1904

This article is about the year 1904.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1870s  1880s  1890s  – 1900s –  1910s  1920s  1930s
Years:	1901 1902 1903 – 1904 – 1905 1906 1907

1904 by topic:

Subject

Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Aviation – Awards – Comics – Film – Literature (Poetry) – Meteorology – Music – Rail transport – Radio – Science – Sports – Television

By country

Australia – Canada – China – Ecuador – France – Germany – Greece – India – Ireland – Italy – Japan – Malaya – Mexico – New Zealand – Norway – Ottoman Syria – Philippines – Russia – Singapore – South Africa – UK – USA

Leaders

Sovereign states – State leaders – Religious leaders – Law

Birth and death categories

Births – Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments – Disestablishments

Works and introductions categories

Works – Introductions

1904 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1904 MCMIV
Ab urbe condita	2657
Armenian calendar	1353 ԹՎ ՌՅԾԳ
Assyrian calendar	6654
Bahá'í calendar	60–61
Bengali calendar	1311
Berber calendar	2854
British Regnal year	3 Edw. 7 – 4 Edw. 7
Buddhist calendar	2448
Burmese calendar	1266
Byzantine calendar	7412–7413
Chinese calendar	癸卯年十一月十四日 (4540/4600-11-14) — to — 甲辰年十一月廿五日 (4541/4601-11-25)
Coptic calendar	1620–1621
Ethiopian calendar	1896–1897
Hebrew calendar	5664–5665
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1960–1961
- Shaka Samvat	1826–1827
- Kali Yuga	5005–5006
Holocene calendar	11904
Iranian calendar	1282–1283
Islamic calendar	1321–1322
Japanese calendar	Meiji 37 (明治37年)
Korean calendar	4237
Minguo calendar	8 before ROC 民前8年
Thai solar calendar	2447

1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar.

Events

January

February 7: Aftermath of the Great Baltimore Fire.

• January 7 – The distress signal CQD is established, only to be replaced 2 years later by SOS.
• January 12
  • Henry Ford sets a new automobile land speed record of 91.37 mph.
  • The Herero Rebellion in German South-West Africa begins.
• January 16 – The first large-scale bodybuilding competition in America takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
• January 23 – The Ålesund Fire destroys most buildings in the town of Ålesund, Norway, leaving about 10,000 people without shelter.

February

• February 7 – The Great Baltimore Fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
• February 8 – A Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur (Lushun) starts the Russo-Japanese War.
• February 10 – Roger Casement publishes his account of Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
• February 23 – For $10 million, the United States gains control of the Panama Canal Zone.
• February 28 – Sport Lisboa e Benfica is founded in Portugal.

March

• March 3 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a political recording of a document, using Thomas Edison's cylinder.
• March 4 – Russo-Japanese War: Russian troops in Korea retreat toward Manchuria, followed by 100,000 Japanese troops.
• March 26 – 80,000 demonstrators gather in Hyde Park, London, to protest against the importation of Chinese labourers to South Africa by the British government.
• March 31 – British expedition to Tibet – Battle of Guru: British troops under Colonel Francis Younghusband defeat ill-equipped Tibetan troops.

April

• April 8
  • The Entente Cordiale is signed between the UK and France.
  • Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
  • Aleister Crowley begins writing Liber Al vel Legis, better known as The Book of the Law, a text central to Thelema. He completes this task on April 10.
• April 19 – The Great Toronto Fire destroys much of that city's downtown, but there are no fatalities.
• April 27 – The Australian Labor Party becomes the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson.
• April 30 – The Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair opens in St. Louis, Missouri (closes December 1).

May

• May 4
  • U.S. Army engineers begin work on The Panama Canal.
  • German football club FC Schalke 04 is established.
• May 5 – Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
• May 9 – GWR 3440 City of Truro becomes the first railway locomotive to exceed 100 mph.
• May 15– The Russian minelayer Amur lays a minefield about 15 miles (24 km) off Port Arthur and sinks Japan's battleship Hatsuse, 15,000 tons, with 496 crew.
• May 21 – The International Federation of Association Football, FIFA, is established.
• May 30 – Alpha Gamma Delta, now an international women's fraternity, is founded by 11 women at Syracuse University.

