1903

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1870s  1880s  1890s  – 1900s –   1910s   1920s   1930s
Years:	1900 1901 1902 – 1903 – 1904 1905 1906

1903 by topic:

Subject

Archaeology Architecture Art Aviation Awards Comics Film Literature ( Poetry) Meteorology Music Rail transport Radio Science Sports Television

By country

Australia Canada China Ecuador France Germany Greece India Ireland Italy Japan Malaya Mexico New Zealand Norway Ottoman Syria Philippines Russia Singapore South Africa United Kingdom United States

Leaders

Sovereign states State leaders Religious leaders Law

Birth and death categories

Births Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments Disestablishments

Works and introductions categories

Works Introductions

1903 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1903 MCMIII
Ab urbe condita	2656
Armenian calendar	1352 ԹՎ ՌՅԾԲ
Assyrian calendar	6653
Bahá'í calendar	59–60
Bengali calendar	1310
Berber calendar	2853
British Regnal year	2 Edw. 7 – 3 Edw. 7
Buddhist calendar	2447
Burmese calendar	1265
Byzantine calendar	7411–7412
Chinese calendar	壬寅年十二月初三日 (4539/4599-12-3) — to — 癸卯年十一月十三日 (4540/4600-11-13)
Coptic calendar	1619–1620
Ethiopian calendar	1895–1896
Hebrew calendar	5663–5664
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1959–1960
- Shaka Samvat	1825–1826
- Kali Yuga	5004–5005
Holocene calendar	11903
Igbo calendar
- Ǹrí Ìgbò	903–904
Iranian calendar	1281–1282
Islamic calendar	1320–1321
Japanese calendar	Meiji 36 (明治36年)
Juche calendar	N/A (before 1912)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4236
Minguo calendar	9 before ROC 民前9年
Thai solar calendar	2446

1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January

• January 1 – Edward VII of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Emperor of India.
• January 19 – The first west-east transatlantic radio broadcast is made from the United States to England (the first east-west broadcast having been made in 1901).

February

• February 11 – The Oxnard Strike of 1903 becomes the first time in U.S. history that a labor union is formed from members of different races.
• February 15 – Morris and Rose Michtom introduce the first teddy bear in the United States.
• February 17 – El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico becomes part of the United States National Forest System as the Luquillo Forest Reserve.
• February 23 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity" under the terms of the Cuban–American Treaty.

March

• March 2 – In New York City, the Martha Washington Hotel, the first hotel exclusively for women, opens.
• March 3 – The British admiralty announces plans to build a naval base at Rosyth.
• March 5 – The Ottoman Empire and the German Empire sign an agreement to build the Constantinople-Baghdad Railway.
• March 12 – The University of Puerto Rico is founded.
• March 14 – The Hay-Herran Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, is ratified by the United States Senate. The Colombian Senate later rejects the treaty.
• March 19 – The oldest Turkish football club, Besiktas JK, is founded in Istanbul.

April

• April 7 – Fredrikstad Football Club (FFK) is founded in Norway.
• April 29 – A 30-million-m³ landslide kills 70 in Frank, Alberta.

May

• May 4 – The leading Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary Gotse Delchev is killed in a skirmish with the Turkish army.
• May 18 – The port of Burgas, Bulgaria opens.
• May 22 – The White Star Liner, SS Ionic, is launched.
• May 24 – The Paris-Madrid race begins, during which at least eight people are killed.

June

• June 11 – Serbian King Alexander Obrenović and Queen Draga are assassinated.
• June 12 – The Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity is founded at the University of Michigan School of Music.
• June 14 – The town of Heppner, Oregon, is nearly destroyed by a cloud burst that resulted in a flash flood that kills an estimated 238 people.
• June 27 – 19-year-old American socialite Aida de Acosta becomes the first woman to fly a powered aircraft solo when she pilots Santos-Dumont's motorized dirigible, “No. 9”, from Paris to Château de Bagatelle in France.

July

• July 1– July 19 – First Tour de France bicycle race, won by Maurice Garin.
• July 7 – The British take over the Fulani Empire.
• July 23 – Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago becomes the first owner of a Ford Model A.
• July 30– August 23 ( July 17– August 10, O.S.) – Second Congress of the All- Russian Social Democratic Labour Party held in exile in Brussels, transferring to London.

