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1903
• Panama achieves independence from Colombia, with help from the United States. On 18 November, the US is given the right to complete the Panama Canal (opens 1914), which it now owns. • American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright build a glider powered by a 12- horse power engine. On 17 December, Orville pilots the first powered aircraft for a flight of 36.6 metres (120 feet) at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. • At a congress of exiled radicals in London, Lenin's militant faction splits the Russian Social Democratic Party, becoming known as the Bolshevik (or majority) group. • The British Suffragette movement, whose aim is votes for women, starts when Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia, form the Women's Social and Political Union. • In Russia, there are pogroms against the Jews. • Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes the theory of rocket propulsion. • The first electrocardiagraph is invented. |
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