made" and it was later marketed as "A Clock That Makes Tea!". However, his original machine and all rights to it had been purchased from its actual inventor Albert E. RichardsonAlbert E. RichardsonAlbert E. Richardson was a clockmaker from Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, who designed the first practical Teasmade.He designed the first practical Teasmade based on an alarm clock, a spirit lamp and a tipping kettle...
, a clockmakerClockmakerA clockmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to repairing clocks and watches...
from Ashton-under-LyneAshton-under-LyneAshton-under-Lyne is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies on the north bank of the River Tame, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines...
. The device was commercially available by 1904.
- 1902 - Lyman GilmoreLyman GilmoreLyman Wiswell Gilmore, Jr. was an aviation pioneer. In Grass Valley, California, USA, he built a steam-powered airplane and claimed that he flew it on May 15, 1902. Due to the requirement of a heavy boiler and the dependency on coal as a power source, the flights would have been short...
of Washington, United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
is awarded a patent for a steam engineSteam engineA steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
, intended for use in aerial vehicles. At the time he was living in Red Bluff, CaliforniaRed Bluff, CaliforniaRed Bluff is a city in and the county seat of Tehama County, California, United States. The population was 14,076 at the 2010 census, up from 13,147 at the 2000 census....
. At a later date, Gilmore claimed to have incorporated his engine in "a monoplaneMonoplaneA monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...
with a 32 foot wingspanWingspanThe wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...
". Permorming his debut flight in May, 1902. While occasionally credited with the first powered flight in aviation history, there are no supporting evidence for his account. While Gilmore was probably working on aeronautical experiments since the late 1890s and reportedly had correspondence with Samuel Pierpont LangleySamuel Pierpont LangleySamuel Pierpont Langley was an American astronomer, physicist, inventor of the bolometer and pioneer of aviation...
, there exists no photo of his creations earlier than 1908. - 1902 - The Wright brothersWright brothersThe Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...
of OhioOhioOhio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
create the 1902 version of the Wright GliderWright GliderThe Wright brothers designed, built and flew a series of three manned gliders in 1900-1902 as they worked towards achieving powered flight. They also made preliminary tests with a kite in 1899. In 1911 Orville conducted tests with a much more sophisticated glider...
. It was the third free-flight glider built by them and tested at Kitty Hawk, North CarolinaKitty Hawk, North CarolinaKitty Hawk is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,000 at the 2000 census. It was established in the early 18th century as Chickahawk....
. This was the first of the brothers' gliders to incorporate yaw controlFlight dynamicsFlight dynamics is the science of air vehicle orientation and control in three dimensions. The three critical flight dynamics parameters are the angles of rotation in three dimensions about the vehicle's center of mass, known as pitch, roll and yaw .Aerospace engineers develop control systems for...
, and its design led directly to the 1903 Wright FlyerWright FlyerThe Wright Flyer was the first powered aircraft, designed and built by the Wright brothers. They flew it four times on December 17, 1903 near the Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, U.S.The U.S...
. The brothers designed the 1902 glider during the winter of 1901–1902 at their home in Dayton, OhioDayton, OhioDayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
. They designed the wing based on data from extensive airfoil tests conducted on a homemade wind tunnelWind tunnelA wind tunnel is a research tool used in aerodynamic research to study the effects of air moving past solid objects.-Theory of operation:Wind tunnels were first proposed as a means of studying vehicles in free flight...
. They built many of the components of the glider in Dayton, but they completed assembly at their Kitty Hawk camp in September 1902. They began testing on September 19. Over the next five weeks, they made between 700 and 1000 glide flights (as estimated by the brothers, who did not keep detailed records of these tests). The longest of these was 622.5 ft (189.7 m) in 26 seconds. "In its final form, the 1902 Wright glider was the world’s first fully controllable aircraft."
- 1903 - Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor CompanyFord Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
produces its first car — the Ford Model A.
- 1903 - Richard PearseRichard PearseRichard William Pearse , son of Cornish immigrants from St Columb near Newquay, a New Zealand farmer and inventor who performed pioneering experiments in aviation....
of New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
supposedly successfully flew and landed a powered heavier-than-air machine on 31 March 1903 Verifiable eyewitnesses describe Pearse crashing into a hedge on two separate occasions during 1903. His monoplane must have risen to a height of at least three metres on each occasion. Good evidence exists that on 31 March 1903 Pearse achieved a powered, though poorly controlled, flight of several hundred metres. Pearse himself said that he had made a powered takeoff, "but at too low a speed for [his] controls to work". However, he remained airborne until he crashed into the hedge at the end of the field. - 1903 - Karl JathoKarl JathoKarl Jatho was a German pioneer and inventor, performer and public servant of the city of Hanover.On August 18, 1903 he flew with his self-made motored gliding airplane 4 months before the first flight of the Wright Brothers. He made his first attempts with a plane with three lifting surfaces, but...
of GermanyGerman EmpireThe German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
performs a series of flights at Vahrenwalder Heide, near HanoverHanoverHanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
, between August and November, 1903. Using first a pusher triplaneTriplaneA triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically-stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they may occasionally be.-Design principles:...
, then a biplaneBiplaneA biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...
. "His longest flight, however, was only 60 meters at 3–4 meters altitude." He then quit his efforts, noting his motor was too weak to make longer or higher flights. The plane was equipped with a single-cylinder 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) Buchet engine driving a two-bladed pusher propeller and made hops of up to 200 ft (60 m), flying up to 10 ft (3 m) high. In comparison Orville Wright's first controlled flight four months later was of 36 m (120 ft) in 12 seconds although Wilbur flew 59 seconds and 852 ft (259.7 m) later that same day. Either way Jatho managed to fly a powered heavier-than-air machine earlier than his American counterparts. - 1903 - Mary AndersonMary Anderson (inventor)Mary Anderson was a real estate developer, rancher, viticulturist and inventor of the windshield wiper blade. In November 1903 Anderson was granted her first patent for an automatic car window cleaning device controlled inside the car, called the windshield wiper.-Early life:Mary Anderson was born...
invented windshield wipersWindscreen wiperA windscreen wiper or windshield wiper is a device used to remove rain and debris from a windscreen or windshield. Almost all motor vehicles, including trains, aircraft and watercraft, are equipped with such wipers, which are usually a legal requirement.A wiper generally consists of an arm,...
. In November 1903 Anderson was granted her first patentPatentA patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for an automatic car window cleaning device controlled inside the car, called the windshield wiper. Her device consisted of a lever and a swinging arm with a rubber blade. The lever could be operated from inside a vehicle to cause the spring-loaded arm to move back and forth across the windshield. Similar devices had been made earlier, but Anderson's was the first to be effective.
- 1903 - The Wright brothersWright brothersThe Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...
fly at Kitty Hawk, North CarolinaKitty Hawk, North CarolinaKitty Hawk is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,000 at the 2000 census. It was established in the early 18th century as Chickahawk....
. Their Wright FlyerWright FlyerThe Wright Flyer was the first powered aircraft, designed and built by the Wright brothers. They flew it four times on December 17, 1903 near the Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, U.S.The U.S...
performed the first recorded controlled, powered, sustained heavier than air flight on December 17, 1903. In the day's fourth flight, Wilbur Wright flew 279 meters (852 ft) in 59 seconds. First three flights were approximately 120, 175, and 200 ft (61 m), respectively. The Wrights laid particular stress on fully and accurately describing all the requirements for controlled, powered flight and put them into use in an aircraft which took off from a level launching rail, with the aid of a headwind to achieve sufficient airspeed before reaching the end of the rail. It is one of the various candidates regarded as the First flying machineFirst flying machineThere are conflicting views as to what was the first flying machine.Much of the debate surrounding records of early flying machines depends on the exact definition of what constitutes a "flying machine", "flight", and even "first"....
