Events, Verisoph

c. 1905 The Aga Khan urges his followers to put down roots in East Africa 0 cit. Aga Khan III directed his Ismaili followers to settle permanently in East Africa and to build schools, clinics, housing and businesses. His guidance produced one of the most organised and institution-rich of the Asian communities. It helped shape a settled, investing minority rather than a purely transient trading one. economy / religion ●

c. 1905 East Africa runs on the Indian rupee 0 cit. The protectorate used the Indian rupee as its currency, a sign of how closely its economy and administration were tied to British India. A costly switch to the florin and then the shilling in the early 1920s hurt many Indian holders of rupees. The episode fed the community's sense of being treated as second-class subjects. economy ●

23 February 1905 Paul Harris founds the first Rotary Club in Chicago 0 cit. The lawyer Paul P. Harris gathered three acquaintances, a coal dealer, a mining engineer, and a merchant tailor, for the first meeting of what became the Rotary Club of Chicago. Harris wanted a professional club that would recreate the friendly, trusting spirit he had known in small towns. It grew into the first of the modern service clubs. economy / society ●●●

c. 1905 The club takes the name Rotary from its rotating meetings 0 cit. The early members met in rotation at each other's offices and places of business. That practice gave the club its name, Rotary. The custom faded as clubs grew and moved to fixed meeting places, but the name stayed. society ●

23 February 1905 Paul Harris founds the Rotary Club of Chicago 0 cit. The lawyer Paul Harris gathered three business acquaintances in a downtown office and started the Rotary Club, named for the early practice of rotating meetings among members' workplaces. It began as a fellowship of businessmen but soon adopted community service as its purpose. Rotary became the model for the wave of American service clubs that followed and later spread worldwide. economy / society ●●

19 October 1905 Koitalel arap Samoei and the Nandi resistance 0 cit. The orkoiyot Koitalel arap Samoei led the Nandi in more than ten years of resistance to British advance, fighting the railway and punitive columns pushing through their land. In 1905 the officer Richard Meinertzhagen lured him to a meeting under a truce and shot him dead. His killing broke organized Nandi resistance and marks the colonial hinge where independent Kalenjin society gave way to British rule. politics / war ●●●

19 October 1905 Killing of the Nandi orkoiyot Koitalel arap Samoei 0 cit. Koitalel arap Samoei, the Nandi spiritual leader who had guided an eleven-year resistance to the Uganda Railway, was killed at a meeting arranged under a flag of truce near Kapsabet. A British party led by Meinertzhagen shot him and his companions at close range. The killing broke Nandi resistance within weeks and is corroborated beyond his diary, though his self-serving version of the details is contested. diplomacy / war ●●●

c. 1905 Pacification clears the land for settlers 0 cit. Conquest was not an end in itself but the ground clearing for settlement. Broken communities, seized land, and a taxed and disciplined population made the central highlands safe for European farms and cheap for their labour. The reserve system fenced Africans in on shrinking land while the White Highlands opened for settlers, setting the stage for the grievances behind Mau Mau. economy / politics ●●●

15 March 1906 Founding of Rolls-Royce 0 cit. Charles Rolls and Henry Royce formally found Rolls-Royce to build luxury cars. The company later becomes one of the world's leading aero engine makers, powering Allied aircraft in both world wars. economy / technology ●●

1906 Founding of Xerox 0 cit. The Haloid Company is founded in Rochester to make photographic paper. It later commercializes xerography as Xerox, and its PARC lab invents the graphical user interface, Ethernet, and laser printing. economy / technology ●●

9 April 1906 Azusa Street Revival 0 cit. A revival led by William J. Seymour breaks out and soon moves to a mission at 312 Azusa Street, marked by speaking in tongues and interracial worship. The meetings launch Pentecostalism, now one of Christianity's largest movements. religion ●●●●

30 June 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, Origin of the FDA 0 cit. Spurred by exposes of filthy meatpacking plants and quack medicines, Congress bans misbranded and adulterated food and drugs. Enforcement by the Bureau of Chemistry evolves into the Food and Drug Administration, named in 1930. science / society ●●●

26 December 1906 The first feature-length film 0 cit. The Australian film The Story of the Kelly Gang ran over an hour, far longer than the shorts of its day. It is widely regarded as the first feature-length narrative film. culture ●●●

