This Year in History - 1907

This Year in History - 1907

Jan 01 2008

In 1907:

• Robert Baden-Powell led the first scout camp on Brownsea Island, England; the RMS Lusitania made its maiden voyage; a major financial crisis in the USA was narrowly avoided when J.P. Morgan and others set up a $25 million pool to invest in shares on the plunging New York Stock Exchange; Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th US state; the Diamond Sutra was discovered in China - the earliest example of block printing believed to date from 868; and
  Maria Montessori opened her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome.
• Against this backdrop, the following notable books were published: Osama of Oz by L Frank Baum, The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster, The Tale of Tom Kitten by Beatrix Potter, The Overman by Upton Sinclair, Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton and Not George Washington by P.G. Wodehouse.
• In the world of art, Impressionism was giving way to new styles: Claude Monet painted Water Lilies Giverny #3, Pablo Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Henri Rousseau painted The Snake Charmer, and Gustav Klimt produced a number of paintings including The Kiss.
• Notable musical works of 1807 include Edward Elgar's The Wand of Youth, Gustav Holst's A Somerset Rhapsody and Rachmaninoff's Symphony No.2 in E minor.
• W.H. Auden was born, as were Daphne du Maurier, Rachel Carson and Robert Heinlein.
• Mark Twain received an honorary doctorate of laws degree from Oxford University; and the Nobel Prize for Literature was won by Rudyard Kipling.  The first Nobel Prize for Literature was won by Sully Prudhomme in 1901; Sully died in 1907.

Previous stories, "This year in 1607, 1707 & 1807".

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