. - 1904 — SS Haimun sents its first news story on 15 March 1904. It was a ChineseChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
steamer shipSteamboatA steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
commanded by war correspondentWar correspondentA war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
Lionel James in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese WarRusso-Japanese WarThe Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
for The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. It is the first-known instance of a "press boat" dedicated to war correspondence during naval battles. The recent advent of wireless telegraphyWireless telegraphyWireless telegraphy is a historical term used today to apply to early radio telegraph communications techniques and practices, particularly those used during the first three decades of radio before the term radio came into use....
meant that reporters were no longer limited to submitting their stories from land-based offices, and The Times spent 74 days outfitting and equipping the ship, installing a De Forest transmitter aboard the ship.
- 1904–1914 - The Panama CanalPanama CanalThe Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
constructed by the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the territory of PanamaPanamaPanama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, which had just gained independenceSeparation of Panama from ColombiaThe Separation of Panama from Colombia was formalized on 3 November 1903 with the establishment of the Republic of Panama from the Republic of Colombia's Department of Panama.-Prelude:...
from ColombiaColombiaColombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
. The Canal is a 77 km (47.8 mi) ship canalShip canalA ship canal is a canal especially constructed to carry ocean-going ships, as opposed to barges. Ship canals can be enlarged barge canals, canalized or channelized rivers, or canals especially constructed from the start to accommodate ships....
that joins the Atlantic OceanAtlantic OceanThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and the PacificPacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
ocean and a key conduit for international maritime trade. One of the largest and most difficult engineeringEngineeringEngineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
projects ever undertaken, the canal had an enormous impact on shippingShippingShipping has multiple meanings. It can be a physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo, by land, air, and sea. It also can describe the movement of objects by ship.Land or "ground" shipping can be by train or by truck...
between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake PassageDrake PassageThe Drake Passage or Mar de Hoces—Sea of Hoces—is the body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn, Chile and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica...
and Cape HornCape HornCape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
at the southernmost tip of South AmericaSouth AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. A shipShipSince the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...
sailing from New YorkNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to San Francisco via the canal travels 9500 km (5,903 mi), well under half the 22500 km (13,980.9 mi) route around Cape HornCape HornCape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
. The project starts on May 4, 1904, known as Acquisition Day. The United States government purchased all Canal properties on the Isthmus of PanamaIsthmus of PanamaThe Isthmus of Panama, also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien, is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country of Panama and the Panama Canal...
from the New Panama Canal Company, except the Panama Railroad. The project begun under the administration of Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, continued in that of William Howard TaftWilliam Howard TaftWilliam Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
and completed in that of Woodrow WilsonWoodrow WilsonThomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
. The Chief engineers were John Frank StevensJohn Frank StevensJohn Frank Stevens was an American engineer who built the Great Northern Railway in the United States and was chief engineer on the Panama Canal between 1905 and 1907.- Biography :...
and George Washington GoethalsGeorge Washington GoethalsGeorge Washington Goethals was a United States Army officer and civil engineer, best known for his supervision of construction and the opening of the Panama Canal... - 1904 — The Welte-MignonWelte-MignonM. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte in 1832.-Overview:...
reproducing pianoPlayer pianoA player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...
is created by Edwin Welte and Karl Bockisch. Both employed by the "Michael Welte und Söhne" firm of Freiburg im Breisgau, GermanyGerman EmpireThe German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
. "It automatically replayed the tempo, phrasing, dynamics and pedalling of a particular performance, and not just the notes of the music, as was the case with other player pianos of the time." In September, 1904, the Mignon was demonstrated in the Leipzig Trade FairLeipzig Trade FairThe Leipzig Trade Fair was a major fair for trade across Central Europe for nearly a millennium. After the Second World War, its location happened to lie within the borders of East Germany, whereupon it became one of the most important trade fairs of Comecon and was traditionally a meeting place...
. In March, 1905 it became better known when showcased "at the showroomShowroomThe word showroom has two distinct meanings including:-Marketing location:A showroom is a large space used to display products for sale, such as automobiles, furniture, appliances, carpet or apparel. The World's most famous locations for a showroom are the Champs Elysees in Paris or the 5th Avenue...
s of Hugo Popper, a manufacturer of roll-operated orchestrionOrchestrionAn orchestrion is a generic name for a machine that plays music and is designed to sound like an orchestra or band. Orchestrions may be operated by means of a large pinned cylinder or by a music roll and less commonly book music. The sound is usually produced by pipes, though they will be voiced...
s". By 1906, the Mignon was also exported to the United States, installed to pianos by the firms FeurichFeurichFeurich was founded in 1851 in Leipzig by Julius Gustav Feurich and has been family operated for five generations becoming renowned for the quality of its pianos.-History:Artisanal piano making is a great tradition in Saxony...
and Steinway & SonsSteinway & SonsSteinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...
. - 1904 - Benjamin HoltBenjamin HoltBenjamin Leroy Holt was an American inventor who was the first to patent and manufacture a first practical crawler-type tread tractor. The continuous-type track is used for heavy agricultural and engineering vehicles to spread the weight over a large area to prevent the vehicle from sinking into...
of the Holt Manufacturing CompanyHolt Manufacturing CompanyThe Holt Manufacturing Company traces its roots to the 1883 establishment of Stockton Wheel Service in Stockton, California, United States. Benjamin Holt, who was later credited with patenting the first workable crawler tractor design, incorporated the Holt Manufacturing Company in 1892...
invents one of the first practical continuous tracks for use in tractorTractorA tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
s. While the date of invention was reportedly November 24, 1904, Holt would not receive a patent until December, 1907. - 1905 - John Joseph Montgomery of CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
designs tandem-wing glidersGlider (sailplane)A glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the sport of gliding. Some gliders, known as motor gliders are used for gliding and soaring as well, but have engines which can, in some cases, be used for take-off or for extending a flight...
. His pilot Daniel Maloney performs a number of public exhibitions of high altitude flights in March and April 1905 in the Santa Clara, CaliforniaSanta Clara, CaliforniaSanta Clara , founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852, is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. The city is the site of the eighth of 21 California missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and was named after the mission. The Mission and Mission Gardens are located on the...
area. These flights received national media attention and demonstrated superior control of the design, with launches as high as 4,000 feet (1,200 m) and landings made at predetermined locations. The gliders were launched from balloons. - 1905 - The Wright Brothers introduce their Wright Flyer IIIWright Flyer IIIThe Wright Flyer III was the third powered aircraft built by the Wright Brothers. Orville Wright made the first flight with it on June 23, 1905. The Flyer III had an airframe of spruce construction with a wing camber of 1-in-20 as used in 1903, rather than the less effective 1-in-25 used in 1904...
. On October 5, 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles (38.6 km) in 39 minutes 23 seconds, longer than the total duration of all the flights of 19031903 in aviationThis is a list of aviation-related events from 1903:-January:*1 January – Konstantin Tsiolkovski deduces the Basic Rocket Equation in his article Explorations of outer space with the help of reaction apparatuses.-February:...
and 19041904 in aviationThis is a list of aviation-related events from 1904:-February:*Before the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, the Imperial Russian Navy conducts many experiments with towing balloons and man-lifting kites from its warships.-April:...
. Ending with a safe landing when the fuel ran out. The flight was seen by a number of people, including several invited friends, their father Milton, and neighboring farmers. Four days later, they wrote to the United States Secretary of WarUnited States Secretary of WarThe Secretary of War was a member of the United States President's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War," was appointed to serve the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation...
