1901

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1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday (dominical letter G) of the Julian calendar, the 1901st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 901st year of the 2nd millennium, the 1st year of the 20th century, and the 2nd year of the 1900s decade. As of the start of 1901, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1918.

Events

January

January 1: The Commonwealth of Australia forms as British colonies federate.

• January 1
  • The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia. Edmund Barton becomes first Prime Minister of Australia.
  • Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.
  • The birth of Pentecostalism at a prayer meeting at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas.
• January 5 – Typhoid fever breaks out in a Seattle jail, the first of two typhoid outbreaks in the United Statses during the year.
• January 7 – Alferd Packer is released from prison after serving 18 years for cannibalism.
• January 9 – Lord Kitchener reports that Christiaan de Wet has shot one of the "peace" envoys, and flogged two more, who had gone to his commando to ask the Burgher citizens of South Africa to halt fighting.^[1]
• January 10 – In the first great Texas gusher, oil is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.
• January 22
  • Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom dies at age 81, after more than 63 years on the throne, and her son the Prince of Wales formally succeeds her as King Edward VII.
  • The Grand Opera House in Cincinnati is destroyed in a fire.
• January 28 – Baseball's American League declares itself a Major League.

January 22: King Edward VII ascends the British throne and also becomes Emperor of India.

February

• February 2 – Funeral of Queen Victoria at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
• February 5
  • Hay–Pauncefote Treaty signed by United Kingdom and United States, ceding control of the Panama Canal to the United States.
  • J. P. Morgan buys mines and steel mills in the United States, marking the first billion dollar business deal.
  • In Evansville, Indiana, a fire burns through the business district, causing $175,000 of damage.
• February 11 – Anti-Jesuit riots sweep across Spain.
• February 12 – Viceroy of India Lord Curzon creates the new North-West Frontier Province in the north of the Punjab region, bordering Afghanistan.
• February 14 – Edward VII opens his first parliament of the United Kingdom.
• February 15 – The Alianza Lima Foundation is created in Peru.
• February 20 – The Hawaii Territory Legislature convenes for the first time.
• February 22 – The Pacific Mail Steamship Company's SS City of Rio de Janeiro sinks entering San Francisco Bay, killing 128.
• February 23 – The United Kingdom and Germany agree the frontier between German East Africa and the British colony of Nyasaland.
• February 25 – U.S. Steel is incorporated by industrialist J. P. Morgan as the first billion-dollar corporation.
• February 26
  • Chi-hsui and Hsu-cheng-yu, Boxer Rebellion leaders, executed in Peking.
  • The Middelburg peace conference fails in South Africa as Boers continue to demand autonomy.
• February 27 – The Sultan of Turkey orders 50,000 troops to the Bulgarian frontier because of unrest in Macedonia

March

• March 1
  • The United Kingdom, Germany and Japan protest at the Sino-Russian agreement on Manchuria.
  • 1901 Census of India taken, the fourth, and first reliable, census of the British Raj.
• March 2 – The United States Congress passes the Platt Amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.
• March 4 – William McKinley is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States.
• March 5 – Irish nationalist demonstrators are ejected by police from House of Commons of the United Kingdom in London.
• March 6 – In Bremen, an assassination attempt is made on Wilhelm II, German Emperor.
• March 11 – The United Kingdom rejects the amended Hay–Pauncefote Treaty.
• March 13 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the United States, dies of pneumonia at age 67.
• March 17
  • A showing of 71 Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation.
  • Student riots in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
• March 18 – Patrick Donahoe, businessman and publisher of the Boston Catholic newspaper The Pilot, dies aged 90.
• March 31
  • 1901 Black Sea earthquake of 7.2 on the moment magnitude scale.
  • The United Kingdom Census 1901 is taken. The number of people employed in manufacturing is at its highest-ever level.

March 6: Wilhelm II, German Emperor, survives an assassination attempt.

April

• April 25 – New York becomes the first US state to require automobile license plates.
• April 29 – Anti-Jewish rioting breaks out in Budapest.

May

• May 3 – The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.
• May 5 – The Caste War of Yucatán in Mexico officially ends, although Mayan skirmishers continue sporadic fighting for another decade.
• May 9 – The first Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne.
• May 17 – Panic of 1901: The New York Stock Exchange crashes.
• May 24 – 81 miners are killed in an accident at Universal Colliery, Senghenydd in South Wales.
• May 25 – The Club Atlético River Plate is founded in Argentina.
• May 27 – In New Jersey, the Edison Storage Battery Company is founded.
• May 28 – Persia grants William Knox D'Arcy a concession, giving him the right to prospect for oil.