June

• June 10 – Irish author James Joyce meets his future wife Nora Barnacle.
• June 15 – A fire aboard the steamboat General Slocum in New York City's East River kills 1,021.
• June 16
  • Eugen Schauman assassinates Nikolai Bobrikov, Governor-General of Finland.
  • James Joyce walks to Ringsend with Nora Barnacle; he later uses this date (Bloomsday) as the setting for his novel Ulysses.
• June 28 – The Danish ocean liner SS Norge runs aground and sinks close to Rockall, killing 635, including 225 Norwegian emigrants.
• June 29 – The 1904 Moscow tornado occurs.

July

• July 1 – The third Modern Olympic Games opens in St. Louis, Missouri, United States as part of the World's Fair.
• July 21 – The Trans-Siberian railway is completed.

August

• August 3 – British expedition to Tibet: The British expedition under Colonel Francis Younghusband takes Lhasa in Tibet.
• August 11 – Battle of Waterberg: Lothar von Trotha defeats the Herero in German South-West Africa and drives them into the Omaheke desert, start of the Herero and Namaqua Genocide.
• August 14 – Ismael Montes becomes President of Bolivia.
• August 17 – Russo-Japanese War: A Japanese infantry charge fails to take Port Arthur.
• August 18 – Chris Watson resigns as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by George Reid.

September

• September 7 – British expedition to Tibet: The Dalai Lama signs the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty with Colonel Francis Younghusband.
• September 25 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Joseph F. Smith issues a Second Manifesto against polygamy.
• September 26 – New Zealand dolphin Pelorus Jack is individually protected by Order in Council under the Sea Fisheries Act.

October

• October 1 – Phi Delta Epsilon, the international medical fraternity, is founded by Aaron Brown and eight of his friends at Cornell University Medical College.
• October 5 – Alpha Kappa Psi, the co-ed Professional Business Fraternity, is founded on the campus of New York University
• October 15 – Theta Tau, the Professional Engineering Fraternity, is founded at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• October 19 – Polytechnic University of the Philippines is founded as Manila Business School through the superintendence of the American C.A. O'Reilley.
• October 21 – Russo-Japanese War – Dogger Bank incident: The Russian Baltic Fleet fires on British trawlers it mistakes for Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea.
• October 27 – The first underground line of the New York City Subway opens.

November

• November 8 – U.S. presidential election, 1904: Republican incumbent Theodore Roosevelt defeats Democrat Alton B. Parker.
• November 24 – The first successful caterpillar track is made (it later revolutionizes construction vehicles and land warfare).

December

• December 2 – The St. Petersburg Soviet urges a run on the banks: the attempt fails and the executive committee is arrested.
• December 3 – Charles Dillon Perrine discovers Jupiter's largest irregular satellite, Himalia.
• December 4 – The K.U. or Konservativ Ungdom (Young Conservatives) is founded by Carl F. Herman von Rosen in Denmark .
• December 10 – The Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity is founded at the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC.
• December 27 – The stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up premieres in London.
• December 30 – The East Boston Tunnel opens.
• December 31 – In New York City, the first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square.

November 24: caterpillar track

Date unknown

• The Loftus Road and Griffin Park football stadiums open in London.
• Stuyvesant High School is founded in New York City.
• The Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, now Bethune-Cookman University, is founded.
• Halford Mackinder presents a paper on "The Geographical Pivot of History" to the Royal Geographical Society of London in which he formulates the Heartland Theory, originating the study of geopolitics.
• The subject of alcohol and heart attacks is first investigated.

