1900s (decade)

From left, clockwise: The Wright brothers achieve the first manned flight by airplane, in Kitty Hawk in 1903; U.S. President William McKinley is assassinated in 1901 by Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition; An earthquake on the San Andreas Fault destroys much of San Francisco, killing at least 3,000 in 1906; America gains control over the Philippines in 1902, after the Philippine–American War; Rock being moved to construct the Panama Canal; Admiral Togo before the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, part of the Russo-Japanese War, leading to Japanese victory and their establishment as a great power.

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. It was the first full decade of the 20th century.

War, peace and politics

A shocked mandarin in Manchu robe in the back, with Queen Victoria (British Empire), Wilhelm II (German Empire), Nicholas II (Imperial Russia), Marianne (French Third Republic), and a samurai (Empire of Japan) stabbing into a pie with Chine ("China" in French) written on it. A portrayal of New Imperialism and its effects on China.

Wars

• Second Boer War ends.
• American proclamation of the end of the Philippine-American War.
• Russo-Japanese War establishes the Empire of Japan as a world power.

Internal conflicts

• The Russian Revolution of 1905.
• Demand for Home Rule for Ireland
• Herero and Namaqua Genocide in German South-West Africa (modern Namibia).

Colonization

• British colonies in Australia federate, forming the Commonwealth of Australia

Decolonization

• May 20, 1902 - Cuba gains independence from the United States.
• June 7, 1905 - The Norwegian Parliament declares the union with Sweden dissolved, and Norway achieves full independence.
• October 5, 1908 - Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Major political changes

• The New Imperialism
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the French Third Republic sign Entente Cordiale

Disasters

Ruins from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in United States history

Natural disasters

• April 26, 1900 - The Great Lumber Fire of Ottawa–Hull kills 7 and leaves 15,000 homeless.
• June 30, 1900 - Saale disaster: The German passenger ship Saale, owned by the North German Lloyd Steamship line, catches fire at the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey. The fire spreads to the adjacent piers and nearby ships, killing 326 people.
• September 8, 1900 - A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000.
• May 3, 1901 - The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, FL.
• April 19, 1902 - A magnitude 7.5 earthquake rocks Guatemala, killing 2,000.
• May 8, 1902 - In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000.
• August 10, 1903 - Paris Métro train fire.
• December 30, 1903 - A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago kills 600.
• February 7, 1904 - The Great Baltimore Fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
• June 15, 1904 - A fire aboard the steamboat General Slocum in New York City's East River kills 1,021.
• June 28, 1904 - The Danish ocean liner SS Norge runs aground and sinks close to Rockall, killing 635, including 225 Norwegian emigrants.
• April 7, 1906 - Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.
• April 18, 1906 - The 1906 San Francisco earthquake (estimated magnitude 7.8) on the San Andreas Fault destroys much of San Francisco, California, USA, killing at least 3,000, with 225,000–300,000 left homeless, and $350 million in damages.
• September 18, 1906 - A typhoon and tsunami kill an estimated 10,000 in Hong Kong.
• January 14, 1907 - An earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica kills more than 1,000.
• December 28, 1908 - An earthquake and tsunami destroys Messina, Sicily and Calabria, killing over 70,000 people.

Non-natural disasters

• January 22, 1906 - The SS Valencia strikes a reef off Vancouver Island, Canada, killing over 100 (officially 136) in the ensuing disaster.

Assassinations

A sketch of Leon Czolgosz shooting U.S. President William McKinley.

The 1900s were marked by several notable assassinations and assassination attempts:

• July 29, 1900 - King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated by Italian-born anarchist Gaetano Bresci.
• March 6, 1901 - In Bremen, an assassin attempts to kill Wilhelm II of Germany.
• September 6, 1901 - American anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies 8 days later.
• June 16, 1904 - Eugen Schauman assassinates Nikolai Bobrikov, Governor-General of Finland.
• October 26, 1909 - Korean nationalist An Jung-geun assassinates Ito Hirobumi, a former Prime Minister of Japan, in Harbin, China, in protest of the Japanese annexation of Korea.

