1910 – 1920s

Events in the 1910s 63

• 1644 – 1912 Qing Dynasty — China's last imperial dynasty Manchu rule, the Opium Wars and the collapse of empire The Qing dynasty was founded by the Manchu people of northeastern Asia who conquered a weakened Ming China. At its height under Kangxi and Qianlong emperors (1661–1799), the Qing ruled the largest empire in Chinese history. But the 19th century brought catastrophe — the Opium Wars forced humiliating concessions to Britain, the Taiping Rebellion killed 20–30 million people, and the empire failed to modernise in the face of Western imperialism. The last emperor Puyi abdicated in 1912.
• 1828 – 1910 Leo Tolstoy Russian novelist Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, blending historical realism with deep moral philosophy.
• 1834 – 1917 Edgar Degas Impressionism · France Edgar Degas (July 19, 1834 – September 27, 1917) was a French Impressionist painter celebrated for his depictions of dancers, bathers and café scenes. He was a master of pastel and a pioneer of photography-influenced composition.
• 1835 – 1910 Mark Twain American writer and humorist Twain wrote Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, using satire to critique society and capture American life.
• 1841 – 1919 Pierre-Auguste Renoir Impressionism · France Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841 – December 3, 1919) was a French Impressionist painter whose warm, sensuous depictions of leisure and pleasure are among the most joyful in art history.
• 1847 – 1912 Bram Stoker Irish novelist Stoker wrote Dracula, defining modern vampire fiction and Gothic horror literature.
• 1858 – 1913 Rudolf Diesel The engine, the fortune, and the ferry Rudolf Diesel was born in Paris to Bavarian parents, deported as an enemy alien at twelve, and educated in a language he had to learn on arrival. He set out to build an engine that would approach the theoretical limit of thermodynamic efficiency and give small workshops a machine to rival the great steam plants of industry. He succeeded, became a millionaire, spent years in court and in sanatoriums, lost almost everything, and walked off the deck of a Channel ferry in 1913. The engine now moves most of the freight on earth.
• 1858 – 1919 Theodore Roosevelt 26th President — Trust Buster, conservationist Theodore Roosevelt (Oct 27, 1858 – Jan 6, 1919) was the 26th President 1901-1909, youngest ever at age 42. He busted monopolies, built the Panama Canal, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and created the national parks system.
• 1860 – 1911 Gustav Mahler Late Romantic symphonist Austrian composer and conductor whose vast symphonies — especially the 5th, 9th and Das Lied von der Erde — pushed the Romantic symphony to its limits.
• 1862 – 1918 Claude Debussy Impressionist composer French composer whose Clair de Lune, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and La Mer created a new musical language based on colour and atmosphere.
• 1867 – 1912 Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito) Reign 1867–1912 — Japan becomes a modern power Emperor Meiji reigned as Japan transformed from a feudal state under the shogunate into a major imperial power. The Meiji era saw the 1889 constitution, rapid industrialisation, and military victories over China (1895) and Russia (1905) that announced Japan's arrival on the world stage.
• 1873 – 1916 Erik Satie French avant-garde composer Eccentric French composer whose Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes pioneered minimalism and influenced Debussy, Ravel and the entire 20th-century avant-garde.
• 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.
• 1910 Halley’s Comet visible Halley’s Comet visible Halley's Comet reached perihelion in April 1910 and passed close enough that Earth crossed part of its tail. Spectroscopy had detected cyanogen in the tail, prompting newspaper panic and a brisk trade in comet pills and gas masks. It was the first return of the comet to be photographed and studied spectroscopically.
• 1910 Jazz emerges New Orleans, USA Jazz evolved in New Orleans from African-American musical traditions, blending blues, ragtime and improvisation into an entirely new art form.
• 1910 – 1976 Howlin' Wolf Blues singer and guitarist Chester Arthur Burnett, the towering Chicago bluesman of Smokestack Lightnin', Spoonful and Killing Floor.
• 1911 First South Pole expedition First South Pole expedition Roald Amundsen's Norwegian party reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911, travelling on skis behind sled dogs. Robert Falcon Scott's British team arrived 34 days later to find the Norwegian flag already planted, and all five men died on the return march. The contrast between the two expeditions became the defining story of polar exploration.
• 1911 – present IBM IBM — International Business Machines Corporation — is the longest-lived major technology company in history, founded in 1911 and continuously transforming itself through every era of computing. From tabulating machines for the US Census to mainframes for banks and governments, from the IBM PC that defined personal computing to Deep Blue's defeat of Garry Kasparov, from Watson's Jeopardy! triumph to the hybrid cloud and AI services company IBM is today — no technology company has survived and reinvented itself across more technological eras. IBM has employed more Nobel Prize winners than most countries, holds more US patents than any other company most years, and once controlled 80% of the world's computing capacity.
• 1911 – 2004 Ronald Reagan 40th President — ended the Cold War Ronald Reagan (Feb 6, 1911 – Jun 5, 2004) was the 40th President 1981-1989. Former Hollywood actor, he rebuilt US military strength, cut taxes, and is credited with helping end the Cold War through pressure on the Soviet Union.