William Howard TaftWilliam Howard TaftWilliam Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
, offering to sell the world's first practical fixed-wing aircraft. - 1906 - The Gabel Automatic Entertainer, an early jukeboxJukeboxA jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
-like machine, is invented by John Gabel. It is the first such device to play a series of gramophone records. "The Automatic Entertainer with 24 selections, was produced and patented by the John Gabel owned company in ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. The first model (constructed in 1905) was produced in 1906 with an exposed 40 inch horn (102 cm) on top, and it is today often considered the real father of the modern multi-selection disc-playing phonographs. John Gabel and his company did in fact receive a special prize at the Pan-Pacific ExpositionNagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exposition (1937)The was a world's fair held in what is now part of the Minami Ward of Nagoya city, Japan from 15 March to 31 May in 1937.-History:Sponsored by the Japanese government and with HIH Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko as chairman, the Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exposition was intended to promote industry,...
for the Automatic Entertainer."
- 1906 - The Victor Talking Machine CompanyVictor Talking Machine CompanyThe Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
releases the Victrola, the most popular gramophonePhonographThe phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
model until the late 1920s. The Victrola is also the first playbackRecordingRecording is the process of capturing data or translating information to a recording format stored on some storage medium, which is often referred to as a record or, if an auditory medium, a recording....
machine containing an internal horn. Victor also erects the world's largest illuminated billboard at the time, on BroadwayBroadway (New York City)Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, to advertise the company's records. - 1906 - Traian VuiaTraian VuiaTraian Vuia was a Romanian inventor and aviation pioneer who designed, builtand flew an early aircraft. His first flight traveled about 12 m at Montesson, France on March 18, 1906...
of RomaniaKingdom of RomaniaThe Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
takes off with his "Traian Vuia 1", an early monoplaneMonoplaneA monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...
. His flight was performed in MontessonMontessonMontesson is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris.-External links:* http://www.fotw.net/flags/fr-78-ms.html...
near ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and was about 12 meters long. - 1906 - Jacob EllehammerJacob EllehammerJacob Christian Hansen Ellehammer was a Danish watchmaker and inventor born in Bakkebølle, Denmark. He is remembered chiefly for his contributions to powered flight....
of DenmarkDenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
constructs the Ellehammer semi-biplaneEllehammer semi-biplane-References:* ...
. In this machine, he made a tethered flight on 12 September 1906, becoming the second European to make a powered flight. - 1906 - Alberto Santos-DumontAlberto Santos-DumontAlberto Santos-Dumont , was a Brazilian early pioneer of aviation. The heir of a wealthy family of coffee producers, Santos Dumont dedicated himself to science studies in Paris, France, where he spent most of his adult life....
and his Santos-Dumont 14-bisSantos-Dumont 14-bisThe 14-bis , also known as , was a pioneer-era canard biplane designed and built by Brazilian inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont...
make the first European public flight of an airplaneFixed-wing aircraftA fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...
on October 23, 1906 in ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The flying machine was the first fixed-wing aircraft officially witnessed to take off, fly, and land. Santos Dumont is considered the "Father of Aviation" in his country of birth, BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. His flight is the first to have been certified by the Aéro-Club de FranceAéro-Club de FranceThe Aéro-Club de France was founded as the Aéro-Club on 20 October 1898 as a society 'to encourage aerial locomotion' by Ernest Archdeacon, Léon Serpollet, Henri de la Valette, Jules Verne and his wife, André Michelin, Albert de Dion, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe, and Henry de...
and the Fédération Aéronautique InternationaleFédération Aéronautique InternationaleThe Fédération Aéronautique Internationale is the world governing body for air sports and aeronautics and astronautics world records. Its head office is in Lausanne, Switzerland. This includes man-carrying aerospace vehicles from balloons to spacecraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles...
(FAI). On November 12, 1906, Santos Dumont succeeded in setting the first world record recognized by the Aero-Club De France by flying 220 metres in less than 22 seconds. - 1906 - Sound radio broadcasting was invented by Reginald FessendenReginald FessendenReginald Aubrey Fessenden , a naturalized American citizen born in Canada, was an inventor who performed pioneering experiments in radio, including early—and possibly the first—radio transmissions of voice and music...
and Lee De ForestLee De ForestLee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...
. Fessenden and Ernst AlexandersonErnst AlexandersonErnst Frederick Werner Alexanderson was a Swedish-American electrical engineer, who was a pioneer in radio and television development.-Background:...
developed a high-frequency alternatorAlternatorAn alternator is an electromechanical device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current.Most alternators use a rotating magnetic field but linear alternators are occasionally used...
-transmitters, an improvement on an already existing device. The improved model operated at a transmitting frequency of approximately 50 kHz, although with far less power than Fessenden's rotary-spark transmitters. The alternator-transmitter achieved the goal of transmitting quality audio signals, but the lack of any way to amplify the signals meant they were somewhat weak. On December 21, 1906, Fessenden made an extensive demonstration of the new alternator-transmitter at Brant Rock, showing its utility for point-to-point wireless telephony, including interconnecting his stations to the wire telephone network. A detailed review of this demonstration appeared in The American Telephone Journal. Meanwhile De Forest had developed the Audion tubeAudion tubeThe Audion is an electronic amplifying vacuum tube invented by Lee De Forest in 1906. It was the forerunner of the triode, in which the current from the filament to the plate was controlled by a third element, the grid...
an electronic amplifierAmplifierGenerally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
device. He received a patent in January, 1907. "DeForest’s audion vacuum tube was the key component of all radio, telephone, radar, television, and computer systems before the invention of the transistor in 1947." - 1906 - Reginald FessendenReginald FessendenReginald Aubrey Fessenden , a naturalized American citizen born in Canada, was an inventor who performed pioneering experiments in radio, including early—and possibly the first—radio transmissions of voice and music...
of East BoltonBolton-Est, QuebecBolton-Est is a municipality of 700 people, part of the Memphrémagog Regional County Municipality in the Estrie region of Quebec.It is the birthplace of Reginald Fessenden, radio pioneer who invented amplitude modulation .-References:...
, QuebecQuebecQuebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
made what appear to be the first audio radio broadcasts of entertainment and music ever made to a general audience. (Beginning in 1904, the United States NavyUnited States NavyThe United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
had broadcast daily time signals and weather reports, but these employed spark-gap transmitterSpark-gap transmitterA spark-gap transmitter is a device for generating radio frequency electromagnetic waves using a spark gap.These devices served as the transmitters for most wireless telegraphy systems for the first three decades of radio and the first demonstrations of practical radio were carried out using them...
s, transmitting in Morse codeMorse codeMorse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
). On the evening of December 24, 1906 (Christmas EveChristmas EveChristmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...
), Fessenden used the alternator-transmitter to send out a short program from Brant RockOcean Bluff-Brant Rock, MassachusettsOcean Bluff-Brant Rock is a census-designated place in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, composed of the villages of Ocean Bluff and Brant Rock in the town of Marshfield...
, Plymouth CountyPlymouth County, MassachusettsPlymouth County is a county located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of 2010, the population was 494,919. Its county seats are Plymouth and Brockton...
, MassachusettsMassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. It included a phonograph record of Ombra mai fùOmbra mai fu"Ombra mai fu" is the opening aria from the 1738 opera Serse by George Frideric Handel.-Context:The opera was a commercial failure, lasting only five performances in London after its premiere. In the 19th century, however, the aria was rediscovered and became one of Handel's best-known pieces...
(Largo) by George Frideric HandelGeorge Frideric HandelGeorge Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, followed by Fessenden himself playing the song O Holy NightO Holy Night"O Holy Night" is a well-known Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the French poem "Minuit, chrétiens" by Placide Cappeau , a wine merchant and poet, who had been asked by a parish priest to write a Christmas poem...
on the violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
. Finishing with reading a passage from the BibleBibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
: 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will' (Gospel of LukeGospel of LukeThe Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
2:14). On December 31, New Year's EveNew Year's EveNew Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
, a second short program was broadcast. The main audience for both these transmissions was an unknown number of shipboard radio operators along the East Coast of the United StatesEast Coast of the United StatesThe East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
. Fessenden claimed that the Christmas Eve broadcast had been heard "as far down" as Norfolk, VirginiaNorfolk, VirginiaNorfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
, while the New Year Eve's broadcast had reached places in the CaribbeanCaribbeanThe Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. Although now seen as a landmark, these two broadcasts were barely noticed at the time and soon forgotten— the only first-hand account appears to be a letter Fessenden wrote on January 29, 1932 to his former associate, Samuel M. Kinter.
