Alternate Timeline of the 20th Century Part I (1901-1921)

1/1/1901 – Australia founded from the six British colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia. Edmund Barton is appointed Prime Minister. Australia’s population is 3,773,300. The provisional capital is Melbourne. A permanent capital is established in Canberra in 1911. Government is a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature. Currency is Australian pound. New Zealand (population 760,000) gains full independence from Britain on the same day.

22/1/1901 – Queen Victoria dies, succeeded by her son Edward VII.

14/2/1901 – Edward VII opens his first parliament.

6/3/1901 - An anarchist assassin attempts to kill Wilhelm II of Germany while he is on a visit to Bremen. A month later his attacker has an unfortunate encounter with a short rope and a long drop.

25/4/1901 – New York State becomes the first to require automobile license plates.

9/5/1901 – Australia’s first parliament opens in Melbourne. Edmund Barton, the caretaker Prime Minister, is sworn in as Australia’s first “proper” Prime Minister after his party won elections in April.

12/6/1901 – Cuba becomes a US protectorate in the aftermath of the Spanish-American war.

3/7/1901 - The Flag of Australia and Australian Red Ensign are adopted by the Government of Australia as official flags, following a national design competition.

5/8/1901 - Britain's first cinema opens in Islington.

14/9/1901 – US President William McKinley dies from wounds received in an assassination attempt some two weeks earlier. Theodore Roosevelt succeeds him as the 26th President of the United States.

29/10/1901 – Anarchist Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, has his first and last date with Old Sparky.

3/11/1901 – Alzheimer's disease is described for the first time by German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer.

10/12/1901 - Marie Curie receives a doctorate. The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

28/1/1902 - The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, DC with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

11/2/1902 – In Brussels, protests by female suffragettes end in violence when police break up the demonstrations. Five demonstrators and two police officers are killed.

7/3/1902 - South African Boers win their last battle over British forces, with the capture of a British general and 200 of his men.

28/4/1902 - Using the ISO 8601 standard Year Zero definition for the Gregorian calendar preceded by the Julian calendar, the one billionth minute since the start of January 1, Year Zero occurred at 10:40 AM on this date.

8/5/1902 - In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 28,000 people, with only two survivors.

16/6/1902 - The Commonwealth Franchise Act grants Australian women the right to vote and stand in federal elections. New Zealand Women and the Women of some Australian ex-colonies such as South Australia had been able to vote since the early 1890’s.

31/7/1902 – The Boer War ends after three years of fighting. The independent South African republics of Orange Free State and Transvaal are absorbed into South Africa. The war has cost about 6,000 British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian lives. About 6,500 Boers also died in the conflict.

22/8/1902 - Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first American President to ride in an automobile when he rides in a Columbia Electric Victoria through Hartford, Connecticut.

11/9/1902 - Georges Méliès creates the legendary film A Trip to the Moon, which in one scene features the animated human face of the moon being struck in the eye by a rocket.

22/10/1902 - Remains of the second Tyrannosaurus rex specimen, first recognized as such, are excavated in South Dakota.

30/11/1902 - Second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, Kid Curry Logan, is sentenced to 20 years hard labour.

1/12/1902 - "Electric Theatre", the first movie theatre in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, California.

19/1/1903 - First transatlantic radio broadcast between United States and England.

20/2/1903 - The Flag of Australia, altered so that the stars of the Southern Cross (except the smallest one) have seven points each, is approved by King Edward VII.

16/3/1903 – Construction of the Panama Canal begins.

29/4/1903 - 30,000,000 cubic metre landslide kills 70 in Frank, Alberta.

4/5/1903 - Death of the great Macedonian revolutionary Gotse Delchev in a skirmish with the Turkish police near the village of Banitsa.

19/6/1903 – Completion of the first Tour de France. The winner is Maurice Garin of France.

4/7/1903 - Completion of the Pacific cable by the Commercial Pacific Cable Company.

4/8/1903 - Pope Pius X succeeds Pope Leo XIII as the 257th pope.

24/9/1903 - Edmund Barton steps down as Prime Minister of Australia at an election to become a judge on the first High Court. He is succeeded by Alfred Deakin.

1/10/1903 - The First modern World Series pits the National League's Pittsburgh against Boston of the American League. Boston wins 5 games to 3.

29/11/1903 - Australia's second federal election is held, the first in the world in which women were permitted to vote and stand for parliament. The incumbent Protectionist Party led by Alfred Deakin defeated the opposition Free Trade Party led by George Reid. Vida Goldstein becomes the first woman in the British Empire to stand for a national parliament. She was unsuccessful in her bid for a seat in the Senate.

17/12/1903 - Orville Wright flies an aircraft with a petrol engine at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in the first documented successful controlled powered heavier-than-air flight.

29/1/1904 – Tasmania grants women the right to vote leaving Victoria as the only Australian State without women’s suffrage.

8/2/1904 – A surprise Japanese attack on the Russian port of Port Arthur starts the Russo-Japanese war.

4/3/1904 – More than 100,000 Japanese troops drive Korean based Russian forces towards Manchuria.