Economics

Science

• Planck's law of black body radiation
• Einstein's theory of special relativity
• Einstein explains Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect
• Seismographs built in the University of California, Berkeley, in 1900
• Practical air conditioner designed by Willis Carrier in 1902
• Geiger Counter (measures radioactivity) invented by Hans Geiger in 1908
• Radioactivity discovered by Marie Curie
• Third Law of Thermodynamics by Walther Nernst
• Quantum Hypothesis by Max Planck in 1900^[1]

^{[2] [3] [4] [5]}

• The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunization for tuberculosis is first developed.

Technology

• Widespread application of the internal combustion engine including mass production of the automobile. Rudolf Diesel demonstrated the diesel engine in the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris using peanut oil fuel (see biodiesel). The Diesel engine takes the Grand Prix. The exposition was attended by 50 million people.^[6] The same year Wilhelm Maybach designed an engine built at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft—following the specifications of Emil Jellinek—who required the engine to be named Daimler-Mercedes after his daughter, Mercédès Jellinek. In 1902 the Mercedes 35 hp automobiles with that engine were put into production by DMG.^[7][8]
• Wide popularity of home phonograph. "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.".^[9][10] In 1907, a Victor Records recording of Enrico Caruso singing Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Vesti la giubba" becomes the first to sell a million copies.^[11]
• 1899-1900 Thomas Alva Edison of Milan, Ohio invents the nickel-alkaline storage battery. On May 27, 1901, Edison establishes the Edison Storage Battery Company to develop and manufacture them. ,^[12] "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 gasoline powered car had so improved that electric vehicles were becoming increasingly less common, being used mainly as delivery vehicles in cities. However, the Edison alkaline battery proved useful for lighting railway cars and signals, maritime buoys, and miners lamps. Unlike iron ore mining, 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." ^[13]
• 1900 The Brownie camera is invented, this was the beginning of the Eastman Kodak company. The Brownie popularized low-cost photography and introduced the concept of the snapshot. The first Brownie was introduced in February, 1900,^[14]

The first ascent of LZ1 over Lake Constance (the Bodensee) in 1900.

• The first zeppelin flight occurs over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany on July 2, 1900.

A diesel engine built by MAN AG in 1906

• 1901 First electric typewriter is invented by George Canfield Blickensderfer of Erie, Pennsylvania. It was part of a line of Blickensderfer typewriters, known for its portability.^[15][16][17]
• 1901 Wilhelm Kress of Saint Petersburg, Russia creates his Kress Drachenflieger in Austria-Hungary. It was built with the assistance of a 5,000-krone grant from Kaiser Franz Josef ^[18] 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.^[19] The sets of wings were placed at uneven heights with respect to the major axis of the aircraft to prevent aerodynamic interference between them ^[20] 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.^[20] 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 auger-style two-bladed propellers, the first attempt to use an internal combustion engine to power a heavier-than-air aircraft.^[21][22] 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-rotate. 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.^[23] 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 taxiiing, even against a headwind.^[20] Unable to afford to replace the engine, Kress continued taxiing trials. The last of these was on 3 October ^[24] on the Wienerwaldstausee reservoir at Tullnerbach, in which he was forced to swerve suddenly to avoid a groyne.^[23] As a result of the violent maneuver, the supports for one of the pontoons failed, causing the Drachenflieger to capsize and sink.^[25]

Gustave Whitehead and his 1901 monoplane taken near Whitehead's Pine Street shop. His infant daughter, Rose, sits on her father's lap, and the engine that powers the front landing-gear wheels is on the ground in front of the others.

