1910s

The 1910s (pronounced "nineteen-tens" abbreviated as the "10s" or simply the "Tens") was a decade that began on January 1, 1910, and ended on December 31, 1919.

From left, clockwise: The Ford Model T is introduced and becomes widespread; The sinking of the RMS Titanic causes the deaths of nearly 1,500 people and attracts global and historical attention; Title bar: All the events below are part of World War I (1914–1918); French Army lookout at his observation post in 1917; Russian troops awaiting a German attack; A ration party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme; Vladimir Lenin addresses a crowd in the midst of the Russian Revolution, beginning in 1917; A flu pandemic in 1918 kills tens of millions worldwide.
Millennium: 2nd millennium
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  • Deaths
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The 1910s represented the culmination of European militarism which had its beginnings during the second half of the 19th century. The conservative lifestyles during the first half of the decade, as well as the legacy of military alliances, were forever changed by the assassination, on June 28, 1914, of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The murder triggered a chain of events in which, within 33 days, World War I broke out in Europe on August 1, 1914. The conflict dragged on until a truce was declared on November 11, 1918, leading to the controversial, one-sided Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919.

The war's end triggered the abdication of various monarchies and the collapse of four of the last modern empires of Russia, Germany, Ottoman Turkey and Austria-Hungary, with the latter splintered into Austria, Hungary, southern Poland (who acquired most of their land in a war with Soviet Russia), Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, as well as the unification of Romania with Transylvania and Moldavia. However, each of these states (with the possible exception of Yugoslavia) had large German and Hungarian minorities, creating some unexpected problems that would be brought to light in the next two decades. (See Dissolution of Austro-Hungarian Empire: Successor states for better description of composition of names of successor countries/states following the splinter.)

The decade was also a period of revolution in many countries. The Portuguese 5 October 1910 revolution, which ended the eight-century long monarchy, spearheaded the trend, followed by the Mexican Revolution in November 1910, which led to the ousting of dictator Porfirio Diaz, developing into a violent civil war that dragged on until mid-1920, not long after a new Mexican Constitution was signed and ratified. The Russian Empire had a similar fate, since its participation in World War I led it to a social, political and economical collapse which made the tsarist autocracy unsustainable and, succeeding the events of 1905, culminated in the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, under the direction of the Bolshevik Party later renamed as Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution of 1918 , known as the October Revolution, was followed by the Russian Civil War, which dragged on until approximately late 1922. China saw 2,000 years of imperial rule end with the Xinhai Revolution, becoming a nominal republic until Yuan Shikai's failed attempt to restore the monarchy and his death started the Warlord Era in 1916.

Treaty of Versailles

Much of the music in these years was ballroom-themed. Many of the fashionable restaurants were equipped with dance floors. Prohibition in the United States began January 16, 1919, with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Best-selling books of this decade include The Inside of the Cup, Seventeen, Mr. Britling Sees It Through, and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

During the 1910s, the world population increased from 1.75 to 1.87 billion, with approximately 640 million births and 500 million deaths in total.

Politics and wars

Wars

Internal conflicts

Major political changes

Decolonization and independence

Assassinations and attempts

Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:

Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Nicholas II of Russia

Disasters
Sinking of the Titanic.
  • The RMS Titanic, a British ocean liner which was the largest and most luxurious ship at that time, struck an iceberg and sank two hours and 40 minutes later in the North Atlantic during its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. 1,517 people perished in the disaster.
  • On May 29, 1914, the British ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland collided in thick fog with the SS Storstad, a Norwegian collier, near the mouth of Saint Lawrence River in Canada, sinking in 14 minutes. 1,012 lives were lost.
  • On May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by U-20, a German U-boat, off the Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland, sinking in 18 minutes. 1,198 lives were lost.
  • Halifax Explosion
    On November 21, 1916, the HMHS Britannic was holed in an explosion while passing through a channel which had been seeded with enemy mines and sank in 55 minutes.
  • From 1918 through 1920, the Spanish flu killed from 17.4 to 100 million people worldwide.
  • In 1916, the Netherlands was hit by a North Sea storm that flooded the lowlands and killed 19 people.
  • From July 1 to July 12, 1916, a series of shark attacks, known as the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, occurred along the Jersey Shore, killing four and injuring one.
  • On January 11, 1914, Sakurajima erupted which resulted in the death of 35 people. In addition, the surrounding islands were consumed, and an isthmus was created between Sakurajima and the mainland.
  • In 1917, the Halifax Explosion killed 2,000 people.
  • In 1919, the Great Molasses Flood in Boston, Massachusetts killed 21 people and injured 150.

Other significant international events

Science and technology

Technology
British World War I Mark V tank
  • Gideon Sundback patented the first modern zipper.[4]
  • Harry Brearley invented stainless steel.[5]
  • Charles Strite invented the first pop-up bread toaster.[6][7]
  • The Model T Ford dominated the automobile market, selling more than all other makers combined in 1914.[8]
  • The army tank was invented. Tanks in World War I were used by the British Army, the French Army and the German Army.[9]
  • 1912 - Articulated trams, invented and first used by the Boston Elevated Railway.[10]

