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20th Century: First Decade

Gallery
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20-line selector phone
Sweden, 1900


Telephone manufactured
in Denmark, 1901


German telephone
1904


German telephone
1907

1900-1909
 
1900
1900: The Oxford English Dictionary letters "A" to "H" are published.
1900: Visitors to Paris Exposition fascinated by huge Muliplex Grand Graphophone.
1900: Artist Homer Winslow, On a Lee Shore.
1900: English handwriting experts establish the art of calligraphy.
1900: Theodore Dreiser's novel, Sister Carrie, shocks public morality.
1900: Rodin completes The Thinker.
1900: Swedish playwright Johan Strindberg, The Dance of Death.
1900: Lyman Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, first of Oz book series.
1900: First overseas phone call, from Key West to Havana.
1900: Kodak's $1 Brownie puts photography in almost everyone's reach.
1900: Michael Pupin's loading coil reduces telephone voice distortion.
1900: Estimated 1,800 magazines are being published in the United States.
1900: Total newspaper circulation in U.S. passes 15 million daily.
1900:562 cities in U.S. have more than one daily newspaper; New York City has 29.
1900: In Paris, the Guide Michelin.
1900: Much of Europe and Japan begin to make movies.
1900: Phonograph cylinders continue to outsell discs by wide margin.
1900: Phonograph records add paper labels.
1900: Eldridge Johnson produces double-sided phonograph records.
1900: In London, the Daily Express.
1900: Giacomo Puccini composes Tosca.
1900: Joseph Conrad's novel, Lord Jim.
1900: University of Wisconsin experiments with radio transmissions.
1900: On Broadway, Floradora introduces what will become the chorus line.
1900: Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams.
1900: Start of modern music era.
1900: Max Planck introduces quantum theory hypothesis.
1900: Chekhov's play, Uncle Vanya.
1900: Henri Matisse begins the Fauvist movement in painting.
1900: In Finland, the tone poem Finlandia, composed by Jean Sibelius.
 
1901
1901: Rudyard Kipling's Kim, an Irish orphan traveling through India.
1901: Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington.
1901: "Red Label" records of classical music go on sale, first in Russia.
1901: At the Moscow Art Theater, Stanislavsky introduces his acting method.
1901: Communication improves when the hearing aid is patented.
1901: Andrew Carnegie begins to build public libraries across the U.S.
1901: In Germany, Karl Braun discovers that a crystal can detect radio waves.
1901: Pablo Picasso begins his "blue period."
1901: Serge Rachmaninoff composes the 2nd Piano Concerto.
1901: First electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer.
1901: High school graduates face something new: College Board entrance exams.
1901: Thomas Mann achieves fame with first novel, Buddenbrooks.
1901: First Nobel Prize in Literature: poet Sully Prudhomme, France.
1901: In Newfoundland, Marconi receives a radio signal, the letter "s", from England.
 
1902
1902: Germany's Zeiss invents the four-element Tessar camera lens.
1902: Etched zinc photoengravings.
1902: William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, study of human nature.
1902: Rural free delivery (RFD) becomes permanent part of U.S. postal service.
1902: In France, magician George Méliès' A Trip to the Moon tells fantasy in film.
1902: Los Angeles theater succeeds by showing movies only, no vaudeville.
1902: Germany's Arthur Korn displays photoelectric (non-contact) fax system.
1902: Nobel Prize in Literature: historian Christian Mommsen, Germany.
1902: Muckraking begins with a Lincoln Steffens article in McClure's Magazine.
1902: Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles.
1902: Images can be transferred by photoelectric scanning.
1902: Claude Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande brings impressionism to music.
1902: Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, a play of hope and human flaws.
1902: Maxim Gorky's novel, The Lower Depths.
1902: Henry James' The Wings of the Dove contrasts European, American societies.
1902: Oldest extant Biblical writing acquired: Ten Commandments on papyrus.
1902: Owen Wister, The Virginian. "When you call me that, smile!"
1902: U.S. Navy installs radio telephones aboard ships.
1902: Film can be developed in a machine without a darkroom.
1902: Alfred Stieglitz publishes Camera Work to promote photography as art.
1902: Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories for children.
1902: Vivaphone, Chronophone, and Kinetophone synchronize sound and film.
1902: Edward Elgar composes Pomp and Circumstance.
1902: Unable to find publisher, Beatrix Potter self-publishes The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
1902: French novelist André Gide establishes reputation with The Immoralist.
1902: Transpacific telephone cable connects Canada and Australia.
1902: In Europe, 10-inch "Red Seal" records feature tenor Enrico Caruso.
 
