Year 1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. The year 1903 also had the latest occurring solstices and equinoxes for 400 years, because the Gregorian calendar has not had a leap year for seven years or a century leap year since 1600. See: 1696.

Events of 1903

January-February

• January 1 - Edward VII of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Emperor of India.
• January 19 - The first west-east transatlantic radio broadcast is made from the United States to England (the first east-west broadcast having been made in 1901).
• February 11 - The Oxnard Strike of 1903 becomes the first time in U.S. history that a labor union is formed from members of different races.
• February 15 - Morris and Rose Mitchom introduce the first teddy bear in America.
• February 23 - Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".

March-April

• March 2 - In New York City, the Martha Washington Hotel, the first hotel exclusively for women, opens.
• March 3 – The British admiralty announces plans to build a naval base at Rosyth.
• March 5 – Turkey and Germany sign an agreement to build the Constantinople-Baghdad Railway.
• March 14 - The Hay-Herran Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, is ratified by the United States Senate. The Colombian Senate later rejects the treaty.
• April 29 - A 30-million-m³ landslide kills 70 in Frank, Alberta.

May-June

• May 18 - Opening of port of Burgas, Bulgaria.
• May 22 - Launch of the White Star Liner, SS Ionic.
• June 11 - Assassination of Serbian King Alexander Obrenović and Queen Draga.
• June 12 - Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity is founded at the University of Michigan School of Music.

July-August

• July 1-19 - Maurice Garin wins the first Tour de France.
• July 7 - British take over the Fulani empire.
• July 23 - Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago becomes the first owner of a Ford Model A.
• August 2 - The Ilinden Uprising of the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire breaks out.
• August 4 - Pope Pius X succeeds Pope Leo XIII as the 257th pope.
• August 10 - The Paris Metro train fire takes place.
• August 25 - The Judiciary Act 1903 is passed.

September-October

• September 11 - The first stock car event is held at the Milwaukee Mile.
• September 14 - Joseph Chamberlain resigns as British Colonial Secretary, in order to campaign publicly for "Imperial Preference".
• September 24 - Edmund Barton steps down as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by Alfred Deakin.
• September 27 - The wreck of Old 97 at Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia inspires ballad and song. Nine killed.
• October - Frank Nelson Cole proves that 2⁶⁷-1 is composite by factoring it as 193,707,721 * 761,838,257,287 after trying every Sunday for three years.
• October 1 - The first modern World Series pits the National League's Pittsburgh against Boston of the American League.
• October 6 - The High Court of Australia sits for the first time.
• October 10 - The Women's Social and Political Union is founded.

November-December

• November 4 - With the encouragement of the United States, Panama proclaims itself independent from Colombia.
• November 13 - The United States recognizes the independence of Panama.
• November 17 - The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for "majority") and Mensheviks (Russian for "minority").
• November 18 - The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the U.S. exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.
• November 23 - Colorado Governor James Hamilton Peabody sends the state militia into the town of Cripple Creek to break up a miners' strike.
• December 17 - 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.
• December 30 - A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago kills 600.

Undated

• Lincoln-Lee Legion is established to promote temperance movement and signing of alcohol abstinence pledges by children.

Ongoing

• Philippine-American War (1899-1913)

Births

January

• January 6 - Maurice Abravanel, Greek-born conductor (d. 1993)
• January 7 - Warren Hull, American actor (d. 1974)
• January 11 - Hans Redlich, Austrian composer (d. 1968)
• January 16 - William Grover-Williams, French race car driver and war hero (d. 1945)
• January 22 - Fritz Houtermans, Polish physicist (d. 1966)
• January 27 - John Carew Eccles, Australian neuropsychologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1997)

February

• February 2 - Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, Dutch mathematician (d. 1996)
• February 6 - Claudio Arrau, Chilean-born pianist (d. 1991)
• February 8 - Greta Keller, Vienna-born cabaret singer and actress (d. 1977)
• February 8 - Tunku Abdul Rahman, first Prime Minister of Malaysia (d. 1990)
• February 10 - Matthias Sindelar, Austrian footballer (d. 1939)
• February 11
• Rex Lease, American actor (d. 1966)
• Alan Paton, South African writer (d. 1988)
• February 13 - Georges Simenon, French writer (d. 1989)
• February 16 - Edgar Bergen, American ventriloquist (d. 1978)
• February 21
• Anaïs Nin, French writer (d. 1977)
• Raymond Queneau, French poet and novelist (d. 1976)
• February 22 - Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer and media personality (d. 1990)
• February 22 - Ain-Ervin Mere, Estonian Nazi (d. 1969)
• February 22 - Frank P. Ramsey, English mathematician (d. 1930)
• February 26 - Giulio Natta, Italian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
• February 27 - Grethe Weiser, German actress (d. 1970)
• February 28 - Vincente Minnelli, American director (d. 1986)