June

• June – Emily Hobhouse reports on the genocide in the 45 British concentration camps for Boer women and children in South Africa in which, over an 18-month period, 26,370 people would die, 24,000 of them children under 16. Exact mortality figures in the 64 concentration camps for black displaced farm workers and their families are not known, but even worse.^[2]
• June 2 – Katsura Tarō becomes Prime Minister of Japan.
• June 12 – Cuba becomes a United States protectorate.
• June 15 – RMS Lucania is the first Cunard Line ship to receive a wireless radio set.

June 12: Cuba becomes a United States protectorate.

July

• July 1
  • The first United Kingdom Fingerprint Bureau is established at Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police headquarters in London, by Edward Henry.
  • Bureau of Chemistry established within the United States Department of Agriculture.
• July 4
  • The 1,282 foot (390 m) covered bridge crossing the Saint John River at Hartland, New Brunswick, Canada opens. It is the longest covered bridge in the world.
  • William Howard Taft becomes Governor-General of the Philippines.
• July 10 – The world's first passenger-carrying trolleybus in regular service operates on the Biela Valley Trolleybus route at Koeninggstein in Germany.
• July 24 – O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio after serving three years for embezzlement from the First National Bank in Austin, Texas.

August

Silliman University is the first American private school in the Philippines.

• August 5 – Peter O'Connor sets the first International Association of Athletics Federations recognised long jump world record of 24 ft 11¾ins. The record will stand for 20 years.
• August 6 – Discovery Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott sets sail on the RRS Discovery to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica.
• August 14 – The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead in his Number 21.
• August 21 – The International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centres is founded in Copenhagen.
• August 28 – Silliman University is founded in the Philippines, the first American private school in the country.^[3]
• August 30 – Hubert Cecil Booth patents an electric vacuum cleaner in the United Kingdom.

September

September 6: US President William McKinley is shot and fatally wounded.

September 7: The Boxer Rebellion in China ends with the signing of the Peking Protocol.

September 14: Theodore Roosevelt becomes President of the United States on the death of William McKinley.

• September 2 – U.S. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.
• September 5 – The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (later renamed Minor League Baseball), is formed in Chicago.
• September 6 – William McKinley assassination: American anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies 8 days later.
• September 7 – The Boxer Rebellion in China officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol.
• September 14 – Vice President Theodore Roosevelt succeeds William McKinley as President of the United States, upon McKinley's death. Roosevelt is sworn in that afternoon.
• September 26 – The body of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is exhumed and reinterred in concrete several feet thick.
• September 28 – Philippine–American War: Balangiga massacre: Filipino guerrillas kill more than forty United States soldiers in a surprise attack in the town of Balangiga in Samar.

October

• October 2 – The British Royal Navy's first submarine, Holland 1, is launched at Barrow-in-Furness.
• October 4 – The American yacht Columbia defeats the British Shamrock in the America's Cup yachting race.
• October 16 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt invites African American leader Booker T. Washington to the White House. The American South reacts angrily to the visit, and racial violence increases in the region.
• October 23 – Yale University celebrates its bicentennial.
• October 24 – Michigan schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survives.
• October 29 – In Amherst, New York, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.

November

• November 1 – Sigma Phi Epsilon is founded in Richmond, Virginia.
• November 9 – The Prince George, Duke of Cornwall (later George V) becomes Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.
• November 15 – The Alpha Sigma Alpha Fraternity is founded at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.
• November 25 – Auguste Deter is first examined by German psychiatrist Dr Alois Alzheimer, leading to a diagnosis of the condition that will carry Alzheimer's name.^[4]
• November 28 – The new Constitution of Alabama requires voters in the state to have passed literacy tests.

December

• December 3 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".
• December 10 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.
• December 12 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from Poldhu in England, UK to Newfoundland; it is the letter "S" in Morse.^[5]
• December 20 – The final spike is driven into the Mombasa–Victoria–Uganda Railway in what is now Kisumu, Kenya.
• December 22 – Peace Sunday and Charles Aked, a Baptist minister in Liverpool, says about the war in South Africa: "Great Britain cannot win the battles without resorting to the last despicable cowardice of the most loathsome cur on earth — the act of striking a brave man's heart through his wife's honour and his child's life. The cowardly war has been conducted by methods of barbarism... the concentration camps have been Murder Camps." A crowd follows him home and breaks the windows of his house.^[6]

Date unknown

• Europium is isolated by Eugène-Anatole Demarçay.
• The okapi is observed for the first time (previously known only to local natives).
• The Intercollegiate Prohibition Association is established in Chicago.
• New Zealand inventor Ernest Godward invents the spiral hairpin.
• William S. Harley draws up plans for his first prototype motorcycle.
• German Oscar Troplowitz invents for German company Beiersdorf the medical plaster patch called Leukoplast.

