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1905
• Russia's defeats by Japan during the Russo-Japanese war (began 1904) lead to the 1905 Russian Revolution. Starting with Bloody Sunday on 22 January, when tsarist troops massacre workers demonstrating for political rights in St Petersburg, there are urban revolts, peasant unrest, mutinies and discontent among national minorities in the Russian empire. Tsar Nicholas II makes concessions, including allowing a parliament to meet, and troops brutally suppress the revolts. • The traditional élitist Confucian educational system is abolished in China. • Norway becomes independent from Sweden. • On 4 December, British Conservative prime minister Arthur Balfour resigns. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the new prime minister, forms a Liberal government. • German physicist Albert Einstein publishes his Special Theory of Relativity, which argues that time and space are not constant. This undermines the classical laws of physics and introduces a modern way of looking at the universe. It also introduces the idea that everything is relative. • The first movie theatre opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. • In Paris, an autumn exhibition of vividly coloured paintings by artists including Henri Matisse is denounced by conservative critics as the work of fauves (wild beasts). The colourful style of Fauvism becomes very influential. |
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