1900s
| Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century | |
| Decades: | |
| Years: | |
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
Science
- Planck's law of black body radiation
- Einstein's theory of special relativity
- Einstein explains Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect
War, peace and politics
- The New Imperialism
- Demand for Home Rule for Ireland
- Second Boer War ends
- British colonies in Australia federate, forming the Commonwealth of Australia
- Russo-Japanese War establishes Japan as a world power
- UK and France sign Entente Cordiale
- The Russian Revolution of 1905
Culture, religion
- Emergence of Cubist and Futurist art
- Committee of Fifty publishes series of books reporting on Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction
People
World Leaders
- 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)
- Queen Victoria (United Kingdom)
- King Edward VII (United Kingdom)
- Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (United Kingdom)
- Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour (United Kingdom)
- Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (United Kingdom)
- President William McKinley (United States)
- President Theodore Roosevelt (United States)
- Shahs of Persia (Qajar dynasty)
- Mozzafar-al-Din Shah, 1896-1907
- Mohammad Ali Shah, 1907-1909
- Ahmad Shah Qajar, 1909-1925
Important Personalities
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