Births

January–February

Clark Gable

Zeppo Marx

Linus Pauling

• January 1 – Júlia Báthory, Hungarian glass designer (died 2000)
• January 3 – Ngô Đình Diệm, 1st President of South Vietnam (died 1963)
• January 4 – C. L. R. James, Trinidad-born writer and journalist (died 1989)
• January 9
  • Chic Young, American cartoonist (died 1973)
  • Vilma Bánky, Hungarian-American actress (died 1991)
• January 10 – Henning von Tresckow, Major General in the German Wehrmacht (died 1944)
• January 11 – Kwon Ki-ok, Korean pilot (died 1988)
• January 13
  • A. B. Guthrie, American novelist, historian (died 1991)
  • Mieczysław Żywczyński, Polish historian and priest (died 1978)
  • Wilhelm Hanle, German physicist (d. 1993)
• January 14
  • Bebe Daniels, American actress (died 1971)
  • Alfred Tarski, Polish logician and mathematician (died 1983)
• January 16
  • Fulgencio Batista, Cuban leader (died 1973)
  • Frank Zamboni, American inventor (died 1988)
• January 21 – Marcellus Boss, American politician and lawyer, member of Kansas Senate and 5th Civilian Governor of Guam (died 1967)
• January 24
  • Hans Erich Apostel, Austrian composer (died 1972)
  • Harry Calder, South African cricketer (died 1995)
• January 25 – Mildred Dunnock, American actress (died 1991)
• January 26 – Stuart Symington, American politician (died 1988)
• January 27 – Art Rooney, American football team owner (died 1988)
• January 29 – E. P. Taylor, Canadian business tycoon (died 1989)
• January 30 – Rudolf Caracciola, German race car driver (died 1959)
• February 1
  • Frank Buckles, last surviving American veteran of World War I (died 2011)
  • Howard I. Chapelle, American naval architect, museum curator, and author (died 1975)
  • Clark Gable, American actor (died 1960)
• February 2 – Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian violinist (died 1987)
• February 3 – Arvid Wallman, Swedish diver (died 1982)
• February 8 – Virginius Dabney, American teacher, journalist, writer and editor (died 1995)
• February 10
  • Stella Adler, American actress/acting teacher (died 1992)
  • Anthony Prusinski, American politician (died 1950)
• February 15 – João Branco Núncio, Portuguese bullfighter (died 1976)
• February 16 – Chester Morris, American actor (died 1970)
• February 19 – Florence Green, Last surviving World War I veteran (died 2012)
• February 20 – Mohammed Naguib, 1st President of Egypt (died 1984)
• February 22
  • Mildred Davis, American actress (died 1969)
  • Charles Evans Whittaker, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (died 1973)
• February 25 – Zeppo Marx, American comedian (died 1979)
• February 27 – Horatio Luro, Argentine horse trainer (died 1991)
• February 28 – Linus Pauling, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Peace (died 1994)

March–April

Hirohito

• March 3 – Claude Choules, British World War I veteran and last combat veteran from any nation (died 2011)
• March 4
  • Charles Goren, American bridge player (died 1991)
  • Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy-French poet (died 1937)
• March 9 – Joachim Hämmerling, German-Danish biologist (d. 1980)
• March 13 – Paul Fix, American actor (died 1983)
• March 17 – Alfred Newman, American film composer (died 1970)
• March 21
  • Karl Arnold, German politician (died 1958)
  • Carmelita Geraghty, American actress (died 1966)
• March 22 – Greta Kempton, American artist (died 1991)
• March 23 – Bon Maharaja, Indian guru and religious writer (d. 1982)
• March 24 – Ub Iwerks, American cartoonist (died 1971)
• March 27
  • Carl Barks, American cartoonist and screenwriter (died 2000)
  • Erich Ollenhauer, German politician (died 1963)
  • Enrique Santos Discépolo, Argentine tango and milonga musician and composer (died 1951)
  • Eisaku Satō, Prime Minister of Japan, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (died 1975)
  • Kenneth Slessor, Australian poet (died 1971)
• March 28 – Jack Weil, American entrepreneur (died 2008)
• April 1 – Whittaker Chambers, American spy (died 1961)
• April 5 – Melvyn Douglas, American actor (died 1981)
• April 13 – Jacques Lacan, French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist (died 1981)
• April 15
  • Joe Davis, English snooker and billiards player (died 1978)
  • Ajoy Mukherjee, Indian politician, Chief Minister of West Bengal (died 1986)
• April 18 – Al Lewis, American songwriter (died 1967)
• April 29 – Emperor Hirohito of Japan (died 1989)
• April 30 – Simon Kuznets, Ukrainian-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1985)