• 1901 Gustave Whitehead, a German American from Bavaria, flies his Whitehead No. 21 on August 14, 1901. The flight took place near Bridgeport, Connecticut. According to the Bridgeport Herald newspaper^[26] and a few witnesses who gave their statements more than 30 years later, Whitehead made a powered, controlled airplane flight in his "Number 21" aircraft for a distance of 800 meters (2,625 feet) at 15 m (49 ft) height and landed safely. The feat, if true, exceeded the best of the Wright brothers first powered flights by 540 m (1770 ft) and preceded the Kitty Hawk 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 Herald and Boston Transcript.^[27][28]
• 1901 the first radio receiver (successfully received a radio transmission). This receiver was developed by Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi established a wireless transmitting station at Marconi House, Rosslare Strand, County Wexford, Ireland in 1901 to act as a link between Poldhu in Cornwall and Clifden in County Galway. He soon made the announcement that on 12 December 1901, using a 152.4-metre (500 ft) kite-supported antenna for reception, the message was received at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland (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 3,500 kilometres (2,200 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 code letter S sent repeatedly, were difficult to distinguish from atmospheric noise. (A detailed technical review of Marconi's early transatlantic work appears in John S. Belrose's work of 1995.)^[29] The Poldhu transmitter was a two-stage circuit.^[30][31] The first stage operated at lower voltage and provided the energy for the second stage to spark at a higher voltage. Nikola Tesla, a rival in transatlantic transmission, stated after being told of Marconi's reported transmission that "Marconi [... was] using seventeen of my patents."^[32][33]
• 1902 Willis Carrier of Angola, New York invented the first indoor air conditioning. "He designed his spray driven air conditioning system which controlled both temperature and humidity using a nozzle originally designed to spray insecticide. 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." ^[34]
• 1902/1906/1908 Sir James Mackenzie of Scone, Scotland invented an early lie detector or polygraph. MacKenzie's polygraph "could be used to monitor the cardiovascular responses of his patients by taking their pulse and blood pressure.^[35] He had developed an early version of his device in the 1890s, but had Sebastian Shaw, a Lancashire 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." ^[36] A more modern and effective polygraph machine would be invented by John Larson in 1921.^[37]
• 1902 Georges Claude invented the neon lamp. He applied "an electrical discharge to a sealed tube of neon 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 Paris.^[38] In 1912, Claude's associate began selling neon discharge tubes as advertising signs. They were introduced to U.S. in 1923, when two large neon signs were bought by a Los Angeles Packard car dealership. The glow and arresting red color made neon advertising completely different from the competition.^[39]
• 1902 Gustave Whitehead claimed two spectacular flights on January 17, 1902 in his improved Number 22, with a 40 Horsepower (30 kilowatt) motor instead of the 20 hp (15 kW) in the Number 21 aircraft and aluminium instead of bamboo. In two published letters he wrote to American Inventor magazine he said the flights took place over Long Island Sound 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 fuselage. Whitehead said he tried the propeller differential speed system and the "rudder" 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." ^[40] A. Pruckner affidavit: "I saw him make the flight across the Sound to which he refers."^[41]
• 1902 Teasmade, a device for making tea automatically, is patented on 7 April 1902 by gunsmith Frank Clarke of Birmingham, 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. Richardson, a clockmaker from Ashton-under-Lyne. The device was commercially available by 1904.^[42]

Gilmore's second, larger plane

• 1902 Lyman Gilmore of Washington, United States is awarded a patent for a steam engine, intended for use in aerial vehicles. At the time he was living in Red Bluff, California. At a later date, Gilmore claimed to have incorporated his engine in "a monoplane with a 32 foot wingspan". 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.^[43] While Gilmore was probably working on aeronautical experiments since the late 1890s and reportedly had correspondence with Samuel Pierpont Langley, there exists no photo of his creations earlier than 1908.^[44]
• 1902 The Wright brothers of Ohio, United States create the 1902 version of the Wright Glider. It was the third free-flight glider built by them and tested at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This was the first of the brothers' gliders to incorporate yaw control, and its design led directly to the 1903 Wright Flyer. The brothers designed the 1902 glider during the winter of 1901-1902 at their home in Dayton, Ohio. They designed the wing based on data from extensive airfoil tests conducted on a homemade wind tunnel. 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." ^[45][46]

Ford Model A was the first car produced by Ford Motor Company beginning production in 1903.

• 1903 Ford Motor Company produces its first car - the Ford Model A.

A replica of Pearse's monoplane

• 1903 Richard Pearse of New Zealand supposedly successfully flew and landed a powered heavier-than-air machine on 31 March 1903^[47] 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.^[48][49]
• 1903 Karl Jatho of Germany performs a series of flights at Vahrenwalder Heide, near Hanover, between August and November, 1903. Using first a pusher triplane, then a biplane. "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.^[50] 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 (260 m) later that same day. Either way Jatho managed to fly a powered heavier-than-air machine earlier than his American counterparts.^[51]
• 1903 Mary Anderson invented windshield wipers. In November 1903 Anderson was granted her first patent^[52] for an automatic car window cleaning device controlled inside the car, called the windshield wiper.^[53] 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.^[54]

The first flight by Orville Wright made on December 17, 1903.

