Within a single 'Black Week' the British forces in South Africa suffer three defeats, at Stromberg, Magersfontein and Colenso

At a retrial of Alfred Dreyfus a new court martial confirms his conviction for treason

Ten days after the court martial's verdict, Alfred Dreyfus is given a pardon by the president of France

Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg composes the string sextet Verklärte Nacht

Ranjitsinhji becomes the first cricketer to score 3000 runs in a single season

E. Nesbit publishes The Story of the Treasure Seekers, introducing the Bastable family who feature in several of her books for children

Giacomo Puccini's Tosca brings in the new century with a January premiere in Rome

The faction founded in Bohemia by Tomas Masaryk becomes known as the Progressive party

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'

Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife exhibit together at the Sezession show in Vienna

Enrique Granados completes the ten piano pieces forming his Danzas españolas

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

The Bayer company in Germany sells aspirin in the form of water-soluble tablets, the first medication of its kind

Ferdinand Zeppelin's first dirigible makes its test flight from a floating hangar on the Lake of Constance

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

Jean Sibelius's Finlandia stirs national instincts in Helsinki

Sigmund Freud publishes one of his most significant works, The Interpretation of Dreams

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

Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya is directed by Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre

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

Gustave Charpentier's opera Louise has Paris premiere at the Opéra-Comique

German physicist Max Planck proposes the revolutionary concept of the quantum theory