Events, Verisoph

1901 Founding of the Jewish National Fund 0 cit. The Zionist movement created the Jewish National Fund in 1901 to buy and develop land in Palestine for Jewish settlement. It became a central institution of the movement. economy / politics ●●

1901 Frankfurt branch of the Rothschild bank closes 0 cit. The original Frankfurt house closed in 1901 after the male line there ended with no successor. The family's business continued through the London and Paris houses. economy ●●

2 March 1901 Formation of U.S. Steel 0 cit. On 2 March 1901 Morgan merged Carnegie Steel with other firms to create United States Steel. Capitalised at about 1.4 billion dollars, it was the world's first billion-dollar corporation. economy / technology ●●●●●

c. 1901 Police enforcement of hut and poll tax 0 cit. The colonial hut tax and later poll tax were designed partly to force Africans into wage labour for settlers by demanding cash payment. Police and administration askari collected the taxes, and non-payment could bring seizure of livestock, destruction of homes, or forced labour. Tax collection was one of the police force's core coercive functions. economy / politics ●●

c. 1901 United Fruit tightens its grip on Guatemala 0 cit. Under the dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera, United Fruit wins sweeping concessions in Guatemala, including a deal to run the national postal service and control of the country's railways through its affiliate. Over the following decades it became the largest landowner and employer in the country. Its power over transport and trade left the government dependent on the company. economy / politics ●●●

1901 The D'Arcy concession opens Persia's oil 0 cit. British investor William Knox D'Arcy won a sweeping concession from the Persian shah to search for and sell oil across most of the country for sixty years, in exchange for a small cash sum and a modest share of profits. When oil was struck in 1908, the terms proved hugely favorable to foreign owners. The lopsided deal became a template for how great powers secured Middle Eastern oil on the cheap. diplomacy / economy ●●●

10 January 1901 Spindletop gusher opens the Texas oil age 0 cit. The Lucas gusher at Spindletop blows out at an unheard-of rate, flooding Texas with crude and new companies like Gulf and Texaco. Cheap, abundant oil now made fuel, not just lamp kerosene, the industry's future. economy / technology ●●●

28 May 1901 The D'Arcy concession opens Persian oil 0 cit. British investor William Knox D'Arcy buys a 60-year concession over most of Persia's oil for a small sum and a share of future profits. It was the first great oil concession in the Middle East and the seed of what became BP. diplomacy / economy ●●●

c. 1901 The Hut and Poll Taxes Force Men into Wage Labour 0 cit. A hut tax imposed from 1901, joined by a poll tax on adult men in 1910, had to be paid in cash the subsistence economy did not provide. To earn the money, African men were driven to work for wages on European farms and in towns, exactly as the policy intended. Chiefs collected the taxes and pressed men to go out to work, and the resentment at this coerced entry into the wage economy became one of the grievances that later fed Mau Mau. economy / politics / society ●●●

c. 1901 Hut and Poll Tax and the Push to Labour 0 cit. The government imposed a hut tax and later a poll tax that had to be paid in cash, which most people could earn only by working for wages on settler farms or in towns. The tax was designed as much to force Africans into the labour market as to raise revenue, since a self-sufficient farmer had little reason to leave home. In the densely peopled west it turned thousands of men into migrant workers, draining the reserves of labour for months at a time. economy / politics ●●

1901 Hut tax imposed to force men into wage labour 0 cit. A hut tax of one rupee, later raised to three, was placed on African dwellings from 1901 under the East Africa Protectorate. The tax had to be paid in cash, which pushed men off the reserves and into paid work for settlers and the railway. It was collective punishment turned into policy, using the household as the unit of both taxation and labour supply. economy / politics ●●●

c. 1902 Minerva cars used the Roman goddess of wisdom as their emblem 0 cit. The Belgian carmaker Minerva, which began building automobiles around 1902, used the helmeted head of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, as its emblem. economy / religion / technology ●

