1901

__NOTOC__ 1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar. It was also the first year of the 20th century.

Events

January

: Commonwealth of Australia forms as British colonies federate.]]

January 1

* The world celebrates the beginning of the 20th century.

* The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia. Edmund Barton becomes first Prime Minister.

* Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.

* The birth of Pentecostalism at a prayer meeting at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas.

January 5 – Typhoid fever breaks out in a Seattle jail, the first of two typhoid outbreaks in the USA during the year.

January 7 – Alferd Packer is released from prison after serving 18 years for cannibalism.

January 10 – In the first great Texas gusher, oil is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.

January 22 – After reigning for almost 64 years, longer than any other British monarch, Queen Victoria dies at the age of 81. Her eldest son, The Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales becomes King, reigning as King Edward VII until 1910. His son, Prince George, Duke of York becomes Duke of Cornwall.

January 28 – Baseball's American League declares itself a Major League.

: King Edward VII ascends the British throne and becomes Emperor of India.]]

February

February 2 – Funeral of Queen Victoria in London.

February 5

*Hay-Pauncefote Treaty signed by United Kingdom and United States, ceding control of the Panama Canal to the United States

*J Pierpont Morgan buys mines and steel mills in the United States, marking the first billion dollar business deal

February 6 – First public telephones at railway stations in Paris

February 11 – Anti Jesuit riots sweep across Spain

February 12 – India Viceroy Lord Curzon creates new frontier province in the north of the Punjab, bordering Afghanistan

February 14 – King Edward VII opens his first parliament

February 15 – The Alianza Lima Foundation is created in Peru.

February 20 – The Hawaii Territory Legislature convenes for the first time.

February 22 – Pacific mail steamer sinks in Golden Gate Harbor, killing 128

February 23 – United Kingdom and Germany agree the frontier between German East Africa and the British colony of Nyasaland

February 26 – Chi-hsui and Hsu-cheng-yu, Boxer Rebellion leaders, executed in Peking

February 26 – Middelburg peace conference fails in South Africa as Boers continue to demand autonomy

February 27 – The Sultan of Turkey orders 50,000 troops to the Bulgarian frontier because of unrest in Macedonia

March

March 1 – United Kingdom, Germany and Japan protest at Sino-Russian agreement on Manchuria.

March 2 – The U.S. Congress passes the Platt Amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.

March 4 – United States President William McKinley begins his 2nd term. Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as Vice President of the United States.

March 5 – Irish nationalist demonstrators ejected by police from House of Commons of the United Kingdom in London.

March 6 – In Bremen, an assassin attempts to kill Wilhelm II of Germany

March 11 – United Kingdom rejects amended Hay-Pauncefote treaty.

March 17

* A showing of 71 Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation.

* Student riots in St Petersburg and Moscow.

March 31 – The United Kingdom Census 1901 is taken.

: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany survives assassination attempt.]]

April

April 25 – New York State becomes the first to require automobile license plates.

April 29 – Anti-Jewish rioting breaks out in Budapest.

May

May 3 – The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, FL.

May 5 – The Caste War of Yucatán officially ends, although Mayan skirmishers continue sporadic fighting for another decade.

May 9 – Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne.

May 17 – The U.S. stock market crashes.

May 24 – 78 miners die in the Caerphilly pit disaster in South Wales.

May 25 – The Club Atlético River Plate is founded in Argentina.

May 27 – In New Jersey, the Edison Storage Battery Company is founded.

May 28 – Iran (known as Persia until 1935) grants William Knox D'Arcy a concession, giving him the right to prospect for oil.

June

June 2 – Katsura Taro becomes Prime Minister of Japan.

June 12 – Cuba becomes a U.S. protectorate.

: Cuba becomes a United States protectorate.]]

July

July 1 – Bureau of Chemistry within Department of Agriculture.

July 4 – The 1,282 foot (390 m) covered bridge crossing the St. John River at Hartland, New Brunswick, Canada opens. It is the longest covered bridge in the world.

July 24 – O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio after serving 3 years for embezzlement from the First National Bank in Austin, Texas.

August

August 5 – Peter O'Connor sets the first International Association of Athletics Federations recognised long jump world record of 24 ft 11¾ins. The record will stand for 20 years.

August 6 – Discovery Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott sets sail on the RRS Discovery to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

August 28 – Silliman University is founded in the Philippines. The first American private school in the country.

August 30 – Hubert Cecil Booth patents an electric vacuum cleaner.

September

: The Boxer Rebellion in China ends with the signing of the Peking Protocol.]] : Theodore Roosevelt becomes President of the United States on the death of William McKinley.]]