May–June

Gary Cooper

Henri Lefebvre

Zhang Xueliang

• May 7 – Gary Cooper, American actor (d. 1961)
• May 11 – Rose Ausländer, German poet (d. 1988)
• May 17 – Werner Egk, German composer (died 1983)
• May 18 – Vincent du Vigneaud, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1978)
• May 20
  • Max Euwe, Dutch chess player (died 1981)
  • Doris Fleeson, American journalist (died 1970)
• May 21
  • Manfred Aschner, German-born Israeli microbiologist and entomologist, recipient of the Israel Prize (died 1989).
  • Horace Heidt, American bandleader (died 1986)
  • Sam Jaffe, American film producer (died 2000)
  • Suzanne Lilar, Belgian essayist, novelist, and playwright (died 1992)
• May 25 – Antônio de Alcântara Machado, Brazilian novelist (died 1935)
• May 31 – Alfredo Antonini, American conductor and composer (died 1983)
• June 3 – Zhang Xueliang, Chinese military leader (d. 2001)
• June 6 – Sukarno, first President of Indonesia (died 1970)
• June 8 – Salustiano Sanchez, Spanish-born American supercentenarian, oldest living man (died 2013)
• June 12 – Arnold Kirkeby, American hotelier, art collector, and real estate investor (died 1962)
• June 13 – Tage Erlander, Swedish politician (social democrat), prime minister of Sweden for 23 years (1946–1969) (died 1985)
• June 16 – Henri Lefebvre, French Marxist philosopher and sociologist (died 1991)
• June 17 – F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, English World War II hero (died 1964)
• June 18 – Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia (died 1918)
• June 23 – Chuck Taylor, American basketball player and salesman (died 1969)
• June 24
  • Marcel Mule, French saxophonist (died 2001)
  • Harry Partch, American composer (died 1974)
• June 27 – Merle Tuve, American physicist (d. 1982)
• June 29 – Nelson Eddy, American singer and actor (died 1967)

July–August

Louis Armstrong

Ernest Lawrence

• July 7
  • Eiji Tsuburaya, Japanese film director and special effects designer (died 1970)
  • Vittorio De Sica, Italian actor and film director (died 1974)
• July 9 – Barbara Cartland, English novelist (died 2000)
• July 10 – Daniel V. Gallery, American admiral and author (died 1977)
• July 17 – Bruno Jasieński, Polish poet (died 1938)
• July 20 – Heinie Manush, American baseball player (died 1971)
• July 21 – Albert Hamilton Gordon, American businessman and philanthropist (died 2009)
• July 24 – Mabel Albertson, American actress (died 1982)
• July 28 – Rudy Vallee, American jazz musician (died 1986)
• July 31 – Jean Dubuffet, French painter (died 1985)
• August 1 – Pancho Villa, Filipino boxer (died 1925)
• August 4 – Louis Armstrong, American jazz musician (died 1971)
• August 5 – Thomas J. Ryan, American admiral (died 1970)
• August 8 – Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1958)
• August 10 – Franco Dino Rasetti, Italian scientist (died 2001)
• August 14 – Alice Rivaz, Swiss writer (died 1998)
• August 18
  • Lucienne Boyer, French singer (d. 1983)
  • Jean Guitton, French writer and philosopher (died 1999)
• August 20 – Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1968)
• August 24 – Edmund Germer German electrical engineer and inventor (d. 1987)
• August 26
  • Maxwell Taylor, American general (died 1987)
  • Chen Yi, Chinese military commander and politician (died 1972)
• August 28 – Babe London, American actress and comedian (died 1980)
• August 30 – John Gunther, American writer (died 1970)