• 1911 – 1996 Bill Monroe Mandolinist, singer, bandleader American musician who created bluegrass with his Blue Grass Boys, named after his home state of Kentucky.
• 1912 – 1926 Emperor Taisho (Yoshihito) Reign 1912–1926 — the era of "Taisho democracy" Emperor Taisho's short reign saw a shift toward liberal, party-based politics known as "Taisho democracy", Japan's participation in World War I on the Allied side, and the devastating Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. His poor health led Crown Prince Hirohito to serve as regent from 1921.
• 1912 Finnish Cable Works founded The Finnish Cable Works is established in Helsinki in 1912 — initially producing telephone and telegraph cables for Finland's rapidly expanding telecommunications network. The cable business gives Nokia engineers hands-on experience with electrical signal transmission. It is this division that will eventually evolve into Nokia's electronics and later telecommunications capabilities. Without the cable works, there is no path from paper mill to mobile phone company.
• 1912 – 1915 Wegener — plate tectonics The continents move — the Earth's surface is alive In 1912, Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents were once joined in a supercontinent (Pangaea) and have since drifted apart — continental drift. Initially dismissed, the theory was vindicated in the 1950s-60s by ocean floor spreading and the full theory of plate tectonics. It explained earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, and the distribution of fossils and species across continents.
• 1912 Republic of China proclaimed Sun Yat-sen ends 2,000 years of imperial rule On 1 January 1912, Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of China, ending 2,133 years of imperial rule. The last Qing emperor, six-year-old Puyi, abdicated on 12 February 1912. The republic was almost immediately undermined by warlordism and the struggle between the Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), eventually leading to civil war.
• 1912 – 1956 Jackson Pollock Abstract Expressionism · USA Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an American painter and pioneer of Abstract Expressionism whose drip technique revolutionised painting. He died in a car crash at 44, defining the archetype of the tortured American artist.
• 1912 – 1969 Sonja Henie (1912-1969) Norwegian figure skater, three-time Olympic champion and ten-time world champion, who became a Hollywood star.
• 1912 Titanic sinks 1,500 lives lost RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912 and sank, killing over 1,500 passengers in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters.
• 1912 – 1954 Alan Turing The man who defined the machine Alan Turing answered a question in mathematical logic in 1936 and, in the course of answering it, invented the idea of a general-purpose computer. He spent the war at Bletchley Park breaking German naval Enigma, work that is credited with shortening it by years. He then built early computers, asked whether machines could think, and turned to the mathematics of how a tiger gets its stripes. In 1952 he was prosecuted for a consensual relationship with a man, chemically castrated as an alternative to prison, and stripped of his security clearance. He died two years later at forty-one.
• 1912 – 2001 John Lee Hooker Blues singer and guitarist Mississippi-born bluesman whose hypnotic, one-chord boogie from Detroit made him a hero to British rock bands and a star again in his seventies.
• 1913 Assembly line perfected Assembly line perfected Ford opened a moving assembly line at Highland Park in 1913, breaking car building into small repetitive steps carried past stationary workers. Chassis assembly fell from over twelve hours to about ninety minutes. Turnover was so severe that Ford doubled pay to $5 a day in 1914 to keep workers on the line.
• 1913 – 2000 Loretta Young (1913-2000) American actress with a career from silent films to her own TV show, winning an Oscar for The Farmer's Daughter.
• 1913 – 2005 Rosa Parks Civil rights defiance Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott and galvanising the civil rights movement.
• 1913 – 1952 John Garfield (1913-1952) American actor, a rebel hero of 1940s film whose career was cut short by the Hollywood blacklist.
• 1913 – 1960 Albert Camus French-Algerian writer Camus wrote The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, exploring absurdism and the meaning of life.
• 1913 – 1976 Benjamin Britten British opera composer British composer who revived English opera with Peter Grimes and Billy Budd, and wrote the beloved Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.
• 1913 – 1990 Mary Martin (1913-1990) American actress and singer, Broadway's first Nellie Forbush, Peter Pan and Maria von Trapp.
• 1914 Panama Canal opens Panama Canal opens The Panama Canal opened to traffic on 15 August 1914, linking the Atlantic and Pacific and cutting some 13,000 kilometres off the voyage around South America. The United States completed it after a French attempt collapsed; around 25,000 workers died across both efforts, mostly from malaria and yellow fever. Control passed to Panama in 1999.
• 1914 – 1918 World War I Global conflict The Great War drew in empires across Europe, killing over 17 million. It reshaped borders, toppled empires, and sowed the seeds of WW II.
• 1914 – 2000 Alec Guinness (1914-2000) English actor who moved from the Ealing comedies to The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars.
• 1914 – 1996 Dorothy Lamour (1914-1996) American actress and singer, the sarong-clad star of the Road to... films with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
• 1915 – 1923 Armenian Genocide The Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) is the systematic mass murder and deportation of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (Young Turks). Between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians are killed in massacres, death marches through the Syrian desert, and starvation. The genocide is ordered by the triumvirate of Enver, Talaat and Cemal Pashas, who use the cover of World War I to eliminate what they see as a disloyal Christian minority. It is widely recognised by historians and many governments as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey officially denies it.