August

• August 2 – The Ilinden Uprising, organized by the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization, breaks out in the Ottoman provinces of Macedonia and Adrianople.
• August 4 – Pope Pius X succeeds Pope Leo XIII as the 257th pope.
• August 10 – Paris Metro train fire takes place.
• August 15 – Scottish Football's most successful club Aberdeen were formed and played their first competitive match.
• August 25 – Judiciary Act passed.

September

• September 11 – The first stock car event is held at the Milwaukee Mile.
• September 14 – Joseph Chamberlain resigns as British Colonial Secretary, in order to campaign publicly for Imperial Preference.
• September 15 – Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto-Alegrense is founded in Porto Alegre, Brazil
• September 24 – Edmund Barton steps down as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by Alfred Deakin.
• September 27 – The Wreck of the Old 97 engine at Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia, which kills 11 people, inspires a ballad and song.
• September 29 – Prussia becomes the first locality to require mandatory drivers licenses for operators of motor vehicles.

October

• October – Frank Nelson Cole proves that 2⁶⁷-1 is composite by factoring it as 193,707,721 * 761,838,257,287 after trying every Sunday for 3 years.
• October 1 – The first modern World Series, pitting the National League's Pittsburgh Pirates against Boston of the American League, begins at Pittsburgh's Exposition Park.
• October 6 – The High Court of Australia sits for the first time.
• October 10 – The Women's Social and Political Union is founded in the UK.
• October 13 – Boston wins its first of seven World Series titles, beating Pittsburgh at their home park, Huntington Avenue Grounds.

November

• November 3 – Founding of Argentinian football team, Newell's Old Boys in the city of Rosario.
• November 4 – With the encouragement of the United States, Panama proclaims itself independent from Colombia.
• November 13 – The United States recognizes the independence of Panama.
• November 17 – The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for "majority") and Mensheviks (Russian for "minority").
• November 18 – The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the U.S. exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.
• November 23 – Colorado Governor James Hamilton Peabody sends the state militia into the town of Cripple Creek to break up a miners' strike.

December

• December 16 – Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel in Bombay opens its doors to guests.
• December 17 – Orville Wright flies an aircraft with a petrol engine at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in the first documented, successful, controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight.
• December 30 – Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago kills 600.

Date unknown

• The Lincoln-Lee Legion is established to promote the American temperance movement and signing of alcohol abstinence pledges by children.
• The first box of Crayola crayons was made and sold for 5 cents. It contained 8 colors; brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and black.
• Osea Island in Maldon, Essex, England was bought by Mr. Frederick Charrington.

Births

January

• January 6 – Maurice Abravanel, Greek-born conductor (d. 1993)
• January 7 – Warren Hull, American actor (d. 1974)
• January 10 – Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor (d. 1975)
• January 11
  • Hans Redlich, Austrian composer (d. 1968)
  • Alan Paton, South African author and anti-apartheid activist. (d. 1988)
• January 12 – Igor Kurchatov, Soviet physicist (d. 1960)
• January 16 – William Grover-Williams, French race car driver and war hero (d. 1945)
• January 22 – Fritz Houtermans, Polish physicist (d. 1966)
• January 27 – John Carew Eccles, Australian neuropsychologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1997)

February

• February 2 – Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, Dutch mathematician (d. 1996)
• February 4 – Alexander Imich, American parapsychologist and chemist
• February 6 – Claudio Arrau, Chilean-born pianist (d. 1991)
• February 8
  • Greta Keller, Vienna-born cabaret singer and actress (d. 1977)
  • Tunku Abdul Rahman, first Prime Minister of Malaysia (d. 1990)
• February 10 – Matthias Sindelar, Austrian footballer (d. 1939)
• February 11 – Rex Lease, American actor (d. 1966)
• February 13 – Georges Simenon, French writer (d. 1989)
• February 14 – Stuart Erwin, American actor (d. 1967)
• February 16 – Edgar Bergen, American ventriloquist (d. 1978)
• February 21
  • Anaïs Nin, French writer (d. 1977)
  • Raymond Queneau, French poet and novelist (d. 1976)
• February 22
  • Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer and media personality (d. 1990)
  • Ain-Ervin Mere, Estonian Nazi (d. 1969)
  • Frank P. Ramsey, English mathematician (d. 1930)
• February 26 – Giulio Natta, Italian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
• February 27 – Grethe Weiser, German actress (d. 1970)
• February 28 – Vincente Minnelli, American director (d. 1986)

