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Secretary of State John Hay first articulated the concept of the “Open Door” in China in a series of notes in 1899–1900. These Open Door Notes aimed to secure international agreement to the U.S. policy of promoting equal opportunity for international trade and commerce in China, and respect for China’s administrative and territorial integrity. -
The Hay–Pauncefote Treaty is a treaty signed by the United States and Great Britain on 18 November 1900, as a legal preliminary to the U.S. building of the Panama Canal. -
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse became the first liner to have a commercial wireless telegraphy system when the Marconi Company installed one in February 1900. -
The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Philippine Insurrection, Filipino–American War, or Tagalog Insurgency, was fought between the First Philippine Republic and the United States from February 4, 1899, until July 2, 1902. -
The British occupied the capital of Bloemfontein in 1900. The 1900 Peace of Vereeniging, which ended the Boer War, annexed the Orange Free State to the British Empire. -
The Naval Laws (German: Flottengesetze, "Fleet Laws") were five separate laws passed by the German Empire, in 1898, 1900, 1906, 1908, and 1912. -
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-imperialist and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. -
Umberto I was King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his assassination in 1900. His reign saw Italy's expansion into the Horn of Africa, as well as the creation of the Triple Alliance between Italy, Germany and Austria-Hungary. -
On June 2, 1899, the First Philippine Republic officially declared war against the United States. The Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo was captured on March 23, 1901, and the war was officially declared ended by the American government on July 2, 1902, with a victory for the United States. -
Three members of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, Lieutenants H.Z.C. Cockburn and R.E.W. Turner and Sergeant E.J. Holland, were awarded the Victoria Cross during the desperate rear-guard action at Leliefontein on 7 November 1900. -
Australia became a nation on 1 January 1901 when six British colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania—united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. This process is known as Federation. -
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. -
The Platt Amendment, an amendment to a U.S. army appropriations bill, established the terms under which the United States would end its military occupation of Cuba (which had begun in 1898 during the Spanish-American War) and "leave the government and control of the island of Cuba to its people." -
On September 6, 1901, the popular President William McKinley was shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, while his Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, was in Vermont at a speaking engagement. Over the next eight days, McKinley’s health condition varied until he died on September 14. -
After defeating the Boxers, the foreign powers forced the Qing to submit to a punitive settlement that included a huge indemnity ($333 million) to be paid to the foreign nations. This essentially bankrupted the Qing government, which already faced serious financial difficulties. -
On 12 December 1901, Guglielmo Marconi and his assistant, George Kemp, heard the faint clicks of Morse code for the letter "s" transmitted without wires across the Atlantic Ocean. This achievement, the first reception of transatlantic radio signals, led to considerable advances in both science and technology. -
The Unification of Saudi Arabia was a military and political campaign in which the various tribes, sheikhdoms, city-states, emirates, and kingdoms of most of the central Arabian Peninsula were conquered by the House of Saud, or Al Saud. -
Following the defeat of Spain in 1898, the United States remained in Cuba as an occupying power until the Republic of Cuba was formally installed on May 19, 1902. On May 20, 1902, the United States relinquished its occupation authority over Cuba, but claimed a continuing right to intervene in Cuba. -
By 1902, the British had crushed the Boer resistance, and on May 31 of that year, the Peace of Vereeniging was signed, ending hostilities. -
After Salisbury's retirement, Balfour served as prime minister from July 12, 1902, to December 4, 1905. He sponsored and secured passage of the Education Act (Balfour Act; 1902), which reorganized the local administration of elementary and secondary schools. -
In Buffalo, New York, on July 17, 1902, in response to an air quality problem experienced at the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing & Publishing Company of Brooklyn, New York, Willis Carrier submitted drawings for what became recognized as the world's first modern air conditioning system. -
The first "Teddy bear" was put on sale on this day in history, Feb. 15, 1903. Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, the stuffed bear was first sold by Morris Michtom, a Brooklyn, New York, resident who owned a candy shop. -
Early in the morning of June 11th, 1903, King Alexander Obrenovic of Serbia and his Queen were brutally murdered by a group of insurgent officers, who ransacked the royal palace of Belgrade in a fervour of inebriated patriotism. -