1906 Gustav von Bohlen takes the Krupp name 0 cit. When Bertha Krupp inherited the firm in 1906 she married Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, who was granted the right to add the Krupp name. Gustav ran the company for the next three decades. economy / society ●●

10 February 1906 HMS Dreadnought launched 0 cit. The Royal Navy launched HMS Dreadnought, the first battleship with an all-big-gun armament and steam turbine propulsion, which made every existing battleship in the world obsolete overnight. The ship gave its name to a new class of warship and triggered an intense Anglo-German naval arms race in the years before the First World War. Naval planners around the world scrapped or redesigned building programs in response. technology / war ●●●

c. 1906 Sir Frederick Jackson joins Lodge of Harmony 0 cit. Frederick Jackson, a senior colonial administrator who later served as Governor of Uganda from 1911 to 1917, joined Lodge of Harmony in Nairobi. His membership is cited by Masonic historians as an example of how closely Freemasonry in this period was interwoven with the colonial administrative class. Jackson is remembered in East African Masonic histories as one of the order's most influential early members in the region. politics / society ●●

c. 1906 Death rates peak in the concentration camp system 0 cit. Mortality in the camp system, above all at Shark Island, reaches its worst point during the southern hemisphere winter of 1906, with missionary and medical reports recording death rates among interned Herero and Nama estimated at 30 to 50 percent annually. German military and colonial reports of the period record the camp populations as women, children, and elderly people far outnumbering able-bodied male prisoners. society / war ●●●

1906 Union Minière du Haut-Katanga is founded 0 cit. The mining company Union Minière du Haut-Katanga was created to exploit the vast copper deposits of the Katanga region, with Belgian and British capital. It became one of the most powerful companies in Africa and a pillar of the colonial economy. Its control of Katanga's mineral wealth would later shape the politics of independence and secession. economy / politics ●●●

c. 1906 World opinion turns against Leopold 0 cit. By the mid-1900s the mass of missionary testimony, official reports, photographs, and celebrity pamphlets had shattered Leopold's humanitarian reputation across the West. Newspapers that once praised him now denounced the Congo as a byword for colonial cruelty. The reversal shows how quickly a carefully built public image can collapse once documented evidence reaches a mass audience. politics / society ●●

c. 1906 Bambatha rebellion 0 cit. Chief Bambatha led a Zulu revolt against a new poll tax imposed by the British colony of Natal. The rising was put down with heavy loss of life, and thousands of Zulu were killed. It was one of the last armed challenges to colonial rule in southern Africa before the era of mass political movements. economy / politics / war ●

1906 Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga is founded 0 cit. The mining giant Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga was created to work the copper of southern Congo, owned jointly by Belgium's Societe Generale and the British-backed Tanganyika Concessions of Robert Williams. It became one of the most powerful companies in Africa, running an enclave with its own mines, railways, and towns. Its profits flowed to shareholders in Brussels and London while Congolese workers labored under a strict color bar for low pay. economy / politics ●●●

c. 1906 Lord Delamere anchors the settler economy 0 cit. Hugh Cholmondeley, the third Baron Delamere, poured his fortune into large highland estates and pushed wheat, dairy and livestock farming into shape for export. He became the leading voice of the settler community and its drive for political control. His example drew other aristocrats and ex-officers to take up land in Kenya. economy / politics ●●

10 February 1906 HMS Dreadnought 0 cit. Launched at Portsmouth in 1906, HMS Dreadnought carried an all-big-gun main battery and steam turbines that made her faster and more powerful than any battleship afloat. She was so far ahead that she made all existing battleships obsolete, including Britain's own. The design reset the naval race and gave her name to a whole class of warship. technology / war ●●●●

