1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January

Edward VII]] becomes Emperor of India. February 15: first teddy bear.

• 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

• 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 Michtom introduce the first teddy bear in America.
• February 17 – El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico becomes part of the United States National Forest System as the Luquillo Forest Reserve.
• February 23 – Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".

March

• 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 – The Ottoman Empire and the German Empire sign an agreement to build the Constantinople-Baghdad Railway.
• March 12 – The University of Puerto Rico is founded.
• 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.
• March 19 – The oldest Turkish football club, Besiktas JK, is founded in Istanbul.

April

• April 7 – Fredrikstad Football Club (FFK) is founded in Norway.
• April 29 – A 30-million-m³ landslide kills 70 in Frank, Alberta.

May

• May 4 – The leading Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary Gotse Delchev is killed in a skirmish with the Turkish army.
• May 18 – The port of Burgas, Bulgaria opens.
• May 22 – The White Star Liner, SS Ionic, is launched.
• May 24 – The Paris-Madrid race begins, during which at least eight people are killed.

June

• June 11 – Serbian King Alexander Obrenovi and Queen Draga are assassinated.
• June 12 – The Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity is founded at the University of Michigan School of Music.
• June 14 – The town of Heppner, Oregon, is nearly destroyed by a cloud burst that resulted in a flash flood that kills an estimated 238 people.

July 23: 1903 Ford Model A.

July

• July 1–July 19 – Maurice Garin wins the first Tour de France.
• July 7 – The British take over the Fulani Empire.
• July 23 – Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago becomes the first owner of a Ford Model A.
• July 30–August 23 (July 17–August 10, O.S.) – Second Congress of the All-Russian Social Democratic Labour Party held in exile in Brussels, transferring to London.

August

• August 2 – The Ilinden Uprising, organized by the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization, breaks out in the Ottoman provinces of Macedonia and Adrianople.
• August 4 – Pope Pius X succeeds Pope Leo XIII as the 257th pope.
• August 10 – Paris Metro train fire takes place.
• August 25 – Judiciary Act passed.

September

• 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 15 – Gr mio Foot-Ball Porto-Alegrense is founded in Porto Alegre, Brazil
• September 24 – Edmund Barton steps down as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by Alfred Deakin.
• September 27 – The Wreck of the Old 97 engine at Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia, which kills 9 people, inspires a ballad and song.
• September 29 – Prussia becomes the first locality to require mandatory drivers licenses for operators of motor vehicles.

October

• 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 3 years.
• October 1 – The first modern World Series, pitting the National League's Pittsburgh Pirates against Boston of the American League, begins at Pittsburgh's Exposition Park.
• October 6 – The High Court of Australia sits for the first time.
• October 10 – The Women's Social and Political Union is founded in the UK.
• October 13 – Boston wins its first of seven World Series titles, beating Pittsburgh at their home park, Huntington Avenue Grounds.

November

December 17: The first flight by Orville Wright.

• November 3 – Founding of Argentinian football team, Newell's Old Boys in the city of Rosario.
• 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

• December 16 – Taj Mahal Palace & Tower opened its doors to the guests on 16 December 1903.
• 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.

Date unknown

• The Lincoln-Lee Legion is established to promote the temperance movement and signing of alcohol abstinence pledges by children.
• The first box of Crayola crayons was made and sold for 5 cents. It contained 8 colors; brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and black.
• Osea Island in Maldon, Essex, England was bought by Mr. Frederick Charrington.