- 1907 — The Autochrome LumièreAutochrome LumièreThe Autochrome Lumière is an early color photography process. Patented in 1903 by the Lumière brothers in France and first marketed in 1907, it was the principal color photography process in use before the advent of subtractive color film in the mid-1930s....
which was patented in 1903 becomes the first commercial color photography process. - 1907 - Thomas EdisonThomas EdisonThomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
invented the "Universal Electric Motor" which made it possible to operate dictation machineDictation machineA dictation machine is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for later playback or to be typed into print. It includes digital voice recorders and tape recorders....
s, etc. on all lighting circuits. - 1907 — The Photostat machinePhotostat machineThe Photostat machine, or Photostat, was an early projection photocopier created in the 1900s by the Photostat Corporation; "Photostat" - which was originally a trademark of the company - is also used to refer to the similar machines produced by the Rectigraph Company.-Background:The growth of...
begins the modern era of document imaging. The Photostat machine was invented in Kansas CityKansas City, KansasKansas City is the third-largest city in the state of Kansas and is the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the third largest city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. The city is part of a consolidated city-county government known as the "Unified...
, KansasKansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Oscar Gregory in 1907, and the Photostat Corporation was incorporated in Rhode IslandRhode IslandThe state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
in 1911. "Rectigraph and Photostat machines (Plates 40–42) combined a large camera and a developing machine and used sensitized paper furnished in 350-foot rolls. "The prints are made direct on sensitized paper, no negative, plate or film intervening. The usual exposure is ten seconds. After the exposure has been made the paper is cut off and carried underneath the exposure chamber to the developing bath, where it remains for 35 seconds, and is then drawn into a fixing bath. While one print is being developed or fixed, another exposure can be made. When the copies are removed from the fixing bath, they are allowed to dry by exposure to the air, or may be run through a drying machine. The first print taken from the original is a 'black' print; the whites in the original are black and the blacks, white. (Plate 43) A white 'positive' print of the original is made by rephotographing the black print. As many positives as required may be made by continuing to photograph the black print." (The American Digest of Business Machines, 1924.) Du Pont Co. files include black prints of graphs dating from 1909, and the company acquired a Photostat machine in 1912. ... A 1914 Rectigraph ad stated that the U.S. government had been using Rectigraphs for four years and stated that the machines were being used by insurance companies and abstract and title companies. ... In 1911, a Photostat machine was $500."
- 1908 - Henry FordHenry FordHenry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
of the Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor CompanyFord Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
introduces the Ford Model TFord Model TThe Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from September 1908 to May 1927...
. The first production Model T was built on September 27, 1908, at the Piquette PlantPiquette PlantThe Ford Piquette Avenue Plant is located at 411 Piquette Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, within the Piquette Avenue Industrial Historic District. It was the second home of Ford Motor Company automobile production...
in Detroit, MichiganDetroit, MichiganDetroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that "put America on wheels"; some of this was because of Ford's innovations, including assembly lineAssembly lineAn assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods...
production instead of individual hand crafting, as well as the concept of paying the workers a wage proportionate to the cost of the car, so that they would provide a ready made market. - 1909 - Leo BaekelandLeo BaekelandLeo Hendrik Baekeland was a Belgian chemist who invented Velox photographic paper and Bakelite , an inexpensive, nonflammable, versatile, and popular plastic, which marks the beginning of the modern plastics industry.-Career:Leo Baekeland was born in Sint-Martens-Latem near Ghent, Belgium,...
of Sint-Martens-LatemSint-Martens-LatemSint-Martens-Latem is a municipality located in the Flemish province of East Flanders, in Belgium. The municipality comprises the towns of Deurle and Sint-Martens-Latem proper. On January 1, 2006 Sint-Martens-Latem had a total population of 8,280...
, BelgiumBelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
officially announces his creation of Bakelite. The announcement was made at the February 1909 meeting of the New York section of the American Chemical SocietyAmerican Chemical SocietyThe American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...
. Bakelite is an inexpensive, nonflammable, versatile, and popular plasticPlasticA plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...
.
Popular culture
Literature and art
- L. Frank BaumL. Frank BaumLyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
publishes The Wonderful Wizard of OzThe Wonderful Wizard of OzThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
in 1900. - Thomas MannThomas MannThomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
publishes BuddenbrooksBuddenbrooksBuddenbrooks was Thomas Mann's first novel, published in 1901 when he was twenty-six years old. The publication of the 2nd edition in 1903 confirmed that Buddenbrooks was a major literary success in Germany....
in 1901. - Theodor HerzlTheodor HerzlTheodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...
, the founder of political ZionismZionismZionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, publishes The Old New LandThe Old New LandThe Old New Land is a utopian novel published by Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, in 1902. Outlining Herzl’s vision for a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, Altneuland became one of Zionism's establishing texts. It was translated into Yiddish by Israel Isidor Elyashev...
in 1902 outlining Herzl's vision for a Jewish state in the Land of IsraelLand of IsraelThe Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
. - Joseph ConradJoseph ConradJoseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
publishes the novella Heart of DarknessHeart of DarknessHeart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine. It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon.The story centres on Charles...
in 1902, after the serial release in 1898. - Jack LondonJack LondonJohn Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
publishes The Call of the WildThe Call of the WildThe Call of the Wild is a novel by American writer Jack London. The plot concerns a previously domesticated dog named Buck, whose primordial instincts return after a series of events leads to his serving as a sled dog in the Yukon during the 19th-century Klondike Gold Rush, in which sled dogs...
in 1903 - Upton SinclairUpton SinclairUpton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
publishes The JungleThe JungleThe Jungle is a 1906 novel written by journalist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel with the intention of portraying the life of the immigrant in the United States, but readers were more concerned with the large portion of the book pertaining to the corruption of the American meatpacking...
in 1906 - Joseph Conrad publishes The Secret AgentThe Secret AgentThe Secret Agent: A Simple Tale is a novel by Joseph Conrad published in 1907. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals largely with the life of Mr. Verloc and his job as a spy. The Secret Agent is also notable as it is one of Conrad's later political novels, which move away from his typical...
in 1907 - Lucy Maud MontgomeryLucy Maud MontgomeryLucy Maud Montgomery OBE , called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L.M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success...
publishes Anne of Green GablesAnne of Green GablesAnne of Green Gables is a bestselling novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published in 1908. Set in 1878, it was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book...
in 1908 - Serbian writersSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
use the BelgradeBelgradeBelgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
literary style, an Ekavian writing form which set basis for the later standardization of the Serbian language - Pablo PicassoPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
paints Les Demoiselles d'AvignonLes Demoiselles d'AvignonHe followed his success by developing into his Rose period from 1904 to 1907, which introduced a strong element of sensuality and sexuality into his work...
, considered by some to be the birth of modern art. - Art NouveauArt NouveauArt Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
art movement peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century (1890–1905). - CubismCubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
art movement peaked in popularity in France between 1907 and 1911. - FauvismFauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
art movement peaked in popularity between 1905 and 1907.
Film
- April 2, 1902 — Electric Theatre, the first movie theaterMovie theaterA movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, opens in Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. - The first huge success of American cinema, as well as the largest experimental achievement to this point, was the 1903 film "The Great Train Robbery", directed by Edwin S. PorterEdwin S. PorterEdwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company...
. - The world's first feature film, The Story of the Kelly GangThe Story of the Kelly GangThe Story of the Kelly Gang is a 1906 Australian film that traces the life of the legendary bushranger Ned Kelly . It was written and directed by Charles Tait. The film ran for more than an hour, and was the longest narrative film yet seen in Australia, and the world. Its approximate reel length...
is released on 26 December 1906 in Melbourne, AustraliaMelbourneMelbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
.