1906 Conquest of Embu 0 cit. In 1906 a strong colonial expedition overwhelmed Embu resistance, aided by Mbeere fighters and Kikuyu of Ndia acting as levies. Homesteads were burned and stock seized in the standard punitive pattern. Administrative stations followed at once, ending Embu self-rule and pulling the area into the protectorate, though passive resistance continued for years. politics / war ●●

c. 1906 The disputed scale of the killing contested 0 cit. How many people died in the pacification of central Kenya is genuinely unclear. The most cited figures, running into the thousands, come from Meinertzhagen's diaries and other participant accounts that had reason to exaggerate or to understate. No reliable census of the dead exists, so historians treat the totals as estimates rather than settled facts. society / war ●●

c. 1906 Colonial game reserves clear people from the land 0 cit. The protectorate set aside large game reserves such as the Southern Reserve, following the Yellowstone idea that true wilderness holds no people. Africans who had lived, grazed and hunted in these areas were pushed to the edges or moved out. The model treated human presence as a threat to nature rather than part of it, an ideology later called fortress conservation. environment / politics / society ●●

31 August 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention 0 cit. Agreement dividing Persia into spheres of influence and settling disputes over Afghanistan and Tibet. It completed the Triple Entente of Britain, France, and Russia. diplomacy / politics ●●●

9 December 1907 Founding of the Office International d'Hygiène Publique 0 cit. Twelve states sign an agreement in Rome creating a Paris-based international health office to track epidemic diseases and administer sanitary conventions, a forerunner of the World Health Organization. diplomacy / science / society ●●

22 October 1907 Collapse of the Knickerbocker Trust Company 0 cit. A run forces New York's third largest trust company to suspend payments, igniting the Panic of 1907. J.P. Morgan personally organizes a private rescue of the banking system, and the crisis leads directly to the creation of the Federal Reserve. economy ●●●●

20 June 1907 Founding of the Swiss National Bank 0 cit. Switzerland's central bank opens for business, taking over note issue from dozens of cantonal and private banks. It becomes guardian of the Swiss franc, one of the world's key reserve currencies. economy ●●●

1907 Formation of Royal Dutch Shell 0 cit. Royal Dutch Petroleum and Britain's Shell Transport and Trading merge to challenge Standard Oil. The combined group becomes one of the world's largest oil companies. economy ●●●●

15 June 1907 Second Hague Peace Conference 0 cit. A larger follow-up conference of 44 states expanded the rules of warfare and arbitration. It reinforced the idea of a codified body of international law governing relations between states. politics / war ●●

October 1907 Morgan halts the Panic of 1907 0 cit. During the Panic of 1907 J.P. Morgan organised bankers to pool funds and stop a wave of bank failures. His personal leadership steadied the system and spurred later creation of the Federal Reserve. economy / politics ●●●●

1907 Aleister Crowley Founds the A∴A∴ 0 cit. After leaving the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley founded his own magical order, the A∴A∴, to teach his system of spiritual attainment. It became a vehicle for his religious philosophy of Thelema. culture / religion ●●

1907 British Eugenics Education Society founded 0 cit. The Eugenics Education Society was founded in London in 1907 to promote the study and application of eugenics in policy. It became a leading voice arguing that the state should influence which people had children. science / society ●●●

1907 Indiana passes the first compulsory sterilization law 0 cit. Indiana enacted the world's first compulsory sterilization law in 1907, authorizing the forced sterilization of people held in state institutions. It opened the way for similar laws in more than thirty US states. politics / science ●●●●

26 September 1907 Dominion of New Zealand established 0 cit. New Zealand's status changed from colony to dominion within the British Empire, granting it greater self-governance while remaining under the Crown. New Zealand had already granted women the vote in 1893, ahead of Britain itself. The dominion retained the British monarch as head of state. politics ●

1907 Native ordinances entrench land and labor controls 0 cit. German colonial authorities issued ordinances stripping surviving Herero and Nama communities of remaining land rights and requiring Africans over the age of seven to carry identification passes. The measures barred African land and cattle ownership on the scale that had existed before the war and pushed survivors into wage labor on settler farms and mines. These laws formed the legal basis for decades of racial land dispossession in the territory. politics ●●

c. April 1907 Shark Island camp closed 0 cit. German authorities close the camp at Shark Island after its death toll, documented at several thousand Herero and Nama prisoners, draws criticism even from within the colonial administration. Estimates of deaths at the camp between 1905 and its closure range from roughly 1,000 to 3,000, out of an interned population never much larger than that. war ●●

c. 31 March 1907 Colonial administration declares the uprisings over 0 cit. The German colonial government formally declares the Herero and Nama wars ended, after roughly 80 percent of the pre-war Herero population and roughly half of the Nama population have died from combat, exposure in the Omaheke, and camp conditions, according to the scholarly consensus drawn from German census and mission records. Survivors are stripped of land and cattle by decree and required to carry identification passes, restricted from owning livestock or land, and bound into a colonial labor system. politics / war ●●●