September–October

Ed Sullivan

Enrico Fermi

• September 4 – William Lyons, British automobile engineer and designer (died 1985)
• September 9
  • James Blades, English percussionist (died 1999)
  • Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa (died 1966)
• September 12
  • Ben Blue, Canadian-born comedian and actor (died 1975)
  • Shmuel Horowitz, Russian-born Israeli agronomist (died 1999)
• September 15 – Sir Donald Bailey, British civil engineer (died 1985)
• September 17 – Sir Francis Chichester, British sailor (died 1972)
• September 22
  • Charles B. Huggins, Canadian-born cancer researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1997)
  • Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalin, second wife of Joseph Stalin (died 1932)
• September 23 – Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1986)
• September 24 – Gerald Warner Brace, American writer, educator, sailor and boat builder (died 1978)
• September 25 – Gordon Coventry, Australian rules footballer (died 1968)
• September 26 – George Raft, American film actor (died 1980)
• September 28
  • Ed Sullivan, American entertainer (died 1974)
  • William S. Paley, American businessman (CBS) (died 1990)
• September 29
  • Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1954)
  • Lanza del Vasto, Italian philosopher, poet, and activist (died 1981)
• October 2 – Alice Prin, French singer (died 1953)
• October 3 – Jean Grémillon, French film director (died 1959)
• October 10 – Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor (died 1966)
• October 19 – Arleigh Burke, American admiral (died 1996)
• October 20 – Adelaide Hall, American jazz singer and entertainer born in Brooklyn, New York (died 1993)
• October 24
  • Gilda Gray, Polish-born dancer and actress (died 1959)
  • Moultrie Kelsall, Scottish film and television actor (died 1980)
• October 28 – Hilo Hattie, Native Hawaiian singer and actress (died 1979)

November–December

Werner Heisenberg and Walt Disney born December 5

Marlene Dietrich

• November 3
  • Prithviraj Kapoor, pioneer of Indian Cinema and Indian Theatre (died 1972)
  • Léopold III of Belgium (died 1983)
• November 4
  • Masako Nashimoto, Crown Princess of Korea (died 1989)
  • Max Wagner, Mexican-born American film actor (died 1975)
• November 7 – Norah McGuinness, Irish painter and illustrator (died 1980)
• November 13 – Arturo Jauretche, Argentine writer, politician, and philosopher (died 1974)
• November 18 – George Gallup, American statistician and opinion pollster (died 1984)
• November 22 – Joaquín Rodrigo, Spanish composer (died 1999)
• November 28
  • Walter Havighurst, American critic, novelist, literary and social historian of the Midwest, professor of English at Miami University, (died 1994)
  • Roy Urquhart, British general (died 1988)
• November 29 – Mildred Harris, American actress (died 1944)
• December 5
  • Milton Erickson, American psychiatrist (died 1980)
  • Walt Disney, American animator and film producer (died 1966)
  • Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1976)
• December 7 – Troy Sanders, American film score composer (died 1959)
• December 8 –Arthur Leslie, British actor (died 1970)
• December 12 – Fred Barker, American criminal, youngest son of Ma Barker (d. 1935)
• December 16 – Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist (died 1978)
• December 19 – Rudolf Hell, German inventor (died 2002)
• December 25 – Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (died 2004)
• December 27 – Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress (died 1992)
• December 31 – Karl-August Fagerholm, Prime Minister of Finland (died 1984)