1903
1903: An entire Verdi opera is recorded on 40 single-side disks.
1903: Henry James, The Ambassadors, serialized in magazine, then published as book.
1903: Jack London, The Call of the Wild, one of his most popular adventure books.
1903: The Story of My Life by the remarkable Helen Keller, blind and deaf.
1903: Victor Herbert's operetta, Babes in Toyland.
1903: Russian scientist K. Tsiolkovsky publishes theory of rocket propulsion.
1903: Pacific Cable completed. Message circles the globe in 12 minutes.
1903: The Life of an American Fireman begins narrative documentary, editing.
1903: Technical improvements in radio, telegraph, phonograph, movies and printing.
1903: Nobel Prize in Literature: poet Martinus Bj�rnson, Norway.
1903: London Daily Mirror now illustrates only with photographs, not drawings.
1903: W.E.B. Du Bois writes The Souls of Black Folks, his best known work.
1903: Arnold Schönberg's symphonic tone poem, Pelleas und Melisande.
1903: Cheap crayons are mass produced in the United States.
1903: The Great Train Robbery introduces editing, creates demand for fiction movies.
1904
1904: E.F. Alexanderson's huge alternator adds distance to radio signals.
1904: Ambrose Fleming invents the diode tube, improves radio communication.
1904: Offset lithography becomes a commercial reality.
1904: The comic book.
1904: Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, another of more than 50 books.
1904: Lincoln Steffens's The Shame of the Cities exposes municipal corruption.
1904: "Muckraker" Ida Tarbell's exposé, History of the Standard Oil Company.
1904: Giacomo Puccini's opera, Madame Butterfly.
1904: Cabbages and Kings, the first collection of O. Henry's short stories.
1904: Lewis Hine shocks with photographs of America's immigrants, child labor.
1904: Advertising discovers hard-sell.
1904: Joseph Conrad, Nostromo, arguably his best novel.
1904: Nobel Prize in Literature: Frédéric Mistral, France; José Echegaray, Spain.
1904: Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.brings modern realism to the stage.
1904: The telephone answering machine.
1904: G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, one of his early novels.
 
1905
1905: Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen open photo art gallery in New York City.
1905: In Berlin, Isadora Duncan opens the first school of modern dance.
1905: German lyric poet Erich Maria Rilke, achieves fames with Das Stundenbuch.
1905: Painesville, Ohio, phone company transmits music recital to 1,000 listeners.
1905: In Pittsburgh the Nickelodeon movie theater opens; concept grows fast.
1905: In Vienna, Franz Lehar's operetta, The Merry Widow.
1905: Popular actors used to advertise a product, Murad Cigarettes.
1905: George Bernard Shaw's play, Man and Superman.
1905: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, challenges Marx.
1905: Photography, printing, and post combine in the year's fad, picture postcards.
1905: In France, Pathé colors black and white films by machine.
1905: In New Zealand, the postage meter is introduced.
1905: George Santayana begins philosophical writing with The Life of Reason.
1905: Nobel Prize in Literature: novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, Poland.
1905: A small advance that holds: the fountain pen adds a pocket clip.
1905: Publication of Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.
1905: Richard Strauss shocking opera, Salome presents the dance of the seven veils.
1905: Bus timetables are printed.
 