25 January 1907 German Reichstag election fought over colonial policy 0 cit. Chancellor Bülow dissolves the Reichstag after the Center Party and Social Democrats criticize colonial military spending and the conduct of the war in South-West Africa, and calls a snap election. The vote, remembered as the "Hottentot election," becomes a referendum on German colonial policy and returns a nationalist majority supportive of continued colonial rule. politics ●

9 March 1907 Indiana Passes First Sterilization Law 0 cit. Indiana enacted the first eugenic sterilization law in the world, authorizing forced sterilization of people in state institutions judged "confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles and rapists." The law was signed by Governor J. Frank Hanly and applied to inmates of state prisons, reformatories, and homes for the "feeble-minded." It became the model that other states copied over the following decades. politics / science / society ●●●

c. 1 January 1907 Estimated 60,000 Americans Sterilized Under Eugenics Programs 0 cit. Historians including Paul Lombardo and Alexandra Minna Stern have estimated that more than 60,000 Americans were sterilized under state eugenics laws between 1907 and the programs' effective end in the 1970s, with some researchers placing the number closer to 70,000 once undercounted institutional and welfare-linked sterilizations are included. California, North Carolina, and Virginia accounted for a large share of the total. science / society ●●●

c. 1907 Policing the colour bar 0 cit. Colonial Kenya ran on a racial hierarchy that reserved land, jobs, and town spaces for Europeans, and the police enforced it through pass laws, vagrancy rules, and segregation of urban areas. Africans in towns needed passes and could be detained for being in the wrong place. Everyday policing kept the colour bar in place. politics / society ●●

18 August 1907 The Stuttgart Congress and the war question 0 cit. The Second International's Stuttgart congress adopts a resolution committing socialist parties to work against militarism and war. An amendment pressed by Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Julius Martov added that, should war break out, socialists should use the resulting crisis to hasten the fall of capitalism. How far parties would actually resist a war was left unresolved. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

c. 1907 The whole nine yards: origin unknown, Masonic claim unproven unproven 0 cit. The whole nine yards, meaning the entire amount, has one of the most argued origins in American English, with theories ranging from ammunition belts to concrete trucks to cloth for a suit; a Masonic explanation circulates among these. The earliest known print uses are American from the early twentieth century, and no source, Masonic or otherwise, has been proven. It belongs firmly in the disputed column. culture / society ●●

1907 The Abolition of Slavery on the Coast 0 cit. Britain abolished the legal status of slavery in the coastal protectorate in 1907, ending the labour system on which the Arab and Swahili plantations of cloves, grain, and coconuts had run. Freed slaves and Mijikenda migrants stayed on as squatters and low-paid workers, and former owners were compensated while the freed were not. The change reshaped coastal society and left a tangle of land and labour disputes that outlived colonial rule. economy / society ●●

1907 Abolition of the legal status of slavery on the coast 0 cit. Britain abolished the legal status of slavery in the coastal strip, freeing the enslaved labour force that had worked the Arab-Swahili grain and clove plantations. Emancipation came with compensation for slaveholders but little land or support for the freed, many of whom drifted into squatting and casual labour. The end of coerced labour broke the plantation economy without building anything to replace it. economy / society ●●

16 September 1908 Founding of General Motors 0 cit. William Durant founds General Motors as a holding company for Buick, soon adding Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Chevrolet. Under Alfred Sloan it becomes the world's largest automaker and a model of the modern corporation. economy / technology ●●●●

26 July 1908 Founding of the FBI 0 cit. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte creates a small force of special agents in the Justice Department; it grows into the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the national police and counterintelligence service. politics ●●●

1908 The Ford Model T 0 cit. Henry Ford launched the Model T, a sturdy car simple enough to be affordable for ordinary families. It put millions on the road and made the automobile a mass product. technology ●●●●

