Killed
More than 500 striking Russian workers were killed in St. Petersburg by the Tsar's troops during a protest march on 22 January, known as "Bloody Sunday"

The bulk of the 200,000-strong Russian army was killed in Manchuria by the Japanese army on 10 March.

More than 10,000 civilians were killed by an earthquake in Lahore, India on 4 April

Bestsellers
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
Baroness Orczy (Hungarian-born Mrs Montahue Barstow), The Sacrlet Pimpernel.

Banned
Mrs Warren's Proffession by George Bernard Shaw, closed by police after a single performance in New York City on 31 Oct; the play is about a prostitute.

Invented
Intelligence tests,
by French scientist Alfred Binet

Rejected
A parliamentary bill on 12 May, London, to give women the vote

Sold
113 square meter (1250 sq ft), plot on Wall Street, New York City, for $700,000.

Aspirin in Britain, 30 Oct, for the first time.

Published
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
E M Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread
George Santayana, The Life of Reason
Oscar Wilde (posthumously), De Profundis

New words
depression n:
mental disorder by feelings of gloom
smog n:
thick fog over cities and towns, caused by chimney smoke; blend of the words smoke and fog.

On 30 October, Tsar Nicholas II yielded to demands for reform, promising an elected parliament, or duma. The move came at the end of a year of growing public agitation, crowned by a ten-day general strike. On 22 January, known as "Bloody Sunday", 500 peaceful demonstrators were shot at by the Tsar's troops without warning, sparking off a wave of revulsion at the Tsar's policies. Defeat with war with Japan in May further fuelled anti-government feeling, especially in the armed forces.

On 27 June, sailors raised the revolutionary red flag on Russia's largest battleship, Potemkin, hurling their commander overboard. The mutiny began when the first lieutanant shot a sailor who had complained of bad food. The rebels were backed by eight officers.

The mutiny made a big impact during a summer of unrest in Russia. Rebellion spread to other ships of the fleet. In the Black Sea port of Odessa, where the Potemkin was anchored offshore, rioters took to the streets. Elsewhere, workers showed their support by building barricades.

In October, the first soviet, or council of workers' delegates was established. The people had forced the Tsar to grant them greater say in matters.

On 26 September, young physicist, Albert Einstein, of Switzerland, published his daring new theory, known as the "special theory of relativity". It overturned all accepted ideas about the law of Physics. Instead of mass and time being fixed quantities, Einstein asserted that they can alter; at speeds approaching that of light, mass increases, objects shrinks and time slows down. For example, a clock moving at the speed of light would not only get heavier but run more slowly.

Einstein's theory, which redefined our concepton of the universe, declared that all measurements of space and time depend on the motion of the observer. A moving object at close to the speed of light would appear to a stationary obeserver to be half its actual length, but to the person moving at the same rate, it's length would not change.

On 14 October, two young women decided to go to prison rather than pay a fine for causing a disturbance. Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney were the first to be jailed for demanding the right to vote.

Uproar broke out at Manchester Free Trade Hall, England, when the women demanded to know if a Liberal government would give women the vote. Their protest came at the end of an election address by leading Liberal politician Sir Edward Grey, when Pankhurst and Kenney stood up and unfurled their banner, saying "Votes for Women". Their behaviour provoked an angry reaction from the crowd, who threw the two into the street, where they were arrested by police.

In 1903, Christabel Pankhurst had founded the Women's Political and Social Union with her mother Emmeline Pankhurst, the pioneer of women's suffrage. The arrest marked a new militancy in what would have been a peaceful political campaign.

Related Articles: 1907 - Women in Finnish Parliament; 1913 - Woman Matyred for Vote Campaign