Science

Economics
  • In the years 1910 and 1911, there was a minor economic depression known as the Panic of 1910–11, which was followed by the enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
  • Flying Squadron of America promotes temperance movement in the United States.
  • Edith Smith Davis edits the Temperance Educational Quarterly.
  • The first U.S. feature film, Oliver Twist, was released in 1912.
  • The first mob film, D. W. Griffith's The Musketeers of Pig Alley was released in 1912.
  • Hollywood, California, replaces the East Coast as the center of the movie industry.
  • The first crossword puzzle was published 21 December 1913 appearing in The New York World newspaper.
  • The comic strip Krazy Kat begins.
  • Charlie Chaplin débuts his trademark mustached, baggy-pants "Little Tramp" character in Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914.
  • The first African American owned studio, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, was founded in 1917.
  • The four Warner brothers, (from older to younger) Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack opened their first major film studio in Burbank in 1918.
  • Tarzan of the Apes starring Elmo Lincoln is released in 1918, the first Tarzan film.
  • The first jazz music is recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band for Victor (#18255) in late February, 1917.
  • The Salvation Army has a new international leader, General Bramwell Booth who served from 1912 to 1929. He replaces his father and co-founder of the Christian Mission (the forerunner of the Salvation Army), William Booth.

Sports

Literature and arts
See also: List of years in literature § 1910s, and Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1910s

Below are the best-selling books in the United States of each year, as determined by The Bookman, a New York-based literary journal (1910 - 1912) and Publishers Weekly (1913 and beyond).[14]

  • 1910: The Rosary by Florence L. Barclay
  • 1911: The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol
  • 1912: The Harvester by Gene Stratton Porter
  • 1913: The Inside of the Cup by Winston Churchill
  • 1914: The Eyes of the World by Harold Bell Wright
  • 1915: The Turmoil by Booth Tarkington
  • 1916: Seventeen by Booth Tarkington
  • 1917: Mr. Britling Sees It Through by H. G. Wells
  • 1918: The U.P. Trail by Zane Grey
  • 1919: The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Visual Arts
See also: Armory Show and History of painting

The 1913 Armory Show in New York City was a seminal event in the history of Modern Art. Innovative contemporaneous artists from Europe and the United States exhibited together in a massive group exhibition in New York City, and Chicago.

Art movements
  • Proto-Cubism
  • Crystal Cubism
  • Orphism
  • Section d'Or
  • Synchromism
  • Futurism
Other movements and techniques

Influential artists

People

Politics
  • John Barrett, Director-general Organization of American States
  • Georges Louis Beer, Chairman Permanent Mandates Commission
  • Henry P. Davison, Chairman International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
  • Sir James Eric Drummond, Secretary-general League of Nations
  • Emil Frey, Director International Telecommunication Union
  • Christian Louis Lange, Secretary-general Inter-Parliamentary Union
  • Baron Louis Paul Marie Hubert Michiels van Verduynen, Secretary-general Permanent Court of Arbitration
  • William E. Rappard, Secretary-general International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
  • Manfred von Richthofen, alias the "Red Baron", fighter pilot
  • Eugène Ruffy, Director Universal Postal Union
  • William Napier Shaw, President World Meteorological Organization
  • Albert Thomas, Director International Labour Organization
  • Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, Chairman of the Executive Committee Communist International

Business

Inventors

Authors

Entertainers

Baseball
Babe Ruth, 1915

Olympics

Boxing

See also

Timeline

The following articles contain brief timelines which list the most prominent events of the decade:

1910 • 1911 • 1912 • 1913 • 1914 • 1915 • 1916 • 1917 • 1918 • 1919

References
  1. Dictionary of Genocide, by Samuel Totten, Paul Robert Bartrop, Steven L. Jacobs, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008, ISBN 0-313-34642-9, p. 19
  2. Intolerance: a general survey, by Lise Noël, Arnold Bennett, 1994, ISBN 0773511873, p. 101
  3. Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society, by Richard T. Schaefer, 2008, p. 90
  4. Friedel, Robert D (1996). Zipper : an Exploration in Novelty. New York: Norton. p. 94. ISBN 0393313654. OCLC 757885297.
  5. "A Non-Rusting Steel: Sheffield Invention Especially Good for Table Cutlery" (PDF). The New York Times. 1914-01-31. Retrieved 2017-05-11.
  6. "Bread-toaster" (Patent #1,387,670 application filed May 29, 1919, granted August 16, 1921). Google Patents. Retrieved 30 January 2018.
  7. "Patent for Bread-Toaster Issued October 18, 1921". United States Patent and Trademark Office. Archived from the original (Patent #1,394,450 application filed June 22, 1920, granted October 18, 1921) on October 27, 2018. Retrieved 30 January 2018.
  8. Brinkley, Douglas (2004). Wheels for the world : Henry Ford, his company, and a century of progress, 1903-2003. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780142004395. OCLC 796971541.
  9. Watson, Greig (2014-02-24). "World War One: The tank's secret Lincoln origins". BBC News. Retrieved 2017-05-11.
  10. MBTA (2010). "About the MBTA-The "El"". MBTA. Archived from the original on 26 November 2010. Retrieved 8 December 2010.
  11. O'Conner, J.J.; Robertson, E.F. (May 1996). "General relativity". www.st-andrews.ac.uk. University of St. Andrews. Retrieved 2017-05-11.
  12. "Gerade auf LeMO gesehen: LeMO Bestand: Biografie". www.dhm.de (in German). Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum. 2014-09-14. Retrieved 2017-05-11.
  13. Demhardt, Imre (2012) [1912]. "Alfred Wegeners Hypothesis on Continental Drift and its Discussion in Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen" (PDF). Polarforschung. 75: 29–35. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-10-04.
  14. "Annual Bestsellers, 1910-1919". 2006. Archived from the original on 2011-10-16.

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