", a cartoon by
John T. McCutcheon depicting the new year 1905 chasing the old 1904 into the history books 's "miracle year"
January massacre of Russian demonstrators at the
Winter Palace in
Saint Petersburg •
January 1 – In a major defeat in the
Russo-Japanese War, Russian General
Anatoly Stessel surrenders
Port Arthur, located on mainland China, to the Japanese. •
January 3 – Japan formally repossesses Port Arthur, and renames it Ryojun, holding it for the next 40 years. The area will revert in 1945 to China, and become the
Lushunkou District. •
January 4 • Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino becomes Prime Minister of Romania for the second time, having previously served from 1899 to 1900, and remains in office for more than two years. • The city of
Bend, Oregon, plotted out in 1900 by Alexander Drake, is incorporated as a town for local logging companies, and will have a population of 536 in 1910. By the year 2020, it will have almost 100,000 residents. •
January 5 – Baroness
Emma Orczy's play
The Scarlet Pimpernel, the forerunner of her novel, opens at the
New Theatre in London, beginning a run of 122 performances and numerous revivals. •
January 6 – The
Lick Observatory announces the discovery on 3 December 1904 of a sixth
moon of Jupiter, made by their astronomer
Charles D. Perrine. •
January 17 – In France, Prime Minister
Émile Combes and his cabinet announce their resignations after being implicated in the
Affair of the Cards (''L'Affaire des Fiches''), a system set up by the War Ministry to purge the French Army officers corps of Jesuits. •
January 21 – The
Dominican Republic signs an agreement with the United States to allow the U.S. to administer the collection of customs taxes for Santo Domingo for 50 years, with the U.S. to assume responsibility for payment of the Republic's debts to foreign nations from Dominican income. The agreement is done as an exercise of the "
Roosevelt Corollary" to the
Monroe Doctrine. •
January 22 (January 9
O.S.) – The
Bloody Sunday massacre of peaceful Russian demonstrators at the
Winter Palace in
Saint Petersburg takes place, leading to
an unsuccessful uprising. •
January 26 – (January 13 O.S. in Russia) •
Russian Revolution of 1905: The
Imperial Russian Army opens fire on demonstrators in
Riga,
Governorate of Livonia, killing 73 people and injuring 200. •
Elections are held in Hungary for the
Országgyűlés, the Kingdom's parliament within Austria-Hungary. Voters overwhelmingly reject the
Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister
István Tisza, that has ruled Hungary since 1875. The Liberals lose 118 of their 277 seats, but Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary ignores the results and keeps Tisza in power. •
January 29 –
Rioting breaks out in Warsaw, at this time under Russian Imperial rule with a Russian Governor-General. is held by
James Hazen Hyde, the heir to the fortune of the founder of the Equitable Life Assurance Association, at New York City's Sherry Hotel, spending $200,000 for a "Louis XV costume ball."
February •
February 1 – U.S. Senator
John H. Mitchell of
Oregon is indicted by a federal grand jury on charges arising from
a scandal involving land grants in the state and illegally using his influence for private clients. •
February 4 –
A simultaneous uprising begins at six cities in Argentina against the government of President
Manuel Quintana. •
February 5 – The French ship
Anjou is wrecked off of the coast of the uninhabited
Auckland Island, located from the nearest inhabited land in
New Zealand. The castaways live on the isle for more than three months until being rescued on May 7. •
February 6 –
Eliel Soisalon-Soininen, the
Chancellor of Justice of the
Grand Duchy of Finland (at this time part of the Russian Empire) is assassinated at
Helsingfors (Helsinki). •
February 12 – The
Switzerland national football team plays its first international game, losing to
France, 1 to 0. •
February 16 – Six of the 11 crew of the British Royal Navy submarine
HMS A5 are killed by a pair of explosions caused by gasoline fumes in port in Ireland. •
February 17 –
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the Governor-General of Moscow and uncle of Tsar Nicholas II, is assassinated. •
February 20 – In the
Russo-Japanese War, the
Battle of Mukden begins in
Manchuria. •
February 21 – Sir
Wilfrid Laurier introduces a resolution in the Canadian parliament proposing that two new provinces,
Alberta and
Saskatchewan, be created out of the Northwest Territories. •
February 26 – Russia sustains a severe defeat in Manchuria at Tsen-ho-Cheng.
March •
March 2 – Russia's Committee of Ministers votes to grant religious freedom to the subjects of the Russian Empire. •
March 14 – 23 of the 26 crew of the British
barque Kyber die when the ship is wrecked off England's
Land's End. •
March 18 –
Albert Einstein submits his paper "On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the production and transformation of light", in which he explains the
photoelectric effect using the notion of
light quanta, for publication. •
March 20 • The
Grover Shoe Factory disaster kills 58 employees in
Brockton, Massachusetts, when a boiler explodes and the factory building collapses. • The title
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is officially recognised by King
Edward VII by a royal warrant. •
March 23 – The
Theriso revolt begins in
Crete as about 1,500 people led by
Eleftherios Venizelos demand unification with
Greece. •
March 29 –
Jimmy Walsh knocks out Monte Attell, in a controversial six-round bout in Philadelphia, to win recognition of the World Bantamweight Championship by the National Boxing Association, despite being disqualified by the referee.