March

• March 4
  • Luis Carrero Blanco, Spanish statesman (d. 1973)
  • William C. Boyd, American immunochemist (d. 1983)
  • Dorothy Mackaill, British-born American actress (d. 1990)
  • John Scarne, American magician and card expert (d. 1985)
• March 6 – Empress Kōjun, Empress consort of Japan (d. 2000)
• March 10 – Bix Beiderbecke, American jazz musician (d. 1931)
• March 11
  • Ronald Syme, New Zealand-born classicist and historian (d. 1989)
  • Lawrence Welk, American television musician (d. 1992)
• March 14 – Mustafa Barzani, Kurdish politician (d. 1979)
• March 20 – Edgar Buchanan, American actor (d. 1979)
• March 24 – Adolf Butenandt, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
• March 25 – Nahum Norbert Glatzer, Jewish-American scholar (d. 1990)
• March 28 – Rudolf Serkin, Austrian pianist (d. 1991)
• March 31 – H. J. Blackham, British humanist and author (d. 2009)

April

• April 5 – Hilda Bruce, British zoologist (d. 1974)
• April 6
  • Mickey Cochrane, American baseball player (d. 1962)
  • Doc Edgerton, American electrical engineering (d. 1990)
• April 10 – Clare Boothe Luce, American publisher and writer (d. 1987)
• April 12 – Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
• April 15 – John Williams, English-born actor (d. 1983)
• April 17
  • Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian cellist (d. 1976)
  • Morgan Taylor, American athlete (d. 1975)
• April 19 – Eliot Ness, American treasury agent (d. 1957)
• April 24 – José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Spanish politician (d. 1936)
• April 25 – Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, Russian mathematician (d. 1987)
• April 28 – Johan Borgen, Norwegian author (d. 1979)

May

• May 2 – Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician (d. 1998)
• May 3 – Bing Crosby, American singer and actor (d. 1977)
• May 4 – Luther Adler, American actor (d. 1984)
• May 6 – Toots Shor, New York restaurateur (d. 1977)
• May 8 – Fernandel, French actor (d. 1971)
• May 10 – Hans Jonas, German-born philosopher(d. 1993)
• May 11 – Charlie Gehringer, baseball player (d. 1993)
• May 21 – Frank Sargeson, New Zealand writer (d. 1982)
• May 24 – Lofton R. Henderson, American naval aviator, died in The Battle of Midway (d. 1942)
• May 29 – Bob Hope, English-born American comedian and actor (d. 2003)

June

• June 1 – Vasyl Velychkovsky Ukrainian bishop (d. 1973)
• June 6 – Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer (d. 1978)
• June 8 – Marguerite Yourcenar, Belgian-French author (d. 1987)
• June 10 – Theo Lingen, German actor (d. 1978)
• June 12 – Emmett Hardy, American musician (d. 1925)
• June 16
  • Helen Traubel, American soprano (d. 1972)
  • Huldreich Georg Früh, Swiss composer (d. 1945)
• June 18
  • Jeanette MacDonald, American singer and actress (d. 1965)
  • Raymond Radiguet, French author (d. 1923)
• June 19
  • Lou Gehrig, American baseball player (d. 1941)
  • Wally Hammond, English cricketer (d. 1965)
• June 20 – Eddie Laughton, British-born American film actor (d. 1952)
• June 21 – Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist (d. 2003)
• June 22
  • John Dillinger, American bank robber (d. 1934)
  • Jiro Horikoshi, Japanese aircraft designer (d. 1982)
  • Ben Pollack, American jazz drummer and bandleader (d. 1971)
• June 25
  • Pierre Brossolette, French journalist and resistance fighter (d. 1944)
  • George Orwell, English author (d. 1950)
• June 29 – Alan Blumlein, British electronics engineer (d. 1942)

