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1904
Year 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday
of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar).
Events of 1904
January - February
* January 7 - The distress signal ''CQD'' is established, only to be replaced 2 years later by ''SOS''.
* January 12 - Henry Ford sets a new automobile land speed record of 91.37 mph.
* January 16 - The first large-scale bodybuilding competition in America takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
* February 7 - The Great Baltimore Fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
* February 8 - A Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur (Lushun) starts the Russo-Japanese War.
* February 10 - Roger Casement publishes his account of Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
* February 23 - For $10 million, the United States gains control of the Panama Canal Zone.
* February 28 - Sport Lisboa e Benfica is founded in Portugal.
March - April
* March 3 - Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a political recording of a document, using Thomas Edison's cylinder.
* March 4 - Russo-Japanese War: Russian troops in Korea retreat toward Manchuria, followed by 100,000 Japanese troops.
* March 31 - British expedition to Tibet - Battle of Guru: British troops under Colonel Francis Younghusband defeat ill-equipped Tibetan troops.
* April 8
**The Entente Cordiale is signed between the UK and France.
**Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after ''The New York Times''.
* April 19 - The Great Toronto Fire destroys much of that city's downtown, but there are no fatalities.
* April 27 - The Australian Labor Party becomes the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson.
* April 30 - The Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair opens in St. Louis, Missouri (closes December 1).
May - June
* May 4 - U.S. Army engineers begin work on The Panama Canal.
* May 5 - Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
* May 9 - GWR 3440 City of Truro becomes the first railway locomotive to exceed 100 mph.
* May 21 - The International Federation of Association Football, FIFA, is established.
* June 10 - Irish author James Joyce meets his future wife Nora Barnacle.
* June 15 - A fire aboard the steamboat ''General Slocum'' in New York City's East River kills 1,021.
* June 16 - Eugen Schauman assassinates Nikolai Bobrikov, Governor-General of Finland.
* June 16 - James Joyce walks to Ringsend with Nora Barnacle; he later uses this date (Bloomsday) as the setting for his novel ''Ulysses''.
* June 28 - The Danish ocean liner ''SS Norge'' runs aground and sinks close to Rockall, killing 635, including 225 Norwegian emigrants.
* June 29 - The 1904 Moscow tornado occurs.
July - August
* July 1 - The third Modern Olympic Games opens in St. Louis, Missouri, United States as part of the World's Fair.
* July 21 - The Trans-Siberian railway is completed.
* July 23 - In St. Louis, Missouri, the ice cream cone is invented during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
* August 3 - British expedition to Tibet: The British expedition under Colonel Francis Younghusband takes Lhasa in Tibet.
* August 14 - Ismael Montes becomes President of Bolivia.
* August 17 - Russo-Japanese War: A Japanese infantry charge fails to take Port Arthur.
* August 18 - Chris Watson resigns as Prime Minister of Australia and is succeeded by George Reid.
September - October
* September 7 - British expedition to Tibet: The Dalai Lama signs the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty with Colonel Francis Younghusband.
* October 15 - Theta Tau, the Professional Engineering Fraternity, is founded at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
* October 19 - Polytechnic University of the Philippines is founded as Manila Business School through the superintendence of the American C.A. O'Reilley.
* October 21 - Russo-Japanese War - Dogger Bank incident: The Russian Baltic Fleet fires on British trawlers it mistakes for Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea.
* October 27 - The first underground line of the New York City Subway opens.
November - December
* November 4 - In Florence, Italy, the Arno River floods.
* November 8 - U.S. presidential election, 1904: Republican incumbent Theodore Roosevelt defeats Democrat Alton B. Parker.
* November 24 - The first successful caterpillar track is made (it later revolutionizes construction vehicles and land warfare).
* December 2 - The St. Petersburg Soviet urges a run on the banks: the attempt fails and the executive committee is arrested.
* December 3 - Charles Dillon Perrine discovers Jupiter's largest irregular satellite, Himalia.
* December 4 - The K.U. or Konservativ Ungdom (Young Conservatives) is founded by Carl F. Herman von Rosen in Denmark .
* December 10 - The Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity is founded.
* December 27 - The stage play ''Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up'' premieres in London.
* December 30 - The East Boston Tunnel opens.
* December 31 - In New York City, the first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square.
Undated
* The Herero Wars begin.
* The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Joseph F. Smith issues a ''Second Manifesto'' against polygamy.
* The subject of alcohol and heart attacks is first investigated.
* The Loftus Road and Griffin Park football stadiums open.
* Stuyvesant High School is founded in New York City.
