Jan 2 After a five-month siege, the Russians surrender at Port Arthur. The Japanese take control also of the adjoining Liaodong Peninsula.
Jan 22 For Russia war is the creator of misery and the mother of revolution. Russian sailors have rebelled and their rebellion has spread to major cities. At the tsar's Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg a huge demonstration is fired upon. Between 200 and 1,000 are killed, the event to be known as Bloody Sunday.
Feb 19 In Manchuria, Russian troops fleeing the Port Arthur area are confronted by Japanese troops at Mukden (Shenyang). The Russians number 330,000 with 800 artillery pieces.
Mar 5 Russian troops begin to retreat from Mukden.
Mar 10 The Japanese capture Mukden. The Russians are on their way out of Manchuria.
Mar 31 Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II visits the Moroccan port of Tangiers, hoping to gain equality with France in Morocco, where Germany has mining interests. French hostility toward Germany increases.
May 28 The Baltic Fleet – 28 ships – has finally arrived near Japan. It meets 89 Japanese ships and is destroyed in a two-day battle in waters between Japan and Korea: the Battle of Tsushima. The Japanese loose only three torpedo boats. The Japanese are exultant in victory over the Russians. They see themselves as superior to others in Asia, deserving empire and having an invincible navy.
May 6 The San Francisco School Board announces a policy of removing Japanese students to the city's one school for Asians so that "our children should not be placed in any position where their youthful impressions may be affected by association with pupils of the Mongolian race."
June 17 In Russia, strikes, peasant uprisings in many provinces, revolutionary movements among national minorities and rebellions in the armed forces are developing. A rebellion has occurred aboard the battleship Potemkin, which has pulled into port at Odessa. The ship's captain, the doctor and several other officers have been killed and other officers shut away in one of the cabins. A red flag has been hoisted and a People's Committee put in charge of the ship. Troops arrive and fire on the crowd supporting the sailors. Casualties will be described as 2,000 dead and 3,000 seriously wounded. The next day the Potemkin sets out to sea, the mutineers hoping to provoke mutinies elsewhere.
Jun 25 The Potemkin mutineers surrender their ship to Romanian authorities. They will return the Potemkin to the Russian navy.
Jul 7 Norway's parliament proclaims the end of the country's union with Sweden.
Jul 22 With the Taft–Katsura Agreement, the US and Japan settle their positions regarding Korea and the Philippines.
Sep 1 The province of Alberta is created out of Canada's Northwest Territories.
Sep 5 In response to a secret request by the Japanese, President Theodore Roosevelt resides over the treaty formally ending the war between Russia and Japan. Russia cedes the island of Sakhalin and port and railway rights in Manchuria to Japan while Manchuria is to remain nominally a part of China. The differences between Russia and Japan had been resolved by violence, but for his efforts a sentimental Nobel committee in 1906 will award Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sep 27 Albert Einstein, a clerk in a patent office in Bern, Switzerland, submits his paper to a physics journal, asking,"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" In this paper he develops an argument for what will be his famous equation E = mc2.
Oct 5 The Wright Brothers' third airplane (Wright Flyer III) stays in the air for 39 minutes with Wilbur piloting.
Oct 21 On this day, 100 years after the Battle of Trafalgar, a few wealthy Brits are wondering where their great empire will be in 2005. With the empire spread across the globe some worry that there will be more fighting, as there was recently with the Boer War. There will be talk of a "weary titan worn down by the cosequences of success."
Oct 30 Russia's Tsar Nicholas II relents and agrees to a political constitution that gives some power to a legislature (the Duma) and promises a free press.
Oct 26 Sweden's Social Democrats have favored freedom for their Norwegian "brothers" from forced unity with Sweden. Sweden's conservative enthusiasts for national grandeur have wanted to discourage independence by sending a force against the Norwegians. The Social Democrats prevail. There will be no war. Sweden formally recognizes the dissolution of its union with Norway.
Nov 9 In Canada, the Province of Alberta holds its first election for seats in its new legislative body. The contest is bitter. The Liberal Party wins 22 seats, the Conservative Party 3 seats.
Nov 17 Japanese troops have surrounded the palace of the Korean Emperor Gojong, but he refuses to sign a treaty that would turn sovereignty over to the Japanese. Under coercion by the Japanese, Gojong's cabinet signs what is to be known as the Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty. Japan takes power over Korea's foreign affairs and military matters. Japan also takes power over Korea's police, postal, telegraph and telephone services.
Nov 18 Prince Carl of Denmark becomes King Haakon VII of Norway.
Nov 28 In Dublin, Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin as a political party whose goal is independence for all of Ireland.
Dec 7 Moscow's Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries combine in a general strike and an attempt to take power.
Dec 9 An attempt by Moscow's governor to arrest the ringleaders is followed by a city-wide uprising. Barricades go up. A few have guns. Bolsheviks take the lead.
Dec 11 In Kiev an uprising in support of the Moscow uprising establishes a workers' republic, the Shuliavka Republic, which lasts four days, crushed by the Russian Army and local authorities.
Dec 18 The Imperial Russian Army, viewed as a failure due to its defeats by the Japanese, proves itself a success against Bolshevik forces. Army soldiers are told "To act without mercy; there will be no arrests." The Bolsheviks call an end to the strike and a return to work. The rising ends with 35 soldiers killed and 1,059 rebels killed including 137 women and 86 children.
Dec 30 Frank Steunenberg, governor of Idaho from 1897 to 1901 is assassinated by a bomb. The assassin is Albert Horsley, a miner with a criminal past and a gambling problem working as a paid informer for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners Association. He is to be arrested and imprisoned in January.
Copyright © 1998-2018 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.