1902 - Definition and Overview

Events

January-April

• January 28 - The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, DC with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.
• France, Loisy's L'évangile et l'Eglise which inaugurates the Modernist Crisis
• February 11 - Police beat up universal suffrage demonstrators in Brussels.
• February 15 – Berlin underground opened
• March 1 - Rear Admiral Frank F. Wildes takes command of the USS Kentucky (BB-6)
• March 10 - Circuit Court's decision disallows Thomas Edison from having a monopoly on motion picture technology.
• March 10 - Boer War: South African Boers win their last battle over British forces, with the capture of a British general and 200 of his men.
• March 31 - Disputed first powered heavier-than-air flight; most date it 1903 if at all
• April 2 - "Electric Theatre", the first movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, California.
• The Irish National Theatre Society is founded by W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge and George Russell.

May-December

• May 8 - In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroys the town of St. Pierre, and kills over 30,000 people. Only a small handful of St. Pierre's residents survived the blast.
• May 13 - Alfonso XIII of Spain formally begins his reign
• May 15 - In a field outside Grass Valley, California, Lyman Gilmore reportedly becomes the first person to fly a powered airplane (a steam-powered glider).
• May 17 - Archaeologist Spyridon Stais finds the Antikythera mechanism
• May 20 - Cuba gains independence from the United States
• May 29 - Lord Rosebury opens London School of Economics
• May 31 - Peace of Vereeniging ends Second Boer War
• June 15 - The New York Central railroad inaugurates the 20th Century Limited passenger train between Chicago, IL and New York, NY.
• June 16 - Australia: Female British subjects (with the glaring exception of Asians, Aborigines and Africans) won the vote with the Uniform Franchise Act.
• June 26 - Edward VII institutes The Order of Merit
• July 11 - Retirement of Lord Salisbury from the post of British prime minister after almost 14 years
• July 11 - Order of the Garter conferred on Archduke Ferdinand
• August 9 - Edward VII is crowned King of the United Kingdom.
• September 3 - Popular author Sarah Orne Jewett is thrown out of a carriage, virtually ending her writing career.
• October 21 - In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
• November 30 - American Old West: Second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, Kid Curry Logan, is sentenced to 20 years hard labor.
• December 31 - Scott, Shackleton and Wilson reach the furthest southern point thus far by man at 82°17'S

unknown dates

• Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud begin to expand what becomes Saudi Arabia
• Roland Molineux, The Knickerbocker Murderer, is acquitted
• US president Roosevelt prosecutes the Northern Securities Company for violation of the Sherman Act
• The catholic church friendly took over-hand in Nauru and then became Nauru's main religion.

Births

January-February

• January 6 - Max Güde, attorney (d. 1984)
• January 9 - Rudolph Bing, opera manager (d. 1997)
• January 9 - Josemaría Escrivá, Spanish priest and founder of Opus Dei (d. 1975)
• January 16 - Eric Liddell, Scottish runner
• January 20 - Nazim Hikmet, lyricist and dramatist (d. 1963)
• January 22 - Daniel Kinsey, American hurdler
• January 31 - Alva Myrdal, politician (d. 1986)
• January 31 - Tallulah Bankhead, actress (d. 1968)
• February 1 - Langston Hughes, writer (d. 1967)
• February 4 - Charles Lindbergh, American aviator (d. 1974)
• February 6 - George Brunies, jazz musician (d. 1974)
• February 8 - Lyle Talbot, actor (d. 1996)
• February 10 - Walter Houser Brattain, scientist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956
• February 11 - Arne Jacobsen, Danish architect/designer
• February 20 - Ansel Adams, photographer (d. 1984)
• February 27 - John Steinbeck American writer
• February 27 - Gene Sarazen, golfer

March-April

• March 7 - Heinz Rühmann, actor (d. 1994)
• March 9 - Elisabeth Pelletier de Chambure, wife of Philippe de Rothschild (d. 1945)
• March 9 - Will Geer, actor (d. 1978)
• March 16 - Leon Roppolo, jazz clarinetist (d. 1943)
• March 17 - Bobby Jones, golfer (d. 1971)
• March 21 - Son House, blues musician
• March 24 - Thomas Dewey, politician (d. 1971)
• March 28 - Dame Flora Robson, actress (d. 1984)
• March 29 - William Walton, composer
• March 29 - Marcel Aymé, narrator and dramatist, humorist and satirist (d. 1967)
• April 4 - Louise Leveque de Vilmorin, actress (d. 1969)
• April 12 - Louis Beel, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1977)
• April 23 - Halldór Laxness, author (d. 1998)

May-October

• May 6 - Max Ophüls, director (d. 1957)
• May 6 - Harry Golden, U.S. journalist (d. 1981)
• May 10 - Anatole Litvak, film director (d. 1974)
• May 10 - David O. Selznick, Hollywood film producer (d. 1965)
• May 15 - Richard J. Daley, mayor of Chicago, Illinois (d. 1976)
• May 18 - Meredith Willson, composer (d. 1984)
• May 21 - Earl Averill, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1983)
• May 21 - Marcel Lajos Breuer, architect (d. 1981)
• May 22 - Al Simmons, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1956)
• July 4 - George Murphy, dancer, actor, Senator from California (d. 1992)
• July 4 - Meyer Lansky, mobster (d. 1983)
• July 26 - Gracie Allen, actress, comedienne (d. 1964)
• August 8 - Paul Dirac, physicist
• August 9 - Zino Francescatti, French violinist (d. 1991)
• August 10 - Norma Shearer, Academy Award winning actress (d. 1983)
• August 11 - Alfredo Binda, Italian cyclist
• August 19 - Ogden Nash, poet
• August 22 - Leni Riefenstahl, German film director (d. 2003)
• August 25 - Stefan Wolpe, composer (d. 1972)
• September 22 - John Houseman, actor and producer (d. 1988)
• October 5 - Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's Corporation
• October 25 - Eddie Lang, jazz musician (d. 1933)

November-December

• November 1 - Eugen Jochum, German conductor (d. 1987)
• November 2 - Mafalda Maria Elisabetta of Savoy, (d. 1944)
• November 9 - Anthony Asquith British film director, (d. 1968)
• December 2 - Wilfredo Lam, Cuban artist (d. 1982)
• December 5 - Strom Thurmond, United States senator (d. 2003)
• December 20 - Prince George, Duke of Kent (d. 1942)
• December 28 - Mortimer Adler, American Philosopher (d. 2001)

Deaths

• March 26 - Cecil Rhodes, imperialist
• May 26 - Almon Strowger, developed the Strowger switch
• July 4 - Swami Vivekananda
• September 5 - Rudolf Virchow, German doctor, pathologist, biologist, and politician
• September 6 - Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, British chemist.
• September 29 - Emile Zola, French author
• October 26 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's rights activist
•  ? -Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet
• December 22 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, sexologist

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Pieter Zeeman
• Chemistry - Hermann Emil Fischer
• Medicine - Ronald Ross
• Literature - Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen
• Peace - Élie Ducommun, Charles Albert Gobat