1907

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.
1905–1907	[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.
1907	[biography]	The US historian Henry Brooks Adams privately publishes his autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams: A Study of 20th Century Multiplicity.
1907	France [cinema and film]	The French Lumière brothers develop the Autochrome system, which makes colour photography in natural colours viable.
1907	USA [companies and organizations]	A reorganization at Guffey Oil produces the Gulf Oil Company.
1907	United Kingdom, Netherlands [companies and organizations]	The Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company is formed from a merger of Royal Dutch Oil and Britain's Shell Transport and Trading Company.
1907	USA, Ireland, United Kingdom [media and communication]	A wireless telegraphy service is established between the USA and Ireland.
1907	[orchestral music]	The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius completes his Symphony No. 3.
1907	[painting]	The French artist Henri Rousseau paints The Snake Charmer.
1907	[painting]	The Spanish artist Pablo Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon/The Women of Avignon, one of the central works of 20th-century art.
1907	[painting]	The US artist George Wesley Bellows paints Stag at Sharkey's.
1907	[philosophy]	French philosopher Henri Bergson publishes L'Evolution créatrice/Creative Evolution.
1907	[philosophy]	US philosopher William James publishes Pragmatism: A New Way for Some Old Ways of Thinking.
1907	Europe [photography]	French engineer Edourd Belin, improving on the work of German inventor Arthur Korn in developing telephotography, invents a device that allows him to make the first long-distance transmission of a photograph, Paris–Lyon–Bordeaux. It is used in Europe to transmit news photographs.
1907	[plays]	The play Playboy of the Western World, by the Irish dramatist John Millington Synge, is first performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. Its depiction of Irish life offended many in the audience and fights break out at several performances.
1907	USA [consumer products]	The US company General Electric launches a more efficient light bulb, replacing the usual carbon filament with tungsten.
1907	USA [consumer products]	The US Hoover Suction-Sweeping Co. launches the first effective portable vacuum cleaner for domestic use. It is designed by James M Spangler.
1907	USA [consumer products]	The Hurley Machine Corporation launches the Thor, the first self-contained electric washing machine, in the USA, designed by Alva J Fisher.
1907	USA [political events]	Over 1.25 million immigrants arrive in the US, an all-time record.
1907	Germany [anthropology]	The Heidelberg jaw is discovered in a sand pit at Mauer, Germany. Belonging to Homo erectus, it is the oldest European hominid fossil discovered to date and thought to be 400,000 years old.
1907	USA [radio]	Lee De Forest of the De Forest Radio Telephone Co. begins the first regular experimental radio broadcasts in the USA, in New York City. These are for entertainment, and consist mainly of music.
1907	[sculpture]	The Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi sculpts The Kiss.
1907	USA, Austria-Hungary [statistics and demography]	More than 338,000 Austro-Hungarian immigrants arrive in the USA.
1907	USA [technology]	The Rectigraph Co. launches the first photocopier, the Rectigraph, in the USA.
26 January 1907	Austria-Hungary [suffrage]	Following a long campaign for reform, a bill that extends suffrage to all males aged 24 or over is passed in Austria.
2 February 1907	[births and deaths]	Dmitry Mendeleyev, Russian chemist who developed the periodic table of elements, dies in St Petersburg, Russia (72).
12 February 1907	USA [transport disasters]	The passenger steamer Larchmont sinks in the Long Island Sound off New York City, killing 131 people.
19 February 1907	Central America [wars]	War breaks out between Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador when Nicaraguan president José Santos Zelaya tries to use force to create a Central American confederation under his leadership. The conflict continues until December.
14 May 1907	Sweden [law and government]	Sweden adopts proportional representation for elections to both chambers of its parliament, and introduces universal adult suffrage for its second chamber.
22 May 1907	[births and deaths]	Laurence Olivier, English stage and film actor, director, and producer, born in Dorking, Surrey, England (–1989).
26 May 1907	[births and deaths]	John Wayne, US film actor who usually starred in westerns and war films, born in Winterset, Iowa (–1979).
6 June 1907	Germany [everyday life]	British chemical company Lever Bros launches Persil, the first ever household detergent, in Germany.
14 June 1907	Norway [suffrage]	Female suffrage is introduced in Norway.
25 July 1907	Korea, Japan [administration]	Japan declares in a treaty that Korea is its protectorate. Korea also agrees a convention giving Japan control over its government through Japanese vice ministers in its major departments. Japan has controlled Korea's foreign policy since 1905.
31 August 1907	United Kingdom, Russian Empire [diplomacy]	Britain and Russia sign a convention on Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet, establishing zones of influence and removing obstacles towards an alignment of Russia with Britain and France against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy).
4 September 1907	[births and deaths]	Edvard Grieg, Norwegian nationalist composer, dies in Bergen, Norway (64).
26 September 1907	New Zealand [political events]	New Zealand becomes known as the Dominion of New Zealand, reflecting its autonomous status within the British Empire.
8 December 1907	Sweden [political events]	Following the death of King Oskar II, Gustavus V succeeds as king of Sweden (–1950).
17 December 1907	[births and deaths]	William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Scottish physicist who developed the absolute temperature scale, dies in Netherhall near Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland (84).