• 1903 The Wright brothers fly at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their Wright Flyer 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.^[55] It is one of the various candidates regarded as the First flying machine.
• 1904 - SS Haimun sents its first news story on 15 March 1904.^[56]. It was a Chinese steamer ship commanded by war correspondent Lionel James in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War for The Times. It is the first-known instance of a "press boat" dedicated to war correspondence during naval battles. The recent advent of wireless telegraphy 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^[57], installing a De Forest transmitter aboard the ship.^[58]

Construction work on the Gaillard Cut is shown in this photograph from 1907

• 1904 - 1914 The Panama Canal constructed by the United States in the territory of Panama, which had just gained independence from Colombia. The Canal is a 77 km (48 mi) ship canal that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific ocean and a key conduit for international maritime trade. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the canal had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America. A ship sailing from New York to San Francisco via the canal travels 9,500 km (6,000 miles), well under half the 22,500 km (14,000 miles) route around Cape Horn.^[59] The project starts on May 4, 1904, known as Acquisition Day. The United States government purchased all Canal properties on the Isthmus of Panama from the New Panama Canal Company, except the Panama Railroad.^[60] The project begun under the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, continued in that of William Howard Taft and completed in that of Woodrow Wilson.^[61][62] The Chief engineers were John Frank Stevens and George Washington Goethals ^[63][64]
• 1904 - The Welte-Mignon reproducing piano is created by Edwin Welte and Karl Bockisch. Both employed by the "Michael Welte und Söhne" firm of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. "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 Fair. In March, 1905 it became better known when showcased "at the showrooms of Hugo Popper, a manufacturer of roll-operated orchestrions". By 1906, the Mignon was also exported to the United States, installed to pianos by the firms Feurich and Steinway & Sons.^[65]
• 1904 Benjamin Holt of the Holt Manufacturing Company invents one of the first practical continuous tracks for use in tractors. While the date of invention was reportedly November 24, 1904, Holt would not receive a patent until December, 1907.^[66]
• 1905 John Joseph Montgomery of California, United States designs tandem-wing gliders. His pilot Daniel Maloney performs a number of public exhibitions of high altitude flights in March and April 1905 in the Santa Clara, California 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.^[67][68]
• 1905 The Wright Brothers introduce their Wright Flyer III. On October 5, 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles (38.9 km) in 39 minutes 23 seconds^[69], longer than the total duration of all the flights of 1903 and 1904. 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.^[70] Four days later, they wrote to the United States Secretary of War William Howard Taft, offering to sell the world's first practical fixed-wing aircraft.
• 1906 The Gabel Automatic Entertainer, an early jukebox-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 Chicago. 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 Exposition for the Automatic Entertainer." ^[71][72]

Enrico Caruso with a "Victrola" phonograph

• 1906 The Victor Talking Machine Company releases the Victrola, the most popular gramophone model until the late 1920s.^[73] The Victrola is also the first playback machine containing an internal horn.^[74] Victor also erects the world's largest illuminated billboard at the time, on Broadway in New York City, to advertise the company's records.^[75]
• 1906 Traian Vuia of Romania takes off with his "Traian Vuia 1", an early monoplane. His flight was performed in Montesson near Paris and was about 12 meters long.^[76]
• 1906 Jacob Ellehammer of Denmark constructs the Ellehammer semi-biplane. In this machine, he made a tethered flight on 12 September 1906, becoming the second European to make a powered flight.^[77][78][79]
• 1906 Alberto Santos-Dumont and his Santos-Dumont 14-bis make the first European public flight of an airplane on October 23, 1906 in Paris. 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, Brazil.^[80] His flight is the first to have been certified by the Aéro-Club de France and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).^[81][82] 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.^[83]
• 1906 Sound radio broadcasting was invented by Reginald Fessenden and Lee De Forest. Fessenden and Ernst Alexanderson developed a high-frequency alternator-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.^[84] Meanwhile De Forest had developed the Audion tube an electronic amplifier device. He received a patent in January, 1907.^[85] "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." ^[86]
• 1906 Reginald Fessenden of East Bolton, Quebec, Canada 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 Navy had broadcast daily time signals and weather reports, but these employed spark-gap transmitters, transmitting in Morse code). On the evening of December 24, 1906 (Christmas Eve), Fessenden used the alternator-transmitter to send out a short program from Brant Rock, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. It included a phonograph record of Ombra mai fù (Largo) by George Frideric Handel, followed by Fessenden himself playing the song O Holy Night on the violin. Finishing with reading a passage from the Bible: 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will' (Gospel of Luke 2:14). On December 31, New Year's Eve, 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 States. Fessenden claimed that the Christmas Eve broadcast had been heard "as far down" as Norfolk, Virginia, while the New Year Eve's broadcast had reached places in the Caribbean. 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.^[87][88]

