Fokker Aircraft is founded by Dutch aviation designer Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker.

German meteorologist Alfred Lothar Wegener postulates the theory of continental drift to explain the movement of the earth's crust. The theory is largely rejected until the 1960s.

Rowenta, a German firm, introduces the first electric iron.

French painter Marcel Duchamp completes one of his best-known and most controversial works, Nude Descending a Staircase.

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung publishes Theory of Psychoanalysis.

German poet Rainer Maria Rilke publishes the first collection of his Duino Elegies, a work he finally completes in 1922.

An International Radio-Telegraph Conference adopts the Morse code signal SOS — three dots, three dashes, three dots — as a universal signal of distress.

1 Jan.

Sun Yat-sen is made provisional president of the Republic of China.

12 Feb.

Hsuan t'ung, the boy emperor of China, abdicates.

14 Feb.

Sun Yat-sen resigns as president of China.

7 Mar.

Henri Semiet completes the first...