| 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. |
| 1911 | [fiction] | The English writer G K Chesterton publishes his collection of detective stories The Innocence of Father Brown. |
| 1911 | [fiction] | The English-born US writer Frances Hodgson Burnett publishes her children's novel The Secret Garden. |
| 1911 | [art] | The expressionist art group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) is founded in Munich, Germany. Leading figures include the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky and the German artists Franz Marc, August Macke, and Gabriele Münter. |
| 1911 | [ballet] | The ballet Petrushka, by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and Russian choreographer Mikhail Fokine, is first performed in Paris, France, under the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. |
| 1911 | [opera] | The opera Der Rosenkavalier/The Cavalier of the Rose, by the German composer Richard Strauss, is first performed in Dresden, Germany. It premieres in both London, England, and New York City in 1913. |
| 1911 | [orchestral music] | The US composer Charles Ives completes his Symphony No. 3, The Camp Meeting, and his orchestral works The Gong on the Hook and Ladder (Fireman's Parade on Main Street) and Tone Roads No. 1. |
| 1911 | [painting] | The Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky paints Improvisation 21a and Composition IV. It is at this time, in a series of paintings called Compositions and Improvisations, that Kandinsky develops his own form of abstract art. |
| 1911 | [physics] | US physicist Robert Millikan measures the electric charge on a single electron in his oil-drop experiment, in which the upward force of the electric charge on an oil droplet precisely counters the known downward gravitational force acting on it. |
| 1911 | [physics] | Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity, the characteristic of a substance of displaying zero electrical resistance when cooled to just above absolute zero. |
| 1911 | UK [physics] | New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest Rutherford proposes the concept of the nuclear atom, in which the mass of the atom is concentrated in a nucleus occupying 1⁄10,000 of the diameter of the atom and which has a positive charge balanced by surrounding electrons. |
| 1911 | United Kingdom [railways] | The first escalators in Britain are installed at Earls Court underground station in London, England. |
| 1911 | USA [cinema and film] | David Horsley establishes the first film studio in Hollywood, California, the Nestor Studio. Fifteen film companies are also established within the year. |
| 1911–1914 | USA, Mexico [statistics and demography] | 82,500 Mexicans emigrate to the USA. |
| 6 February 1911 | [births and deaths] | Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the USA 1981–89, a Republican, born in Tampico, Illinois. |
| 10 March 1911 | France, Algeria [everyday life] | Clocks are put back by 9 minutes and 21 seconds at midnight in France and Algeria, making Greenwich time the standard. |
| 26 March 1911 | [births and deaths] | Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams), US dramatist, most of whose plays are set in the Deep South, born in Columbus, Mississippi (–1983). |
| 30 April 1911 | Portugal [suffrage] | Portuguese women get the vote. |
| 15 May 1911 | United Kingdom [legislation] | The elected British House of Commons passes the Parliament Bill, under which the hereditary House of Lords will lose the right to veto legislation. The bill now passes to the House of Lords, which makes many amendments. |
| 1 July 1911 | Morocco, Germany [diplomacy] | The German gunboat Panther arrives in Agadir, Morocco, allegedly to protect German interests threatened by French involvement in Morocco, and sparks an international crisis. |
| 17 August - 19 August 1911 | United Kingdom [industrial relations] | British railway workers, led by James Thomas and demanding greater union recognition, paralyse the country by holding the first national railway strike. |
| 14 September 1911 | Russian Empire [terrorism] | The Russian prime minister, Peter Stolypin, is assassinated by a revolutionary, and on 19 September the moderate Vladimir Kokovtsov is appointed prime minister. |
| 26 October 1911 | China [revolution] | A revolutionary Chinese republic is proclaimed by revolutionaries contesting the rule of the Manchu emperors. |
| 4 November 1911 | Morocco, Germany, France [diplomacy] | A convention ends the ‘Agadir crisis’ in Morocco, when Germany allows France a free hand in Morocco in return for territory in the Congo. |
| 5 November 1911 | Italy, Anatolia, Ottoman Empire [diplomacy] | Italy annexes Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Libya from the Ottoman Empire. |