1 October 1908 Ford introduces the Model T 0 cit. Henry Ford launched the Model T, a sturdy, affordable car meant for ordinary buyers. Strong demand pushed Ford to find faster ways to build it. economy / technology ●●●●

c. 1908 Women's Freemasonry in Britain 0 cit. Co-Masonry reached Britain around 1902, and a women-only order that became the Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons emerged from it by 1908. These bodies work Masonic ritual for women but are not recognized by the male-only United Grand Lodge of England. culture / society ●●

26 July 1908 Bureau of Investigation founded 0 cit. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte creates a force of special agents inside the Department of Justice, without waiting for congressional approval. It is renamed the Bureau of Investigation in 1909 and becomes the FBI in 1935. This is the direct ancestor of today's Federal Bureau of Investigation. politics ●●●

1908 Eugen Fischer studies the Basters of Rehoboth 0 cit. German anthropologist Eugen Fischer traveled to the colony to study people of mixed Nama and European descent known as Basters, developing racial theories about the effects of interbreeding between Europeans and Africans. His resulting book, published in 1913, argued for restricting the rights and reproduction of mixed-race populations. Fischer's work was later cited approvingly by Nazi race scientists, and he went on to head Nazi Germany's leading eugenics institute and to help draft the Nuremberg racial laws. science ●●●

1908 Camps close and the Herero and Nama population collapses 0 cit. German authorities closed the concentration camp system after several years of internment. The Herero population is estimated to have fallen by roughly 80 percent and the Nama population by roughly 50 percent as a result of the war, flight, and internment since 1904. Survivors lost most of their cattle and land and were subjected afterward to pass laws restricting movement and land ownership. society ●●●

15 November 1908 Belgian state annexes the Congo 0 cit. Under sustained international pressure over the atrocities of the Congo Free State, Leopold II transferred personal ownership of the territory to the Belgian government, which renamed it the Belgian Congo. Forced labor and extraction continued under state administration, though with somewhat less overt brutality than under Leopold's personal rule. The Belgian Congo remained a colony until Congolese independence in 1960. politics ●●

1908 Diamonds discovered in German South West Africa 0 cit. A railway worker found diamonds in the sand near Lüderitz, setting off a rush that revealed extremely rich alluvial diamond deposits along the Namibian coast. German colonial authorities restricted the area, and control of these deposits later passed to companies connected to Ernest Oppenheimer. economy ●●

c. April 1908 Diamonds discovered near Lüderitz 0 cit. A railway worker finds diamonds in the desert near Lüderitz, triggering a diamond rush that transforms the colonial economy. The mines expand demand for forced and indentured African labor under a colonial pass and contract labor system built directly on the dispossession of Herero and Nama land and livestock. economy ●

15 November 1908 Belgium Annexes the Congo Free State 0 cit. Under international pressure over the atrocities documented by Casement, Morel, and missionaries, the Belgian parliament took control of the Congo from Leopold II, ending his personal rule and renaming the territory the Belgian Congo. Forced labor practices continued under state administration in modified form, particularly during the rubber and later mineral booms. Leopold himself was never tried for the abuses committed under his authority. economy / politics ●●

1908 Sorel publishes Reflections on Violence 0 cit. Georges Sorel publishes Reflections on Violence, arguing that a unifying myth and heroic action can bind a movement together. Though Sorel came from the revolutionary left, later writers trace his idea of mobilizing myth as one of the intellectual currents that fed into fascism. culture / politics ●●

15 November 1908 Leopold hands the Congo to Belgium and is never tried 0 cit. After the international outcry over the rubber terror, the Belgian parliament takes control of the Congo from Leopold II, ending his personal rule and renaming the territory the Belgian Congo. Forced-labour practices continue under state administration in modified form, particularly during the rubber and later mineral booms. Leopold himself is never tried for the abuses committed under his authority. politics / society ●●●

c. 1908 Belgium rules the Congo as a paternalist state 0 cit. Belgium runs the Congo as a paternalist state built on a partnership of the colonial administration, the Catholic Church, and large companies. Africans are provided basic schooling and health care aimed at producing obedient workers, but are barred from higher education, political rights, and senior jobs by an informal colour bar. The system keeps Congolese people subordinate while presenting itself as benevolent guardianship. politics / religion / society ●●●

