All Events
The first Grand Prix of motor-racing is held near Le Mans over a 64-mile course
Pablo Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein prefigures cubism in its mask-like treatment of her face
The Pure Food and Drug Act, a landmark initiative in consumer protection, becomes law in the US
Alfred Dreyfus is reinstated in the army after the French supreme court overturns his conviction for treason
Belgian physiologists Jules Bordet and Octave Gengou identify Bacillus pertussis, the bacterium causing whooping cough
Tsar Nicholas II summarily dismisses Russia's new duma when it has been sitting for only three months
Alfred Dreyfus is awarded the Légion d'Honneur ten days after his conviction has been annulled
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, created by New Yorker J. Stuart Blackton, introduces the concept of the animated cartoon

The Cunard company launches the Lusitania on the Clyde as a sister ship to the Mauretania
The Great Valparaiso Earthquake damages much of central Chile and is felt from Peru to Buenos Aires
Frank Lloyd Wright builds a Unity Temple for the Unitarians in Oak Park, now a suburb of Chicago
A large retrospective exhibition in Paris gives Paul Gauguin a growing posthumous reputation
Mahatma Gandhi, confronted by racial discrimination in South Africa, launches a programme of passive resistance (satyagraha)
Sergei Diaghilev mounts a major exhibition of Russian art at the Petit Palais in Paris.
A pediatrician in Vienna, Clemens von Pirquet, describes a condition for which he coins the term 'allergy'
German physicist Walther Nernst establishes the Third Law of Thermodynamics, dealing with temperatures close to absolute zero
Ethel Smyth's most successful opera, The Wreckers, is premiered in Leipzig
6-year-old Fred Astaire and his sister Adele give their first professional performance, in the pier theatre in Keyport, New Jersey
Roald Amundsen and his crew are the first to achieve the Northwest Passage, in a journey lasting three years in a 70-ft fishing boat
The German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer identifies physical symptoms in the brain of a dead woman who had presenile dementia
President Roosevelt wins a Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation between Russia and Japan
The Russian prime minister Pyotr Stolypin introduces land reform
The Story of the Kelly Gang, produced in Australia, is the first feature-length film, with a running time of nearly an hour
Transvaal is given the self-governing status promised in the treaty ending the Boer War
Reginald Fessenden transmits on Christmas Eve, from Brant Rock, Massachusetts, the world's first radio broadcast