Ralph Vaughan Williams sets poems by Housman in On Wenlock Edge

Italian educational pioneer Maria Montessori publishes The Montessori Method

Rugby Union acquires new headquarters and a state-of-the-art stadium at Twickenham

Alexandre Benois becomes the first artistic director of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes

Arnold Schoenberg composes his opera for a single voice, Erwartung, which remains unperformed until 1924 in Prague

French biologist Charles Nicolle discovers that epidemic typhus is transmitted by the body louse

André Gide publishes La Porte étroite ('Strait is the Gate')

Isaac Albéniz completes his series of 12 piano pieces published under the title Iberia.

René Lalique, originally known for his jewellery, sets up his own glass-making factory at Combes-la-Ville

15-year-old Andrés Segovia gives his first public performance as a guitarist in Granada

Vaughan Williams first symphony, which he names A Sea Symphony, is first performed at the Leeds Festival

Diaghilev presents the first season of Ballets Russes in Paris, with Pavlova and Nijinsky in the company

Fokine's 1907 ballet Chopiniana is revised and given a new name, Les Sylphides

The heroine of H.G. Wells' novel Ann Veronica is a determined example of the New Woman

US entrepreneur Gordon Selfridge opens the first British custom-built department store on London's Oxford Street

Louis Blériot is the first to fly across the English Channel, winning the £1000 prize offered by the Daily Mail

Sergei Rachmaninov premieres his Third Piano Concerto during his tour of the USA as a pianist

Karl Landsteiner classifies the main human blood groups as A, B, AB and O

Thomas Beecham uses his personal fortune from Beecham's Pills to found his first orchestra, the Beecham Symphony Orchestra

Set-designer Leon Bakst begins a long association with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes

In response to fears of German espionage a Secret Service Bureau, later to be divided into MI5 and MI6, is set up in Britain

The Conservative majority in the House of Lords rejects Lloyd George's reforming budget, giving the Liberals the chance to call an election on an emotive issue

Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel has its premiere in Moscow

British prime minister Herbert Asquith leads the Liberal party to a narrow victory, in an election fought on the issue of the House of Lords

The wife of Harvey Crippen, an American doctor working in north London, vanishes mysteriously