1911

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• In September, Italian troops occupy Tripoli after defeating the army of the Ottoman empire.

• In October, rebels led by Dr Sun Yat-sen overthrow the Chinese monarchy.

• Winston Churchill, British first lord of the Admiralty, orders the Royal Navy to switch from using coal to oil.

• On 15 December, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reaches the South Pole, one month ahead of the British expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott.

• Russian artist Vassily Kandinsky and the German Franz Marc form the Blaue Rieter (Blue Rider) group in Munich. Their painting develops from depicting figures and scenes more or less realistically to abstraction where form and colour dominate.

• Georges Braque begins using collage, including paper found in the street, for his Cubist works.

• Irving Berlin's 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' becomes an international hit, the first success among the approximately 900 songs written by him.

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