Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Jan
08
Jan
10
On January 10, 1901, a drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, produces an enormous gusher of crude oil, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the advent of the American oil industry.
384183 06: FILE PHOTO: The famous Lucas Gusher is blows out oil January 10, 1901 on Spindletop hill in Beaumont, Texas. Anthony Lucas's gusher, the first in Texas, first blew on this day and sprayed over 100 feet above the derrick for nine days until the well was capped. Beaumont, in the southeast corner of Texas, will host a day of centennial celebrations January 10, 2001 to commemorate the event as a historic and economic milestone. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the modern texas oil industry. (Photo by the Texas Energy Museum/Newsmakers)
Getty Images
Jan
22
The death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901, ends an era in which most of her British subjects know no other monarch. Her 63-year reign saw the growth of an empire on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution.
Jan
28
On January 28, 1901, professional baseball’s American League is founded in Milwaukee, reconstituting itself from a minor-league entity to a major-league one. The league plans for a 140-game schedule, 14-man rosters and a players’ union. Franchises are in Baltimore (Orioles), Boston (Americans), Chicago (White Stockings), Cleveland (Blues), Detroit (Tigers), Milwaukee (Brewers), Philadelphia (Athletics) and Washington (Senators).
Mar
15
On March 15, 1901, paintings by the late Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh are shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris in what was the artist's first retrospective exhibit. The 71 paintings, which captured their subjects in bold brushstrokes and expressive colors, caused a sensation across the art world.
May
21
Jul
24
Sep
06
On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley is shaking hands at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, when a 28-year-old anarchist named Leon Czolgosz approaches him and fires two shots into his chest. The president rose slightly on his toes before collapsing forward, saying “be careful how you tell my wife.”
Assassination of William McKinley (1843-1901), 25th president of USA from 1896, shot by anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, Buffalo, New York, and died 8 days after 22 September 1901 From "Le Petit Journal" Paris. (Photo by: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Universal Images Group via Getty
Sep
14
U.S. President William McKinley dies on September 14, 1901, eight days after being shot by a deranged anarchist during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
A crowd gathers on the street to watch the coffin of President William McKinley being transferred to a hearse after his funeral services. (Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Corbis/VCG via Getty Images
Sep
28
On September 28, 1901, Ed Sullivan, who will become the host of the long-running TV variety program "The Ed Sullivan Show_,_" is born in New York City. During the peak of its popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, Sullivan’s program showcased a wide range of entertainers, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Rudolf Nureyev, Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope.
Oct
24
Oct
29
On October 29, 1901, President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison in New York. Czolgosz had shot McKinley on September 6, 1901; the president succumbed to his wounds eight days later.
Dec
10
The first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace on December 10, 1901. The ceremony came on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and other high explosives. In his will, Nobel directed that the bulk of his vast fortune be placed in a fund in which the interest would be “annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” Although Nobel offered no public reason for his creation of the prizes, it is widely believed that he did so out of moral regret over the increasingly lethal uses of his inventions in war.
Julius Axelrod (1912-2004) American pharmacologist and neuroscientist who shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the actions of neurotransmitters in regulating the metabolism of the nervous system. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Universal Images Group via Getty
Dec
12
Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message—simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”—traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.
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