1902 Ernest Oppenheimer arrives in Kimberley 0 cit. Ernest Oppenheimer, a young diamond buyer from a German-Jewish trading family, arrived in Kimberley to represent the London diamond merchant firm A. Dunkelsbuhler & Co. He began building relationships in the diamond trade that he would later use to challenge De Beers's control. economy ●●

26 March 1902 Cecil Rhodes dies a lifelong Freemason 0 cit. Cecil Rhodes died on 26 March 1902, having remained a registered Freemason from his 1877 initiation at Oxford until his death. He is among the best-documented Masonic members of the mining and colonial elite of the era, alongside figures such as John Hayes Hammond and Solly Joel, whose Masonic ties are separately recorded. economy / society ●●

1902 Alienation of the White Highlands 0 cit. Crown Lands Ordinances from 1902 opened the fertile highlands to European settlers, and later rules reserved the best land for whites while confining Africans to crowded native reserves. Settlers such as Lord Delamere built large farms worked by African labor, and by the 1930s a few thousand Europeans held millions of acres. The loss of land, above all among the Kikuyu, became the deepest grievance driving later resistance and the Mau Mau uprising. economy / politics / society ●●●

1902 The Crown Lands Ordinance Opens the Land to Settlers 0 cit. The Crown Lands Ordinance of 1902 let the colonial administration sell and lease land to European settlers, treating vast areas that Africans used for grazing and shifting cultivation as vacant Crown land. It gave legal cover to the alienation of African land and drew the first white farmers up the new Uganda Railway into the highlands. The ordinance is the legal root of the land dispossession that later powered both the loyalist land grab and the Mau Mau revolt. economy / politics ●●●

c. 1902 The highlands seized for settlers 0 cit. The cool, fertile central highlands were reserved for European settlers, who took the best farmland while Africans were pushed into crowded reserves or kept on as squatter labour. This core of the colony drew roads, rail, and investment because it produced export crops and revenue. The White Highlands became the developed centre against which every other region was measured. economy / politics ●●●

1902 Crown Lands Ordinances open the highlands to white farmers 0 cit. The 1902 Crown Lands Ordinance, expanded in 1915, let the colonial state declare African-occupied land 'Crown land' and lease it cheaply to European settlers on terms of up to 999 years. Over the following years roughly seven million acres of the best farmland, the so-called White Highlands, were reserved for white ownership while Africans were confined to separate 'native reserves'. By the 1950s some 3,000 to 3,600 settler families, around one per cent of the population, held roughly a fifth of the country's arable land. economy / politics ●●●

1902 The cost and the blow to imperial confidence 0 cit. The war cost Britain over £200 million and around 22,000 dead, and it took nearly half a million imperial troops to defeat a few tens of thousands of Boer farmers. The struggle, and the camps, damaged Britain's standing abroad and shook confidence in the empire at home. Alarm at the poor health of army recruits fed a wave of debate about national fitness and social reform. economy / politics ●●●

1902 Hobson's thesis: a war for mining and finance capital 0 cit. In 'Imperialism: A Study' (1902) the economist J.A. Hobson argues that the war was driven less by national interest than by financiers and mining magnates who stood to profit from control of the Rand goldfields. His account carries an antisemitic strain, singling out Jewish financiers and 'Rand lords' as a hidden interest, and later critics have faulted the book sharply for that framing. The economic argument, that mining and finance capital shaped the drive to war, is attributed to Hobson and remains debated. economy / politics ●●●●

c. 1902 The debate over why the war was fought 0 cit. Historians have argued over the causes of the war ever since. Against Hobson's stress on mining and finance capital, many point to strategic and political motives: Britain's fear of losing control of South Africa and the sea route to India, Milner's push for imperial supremacy, and concern for imperial prestige after the Jameson Raid. Most modern accounts see a mix of imperial ambition, strategic anxiety, and the pull of gold, rather than any single hidden hand. economy / politics ●●●