September 2 – U.S. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.

September 5 – The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (later renamed Minor League Baseball), is formed in Chicago.

September 6 – American anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies 8 days later.

September 7 – The Boxer Rebellion in China officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol.

September 14 – Theodore Roosevelt succeeds William McKinley as President of the United States.

September 26 – The body of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is exhumed and reinterred in concrete several feet thick.

October

October 2 – The Royal Navy's first submarine is launched at Barrow.

October 4 – The American yacht Columbia defeats the Irish Shamrock in the America's Cup yachting race.

October 16 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt invites African American leader Booker T. Washington to the White House. The American South reacts angrily to the visit, and racial violence increases in the region.

October 23 – Yale University celebrates its .

October 24 – Michigan schoolteacher Annie Taylor goes down Niagara Falls in a barrel and survives.

October 29

* In Amherst, New Hampshire, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.

* Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of William McKinley, is executed by electrocution.

November

November 1 – Sigma Phi Epsilon is founded in Richmond, VA.

November 9 – Prince George, Duke of Cornwall becomes Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.

November 15 – The Alpha Sigma Alpha Fraternity is founded at Longwood University.

November 28 – The new state constitution of Alabama requires voters to have passed literacy tests.

December

December 3 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".

December 10 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

December 12 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from Poldhu in England to Newfoundland, Canada; it is the letter "S" in Morse.

December 20 – The final spike is driven into the Mombasa-Victoria-Uganda Railway in what is now Kisumu, Kenya.

Date unknown

Scotland Yard creates a fingerprint archive.

Europium is isolated by Eugène-Anatole Demarçay.

William S. Harley draws up plans for his first prototype motorcycle.

The okapi is observed for the first time (previously known only to local natives).

The Independent Maya of Eastern Yucatán surrender to Mexico.

The Intercollegiate Prohibition Association is established in Chicago.

Shō Tai (Shang Tai), the last king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in modern Okinawa, Japan, dies.

New Zealand inventor Ernest Godward invents the spiral hairpin, one of the most widely used devices on the planet.

The first reliable census in India is taken.

Alzheimer's disease is described for the first time by German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer.

Births

January–February

January 1 – Julia Bathory, Hungarian glass designer (d. 2000)

January 3 – Ngo Dinh Diem, 1st President of South Vietnam (d. 1963)

January 4 – CLR James, Trinidad-born writer and journalist (d. 1989)

January 9 – Chic Young, American cartoonist (d. 1973)

January 11 – Kwon Ki-ok, Korean pilot (d. 1988)

January 13

* A. B. Guthrie, American novelist, historian (d. 1991)

* Mieczysław Żywczyński, Polish historian and priest (d. 1978)

January 14

* Bebe Daniels, American actress (d. 1971)

* Alfred Tarski, Polish logician and mathematician (d. 1983)

January 16

* Fulgencio Batista, Cuban leader (d. 1973)

* Frank Zamboni, American inventor (d. 1988)

January 20 – Mohammed Naguib, 1st President of Egypt (d. 1984)

January 21 – Marcellus Boss, American politician and lawyer, member of Kansas Senate and 5th Civilian Governor of Guam (d. 1967)

January 24

* Hans Erich Apostel, Austrian composer (d. 1972)

* Harry Calder, South African cricketer (d. 1995)

January 26 – Stuart Symington, American politician (d. 1988)

January 27 – Art Rooney, American football team owner (d. 1988)

January 29 – E. P. Taylor, Canadian business tycoon (d. 1989)

January 30 – Rudolf Caracciola, German race car driver (d. 1959)

February 1

* Frank Buckles, last surviving American veteran of World War I (d. 2011)

* Clark Gable, American actor (d. 1960)

February 2 – Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian violinist (d. 1987)

February 10 – Stella Adler, American actress (d. 1992)

February 15 – João Branco Núncio, Portuguese bullfighter (d. 1976)

February 22 – Mildred Davis, American actress (d. 1969)

February 25 – Zeppo Marx, American comedian (d. 1979)

February 27 – Horatio Luro, Argentine horse trainer (d. 1991)

February 28 – Linus Pauling, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Peace (d. 1994)

March–April

March 3 – Claude Choules, British WWI veteran (d. 2011)

March 4

* Charles Goren, American bridge player (d. 1991)

* Jean Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy-French poet (d. 1937)

March 17 – Alfred Newman, American film composer (d. 1970)

March 21

* Karl Arnold, German politician (d. 1958)