The 1903 Tour de France was the first cycling race set up and sponsored by the newspaper L'Auto, ancestor of the current daily, L'Équipe. It ran from 1 to 19 July in six stages over 2,428 km (1,509 mi), and was won by Maurice Garin. -
On August 4, 1903, the College of Cardinals in Vatican City elects Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto as the new Pope after the lengthy illness and death of Pope Leo XIII. He chooses the name Pius X, and leads the Catholic Church until his death in 1914. -
Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, (Nov. 18, 1903), agreement between the United States and Panama granting exclusive canal rights to the United States across the Isthmus of Panama in exchange for financial reimbursement and guarantees of protection to the newly established republic. -
After building and testing three full-sized gliders, the Wrights' first powered airplane flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, making a 12-second flight, traveling 36 m (120 ft), with Orville piloting. The best flight of the day, with Wilbur at the controls, covered 255.6 m (852 ft) in 59 seconds. -
Russo-Japanese War, (1904–05), military conflict in which a victorious Japan forced Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in East Asia, thereby becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power. -
In the early 20th century, after a period of some tension between the two countries, Britain and France agreed to settle a number of outstanding colonial disputes. On April 8, 1904, four agreements were concluded in London, which established the Anglo-French Entente, or entente cordiale. -
1904: Decreed by a czar, built by thousands of workers over a period of more than a decade, the Trans-Siberian Railway is officially completed. As you'd expect with a project of this size, complexity and scope, “officially completed” is a relative term. -
The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, began on 22 January 1905. A wave of mass political and social unrest then began to spread across the vast areas of the Russian Empire. -
On 7 June the Storting passed a resolution unilaterally dissolving the union. The resolution was confirmed by a referendum, which resulted in 368,208 votes in favour of dissolution and 184 against. -
Under the terms of the treaty, which was signed by both parties on September 5, 1905, Russia turned over Port Arthur to the Japanese, while retaining the northern half of Sakhalin Island, which lies off its Pacific coast -
Einstein postulated in this study that the speed of light is immutable, constant, and independent of the observer's motion. Therefore, with the exception of the speed of light constant, everything is relative, including time, distance, and mass. -
October 16: The British Indian Province of Bengal, partitioned by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, despite strong
opposition. -
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman GCB PC (né Campbell; 7 September 1836 – 22 April 1908) was a British statesman and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and Leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1908. -
Despite a quick response from San Francisco's large military population, the city was devastated. The earthquake and fires killed an estimated 3,000 people and left half of the city's 400,000 residents homeless. -
In 1906, the highest court in France cleared Dreyfus and reversed his convictions. The army reinstated Dreyfus and, to make amends, made him an officer in the Legion of Honor. He received this high military honor in a ceremony that took place on the same grounds where he had been degraded nearly 12 years before. -
The shakings were so strong that many people thought the earth was going to open itself in deep and long strips." According to the University of Chile, there were 3,882 deaths. The earthquake left more than 20,000 injured. -
The U.S. intervention in Cuba in 1906, commonly referred to as the Second Intervention, began on September 28, 1906 with the resignation of the Cuban president and his cabinet and ended on January 28, 1909 when the U.S. relinquished control of the state to its newly elected president. -
Santos-Dumont then progressed to powered heavier-than-air machines and on 23 October 1906 flew about 60 metres at a height of two to three metres with the fixed-wing 14-bis (also dubbed the Oiseau de proie—"bird of prey") at the Bagatelle Gamefield in Paris, taking off unassisted by an external launch system. -
On 30 December 1906, around 3000 delegates attended a conference of the Muhammadan Educational Conference at Dhaka in which the ban on politics was removed and a motion was moved to form the AIML. The name was proposed by Nawab Khwaja Sir Salimullah Bahadur and seconded by Hakim Ajmal Khan. -
Parliamentary elections were held in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland on 15 and 16 March 1907. They were the first parliamentary election in which members were elected to the new Parliament of Finland by universal suffrage and the first in the world in which female members were elected. -
Negotiations were concluded on July 24, 1907. The treaty provided that Korea should act under the guidance of a Japanese resident general. The effect of the treaty's provisions was that the administration of internal affairs was turned over to Japan. -
