1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday (dominical letter G) of the Julian calendar, the 1901st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 901st year of the 2nd millennium, the 1st year of the 20th century, and the 2nd year of the 1900s decade. As of the start of 1901, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
January 1
The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia. Edmund Barton becomes first Prime Minister of Australia.
Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.
The birth of Pentecostalism at a prayer meeting at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas.
January 5 – Typhoid fever breaks out in a Seattle jail, the first of two typhoid outbreaks in the United States during the year.
January 7 – Alferd Packer is released from prison after serving 18 years for cannibalism.
January 9 – Lord Kitchener reports that Christiaan de Wet has shot one of the "peace" envoys, and flogged two more, who had gone to his commando to ask the Burgher citizens of South Africa to halt fighting.
January 10 – In the first great Texas gusher, oil is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.
January 22
Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom dies at age 81, after more than 63 years on the throne, and her son the Prince of Wales formally succeeds her as King Edward VII.
The Grand Opera House in Cincinnati is destroyed in a fire.
January 28 – Baseball's American League declares itself a Major League.
February 2 – Funeral of Queen Victoria at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
February 5
Hay–Pauncefote Treaty signed by United Kingdom and United States, ceding control of the Panama Canal to the United States.
J. P. Morgan buys mines and steel mills in the United States, marking the first billion dollar business deal.
In Evansville, Indiana, a fire burns through the business district, causing $175,000 of damage.
February 11 – Anti-Jesuit riots sweep across Spain.
February 12 – Viceroy of India Lord Curzon creates the new North-West Frontier Province in the north of the Punjab region, bordering Afghanistan.
February 14 – Edward VII opens his first parliament of the United Kingdom.
February 15 – The Alianza Lima Foundation is created in Peru.
February 20 – The Hawaii Territory Legislature convenes for the first time.
February 22 – The Pacific Mail Steamship Company's SS City of Rio de Janeiro sinks entering San Francisco Bay, killing 128.
February 23 – The United Kingdom and Germany agree the frontier between German East Africa and the British colony of Nyasaland.
February 25 – U.S. Steel is incorporated by industrialist J. P. Morgan as the first billion-dollar corporation.
February 26
Chi-hsui and Hsu-cheng-yu, Boxer Rebellion leaders, executed in Peking.
The Middelburg peace conference fails in South Africa as Boers continue to demand autonomy.
February 27 – The Sultan of Turkey orders 50,000 troops to the Bulgarian frontier because of unrest in Macedonia
March 1
The United Kingdom, Germany and Japan protest at the Sino-Russian agreement on Manchuria.
1901 Census of India taken, the fourth, and first reliable, census of the British Raj.
March 2 – The United States Congress passes the Platt Amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.
March 4 – William McKinley is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States.
March 5 – Irish nationalist demonstrators are ejected by police from House of Commons of the United Kingdom in London.
March 6 – In Bremen, an assassination attempt is made on Wilhelm II, German Emperor.
March 11 – The United Kingdom rejects the amended Hay–Pauncefote Treaty.
March 13 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president of the United States, dies of pneumonia at age 67.
March 17
A showing of 71 Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation.
Student riots in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
March 18 – Patrick Donahoe, businessman and publisher of the Boston Catholic newspaper The Pilot, dies aged 90.
March 31
1901 Black Sea earthquake of 7.2 on the moment magnitude scale.
The United Kingdom Census 1901 is taken. The number of people employed in manufacturing is at its highest-ever level.
April 25 – New York becomes the first US state to require automobile license plates.
April 29 – Anti-Jewish rioting breaks out in Budapest.
May 3 – The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.
May 5 – The Caste War of Yucatán in Mexico officially ends, although Mayan skirmishers continue sporadic fighting for another decade.
May 9 – The first Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne.
May 17 – Panic of 1901: The New York Stock Exchange crashes.
May 24 – 81 miners are killed in an accident at Universal Colliery, Senghenydd in South Wales.
May 25 – The Club Atlético River Plate is founded in Argentina.
May 27 – In New Jersey, the Edison Storage Battery Company is founded.
May 28 – Persia grants William Knox D'Arcy a concession, giving him the right to prospect for oil.
June – Emily Hobhouse reports on the genocide in the 45 British concentration camps for Boer women and children in South Africa in which, over an 18-month period, 26,370 people would die, 24,000 of them children under 16. Exact mortality figures in the 64 concentration camps for black displaced farm workers and their families are not known, but they are even worse.
June 2 – Katsura Tarō becomes Prime Minister of Japan.
June 12 – Cuba becomes a United States protectorate.
June 15 – RMS Lucania is the first Cunard Line ship to receive a wireless radio set.
July 1
The first United Kingdom Fingerprint Bureau is established at Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police headquarters in London, by Edward Henry.