Sports
The Tour De FranceTour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...
starts for the first time in 1903.
Miscellaneous
- U.S. New Haven, CT Louis Lassen of Louis' LunchLouis' LunchLouis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut, advertises itself as the first restaurant to serve hamburgers and as being the oldest hamburger restaurant still operating in the U.S. Opened as a small lunch wagon in 1895, Louis' Lunch was also one of the first places in the U.S...
makes the first modern-day hamburgerHamburgerA hamburger is a sandwich consisting of a cooked patty of ground meat usually placed inside a sliced bread roll...
sandwichSandwichA sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...
.
World leaders
- Prime Minister Edmund BartonEdmund BartonSir Edmund Barton, GCMG, KC , Australian politician and judge, was the first Prime Minister of Australia and a founding justice of the High Court of Australia....
(AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
) - Prime Minister Alfred DeakinAlfred DeakinAlfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
(AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
) - Prime Minister Chris WatsonChris WatsonJohn Christian Watson , commonly known as Chris Watson, Australian politician, was the third Prime Minister of Australia...
(AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
) - Prime Minister Sir George ReidGeorge Reid (Australian politician)Sir George Houstoun Reid, GCB, GCMG, KC was an Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales and the fourth Prime Minister of Australia....
(AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
) - Prime Minister Andrew FisherAndrew FisherAndrew Fisher was an Australian politician who served as the fifth Prime Minister on three separate occasions. Fisher's 1910-13 Labor ministry completed a vast legislative programme which made him, along with Protectionist Alfred Deakin, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation...
(AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
) - Emperor Franz Josef (Austria-HungaryAustria-HungaryAustria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
) - Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid LaurierWilfrid LaurierSir Wilfrid Laurier, GCMG, PC, KC, baptized Henri-Charles-Wilfrid Laurier was the seventh Prime Minister of Canada from 11 July 1896 to 6 October 1911....
(CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
) - Emperor Wilhelm II (GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
) - King Victor Emmanuel IIIVictor Emmanuel III of ItalyVictor Emmanuel III was a member of the House of Savoy and King of Italy . In addition, he claimed the crowns of Ethiopia and Albania and claimed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania , which were unrecognised by the Great Powers...
(ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
) - George Nathaniel Curzon, Viceroy of (IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
) - Khedive Abbas IIAbbas II of EgyptHH Abbas II Hilmi Bey was the last Khedive of Egypt and Sudan .-Early life:...
(Khedivate of EgyptKhedivate of EgyptThe Khedivate of Egypt was an autonomous tributary state of the Ottoman Empire.- Rise of Muhammad Ali :The Egypt Eyalet was an eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. The eyalet was ruled locally by the Mamluk military caste and their various beys , who started to fight amongst themselves for control of...
) - Pope Leo XIIIPope Leo XIIIPope Leo XIII , born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903...
- Pope Pius XPope Pius XPope Saint Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox...
- President Porfirio DíazPorfirio DíazJosé de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori was a Mexican-American War volunteer and French intervention hero, an accomplished general and the President of Mexico continuously from 1876 to 1911, with the exception of a brief term in 1876 when he left Juan N...
(MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
) - Sultan Abdul Hamid IIAbdul Hamid IIHis Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...
of (Ottoman EmpireOttoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
) - Sultan Mehmed VMehmed VMehmed V Reshad was the 35th Ottoman Sultan. He was the son of Sultan Abdülmecid I. He was succeeded by his half-brother Mehmed VI.-Birth:...
of (Ottoman EmpireOttoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
)
- Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar (PersiaQajar dynastyThe Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....
) - Mohammad Ali Shah QajarMohammad Ali Shah QajarMohammad Ali Shah Qajar was the Shah of Persia from 8 January 1907 to 16 July 1909.-Biography:He was against the constitution that was ratified during the reign of his father, Mozzafar-al-Din Shah...
(PersiaQajar dynastyThe Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....
) - Ahmad Shah QajarAhmad Shah QajarAhmad Shah Qajar was Shah of Iran from July 16, 1909, to October 31, 1925 and the last of the Qajar dynasty.- Reign :...
(PersiaQajar dynastyThe Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....
) - from 1909 - Tsar Nicholas IINicholas II of RussiaNicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
(RussiaRussian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
) - King Alfonso XIII (SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
) - Prime Minister Antonio Maura (SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
) - Queen Victoria (United Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
) - King Edward VIIEdward VII of the United KingdomEdward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
) - Prime Minister Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (United Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
) - Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour (United Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
) - Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-BannermanHenry Campbell-BannermanSir Henry Campbell-Bannerman GCB was a British Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and Leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1908. He also served as Secretary of State for War twice, in the Cabinets of Gladstone and Rosebery...
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and IrelandThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
) - President William McKinleyWilliam McKinleyWilliam McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
(United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), 1897–1901 - President Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
(United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), 1901–1909 - President William Howard TaftWilliam Howard TaftWilliam Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
(United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), 1909–1913
Modern artists
- Umberto BoccioniUmberto BoccioniUmberto Boccioni was an Italian painter and sculptor. Like other Futurists, his work centered on the portrayal of movement , speed, and technology. He was born in Reggio Calabria, Italy.-Biography:...
- Pierre BonnardPierre BonnardPierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...
- Georges BraqueGeorges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
- Paul CézannePaul CézannePaul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
- Marc ChagallMarc ChagallMarc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
- Edgar DegasEdgar DegasEdgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
- André DerainAndré DerainAndré Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
- Raoul DufyRaoul DufyRaoul Dufy[p] was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events...
- Paul GauguinPaul GauguinEugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
- Juan GrisJuan GrisJosé Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
- Wassily KandinskyWassily KandinskyWassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
- Gustav KlimtGustav KlimtGustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects...
- Fernand LégerFernand LégerJoseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
- Kazimir MalevichKazimir MalevichKazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian painter and art theoretician, born of ethnic Polish parents. He was a pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement.-Early life:...
- Henri MatisseHenri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
- Amedeo ModiglianiAmedeo ModiglianiAmedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
- Claude MonetClaude MonetClaude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
- Pablo PicassoPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
- Pierre-Auguste RenoirPierre-Auguste RenoirPierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
- Auguste RodinAuguste RodinFrançois-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
- Georges RouaultGeorges RouaultGeorges Henri Rouault[p] was a French Fauvist and Expressionist painter, and printmaker in lithography and etching.-Childhood and education:Rouault was born in Paris into a poor family...
- Henri RousseauHenri RousseauHenri Julien Félix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier , a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector...
- Albert Pinkham RyderAlbert Pinkham RyderAlbert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality...
- Egon SchieleEgon SchieleEgon Schiele was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced...
- Gino SeveriniGino SeveriniGino Severini , was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to order" in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of...
- Paul SignacPaul SignacPaul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
- Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
- Suzanne ValadonSuzanne ValadonSuzanne Valadon was a French painter born Marie-Clémentine Valadon at Bessines-sur-Gartempe, Haute-Vienne, France. In 1894, Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts...
- Maurice de VlaminckMaurice de VlaminckMaurice de Vlaminck was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color.-Life:Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family...
- Gustave CaillebotteGustave CaillebotteGustave Caillebotte was a French painter, member and patron of the group of artists known as Impressionists, though he painted in a much more realistic manner than many other artists in the group...
- Vincent van GoghVincent van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
- Édouard ManetÉdouard ManetÉdouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
- Camille PissarroCamille PissarroCamille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
- Georges Seurat
- Alfred SisleyAlfred SisleyAlfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...
Other notable people
- Eugen d'AlbertEugen d'AlbertEugen Francis Charles d'Albert was a Scottish-born German pianist and composer.Educated in Britain, d'Albert showed early musical talent and, at the age of seventeen, he won a scholarship to study in Austria...
