1900 – 1910s

Events in the 1900s 58

• 1813 – 1901 Giuseppe Verdi Italian opera master The dominant figure of Italian opera, whose works — Rigoletto, La Traviata, Otello, Falstaff — combine dramatic power with unforgettable melody.
• 1839 – 1906 Paul Cézanne Post-Impressionism · France Paul Cézanne (January 19, 1839 – October 22, 1906) was a French Post-Impressionist whose geometric approach to form and colour became the bridge between 19th-century Impressionism and 20th-century Cubism. Picasso called him the father of us all.
• 1840 – 1902 Emile Zola French novelist Zola led the Naturalist movement, depicting social conditions with scientific realism and political critique.
• 1841 – 1904 Antonín Dvořák Czech Romantic composer Czech composer best known for his New World Symphony, Cello Concerto and Slavonic Dances. He drew on folk music to create a distinctly Czech voice.
• 1843 – 1907 Edvard Grieg Norwegian national composer Norwegian composer whose Piano Concerto and Peer Gynt Suite made him the most celebrated Scandinavian composer of the 19th century.
• 1844 – 1908 Pablo de Sarasate Spanish violin virtuoso Spanish violinist and composer whose Carmen Fantasy and Zigeunerweisen remain showpieces for every great violinist.
• 1844 – 1900 Friedrich Nietzsche German philosopher Nietzsche challenged morality and religion, influencing existentialism and modern philosophy.
• 1848 – 1903 Paul Gauguin Post-Impressionism · France Paul Gauguin (June 7, 1848 – May 8, 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist who left Europe for Tahiti, seeking a more primal authenticity. His bold colour and flat forms influenced Fauvism, Expressionism and Primitivism.
• 1854 – 1900 Oscar Wilde Irish playwright and writer Wilde wrote witty plays and The Picture of Dorian Gray, critiquing Victorian morality and aesthetics.
• 1864 – 1901 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Post-Impressionism · France Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (November 24, 1864 – September 9, 1901) was a French Post-Impressionist painter who captured the nightlife of Montmartre with vivid immediacy. His posters for the Moulin Rouge defined the Art Nouveau aesthetic.
• 1899 – 1902 The Second Boer War Where the concentration camp got its name The British Empire takes nearly three years and close to half a million troops to defeat two small Afrikaner republics. After losing the conventional war the Boers turn to commando raids, and Kitchener answers with blockhouses, farm burning and the internment of civilians in camps where around 28,000 Boers, most of them children, and at least 20,000 black Africans die of disease and hunger. Emily Hobhouse's reporting on the camps causes a scandal in Britain. The war ends at Vereeniging with annexation, and lays the groundwork for the Union of South Africa.
• 1900 – 1927 Quantum mechanics Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger — the physics of the very small Max Planck's discovery that energy is emitted in discrete quanta (1900) launched quantum theory. Bohr's atomic model (1913), Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (1927), and Schrödinger's wave equation (1926) completed a revolution that showed nature at the atomic scale is fundamentally probabilistic. Quantum mechanics underlies lasers, transistors, MRI scanners, and the entire electronics industry.
• 1900 – 1993 Helen Hayes (1900-1993) American actress known as the First Lady of the American Theatre, one of few performers to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
• 1900 – 1991 Jean Arthur (1900-1991) American actress, Frank Capra's favourite comic heroine in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
• 1900 – 1990 Aaron Copland Voice of American music American composer who created a distinctly American classical sound with Appalachian Spring, Fanfare for the Common Man and Rodeo.
• 1901 First Nobel Prizes awarded First Nobel Prizes awarded Alfred Nobel's will established prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace, first awarded in Stockholm.
• 1902 First Rose Bowl game First Rose Bowl game The first Rose Bowl was played in Pasadena on 1 January 1902 as an attraction alongside the Tournament of Roses parade. Michigan beat Stanford 49-0 in a game so lopsided that organisers replaced football with chariot races for the next fourteen years. It returned in 1916 and is now the oldest bowl game in college football.
• 1902 – 1974 Lindbergh Transatlantic solo flight Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in 1927, flying from New York to Paris in 33.5 hours.
• 1902 – 1983 Norma Shearer (1902-1983) Canadian-American actress, MGM's first lady in the late 1920s and 1930s and wife of Irving Thalberg.
• 1903 – 1950 George Orwell English novelist and essayist Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984, warning against totalitarianism, propaganda, and surveillance societies.
• 1903 – 1958 Big Bill Broonzy Blues singer and guitarist A founding figure of Chicago blues in the 1930s who later brought folk blues to Europe and inspired the British blues boom.
