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The Battle of the Somme ended with an uncertain outcome after 200,000 French casualties, 500,000 British casualties, and 700,000 German casualties.

A turning point in the conflict: the Germans, failing to break through at Verdun, lose their last chance to win, and from now on they will only defend themselves; Russia will disappear as an enemy, but by that time the immense weight of the United

During this period the Germans lost 250,000 soldiers; 22,000,000 artillery shells were fired; 46 German divisions were involved.

During this period the French lost 275,000 soldiers and 6,525 officers; 70,000 were killed; 15,000,000 artillery shells were fired; 70 French divisions were involved.

In the Battle of Verdun the Germans have already lost 25,000 soldiers

Arnold Sommerfeld introduces the Fine Structure Constant of the Universe which depends on the electron charge, Planck’s constant and the speed of light and is equal to 1/137

Battle of the Somme: More than a million dead on the ground

British forces are defeated at Ctesiphon, Mesopotamia

Germany. A 150mm projectile filled with Xylene Bromide, a highly caustic tear gas, is ready. It is named Weisskreuz (white cross). In this test (as with the first on the British), the French are spared: 18,000 Weisskreuz are dropped on the Russians, but the temperatures

Third Battle of the Isonzo

The Serbian army was completely routed; the few survivors were rescued by the Italian and English fleets in Corfu.

Dardanelles. ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) troops land at Gallipoli. Despite countless acts of heroism, Her Majesty’s troops are defeated and, after several months, must be evacuated, an operation carried out with incredible efficiency. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty and the

Chlorine, in addition to being used as a chemical weapon (initially only by the Germans), was also added to drinking water to make it safe for troops. Some say it saved more lives this way than it did as a chemical weapon. Our common experience

Ypres, Belgium. Chlorine, synthesized at military level by the German chemist Fritz Haber, is used against Allied troops, especially the French and Algerians. Five thousand cylinders are placed along a 7-kilometer stretch of front and opened as soon as the northeast wind is favorable. The

Rome, Giulio Fermi, Enrico Fermi’s older brother, dies. Giulio, who was very close to his brother, dies prematurely from a throat abscess while undergoing anesthesia for surgery.

First German strategic bombing, by Zeppelin, in the south of England.

Morgan, Bridges, and Muller publish The Mechanism of Mendelian Inheritance

Albert Einstein delivers the final blow to the problem of Mercury’s precession, which cannot be explained by Newtonian physics. By applying general relativity, and without hypothesizing any new planets, he obtains the correct value of the orbit’s precession with a clear and simple calculation. He

German Karl Schwarschild uses Relativity to theorize the possible existence of black holes.

Mathematician Marcel Grossman introduced his friend Albert Einstein to Riemann’s work on the tensor, ignored by physicists for 60 years. Riemann had essentially already solved the problem Einstein had been measuring for years. The physical interpretation of Riemann’s work is now called General Relativity.

Italian public debt increases by 500% and inflation by 300%

Guglielmo Marconi, at Nitti’s instigation, accepted the presidency of the new Banca Italiana di Sconto, created to compete with the German supremacy represented by Banca Commerciale and Credito Italiano (which would merge into UniCredit in the 1980s). The idea originated with the Perrone family, owners

Austrian artillery deploys on the right bank of the Danube and begins to bombard the Serbian capital: Belgrade.

The U.S. Congress, given the addictive effects, makes cocaine illegal.

Modena. During the demolition of the Citadel’s walls, two wooden beams were found embedded in a wall base. They were interpreted (but not confirmed) as the gallows erected in 1831 for Menotti and Borelli.

The battleship USS Arizona, which would be the main victim of the Pearl Harbor attack, is launched. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is present at the launch.

H.G. Wells publishes a science fiction novel, “The World Set Free,” in which an atomic weapon is first theorized. The novel is read by Leo Szilard, who is impressed by the story. Szilard will be a prominent figure in the future Manhattan Project, which aims

Rudolf Diesel, one of the richest men in Germany (on paper he was the richest), dies, almost certainly by suicide, falling into the water from the steamship Antwerp-Harwich.

Birmingham, England. First public discussion of Bohr’s quantized atomic model. Niels Bohr finds that the angular momentum of electrons is quantized to multiples of h/2pi.

Adelaide, Australia. William and Lawrence Bragg of the University of Adelaide took a source of X-rays and directed them at a salt crystal. They obtained a striking interference pattern, which they realized could provide valuable information about the crystal’s internal structure. Similar techniques would later

Wilson is president of the United States

German meteorologist Alfred Wegner explains the complementarity of the continents on both sides of the Atlantic with continental drift; he is greeted with extreme skepticism.

The Danish Niels Bohr develops the model of the atom with nucleus and electrons (planetary model)

Ford produces 75,000 cars a year

Robert Millikan performs a series of experiments to demonstrate the falsity of Einstein’s formula E = hf for photons, but reluctantly has to finally admit that the formula is indeed correct.

Austrian physicist Victor Hess, on the last of seven hot air balloon flights, ascended to 5,300 meters and measured ionizing radiation approximately three times that on the ground. This proved that the radiation was coming not from Earth but from space. The first clue had

Henri Poincare’ dies in Paris of an embolism after prostate surgery.