1908 Belgium annexes the Congo after the Leopold scandal 0 cit. After an international outcry over the atrocities of King Leopold II's personal rule, Belgium took the Congo Free State from him and made it the Belgian Congo. The reformers who had condemned Leopold's forced-labor rubber regime did not return the land to Congolese control. Instead the same ground, now under Belgian and allied European capital, was opened to industrial mining, a shift documented economic historians describe as reform in name followed by extraction in fact. economy / politics ●●

July 1908 Young Turk Revolution 0 cit. The Committee of Union and Progress, known as the Young Turks, forces Abdul Hamid II to restore the constitution and parliament. A modernizing, nationalist movement, it soon dominated the government and led the empire into World War I. Its rule mixed reform with a harder Turkish nationalism. politics / society ●●

26 May 1908 Oil strikes at Masjed Soleyman, and Anglo-Persian is born 0 cit. After years of failure, D'Arcy's drillers hit oil in southwest Persia, the first major find in the Middle East. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed the next year to exploit it, later renamed Anglo-Iranian and then BP. economy / technology ●●●

c. 1908 The Kitawala and Watchtower movement in Central Africa 0 cit. Watch Tower teaching, spread from about 1908 by preachers such as Elliot Kamwana in Nyasaland, took root across Central Africa as the movement called Kitawala. Its message that God's kingdom would soon sweep away earthly rulers was heard as a promise of the end of colonial power. Authorities across several territories saw it as subversive and banned and jailed its adherents repeatedly. politics / religion / society ●●

1908 Church of Scotland founds the Tumutumu mission 0 cit. The Church of Scotland Mission extended north from Kikuyu and opened a station at Tumutumu near Nyeri in 1908, deep in Kikuyu country. It added a school and hospital and became a base for evangelism, medical work, and teacher training in the region. Tumutumu produced many of the mission-educated Kikuyu who shaped early African politics and church life. religion / society ●

c. 1908 Mission Schools and the Making of a Kikuyu Elite 0 cit. Church of Scotland and Church Missionary Society stations in Kikuyu country offered schooling, literacy, and wage skills, creating a class of mission-educated Christians the Kikuyu called athomi, the readers. This opening divided the community between those who embraced the mission path and those who held to custom, a split colonial rule would later widen into loyalist and rebel. Access to education became a form of power, and the elite it produced shaped Kikuyu politics for generations. religion / society ●●

1908 The Elgin Pledge reserves the highlands for Europeans 0 cit. Colonial Secretary Lord Elgin gave an informal assurance that the fertile highlands would be kept for white settlers. In practice this shut Indians out of buying farmland in the most valuable part of the colony. It set the pattern for a long political fight over land and status. politics ●●

1908 Otenyo, Moraa and the Gusii rising of 1908 0 cit. As British administration pushed into Gusii country, the prophetess Moraa Ng'iti roused resistance and the young warrior Otenyo Nyamaterere speared the district officer G. A. S. Northcote, who survived the wound. The British answered with a punitive expedition that burned villages, seized cattle and killed many Gusii, and Otenyo was later captured and executed. The rising marks the hinge where Gusii independence gave way to colonial conquest. politics / war ●●●

1908 Otenyo Nyamaterere spears the British commissioner 0 cit. In the 1908 Gusii rising against British taxation and rule, the young warrior Otenyo Nyamaterere, inspired by the prophetess Moraa Ngiti, speared and wounded the British officer G.A.S. Northcote. The British answered with a punitive expedition that killed many Abagusii and seized their cattle. Otenyo was hunted down, captured, and executed, and he is remembered as a Gusii hero of resistance. politics / society / war ●●●

January 1908 Moraa wa Ngiti inspires the Gusii rising contested 0 cit. Moraa wa Ngiti was a Gusii seer and healer who urged her people to resist the British after troops seized thousands of Gusii cattle in early 1908. Oral history says she blessed the warriors and gave them charms, and inspired her kinsman Otenyo Nyamaterere, who speared and wounded the British officer Northcote. The rising was put down and Otenyo was executed. Her spiritual leadership rests on Gusii oral tradition, so the detail is contested, but the revolt itself is documented. religion / war ●●

14 April 1909 Founding of Anglo-Persian Oil (BP) 0 cit. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company is founded after the first major oil strike in the Middle East, in Persia in 1908. The British government buys a controlling stake in 1914, and the company becomes British Petroleum. economy / politics ●●●●