April •
April 1 – The British Imperial
Penny Post is extended to include Australia. •
April 2 – The
Simplon Tunnel through the
Alps is opened to railway traffic. •
April 8 – Hundreds of people are killed in
Spain in the collapse of a dam holding back a reservoir near Madrid. •
April 23 – German General
Lothar von Trotha commander of troops in Germany's colony of
Südwestafrika (modern-day
Namibia), orders the extermination of the
Nama people within the colony's borders, ultimately killing 10,000. Von Trotha's proclamation
Aan de oorlogvorende Namastamme, proclaims that "The Nama who chooses not to surrender and lets himself be seen in German territory will be shot, until all are exterminated." •
April 24 –
China's Empress Regent
Cixi (Tzu Hsi) abolishes further use in executions of the nation's three most cruel torture execution methods,
lingchi ("death by a thousand cuts"),
gibbeting (similar to
crucifixion, hanging until dying of exposure, thirst or starvation), and desecration of a dying person. •
April 28 – A tornado strikes
Laredo, Texas and kills 100. •
April 30 –
Albert Einstein completes his doctoral
dissertation,
A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions (submitted July 30 to the
University of Zurich).
May •
May 4 –The
first world championship of professional wrestling takes place at
Madison Square Garden in
New York City. •
May 9 – Upon the death of U.S. social activist
Ann Reeves Jarvis In West Virginia, her daughter
Anna Jarvis resolves to campaign across the United States for a proposed "
Mother's Day". •
May 10 – The
1905 Snyder tornado destroys the town of
Snyder, Oklahoma, killing 97. •
May 11 –
Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "
Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen" ("On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat"), based on his doctoral research, delineating a
stochastic model of
Brownian motion. •
May 15 –
Las Vegas,
Nevada, is founded when of land adjacent to the
Union Pacific Railroad tracks are auctioned to form what becomes
Downtown Las Vegas. •
May 22 –
Abdul Hamid II, the
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire establishes the
Ullah millet for the
Aromanians of the empire. For this reason, the
Aromanian National Day is sometimes celebrated on this day. The decision is publicly announced the next day, which is more commonly celebrated. •
May 28 – At the end of two days in fighting in the
Battle of Tsushima, the Russian Imperial Navy has suffered the deaths of more than 14,000 of the 18,000 sailors and officers it had brought to the battle, and all but four of its Pacific ships. The Japanese loss is three torpedo boats and 800 men. •
May 30 – Japan's Prime Minister
Katsura Tarō asks U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt to moderate peace discussions to end the
Russo-Japanese War.
June •
June 1 – The
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition opens in
Portland, Oregon. •
June 21 –
New York Central Railroad's
20th Century Limited train is
derailed in an apparent act of
sabotage, killing 21 people. •
June 25 – The Danish Navy training ship
Georg Stage is accidentally sunk in port in Copenhagen after English steamship
Ancona collides with it, killing 22 teenage recruits. •
June 28 – "
Pomp and Circumstance" is first played as a graduation march, after Yale University music professor
Samuel Sanford invited its composer, Sir
Edward Elgar, to receive an honorary degree. •
June 29 –
The Automobile Association is founded in the United Kingdom. •
June 30 –
Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", establishing his theory of
special relativity. •
July 3 – France's Chamber of Deputies passes a bill for separation of church and state, 341 to 233. •
July 12 –The
University of Sheffield is officially opened by King Edward VII in England. •
July 14 – In
New Zealand, the first known
suicide attack by a civilian (as opposed to sacrifices made in military combat) takes place in
Murchison. •
July 15 – The popular fictional character
Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief, is introduced in France. •
July 21 – Sixty members of the crew of the USS
Bennington are killed in an explosion of the U.S. Navy gunboat in the harbor at
San Diego. •
July 24 – The
1905 Bolnai earthquake (8.4 magnitude) strikes
Mongolia, the second-largest on record here. •
July 27 – The
Taft–Katsura agreement is reached in
Tokyo. •
July 30 – At
Basel in
Switzerland, the International Zionist Conference delegates vote to reject the British offer of land in Uganda for a Jewish homeland. •
August 26 – Near Point Barrow, Alaska, the crew of the Norwegian ship
Gjoa, led by
Roald Amundsen, make the breakthrough of finding the long-sought "
Northwest Passage" from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. •
August 30 – A solar eclipse takes place, with greatest visibility in North Africa.