27/4/1904 – Prime Minister Deakin loses a vote of no confidence in the Australian parliament and loses the subsequent election to the Australian Labour Party under Chris Watson.

13/5/1904 - Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a political recording of a document, using Thomas Edison's cylinder.

16/6/1904 - Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce’s famous novel Ulysses, walks through Dublin (First Bloomsday).

1/7/1904 – The 1904 Summer Olympics begin in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Lacrosse is played in the Olympics for the first time (it was dropped after the 1908 Summer Olympics). Three teams competed: one from the United States and two from Canada. The first Africans take part in the Olympics - two Tswana tribesmen who were taking part in a Boer War exhibit at the World's Fair in St. Louis run in the marathon. The Yanks win the most medals and the most gold medals.

8/8/1904 - Entente Cordiale signed between the UK and France.

7/9/1904 – In the Russo-Japanese war, a Japanese infantry charge fails to take Port Arthur.

15/10/1904 - The Russian Baltic Fleet leaves Estonia for Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War.

8/11/1904 – Theodore Roosevelt is elected to his 2nd term as President, defeating Alton B. Parker.

31/12/1904 - In New York City, the first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square, renamed in April from Longacre Square.

2/1/1905 – The longest and most vicious land battle of the Russo-Japanese war ends when Russian forces surrender at Port Arthur in Manchuria. The Russians suffer 58,000 casualties, Japanese losses amount to 32,000 dead, wounded and missing.

5/2/1905 - Bloody Sunday massacre of Russian demonstrators at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, one of the triggers of the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905.

10/3/1905 – The Japanese capture of Mukden (now Shenyang) completes rout of Russian armies in Manchuria.

7/4/1905 - The Supreme Court of the United States invalidates New York's eight-hour-day law in Lochner versus New York, calling it an "unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract."

28/5/1905 – The Russian fleet is thrashed by Japan at the Battle Tsushima. 20 Russian ships are sunk and 4,400 sailors drown in a battle that effectively ends the war. President Roosevelt offers to mediate an end to the war. Russia and Japan accept.

30/6/1905 - Albert Einstein publishes the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" where he reveals his theory of special relativity.

6/7/1905 – The Watson Labour government in Australia collapses and Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister for the second time.

13/8/1905 – Norway dissolves its union with Sweden via a referendum.

5/9/1905 – The Russo-Japanese war formally ends as a treaty mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt, is signed by victor Japan and defeated party Russia. In the agreement, Russia cedes the island of Sakhalin and port and rail rights in Manchuria to Japan.

16/10/1905 – The Russian army opens fire in a meeting on a street market in Estonia, killing 94 and injuring over 200.

9/11/1905 - The Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are established from the south-western part of the Northwest Territories.

28/12/1905 - Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin in Dublin as a political party whose goal is independence for all of Ireland.

1/1/1906 – Alliance system in Europe finalised, pitting the Triple Alliance (or Central Powers) of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy against the Triple Entente of Russia, France and Great Britain.

3/2/1906 - HMS Dreadnought is commissioned, revolutionizing battleship design and triggering a naval arms race between Britain and Germany.

15/3/1906 – The famous Rolls-Royce motor car company is registered.

18/4/1906 - The 1906 San Francisco earthquake (estimated magnitude 7.8) on the San Andreas Fault destroys much of San Francisco, California, killing at least 3000, with 225,000-300,000 left homeless, $350 million in damages

15/5/1906 - Representatives of the Labour Representation Committee in the UK parliament take the name Parliamentary Labour Party.

30/6/1906 - Tsar Nicholas II is forced to grant Russia's first constitution, conceding a national assembly (Duma) with limited powers.

8/7/1906 – President Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.

12/8/1906 - Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer hastily and wrongly convicted of treason in 1899, is exonerated. He is reinstalled in the French Army July 21, ending the "Dreyfus Affair" that exposed anti-Semitism in French society.

22/9/1906 - Race riots in Atlanta, Georgia kill at least 27 people and the black-owned business district is severely damaged.

16/10/1906 - Impostor Wilhelm Voigt impersonates a Prussian officer and takes over city hall in Köpenick for a short time, amusing all of Germany and other countries.

19/11/1906 - US President Theodore Roosevelt leaves for a trip to Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal. This is the first time a sitting President of the United States makes an official trip outside of the United States.

10/12/1906 - President Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating peace in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

3/1/1907 – SOS (Save Our Souls) becomes an internationally recognised distress signal.

15/2/1907 – In the UK, Representatives of the Labour Representation Committee in Parliament take the name Parliamentary Labour Party.

16/3/1907 – The first parliamentary elections in Finland are notable for being the first elections in the world with woman candidates as well as the first elections in Europe where universal suffrage is applied.

25/4/1907 - Tasmania adopts the Hare-Clark single transferable vote system, and introduces postal voting.

22/5/1907 – The first feature length motion picture – “The Story of the Kelly Gang” - is screened in Australia.

24/6/1907 – George Reid and the Labour Party beat Alfred Deakin by one seat in elections.

16/7/1907 – The Australian Federal Government announces it will spend £2500 a year to encourage British immigration to Australia.

