Tsar Nicholas II issues a Fundamental Law emphasizing his own autocratic power

German immunologist August von Wasserman develops a diagnostic test to reveal the presence of the syphilis spirochaete in the blood

Charles Pathé opens the first purpose-built luxury cinema, the Omnia-Pathé, in Paris

E. Nesbit publishes The Railway Children, the most successful of her books featuring the Bastable family

The Simplon rail tunnel, the longest in the world (20 km), is opened between Switzerland and Italy

In direct response to Britain's new Dreadnought, Germany increases the production of battleships

Tsar Nicholas II appoints as prime minister the reformist aristocrat Pyotr Stolypin

The first Grand Prix of motor-racing is held near Le Mans over a 64-mile course

Pablo Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein prefigures cubism in its mask-like treatment of her face

Alfred Dreyfus is reinstated in the army after the French supreme court overturns his conviction for treason

Belgian physiologists Jules Bordet and Octave Gengou identify Bacillus pertussis, the bacterium causing whooping cough

Tsar Nicholas II summarily dismisses Russia's new duma when it has been sitting for only three months

Alfred Dreyfus is awarded the Légion d'Honneur ten days after his conviction has been annulled

The Cunard company launches the Lusitania on the Clyde as a sister ship to the Mauretania

A large retrospective exhibition in Paris gives Paul Gauguin a growing posthumous reputation

Sergei Diaghilev mounts a major exhibition of Russian art at the Petit Palais in Paris.

A pediatrician in Vienna, Clemens von Pirquet, describes a condition for which he coins the term 'allergy'

German physicist Walther Nernst establishes the Third Law of Thermodynamics, dealing with temperatures close to absolute zero

Ethel Smyth's most successful opera, The Wreckers, is premiered in Leipzig

The German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer identifies physical symptoms in the brain of a dead woman who had presenile dementia

The Russian prime minister Pyotr Stolypin introduces land reform

John Galsworthy publishes The Man of Property, the first of his novels chronicling the family of Soames Forsyte

J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World provokes violent reactions at its Dublin premiere

Frederick Delius's Walk to the Paradise Garden is added to his opera A Village Romeo and Juliet to cover a scene change during the Berlin premiere

Michel Fokine creates the ballet Les Sylphides (originally called Chopiniana) to music by Chopin