- Hugo AlfvénHugo Alfvénwas a Swedish composer, conductor, violinist, and painter.- Violinist :Alfvén was born in Stockholm and studied at the Music Conservatory there from 1887 to 1891 with the violin as his main instrument, receiving lessons from Lars Zetterquist. He also took private composition lessons from Johan...
- Egbert Van AlstyneEgbert Van AlstyneEgbert Anson Van Alstyne was a United States songwriter and pianist. Van Alstyne was the composer of a number of popular and ragtime tunes from the early 20th century.He was born in Marengo, Illinois...
- Broncho Billy AndersonBroncho Billy AndersonGilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson was an American actor, writer, film director, and film producer, who is best known as the first star of the Western film genre.-Early life:...
- Fatty ArbuckleFatty ArbuckleRoscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
- Louis Daniel Armstrong
- Kurt AtterbergKurt AtterbergKurt Magnus Atterberg was a Swedish composer. He is best known for his symphonies, operas and ballets. Atterberg once said that: "The Russians, Brahms, Reger were my ideals." His music combines their influences with Swedish folk tunes.-Biography:Atterberg was born in Gothenburg as the son of the...
- Béla BartókBéla BartókBéla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
- Nora BayesNora BayesNora Bayes was a popular American singer, comedienne and actress of the early 20th century.-Early life and career:...
- Jagdish Chandra BoseJagdish Chandra BoseAcharya Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, CSI, CIE, FRS was a Bengali polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, as well as an early writer of science fiction...
- Irving BerlinIrving BerlinIrving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
- Francis BoggsFrancis BoggsFrancis W. Boggs was a stage actor and pioneer silent film director. He was one of the first to direct a film in Hollywood.-Biography:...
- Frank BridgeFrank BridgeFrank Bridge was an English composer and violist.-Life:Bridge was born in Brighton and studied at the Royal College of Music in London from 1899 to 1903 under Charles Villiers Stanford and others...
- Alfred BryanAlfred BryanAlfred Bryan was a United States songwriter and pacifist.-Songs:His hits included*"Peg O' My Heart"*"Come Josephine in My Flying Machine"*"I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier"...
- Vincent P. BryanVincent P. BryanVincent Patrick Bryan was a composer and lyricist.In the 1903-1909 production of The Wizard of Oz he was called upon to introduce new songs in numerous revisions.*with Theodore F. Morse...
- Ferruccio BusoniFerruccio BusoniFerruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...
- Enrico Caruso
- Gustave CharpentierGustave CharpentierGustave Charpentier, , born in Dieuze, Moselle on 25 June 1860, died Paris, 18 February 1956) was a French composer, best known for his opera Louise.-Life and career:...
- Thurland ChattawayThurland ChattawayThurland Chattaway was a popular music composer, active from approximately 1898 to 1912. Most famous for writing the words to the popular hit "Red Wing". Other songs include "Little Black Me" and "Can't You Take It Back and Change It For a Boy"....
- Francesco CileaFrancesco CileaFrancesco Cilea was an Italian composer. Today he is particularly known for his operas L'arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur.-Biography:...
- Will D. CobbWill D. CobbWill D. Cobb was an American lyricist and composer. He had a writing partnership with Ren Shields that produced many popular musicals and musical comedies.Productions and input of Will D. Cobb...
- Bob ColeBob Cole (composer)Robert Allen "Bob" Cole was an American composer, actor, playwright, and stage producer and director.In collaboration with Billy Johnson, he wrote and produced A Trip to Coontown , the first musical entirely created and owned by black showmen. The popular song La Hoola Boola was also a result of...
- Frederick ConverseFrederick ConverseFrederick Shepherd Converse , was an American composer of classical music.-Life and career:Converse was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Edmund Winchester and Charlotte Augusta Converse. His father was a successful merchant, and president of the National Tube Works and the Conanicut Mills...
- Henry CreamerHenry CreamerHenry Creamer was an American popular song lyricist. He was born in Richmond, Virginia and died in New York. He co-wrote many popular songs in the years from 1900 to 1929, often collaborating with Turner Layton, with whom he also appeared in vaudeville.Creamer was a co-founder with James Reese...
- Henry Walford DaviesHenry Walford DaviesSir Henry Walford Davies KCVO OBE was a British composer, who held the title Master of the King's Musick from 1934 until 1941.-Early life and education:...
- Peter Dawson
- Claude DebussyClaude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
- Frederick DeliusFrederick DeliusFrederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
- Paul DresserPaul DresserJohann Paul Dresser, Jr. was a popular American songwriter of the late 19th century and early 20th century. As a child and adolescent he was frequently in trouble and spent several months in jail before joining a band of traveling minstrels...
- Antonín DvořákAntonín DvorákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
- Gus EdwardsGus Edwards (songwriter)Gus Edwards was an American songwriter and vaudevillian. He also organised his own theatre companies and was a music publisher.-Early life:...
- Edward ElgarEdward ElgarSir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
- August EnnaAugust EnnaAugust Enna was a Danish composer, known mainly for his operas.Enna was born in Denmark, but his ethnic origins lay in the town of Enna in Sicily. His first major success as a composer was The Witch , which was followed by several popular operas, songs, two symphonies , and a violin concerto...
- Manuel de FallaManuel de FallaManuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
- Geraldine FarrarGeraldine FarrarGeraldine Farrar was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".- Early life and opera career :Farrar was born in Melrose,...
- Fred FisherFred FisherFred Fisher was a German-born American songwriter and Tin Pan Alley music publisher. Fisher founded Fred Fisher Music Publishing Company in 1907. He was born as Albert von Breitenbach in Cologne...
- Paul Le FlemPaul Le FlemPaul Le Flem was a French composer and music critic. Born in Brittany and living most of his life in Lezardrieux, Le Flem studied at the Schola Cantorum under Vincent d'Indy and Albert Roussel, later teaching at the same establishment, where his pupils included Erik Satie and André Jolivet...
- Sigmund FreudSigmund FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
- Rudolf FrimlRudolf FrimlRudolf Friml was a composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer...
- Julius FučíkJulius Fucík (composer)Julius Arnost Wilhelm Fučík was a Czech composer and conductor of military bands.Fučík spent most of his life as the leader of military brass bands. He became a prolific composer, with over 300 marches, polkas, and waltzes to his name...
- Amelita Galli-CurciAmelita Galli-CurciAmelita Galli-Curci was an Italian operatic soprano. She was one of the best-known coloratura singers of the early 20th century with her gramophone records selling in large numbers.-Early life:...
- Mary GardenMary GardenMary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...
- Edward GermanEdward GermanSir Edward German was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of English comic opera.As a youth, German played the violin and led the town orchestra, also...
- Alexander GlazunovAlexander GlazunovAlexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
- Emilio de GogorzaEmilio de GogorzaEmilio Eduardo de Gogorza was an American baritone of Spanish parentage.He was born in Brooklyn, New York, but brought up and trained musically in Spain. He returned to the USA in his early 20s. He sang in many languages, including French, Italian and English, as well as Spanish...
- Percy GraingerPercy GraingerGeorge Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
- Enrique GranadosEnrique GranadosEnrique Granados y Campiña was a Spanish pianist and composer of classical music. His music is in a uniquely Spanish style and, as such, representative of musical nationalism...
- D. W. GriffithD. W. GriffithDavid Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
- Guy d'HardelotGuy d'HardelotGuy d'Hardelot was the pen name of Helen Rhodes , a French composer, pianist, and teacher.- Biography :...
- Hamilton HartyHamilton HartySir Hamilton Harty was an Irish and British composer, conductor, pianist and organist. In his capacity as a conductor, he was particularly noted as an interpreter of the music of Berlioz and he was much respected as a piano accompanist of exceptional prowess...
