| 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. |
| 1902 | [fiction] | The French writer André Gide publishes his novel L'Immoraliste/The Immoralist. |
| 1902 | [fiction] | The English writer Rudyard Kipling publishes his collection of children's tales Just So Stories. |
| 1902 | [fiction] | British writer Beatrix Potter publishes the classic children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit. |
| 1902 | United Kingdom [food and drink] | Marmite is launched in Britain. |
| 1902 | United Kingdom [food and drink] | Britain is the largest consumer of meat and the smallest consumer of milk per capita in Europe. |
| 1902 | United Kingdom [food and drink] | Fish and chips becomes more popular in Britain as advances in refrigeration and the railway network allow cheap and quick delivery of fish to inland areas, resulting in an inexpensive and tasty meal. Fish and chip shops are credited with dramatically increasing the protein intake of the working class. |
| 1902 | [health and medicine] | British physiologists William Bayliss and Ernest Starling discover that a substance, which they call secretin, is released into the bloodstream by cells in the duodenum. It stimulates the secretion of digestive juices by the pancreas and is the first hormone to be discovered. |
| 1902 | USA [language studies] | The US National Education Association adopts simplified spellings for words such as altho, thru, catalog, program, thoro, and tho. Some of the changes become permanent, others fail to catch on. |
| 1902 | [art] | The photography society, the Photo-Secession, is formed in New York City, the intention being to establish photography as a fine art. Outstanding members include Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Gertrude Käsebier. A gallery is opened in 1905; the group exhibits for the last time in 1910, but their journal Camera Work continues until 1917. |
| 1902 | [memoirs] | The US writer Helen Keller publishes The Story of My Life, in which she describes how, though deaf and blind since infancy, she was taught to read and write by her companion, Anne Mansfield Sullivan. |
| 1902 | USA [motor vehicles] | Scottish-born US car manufacturer Alexander Winton sets a land speed record of one mile in 52.2 seconds in his racing car Bullet No.1, at Daytona Beach, Florida. He is the first person to drive a mile in under a minute. |
| 1902 | [music] | The English composer Edward Elgar completes his choral work Coronation Ode for the coronation of King Edward VII. The best-known section is the finale, Land of Hope and Glory, adapted from March No. 1 of his Pomp and Circumstance. The words are taken from a poem by the English writer A C Benson. |
| 1902 | [orchestral music] | The Austrian composer Gustav Mahler completes his Symphony No. 5. |
| 1902 | [painting] | The US artist Robert Henri paints West 57th Street, New York. |
| 1902 | [philosophy] | US philosopher William James publishes Varieties of Religious Experience: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine. |
| 1902 | [philosophy] | The Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce publishes Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale/Aesthetics as the Science of Expression and General Linguistics. |
| 1902 | [physics] | English physicist Oliver Heaviside and US electrical engineer Arthur Kennelly independently predict the existence of a conducting layer in the atmosphere that reflects radio waves. |
| 1902 | [physics] | Canadian-born US physicist Reginald Fessenden discovers the heterodyne principle whereby high-frequency radio signals are converted to lower frequency signals that are easier to control and amplify. It leads to the superheterodyne principle essential in modern radio and television. |
| 1902 | USA [consumer products] | A Russian immigrant toy-shop owner Morris Mitchom in New York City, inspired by Clifford Berryman's cartoon of US president Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear cub, creates the teddy bear. |
| 1902–1903 | Europe [sports] | Henry Lunn, the English founder of the Lunn travel agency business, pioneers skiing holidays and skiing races through the Public Schools Alpine Sports Club. |
| 30 January 1902 | Japan, United Kingdom [treaties] | Britain qualifies its isolationist foreign policy by signing a treaty with Japan to safeguard their common interests in China and Korea. Under the terms of the treaty, in the event of Britain or Japan being at war with a foreign power in East Asia, the other will maintain strict neutrality, but shall assist its ally if a second foreign power should join the first. |
| 4 February 1902 | [births and deaths] | Charles Lindbergh, US aviator, the first person to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, born in Detroit, Michigan (–1974). |
| 27 February 1902 | [births and deaths] | John Steinbeck, US novelist who wrote The Grapes of Wrath, born in Salinas, California (–1968). |
| May 1902 | USA [diplomacy] | Cuba gains independence from the USA. |
| 31 May 1902 | South Africa, United Kingdom [Anglo–Boer Wars (1899–1902)] | The Peace of Vereeniging ends the South African Boer War, in which 5,774 British troops were killed as a result of the conflict and 16,000 through disease, while 4,000 Boers were killed. The Boer people accept British sovereignty, but are promised self-government in the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal, and £3 million for restocking their farms. |
| June 1902 | United Kingdom [food and drink] | The first commercially available breakfast cereal in Britain is Force wheat flakes, imported from Canada. |
| 1 July 1902 | Philippines [law and government] | The US Congress passes the Philippines Government Act, making the Philippines a US territory. It creates a bicameral (two chamber) legislature, but retains a US right of veto under a civil governor. The first governor, William Howard Taft, takes office 4 July. |
| 11 July 1902 | United Kingdom [law and government] | Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, retires as British prime minister, and is immediately succeeded by his nephew Arthur Balfour. |
| 8 August 1902 | [births and deaths] | Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, English physicist, author of the complete theoretical formulation of quantum mechanics, born in Bristol, England (–1984). |
| 20 September 1902 | [births and deaths] | (Florence Margaret) ‘Stevie’ Smith, English poet, born in Hull, Yorkshire, England (–1971). |
| 29 September 1902 | [births and deaths] | Emile Zola, French novelist and critic who founded the Naturalist movement, dies in Paris, France (62). |
| 5 October 1902 | [births and deaths] | Ray Kroc, US restaurateur who founded McDonald's fast-food hamburger restaurants, born in Chicago, Illinois (–1984). |
| 10 December 1902 | Egypt [other structures] | The Aswan Dam on the River Nile in Egypt is officially opened, having been started in 1898. The largest dam in the world, it is 2,142 m/7,027 ft long and has 180 sluices. |
