1905

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1905	[fiction]	The US writer Jack London publishes his novel White Fang.
1905	[fiction]	The US writer Edith Wharton publishes her novel House of Mirth.
1905	USA [food and drink]	The US drinks company Coca-Cola changes some of the ingredients of its drink, replacing cocaine with caffeine.
1905	USA [food and drink]	The Italian immigrant Gennaro Lombardi introduces pizza at his restaurant in New York City.
1905	United Kingdom [food and drink]	The British confectionery company Cadbury launches the Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar and the Cadbury's Flake.
1905	USA [gambling and lotteries]	Charles Fey develops the Liberty Bell, the first slot-machine, in the USA. It is manufactured by the Mills Novelty Co., which introduces fruit symbols to represent the fruit gum ‘prizes’, as a means of getting round antigambling laws in some states.
1905	USA [American football]	Eighteen players are killed and 154 seriously injured during the American football season; the US president Franklin D Roosevelt threatens to ban the sport unless action is taken to curb the violence.
1905–1907	[astronomy]	Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung discovers that there is a relationship between the colour and absolute brightness of stars and classifies them according to this relationship. It is used to determine the distances of stars and forms the basis of theories of stellar evolution.
1905	United Kingdom, Germany [medicine]	Aspirin, manufactured by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer AG, is introduced in Britain.
1905	United Kingdom [motor vehicles]	A regular motor omnibus service starts in London, England, and the Bakerloo and Piccadilly underground lines are opened.
1905	[museums and galleries]	The US photographer Alfred Stieglitz opens his Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession at 291–293 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Later known simply as ‘291’, the gallery shows photographs, paintings and sculpture, becoming one of the most influential galleries in the development of modern US art.
1905	[opera]	The opera Salome, by the German composer Richard Strauss, is first performed in Dresden, Germany.
1905	[painting]	The expressionist art group Die Brücke (‘The Bridge’) is formed in Dresden, Germany. The group includes the artists Ernst Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. It is dissolved in 1913.
1905	[painting]	The French artist Henri Matisse paints Portrait of Madame Matisse (The Green Line).
1905	[painting]	The French artist Paul Cézanne paints The Great Bathers.
1905	[philosophy]	Spanish-born US philosopher and writer George Santayana publishes The Life of Reason.
1905	Switzerland [physics]	German-born US physicist Albert Einstein develops his special theory of relativity in a series of four papers. In ‘On the Motion – Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat – of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid’ he explains Brownian motion. In ‘On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light’ he explains the photoelectric effect by proposing that light consists of photons and also exhibits wavelike properties. In ‘On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies’ he proposes that space and time are one and that time and motion are relative to the observer. In ‘Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy Content?’ he argues that mass and energy are equivalent, which can be expressed by the formula E = mc² .
1905	[plays]	The plays Major Barbara and Man and Superman, by the Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw, are first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England.
1905	[political theory]	Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulianov) publishes Dvr taktiti/Two Tactics.
1905	United Kingdom [consumer products]	The Gillette safety razor is introduced in Britain.
1905	USA [consumer products]	The US company Chapman & Skinner launches the first portable electric vacuum cleaner for domestic use.
1905	[psychology]	French psychologists Alfred Binet, Victor Henri, and Theodore Simon introduce the first intelligence test for children.
1905	United Kingdom [companies and organizations]	Herbert Austin founds the Austin Motor Company in Britain.
1905	[education]	Italian educationalist Maria Montessori publishes Manuale di pedagogica scientifica/Manual of Scientific Pedagogy.
1905	[solo and chamber music]	The French composer Claude Debussy completes his piano work Images I and his orchestral work La Mer/The Sea.
1905	USA [statistics and demography]	The population density in the slums of New York City reaches 1,000 persons an acre, higher than in Bombay (now Mumbai), India.
1905	USA [transport]	There are 77,988 automobiles registered in the USA, up from 300 in 1895.
22 January 1905	Russian Empire [political events]	Guards outside the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, Russia, fire on a procession of workers and their families led by the priest Father Gapon, who is carrying a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. Over 100 people are killed, and the day becomes known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. Strikes break out across Russia in protest.
20 February - 9 March 1905	China, Japan, Russian Empire [Russo–Japanese War (1904–05)]	The Japanese forces under Field Marshal Iwao Oyama overcome a Russian force under General Alexei Kuropatkin, and capture the city of Mukden (Shenyang), a key point for the control of Manchuria.
24 March 1905	[births and deaths]	Jules Verne, French author who pioneered modern science fiction writing, dies in Amiens, France (77).
31 March 1905	Morocco, Germany, France [diplomacy]	The visit of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany to Tangier, Morocco, sets off the ‘First Moroccan Crisis’, being seen as a test of the British–French convention of 1904 which arranged for French predominance in Morocco.
April 1905	USA [suffrage]	In an article in Ladies' Home Journal, former US president Grover Cleveland claims that woman do not need to vote because men have greater intelligence.
24 April 1905	[births and deaths]	Robert Penn Warren, US novelist and poet, the only US writer to win Pulitzer prizes for fiction and poetry, and the first poet laureate in the USA (1986), born in Guthrie, Kentucky (–1989).
16 May 1905	[births and deaths]	Henry Fonda, US actor of stage and film, born in Grand Island, Nebraska (–1982).
27 May - 29 May 1905	Japan, Russian Empire [Russo–Japanese War (1904–05)]	During the Battle of Tsushima in the Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan, the Japanese fleet under Vice Admiral Heirachiro Togo sinks two-thirds of the recently-arrived Russian Baltic fleet commanded by Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski.
21 June 1905	[births and deaths]	Jean-Paul Sartre, French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and playwright, born in Paris, France (–1980).
5 September 1905	Russian Empire, Japan, China [treaties]	The Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) is mediated by the US president Theodore Roosevelt and ends the Russo-Japanese War. Russia is to cede Port Arthur and the Guangdong Peninsula in China, evacuate Manchuria and half of Sakhalin Island (in the Sea of Okhotsk off the coast of Russia), and recognize Japan's interests in Korea. Japan gives up its demand for an indemnity.
18 September 1905	[births and deaths]	Greta Garbo, Swedish-born US film star of the 1920s and 1930s, then a legendary recluse after 1941, born in Stockholm, Sweden (–1990).
19 September 1905	[births and deaths]	Thomas John Barnardo, English social worker who founded 90 homes for destitute children, dies in Surbiton, Surrey, England (60).
30 October 1905	Russian Empire [law and government]	Tsar Nicholas II of Russia issues the ‘October Manifesto’, capitulating to demands for the duma (parliament) to have legislative powers and a wider franchise for its election, and civil liberties.
16 November 1905	Russian Empire [elections]	The reformer Count Sergei Witte is appointed prime minister of Russia.
18 November 1905	Denmark [elections]	Prince Charles of Denmark is elected King Haakon VII of Norway following Norway's independence from Sweden.
5 December 1905	United Kingdom [administration]	Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman forms a Liberal ministry in Great Britain with Sir Edward Grey as foreign secretary, Herbert Asquith as chancellor of the Exchequer, and Richard Haldane as war secretary.
12 December 1905	Persia [revolution]	A revolution begins in Persia against the corrupt rule of Shah Mohammed Ali.
23 December 1905	United Kingdom [everyday life]	The first British beauty contest, the ‘Blond and Brunette Beauty Show’, takes place in Newcastle upon Tyne.