The revolt began in July 1908. Major Ahmed Niyazi, Ismail Enver, Eyub Sabri, and other Unionists within the Third Army fled into the mountains to organize guerilla bands of volunteers and deserters all the while pressuring Abdul Hamid to reinstate the Constitution. -
Early in April 1908 Campbell-Bannerman resigned and died some days later. Asquith, generally regarded as his inevitable successor, became prime minister and was to hold the office for nearly nine years. He appointed David Lloyd George to the Exchequer and made Winston Churchill president of the Board of Trade. -
An oil well hits a gusher in an early oil field. Courtesy BP View Slideshow 1908: A British company strikes oil in Persia (now Iran). It's the first big petroleum find in the Middle East, and it sets off a wave of exploration, extraction and exploitation that will change the region's -
Tunguska event, enormous explosion that is estimated to have occurred at 7:14 am plus or minus one minute on June 30, 1908, at an altitude of 5–10 km (15,000–30,000 feet), flattening some 2,000 square km (500,000 acres) and charring more than 100 square km of pine forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River -
On July 26, 1908, Bonaparte ordered DOJ attorneys to refer most investigative matters to the Chief Examiner, Stanley W. Finch, who would determine if there were special agents under his direction available to investigate the case. -
Released on October 1, 1908, the Ford Model T was a self-starting vehicle with a left-sided steering wheel, featuring an enclosed four-cylinder engine with a detachable cylinder head and a one-piece cylinder block. Fashioned from vanadium alloy steel, it offered superior strength despite its light weight. -
Its boundaries were not finalized until after World War I. Bulgaria became independent of the Ottoman Empire on October 5, 1908, after which its reigning Prince, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, proclaimed himself Tsar. -
Emperor of China (1908–1912) Chosen by Empress Dowager Cixi, Puyi became emperor at the age of 2 years and 10 months in December 1908 after the Guangxu Emperor, Puyi's half-uncle, died childless on 14 November. -
The earthquake almost levelled Messina. At least 91% of structures in Messina were destroyed or irreparably damaged and 75,000 people were killed in the city and suburbs. Reggio Calabria and other locations in Calabria also suffered heavy damage, with some 25,000 people killed. -
The presidency of William Howard Taft began on March 4, 1909, when William Howard Taft was inaugurated as 27th president of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1913. Taft, was a Republican from Ohio -
The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 or Bangkok Treaty of 1909 was a treaty between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Siam signed on 10 March 1909, in Bangkok. Ratifications were exchanged in London on 9 July 1909, and the treaty established the modern Malaysia–Thailand border. -
The Indian Councils Act 1909, commonly known as the Morley–Minto or Minto–Morley Reforms, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that brought about a limited increase in the involvement of Indians in the governance of British India. -
On April 6, 1909, American explorer Robert Peary accomplishes a long elusive dream, when he, assistant Matthew Henson and four Inuits reach what they determine to be the North Pole. -
The 31 March incident (Turkish: 31 Mart Olayı) was a political crisis within the Ottoman Empire in April 1909, during the Second Constitutional Era. -
On 16 July 1909, the parliament voted to place Mohammad Ali Shah's 11-year-old son, Ahmad Shah on the throne. -
As a result, William Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910. He also created the Lone Scouts, which merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1924. James E. West was appointed the first Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America in 1911. -
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. -
On the 31 May 1910, exactly eight years after the Boers had made peace with the English through the Treaty of Vereeniging, South Africa became a Union. Despite the mistrust in the Boer camp, the Afrikaners, as they now became known, had negotiated and achieved self-determination. -
Prince Nicholas of Montenegro proclaimed the Kingdom of Montenegro in Cetinje on 28 August 1910, elevating the country from the rank of Principality. -
Annexation of the Korean Empire by the Empire of Japan · August 22, 1910 · August 29, 1910 · August 15, 1945 -
The 5 October 1910 revolution was the overthrow of the centuries-old Portuguese monarchy and its replacement by the First Portuguese Republic. It was the result of a coup d'état organized by the Portuguese Republican Party. -
Written by Francisco I. Madero while in exile in Texas, the Plan called for an end to Porfirio Díaz's long presidential reign known as the Porfiriato, the provisional presidency for legitimate winner Madero, and for Mexicans to unite against despotism on November 20, 1910. -
17 January 1911: Taking off from the U.S. Army’s Selfridge Field (the closed Tanforan race track at San Bruno, California) at approximately 10:45 a.m., Eugene Burton Ely flew his Curtiss-Ely pusher to San Francisco Bay where he landed aboard the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania (ACR-4) as it lay at anchor. -