Deaths

January–June

Queen Victoria

Giuseppe Verdi

Benjamin Harrison

Marthinus Wessel Pretorius

• January 1 – Ignatius L. Donnelly, U.S. politician and writer (born 1831)
• January 8 – John Barry, Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross (born 1873)
• January 10 – Sir James Dickson, Premier of Queensland, Australian Minister for Defence (born 1832)
• January 11 – Vasily Kalinnikov, Russian composer (born 1866)
• January 14 – Víctor Balaguer, Spanish politician and author, (born 1824)
• January 16
  • Arnold Böcklin, Swiss artist (born 1827)
  • Mahadev Govind Ranade, Indian reformer (born 1842)
• January 17 – Frederic W. H. Myers, British poet (b. 1843)
• January 21 – Elisha Gray, American inventor and appliance manufacturer (born 1835)
• January 22 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Empress of India (b. 1819)
• January 27 – Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (b. 1813)
• January 28 – Iosif Gurko, Russian field marshal (b. 1878)
• February 7 – Ana Betancourt, Cuban national heroine (b. 1832)
• February 10 – Max von Pettenkofer Bavarian chemist and hygienist (b. 1818)
• February 11
  • King Milan I of Serbia (b. 1854)
  • Ramón de Campoamor, Spanish poet (born 1817)
• February 22 – George Francis FitzGerald, Irish mathematician (born 1851)
• February 26 – Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, Polish writer (born 1829)
• March 13 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833)
• April 3 – Richard D'Oyly Carte, English impresario (born 1844)
• April 19 – Alfred Horatio Belo, American businessman and newswriter (born 1839)
• May 1 – Lewis Waterman, American inventor and businessman (born 1837)
• May 5
  • Axel Wilhelm Eriksson, Swedish settler and trader in South-West Africa (born 1846)
  • Mariano Ignacio Prado, Peruvian military and statesman, former President of the Republic (born 1826)
• May 19 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, 1st President of South Africa (b. 1819)
• May 22 – Gaetano Bresci Italian anarchist and assassin (born 1869)
• May 24 – Charlotte Mary Yonge, English novelist (born 1823)
• May 31 – Ernest de Sarzec, French archeologist (born 1832)
• June 2 – George Leslie Mackay, Canadian missionary (b. 1844)
• June 9
  • Walter Besant, English writer (born 1836)
  • Adolf Bötticher, German art historian (born 1842)
• June 13 – Leopoldo Alas, 'Clarín', Spanisn novelist (born 1852)
• June 16 – Herman Grimm, German historian (born 1828)

July–December

Francesco Crispi

Adolf Eugen Fick

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

William McKinley

• July 4
  • John Fiske, American philosopher (b. 1842)
  • Johannes Schmidt, German linguist (b. 1843)
• July 6
  • Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1819)
  • Joseph LeConte, American physician and geologist, (b. 1823)
• July 7 – Johanna Spyri, Swiss writer (b. 1827)
• July 10 – Kliment of Tarnovo, 2nd Prime Minister of Bulgaria (b. 1841)
• July 18 – Jan ten Brink, Dutch writer (b. 1834)
• July 28 – John Irwin, American admiral (b. 1832)
• August 5 – Victoria, Empress of Germany (born 1840)
• August 12 – Francesco Crispi, 11th Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1819)
• August 19 – Shō Tai, last king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in Japan (born 1843)
• August 21 – Adolf Eugen Fick, German-born physician and physiologist (born 1829)
• August 24 – Clara Maass, American nurse (born 1876)
• September 5 – Ignacij Klemenčič, Slovenian physicist (born 1853)
• September 9 – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter (born 1864)
• September 14 – William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (b. 1843)
• October 1 – Abdur Rahman Khan, Emir of Afghanistan (born 1844)
• October 10 – Lorenzo Snow, Mormon leader (born 1814)
• October 15 – Carlos María Fitz-James Stuart, 16th Duke of Alba, Spanish aristocrat (born 1849)
• October 19 – Carl Frederik Tietgen, Danish financier and industrialist (born 1829)
• October 23 – Georg von Siemens, German banker (born 1839)
• October 29 – Leon Czolgosz, Polish-American assassin of U.S. President William McKinley (born 1873)
• November 7 – Li Hongzhang, Chinese general (born 1823)
• November 27 – Clement Studebaker, American manufacturer (born 1831)
• November 29 – Francisco Pi y Margall, Spanish politician, former president of the Republic (born 1824)
• November 30 – Edward John Eyre, English explorer (born 1815)
• December 1 – George Lohmann, English cricketer (born 1865)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
• Chemistry – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
• Medicine – Emil Adolf von Behring
• Literature – Sully Prudhomme
• Peace – Jean Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy

Significance of 1901 for modern computers

The date of Friday December 13 20:45:52 1901 is significant for modern computers because it is the earliest date representable with a signed 32-bit integer on systems that reference time in seconds since the Unix epoch. This corresponds to -2147483648 seconds from Thursday January 1 00:00:00 1970. For the same reason, many computers are also unable to represent an earlier date. For related reasons, many computer systems suffer from the Year 2038 problem. This is when the positive number of seconds since 1970 exceeds 2147483647 (01111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 in binary) and wraps to -2147483648. Hence the computer system erroneously displays or operates on the time Friday December 13 20:45:52 1901. In this way, the year 1900 is to the Year 2000 problem as the year 1901 is to the Year 2038 problem.

References

• Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia...1901 (1902); highly detailed compilation of facts and primary documents; worldwide coverage online edition