16 June 1903 Founding of Ford Motor Company 0 cit. Henry Ford incorporates the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. Its Model T of 1908 becomes the first car cheap enough for ordinary families, putting America and then the world on wheels. economy / technology ●●●●

14 February 1903 Founding of the Department of Commerce and Labor 0 cit. Theodore Roosevelt signs the act creating a combined department to oversee business, labor, and the new industrial economy. In 1913 it splits, leaving the Department of Commerce as the government's business and trade agency. economy ●●●

c. 1903 Lodges follow the railway into East Africa 0 cit. As Britain built the Uganda Railway and settled East Africa, Masonic lodges were established in Mombasa and the new town of Nairobi. They drew colonial administrators, settlers, railway engineers, and merchants, including many from British India. The lodge arrived as part of the machinery of settlement and administration. economy / politics / society ●

1903 Milton Hershey builds a company town in Pennsylvania 0 cit. Chocolate maker Milton Hershey built the town of Hershey around his factory, providing housing, schools, transport, and parks for his workers. It was a more benevolent version of the company town, but the company still shaped daily life and local services. Such towns show private firms taking on the roles usually held by municipalities. economy / society ●

c. 1903 Most labourers return to India while thousands stay 0 cit. Of the roughly 32,000 indentured workers, about 2,500 died on the project and some 6,700 chose to remain in East Africa when their contracts ended, while most returned home. Artisans and craftsmen known as fundis, along with clerks and small traders, followed the line inland. This settled core became the root of the Indian community in Kenya. economy / society ●●●

17 October 1904 Founding of Bank of America 0 cit. Amadeo Giannini opens the Bank of Italy in San Francisco to serve immigrants and working people the big banks ignored. Renamed Bank of America in 1930, it pioneers branch banking and becomes one of the largest banks in the world. economy / society ●●●●

1904 Ida Tarbell publishes The History of the Standard Oil Company 0 cit. Journalist Ida Tarbell serialised her investigation of Standard Oil in McClure's Magazine from 1902 and published it as a book in 1904. Her detailed reporting shaped public opinion against the company's methods. economy / society ●●●●

1904 Northern Securities antitrust case 0 cit. The Supreme Court in 1904 ordered the breakup of Northern Securities, a railroad holding company Morgan had helped form. The case was an early victory for federal trust-busting under President Theodore Roosevelt. economy / politics ●●●

1904 O. Henry coins the term "banana republic" 0 cit. The American writer O. Henry publishes Cabbages and Kings, a book of linked stories set in the fictional Central American country of Anchuria, which he modeled on Honduras while hiding there from fraud charges. In it he coins "banana republic" for a small, unstable nation whose economy and politics are ruled by a foreign fruit company. The phrase stuck and became a lasting label. culture / economy ●●●

c. 1904 Colonial government grants land to the mission societies 0 cit. As the East Africa Protectorate opened land to Europeans, the colonial administration granted or leased tracts to the mission societies for stations, farms, and schools. Missions thus became landholders within the settler order, benefiting from the same alienation of African land that fed later grievances. The practice grew over the early 1900s, so the date is approximate. economy / politics / religion ●●

1904 The Maasai Agreements and grazing restrictions 0 cit. Two 'agreements' in 1904 and 1911 pushed the Maasai off the best grazing on the central Rift and confined them to a southern reserve to clear land for settlers. Beyond losing pasture, the Maasai were fenced into fixed boundaries that ignored the seasonal movement their herds depended on. The moves crippled a pastoral economy that needed range and mobility, not lines on a map. economy / politics ●●●

1904 The Iriaini expedition against Kikuyu and Embu contested 0 cit. A large punitive expedition in 1904 struck Kikuyu and Embu communities in the Iriaini area, seizing around 11,000 head of stock. British losses were light, while African deaths were put at well over a thousand in the accounts that survive. Those death figures trace back mainly to Meinertzhagen's diary and remain disputed, so the toll is marked contested even though the expedition itself is documented. economy / war ●●●

