Our Town, Our Times - 1901

• Marconi conducts the first transatlantic radio transmission, ushering in the radio age


• Queen Victoria dies; her son Edward VII inherits the throne and the Edwardian era begins


• Walt Disney is born


• There are 45 states in the U.S.


• President McKinley is assassinated; Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, becomes president. McKinley’s shooter is convicted and dies by electrocution less than two months after the shooting


• Nobel Prizes are awarded for the first time this year, including one for the discovery of the x-ray


• Oldsmobile is first car to sell successfully in the U.S.


• New inventions include instant coffee, electric hearing aids, the safety razor, the electric typewriter, and the electric vacuum cleaner


• Cuba is made an unofficial U.S. colony and Guantanamo Naval Base is established


• The Texas oil boom begins


• Booker T. Washington’s autobiography Up From Slavery is published. The author attends a White House dinner with Teddy Roosevelt.


• Life expectancy in U.S. for white males is 48 years and for white women is 51 years


• The first College Boards Exams (SATs) are given


• Lionel Trains are introduced


• The American League is organized in baseball; the National League was already formed over two decades earlier


• A steam sheller can shell a bushel of corn in 1.5 minutes versus 1 hour and 40 minutes by hand and a wheat combine can reap, bind, and thresh in 4 minutes versus 2 hours and 40 minutes by hand


• Ping pong is a fad that sweeps America


• Field Hockey is introduced and becomes a popular women’s sport in high schools and colleges

US flag Circa 1901 (note 45 stars) - July 4, 1896 to July 3, 1908	Retro train "Costerina" Gdynia - Koscierzyna September 2004, Author Rafal Konkolewski

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