1900

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• On 27 February in Britain, the Labour Representation Committee is formed to campaign for workers' rights. It is renamed the Labour Party after the 1906 election.

• On 17 May, British troops lift the 217-day Boer siege of Mafeking during the Boer War (began 1899, ends 1902) in South Africa. The Boers are fighting for independence.

• On 19 June, the Boxer rebellion against Western colonial influence begins in China (ends in defeat in 1901).

• British troops occupy Nigeria, which becomes part of the empire.

• In the US presidential election on 6 November, the Republican candidate William McKinley defeats the Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

• The first Pan-African Conference meets in London to discuss the independence and unity of African peoples in the face of European colonialism.

• Viennese psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud publishes his classic study The Interpretation of Dreams, which shows how the unconscious mind works.

• German physicist Max Planck lays the basis of quantum physics when he discovers that the normal laws of classical physics do not apply to atoms.

• Writer Joseph Conrad, a Pole living in Britain, publishes Lord Jim. Its themes of heroism and cowardice are widely discussed.

• The first airships and tractors are built.

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