The Autochrome Lumière becomes the first commercial color photography process.

• 1907 - The Autochrome Lumière which was patented in 1903 becomes the first commercial color photography process.
• 1907 Thomas Edison invented the "Universal Electric Motor" which made it possible to operate dictation machines, etc. on all lighting circuits.^[89]
• 1907 - The Photostat machine begins the modern era of document imaging. The Photostat machine was invented in Kansas City, Kansas, United States by Oscar Gregory in 1907, and the Photostat Corporation was incorporated in Rhode Island 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." ^[90][91]

Ford Model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile came into popular usage as it is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile.

• 1908 Henry Ford of the Ford Motor Company introduces the Ford Model T. The first production Model T was built on September 27, 1908, at the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Michigan. 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 line 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.^[92]
• 1909 Leo Baekeland of Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium officially announces his creation of Bakelite. The announcement was made at the February 1909 meeting of the New York section of the American Chemical Society.^[93] Bakelite is an inexpensive, nonflammable, versatile, and popular plastic^[94][95].

Popular culture

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907. Re-invented the art of painting, all of Picasso's friends even Henri Matisse and Georges Braque were upset when they saw this painting.

Literature and art

Original cover of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900

• L. Frank Baum publishes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900.
• Thomas Mann publishes Buddenbrooks in 1901.
• Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, publishes The Old New Land in 1902 outlining Herzl's vision for a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.
• Joseph Conrad publishes the novella Heart of Darkness in 1902, after the serial release in 1898.
• Jack London publishes The Call of the Wild in 1903
• Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle in 1906
• Joseph Conrad publishes The Secret Agent in 1907
• Lucy Maud Montgomery publishes Anne of Green Gables in 1908
• Serbian writers use the Belgrade literary style, an Ekavian writing form which set basis for the later standardization of the Serbian language
• Pablo Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, considered by some to be the birth of modern art.
• Art Nouveau art movement peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century (1890–1905).
• Cubism art movement peaked in popularity in France between 1907 and 1911.
• Fauvism art movement peaked in popularity between 1905 and 1907.

Film

Justus D. Barnes in Edwin Porter's film of "The Great Train Robbery" (1903)

• April 2 1902 - Electric Theatre, the first movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, 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. Porter.
• The world's first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang is released on 26 December 1906.

Music

Sports

Fashion

Miscellaneous

• U.S. New Haven, CT Louis Lassen of Louis' Lunch makes the first modern-day hamburger sandwich.

People

World leaders

Modern artists

Other notable people

Sports figures

Baseball

• Chief Bender
• 3-Finger Brown
• Jack Chesbro
• Ty Cobb
• Pud Galvin
• Addie Joss
• Nap Lajoie
• Sam Leever
• Christy Mathewson
• John McGraw
• Kid Nichols
• Eddie Plank
• Tris Speaker
• Rube Waddell
• Honus Wagner
• Big Ed Walsh
• Cy Young

Boxing

• Tommy Burns (boxer)
• Marvin Hart (boxing)
• James J. Jeffries (boxing)
• Jack Johnson (boxing)
• Kid McCoy (boxing)

See also

• 1900s in literature

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

Further reading

References

External links

• Los Angeles in the 1900s, a collection of newspaper articles and illustrations from 1900 to 1910