Ongoing
*Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
*1904-1905 Welsh Revival
Births
January-February
* January 1 - Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Pakistani politician (d. 1982)
* January 3 - Jeane Dixon, American astrologer (d. 1997)
* January 10 - Ray Bolger, American actor, singer, and dancer (''The Wizard of Oz'')(d. 1987)
* January 13 - Richard Addinsell, British composer (d. 1977)
* January 14 - Cecil Beaton, English photographer (d. 1980)
* January 18 - Cary Grant, English actor (d. 1986)
* January 22
**George Balanchine, Russian-born choreographer (d. 1983)
**Arkady Gaidar, Russian children's writer (d. 1941)
* January 26
**Ancel Keys, American scientist (d. 2004)
**Seán MacBride, Irish statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1988)
* January 27 - J. J. Gibson, American psychologist (d. 1979)
* January 28 - Canuplin, Filipino magician and bodabil entertainer (d. 1979)
* January 29 - Arnold Gehlen, German philosopher (d. 1976)
* February 1 - S. J. Perelman, American humorist and author (d. 1979)
* February 3
**Luigi Dallapiccola, Italian composer (d. 1975)
**Pretty Boy Floyd, American gangster (d. 1934)
* February 4 - MacKinlay Kantor, American writer and historian (d. 1977)
* February 11 - Sir Keith Holyoake, Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1983)
* February 16
**George F. Kennan, American diplomat (d. 2005)
**Philip Rabinowitz (runner), South African record breaking sprinter (d. 2008)
* February 20 - Aleksei Kosygin, Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1980)
* February 29 - Jimmy Dorsey, American bandleader (d. 1957)
March-April
* March 1 - Glenn Miller, American bandleader (d. 1944)
* March 2 - Dr. Seuss, American children's author (''The Cat in the Hat'') (d. 1991)
* March 4
**George Gamow, Ukrainian-born physicist (d. 1968)
**Joseph Schmidt, Austrian-Hungarian tenor and actor (d. 1942)
**Chief Tahachee (actor), American-born stage and film actor (d. 1978)
* March 7 - Reinhard Heydrich, German Nazi official (d. 1942)
* March 14 - Doris Eaton Travis, American actress
* March 20 - B. F. Skinner, American behavioral psychologist (d. 1990)
* March 22 - Itche Goldberg, Yiddish author (d. 2006)
* March 26
**Gustave Biéler, Swiss-born hero of World War II (executed) (d. 1944)
**Joseph Campbell, American author on mythology (d. 1987)
**Xenophon Zolotas, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2004)
* April 1 - Nikolai Berzarin, Russian Red Army General (d. 1945)
* April 3 - Sally Rand, American dancer and actress (d. 1979)
* April 8 - John Hicks, English economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)
* April 9 - Sharkey Bonano, American jazz musician (d. 1972)
* April 14 - Sir John Gielgud, English actor (d. 2000)
* April 15 - Arshile Gorky, Armenian-born painter (d. 1948)
* April 16 - Fifi D'Orsay, Canadian actress (d. 1983)
* April 22 - Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist (d. 1967)
* April 24 - Willem de Kooning, Dutch artist (d. 1997)
* April 26 - Jimmy McGrory, Scottish footballer (d. 1982)
* April 27 - Cecil Day-Lewis, English poet (d. 1972)
* April 29 - Pedro Vargas, Mexican singer and actor (d. 1989)
May-June
* May 6
**Moshe Feldenkrais, Ukrainian-born engineer (d. 1984)
**Harry Martinson, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
* May 8 - John Snagge, British radio personality (d. 1996)
* May 11 - Salvador Dalí, Spanish artist (d. 1989)
* May 17 - Jean Gabin, French actor (d. 1976)
* May 21
**Fats Waller, American pianist and comedian (d. 1943)
**Robert Montgomery, American actor and director (d. 1981)
* May 26 - George Formby, English singer and comedian (d. 1961)
* May 27 - Chuhei Nambu, Japanese athlete (d. 1997)
* June 2
**Frantisek Planicka, Czech footballer (d. 1996)
**Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor (''Tarzan'') (d. 1984)
* June 3 - Jan Peerce, American tenor (d. 1984)
* June 6 - Francisco López Merino, Argentine poet (d. 1928)
* June 26 - Peter Lorre, Hungarian-born film actor (d. 1964)
July-August
* July 5 - Ernst Mayr, German-born biologist and author (d. 2005)
* July 6 - Erik Wickberg, General of The Salvation Army (d. 1996)
* July 8 - Henri Cartan, French mathematician (d. 2008)
* July 12 - Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
* July 15 - Rudolf Arnheim, German-born author (d. 2007)
* July 28 - Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
* August 4 - Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (d. 1969)
* August 7 - Ralph Bunche, American diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1971)
* August 12 - Tsarevich Alexei of Russia (d. 1918)
* August 16 - Wendell Meredith Stanley, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
* August 17
**Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist (d. 1991)
**Mary Cain, American newspaper editor and politician (d. 1984)
* August 21 - Count Basie, American musician and bandleader (d. 1984)