- The Haydn QuartetThe Haydn QuartetThe Haydn Quartet was one of the most popular recording close harmony quartets in the early twentieth century.Originally Samuel Holland Rous formed a vocal quartet in 1896 to record for Edison’s studios...
- Anna HeldAnna HeldHelene Anna Held was a Polish-born stage performer, most often associated with impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, her common-law husband. -Early life:...
- Victor HerbertVictor HerbertVictor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
- Max HoffmannMax HoffmannMax Hoffmann was a German officer and military strategist during World War I. He is widely regarded as one of the finest staff officers of the imperial period....
- Gustav HolstGustav HolstGustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
- Abe HolzmannAbe HolzmannAbe Holzmann was a German/American composer, who is most famous today for his march Blaze-Away!Abraham Holzmann was born in New York City. His parents were Jacob Holzmann, a Hungarian immigrant and Isabella Holzmann, a native of Louisiana. The young Holzmann learned music in Germany...
- David HorsleyDavid HorsleyDavid Horsley was an English born pioneer of the movie industry who built the first movie studio in Hollywood....
- Harry HoudiniHarry HoudiniHarry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...
- Mississippi John HurtMississippi John HurtJohn Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...
- Jenö HuszkaJeno HuszkaJenő Huszka was a Hungarian composer of operettas. He was born in Szeged and died in Budapest.- Life :...
- Mikhail Ippolitov-IvanovMikhail Ippolitov-IvanovMikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov was a Russian composer, conductor and teacher.- Biography :...
- Carrie Jacobs-BondCarrie Jacobs-BondCarrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter who composed some 175 pieces of popular sheet music from the 1890s through the early 1940s....
- William JeromeWilliam JeromeWilliam Jerome was an American songwriter, born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York of Irish immigrant parents, Mary Donnellan and Patrick Flannery...
- J. Rosamond JohnsonJ. Rosamond JohnsonJohn Rosamond Johnson , most often referred to as J. Rosamond Johnson, was an American composer and singer during the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson is most notable as the composer of Lift Every Voice and Sing which has come to be known in the United States as the "Black National Anthem"...
- James Weldon JohnsonJames Weldon JohnsonJames Weldon Johnson was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his leadership within the NAACP, as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and...
- Scott JoplinScott JoplinScott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
- Gus KahnGus KahnGustav Gerson Kahn was a musician, songwriter and lyricist.-Biography:Kahn was born in Koblenz, Germany in 1886. The family emigrated from there to the United States and moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1890...
- Jerome KernJerome KernJerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
- Rudyard KiplingRudyard KiplingJoseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
- Carl LaemmleCarl LaemmleCarl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...
- Harry LauderHarry LauderSir Henry Lauder , known professionally as Harry Lauder, was an international Scottish entertainer, described by Sir Winston Churchill as "Scotland's greatest ever ambassador!"-Early life:...
- Lead Belly
- Franz LehárFranz LehárFranz Lehár was an Austrian-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow .-Biography:...
- Ruggiero Leoncavallo
- Paul LinckePaul LinckeCarl Emil Paul Lincke was a German composer and theater conductor. He is considered the "father" of the Berlin opera and holds the same significance for Berlin as does Johann Strauss for Vienna and Jacques Offenbach for Paris.He was the son of magistrate August Lincke and and wife Emilie...
- Gustav MahlerGustav MahlerGustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
- Arthur MarshallArthur Marshall (ragtime composer)Arthur Marshall was an African-American composer and performer of ragtime music.Marshall was born on a farm in Saline County, Missouri, but a few years later his family moved to Sedalia, Missouri...
- Jules MassenetJules MassenetJules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
- Nikolai Karlovich Medtner
- Nellie MelbaNellie MelbaDame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
- Georges MélièsGeorges MélièsGeorges Méliès , full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was very innovative in the use of special effects...
- Kerry MillsKerry MillsKerry Mills was an American composer of popular music during the Tin Pan Alley era. His stylistically diverse music ranged from ragtime to cakewalk to marches. He was most prolific between 1895 and 1918....
- Billy MurrayBilly Murray (singer)William Thomas "Billy" Murray was one of the most popular singers in the United States in the early decades of the 20th century...
- Evelyn NesbitEvelyn NesbitEvelyn Nesbit was an American artists' model and chorus girl, noted for her entanglement in the murder of her ex-lover, architect Stanford White, by her first husband, Harry Kendall Thaw.-Early life:...
- Ethelbert Woodbridge NevinEthelbert Woodbridge NevinEthelbert Woodbridge Nevin was an American pianist and composer.-Biography:Nevin was born in 1862, at Vineacre, on the banks of the Ohio River, in Edgeworth, Pennsylvania. There he spent the first sixteen years of his life, and received all his schooling, most of it from his father, Robert P...
- Carl NielsenCarl NielsenCarl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
- Jack NorworthJack NorworthJack Norworth was a U.S. songwriter, singer and vaudeville performer.Norworth is credited as co-writer of a number of Tin Pan Alley hits. He wrote the lyrics of the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in 1908, his most long lasting hit. But it wasn't until 1940 that he actually witnessed a Major...
- Vítězslav NovákVítezslav NovákVítězslav Novák was one of the most well-respected Czech composers and pedagogues, almost singlehandedly founding a mid-century Czech school of composition...
- Maude NugentMaude NugentMaude Nugent Nugent, [Jerome], Maude . American singer and composer. She began her career in vaudeville, achieving tremendous success in 1896 with her song Sweet Rosie O’Grady, which became the archetypal waltz ballad of the 1890’s...
- Sidney OlcottSidney OlcottSidney Olcott was a Canadian-born film producer, director, actor and screenwriter.-Biography:Born John Sidney Alcott in Toronto, he became one of the first great directors of the motion picture business...
- Charles PathéCharles PathéCharles Pathé was a major French pioneer of the film and recording industries.The son of a butcher shop owner, Charles Pathé was born at Chevry-Cossigny, in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. In 1894, together with his brother Émile, he formed Pathé Records...
- Edwin S. PorterEdwin S. PorterEdwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company...
- Giacomo PucciniGiacomo PucciniGiacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
- Sergei RachmaninoffSergei RachmaninoffSergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
- Maurice RavelMaurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
- Ottorino RespighiOttorino RespighiOttorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...
- Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
- Landon RonaldLandon RonaldSir Landon Ronald was an English conductor, composer, pianist, singing teacher and administrator...
- Paul SarebresolePaul SarebresolePaul Sarebresole was an early composer of ragtime music.Sarebresole was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His French ancestors spelled the family name "Sarrebresolles"....
- Arnold SchoenbergArnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
- Jean SchwartzJean SchwartzJean Schwartz was a songwriter.Schwartz was born in Budapest, Hungary. His family moved to New York City when he was 13 years old...
- James ScottJames Scott (musician)James Sylvester Scott was an African-American ragtime composer, regarded as one of the three most important composers of classic ragtime, along with Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb....
- Alexander ScriabinAlexander ScriabinAlexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...
- William SeligWilliam SeligWilliam Nicholas Selig was a pioneer of the American motion picture industry.-Biography:Selig was raised in Chicago. He worked as a vaudeville performer and produced a traveling minstrel show in San Francisco while still in his late teens. One of the actors was Bert Williams, who went on to become...
- Chris SmithChris Smith (composer)Chris Smith was an American composer and performer.Smith was born in Charleston, South Carolina; he started traveling with Medicine Shows when young and went into Vaudeville where he performed in an acts with Elmer Bowman and Jimmy Durante...
- Harry B. SmithHarry B. SmithHarry Bache Smith was a writer, lyricist and composer. The most prolific of all American stage writers, he is said to have written over 300 librettos and more than 6000 lyrics. Some of his best-known works were librettos for the composer Victor Herbert...
- Ethel SmythEthel SmythDame Ethel Mary Smyth, DBE was an English composer and a leader of the women's suffrage movement.- Early career :...