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 workers and injured dozens more. While trying to escape the fire, they encountered locked doors and broken fire escapes. Many chose to leap from the building in desperation, instead of succumbing to the blaze and smoke, and died on the sidewalks below. -
The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911, to 18 October 1912. -
The Wuchang Uprising was an armed rebellion against the ruling Qing dynasty that took place in Wuchang (now Wuchang District of Wuhan), Hubei, China on 10 October 1911, beginning the Xinhai Revolution that successfully overthrew China's last imperial dynasty. -
On November 3, 1911, Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company with his brother Arthur Chevrolet, William C. Durant, and investment partners William Little (maker of the Little automobile) and Dr. Edwin R. -
On 12th December, 1911, at the historic Delhi Durbar, the George V, the Emperor of the British Empire proclaimed the shifting of the capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi. After announcement of Delhi as the Capital of India, the preparation for the building a new city started with majesty, pomp and show. -
At around 3pm on 14 December 1911, Amundsen raised the flag of Norway at the South Pole. He had reached the Pole a full 33 days before Captain Scott arrived. Amundsen and his crew returned to their base camp on 25 January 1912, 99 days and roughly 1400 nautical miles after their departure. -
Founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress, the organization was formed to agitate for the rights of black South Africans. -
On February 12, 1912, the boy emperor was made to abdicate the throne in a proclamation that transferred the government to the people's representatives, declared that the constitution should thenceforth be republican, and gave Yuan Shikai full powers to organize a provisional government. -
On February 14, 1912, Arizona became the 48th state admitted to the Union. President Taft signed Arizona into statehood in the Oval Office. -
Crisis (March 30, 1912-August 18, 1955): France established a protectorate over Morocco as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Fez on March 30, 1912. Prior to 1912, Morocco had been an independent kingdom for several centuries. -
RMS Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at around 23:40 (ship's time)[a] on Sunday, 14 April 1912. -
Japan had developed within less than 30 years from a feudal country into the preeminent Asian power. On July 30 of 1912, Emperor Meiji died. His son Yoshihito followed his father to the throne. With him the Meiji era ended officially and the Taisho era began. -
After the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution and the founding of the Republic of China, the Kuomintang was formally established on 25 August 1912 at the Huguang Guild Hall in Beijing where the Revolutionary Alliance and several smaller revolutionary groups joined to contest the first National Assembly elections. -
Montenegro opened hostilities by declaring war on Turkey on October 8, 1912, and the other members of the league followed suit 10 days later. The Balkan allies were soon victorious. -
The 1913 Ottoman coup d'état (January 23, 1913), also known as the Raid on the Sublime Porte (Turkish: Bâb-ı Âlî Baskını), was a coup d'état carried out in the Ottoman Empire by a number of Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) members led by Ismail Enver Bey and Mehmed Talaat Bey, in which the group made a surprise raid on the central Ottoman government buildings, the Sublime Porte (Turkish: Bâb-ı Âlî). During the coup, the Minister of War, Nazım Pasha. -
"The Decena Trágica is the best-known episode of Madero's life and movement." It instigated a new phase of the Mexican Revolution. The ten days of violence, the aim was to "create the illusion of chaos necessary to induce Madero to step down" from the presidency. -
The first inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as the 28th president of the United States was held on Tuesday, March 4, 1913, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 32nd inauguration and marked the commencement of the first four-year term of Woodrow Wilson as president and Thomas R. -
The work's premiere on May 29, 1913, at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, was scandalous. In addition to the outrageous costumes, unusual choreography and bizarre story of pagan sacrifice, Stravinsky's musical innovations tested the patience of the audience to the fullest. -
On May 30, 1913, a peace treaty is signed ending the First Balkan War, in which the newly aligned Slavic nations of Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece had driven Turkish forces out of Macedonia, a territory of the Ottoman Empire located in the tumultuous Balkans region of southeastern Europe. -
The Treaty of Bucharest was concluded on 10 August 1913, by the delegates of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. -
With the success of the magneto experiment, Ford engineers put the Model T motor and then the transmission on moving assembly lines. On October 7, 1913, the chassis also went on the moving assembly line, so that all the major components of the Model T were being assembled using this technique. -
December 23, 1913. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in December 1913, culminating three years of discussion and debate over the development of a central bank.