1905 Founding of the International Institute of Agriculture 0 cit. At the initiative of David Lubin and King Victor Emmanuel III, states found the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome to collect world farm statistics. Its work passed to the FAO after 1945. diplomacy / economy / science ●●

c. June 1905 Nickelodeon movie theaters spread 0 cit. The first nickelodeon, a storefront theater charging a nickel, opened in Pittsburgh in 1905, and thousands followed within a few years. Cheap movie houses turned film into a mass working-class entertainment. culture / economy ●●●

c. 1905 Colonial Kenya as a map of what the land was good for 0 cit. Historians describe colonial Kenya as organised by the economic value officials assigned to each region: land was seized, worked, or ignored according to what it could yield for the colony. This logic sorted the country into a settler core, labour-supplying reserves, and neglected margins. The date marks the consolidation of this map in the early settler decades rather than a single decision. economy / politics ●●●

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 ●●●

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 ●●

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 ●●

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 ●●

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 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 ●●

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 ●●●●

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 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 ●●●●

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 ●●●●

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 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 ●●

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 ●●●

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 ●●●●

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 ●●

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 ●●●

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 ●●

c. 1910 The Octopus and the enclave economy 0 cit. Across Central America, United Fruit builds a self-contained enclave economy: company land, company railroads, company ports, company telegraph lines, and company towns with their own stores and scrip. Locals called it El Pulpo, "the Octopus," for the reach of its tentacles. Profits flowed north while host nations gained little tax revenue and little control. economy / society ●●●

c. 1910 Collapse of the Arab-Swahili plantation economy 0 cit. Without enslaved labour, the great coastal plantations that had grown grain, coconuts, and cloves went into steep decline, and the Arab-Swahili landowning class lost its economic base. Estates fell idle or passed to absentee owners while former slaves and Mijikenda cultivators worked them as squatters. The coast's old commercial engine seized up just as the interior was being opened for settler agriculture. economy / society ●●

c. 1910 The lakeside worked as a labour reserve 0 cit. The densely settled lands around Lake Victoria were treated mainly as a reservoir of workers for settler farms and towns, and as fertile ground for mission schools. Men migrated out for wage labour while the region itself saw limited local investment beyond what fed the labour supply. Missionised and drawn on for its people, the lakeside developed in a lopsided way, neither settler core nor neglected margin. economy / society ●●

c. 1910 Dukawalla shopkeepers spread retail trade across the country 0 cit. Indian-run dukas reached nearly every town and rural centre, handling much of the colony's retail trade and the buying of African produce. The dukawalla became the everyday face of Indian settlement across Kenya. This visible role also placed the community between white rulers above and the African majority below, a middleman position that later drew resentment. economy / society ●●

c. 1910 Goan clerks and Sikh artisans staff the colonial economy 0 cit. Goan Catholic clerks filled government and railway offices while Sikh and Gujarati fundis worked as masons, carpenters, mechanics, tailors and fitters. Different communities, including Ismaili, Hindu, Sikh, Goan and Bohra, tended to cluster in distinct trades and keep their own institutions. Together they ran much of the day-to-day machinery of the colony below the European ranks. economy / society ●●

1910 Rotary clubs federate into a national association 0 cit. Sixteen clubs formed the National Association of Rotary Clubs of America and elected Paul Harris its first president. The federation gave the movement a shared structure as new clubs formed across the country. It was renamed the International Association of Rotary Clubs as the movement crossed borders. economy / society ●●

1910 Rotary spreads beyond the United States 0 cit. A club chartered in Winnipeg became the first Rotary Club outside the United States. Clubs in Great Britain and Ireland followed within two years. The rapid international growth pushed the movement to reorganize as an association of clubs in many countries. economy / society ●●

