In the year 1900...
- The Boxer Rebellion erupts in northern China, as a anti-foreign society of destitute peasantry besieges foreign enclaves in Peking and Tientsin for three months with the tacit approval of the Manchu regime. The uprising is suppressed by a multi-national China Relief Expedition.
- The Boer War rages in South Africa. The tide begins to turn against the Boers as massive numbers of British reinforcements arrive under the command of Lord Roberts and his chief-of-staff Horatio Kitchener.
- The Great Galveston Hurricane smashes Galveston, Texas to splinters, killing about 12,000 people in the worst natural disaster in American history.
- The British parliament approves the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia.
- France hosts a World's Fair, the Paris Exposition Universelle.
- President William McKinley signs the Gold Standard Act, requiring US paper money to be backed by gold.
- American temperance advocate Carry Nation turns to violence in Kansas, as she and her followers run amuck smashing saloons and liquor-selling establishments.
- Irish patriot Arthur Griffith founds the Irish nationalist movement Sinn Féin.
- Three investigators independently rediscover Austrian monk Gregor Mendel's groundbreaking discoveries in genetics, which had languished unnoticed for 34 years.
- Max Planck develops quantum theory.
- Ferdinand von Zeppelin invents and successfully flies the first rigid airship, LZ 1.
- Eastman Kodak introduces a $1 box camera, the "brownie," making photography accessible to the average person for the first time.
- Sigmund Freud publishes his seminal work on his psychoanalytic theory, The Interpretation of Dreams.
- American novelist Frank Baum publishes his novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, an allegory about the gold standard.
- French novelist Colette publishes Claudine à l'école, the first novel in her sensationalistic four-part Claudine series.
These people were born in 1900:
These people died in 1900:
1899 - 1900 - 1901
20th Century