* Carmelita Geraghty, American actress (d. 1966)

March 22 – Greta Kempton, American artist (d. 1991)

March 24 – Ub Iwerks, American cartoonist (d. 1971)

March 27

* Carl Barks, American cartoonist (d. 2000)

* Erich Ollenhauer, German politician (d. 1963)

* Eisaku Sato, Prime Minister of Japan, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1975)

* Kenneth Slessor, Australian poet (d. 1971)

March 28 – Jack Weil, American entrepreneur (d. 2008)

April 1 – Whittaker Chambers, American spy (d. 1961)

April 15 – Joe Davis, English snooker and billiards player (d. 1978)

April 18 – Al Lewis, American songwriter (d. 1967)

April 29 – Emperor Hirohito of Japan (d. 1989)

April 30 – Simon Kuznets, Ukrainian-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)

May–June

May 7 – Gary Cooper, American actor (d. 1961)

May 17 – Werner Egk, German composer (d. 1983)

May 18 – Vincent du Vigneaud, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)

May 20 – Max Euwe, Dutch chess player (d. 1981)

May 21

* Manfred Aschner, German-born Israeli microbiologist and entomologist, recipient of the Israel Prize (d. 1989).

* Horace Heidt, American bandleader (d. 1986)

* Sam Jaffe, American film producer (d. 2000)

* Suzanne Lilar, Belgian essayist, novelist, and playwright (d. 1992)

May 25 – Antônio de Alcântara Machado, Brazilian novelist (d. 1935)

May 31 – Alfredo Antonini, American conductor and composer (d. 1983)

June 3 – Chang Hsüeh-liang, Chinese military leader (d. 2001)

June 6 – Sukarno, first President of Indonesia (d. 1970)

June 13 – Tage Erlander, Swedish politician (social democrat), prime minister of Sweden for 23 years (1946–1969) (d. 1985)

June 17 – F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, English World War II hero (d. 1964)

June 18 – Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia (d. 1918)

June 23 – Chuck Taylor, American basketball player and salesman (d. 1969)

June 24 – Harry Partch, American composer (d. 1974)

June 29 – Nelson Eddy, American singer and actor (d. 1967)

July–August

July 7 – Eiji Tsuburaya, Japanese film director and special effects designer (d. 1970)

July 9 – Barbara Cartland, English novelist (d. 2000)

July 17 – Bruno Jasieński, Polish poet (d. 1938)

July 20 – Heinie Manush, American baseball player (d. 1971)

July 21 – Albert Hamilton Gordon, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2009)

July 24 – Mabel Albertson, American actress (d. 1982)

July 31 – Jean Dubuffet, French painter (d. 1985)

August 1 – Pancho Villa, Filipino boxer (d. 1925)

August 4 – Louis Armstrong, American jazz musician (d. 1971)

August 8 – Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)

August 10 – Franco Dino Rasetti, Italian scientist (d. 2001)

August 14 – Alice Rivaz, Swiss writer (d. 1998)

August 18 – Jean Guitton, French writer and philosopher (d. 1999)

August 20 – Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)

August 26

* Maxwell Taylor, American general (d. 1987)

* Chen Yi, Chinese military commander and politician (d. 1972)

August 30 – John Gunther, American writer (d. 1970)

September–October

September 9

* James Blades, English percussionist (d. 1999)

* Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa (d. 1966)

September 12

* Ben Blue, Canadian-born comedian and actor (d. 1975)

* Shmuel Horowitz, Russian-born Israeli agronomist (d. 1999)

September 15 – Sir Donald Bailey, British civil engineer (d. 1985)

September 22 – Charles B. Huggins, Canadian-born cancer researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1997)

September 23 – Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)

September 24 – Gerald Warner Brace, American writer, educator, sailor and boat builder (d. 1978)

September 25 – Gordon Coventry, Australian rules footballer (d. 1968)

September 26 – George Raft, American film actor (d. 1980)

September 28

* Ed Sullivan, American entertainer (d. 1974)

* William S. Paley, American businessman (CBS) (d. 1990)

September 29

* Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)

* Lanza del Vasto, Italian philosopher, poet, and activist (d. 1981)

October 2 – Alice Prin, French singer (d. 1953)

October 10 – Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor (d. 1966)

October 24 – Gilda Gray, Polish-born dancer and actress (d. 1959)

November–December

November 3 – Léopold III of Belgium (d. 1983)

November 4 – Masako Nashimoto, Crown Princess of Korea (d. 1989)

November 7 – Norah McGuinness, Irish painter and illustrator (d. 1980)

