California is the state with the largest oil extraction capacity in the world.

Astapovo railway station, Ryazan district, Russian Caucasus. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy dies.

Passage of the spectacular Halley’s Comet.

The Great Comet of January 1910 passes by. It’s extremely bright, visible even to the naked eye during the day. It will pass again in 4 million years.

Modena: almost all canals are covered (with the exception of the Naviglio, which was covered in 1979)

England. The British crown passes to the House of Windsor with the sovereigns: George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, a man of enormous charm, genuine interest in people, energy bordering on frenzy, a personal fortune and a celebrated name, runs for the New York State Senate; FDR, unlike Theodore, enters politics as a Democrat.

Indonesia. Only in 1910 did the Dutch, who had arrived centuries earlier, manage to gain control of the entire archipelago of thousands of islands.

First extraction of titanium from its ore. The ore was discovered in 1791, but it was not mined in commercial quantities until the 1950s.

American philosopher William James, author of Pragmatism, dies.

In just twenty years, Shanghai’s population jumped from one million to three million, including over one hundred thousand foreigners. Governor Zhang Zhidong expressed the city’s spirit with the words: “Learning from the West, preserving the spirit of China,” a motto that would become the motto for many other Chinese leaders to follow.

Young Gyorgy Hevesy arrives in England to research radioactivity, specifically Radium-D, which later turns out to be radioactive lead. He contemplates injecting it into living beings to track their metabolism. One day, to prove to the cook that the meatballs were leftover meat from days before, he sprinkles it on the meat, and the next day he arrives with an instrument newly invented by his colleague Hans Geiger. And, as she had suspected, he hears a concert of clicks. The woman, rather than being offended, is flattered to have been involved in such a sophisticated and cutting-edge experiment.

Cretan Venizelos becomes prime minister of Greece

Carl Bosch perfected a process invented by Fritz Haber, which used methane and steam to extract nitrogen from the air and converted it into fertilizer on an industrial scale, effectively replacing huge quantities of bird droppings, which were previously used to provide nitrogen to poor soils. This invention would save 2.7 billion (billion!) lives in the 20th century.

The French aviator Blériot flies his monoplane across the English Channel from Calais to Dover; Blériot uses the modified Model 11: it is the precursor of modern airplanes: it is a monoplane, with steerable wing surfaces, a propeller at the front, and directional controls at the rear.

After nine years of research and development, Thomas Alva Edison announced that the rechargeable battery was a reality. He showed off his 1.2V E-cells: thin, light, and shiny. Edison had brought about a revolution in the electrochemical sector. It was composed of 120 nickel plates, each 1/25,000 mm thick. Each cell was composed of five negative and four positive plates, insulated with rigid rubber, compressed, and saturated with potassium hydroxide and lithium. The addition of lithium outlasted lithium batteries by 60 years. Edison estimated their lifespan at at least four years, but he was wrong by a factor of 10: working ones would not be found for 45 years! Soon, Edison received huge orders for trucks, taxis, streetcars, and shipping companies. Within a few years, more than half the trucks in the United States were powered by Edison’s battery. A version was even made for submarines. But Edison delayed too long to counter the meteoric popularity of internal combustion vehicles: a year earlier, the Ford Motor Company of Detroit had introduced the low-priced, high-mileage Ford Model T.

Palestine, a dominion of the Ottoman Empire. Tel Aviv is founded (“Old New Land” from Theodor Herzl’s novel, Hebrew: תֵּל־אָבִיב).

American explorer Robert E. Peary first reaches the North Pole

First kibbutz founded in Israel: Degania

German scientist Theodor Wulf measured ionizing radiation at the base and top of the Eiffel Tower and discovered that at the top, it was only slightly less than half that on the ground. That is, much more than he would expect if it were emitted by terrestrial rocks, as was the current theory at the time. Wulf had just discovered cosmic rays.

celestial body of considerable size falls in Siberia at Tunguska and explodes before hitting the ground, causing an explosion of 120 Mton.