September •
September 1 – The Canadian provinces of
Alberta and
Saskatchewan are established from the southwestern part of the
Northwest Territories. •
September 2 – The millennia-old
imperial examination system for the civil service is abolished in
Qing dynasty China. •
September 5 –
Russo-Japanese War:
Treaty of Portsmouth – In
New Hampshire, a treaty mediated by U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt is signed by
Japan and
Russia. Russia cedes the island of
Sakhalin together with port and rail rights in
Manchuria to Japan. •
September 8 – The 7.2
Calabria earthquake shakes
Southern Italy with a maximum
Mercalli intensity of XI (
Extreme), killing between 557 and 2,500 people. •
September 10 –
Crystal Palace F.C. is founded in London. •
September 27 •
Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", in which he puts forward the idea of
mass–energy equivalence by publishing the equation
E =
mc2 (published November 21). •
Da-Qing Bank, predecessor of
Bank of China, is founded in
Peiping.
October •
October 1 • A Czech worker, František Pavlík, is bayoneted to death during a demonstration for a Czech university in Brno. This event is the motivation for a piano sonata,
1. X. 1905, by
Leoš Janáček, which premieres on 27 January 1906. • Turkish Association football team
Galatasaray is founded in
Istanbul. •
October 2 – is laid down in the United Kingdom, revolutionizing battleship design and triggering a naval arms race. •
October 5 – The
Wright brothers' third aeroplane (
Wright Flyer III) stays in the air for 39 minutes with Wilbur piloting, the first aeroplane flight lasting over half an hour. •
October 11 – The Institute of Musical Art, predecessor of the
Juilliard School, opens in
New York City. •
October 13 –
Annie Kenney and
Christabel Pankhurst interrupt a
Liberal Party (UK) rally at the
Free Trade Hall in
Manchester, England, and choose imprisonment when convicted, the first militant action of the suffragette campaign. •
October 16 – The
Partition of Bengal is made by
Lord Curzon to separate the region of Bengal into Muslim and Hindu territories until its reunification in
1911. •
October 26 Sweden–Norway agrees to the repeal of the union with Norway, forming the two modern-day countries. •
October 29 (October 16
O.S.) – In the
Russian Empire: •
Russian Revolution of 1905: The
Imperial Russian Army opens fire on a meeting at a street market in
Tallinn,
Governorate of Estonia, killing 94 and injuring over 200 people. • The
Circum-Baikal Railway is brought into permanent operation, completing through rail communication on the
Trans-Siberian Railway. •
October 30 (October 17 Old Style) –
October Manifesto: Tsar
Nicholas II of Russia is forced to announce the granting of his country's first constitution (the
Russian Constitution of 1906), conceding a national assembly (
State Duma) with limited powers. •
October –
Fauvist artists, led by
Henri Matisse and
André Derain, first exhibit their works, at the
Salon d'Automne in
Paris.
November •
November–
December –
Russian Revolution of 1905: In the
Baltic governorates, workers and peasants burn and loot hundreds of
Baltic German manors. The
Imperial Russian Army thereafter executes and deports thousands of looters. •
November 4 –
Russification of Finland: The application of the February Manifesto, removing the veto of the
Diet of the autonomous
Grand Duchy of Finland over matters considered by the Emperor to concern Russian imperial interests, is interrupted by the new November Manifesto. The
Senate of Finland is ordered to put forward a proposal for
parliamentary reform, based on unicameralism and universal and equal suffrage. •
November 12 –
Norway holds
a plebiscite on the monarchy, resulting in popular approval of the
Storting's decision to authorise the government to make the offer of the throne of the newly independent country. •
November 17 – The
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905 ("Eulsa Treaty") effectively makes Korea a protectorate of Japan. •
November 28 – The
Mataafa Storm buffets the
Great Lakes region. Named after the '''', a boat sunk outside of the
Duluth Ship Canal, the storm ultimately destroys 29 vessels, leading to 29 deaths and shipping losses of US$3.567 million (1905 dollars). •
November 28 – Irish nationalist
Arthur Griffith founds
Sinn Féin in Dublin, as a political party whose goal is independence for all of Ireland.
December •
December 2 –
Norsk Hydro, predecessor of
Equinor, a
state-run energy product and
grid brand in
Scandinavia, is founded in
Norway. •
December 7–
18 –
Moscow Uprising: A
Bolshevik-led revolt is suppressed by the army. •
December 11 – In support of the Moscow Uprising, the Council of Workers' Deputies of
Kiev stages a mass uprising, establishing the
Shuliavka Republic in the city,
December 12–
16. •
December 23 – The
Tampere conference, where
Vladimir Lenin and
Joseph Stalin meet for the first time, is held in
Tampere, Finland. •
December 30 • A bomb kills
Frank Steunenberg, ex-governor of
Idaho; the case leads to a trial against leaders of the
Western Federation of Miners. •
Franz Lehár's
operetta The Merry Widow is first performed, at the
Theater an der Wien, Vienna.
Date unknown •
Pathé Frères colors black and white films by machine. •
Alfred Einhorn introduces
novocaine. == Births ==