Events
January
January 6 – Abé people in the French West Africa colony of Côte d'Ivoire rise against the colonial administration; the rebellion is brutally suppressed by the military. July 4 – Jack Johnson defeats James J. Jeffries by technical knockout in the 15th round at Reno, Nevada, in the bout billed as the "Fight of the Century". Johnson retains his world heavyweight boxing title over the previously undefeated Jeffries, who had been promoted as boxing's "Great White Hope". The result sparks race riots across more than 25 states, leaving at least 20 people dead. January 8 – Treaty of Punakha: The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan becomes a protectorate of the British Empire. January 11 – Charcot Island is discovered by the Antarctic expedition led by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot on the ship Pourquoi Pas? January 12 – Great January Comet of 1910 first observed (perihelion: January 17). January 15 – Amidst the constitutional crisis caused by the House of Lords rejecting the People's Budget, the January 1910 United Kingdom general election is held resulting in a hung parliament with neither Liberals nor Conservatives gaining a majority. January 21 – The Great Flood of Paris begins when the Seine overflows its banks. January 22 – Completion of construction of New York City's Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, at the world's tallest building at this time, is celebrated. January 31 A coal mine explosion at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Primero, Colorado, kills 75 miners. American-born medical practitioner Hawley Harvey Crippen poisons his wife, Cora, and buries her body in the cellar of their London home (probable date).
February
February 1 – A coal mine explosion at the Browder Coal Company in Drakesboro, Kentucky kills 34 miners. February 2 – A coal mine explosion at the Palau mine at Las Esperanzas in the State of Coahuila in Mexico kills 68 miners. February 5 – A coal mine explosion at the Jefferson Clearfield Coal Company mine at Ernest, Pennsylvania, kills 11 miners (10 Hungarian) but another 110 are able to escape. February 9 – French liner General Chanzy sinks in the Mediterranean after striking rocks off Menorca, with only one survivor of the 157 on board. February 12 – Chinese expedition to Tibet: A force of 2,000 Chinese troops march into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet; the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, is forced to flee to British India. February 20 – Boutros Ghali, the first native-born Prime Minister of Egypt, is assassinated in Cairo.
March
March – Albanian revolt of 1910: An uprising against Ottoman rule breaks out in Albania. March 1 – The Wellington, Washington avalanche sweeps away two Great Northern Railway (U.S.) passenger trains in the Cascade Mountains, killing 96, making it the worst snowslide accident in United States history. March 3 – Morocco signs accords with France in Paris, permitting the French to occupy Casablanca and Oujda in return for military training, as part of refinancing of loans. March 4 – The Rogers Pass avalanche buries a group of Canadian Pacific Railway workers clearing tracks in the Selkirk Mountains at Rogers Pass (British Columbia), making it the worst snowslide accident in Canadian history. March 8 – In France, Raymonde de Laroche is awarded Pilot's license No. 36 by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, becoming the first woman authorized to fly an airplane. March 10 Slavery in China, which has existed since the Shang dynasty, is made illegal. Release of In Old California, the first film made in Hollywood, California, directed by D. W. Griffith. March 17 – Progressive Republicans in the United States House of Representatives rebel against Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon, removing him from the Rules Committee and stripping him of his power to appoint committee chairmen. March 18 – The first filmed version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein comes out. Considered to be the first horror movie, it stars actor Charles Ogle as the monster. March 20 – The first clinic for treatment of occupational diseases is opened in Milan (Italy). March 23 – A rebellion by Rif tribesmen in Spanish Morocco is finally suppressed after 8 months. During the conflict, an estimated 8,000 Berbers and 2,000 Spanish soldiers have been killed. March 27 – A fire during a barn-dance in Ököritófülpös, Hungary, kills 312 people after ballroom decorations catch alight.
April
April 5 – The Transandine Railway connecting Chile and Argentina is inaugurated. April 10 – Halley's Comet becomes visible with the naked eye (perihelion: April 20); Earth passes through its tail about May 19 (its next visit will be in 1986).
May
May 6 – George V becomes King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland upon the death of his father, Edward VII. May 31 – The Union of South Africa is created.
June
June 2 – Charles Rolls became the first person to fly across the English Channel and back without stopping. June 3 – The Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, led by Roald Amundsen on the steamer Fram, departs from Christiania (modern-day Oslo). No announcement until later in the year of Amundsen's intention to reach the South Pole.Paul Simpson-Housley, Antarctica: Exploration, Perception, and Metaphor (Routledge, 1992), p26 June 5 – The Nanyang industrial exposition ("Nanking Exposition"), an official world's fair, opens in Qing dynasty China.Big5.xinhuanet.com. "Xinhuanet.com ." 南京舉辦《跨越歷史的牽手--中國與世博會》圖片展. Retrieved 2010-05-08. June 14–23 – Edinburgh Missionary Conference is held in Scotland, presided over by John Mott, launching the modern ecumenical movement and the modern missions movement. June 15 – The British Antarctic Expedition, led by Robert Falcon Scott on the whaler Terra Nova, departs from Cardiff for the South Pole. June 22 – DELAG Zeppelin dirigible Deutschland makes the first commercial passenger flight, from Friedrichshafen to Düsseldorf in Germany; the flight takes 9 hours. June 25 – The ballet The Firebird, the first major work by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, commissioned by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, is premièred in Paris, bringing the composer international fame.
