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Outbreak
Influenza outbreak in London -
Hunger Pains
Famine in British India worsens and claims the lives of about 8 million Indians through 1905. -
Quantum Theory
German theoretical physicist Max Planck discovered an equation that explained the results they continued to get from heating black bodies (a surface that absorbs all frequencies of light that hits it). This new theory of energy revolutionized physics and opened the way for Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. -
Music to my ears
The Philadelphia Orchestra is founded. -
First Nobel Prize
First Nobel Prize is awarded to Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. Not wanting to go down in history for creating such a deadly device, Nobel created a will that left the bulk of his fortune to the establishment of five prizes (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace). -
Nitrogen Saves the Day
After facing more threats of famine, the first nitrogen fertilizer is created by extracting nitrogen from the air.
Thanks Professor Frank and Sam Eyde!
(Photo of Sam Eyde in 1910) -
Railways
Trans-Siberian Railway is completed, connecting Moscow and European Russia with the Russian Far East provinces, Mongolia, China and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world. -
Period: to
Expressionism
Submersion of the subjective. In repsonse to Naturalism. Shift from man vs nature to man vs the nature of himself. -
Aha Moments
Frued and Einstein both make marks in 1905 for publishing theories of relativity and sexuality.
(Freuds wedding photo) -
Welcome to the Jungle
Upton Sinclair publishes his book The Jungle which unveils the nasty truth of meat production. -
Period: to
Cubism
Cubism paintings are a display of multifaceted perspectives shown at once. Objects are torn apart and reconstructed to create new images in a shallow and ambiguous space. -
Futurism
Futurism embraced man's achievments over nature. Technology and industrial progress fueled the movements nationalist flair. The more daring you were, the more original you were. The more original, the more genius.
(Giacomo Balla, Street Light c.1909) -
Beep Beep
First B-Type double decker bus is built and operated by London General Omnibus Company and is considered the first mass-produced bus.
(Photo of early LGOC B-Type) -
Uh Oh
The Mona Lisa is stolen right off the wall of the Louvre. -
Synchromism
Merging of color and sound in art. Artist as composer, using color scales to evoke a musicality in painting. Evoking the question of hearing through color.
Stanton Macdonald-Wright, California Landscape c.1909 -
War What is it Good For?
Beginning of World War 1 -
Period: to
Biomorphism
Defined as "A nonrepresentational form or pattern that resembles a living organism in shape or appearance". Allows an abstract form is represent something concrete. -
Period: to
Dada
Anti-Art movement anarchist and anti-bourgeouis in nature. It's purpose was not to please the senses but disgust them and destroy traditional ways of thinking and culture. -
Power to the People
Easter rising in Ireland to end British rule and was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798.
(Photo of Seán MacDermott, one of the leaders of the uprising. He would later be shot instead of arrested at age 33) -
Period: to
De Stijl/Neoplasticism
Movement founded in Holland with a purpose of pure color and form completely devoid of any influence of either the artists emotions or realism. Artists used horizontal and vertical lines, reducing their colors to only black, white, gray, and primary colors. -
Execution of Mata the Spy
Mata Hari was a Dutch exotic dancer whose frequent border crossings and international companions caused the French to suspect her of spying. Mata Hari was executed by a 12-man firing squad. -
Russian Revolution
Beginning of the Ressian Revolution which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. -
Death of a Czar
Russian Czar Nicholas II and His Family are Killed -
Constructivism
Originated in Russia in favor of art's purpose to be solely social. No abstract ideas, only concrete. Practical art over fine art.
(1920s. Rodchenko and Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova) -
New Objectivity
Realism adjoined with social commentary influenced from a socially critical philosophical stance. The two sub branches of this movment included the Verists (Aggressive and satirical) and the Magic Realists (Postive, still anti-German Expressionist).
(Otto Dix, Portrait of Journalist Sylvia Von Harden c.1926) -
Art Deco
Modern design movement that flourished in Paris. Moving away from the need of having a purpose or theory behind it's design, art deco is simply there for decoration and can be seen in buildings all over the world. Based off of gemetrical shapes, Art Deco called upon the modern and the opulant.
(Empire State Building NY) -
Period: to
Surrealism
A revolutionary movement, giving full purpose to literary influences first and it's art second. Used automism as a springboard to enlightment and freeing the mind from its cage. Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality." -
Inflation
Extreme inflation in Germany. -
Insulin
Insulin is discovered by medical researcher Frederick Banting and research assistant Charles Best who studied the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas of dogs at the University of Toronto. -
Tut
Tomb of King Tut is discovered. On November 6th, two days after finding the first step, Howard Carter sent a cable: "At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for your arrival; congratulations." -
Dance Dance
The Charleston takes over the dance floors after appearing along with the song, "The Charleston," by James P. Johnson in the Broadway musical Runnin' Wild in 1923. -
Hitler the Author
Htler publishes Mein Kampf. -
Crash
Stock market crashes and begins a Depression felt around the world. -
Social Realism
Art of the working class. Social Realism works as a way to unviel the injustices of the common man's every day life.
(Doris Ulmann, Laborers Hands c.1925) -
Empire Strikes Back
Empire State Building Completed -
Atom
Scientists split the atom. -
Drink Up!
End of Prohibition in America with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. -
Death of the Famous Duo
Bonnie and Clyde meet their end ambushed by cops in Louisiana. -
I Can Haz Cheeburger?
Now you can! Cheeseburger is finally invented. -
Just a Suggestion
British economist John Maynard Keynes Suggests New Economic Theory. Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle. -
Civil War
Spanish Civial War begins. Many Spanish intellectuals and artists (including much of the Spanish Generation of 1927) either were killed or were forced into exile. hough it had Spanish nationalist ideals as the central cause, the war was closely watched around the world mainly as the first major military contest between left-wing forces and the increasingly powerful and heavily armed Fascists.
(Photo of Republican soldier seeks cover on the Plaza de Toros, in Teruel, east of Madrid.) -
Open Your Golden Gates
Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed. -
War of the Air Waves
Broadcasting of War of the Worlds over the radio causes mass hysteria. -
Art Brut
"Raw art" made by outsiders aka those who have little connection to the outside world. Praised as being closest to the primitive thus pure.
(Photo of Adolf Wolfli) -
Abstract Expressionism
Emphasis on emotionally loaded themes. Artists valued, above all, individuality and spontaneous improvisation.
(Pollock Painting) -
Period: to
Color Field Painting
Described as large fields of flat color on a shallow picture plane. "We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth." Revolutionized the use of paint on a canvas.
--Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko, 1943 in a letter to The New York Times -
Primitive Finds
Stone Age paintings found by boys in a Lascaux cave in France. -
A day that will live in infamy
Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, forcing the United States to declare war the following day, thus entering WW2. -
I Give Up!
German surrender to American forces. -
Faster than the speed of light
Chuck Yeager Breaks the Sound Barrier in the X-1. -
Smile!
Poloroid cameras are invented by Edwin Land -
Ghandi
Ghandi is assasinated. -
Big Bang
Big Bang theory is introduced by Georges Lemaître, based off of Einstein's theory of Relativity. According to the Big Bang model, the universe, originally in an extremely hot and dense state that expanded rapidly, has since cooled by expanding to the present diluted state, and continues to expand today. -
1984 in 1949?
George Orwell Publishes Nineteen Eight-Four. -
Bomb
Soviet Union has atom bomb and explodes it, much to the surprise of the U.S. -
China
China becomes Communist