Ford launches the Model T (Tin Lizzie)

Clementine Ogilvy Hozier marries Winston Chrunchill. They will spend 57 years together.

Fort Meyer, near Washington, D.C. Orville Wright takes a flight in his airplane for over an hour. On a subsequent flight, with a passenger in addition to the pilot, Orville Wright, the plane crashes, killing the passenger and injuring Orville.

Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary. The recognition of Yiddish as the national language of the Jews is consecrated. Seventy delegates from many countries participate. Yiddish arose from a fusion of Germanic, Hebrew, and Slavic elements and was spoken by 13 million Jews before 1939. Yiddish culture is at least a thousand years old. It is spoken by Ashkenazi Jews, who represent 92% of the world’s Jews.

Arabia, part of the Ottoman Empire. To promote the technological and commercial progress of the declining empire, the Hamidiye Hijaz Railway is inaugurated, sponsored by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who will be deposed by the Ottoman army the following year. The railway will be largely destroyed during the Arab Revolt of 1916 and will never be fully restored.

General Motors (GM) is born

Swiss Jacques Brandenberger discovers cellophane, which is immediately used to wrap food.

Firestone produces treaded tires

Godfrey Hardy and Willhelm Weinberg publish the Hardy-Weinberg Law in which they practically express the evolution of species with mathematical laws.

In 1908, the Italian Antonio Grossich invented tincture of iodine, which would save hundreds of thousands of lives in World War I. But since the Libyan War (1911-12), the Italian armed forces had already been experimenting with it on a large scale. Made from purified water, ethanol, iodine, and potassium iodide, it was, unlike carbolic acid, completely tolerable on the skin, despite possessing extremely powerful antibacterial properties. The Kingdom of Italy appointed the scientist Commander of the Crown of Italy. Tincture of iodine and the subsequent Dakin-Carrel solution both possessed powerful antiseptic properties and, at the beginning of the last century, represented a momentous advance in the fight against microorganisms and thus infections. Grossich would later become an Italian irredentist and participate in the capture of Fiume.

The Japanese chemist Ikeda, trying to understand what the fundamental flavor of a typical Japanese soup of seaweed and fish, dashi, discovered a fifth flavor (in addition to salty, sweet, bitter, sour), due to glutamate, an acidic salt of glutamic acid, an amino acid, and decided to call it umami.

German-Jewish scientist Paul Ehrlig receives the Nobel Prize for his fundamental contributions to immunology. Specifically, he discovers the first cure for syphilis and antitoxins for diphtheria and tetanus. He helps save 42 million lives (estimate updated at the beginning of the 21st century). He is also among the first to develop chemotherapy.

Godfrey Hardy and Willhelm Weinberg independently discover the mathematics of evolution.

Dorando Pietri finishes first in the Olympic marathon but is disqualified because he is being helped and supported by the referees. Pietri, from Correggio, arrives at the end of the race dehydrated and exhausted and loses his composure: he takes the wrong path, falls several times, and is repeatedly helped by the referees. He will become world famous, despite not having won the race, or perhaps because of it.

Crete. Archaeologists working at a Minoan site discovered a circular clay disk covered in spiral script, with 241 very elaborate signs or letters, evidently printed on the clay. The meaning of these signs remains a mystery, as nothing else of the same type has been found since. Furthermore, dating to 1700 BC, it is by far the earliest printed document in human history. Probably 45 different stamps (types) were used. It is called the Phaistos Disk.

At the London Olympics, the royal family prepares to watch the start and finish of the marathon. Part of the family is at Windsor Castle, the start, and the finish is at White City Stadium. The distance is 26 miles and 385 yards (42 km and 195 meters), and will remain so for all subsequent Olympics. Until 1908, in the first three Olympics, the distance was approximately 26 miles, varying from Olympic to Olympic.

London Olympics

Wilbur Wright’s exploits reached Europe shrouded in myth, and no one believed the tales of his prodigious feats. Wright was then tempted by the desire for solemn recognition in the skies of France: at Le Mans in August he flew 66 km, in December he flew first 99 km and then 124 km!