November 18 – George Gallup, American statistician and opinion pollster (d. 1984)

November 22 – Joaquin Rodrigo, Spanish composer (d. 1999)

November 28 – Walter Havighurst, American critic, novelist, literary and social historian of the Midwest, professor of English at Miami University, (d. 1994)

November 29 – Mildred Harris, American actress (d. 1944)

December 5

* Milton Erickson, American psychiatrist (d. 1980)

* Walt Disney, American animator and film producer (d. 1966)

* Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)

December 8 – Arthur Leslie, British actor (d. 1970)

December 16 – Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist (d. 1978)

December 19 – Rudolf Hell, German inventor (d. 2002)

December 25 – Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (d. 2004)

December 27 – Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress (d. 1992)

December 31 – Karl-August Fagerholm, Prime Minister of Finland (d. 1984)

Date unknown

Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalin, second wife of Joseph Stalin (d. 1932)

Deaths

January–June

January 1 – Ignatius L. Donnelly, U.S. politician and writer (b. 1831)

January 8 – John Barry, Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1873)

January 10 – Sir James Dickson, Premier of Queensland, Australian Minister for Defence (b. 1832

January 11 – Vasily Kalinnikov, Russian composer (b. 1866)

January 14 – Víctor Balaguer, Spanish politician and author, (b. 1824)

January 16

* Arnold Böcklin, Swiss artist (b. 1827)

* Mahadev Govind Ranade, Indian reformer (b. 1842)

January 21 – Elisha Gray, American inventor and appliance manufacturer (b. 1835)

January 22 – Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India (b. 1819)

January 27 – Verdi, Italian composer (b. 1813)

February 11 – King Milan I of Serbia (b. 1854)

February 22 – George Francis FitzGerald, Irish mathematician (b. 1851)

February 26 – Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, Polish writer (b. 1829)

March 13 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833)

April 3 – Richard D'Oyly Carte, English impresario (b. 1844)

April 19 – Alfred Horatio Belo, American businessman and newswriter (b. 1839)

May 1 – Lewis Waterman, American inventor and businessman (b. 1837)

May 5 – Axel Wilhelm Eriksson, Swedish settler and trader in south-west Africa (b. 1846)

May 22 – Gaetano Bresci Italian anarchist and assassin (b 1869)

May 24 – Charlotte Mary Yonge, English novelist (b. 1823)

June 2 – George Leslie Mackay, Canadian missionary (b. 1844)

June 9 – Walter Besant, English writer (b. 1836)

July–December

July 4 – Johannes Schmidt, German linguist (b. 1843)

July 6 – Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1819)

August 5 – Victoria, Empress of Germany (b. 1840)

August 12 – Francesco Crispi, Italian Prime Minister (b. 1819)

August 24 – Clara Maass, American nurse (b. 1876)

September 5 – Ignacij Klemenčič, Slovenian physicist (b. 1853)

September 9 – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter (b. 1864)

September 14 – William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (b. 1843)

October 1 – Abdor Rahman Khan, Emir of Afghanistan (b. 1844)

October 10 – Lorenzo Snow, Mormon leader (b. 1814)

October 19 – Carl Frederik Tietgen, Danish financier and industrialist (b. 1829)

October 29 – Leon Czolgosz, Polish-American assassin of U.S. President William McKinley (b. 1873)

November 7 – Li Hongzhang, Chinese general (b. 1823)

November 27 – Clement Studebaker, American manufacturer (b. 1831)

November 30 – Edward John Eyre, English explorer (b. 1815)

December 1 – George Lohmann, English cricketer (b. 1865)

Nobel Prizes

Physics – Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Chemistry – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff

Medicine – Emil Adolf von Behring

Literature – Sully Prudhomme

Peace – Jean Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy

Significance of 1901 for modern computers

The date of Fri December 13 20:45:52 1901 is significant for modern computers because it is the earliest date representable with a signed 32-bit integer on systems that reference time in seconds since the Unix epoch. This corresponds to -2147483648 seconds from Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970. For the same reason, many computer storage systems are also unable to represent an earlier date. For related reasons, many computer systems suffer from the Year 2038 problem. This is when the positive number of seconds since 1970 exceeds 2147483647 (01111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 in binary) and wraps to -2147483648. Hence the computer system erroneously displays or operates on the time Fri Dec 13 20:45:52 1901. In this way the year 1900 is to the Year 2000 problem as is the year 1901 to the Year 2038 problem.

References

Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia...1901 (1902); highly detailed compilation of facts and primary documents; worldwide coverage online edition