March

• March 4 - Luis Carrero Blanco, Spanish statesman (d. 1973)
• March 4 - William C. Boyd, American immunochemist (d. 1983)
• March 4 - Dorothy Mackaill, British-born American actress (d. 1990)
• March 4 - John Scarne, American magician and card expert (d. 1985)
• March 6 - Empress Kōjun, Empress consort of Japan (d. 2000)
• March 10 - Bix Beiderbecke, American jazz musician (d. 1931)
• March 11
• Ronald Syme, New Zealand-born classicist and historian (d. 1989)
• Lawrence Welk, American television musician (d. 1992)
• March 14 - Mustafa Barzani, Kurdish politician (d. 1979)
• March 20 - Edgar Buchanan, American actor (d. 1979)
• March 24 - Adolf Butenandt, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
• March 25 - Nahum Norbert Glatzer, Jewish-American scholar (d. 1990)
• March 28 - Rudolf Serkin, Austrian pianist (d. 1991)
• March 31 - H. J. Blackham, British humanist and author

April

• April 6
• Mickey Cochrane, American baseball player (d. 1962)
• Doc Edgerton, American electrical engineering (d. 1990)
• April 10 - Clare Boothe Luce, American publisher and writer (d. 1987)
• April 12 - Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
• April 15 - John Williams, English-born actor (d. 1983)
• April 17
• Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian cellist (d. 1976)
• Morgan Taylor, American athlete (d. 1975)
• April 19 - Eliot Ness, American treasury agent (d. 1957)
• April 24 - José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Spanish politician (d. 1936)
• April 25 - Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, Russian mathematician (d. 1987)
• April 28 - Johan Borgen, Norwegian author (d. 1979)

May

• May 2 - Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician (d. 1998)
• May 3 - Bing Crosby, American singer and actor (d. 1977)
• May 4 - Luther Adler, American actor (d. 1984)
• May 6 - Toots Shor, New York restaurateur (d. 1977)
• May 8 - Fernandel, French actor (d. 1971)
• May 10 - Hans Jonas, German-born philosopher(d. 1993)
• May 11 - Charlie Gehringer, baseball player (d. 1993)
• May 20 - Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor (d. 1975)
• May 21 - Frank Sargeson, New Zealand writer (d. 1982)
• May 29 - Bob Hope, English-born comedian (d. 2003)

June

• June 1 - Vasyl Velychkovsky Ukrainian bishop (d. 1973)
• June 6 - Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer (d. 1978)
• June 8 - Marguerite Yourcenar, Belgian-French author (d. 1987)
• June 12 - Emmett Hardy, American musician (d. 1925)
• June 16
• Helen Traubel, American soprano (d. 1972)
• Huldreich Georg Früh, Swiss composer (d. 1945)
• June 18
• Jeanette MacDonald, American singer and actress (d. 1965)
• Raymond Radiguet, French author (d. 1923)
• June 19
• Lou Gehrig, American baseball player (d. 1941)
• Wally Hammond, English cricketer (d. 1965)
• June 21 - Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist (d. 2003)
• June 22 - John Dillinger, American bank robber (d. 1934)
• June 25
• Pierre Brossolette, French journalist and resistance fighter (d. 1944)
• George Orwell, English author (d. 1950)
• June 29 - Alan Blumlein, British electronics engineer (d. 1942)

July

• July 1 - Amy Johnson, English aviator (d. 1941)
• July 2
• Harwell Hamilton Harris, American architect (d. 1990)
• Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1995)
• King Olav V of Norway (d. 1991)
• July 3 - Ace Bailey, Canadian hockey player (d. 1992)
• July 4 - Corrado Cardinal Bafile, Italian Catholic cardinal (d. 2005)
• July 6 - Hugo Theorell, Swedish scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1982)
• July 10 - John Wyndham, British author (d. 1969)
• July 13 - Kenneth Clark, English art historian (d. 1983)
• July 21 - Roy Neuberger, American financier and art collector

August

• August 3 - Habib Bourguiba, President of Tunisia (d. 2000)
• August 6 - Virginia Foster Durr, American civil rights activist (d. 1999)
• August 7 - Louis Leakey, British archaeologist (d. 1972)
• August 18 - Lucienne Boyer, French singer (d. 1983)
• August 19 - James Gould Cozzens, American writer (d. 1978)
• August 23 - William Primrose, Scottish violist (d. 1982)

September

• September 7 - Shimaki Kensaku, Japanese author (d. 1945)
• September 9
• Phyllis Whitney, American mystery writer (d. 2008)
• Edward Upward, British author
• September 11 - Theodor Adorno, German philosopher (d. 1969)
• September 13 - Claudette Colbert, American actress (d. 1996)
• September 15 - Roy Acuff, American country musician (d. 1992)
• September 17 - Karel Miljon, Dutch boxer (d. 1984)
• September 21 - Preston Tucker, American automobile designer (d. 1956)
• September 25
• Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, Pakistani journalist, theologian, and philosopher (d. 1979)
• Mark Rothko, Latvian-born painter (d. 1970)