July
July – First Girl Guide troops registered in the United Kingdom, under the supervision of Agnes Baden-Powell. July 4 – Jack Johnson defeats James J. Jeffries by technical knockout in the 15th round at Reno, Nevada, in the bout billed as the "Fight of the Century". Johnson retains his world heavyweight boxing title over the previously undefeated Jeffries, who had been promoted as boxing's "Great White Hope". The result sparks race riots across more than 25 states, leaving at least 20 people dead. July 9–10 – 'Fowler's match': the Eton v Harrow cricket match at Lord's ground in London, known after the captain of Eton College, Robert St Leger Fowler, and described as "what might just be the greatest cricket match of all time". July 12 – Charles Rolls becomes the first British aviation fatality when his French-built Wright aeroplane suffers a broken rudder at an altitude of and crashes during a contest at Bournemouth. July 22 – A Wireless telegraph sent from the results in the identification, arrest and execution of murderer Dr. Crippen. July 24 – Ottoman forces capture the city of Shkodër to put down the Albanian Revolt of 1910.
August
August 20 – The Great Fire of 1910 ("Big Blowup"), a wildfire that burns 4,700 square miles in the Inland Northwest of the United States, due to dry weather. August 22 – The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, by which the Empire of Japan formally annexes the Korean Empire, is signed (it becomes effectively void in 1945, which is formally recognised in 1965). August 28 – Montenegro is proclaimed an independent kingdom, under Nicholas I. August 29 – Emperor Sunjong of Korea abdicates and the country's monarchy is abolished.
September
September 1 – Sport Club Corinthians Paulista is founded in Brazil by railwaymen; its Association football team will be the first FIFA Club World Cup champions in 2000.
October
October Infrared photographs are first published by Professor Robert Williams Wood, in the Royal Photographic Society's journal. Approximate date of origin of Manchurian plague, a form of pneumonic plague which by December is spreading through northeastern China, killing more than 40,000. October 5 – 5 October 1910 revolution: The First Portuguese Republic is proclaimed in Lisbon; King Manuel II of Portugal flees to England. October 7 – Baudette fire of 1910, a wildfire that burns ca. 350,000 square miles in Minnesota and Ontario, including several towns. October 20 – The hull of White Star ocean liner is launched, at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast. October 23 – Vajiravudh (Rama VI) is crowned King of Siam, after the death of his father, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V).
November
November 7 – The first air flight for the purpose of delivering commercial freight takes place in the United States. The flight, made by Wright brothers pilot Philip Parmalee, is between Dayton and Columbus, Ohio. November 14 – In the first takeoff from a ship by a fixed-wing aircraft, Eugene Ely takes off from a temporary platform erected over the bow of the light cruiser USS Birmingham in Hampton Roads, Virginia. November 18 – Black Friday: 300 suffragettes clash with police outside the Parliament of the United Kingdom over the failure of the Conciliation Bill. November 20 – The Mexican Revolution begins, when Francisco I. Madero proclaims the elections of 1910 null and void, and calls for an armed revolution against the illegitimate presidency/dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. November 22 – Revolt of the Lash at Rio de Janeiro: Mutineers in the Brazilian Navy, led by João Cândido, seize control of the new dreadnought battleship Minas Geraes and other ships, whose guns are aimed at the city as the crews demand improvements in their conditions (which are conceded on November 26 by the Brazilian government).
December
December 3 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show. December 10 – Giacomo Puccini's opera La fanciulla del West has its world première at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, conducted by Arturo Toscanini and starring Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn. December 19 – The second 1910 United Kingdom general election (the last to be fought with an all-male electorate) concludes with confirmation of a majority for the Liberal Party in alliance with the Irish Parliamentary Party, resolving the battle of wills between the House of Commons of the United Kingdom and the House of Lords by giving a majority for restriction of the powers of the Lords and support for the Irish Home Rule movement. December 21 – Pretoria Pit disaster: a coal mine explosion at the Hulton Colliery Company of Westhoughton in Lancashire, England, kills 344 miners, with just one survivor.
Undated Henry Ford sells 10,000 automobiles. Hitachi, an electromechanics company, is founded as a mining machine repair factory in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.
Births
January
January 4 Josephine McKim, American Olympic swimmer (d. 1992) Hilde Schrader, German swimmer (d. 1966) January 5 – Jack Lovelock, New Zealand Olympic athlete (d. 1949) January 6 – James "Lugs" Branigan, Irish police detective and boxer (d. 1986) January 8 – Galina Ulanova, Russian dancer (d. 1998) January 10 – Allal al-Fassi, Moroccan politician, writer, poet and Islamic scholar (d. 1974) January 11 – Trygve Bratteli, Norwegian politician, Prime Minister of Norway (d. 1984) January 12 Luise Rainer, German-born actress (d. 2014) Patsy Kelly, American actress and comedian (d. 1981) January 21 – Károly Takács, Hungarian Olympic shooter (d. 1976) January 23 – Django Reinhardt, Romani-French jazz musician (d. 1953) January 27 – Edvard Kardelj, Yugoslav political leader, partisan (d. 1979) January 28 – John Banner, Austrian-born American actor (d. 1973)