Claude Debussy composes La Mer.

The Fauves (wild beasts), a short-lived group of painters led by Henri

Matisse and Andre Derain, stages an exhibition at the Salon d'Automne in Paris.

Die Bruke (The Bridge), a group of German Expressionist painters explicitly opposed to Impressionism, is formed in Dresden. It disbands in 1913.

British novelist E. M. Forster publishes Where Angels Fear to Tread.

The Nobel Prize for literature is awarded to Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Sigmund Freud publishes Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory.

The zipper is invented.

The Trans-Siberian Railroad between Moscow and Vladivostok on the Pacific coast is completed. Construction had begun on Russia's longest rail line in 1881.

The Mining Act is passed in Japan, limiting the hours of work for women and children and establishing age ten as the minimum age for child laborers. It will be extended by the Factory Act of 1911, though both measures affect...