October

• October 1 - Vladimir Horowitz, Russian pianist (d. 1989)
• October 4 - John Vincent Atanasoff, American computer engineer (d. 1995)
• October 5 - M. King Hubbert, American geophysicist (d. 1989)
• October 6 - Ernest Walton, Irish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
• October 9 - Walter O'Malley, American baseball executive (d. 1979)
• October 16 - Cecile de Brunhoff, French storyteller (d. 2003)
• October 18 - Lina Radke, German athlete (d. 1983)
• October 22
• George Wells Beadle, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1989)
• - Zlatyu Boyadzhiev, Bulgarian painter (d. 1976)
• Jerome "Curly Howard" Horwitz, American comedian and actor (d. 1952)
• October 25
• Katharine Byron, American politician (d. 1976)
• Harry Shoulberg, American painter (d. 1995)
• October 28 - Evelyn Waugh, English writer (d. 1966)

November

• November 1 - Max Adrian, Northern Irish actor (d. 1973)
• November 2 - Edgard Potier, Belgian spy (d. 1944)
• November 3 - Walker Evans, American photographer (d. 1975)
• November 6 - Carl Rakosi, German-born poet (d. 2004)
• November 7 - Konrad Lorenz, Austrian zoologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1989)
• November 19 - Nancy Carroll, American actress (d. 1965)
• November 27 - Lars Onsager, Norwegian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)
• November 29 - E. Harold Munn, American temperance movement leader and presidential candidate (d. 1992)

December

• December 5
• Johannes Heesters, Dutch singer and actor
• Cecil Frank Powell, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1969)
• December 4 - Lazar Lagin, Soviet writer (d. 1979)
• A. L. Rowse, English historian (d. 1997)
• December 12
• Dagmar Nordstrom, American composer and pianist (d. 1976)
• Yasujiro Ozu, Japanese film director (d. 1963)
• December 19 - George Davis Snell, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1996)
• December 22 - Haldan Keffer Hartline, American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1983)
• December 24 - Joseph Cornell, American sculptor (d. 1972)
• December 26 - Elisha Cook Jr., American actor (d. 1995)
• December 28
• Earl Hines, American jazz pianist (d. 1983)
• John von Neumann, Hungarian-born mathematician (d. 1957)
• December 31
• Nathan Milstein, Ukrainian violinist (d. 1992)
• Will Mastin, American vaudevillian (d. 1975)

Deaths

January - June

• January 3 - Alois Hitler, Austrian civil servant (b. 1837)
• January 17 - Quintin Hogg, British philanthropist (b. 1845)
• January 28
• Augusta Holmès, French composer (b. 1847)
• Robert Planquette, French composer (b. 1850)
• February 1 - Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Irish mathematician and physicist (b. 1819)
• February 7 - James Glaisher, English meteorologist and aeronaut (b. 1809)
• February 14 - Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria (b. 1831)
• February 22 - Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer (b. 1860)
• February 26 - Richard Jordan Gatling, American inventor (b. 1818)
• March 4 - Joseph Henry Shorthouse, English novelist (b. 1834)
• March 6 - Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris, French scholar (b. 1839)
• March 13 - George Granville Bradley, English vicar and scholar (b. 1821)
• March 16 - Roy Bean, American pioneer (b. 1825)
• March 28 - Emile Baudot, French telegraph engineer (b. 1845)
• April 19 - Oliver Mowat, Canadian politician (b. 1820)
• April 28 - Willard Gibbs, American physical chemist (b. 1839)
• May 4 - Gotse Delchev, Bulgarian revolutionary (b. 1872)
• May 8 - Paul Gauguin, French painter (b. 1848)
• May 13 - Apolinario Mabini, Filipino political theoretician and Prime Minister (b. 1864)
• June 11
• Nikolai Bugaev, Russian mathematician (b.1837)
• Draga Mašin, Serbian queen consort (b. 1861)
• Aleksandar Obrenović, Serbian king (b. 1876)
• June 19 - Herbert Vaughan, English Catholic cardinal and archbishop (b. 1832)

July - December

• July 2 - Ed Delahanty, American baseball player (b. 1867)
• July 11 - William Ernest Henley, English poet, critic, and editor (b. 1849)
• July 13 - Béni Kállay, Austro-Hungarian statesman (b. 1839)
• July 17 - James McNeill Whistler, American painter (b. 1834)
• July 20 - Pope Leo XIII, Italian Roman Catholic Pope (b. 1810)
• August 1 - Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman (b. 1852)
• August 5 - Phil May, English artist (b. 1864)
• August 17 - Hans Gude, Norwegian painter (b. 1825)
• August 22 - Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1830)
• September 18 - Alexander Bain, Scottish philosopher (b. 1818)
• October 4 - Otto Weininger, Austrian-Jewish author (b. 1880)
• October 20 - Thomas Vincent Welch, American politician (b. 1850)
• November 1 - Theodor Mommsen, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1817)
• November 13 - Camille Pissarro, French painter (b. 1830)
• December 8 - Herbert Spencer, English philosopher (b. 1820)

Nobel prizes

• Physics - Antoine Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, Marie Curie
• Chemistry - Svante August Arrhenius
• Medicine - Niels Ryberg Finsen
• Literature - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
• Peace - William Randal Cremer

References

External links