• 1903 – 1970 Mark Rothko Color Field · Latvia / USA Mark Rothko (September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970) was a Latvian-American painter whose large-scale colour field canvases aimed to provoke profound emotional and spiritual responses. He took his own life in 1970.
• 1903 – 1952 Curly Howard (1903-1952) American comedian, the most popular of the Three Stooges.
• 1903 Wright Brothers First powered flight On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first sustained, controlled powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
• 1904 New York subway opens New York subway opens The first line of the New York City subway opened on 27 October 1904, running from City Hall to 145th Street under the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. More than 150,000 passengers rode it on the first day. The network grew into one of the largest rapid transit systems in the world and the only major one running around the clock.
• 1904 – 1905 Russo-Japanese War First modern defeat of a European power by an Asian one Japan's victory over Tsarist Russia in 1904–05 — culminating in the naval triumph at Tsushima — was the first time in the modern era that an Asian nation defeated a European great power. It confirmed Japan's status as a major military force and reshaped the balance of power in East Asia.
• 1904 – 1907 The 1905 Russian Revolution The dress rehearsal Defeat by Japan cracked the autocracy open. A peaceful procession to the Winter Palace was fired on, and within months the Russian Empire had general strikes, a naval mutiny, workers' councils and armed fighting in the streets of Moscow. Nicholas II conceded a constitution and a parliament, then spent the next two years taking most of it back. Lenin, watching from exile, called it the dress rehearsal — without it, he said, 1917 would have been impossible.
• 1904 – 2000 John Gielgud (1904-2000) English actor and director, one of the great Shakespearean actors of the 20th century, who won an Oscar at 77.
• 1904 – 1997 Willem de Kooning Abstract Expressionism · Netherlands / USA Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American painter and a leading figure of Abstract Expressionism. His Woman series provoked fierce debate about the relationship between abstraction and figuration.
• 1904 – 1989 Salvador Dalí Surrealism · Spain Salvador Dalí (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989) was a Spanish Surrealist painter whose bizarre, meticulously rendered dreamscapes made him the most famous artist of the 20th century after Picasso. The Persistence of Memory is his most iconic work.
• 1904 – 1983 Dolores del Río (1904-1983) Mexican actress, a Hollywood star of the 1920s and 1930s and later the great lady of Mexican cinema.
• 1904 – 1996 Greer Garson (1904-1996) British-born actress who became MGM's leading lady of the war years, winning the Oscar for Mrs. Miniver.
• 1905 – 1915 Einstein — special and general relativity E=mc², space-time, and gravity as curved geometry Einstein's special relativity (1905) introduced E=mc² — showing mass and energy are equivalent — and demonstrated that time and length change at high velocities. His general relativity (1915) recast gravity as the curvature of space-time caused by mass. The theories predicted black holes, gravitational waves, the expansion of the universe, and GPS satellite timing corrections. They are the most tested theories in physics.
• 1905 Special relativity Einstein publishes Einstein's 1905 paper introduced E=mc², showing mass and energy are equivalent and revolutionising our understanding of space and time.
• 1905 Australian Open 1905 — first edition Men: Rodney Heath First Australasian Championships held in Melbourne. Rodney Heath won the inaugural men's singles. Women did not compete until 1922. The tournament became a Grand Slam in 1924.
• 1905 – 1994 Joseph Cotten (1905-1994) American actor from Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre, star of Citizen Kane, Shadow of a Doubt and The Third Man.
• 1905 – 1980 Jean-Paul Sartre French philosopher and writer Sartre was a leading existentialist thinker who explored freedom, responsibility, and human existence.
• 1905 – 1980 Jean-Paul Sartre Philosopher, Playwright, and Voice of Existentialism Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, and political activist who became the foremost public exponent of existentialism in the twentieth century. Through works such as Being and Nothingness, Nausea, and No Exit, he explored themes of freedom, bad faith, and radical responsibility for one's own existence. A lifelong partner of Simone de Beauvoir and a prominent left-wing intellectual, he shaped postwar European thought, engaged directly in the political struggles of his era, and in 1964 became the only person ever to decline the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1906 Archimedes Palimpsest rediscovered A medieval prayer book hides the lost Method of Mechanical Theorems In 1906, Danish scholar Johan Ludvig Heiberg, working in Constantinople, identified a medieval prayer book (c.1229) as a palimpsest — a manuscript whose original text had been scraped off and overwritten. Beneath the prayers, he could still read several works of Archimedes including the previously unknown Method of Mechanical Theorems. The discovery revealed for the first time how Archimedes actually discovered his results — using a technique essentially identical to integral calculus. The palimpsest resurfaced at a Christie's auction in New York in 1998 and was acquired by a private collector who allowed it to be scientifically studied. Imaging technology (1999–2008) recovered nearly all of the text.
