Timeline - 1900-1909

1900

Ernest Rutherford -  identified alpha and beta radiation.           

Paul Ulrich Villard discovered gamma radiation.

1901

22nd January -  HRH Queen Victoria died and was succeeded by her son HRH Edward VII.

14th September -   Theodore Roosevelt became President of the USA.

1902

Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy explained radioactivity as the emission of particles from the nucleus and established the laws of the spontaneous transmutation of the elements.

11th July -  Arthur James Balfour (Conservative) became British Prime Minister.

1903

23rd February -   The US and Cuba signed an agreement by which Cuba leased Guantanamo and Bahia Hondo to the US for naval stations

6th April -   The Kishinev pogrom in Bessarabia begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Israel and the Western world.

1st  May -  HRH Edward VII visited Paris in a first step toward improving Anglo-French relations, culminating in the signing of the Entente Cordiale on 8 April, 1904.

29th May -  In a  coup d'etat Alexander Obrenovich, King of Serbia, and Queen Draga, were assassinated in Belgrade by the Black Hand (Crna Ruka) organization.

15th June -  The Serbian Assembly met and elected Prince Peter Karageorgevich king.

17th July -  The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party met, first in Brussels and then London because their leaders had been forced into exile by the Russian Government

1904

9th February -  The Japanese landed troops at Chemulpo (Inchon), near Seoul, Korea; within the next three weeks they advanced to the Yalu River border of Manchuria

27 April -  The Australian Labor Party under Prime Minister Chris Watson became the first Labor government in the world

6th March -  The Japanese fleet bombarded Vladivostok, the major Russian port on the Pacific.

28th March -  Japanese troops advanced in Korea, defeating the Russians at Chengiu, and captured the town.

13th April -  A squadron of the Russian fleet was decoyed out of Port Arthur by Japanese manoeuvres, when they realised they were sailing into a trap; their battleship Petropavlovsk hit a mine and sank, with a loss of 700 men.

28th July -  Interior Minister of Russia, Vyacheslav von Plehve was assassinated with a bomb thrown by a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party named Yegor Sazonov.

10th  August -  Battle of the Yellow Sea -  The Japanese fleet prevented Russians breaking out of Port Arthur

24th August -  At the Battle of Liao-Yang 200,000 Japanese won a tactical victory  against 150,000 Russian troops.

1905

22nd January -  In St Petersburg, Russia, a large demonstration of workers led by Father Georgi Gapon, march to the Winter Palace with a petition to the Tsar; troops fire on protesters in what becomes known as 'Bloody Sunday'

27th May -  The Japanese fleet destroyed the Russian East Sea fleet in the Battle of Tsushima.

September -  The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.

27th June -  Russian sailors mutinied aboard the battleship "Potemkin" and sail for Odessa, survivors joined civilians in revolutionary actions of the '1905 Revolution'

8th July -  The soldiers of the Russian battleship "Potemkin" who mutinied, surrendered to Romanian authorities.

20th October -  The Great General Strike in Russia began it lasted 11 days.

30th October -   "October Manifesto" Russian Tsar Nicholas II granted civil liberties and accepted the first Duma (Parliament).

5th December -   Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Liberal) became British Prime Minister.

22nd December -  The arrest of St Petersburg Soviet members led to an uprising of Moscow workers and fighting in the street.

1906

8th February -  Without warning, Japanese torpedo boats made a night attack on Russian ships near the naval base at Port Arthur, Manchuria, war had not been declared.

1907

10th June -  France and Japan signed an agreement to maintain the independence and integrity of China, equality for all nations in trading with China, and the status quo in the Far East.

1908

1st February -  King Carlos I of Portugal and his heir, Prince Luis Filipe were assassinated by Republican sympathizers in Terreiro do Paco, Lisbon.

5th May -  Herbert Henry Asquith  (Liberal)  became British Prime Minister.

1909

4th March -  William Howard Taft became President of the USA.

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