- John Philip SousaJohn Philip SousaJohn Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
- George Kirke Spoor
- Charles Villiers StanfordCharles Villiers StanfordSir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...
- Andrew B. SterlingAndrew B. SterlingAndrew B. Sterling was an American lyricist.Born in New York City, after he graduated from high school, he began writing songs and vaudevilles. An important event was his meeting with the composer Harry Von Tilzer in 1898...
- Oscar StraussOscar Straus (composer)Oscar Nathan Straus was a Viennese composer of operettas and film scores and songs. He also wrote about 500 cabaret songs, chamber music, and orchestral and choral works...
- Harry Von TilzerHarry Von TilzerHarry Von Tilzer was a very popular United States songwriter.-Biography:Von Tilzer was born in Goshen, Indiana under the name Aaron Gumbinsky which he shortened to Harry Gumm. He ran away and joined a traveling circus at age 14, where he took his new name by adding 'Von' to his mother's maiden...
- Tom TurpinTom TurpinThomas Million John Turpin was an African-American composer of ragtime music.Tom Turpin was born in Savannah, Georgia, a son of John L. Turpin and Lulu Waters Turpin. In his early twenties he opened a saloon in St...
- Edgard VarèseEdgard VarèseEdgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
- Vesta VictoriaVesta VictoriaVesta Victoria was an English music hall singer and comedian. Although born in Leeds, Yorkshire, Vesta adopted a Cockney persona on stage...
- Anton WebernAnton WebernAnton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
- Percy WenrichPercy WenrichPercy Wenrich was a United States composer of ragtime and popular music.Born in Joplin, Missouri, he left for Chicago in 1901 and moved on to New York City around 1907 to work as a Tin Pan Alley composer, but his music retains a Missouri folk flavor...
- Bert WilliamsBert WilliamsEgbert Austin "Bert" Williams was one of the preeminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920...
- Harry Williams
- Ermanno Wolf-FerrariErmanno Wolf-FerrariErmanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna...
- Amy Woodforde-FindenAmy Woodforde-FindenAmy Woodforde-Finden was a composer who is best known for writing the music to "Kashmiri Song" from Four Indian Love Lyrics by Laurence Hope....
- Israel ZangwillIsrael ZangwillIsrael Zangwill was a British humorist and writer.-Biography:Zangwill was born in London on January 21, 1864 in a family of Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia, to Moses Zangwill from what is now Latvia and Ellen Hannah Marks Zangwill from what is now Poland. He dedicated his life to championing...
- Ferdinand von ZeppelinFerdinand von ZeppelinFerdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer. He founded the Zeppelin Airship company...
- Charles A. ZimmermanCharles A. ZimmermanCharles A. Zimmermann was an American composer of marches and popular music. A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, he was appointed bandmaster at the United States Naval Academy in 1887 at the age of 26. He served as the Academy's bandmaster until his death from a brain...
Baseball
- Chief BenderChief BenderCharles Albert "Chief" Bender was a pitcher in Major League Baseball during the first two decades of the 20th century...
- 3-Finger BrownMordecai BrownMordecai Peter Centennial Brown , nicknamed "Three Finger" or "Miner", was an American Major League Baseball pitcher at the turn of the 20th century. Due to a farm-machinery accident in his youth, Brown lost parts of two fingers on his right hand and eventually acquired his nickname as a result...
- Jack ChesbroJack ChesbroJohn Dwight Chesbro was a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates , New York Highlanders , and Boston Red Sox . His 41 wins during the 1904 season remains an MLB record for the modern era...
- Ty CobbTy CobbTyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb , nicknamed "The Georgia Peach," was an American Major League Baseball outfielder. He was born in Narrows, Georgia...
- Pud GalvinPud GalvinJames Francis Galvin , nicknamed "Pud", "Gentle Jeems", and "The Little Steam Engine", was an American National Association and Major League Baseball pitcher. He was Major League Baseball's first 300-game winner...
- Addie JossAddie JossAdrian Joss was a Major League Baseball pitcher. He pitched his entire nine-year baseball career for the Cleveland Bronchos/Naps .-Early life:...
- Nap LajoieNap LajoieNapoléon "Nap" Lajoie , also known as Larry Lajoie, was an American Major League Baseball second baseman. He was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island...
- Sam LeeverSam LeeverSamuel Leever , nicknamed "The Goshen Schoolmaster," was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. He spent his entire career with the Pittsburgh Pirates....
- Christy MathewsonChristy MathewsonChristopher "Christy" Mathewson , nicknamed "Big Six", "The Christian Gentleman", or "Matty", was an American Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played his entire career in what is known as the dead-ball era...
- John McGrawJohn McGrawJohn McGraw may refer to:* John McGraw , , New York lumber tycoon, and one of the founding trustees of Cornell University* John McGraw , , Governor of Washington state from 1893–1897...
- Kid NicholsKid NicholsCharles Augustus Nichols , better known as Kid Nichols, was a Major League Baseball pitcher. Admired for his steadfast consistency year-in and year-out, Nichols won 361 games, the 7th highest total in major league history...
- Eddie PlankEddie PlankEdward Stewart Plank , nicknamed "Gettysburg Eddie", was a Major League Baseball pitcher. He is the first left-handed pitcher to win 200 games and then 300 games, and now ranks third in all-time wins among left-handers with 326 career victories and first all-time in career shutouts by a...
- Tris SpeakerTris SpeakerTristram E. Speaker , nicknamed "Spoke" and "The Grey Eagle", was an American baseball player. Considered one of the best offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball, he compiled a career batting average of .345 , and still holds the record of 792 career doubles...
- Rube WaddellRube WaddellGeorge Edward Waddell was an American southpaw pitcher in Major League Baseball. In his thirteen-year career he played for the Louisville Colonels , Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Orphans in the National League, and the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns in the American League...
- Honus WagnerHonus Wagner-Louisville Colonels:Recognizing his talent, Barrow recommended Wagner to the Louisville Colonels. After some hesitation about his awkward figure, Wagner was signed by the Colonels, where he hit .338 in 61 games....
- Big Ed WalshEd WalshEdward Augustine Walsh was a Major League Baseball pitcher. He holds the record for lowest career ERA, 1.82.-Baseball career:Born in Plains Township, Pennsylvania, Walsh had a brief though remarkable major league career...
- Cy YoungCy YoungDenton True "Cy" Young was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. During his 22-year baseball career , he pitched for five different teams. Young was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937...
Boxing
- Tommy Burns (boxer)Tommy Burns (boxer)Tommy Burns , born Noah Brusso, is the only Canadian born world heavyweight champion boxer. The first to travel the globe in defending his title, Tommy made 11 title defenses despite often being the underdog due to his size. Burns famously challenged all comers as Heavyweight Champion, leading to...
- Marvin HartMarvin HartMarvin Hart was the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion from July 3, 1905 to February 23, 1906.- Career :...
(boxing) - James J. JeffriesJames J. JeffriesJames Jackson Jeffries was a world heavyweight boxing champion.His greatest assets were his enormous strength and stamina. Using a technique taught to him by his trainer, former welterweight and middleweight champion Tommy Ryan, Jeffries fought out of a crouch with his left arm extended forward...
(boxing) - Jack JohnsonJack Johnson (boxer)John Arthur Johnson , nicknamed the “Galveston Giant,” was an American boxer. At the height of the Jim Crow era, Johnson became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion...
(boxing) - Kid McCoyKid McCoyCharles "Kid" McCoy, who was born Norman Selby was an American world champion boxer.-Overview:Born in Moscow, Rush County, Indiana, McCoy would eventually weigh 160 pounds, stand 5' 11", and go on to a record 81 wins...
(boxing)
Timeline
The following articles contain brief timelines which list the most prominent events of the decade:1900 • 1901 • 1902 • 1903 • 1904 • 1905 • 1906 • 1907 • 1908 • 1909