1906
1906: Phonograph records may be 6 2/3", 7", 8", 10", 11" 12", 13 3/4", or 14" wide.
1906: In Michigan, yellow pages advertise business listings. (move from 1905)
1906: In Chicago, the jukebox, playing flat records, is invented.
1906: The Victrola turns the phonograph into furniture.
1906: International Radiotelegraph Union is founded.
1906: Uncle Remus and Br'er Rabbit, book of short stories by Joel Chandler Harris.
1906: Motion picture screen aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1 accepted as international standard.
1906: Maxim Gorky"s novel The Mother awakens revolutionary feelings in Russians.
1906: In Britain, new process colors books cheaply.
1906: Kinemacolor movie process enjoys some success.
1906: Lee De Forest's three-element vacuum tube, the audion, puts voices on the air.
1906: Nobel Prize in Literature: poet Giosuè Carducci, Italy.
1906: 75.000 subscribers cancel The Ladies Home Journal over VD articles.
1906: Dunwoody and Pickard build a crystal-and-cat's-whisker radio.
1906: Phonograph records become thinner, less scratchy.
1906: An animated cartoon film is produced, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces.
1906: Jack London continues adventure novel successes with White Fang.
1906: Fessenden plays violin over radio and talks to startled ship wireless operators.
1906: An experimental sound-on-film motion picture.
1906: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposes filthy, dangerous meat packing industry.
 
1907
1907: Bell and Howell develop a film projection system.
1907: Multiple-reel films are produced.
1907: A photograph is transmitted by wire across France.
1907: Commercial fax system for photos operates between Paris, London, and Berlin.
1907: Franz Kafka's first writing; most will be published after his death in 1924.
1907: Lumi�re brothers invent still color photography process.
1907: De Forest broadcasts music from phonograph records.
1907: Pure Food and Drug Act passed after exposé Collier's magazine article.
1907: Marconi starts transatlantic radio service with Ireland to Newfoundland leg.
1907: A photocopier is marketed.
1907: Canadian Robert Service publishes verse like "The Cremation of Sam McGee."
1907: Irish playwright John Synge, The Playboy of the Western World.
1907: Irving Berlin publishes the first of more than 800 tunes.
1907: George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara satirizes unbridled capitalism.
1907: Christmas stamps are sold to raise money for tuberculosis research.
1907: In Russia, Boris Rosing develops theory of electronic television.
1907: Florenz Ziegfield sets Broadway ablaze with first annual Follies.
1907: Rudyard Kipling receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.
 
1908
1908: A trust, the Motion Picture Patents Co., is set up to control U.S. movie making.
1908: Nobel Prize in Literature: philosopher Rudolf Eucken, Germany.
1908: In France, Gabriel Lippmann improves color photography, wins Nobel Prize.
1908: The Christian Science Monitor begins publication.
1908: Movie makers set up shop in California at a place called Hollywood.
1908: With Schönberg and Ives, atonality influences classical musical composition.
1908: Safety film replaces highly flammable cellulose nitrate base for stills.
1908: Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows introduces Toad and companions.
1908: Artist Gustav Klimt, The Kiss.
1908: D.W. Griffith starts to introduce variety in movie film composition.
1908: Lucy Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, life on Prince Edward Island.
 
1909
1909: In Paris, Serge Diaghelev begins modern ballet with the Ballets Russes.
1909: Sergei Rachmaninov composes Piano Concerto No. 3 for American tour.
1909: Tschaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite is recorded and packaged, the first album.
1909: Radio distress signal saves 1,700 lives after ships collide.
1909: In France, Charles Pathé creates the newsreel.
1909: The New York Times publishes the first movie review.
1909: Isaac Albéniz composes Iberia for piano.
1909: Mann Act passed after "Daughters of the Poor" published in McClure's.
1909: First woman to win Nobel Prize in Literature: Selma Lagerl�f, Sweden.
1909: Marconi and Braun share Nobel Prize in Physics for wireless development.
1909: First broadcast talk; the subject: women's suffrage.
1909: Major revision of the U.S. Copyright Act protects authors, composers.
1909: Founding of McGraw-Hill, book publishers.


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Copyright © Irving Fang and Kristina Ross, 1995-1996. All rights reserved.