* August 22 - Deng Xiaoping, Chinese leader (d. 1997)
* August 23
**Viscountess Furness, American socialite twin (d. 1970)
**Gloria Morgan-Vanderbilt, American socialite twin (d. 1965)
* August 28 - Secondo Campini, Italian jet pioneer (d. 1980)
* August 29 - Werner Forssmann, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1979)
September-October
* September 9 - Feroze Khan, Pakistani field hockey player (d. 2005)
* September 22 - Joseph Valachi, American gangster (d. 1971)
* September 29 - Greer Garson, English actress (d. 1996)
* October 1
**A.K. Gopalan, Indian communist leader (d. 1977)
**Irene Craigmile Bolam, American Amelia Earhart look-alike/believed alias(d. 1982)
* October 3 - Charles J. Pedersen, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)
* October 9 - Wally Brown, American actor and comedian (d. 1961)
* October 20 - Tommy Douglas, Canadian politician (d. 1986)
* October 23 - Harvey Penick, American golfer (d. 1995)
* October 25 - Vladimir Peter Tytla, American animator (d. 1968)
* October 27 - Erno Schwarz, Hungarian American soccer player (d. 1974)
November-December
* November 2 - Louis Eugène Félix Néel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
* November 4 - Tadeusz Żyliński, Polish technician and textilist (d. 1967)
* November 11 - J. H. C. Whitehead, British mathematician (d. 1960)
* November 12 - Jacques Tourneur, French director (d. 1977)
* November 14
**Dick Powell, American actor and singer (d. 1963)
**Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1988)
* November 16 - Nnamdi Azikiwe, President of Nigeria (d. 1996)
* November 18 - Masao Koga, Japanese composer (d. 1978)
* November 25
**Lillian Copeland, American athlete (d. 1964)
**Toni Ortelli, Italian composer and alpinist (d. 2000)
* November 30 - Clyfford Still, American painter (d. 1980)
* December 6 - Eve Curie, French author (d. 2007)
* December 12 - Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, French-born magazine editor and socialite (d. 1981)
* December 18 - George Stevens, American film director (d. 1975)
* December 24 - Joseph M. Juran, American engineer and philanthropist (d. 2008)
* December 25 - Gerhard Herzberg, German-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
* December 26 - Alejo Carpentier, Cuban writer (d. 1980)
* December 30 - Dmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky, Russian composer (d. 1987)
* December 31 - Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer and actress (d. 1975)
*''date unknown''
**Bernard Castro, Italian inventor (d. 1991)
**Tevfik Esenç, Turkish-born last speaker of the Ubykh language (d. 1992)
Deaths
January - June
* January 2 - January 10 - Jean-Léon Gérôme, French painter (b. 1824)
* January 20 - Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, Russian chemist (b. 1834)
* February 8 - Alfred Ainger, English biographer (b. 1837)
* February 22 - Leslie Stephen, English writer and critic (b. 1832)
* March 5 - John Lowther du Plat Taylor, British founder of the Army Post Office Corps (b. 1829)
* March 17 - Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, grandson of King George III (b. 1819)
* April 10 - Queen Isabella II of Spain (b. 1830)
* May 1 - Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer (b. 1841)
* May 8 - Eadweard Muybridge, English photographer and motion picture pioneer (b. 1830)
* May 10 - Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh explorer and journalist (b. 1841)
* May 19 - Auguste Molinier, French historian (b. 1851)
* June 4 - George Frederick Phillips, Canadian-born military hero (b. 1862)
* June 12 - Camille de Renesse, Belgian Count (b. 1836)
July - December
* July 3 - Theodor Herzl, Austrian founder of Zionism (b. 1860)
* July 5 - Abai Kunanbaiuli, Kazakh poet (b. 1845)
* July 14
**Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (b. 1860)
**Paul Kruger, South African resistance leader (b. 1825)
* July 22 - Wilson Barrett, English actor (b. 1846)
* August 6 - Eduard Hanslick, Austrian music critic (b. 1825)
* August 16 - Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, American author of dime fiction (b. 1843)
* August 22 - Kate Chopin, American author (b. 1851)
* August 25 - Henri Fantin-Latour, French painter (b. 1836)
* August 29 - Ottoman Sultan Murad V (b. 1840)
* September 24 - Niels Ryberg Finsen, Icelandic/Faroese/Danish physician and scientist (b. 1860)
* September 26
**Lafcadio Hearn, American-Japanese author (b. 1850)
**John F. Stairs, Canadian businessman and statesman (b. 1848)
* October 4
**Frédéric Bartholdi, Alsatian sculptor (b. 1834)
**Laurence Hope, English poetess (b. 1865)
* October 21 - Isabelle Eberhardt, Swiss-Algerian explorer (b. 1877)
Nobel prizes
*Physics - The Lord Rayleigh
*Chemistry - Sir William Ramsay
*Physiology or Medicine - Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
*Literature - Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray Y Eizaguirre
*Peace - Institut De Droit International
Notes
Source: Wikipedia