Maria Montessori establishes her first Casa dei Bambini in the deprived San Lorenzo district of Rome

Russian author Maxim Gorky completes his novel Mat ("The Mother"), written mainly during a visit to the USA

Edmund Gosse publishes Father and Son, an account of his difficult relationship with his fundamentalist father, Philip Gosse

Dutch and British companies (Royal Dutch Oil, Shell Transport and Trading) merge to form Royal Dutch Shell Oil

An Entente signed between Britain and Russia follows on from the 1904 Entente Cordiale with France to establish a new Triple Entente

Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce build their most famous car, the Silver Ghost, in the factory they have set up in Derby

Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev presents five concerts of Russian music in Paris

Gertrude Stein meets Alice B. Toklas, who becomes her secretary and lifelong companion

A separatist party in Spain, Solidaridad Catalana, makes electoral gains in Catalonia

Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a violent transition into cubism, is a turning point in western art

Henkel & Cie launches in Düsseldorf the first domestic washing powder, Persil

Austrian scientist Clemens von Pirquet discovers a diagnostic test to identify tuberculosis in a patient

James Joyce completes the eight short stories eventually published in 1914 as Dubliners

A fossilized human jaw, probably at least 500,000 years old, is found near Heidelberg in Germany

The world's first custom-built motor-racing track opens at Brooklands, near Weybridge in Surrey

The Deutscher Werkbund is founded in Munich as an association of architects, designers and industrialists

Frederick Delius completes Brigg Fair, an 'English Rhapsody' for orchestra, first performed in Liverpool in 1908

Samuel Simon, working in Manchester, takes out a patent for the use of silk to support a stencil

The first International Horse Show takes place in London's Olympia stadium

Swedish playwright August Strindberg publishes The Ghost Sonata, which has its first performance in Stockholm the following year

The British liner Lusitania sets a new record for the Atlantic crossing, on the first of four such occasions

20-year-old Le Corbusier builds his first house at La Chaux-de-Fonds, in his native Switzerland

Anna Pavlova dances The Dying Swan, choreographed for her by Michel Fokine to music by Saint-Saëns

Robert Baden-Powell publishes Scouting for Boys, the success of which leads to the establishment of the Scouts

Rat, Mole and Toad, in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, appeal to a wide readership