9/8/1907 – Lieutenant-General Robert Baden-Powell leads the first Scout camp on Brownsea Island.

17/9/1907 - Guglielmo Marconi initiated commercial transatlantic radio communications between his high power longwave wireless telegraphy stations in Clifden Ireland and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

24/10/1907 - A major American financial crisis is averted when J. P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman, Henry Clay Frick, and other Wall Street financiers create a $25,000,000 pool to invest in the shares on the plunging New York Stock Exchange.

16/11/1907 - Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state.

31/12/1907 – The first electric ball drops in New Years celebrations in Times Square, New York.

12/1/1908 - A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.

26/2/1908 - Australians Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David accompanied by Ernest Shackleton and others are the first people to scale Mount Erebus in Antarctica.

21/3/1908 - Frenchman Henri Farman pilots the first passenger flight.

30/4/1908 - The Tunguska impact event, also known as the "Russian explosion" occurs in Siberia. The explosion is caused by the airburst of an asteroid or piece of a comet some 20 metres in diameter blowing up 5 to 10 kilometres above the Earth's surface. The energy of the blast was later estimated to be between 10 and 20 megatons of TNT, equivalent to the most powerful nuclear weapons in existence.

26/5/1908 - At Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil discovery in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.

18/6/1908 – Deakin turns the tables on the Labour party when he is elected for his 3rd stint as Prime Minister.

13/7/1908 – In London, Women compete in the modern Olympic Games for the first time.

3/8/1908 - The Young Turks start revolution in the Ottoman Empire, and force Sultan Abdul Hamid II to adhere to the constitution of 1876.

27/9/1908 - Henry Ford produces his first Model T automobile.

5/10/1908 - Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire - Ferdinand I of Bulgaria becomes Tsar.

3/11/1908 – William Howard Taft defeats William Jennings Bryan in the U.S. presidential election

8/12/1908 – The First Jewish colony is established in Palestine

1/1/1909 - The Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 went into effect in Great Britain, and the first payments were made to qualified persons at least 70 years old and whose income was less than 12 shillings per week. Pensions ranged from one to five shillings a week (modern day 5 to 25 pounds per week) depending on income. Roughly 490,000 persons received the pension during the first year.

28/2/1909 - President Roosevelt breaks a 120 year old tradition "when he not only trod on foreign territory, but accepted the hospitality of a foreign power". Roosevelt walked into the Austrian Embassy on Connecticut Avenue to have lunch with Baron Hengelmuller, the ambassador.

4/3/1909 – William Howard Taft sworn in as 27th President of the United States.

31/3/1909 - Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.

27/4/1909 – The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdul Hamid II is overthrown and succeeded by his brother, Mehmed V. He is sent to the Ottoman port city of Thessaloniki (Selanik) the next day.

15/5/1909 – Victoria is the last Australian State to grant the vote to women. Victorian women had been allowed to vote in Federal elections since 1902, now they are allowed to vote in State elections as well.

18/6/1909 - Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's and form the Imperial Cricket Conference or ICC.

25/7/1909 - Louis Bleriot is the first man to fly across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air craft.

15/8/1909 - Pius X becomes the first Roman Catholic Pope to ride in an automobile. The motor car had been the gift of American Catholics.

9/9/1909 – The Labour party gets another crack at government when Joseph Cook of the Labour party ends Deakin’s political career.

25/10/1909 - The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) is founded.

11/11/1909 – The U.S. Navy founds a navy base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

24/12/1909 - Former Prime Minister Sir George Reid resigns from Parliament to become Australia's first High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

26/1/1910 - The destroyers HMAS Parramatta and HMAS Yarra arrive in Australia, the first ships built for the Australian Navy.

15/2/1910 - In the United Kingdom, a general election held in response to the House of Lords' rejection of the 1909 budget results in a reduced Liberal Party majority (Liberals, 275 seats; Labour, 40; Irish Nationalists, 82; Unionists (the title then preferred by the British Conservative Party), 273).

5/3/1910 – An uprising against Ottoman rule breaks out in Albania.

29/4/1910 – The merger of several conservative parties into the Liberal party and election of Andrew Fisher as Prime Minister for a three year term end the period of unstable, but peaceful government in Australia.

6/5/1910 – Edward VII dies, succeeded by his son George V.

22/6/1910 – The first Zeppelin embarks on its maiden flight.

4/7/1910 - African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out American boxer James J. Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match sparking race riots across the United States.

31/8/1910 – The Union of South Africa is created. South Africa becomes a British Dominion, as opposed to a British Colony.

12/9/1910 – Japan annexes Korea. Korea becomes a Japanese colony and is exploited for the next 34 years.

28/10/1910 - Montenegro is proclaimed an independent kingdom and separates from the Ottoman Empire.

7/11/1910 - First air flight for the purpose of delivering commercial freight occurs between Dayton, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio by the Wright Brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse. Ten days later, Ralph Johnstone, a pilot for the Wright Exhibition Team, dies at Denver, Colorado after his machine breaks apart in mid air in full view of about 5,000 spectators. Johnstone becomes the first American pilot to die in the crash of an airplane in the United States.

11/12/1910 – William Taft becomes the first president to ride in an airplane.