Births

January–February

• January 1 – Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Pakistani politician (d. 1982)
• January 5 – Jeane Dixon, American astrologer (d. 1997)
• January 10 – Ray Bolger, American actor, singer, and dancer (The Wizard of Oz)(d. 1987)
• January 13 – Richard Addinsell, British composer (d. 1977)
• January 14 – Cecil Beaton, English photographer (d. 1980)
• January 18 – Cary Grant, English actor (d. 1986)
• January 22
  • George Balanchine, Russian-born choreographer (d. 1983)
  • Arkady Gaidar, Russian children's writer (d. 1941)
• January 26
  • Ancel Keys, American scientist (d. 2004)
  • Seán MacBride, Irish statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1988)
• January 27 – J. J. Gibson, American psychologist (d. 1979)
• January 28 – Canuplin, Filipino magician and bodabil entertainer (d. 1979)
• January 29 – Arnold Gehlen, German philosopher (d. 1976)
• February 1
  • Ángel Borlenghi, Argentine labor leader and politician (d. 1962)
  • S. J. Perelman, American humorist and author (d. 1979)
• February 3
  • Luigi Dallapiccola, Italian composer (d. 1975)
  • Pretty Boy Floyd, American gangster (d. 1934)
• February 4 – MacKinlay Kantor, American writer and historian (d. 1977)
• February 10 – John Farrow, Australian film director (d. 1963)
• February 11 – Sir Keith Holyoake, Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1983)
• February 16
  • George F. Kennan, American diplomat (d. 2005)
  • Philip Rabinowitz (runner), South African record breaking sprinter (d. 2008)
  • James Baskett, African-American actor (Uncle Remus in Disney's Song of the South) (d. 1948)
• February 20 – Alexei Kosygin, Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1980)
• February 29 – Jimmy Dorsey, American bandleader (d. 1957)

March–April

• March 1
  • Glenn Miller, American bandleader (d. 1944)
  • Paul Hartman, American actor and dancer (d. 1973)
• March 2 – Dr. Seuss, American children's author (The Cat in the Hat) (d. 1991)
• March 4
  • George Gamow, Ukrainian-born physicist (d. 1968)
  • Joseph Schmidt, Austrian-Hungarian tenor and actor (d. 1942)
  • Chief Tahachee (actor), American-born stage and film actor (d. 1978)
• March 6 – Hugh Williams, English actor and dramatist (d. 1969)
• March 7 – Reinhard Heydrich, German Nazi official (d. 1942)
• March 14 – Doris Eaton Travis, American actress (d. 2010)
• March 20 – B. F. Skinner, American behavioral psychologist (d. 1990)
• March 22 – Itche Goldberg, Yiddish author (d. 2006)
• March 26
  • Gustave Biéler, Swiss-born hero of World War II (executed) (d. 1944)
  • Joseph Campbell, American author on mythology (d. 1987)
  • Xenophon Zolotas, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2004)
• April 1 – Nikolai Berzarin, Russian Red Army General (d. 1945)
• April 3 – Sally Rand, American dancer and actress (d. 1979)
• April 6 – Kurt Georg Kiesinger, former Chancellor of West Germany (d. 1988)
• April 8 – John Hicks, English economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)
• April 9 – Sharkey Bonano, American jazz musician (d. 1972)
• April 14 – Sir John Gielgud, English actor (d. 2000)
• April 15 – Arshile Gorky, Armenian-born painter (d. 1948)
• April 16 – Fifi D'Orsay, Canadian actress (d. 1983)
• April 22 – Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist (d. 1967)
• April 24 – Willem de Kooning, Dutch artist (d. 1997)
• April 26 – Jimmy McGrory, Scottish footballer (d. 1982)
• April 27 – Cecil Day-Lewis, English poet (d. 1972)
• April 29 – Pedro Vargas, Mexican singer and actor (d. 1989)