Bureau of Chemistry established within the United States Department of Agriculture.
July 4
The 1,282 foot (390 m) covered bridge crossing the Saint John River at Hartland, New Brunswick, Canada opens. It is the longest covered bridge in the world.
William Howard Taft becomes Governor-General of the Philippines.
July 10 – The world's first passenger-carrying trolleybus in regular service operates on the Biela Valley Trolleybus route at Koeninggstein in Germany.
July 24 – O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio after serving three years for embezzlement from the First National Bank in Austin, Texas.
August 5 – Peter O'Connor sets the first International Association of Athletics Federations recognised long jump world record of 24 ft 11¾ins. The record will stand for 20 years.
August 6 – Discovery Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott sets sail on the RRS Discovery to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica.
August 14 – The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead in his Number 21.
August 21 – The International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centres is founded in Copenhagen.
August 28 – Silliman University is founded in the Philippines, the first American private school in the country.
August 30 – Hubert Cecil Booth patents an electric vacuum cleaner in the United Kingdom.
September 2 – U.S. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.
September 5 – The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (later renamed Minor League Baseball), is formed in Chicago.
September 6 – William McKinley assassination: American anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies 8 days later.
September 7 – The Boxer Rebellion in China officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol.
September 14 – Vice President Theodore Roosevelt succeeds William McKinley as President of the United States, upon McKinley's death. Roosevelt is sworn in that afternoon.
September 26 – The body of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is exhumed and reinterred in concrete several feet thick.
September 28 – Philippine–American War: Balangiga massacre: Filipino guerrillas kill more than forty United States soldiers in a surprise attack in the town of Balangiga in Samar.
October 2 – The British Royal Navy's first submarine, Holland 1, is launched at Barrow-in-Furness.
October 4 – The American yacht Columbia defeats the British Shamrock in the America's Cup yachting race.
October 16 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt invites African American leader Booker T. Washington to the White House. The American South reacts angrily to the visit, and racial violence increases in the region.
October 23 – Yale University celebrates its bicentennial.
October 24 – Michigan schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survives.
October 29 – In Amherst, New York, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.
November 1 – Sigma Phi Epsilon is founded in Richmond, Virginia.
November 9 – The Prince George, Duke of Cornwall (later George V) becomes Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.
November 15 – The Alpha Sigma Alpha Fraternity is founded at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.
November 25 – Auguste Deter is first examined by German psychiatrist Dr Alois Alzheimer, leading to a diagnosis of the condition that will carry Alzheimer's name.
November 28 – The new Constitution of Alabama requires voters in the state to have passed literacy tests.
December 3 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".
December 10 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.
December 12 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from Poldhu in England, UK to Newfoundland; it is the letter "S" in Morse.
December 20 – The final spike is driven into the Mombasa–Victoria–Uganda Railway in what is now Kisumu, Kenya.
December 22 – Peace Sunday and Charles Aked, a Baptist minister in Liverpool, says about the war in South Africa: "Great Britain cannot win the battles without resorting to the last despicable cowardice of the most loathsome cur on earth — the act of striking a brave man's heart through his wife's honour and his child's life. The cowardly war has been conducted by methods of barbarism... the concentration camps have been Murder Camps." A crowd follows him home and breaks the windows of his house.
Europium is isolated by Eugène-Anatole Demarçay.
The okapi is observed for the first time (previously known only to local natives).
The Intercollegiate Prohibition Association is established in Chicago.
New Zealand inventor Ernest Godward invents the spiral hairpin.
William S. Harley draws up plans for his first prototype motorcycle.
German Oscar Troplowitz invents for German company Beiersdorf the medical plaster patch called Leukoplast.
German engineer Richard Fiedler invents the modern Flamethrower, the Kleinflammenwerfer.
