1902 - What happened in 1902 ?

January 1902

Wednesday 01:

The first Rose Bowl game is played in Pasadena, California.

Tuesday 28:

The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, DC with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

February 1902

Tuesday 11:

Police beat up universal suffrage demonstrators in Brussels.

March 1902

Tuesday 04:

In Chicago, the American Automobile Association is established.

Monday 10:

Tochangri, Turkey, is completely destroyed by an earthquake.

April 1902

Wednesday 02:

"Electric Theatre", the first movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, California.

Sunday 13:

James C. Penney opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming

Sunday 20:

Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.

May 1902

Thursday 08:

In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of St. Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.

Thursday 15:

In a field outside Grass Valley, California, Lyman Gilmore reportedly becomes the first person to fly a powered airplane (a steam-powered glider).

Saturday 17:

Archaeologist Spyridon Stais finds the Antikythera mechanism.

Tuesday 20:

Cuba gains independence from the United States.

Saturday 31:

Second Boer War: The last Afrikaner resistance forces sign a peace treaty with the British at Pretoria, ending the war, and ensuring British control of South Africa.

June 1902

Monday 16:

Australia: Female British subjects (with the glaring exception of Asians, Aborigines and Africans) won the vote with the Uniform Franchise Act.

Tuesday 24:

King Edward VII of the United Kingdom develops appendicitis, delaying his coronation.

July 1902

Monday 14:

The Campanile in St Mark's Square, Venice collapses, also demolishing the logetta.

August 1902

Friday 01:

The United States buys the rights to the Panama Canal from France.

Monday 04:

Greenwich foot tunnel under the River Thames opens.

Saturday 09:

Edward VII is crowned king of the United Kingdom.

Friday 22:

Theodore Roosevelt became the first President of the United States to ride in an automobile

September 1902

Wednesday 03:

Popular author Sarah Orne Jewett is thrown out of a carriage, virtually ending her writing career.

Monday 29:

Impresario David Belasco's first Broadway theater opens.

October 1902

Tuesday 21:

In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.

November 1902

Thursday 20:

Henri Desgrange and fellow journalist Géo Lefèvre dream up the idea of the Tour de France over lunch at the Café de Madrid in Paris.

Sunday 30:

Costa Rica becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

December 1902

Sunday 14:

First telegraph cable laid across the Pacific Ocean

Sunday 28:

The first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden.