Isadora Duncan dances professionally for the first time in Europe in London's Lyceum Theatre

Scottish music-hall artist Harry Lauder makes his first London appearance at Gatti's music hall in Westminster

David Belasco's play Madame Butterfly has its premiere in New York, and is subsequently seen in London by Giacomo Puccini

The Conservatives win an increased majority during the Boer War, in what becomes known as the 'khaki election'

Keir Hardie is returned to parliament for Merthyr Tydfil, beginning a long and close link between the Labour party and Wales.

Charles Stewart Rolls wins the Automobile Club's Thousand Mile Trial in a 12 horse-power Panhard

The Irish Parliamentary Party, which split after the Parnell divorce case, reunites under the leadership of John Redmond

Edward Elgar writes the oratorio Dream of Gerontius, setting Cardinal Newman's poem of the same title

Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Lord Jim about a life of failure and redemption in the far East

Queen Victoria dies at Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, after 63 years on the throne

Beatrix Potter publishes at her own expense The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Rudyard Kipling's experiences of India are put to good use in his novel Kim

The British batsman C.B. Fry hits a record six consecutive centuries in first-class cricket

The first of Edward Elgar's five Pomp and Circumstance marches has a trio section that becomes "Land of Hope and Glory"

Frederick Delius completes his opera A Village Romeo and Juliet, but it is not performed until 1907 in Berlin

Charles Rennie Mackintosh designs the interior of Miss Cranston's Ingram Street Tea Rooms in Glasgow

Guglielmo Marconi transmits a radio message in Morse code 2100 miles, from Poldhu in Cornwall to St John's in Newfoundland

Robert Falcon Scott sets off in the Discovery on his first expedition to the Antarctic

Frank Hornby begins to market in Britain his immensely successful Meccano kits

Ebenezer Howard republishes his earlier book of 1898 as Garden Cities of Tomorrow

Rudyard Kipling publishes his Just So Stories for Little Children

A.E. Kennelly and Oliver Heaviside independently see the link between the atmosphere and the behaviour of radio waves

The play Cathleen ni Houlihan, by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, fosters Irish nationalism

Irish politician Arthur Griffith launches Sinn Fein, as an organization campaigning for a strong and independent Ireland

'Land of Hope and Glory' features in its lasting form as the finale of Elgar's Coronation Ode for Edward VII