• 1906 Constitutional Revolution Iran's first parliament and constitution The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 compelled the Qajar shah to grant a constitution and establish the Majlis (parliament) — the first in the Middle East. It marked the beginning of modern, participatory politics in Iran, though the gains were repeatedly contested in the decades that followed.
• 1906 San Francisco earthquake San Francisco earthquake An earthquake estimated at magnitude 7.9 struck San Francisco on 18 April 1906, rupturing nearly 500 kilometres of the San Andreas Fault. Fires burned for three days and destroyed most of the city; around 3,000 people died and more than half the population was left homeless. The disaster drove the scientific study of fault behaviour and earthquake-resistant building.
• 1906 San Francisco quake City destroyed by fire The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires killed over 3,000 people and destroyed 80% of the city — one of the deadliest US disasters.
• 1906 – 1975 Dmitri Shostakovich Soviet symphonist Russian composer who wrote 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets under the shadow of Stalin's regime. His 5th Symphony and 7th (Leningrad) are defining works of the 20th century.
• 1906 – 1984 Janet Gaynor (1906-1984) American actress, winner of the first Academy Award for Best Actress.
• 1906 – 1982 Leonid Brezhnev The era of stagnation Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (December 19, 1906 – November 10, 1982) led the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982. His 18-year tenure brought stability but also stagnation. He ordered the invasions of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979).
• 1907 Scouting movement founded Scouting movement founded Robert Baden-Powell ran an experimental camp for twenty boys on Brownsea Island in August 1907, testing ideas he published the following year as Scouting for Boys. Troops formed spontaneously across Britain before any organisation existed to run them. The Girl Guides followed in 1910, and Scouting became the largest youth movement in the world.
• 1907 – 1986 Ray Milland (1907-1986) Welsh actor who won the Oscar for The Lost Weekend and starred in Dial M for Murder.
• 1907 – 1976 Rosalind Russell (1907-1976) American actress known for fast-talking comedy in His Girl Friday and Auntie Mame.
• 1907 – 1954 Frida Kahlo Surrealism / Folk Art · Mexico Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954) was a Mexican painter whose intensely autobiographical work explored identity, pain and the human body. She has become a global feminist icon. She was married to Diego Rivera.
• 1908 Ford Model T Mass production begins The Ford Model T was the first affordable automobile for the middle class, transforming transport and pioneering mass production.
• 1908 Ford Model T introduced Ford Model T introduced Ford introduced the Model T on 1 October 1908 at $850, designed to be simple enough for an owner to repair and cheap enough for ordinary families to buy. Moving assembly line production from 1913 pushed the price below $300. Around fifteen million were built before production ended in 1927.
• 1908 – 1963 Simone de Beauvoir French philosopher and writer De Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex, a foundational feminist philosophical work examining gender and society.
• 1908 Oil at Masjed Soleyman The first Middle Eastern oilfield After seven years of drilling, a bankrupt concession and a telegram from London ordering him to stop, George Reynolds strikes oil in south-west Persia at fifty-one degrees before dawn. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company is formed the following year, becomes Anglo-Iranian, and eventually BP. The Royal Navy converts from coal to oil on the strength of it. Every subsequent argument about the Middle East runs through this well.
• 1908 – 1991 Fred MacMurray (1908-1991) American actor, the doomed insurance man in Double Indemnity and the dad in My Three Sons.
• 1908 – 1992 Olivier Messiaen French mystic composer French composer and organist whose music was inspired by Catholic mysticism and birdsong. His Quartet for the End of Time was premiered in a Nazi prison camp.
• 1909 NAACP founded NAACP founded The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in New York on 12 February 1909, the centenary of Lincoln's birth, by Black and white activists including W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells. It fought segregation and lynching primarily through the courts. Its legal campaign produced Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
• 1909 – 1984 James Mason (1909-1984) English actor with a famous voice, who moved from British melodramas to Hollywood roles in A Star Is Born, North by Northwest and Lolita.
• 1909 – 1992 Francis Bacon Expressionism · Ireland Francis Bacon (October 28, 1909 – April 28, 1992) was an Irish-born British painter whose raw, visceral depictions of the human figure are among the most disturbing and powerful in 20th-century art.