April 1909 Founding of Tel Aviv 0 cit. Jewish residents founded Tel Aviv as a new town near Jaffa in 1909. It grew into the first modern Hebrew-speaking city. culture / society ●●

12 February 1909 NAACP founded to fight racial injustice 0 cit. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded to fight lynching, segregation, and disenfranchisement. It became a leading force in the long legal and political battle for civil rights. politics / society ●●●

2 July 1909 Haber synthesizes ammonia from nitrogen 0 cit. Fritz Haber showed how to make ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen under high pressure. The reaction opened the way to cheap synthetic fertilizer and explosives. science / technology ●●●●●

1909 The Rosicrucian Fellowship founded by Max Heindel 0 cit. Max Heindel founded the Rosicrucian Fellowship in 1909 and published The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, presenting a Christian mystical and astrological teaching. The group established its headquarters, Mount Ecclesia, at Oceanside, California. religion / science ●●●

1909 to 1979 California's eugenic sterilization program 0 cit. California forcibly sterilized about 20,000 people held in state institutions between 1909 and the 1970s, the most of any US state. Many were poor, disabled, or Latina women sterilized without meaningful consent. politics / society ●●●●

c. 1909 Round Table movement founded 0 cit. Alumni of Milner's Kindergarten, led by Lionel Curtis, founded the Round Table movement to promote closer union among Britain and its self-governing dominions. Local Round Table groups were set up across the British Empire, staffed heavily by Rhodes Scholars and former colonial administrators. The movement became a channel through which a small, informally networked elite discussed and shaped imperial and later Commonwealth policy. politics ●●

12 February 1909 NAACP founded 0 cit. A group of Black and white activists, including W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells, founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in response to lynching and race riots. It became the leading legal and organizing force against segregation for the next century. Its Legal Defense Fund later argued Brown v. Board of Education. politics / society ●●●

1909 Harry Truman is initiated a Freemason 0 cit. Harry Truman was initiated into a Masonic lodge in Belton, Missouri, in 1909. He became an active and enthusiastic Mason, serving as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri in 1940, a decade before his presidency. This is documented in Missouri Grand Lodge records. politics / society ●●

26 April 1909 California Enacts Sterilization Law 0 cit. California passed its own compulsory sterilization statute, allowing sterilization of people confined in state hospitals and prisons who were diagnosed as "feebleminded" or judged to have a hereditary disease or condition. Washington and Connecticut passed similar laws the same year. California went on to sterilize far more people than any other state, roughly a third of all sterilizations performed nationwide. politics / science / society ●●●

c. 1 January 1909 Yevno Azef Exposed as Double Agent 0 cit. Yevno Azef simultaneously led the Socialist Revolutionary Party's terrorist Combat Organization, which carried out assassinations of senior Russian officials, while secretly working as a paid informant for the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police. Investigator Vladimir Burtsev exposed his dual role in early 1909, revealing that Azef had both organized real assassinations and betrayed fellow revolutionaries to the police, sometimes doing both to the same plot. His case remains a defining example of a state agent provocateur operating at the highest level of a revolutionary organization. politics / society ●●

1 October 1909 Secret Service Bureau founded 0 cit. The British government set up the Secret Service Bureau to counter German espionage and to run British intelligence gathering abroad. It was a joint Admiralty and War Office body, headed jointly by Captain Vernon Kell and Commander Mansfield Cumming. It is the common ancestor of both MI5 and MI6. politics / war ●●●

c. 1 October 1909 Secret Service Bureau splits into home and foreign sections 0 cit. Britain's new Secret Service Bureau divided into a home section, which became the Security Service (MI5), and a foreign section, which became the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Because MI5 officers had no powers of arrest, Special Branch became its operational arm for domestic cases, carrying out arrests, surveillance, and evidence-gathering on MI5's behalf. politics ●●●

20 February 1909 Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto 0 cit. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti publishes the Futurist Manifesto on the front page of Le Figaro, glorifying speed, machines, violence, and war as the world's only hygiene. Many Futurists later rallied to fascism, and historians often point to the movement as part of its cultural background. culture / politics ●●