July

• July 1 – Amy Johnson, English aviator (d. 1941)
• July 2
  • Harwell Hamilton Harris, American architect (d. 1990)
  • Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1995)
  • King Olav V of Norway (d. 1991)
• July 3 – Ace Bailey, Canadian hockey player (d. 1992)
• July 4 – Corrado Bafile, Italian Catholic cardinal (d. 2005)
• July 6 – Hugo Theorell, Swedish scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1982)
• July 10 – John Wyndham, British author (d. 1969)
• July 13 – Kenneth Clark, English art historian (d. 1983)
• July 21 – Roy Neuberger, American financier and art collector (d. 2010)

August

• August 3
  • Habib Bourguiba, former President of Tunisia (d. 2000)
  • Fahri Koruturk, former President of Turkey (d. 1987)
• August 6 – Virginia Foster Durr, American civil rights activist (d. 1999)
• August 7
  • Rudolph Ising, cartoon animator (d. 1992)
  • Louis Leakey, British archaeologist (d. 1972)
• August 13 – Chubby Johnson, American actor (d. 1974)
• August 18 – Lucienne Boyer, French singer (d. 1983)
• August 19 – James Gould Cozzens, American writer (d. 1978)
• August 23 – William Primrose, Scottish violist (d. 1982)
• August 31
  • Arthur Godfrey, American radio and television host (d. 1983)
  • Hugh Harman, cartoon animator (d. 1982)

September

• September 7
  • Shimaki Kensaku, Japanese author (d. 1945)
  • John Kloza, Polish professional baseball player and manager (d. 1962)
• September 8 – Jane Arbor, British writer (d. 1994)
• September 9
  • Phyllis Whitney, American mystery writer (d. 2008)
  • Edward Upward, British author (d. 2009)
• September 11 – Theodor Adorno, German philosopher (d. 1969)
• September 13 – Claudette Colbert, American actress (d. 1996)
• September 15 – Roy Acuff, American country musician (d. 1992)
• September 17 – Karel Miljon, Dutch boxer (d. 1984)
• September 21 – Preston Tucker, American automobile designer (d. 1956)
• September 25
  • Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, Pakistani journalist, theologian, and philosopher (d. 1979)
  • Mark Rothko, Latvian-born painter (d. 1970)

October

• October 1 – Vladimir Horowitz, Russian pianist (d. 1989)
• October 4 – John Vincent Atanasoff, American computer engineer (d. 1995)
• October 5 – M. King Hubbert, American geophysicist (d. 1989)
• October 6 – Ernest Walton, Irish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
• October 9 – Walter O'Malley, American baseball executive (d. 1979)
• October 10 – Bei Shizhang, Chinese biologist and educator (d. 2009)
• October 16 – Cecile de Brunhoff, French storyteller (d. 2003)
• October 18 – Lina Radke, German athlete (d. 1983)
• October 22
  • George Wells Beadle, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1989)
  • Zlatyu Boyadzhiev, Bulgarian painter (d. 1976)
  • Jerome "Curly Howard" Horwitz, American comedian and actor (The Three Stooges) (d. 1952)
• October 25
  • Katharine Byron, American politician (d. 1976)
  • Harry Shoulberg, American painter (d. 1995)
• October 26 – Bill Allington, American baseball player and manager (d. 1966)
• October 28 – Evelyn Waugh, English writer (d. 1966)

November

• November 1 – Max Adrian, Northern Irish actor (d. 1973)
• November 2 – Edgard Potier, Belgian spy (d. 1944)
• November 3 – Walker Evans, American photographer (d. 1975)
• November 4 – Watchman Nee, Chinese preacher and church leader (d. 1972)
• November 6 – Carl Rakosi, German-born poet (d. 2004)
• November 7 – Konrad Lorenz, Austrian zoologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1989)
• November 19 – Nancy Carroll, American actress (d. 1965)
• November 27 – Lars Onsager, Norwegian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)
• November 29 – E. Harold Munn, American temperance movement leader and presidential candidate (d. 1992)