Joachimsthal (now Jachymov in the Czech Republic). The Radium Palace Hotel opens its doors. Taking advantage of the beneficial effects of radium in the treatment of certain tumors in controlled doses and the wave of popular enthusiasm, it offers visitors radioactive spa treatments. The waters

Antarctica. Five men, including Robert Falcon Scott, make their way to the South Pole, struggling to find a brown Canadian tent and a Norwegian flag, along with a seemingly friendly but irritating note from Roald Amundsen, who had arrived there with his men a month

British colonial Africa (the so-called Dominions). Europeans in Kenya increased from 9,651 to 16,812. In Southern Rhodesia, from 33,780 to 50,070. These are, however, relatively modest numbers. In Italian East Africa, a peak of 166,000 people, excluding military personnel, was reached in 1940. In 1940,

Nobel Prize in Physics to Guglielmo Marconi

Germany. Fritz Haber, at BASF (already a world leader in the chemical sector), successfully captures atmospheric nitrogen and produces ammonia, useful as a fertilizer. The process is carried out by a device only one meter tall, which for the first time operates for five hours

Croatian geologist Andrija Mohorovicic, while examining the readings of a seismometer after an earthquake in Zagreb, noticed that some shock waves penetrated the planet to a certain (shallow) depth and then bounced back to the surface, thus discovering the existence of the Earth’s mantle; this

Taft is president of the United States

Peking to Paris Car Rally. On August 10th, the first cars arrived in Paris. It was Prince Scipione Borghese’s car and his chauffeur, Ettore Guizzardi. It was an Itala 35/45 HP. They won a magnum of champagne and enormous visibility. The other cars arrived at

Modena’s first permanent movie theater opens on Via Campanella.

Lee De Forest invents vacuum tube control by a third electrode

Robert A. Millikan accurately measures the electron’s charge

J.L. Heiberg discovers in Constantinople a copy of The Method, a text with original writings by Archimedes

American King Camp Gillette begins production of razor blades

The president of the Cretan assembly Venizelos announces the union of Crete (enosis) with Greece – the act was however recognized by international law only in 1913

Lord Kelvin recalculates the age of planet Earth, including the (predominant) heat source due to the decay of the previously unknown radioactive elements it contains. The new calculation extends the Earth’s age from a few thousand years to several hundred million years (we now know

French West Africa. Governor General Roume creates a free health service for the indigenous population, a service that did not even exist in France itself at the time.

J.P. Morgan sends Nikola Tesla a letter informing him that, at this time, he is unwilling to further fund Tesla’s research and development. Frustrated and angry, Tesla turns up the voltage on his antenna in Wardeclyffe. Neighbors report thunder and lightning throughout the night, news

King Camp Gillette, an American businessman, decided to use inexpensive steel derived from the Bessemer process to create a disposable razor. This marked the democratization of shaving. In 1903, he sold 51 razors and 168 blades. In 1904, he sold 90,884 razors and 123,648 blades.

United States. Welsh immigrant Ellis Hughes finds a huge iron meteorite, coincidentally located on Oregon Iron and Steel Company land. It weighs 15 tons and is now on display at the Natural History Museum as the Willamette Meteor.

Buffalo, United States. American President McKinley, already six months into his second term, is shot twice in the chest by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. McKinley dies on September 14th from gangrene around his wounds.

Englishman Hubert Booth invents the vacuum cleaner, but it is a huge and very heavy machine.

South Africa. Racial segregation arose as a method to ensure public health (of whites, of course).

The Quaker Oats Company was founded in Pennsylvania. It was actually inspired by the Quakers for their good reputation and honesty, but other than that, it had no other ties to the Quakers.

A Polish anarchist assassinates President William McKinley, who is replaced by Theodore Roosevelt.

United States. The very idea of giving women the vote is considered outrageous by most, the possibility of having a woman on the Supreme Court or Secretary of State is simply ridiculous, and homosexuality is a topic that can’t even be mentioned. A hundred years

The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal

Paris Olympics

Jubilee celebrated by Leo XIII

The British military expedition to South Africa gains control of Johannesburg, Pretoria and allows the annexation of the Orange and Transvalley to England.

China, Boxer Rebellion

In 1500, the future Western powers (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) held just 10% of the earth’s surface and 16% of the population. By 1913, they controlled 60% of the land and population

Paris World’s Fair. More than 50 million people come to see exhibits from 40 countries, including samples of rare earth elements.

Einstein upsets our thinking (relatively speaking, that is) and as if that wasn’t enough, Quantum Physics was born.

Thomas Alva Edison patented his most complex invention since the quadruplex telegraph in 1874. It was the rechargeable cadmium-copper battery. When the battery discharges, the cadmium becomes cadmium oxide and the cupric oxide becomes copper. When recharging, the reverse occurs. Even the water in the

A hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico causes a tidal wave that causes 12,000 deaths in Galvestone, Texas. Since then, an 18 km long, 6 m high wall has been built and all the houses have been raised by 3 m.

The Chinese nationalists, the so-called Boxers, kill thousands of foreigners in the embassy district of Beijing, the intervention of an expeditionary force of the Western powers (France, UK, USA, Japan, Russia, Austria, Italy) frees the embassies and forces the imperial court to flee

Guglielmo Marconi and his Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company obtain the famous patent 7777 for the frequency tuning of transmitting and receiving circuits. The frequency spectrum is discovered and used industrially, allowing for many simultaneous transmissions and receptions.

Crete, Greece. Sir Arthur Evans discovers a clay tablet with inscriptions in Linear A and Linear B. Then, in the following days, he discovers hundreds of others. It is later discovered that these tablets had been dried in the sun, not fired, and were therefore

Frederic Joliot was born in Paris and married Irene Curie.

Karl Landstiner: Identification of Blood Groups

Nikola Tesla leaves Colorado and returns to New York. He will soon submit numerous other patent applications, including 655838: the world’s first on cryogenic engineering.

At the dawn of the 20th century, in various disciplines, there were those who predicted the coming century as the “American century” thinking of what a civilization of European origin could have done in a virgin territory with practically unlimited resources; for similar reasons, Russia

Cinema is born