May–June

• May 6
  • Moshe Feldenkrais, Ukrainian-born engineer (d. 1984)
  • Harry Martinson, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
• May 8 – John Snagge, British radio personality (d. 1996)
• May 11 – Salvador Dalí, Spanish artist (d. 1989)
• May 17 – Jean Gabin, French actor (d. 1976)
• May 21
  • Fats Waller, American pianist and comedian (d. 1943)
  • Robert Montgomery, American actor and director (d. 1981)
• May 22 – Anne de Vries, Dutch writer (d. 1964)
• May 26 – George Formby, English singer and comedian (d. 1961)
• May 27 – Chuhei Nambu, Japanese athlete (d. 1997)
• May 30 – Doris Packer, American actress (d. 1979)
• June 2
  • Frantisek Planicka, Czech footballer (d. 1996)
  • Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor (Tarzan) (d. 1984)
• June 3 – Jan Peerce, American tenor (d. 1984)
• June 6 – Francisco López Merino, Argentine poet (d. 1928)
• June 18 – Keye Luke, American actor (d. 1991)
• June 26 – Peter Lorre, Hungarian-born film actor (d. 1964)

July–August

• July 5 – Ernst Mayr, German-born biologist and author (d. 2005)
• July 6 – Erik Wickberg, General of The Salvation Army (d. 1996)
• July 8 – Henri Cartan, French mathematician (d. 2008)
• July 12 – Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
• July 15 – Rudolf Arnheim, German-born author (d. 2007)
• July 28 – Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
• August 4
  • Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (d. 1969)
  • Helen Kane, American singer, dancer, comedienne, and actress (d. 1966)
• August 7 – Ralph Bunche, American diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1971)
• August 12 – Tsarevich Alexei of Russia (d. 1918)
• August 13 – Charles "Buddy" Rogers, American actor and jazz musician (d. 1999)
• August 16 – Wendell Meredith Stanley, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
• August 17
  • Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist (d. 1991)
  • Mary Cain, American newspaper editor and politician (d. 1984)
• August 21 – Count Basie, American musician and bandleader (d. 1984)
• August 22
  • Deng Xiaoping, Chinese leader (d. 1997)
  • Jay Novello, American actor (d. 1982)
• August 23
  • Viscountess Furness, American socialite twin (d. 1970)
  • Gloria Morgan-Vanderbilt, American socialite twin (d. 1965)
• August 24 – Ida Cook (aka Mary Burchell), British heroin and novelist (d. 1986)
• August 28 – Secondo Campini, Italian jet pioneer (d. 1980)
• August 29 – Werner Forssmann, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1979)

September–October

• September 9 – Feroze Khan, Pakistani field hockey player (d. 2005)
• September 19 – Elvia Allman, American actress (d. 1992)
• September 22 – Joseph Valachi, American gangster (d. 1971)
• September 29 – Greer Garson, English actress (d. 1996)
• October 1
  • A.K. Gopalan, Indian communist leader (d. 1977)
  • Irene Craigmile Bolam, American Amelia Earhart look-alike/believed alias(d. 1982)
• October 3 – Charles J. Pedersen, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)
• October 9 – Wally Brown, American actor and comedian (d. 1961)
• October 18 – Haim Shirman, Russian-born Israeli professor of medieval Spanish Jewish poetry (d. 1981)
• October 20 – Tommy Douglas, Canadian politician (d. 1986)
• October 23 – Harvey Penick, American golfer (d. 1995)
• October 25 – Vladimir Peter Tytla, American animator (d. 1968)
• October 27 – Erno Schwarz, Hungarian American soccer player (d. 1974)