James Murray Spangler perfected what we call the vacuum cleaner for household use, combining Booth’s invention with the practicality of a small electric motor mounted on two wheels, a broom handle, and a dust bag; his business partner was Hoover. The vacuum cleaner concept was invented between 1865 and 1876 in the United States. The first device appears to have been developed by a Chicago inventor (attached to a horse-drawn carriage, with a manually operated pump). Around 1901, Hubert Cecil Booth was amazed that a device that blew air away dust and dirt was used to clean trains. He designed a more maneuverable device that could suck up dust. He presented his invention in England, but it was not a success. The other inventor was the American James Murray Spangler, a doorman from Canton, Ohio. Using a fan, a box, and a pillow, he built a vacuum cleaner. Along with suction, the device also utilized a rotating brush. He patented the invention in 1908 and sold it to his cousin’s company, the Hoover Harness and Leather Goods Factory. In the United States, Hoover remains a leading manufacturer of household appliances, and the term “Hoover” is so closely associated with the vacuum cleaner that it has become synonymous with it. In current usage, “doing the hoovering” is the term used for the process of vacuuming. For many years, the vacuum cleaner remained a luxury item, but after World War II, its popularity increased considerably.

Empress Dowager dies in China, succeeded by Pu Yi, the last emperor

American geologist Frank Bursley Taylor decides to delve deeper into the reason for the similarity in shape of the coasts of South America and Africa.

Mining disaster in Monongah, West Virginia: officially, there were almost 400 deaths, 171 of whom were Italian; in reality, the number was probably more than 500, most of whom will never be identified; at the beginning of the 20th century, in the United States alone, mining deaths amounted to approximately 3,000 per year.

The Jew Ernesto Nathan is elected mayor of Rome, supported by a reformist, secular, and staunchly anti-clerical bloc. It is an event that seems legendary and revolutionary: Nathan was not only a Mazzinian, Jewish, Freemason, and republican, but had only recently acquired Italian citizenship and still spoke his native English, his mother tongue, with a strong accent. His father, Moses Meyer, was born in Frankfurt in 1799 and later moved first to Paris and then to London, where he met Mazzini several times from 1837 to 1848 and thereafter. From London, Mazzini coordinated a dense revolutionary and republican political network. Ernesto grew up at the heart of this transnational, republican, anti-monarchical, and anti-clerical patriotic network. A fervent interventionist, Ernesto later volunteered in the First World War. He later became Grand Master of the Grand Orient and died on April 9, 1921.

United States. The state of Oklahoma becomes part of the United States of America. This ends the existence of the so-called Indian Territory, where the Indian population was sent. Since the Civil War, American policy had shifted from Indian Removal to Indian Assimilation.

James E. Casey and Claude Ryan, teenage postmen, founded the future UPS in Seattle.

American philosopher William James published Pragmatism, explicitly inspired by Peirce. It is a theory of truth, but individualistic and subjective. An idea is true to the extent that believing it benefits our lives: what works is true. Things are reality, while ideas are true.

French philosopher Henri Bergson publishes Creative Evolution, in which he addresses the problem of freedom and determinism. For this work, he will win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Beijing-Paris Car Raid. The raid, using only automobiles, sets out from Beijing at 8:00 a.m. on June 10th, aiming to reach Paris, a distance of 16,000 kilometers. There are five crews in five European vehicles. On August 10th, the first car to arrive in Paris will be that of Prince Scipione Borghese and his chauffeur Ettore Guizzardi. It is an Itala 35/45 HP.

Nikola Tesla’s friend and close collaborator, Scherff, leaves Wardenclyffe and Tesla. He will, however, continue to manage Tesla’s finances, working almost always for free on weekends.

Geronimo, chief of the Chirikawa Apache tribe, published his memoirs in 1906: Geronimo’s Story of His Life.

Modena. Buffalo Bill performs his Wild West show in Piazza d’Armi (Novi Sad Park), featuring hundreds of cowboys and rednecks.