15 May 1911 Breakup of Standard Oil 0 cit. The U.S. Supreme Court finds Standard Oil an illegal monopoly and orders it split into 34 companies, among them the ancestors of Exxon, Mobil, and Chevron. It remains the landmark antitrust action in business history. economy / politics ●●●●●

16 June 1911 Founding of IBM 0 cit. The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company forms from a merger of punched card and scale makers, renamed IBM in 1924. Under the Watsons it comes to dominate business machines and then the computer industry. economy / technology ●●●●

c. 1911 Hollywood emerges as a film center 0 cit. The Nestor Company opened Hollywood's first film studio in 1911, and filmmakers drawn by sunshine, varied scenery, and distance from eastern patent enforcers clustered nearby. Within a decade Hollywood was the capital of American cinema. culture / economy ●●●●

1911 Taylor publishes The Principles of Scientific Management 0 cit. Frederick Taylor set out a system for studying and timing work to raise output. His scientific management reshaped factory labor and drew criticism for treating workers as machines. economy / society ●●●●

15 May 1911 Supreme Court breaks up Standard Oil 0 cit. On 15 May 1911 the United States Supreme Court ruled that Standard Oil was an illegal monopoly and ordered it split into 34 separate companies. The decision reshaped American antitrust law and the oil industry. economy / politics ●●●●●

c. 1911 Mobil's flying red horse is Pegasus of Greek myth 0 cit. The Socony oil company adopted a flying red horse as its trademark around 1911, the winged horse Pegasus of Greek mythology. The emblem was later carried by Mobil. economy / religion / technology ●●

25 March 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire spurs labor reform 0 cit. A fire at a garment factory killed 146 workers, most of them young immigrant women trapped behind locked doors. The disaster fueled the women-led labor movement and led to new workplace safety laws. economy / society ●●

1911 Sam Zemurray buys a coup in Honduras 0 cit. The banana trader Sam Zemurray, head of the rival Cuyamel Fruit Company, bankrolls an armed overthrow of the Honduran government to protect his concessions and tax breaks. He hired the mercenary Lee Christmas and helped install the exiled Manuel Bonilla as president. It became a textbook case of a company toppling a government for private gain. economy / politics ●●●

1911 Copper smelting begins in Katanga 0 cit. Union Miniere poured its first Katangan copper at the Star of the Congo mine near the new town of Elisabethville, today Lubumbashi. The colony was reshaped around the mines, drawing in migrant labor and building a railway to ship metal out to the coast. Katanga became one of the world's great copper producers, its output feeding European and American industry rather than local development. economy / technology ●●

1911 Carnegie's fortune becomes a philanthropic engine 0 cit. Andrew Carnegie creates the Carnegie Corporation of New York, adding to earlier bodies like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His giving built libraries, funded research and pushed an agenda for international order. Like Rockefeller, he showed how a single industrial fortune could steer public life for generations. culture / economy / society ●●

1911 Ford takes mass production across borders 0 cit. Ford opened an assembly plant at Trafford Park near Manchester, extending American mass-production methods into Europe, and soon built plants in Germany and beyond. Fordism became a globally exported system, not just a set of factories but a model of industrial organization. The car majors became early examples of firms whose operations, workforce, and influence spanned continents. economy / technology ●●

15 May 1911 Standard Oil is broken up by antitrust 0 cit. The US Supreme Court found Standard Oil an illegal monopoly and ordered it split into 34 separate companies, several of which grew into today's oil majors. It was a landmark moment of the state pushing back against a firm that had grown too dominant. The breakup set a precedent that a government could dismantle a company on grounds of size and market power alone. economy / politics ●●

1911 The Second Maasai Move 0 cit. Only seven years after promising the northern reserve was permanent, the government forced the Laikipia Maasai to trek south so their plateau could be opened to settlers. A new agreement in 1911, of doubtful validity, joined the two reserves into one southern block, and the drive south cost many cattle and lives. The broken promise made clear that colonial treaties with Africans held only as long as they suited the settlers. economy / politics ●●

