Events and Trends

Technology

• Lawrence Hargrave makes the first stable wing design for a heavier-than-air aircraft
• Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first documented flight in a powered heavier-than-air aircraft
• Mass production of automobile
• Wide popularity of home phonograph
• Panama Canal is built by the United States
• The Photostat machine begins modern era of document imaging

Science

• Planck's law of black body radiation
• Einstein's theory of special relativity
• Einstein explains Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect

Literature and Art

• Pablo Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, considered by some to be the birth of modern art.
• Joseph Conrad publishes Heart of Darkness
• Thomas Mann publishes Buddenbrooks

War, peace and politics

• The New Imperialism
• Demand for Home Rule for Ireland
• Second Boer War ends
• American proclamation of the end of the Philippine-American War
• British colonies in Australia federate, forming the Commonwealth of Australia
• Russo-Japanese War establishes the Empire of Japan as a world power
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the French Third Republic sign Entente Cordiale
• The Russian Revolution of 1905.

People

World Leaders

• Prime Minister Madeline Thornton (Hungary=America)
• Prime Minister Edmund Barton (Australia)
• Prime Minister Alfred Deakin (Australia)
• Prime Minister Chris Watson (Australia)
• Prime Minister Sir George Reid (Australia)
• Prime Minister Andrew Fisher (Australia)
• Emperor Franz Josef (Austria-Hungary)
• Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Canada)
• Emperor Wilhelm II (Germany)
• King Victor Emmanuel III (Italy)
• Pope Leo XIII
• Pope Pius X
• Emperor Nicholas II (Russia)
• King Alfonso XIII (Spain)
• Prime Minister Antonio Maura (Spain)
• Queen Victoria (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
• King Edward VII (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
• Prime Minister Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
• Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
• Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
• President William McKinley (United States)
• President Theodore Roosevelt (United States)
• Shahs of Persia (Qajar dynasty)

1. Mozzafar-al-Din Shah, 1896-1907
2. Mohammad Ali Shah, 1907-1909
3. Ahmad Shah Qajar, 1909-1925

Important Personalities

• Sigmund Freud

Entertainers

• Eugen d'Albert
• Hugo Alfvén
• Egbert Van Alstyne
• Broncho Billy Anderson
• Fatty Arbuckle
• Kurt Atterberg
• Béla Bartók
• Nora Bayes
• Irving Berlin
• Francis Boggs
• Frank Bridge
• Alfred Bryan
• Vincent P. Bryan
• Ferruccio Busoni
• Enrico Caruso
• Gustave Charpentier
• Thurland Chattaway
• Francesco Cilea
• Will D. Cobb
• George M. Cohan
• Bob Cole
• Frederick Converse
• Henry Creamer
• Henry Walford Davies
• Peter Dawson
• Claude Debussy
• Frederick Delius
• Paul Dresser
• Antonín Dvořák
• Gus Edwards
• Edward Elgar
• August Enna
• Manuel de Falla
• Geraldine Farrar
• Fred Fisher
• Paul Le Flem
• Rudolf Friml
• Julius Fučík
• Amelita Galli-Curci
• Mary Garden
• Edward German
• Alexander Glazunov
• Emilio de Gogorza
• Percy Grainger
• Enrique Granados
• D. W. Griffith
• Guy d'Hardelot
• Hamilton Harty
• The Haydn Quartet
• Anna Held
• Victor Herbert
• Max Hoffmann
• Gustav Holst
• Abe Holzmann
• David Horsley
• Mississippi John Hurt
• Jenö Huszka
• Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov
• Carrie Jacobs-Bond
• William Jerome
• J. Rosamond Johnson
• James Weldon Johnson
• Scott Joplin
• Gus Kahn
• Jerome Kern
• Rudyard Kipling
• Carl Laemmle
• Harry Lauder
• Leadbelly
• Franz Lehár
• Ruggiero Leoncavallo
• Paul Lincke
• Gustav Mahler
• Arthur Marshall
• Jules Massenet
• Nikolai Karlovich Medtner
• Nellie Melba
• Georges Méliès
• Kerry Mills
• Billy Murray
• Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin
• Carl Nielsen
• Jack Norworth
• Vítězslav Novák
• Maude Nugent
• Sidney Olcott
• Charles Pathé
• Edwin S. Porter
• Giacomo Puccini
• Sergei Rachmaninoff
• Maurice Ravel
• Ottorino Respighi
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
• Landon Ronald
• Paul Sarebresole
• Arnold Schoenberg
• Jean Schwartz
• James Scott
• Alexander Scriabin
• William Selig
• Chris Smith
• Harry B. Smith
• Ethel Smyth
• John Philip Sousa
• George K. Spoor
• Charles Villiers Stanford
• Andrew B. Sterling
• Oscar Strauss
• Richard Strauss
• Igor Stravinsky
• Leslie Stuart
• Josef Suk
• Sergei Taneyev
• Albert Von Tilzer
• Harry Von Tilzer
• Tom Turpin
• Edgard Varèse
• Vesta Victoria
• Anton Webern
• Percy Wenrich
• Bert Williams
• Harry Williams
• Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
• Amy Woodforde-Finden
• Israel Zangwill
• Charles A. Zimmerman

1900s

1900au | 1900'erne | 1900er | 1900. aastad | Años 1900 | Années 1900 | 1900a yari | Anni 1900 | Decennium 191 | XX amžiaus 1-as dešimtmetis | 1900-as évek | 1900-1909 | 1900年代 | 20. århundre | Lata 1900-1909 | Década de 1900 | Anii 1900 | 1900s | 1900. | 1900-vuosikymmen | 1900-talet (decennium)