December

• December 5
  • Johannes Heesters, Dutch singer and actor (d. 2011)
  • Cecil Frank Powell, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1969)
• December 4
  • Lazar Lagin, Soviet writer (d. 1979)
  • A. L. Rowse, English historian (d. 1997)
• December 12
  • Dagmar Nordstrom, American composer and pianist (d. 1976)
  • Yasujiro Ozu, Japanese film director (d. 1963)
• December 13 – Ella Baker, American civil rights activist (d. 1986)
• December 17 – Erskine Caldwell, American author (d. 1987)
• December 19 – George Davis Snell, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1996)
• December 22 – Haldan Keffer Hartline, American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1983)
• December 24 – Joseph Cornell, American sculptor (d. 1972)
• December 26 – Elisha Cook Jr., American actor (d. 1995)
• December 28
  • Earl Hines, American jazz pianist (d. 1983)
  • John von Neumann, Hungarian-born mathematician (d. 1957)
• December 31
  • Nathan Milstein, Ukrainian violinist (d. 1992)
  • Will Mastin, American vaudevillian (d. 1975)

Deaths

January–June

• January 3 – Alois Hitler, Austrian civil servant, father of Adolf Hitler (b. 1837)
• January 5 – Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, Spanish politician, former Prime Minister (b. 1825)
• January 17 – Quintin Hogg, British philanthropist (b. 1845)
• January 28
  • Augusta Holmès, French composer (b. 1847)
  • Robert Planquette, French composer (b. 1850)
• February 1 – Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Irish mathematician and physicist (b. 1819)
• February 7 – James Glaisher, English meteorologist and aeronaut (b. 1809)
• February 14 – Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria (b. 1831)
• February 22 – Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer (b. 1860)
• February 26 – Richard Jordan Gatling, American inventor (b. 1818)
• March 4 – Joseph Henry Shorthouse, English novelist (b. 1834)
• March 6 – Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris, French scholar (b. 1839)
• March 13 – George Granville Bradley, English vicar and scholar (b. 1821)
• March 16 – Roy Bean, American pioneer (b. 1825)
• March 28 – Emile Baudot, French telegraph engineer (b. 1845)
• April 3 – Margaret Ann Neve, supercentenarian (b. 1792)
• April 13 – Moritz Lazarus, German philosopher (b. 1824)
• April 19 – Oliver Mowat, Canadian politician (b. 1820)
• April 28 – Willard Gibbs, American physical chemist (b. 1839)
• May 4 – Gotse Delchev, Bulgarian revolutionary (b. 1872)
• May 8 – Paul Gauguin, French painter (b. 1848)
• May 13 – Apolinario Mabini, Filipino political theoretician and Prime Minister (b. 1864)
• June 9 – Gaspar Núñez de Arce, Spanish poet (b. 1834)
• June 11
  • Nikolai Bugaev, Russian mathematician (b. 1837)
  • Draga Mašin, Serbian queen consort (b. 1861)
  • Aleksandar Obrenović, Serbian king (b. 1876)
• June 19 – Herbert Vaughan, English Catholic cardinal and archbishop (b. 1832)

July–December

• July 2 – Ed Delahanty, American baseball player (b. 1867)
• July 11 – William Ernest Henley, English poet, critic, and editor (b. 1849)
• July 13 – Béni Kállay, Austro-Hungarian statesman (b. 1839)
• July 17 – James McNeill Whistler, American painter (b. 1834)
• July 20 – Pope Leo XIII, Italian Roman Catholic Pope (b. 1810)
• August 1 – Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman (b. 1852)
• August 5 – Phil May, English artist (b. 1864)
• August 11 – Eugenio María de Hostos, Puerto Rican philosopher and sociologist (b. 1839)
• August 17 – Hans Gude, Norwegian painter (b. 1825)
• August 22 – Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1830)
• August 23 – Fray Mocho, Argentine writer (b. 1858)
• September 13 – Carl Schuch, Austrian painter (b. 1846)
• September 18 – Alexander Bain, Scottish philosopher (b. 1818)
• October 4 – Otto Weininger, Austrian-Jewish author (b. 1880)
• October 20 – Thomas Vincent Welch, American politician (b. 1850)
• October 22 – William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Irish historian and member of the House of Commons (b. 1838)
• November 1 – Theodor Mommsen, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1817)
• November 13 – Camille Pissarro, French painter (b. 1830)
• November 25 – Sabino Arana, Spanish Basque writer and nationalist (b. 1865)
• December 8 – Herbert Spencer, English philosopher (b. 1820)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – Antoine Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, and Marie Curie
• Chemistry – Svante August Arrhenius
• Medicine – Niels Ryberg Finsen
• Literature – Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
• Peace – William Randal Cremer