1909 Arthur Conan Doyle's The Crime of the Congo 0 cit. Arthur Conan Doyle, at the height of his fame as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, wrote The Crime of the Congo, a hard-hitting book compiling the evidence of atrocities. He produced it quickly to support E. D. Morel's reform campaign and reach a wide public. It stands as a major literary voice turning global opinion decisively against Leopold in the final year of the Free State. culture / society ●●

17 December 1909 Leopold II dies unrepentant 0 cit. Leopold died a year after losing the Congo, his funeral cortege booed by parts of the Belgian public. Estimates of the death toll under his rule vary widely and remain contested, with the historian Adam Hochschild popularizing a figure of around ten million while other scholars give different ranges based on incomplete records. The scale of the loss of life is documented in outline even where exact numbers are disputed. politics / society ●●

April 1909 Adana massacre 0 cit. Amid the political turmoil that followed the Young Turk revolution, mobs and troops kill Armenians in the city and region of Adana. Estimates of the dead generally range from about 15,000 to 30,000. The violence shows that the change of Ottoman government had not made Armenians safe. politics / war ●●

1909 The first international drug control agreements 0 cit. The Shanghai Opium Commission of 1909 and the Hague Opium Convention of 1912 began the modern system of international drug control. After a century of profiting from opium, the imperial powers started to build the treaties that would define narcotics as a global problem to be policed. diplomacy / politics ●●

c. 1909 Mission Education at the Church of Scotland Mission 0 cit. As a boy Kamau left home for the Church of Scotland Mission at Thogoto, where he learned to read, write, and do carpentry and worked as a houseboy and kitchen hand to pay his way. The mission schooling gave him English and a bridge into the colonial world that shaped the rest of his life. He was baptised there in 1914, taking the Christian name Johnstone Kamau. religion / society ●●

1909 A.M. Jeevanjee becomes the first Indian on the Legislative Council 0 cit. Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee, a Bohra businessman who had supplied railway labour, built much of early Mombasa and Nairobi and founded the paper that became the East African Standard, was nominated as the first Indian member of the colony's Legislative Council. His appointment gave the community a formal, if junior, political voice. He remained a leading spokesman in the fight for Indian rights. economy / politics ●●

21 September 1909 Kwame Nkrumah is born in the Gold Coast 0 cit. Kwame Nkrumah was born in Nkroful, a village in the western Gold Coast, into a modest family. He trained as a teacher at Achimota College in Accra and taught at Catholic schools before deciding to study abroad. His early years under British colonial rule shaped his later drive for African self-rule. politics / society ●●

c. 1909 Missions carve Kenya into denominational spheres 0 cit. To avoid competing for the same souls, the Protestant missions agreed on comity, spheres of influence that divided Kenya into territories, each left mostly to one society. The Church Missionary Society, the Church of Scotland Mission, the African Inland Mission, the Methodists, the Quakers, and the Adventists each took their zones. A rival Catholic network of Holy Ghost, Consolata, and Mill Hill fathers spread alongside them. politics / religion / society ●●●

June 1909 Wangu wa Makeri falls after the kibaata dance 0 cit. Wangu wa Makeri lost her office in 1909 after a scandal at a dance. The best-known account says she danced the kibaata, a men's warrior dance forbidden to women, and was exposed when her skirt fell, giving her rivals the opening to force her out. The dance story is embellished in the retellings and its details are disputed, but her removal is documented. Men who resented a woman's power used a breach of custom to end it. politics / society ●●

1910 Founding of Hitachi 0 cit. Namihei Odaira founds Hitachi as an electrical repair shop at a copper mine, building Japan's first 5-horsepower electric motors. It grows into one of Japan's largest industrial and electronics groups. economy / technology ●●●

29 August 1910 Fall of the Korean Empire 0 cit. On 29 August 1910 Japan formally annexed Korea, ending the Korean Empire and the long Joseon dynasty. Korea remained under Japanese colonial rule until 1945. politics ●●●

c. 1910 Jazz is born in New Orleans 0 cit. In the bars and streets of New Orleans, musicians blended blues, ragtime, and brass band music into jazz. Its swing and improvisation would spread across the world. culture ●●●●

1910 Founding of Degania, the First Kibbutz 0 cit. Pioneers established Degania in 1910, the first kibbutz, a collective farming community. The model became central to Zionist settlement. economy / society ●●