Births

January

• January 6 – Maurice Abravanel, Greek-born conductor (d. 1993)
• January 7 – Warren Hull, American actor (d. 1974)
• January 10 – Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor (d. 1975)
• January 11
  • Hans Redlich, Austrian composer (d. 1968)
  • Alan Paton, South African author and anti-apartheid activist. (d. 1988)
• January 12 – Igor Kurchatov, Soviet physicist (d. 1960)
• 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)
  • 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)
• February 13 – Georges Simenon, French writer (d. 1989)
• February 14 – Stuart Erwin, American actor (d. 1967)
• February 16 – Edgar Bergen, American ventriloquist (d. 1978)
• February 21
  • Ana s Nin, French writer (d. 1977)
  • Raymond Queneau, French poet and novelist (d. 1976)
• February 22
  • Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer and media personality (d. 1990)
  • Ain-Ervin Mere, Estonian Nazi (d. 1969)
  • 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)
  • William C. Boyd, American immunochemist (d. 1983)
  • Dorothy Mackaill, British-born American actress (d. 1990)
  • John Scarne, American magician and card expert (d. 1985)
• March 6 – Empress K jun, 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 (d. 2009)

April

• April 5 – Hilda Bruce, British zoologist (d. 1974)
• 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 – Jos 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 21 – Frank Sargeson, New Zealand writer (d. 1982)
• May 24 – Lofton R. Henderson, American naval aviator, died in The Battle of Midway (d. 1942)
• May 29 – Bob Hope, English-born American comedian and actor (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 10 – Theo Lingen, German actor (d. 1978)
• June 12 – Emmett Hardy, American musician (d. 1925)
• June 16
  • Helen Traubel, American soprano (d. 1972)
  • Huldreich Georg Fr h, 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 20 – Eddie Laughton, British-born American film actor (d. 1952)
• June 21 – Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist (d. 2003)
• June 22
  • John Dillinger, American bank robber (d. 1934)
  • Jiro Horikoshi, Japanese aircraft designer (d. 1982)
• 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 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 (d. 2010)

August

• August 3
  • Habib Bourguiba, former President of Tunisia (d. 2000)
  • Fahri Koruturk, former President of Turkey (d. 1987)
• August 6 – Virginia Foster Durr, American civil rights activist (d. 1999)
• August 7
  • Rudolph Ising, cartoon animator (d. 1992)
  • Louis Leakey, British archaeologist (d. 1972)
• August 13 – Chubby Johnson, American actor (d. 1974)
• 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)
• August 31
  • Arthur Godfrey, American radio and television host (d. 1983)
  • Hugh Harman, cartoon animator (d. 1982)

September

• September 7
  • Shimaki Kensaku, Japanese author (d. 1945)
  • John Kloza, Polish professional baseball player and manager (d. 1962)
• September 8 – Jane Arbor, British writer (d. 1994)
• September 9
  • Phyllis Whitney, American mystery writer (d. 2008)
  • Edward Upward, British author (d. 2009)
• 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 10 – Bei Shizhang, Chinese biologist and educator (d. 2009)
• 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 (The Three Stooges) (d. 1952)
• October 25
  • Katharine Byron, American politician (d. 1976)
  • Harry Shoulberg, American painter (d. 1995)
• October 26 – Bill Allington, American baseball player and manager (d. 1966)
• 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 4 – Watchman Nee, Chinese preacher, local church planter (d. 1972)
• 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 (d. 2011)
  • 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 13 – Ella Baker, American civil rights activist (d. 1986)
• December 17 – Erskine Caldwell, American author (d. 1987)
• 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, father of Adolf Hitler (b. 1837)
• January 17 – Quintin Hogg, British philanthropist (b. 1845)
• January 28
  • Augusta Holm s, 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 3 – Margaret Ann Neve, supercentenarian (b. 1792)
• 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 Ma in, Serbian queen consort (b. 1861)
  • Aleksandar Obrenovi , 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 – B ni K llay, 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)
• October 22 – William Edward Hartpole Lecky, Irish historian and member of the House of Commons (b. 1838)
• November 1 – Theodor Mommsen, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1817)
• November 13 – Camille Pissarro, French painter (b. 1830)
• November 25 – Sabino Arana, Spanish Basque writer and nationalist (b. 1865)
• December 8 – Herbert Spencer, English philosopher (b. 1820)

Nobel Prizes

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• Physics – Antoine Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, and Marie Curie
• Chemistry – Svante August Arrhenius
• Medicine – Niels Ryberg Finsen
• Literature – Bj rnstjerne Bj rnson
• Peace – William Randal Cremer

References

References

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