November–December

• November 1 – Laura LaPlante, American silent film actress (d. 1996)
• November 2
  • Hugh Patrick Lygon, English aristocrat (d. 1936)
  • Louis Néel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
• November 4 – Tadeusz Żyliński, Polish technician and textilist (d. 1967)
• November 11
  • J. H. C. Whitehead, British mathematician (d. 1960)
  • Alger Hiss, American lawyer, government official, author and lecturer (d. 1996)
• November 12 – Jacques Tourneur, French director (d. 1977)
• November 14
  • Dick Powell, American actor and singer (d. 1963)
  • Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1988)
• November 16 – Nnamdi Azikiwe, President of Nigeria (d. 1996)
• November 18 – Masao Koga, Japanese composer (d. 1978)
• November 25
  • Lillian Copeland, American athlete (d. 1964)
  • Toni Ortelli, Italian composer and alpinist (d. 2000)
• November 30 – Clyfford Still, American painter (d. 1980)
• December 6 – Eve Curie, French author (d. 2007)
• December 7 – Clarence Nash, American voice actor (d. 1985)
• December 12 – Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, French-born magazine editor and socialite (d. 1981)
• December 18 – George Stevens, American film director (d. 1975)
• December 20 – Rambhai Barni Svastivatana, Queen consort of King Prajadhipok of Siam. (d. 1984)
• December 24 – Joseph M. Juran, American engineer and philanthropist (d. 2008)
• December 25 – Gerhard Herzberg, German-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
• December 26 – Alejo Carpentier, Cuban writer (d. 1980)
• December 30 – Dmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky, Russian composer (d. 1987)
• December 31 – Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer and actress (d. 1975)

Date unknown

• Bernard Castro, Italian inventor (d. 1991)
• Tevfik Esenç, Turkish-born last speaker of the Ubykh language (d. 1992)

Deaths

January–June

• January 2 – James Longstreet, Confederate Civil War general (b. 1821)
• January 10 – Jean-Léon Gérôme, French painter (b. 1824)
• January 17 – Sir Henry Keppel, British admiral (b. 1809)
• February 8 – Alfred Ainger, English biographer (b. 1837)
• February 15 – Mark Hanna, United States Senator from Ohio (b. 1837)
• February 22 – Leslie Stephen, English writer and critic (b. 1832)
• March 5 – John Lowther du Plat Taylor, British founder of the Army Post Office Corps (b. 1829)
• March 17 – Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, grandson of King George III (b. 1819)
• March 18 – William Elbridge Sewell, American naval officer and Governor of Guam (b. 1851)
• April 10 – Queen Isabella II of Spain (b. 1830)
• May 1 – Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer (b. 1841)
• May 8 – Eadweard Muybridge, English photographer and motion picture pioneer (b. 1830)
• May 10 – Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh explorer and journalist (b. 1841)
• May 19 – Auguste Molinier, French historian (b. 1851)
• June 3 – Vincent Tancred, South African cricketer (b. 1875)
• June 4 – George Frederick Phillips, Canadian-born military hero (b. 1862)
• June 12 – Camille de Renesse, Belgian Count (b. 1836)

July–December

• July 1 – George Frederic Watts, British Symbolist painter and sculptor (b. 1817)
• July 3 – Theodor Herzl, Austrian founder of Zionism (b. 1860)
• July 5 – Abai Kunanbaiuli, Kazakh poet (b. 1845)
• July 14
  • Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (b. 1860)
  • Paul Kruger, South African resistance leader (b. 1825)
• July 22 – Wilson Barrett, English actor (b. 1846)
• August 6 – Eduard Hanslick, Austrian music critic (b. 1825)
• August 12 – William Renshaw, British tennis player (b. 1861)
• August 16 – Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, American author of dime fiction (b. 1843)
• August 22 – Kate Chopin, American author (b. 1851)
• August 25 – Henri Fantin-Latour, French painter (b. 1836)
• August 29 – Ottoman Sultan Murad V (b. 1840)
• September 24 – Niels Ryberg Finsen, Icelandic/Faroese/Danish physician and scientist (b. 1860)
• September 26
  • Lafcadio Hearn, American-Japanese author (b. 1850)
  • John F. Stairs, Canadian businessman and statesman (b. 1848)
• October 4
  • Frédéric Bartholdi, French sculptor (b. 1834)
  • Laurence Hope, English poetess (b. 1865)
• October 21 – Isabelle Eberhardt, Swiss-Algerian explorer (b. 1877)
• November 28 – Fanny Janauschek, Czech actress (b. 1830)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – The Lord Rayleigh
• Chemistry – Sir William Ramsay
• Physiology or Medicine – Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
• Literature – Frédéric Mistral and José Echegaray
• Peace – Institut De Droit International

References

• 1904 Coin Pictures