5 February 1912 Founding of the Bank of China 0 cit. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, the imperial Da-Qing Bank is reorganized as the Bank of China under the new republic. It serves at times as central bank and foreign exchange bank, and today is one of China's big four state banks. economy / politics ●●●●

1912 to 1913 Pujo Committee money-trust hearings 0 cit. A House subcommittee led by Arsene Pujo investigated concentrated control of finance, the so-called money trust, in 1912 and 1913. Morgan testified in December 1912, and the hearings fed support for banking reform. economy / politics ●●●

1912 Hercules Powder is named for the strongman hero of Greek myth 0 cit. Hercules Powder Company, spun off from DuPont in 1912, made explosives and took the name of Hercules, the Greek hero known for superhuman strength. economy / religion ●

c. 1912 DuPont builds the dashboard of the corporation 0 cit. Engineers and managers at DuPont developed the return-on-investment formula and a chart linking profit margin, asset turnover, and capital, giving head office a single number to judge every division. Combined with Frederick Taylor's scientific management, cost accounting became the nervous system of the big industrial firm, letting a few managers control sprawling operations from the top. economy / technology ●●

c. 1912 Cattle quarantines and veterinary control undermine the herders 0 cit. The colonial state used disease-control quarantines to block pastoralists from moving and selling stock, ostensibly to protect settler herds from cattle diseases. The rules cut herders off from markets and dry-season grazing while doing little for the pastoralists themselves. Framed as science, the quarantine regime worked in practice to hem in and impoverish the herding economies. economy / science ●●

23 December 1913 Federal Reserve Act signed 0 cit. President Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Reserve Act, creating a central bank for the United States. The new system underpins the dollar's rise to global dominance. economy / politics ●●●

23 December 1913 Founding of the Federal Reserve 0 cit. President Wilson signs the Federal Reserve Act, creating a central banking system of twelve regional banks after the Panic of 1907 exposed the need for a lender of last resort. The Fed becomes the most influential central bank in the world. economy / politics ●●●●●

1 December 1913 Ford launches the moving assembly line 0 cit. Ford installs the first moving assembly line for cars at its Highland Park plant, cutting Model T chassis assembly from over 12 hours to about 93 minutes. Mass production transforms manufacturing worldwide. economy / technology ●●●●

3 February 1913 Ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment 0 cit. The amendment gives Congress clear power to tax incomes without apportioning the tax among the states, overriding an 1895 Supreme Court ruling. The modern income tax follows within months and becomes the government's main revenue source. economy / politics ●●●●

4 March 1913 Founding of the Department of Labor 0 cit. On his last day in office, President Taft signs the act splitting Commerce and Labor and creating a separate Department of Labor to promote the welfare of wage earners. It later administers labor statistics, workplace standards, and unemployment programs. economy / society ●●●

1913 The moving assembly line 0 cit. Ford introduced a moving assembly line that brought the work to the worker and slashed the time to build a car. Mass production lowered prices and became the model for modern manufacturing. economy / technology ●●●●

23 December 1913 Federal Reserve Act of 1913 0 cit. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, creating a central banking system with twelve regional reserve banks. It gave the United States a lasting institution to manage credit and currency. economy / politics ●●●●●

9 September 1913 Bosch scales up ammonia production at Oppau 0 cit. Carl Bosch turned Haber's laboratory reaction into a full industrial process at a BASF plant. The Haber-Bosch process made fertilizer on a scale that fed a growing world population. economy / technology ●●●●●

1 December 1913 Ford starts the moving assembly line 0 cit. Ford installed a moving assembly line at Highland Park that carried cars past stationary workers. It cut the time to build a Model T from hours to minutes and made mass production the industrial standard. economy / technology ●●●●●

31 March 1913 J.P. Morgan dies in Rome 0 cit. John Pierpont Morgan died in Rome in March 1913. Control of the bank passed to his son, J.P. Morgan Jr. economy ●●●