• 1915 Contour bottle designed Iconic curved bottle introduced 1915 The distinctive contour bottle — designed by the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana — was introduced in 1915 to distinguish Coca-Cola from imitators. Its unique shape could be recognised even in the dark or when broken. It became one of the most recognised objects in history.
• 1915 Theory of General Relativity Theory of General Relativity Einstein presented the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy in November 1915, describing gravity as the curvature of spacetime by mass and energy rather than a force. The theory immediately explained a long-standing anomaly in Mercury's orbit. Eddington's 1919 eclipse measurement of starlight bending confirmed it and made Einstein world-famous.
• 1915 – 1959 Billie Holiday Jazz singer Lady Day — the American jazz singer whose phrasing changed popular singing, and whose Strange Fruit became a landmark of protest music.
• 1916 National Park Service created National Park Service created Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act on 25 August 1916, creating the National Park Service to manage the parks and monuments that until then had been run piecemeal by the army and the Interior Department. Its mandate was to conserve the land while leaving it unimpaired for future generations. The model was copied by park services worldwide.
• 1916 – 2006 Glenn Ford (1916-2006) Canadian-born American actor, a leading man in Gilda, The Big Heat, Blackboard Jungle and 3:10 to Yuma.
• 1917 Jazz recordings emerge Jazz recordings emerge The Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded Livery Stable Blues in New York in February 1917, the first jazz record put on commercial sale. It sold in the hundreds of thousands and carried the sound of New Orleans across the country. The Black musicians who created the music were not recorded by the major labels until years later.
• 1917 Russian Revolution Bolsheviks seize power The October Revolution of 1917 brought Lenin's Bolsheviks to power, ending Tsarist rule and establishing the world's first communist state.
• 1917 – 2007 Jane Wyman (1917-2007) American actress who won an Oscar for Johnny Belinda, starred in Falcon Crest and was Ronald Reagan's first wife.
• 1917 – 2017 Danielle Darrieux (1917-2017) French actress with a career of eight decades, from Mayerling to Max Ophüls's films and Persepolis.
• 1917 – 1963 JFK US president, assassinated John F. Kennedy was the 35th US President, navigating the Cuban Missile Crisis before his assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
• 1917 – 1963 John F. Kennedy 35th President — assassinated in Dallas John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – Nov 22, 1963) was the 35th President 1961-1963, the youngest elected at 43 and first Catholic. He navigated the Cuban Missile Crisis and launched the space race, before being assassinated in Dallas.
• 1917 – 2010 Lena Horne (1917-2010) American singer, actress and civil rights activist, star of Stormy Weather.
• 1917 – 1975 Susan Hayward (1917-1975) American actress known for intense dramatic roles and five Oscar nominations, winning for I Want to Live!
• 1917 – 2008 J. D. Salinger American novelist Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye, capturing teenage alienation and postwar disillusionment.
• 1917 – 2013 Joan Fontaine (1917-2013) British-American actress, star of Rebecca and the only actor to win an Oscar for a Hitchcock film.
• 1918 – 1920 Spanish flu 50 million+ deaths The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic infected 500 million people and killed an estimated 50–100 million — more than World War I.
• 1918 Spanish flu pandemic Spanish flu pandemic The 1918 influenza pandemic infected 500 million people worldwide and killed an estimated 50–100 million.
• 1918 Toyoda Automatic Loom Works founded Sakichi Toyoda founds Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in 1918 in Nagoya, Japan — building on his invention of the Type-G automatic loom, which could stop itself automatically when a thread broke, preventing defective cloth. The self-stopping loom embodies a principle — 'jidoka' (automation with a human touch) — that will become one of the two pillars of the Toyota Production System. Sakichi sells the patent rights to his loom to Platt Brothers of England in 1929 for £100,000 — the capital that funds his son Kiichiro's automobile venture.
• 1918 – 1990 Pearl Bailey (1918-1990) American singer and actress, star of the all-Black Hello, Dolly! and later a UN envoy.
• 1919 – 1922 Ataturk and the War of Independence Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) organises Turkish nationalist resistance to the Allied partition of Anatolia following WWI, defeating Greek, Armenian and French forces in the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1922). The victory is celebrated as the salvation of the Turkish homeland. The sultanate is abolished (1 November 1922); the caliphate follows (3 March 1924). The Republic of Turkey is proclaimed on 29 October 1923 with Ankara as its capital. Ataturk's radical westernisation programme -- alphabet reform, secularism, women's suffrage -- transforms Turkey into a modern nation-state.
• 1919 League of Nations founded League of Nations founded The League of Nations was created by the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, the first general international organisation built around collective security. The United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty, leaving the League without its main sponsor. It failed to halt aggression in the 1930s and was formally replaced by the United Nations in 1946.
• 1919 Wimbledon 1919 — return from war Men: Gerald Patterson · Women: Suzanne Lenglen First Wimbledon after World War I. French legend Suzanne Lenglen made her debut, winning the first of six titles in a dominant run.