January 3 – Ngô Đình Diệm, 1st President of South Vietnam (d. 1963)
January 4 – C. L. R. James, Trinidad-born writer and journalist (d. 1989)
January 9
Chic Young, American cartoonist (d. 1973)
Vilma Bánky, Hungarian-American actress (d. 1991)
January 10 – Henning von Tresckow, Major General in the German Wehrmacht (d. 1944)
January 11 – Kwon Ki-ok, Korean pilot (d. 1988)
January 13
A. B. Guthrie, American novelist, historian (d. 1991)
Mieczysław Żywczyński, Polish historian and priest (d. 1978)
Wilhelm Hanle, German physicist (d. 1993)
January 14
Bebe Daniels, American actress (d. 1971)
Alfred Tarski, Polish logician and mathematician (d. 1983)
January 16
Fulgencio Batista, Cuban leader (d. 1973)
Frank Zamboni, American inventor (d. 1988)
January 21 – Marcellus Boss, American politician and lawyer, member of Kansas Senate and 5th Civilian Governor of Guam (d. 1967)
January 24
Hans Erich Apostel, Austrian composer (d. 1972)
Harry Calder, South African cricketer (d. 1995)
January 25 – Mildred Dunnock, American actress (d. 1991)
January 26 – Stuart Symington, American politician (d. 1988)
January 27 – Art Rooney, American football team owner (d. 1988)
January 29 – E. P. Taylor, Canadian business tycoon (d. 1989)
January 30 – Rudolf Caracciola, German race car driver (d. 1959)
February 1
Frank Buckles, last surviving American veteran of World War I (d. 2011)
Howard I. Chapelle, American naval architect, museum curator, and author (d. 1975)
Clark Gable, American actor (d. 1960)
February 2 – Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian violinist (d. 1987)
February 3 – Arvid Wallman, Swedish diver (d. 1982)
February 8 – Virginius Dabney, American teacher, journalist, writer and editor (d. 1995)
February 10
Stella Adler, American actress/acting teacher (d. 1992)
Anthony Prusinski, American politician (d. 1950)
February 15 – João Branco Núncio, Portuguese bullfighter (d. 1976)
February 16 – Chester Morris, American actor (d. 1970)
February 19 – Florence Green, Last surviving World War I veteran (d. 2012)
February 20 – Mohammed Naguib, 1st President of Egypt (d. 1984)
February 22
Mildred Davis, American actress (d. 1969)
Charles Evans Whittaker, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1973)
February 25 – Zeppo Marx, American comedian (d. 1979)
February 27 – Horatio Luro, Argentine horse trainer (d. 1991)
February 28 – Linus Pauling, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Peace (d. 1994)
March 3 – Claude Choules, British World War I veteran and last combat veteran from any nation (d. 2011)
March 4
Charles Goren, American bridge player (d. 1991)
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy-French poet (d. 1937)
March 9 – Joachim Hämmerling, German-Danish biologist (d. 1980)
March 13 – Paul Fix, American actor (d. 1983)
March 17 – Alfred Newman, American film composer (d. 1970)
March 21
Karl Arnold, German politician (d. 1958)
Carmelita Geraghty, American actress (d. 1966)
March 22 – Greta Kempton, American artist (d. 1991)
March 23 – Bon Maharaja, Indian guru and religious writer (d. 1982)
March 24 – Ub Iwerks, American cartoonist (d. 1971)
March 25 – Ed Begley, American actor (d. 1970)
March 27
Carl Barks, American cartoonist and screenwriter (d. 2000)
Erich Ollenhauer, German politician (d. 1963)
Enrique Santos Discépolo, Argentine tango and milonga musician and composer (d. 1951)
Eisaku Satō, Prime Minister of Japan, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1975)
Kenneth Slessor, Australian poet (d. 1971)
March 28 – Jack Weil, American entrepreneur (d. 2008)
April 1 – Whittaker Chambers, American spy (d. 1961)
April 5 – Melvyn Douglas, American actor (d. 1981)
April 13 – Jacques Lacan, French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist (d. 1981)
April 15
Joe Davis, English snooker and billiards player (d. 1978)
Ajoy Mukherjee, Indian politician, Chief Minister of West Bengal (d. 1986)
April 18 – Al Lewis, American songwriter (d. 1967)
April 29 – Hirohito, Emperor of Japan (d. 1989)
April 30 – Simon Kuznets, Ukrainian-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)
May 2 – Chiyo Miyako, Japanese supercentenarian
May 7 – Gary Cooper, American actor (d. 1961)
May 11 – Rose Ausländer, German poet (d. 1988)
May 17 – Werner Egk, German composer (d. 1983)
May 18 – Vincent du Vigneaud, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
May 20
Max Euwe, Dutch chess player (d. 1981)
Doris Fleeson, American journalist (d. 1970)
May 21
Manfred Aschner, German-born Israeli microbiologist and entomologist, recipient of the Israel Prize (d. 1989).
Horace Heidt, American bandleader (d. 1986)
Sam Jaffe, American film producer (d. 2000)
Suzanne Lilar, Belgian essayist, novelist, and playwright (d. 1992)
May 25 – Antônio de Alcântara Machado, Brazilian novelist (d. 1935)
May 31 – Alfredo Antonini, American conductor and composer (d. 1983)
June 3 – Zhang Xueliang, Chinese military leader (d. 2001)
June 6 – Sukarno, first President of Indonesia (d. 1970)
June 8 – Salustiano Sanchez, Spanish-born American supercentenarian, oldest living man (d. 2013)
June 12 – Arnold Kirkeby, American hotelier, art collector, and real estate investor (d. 1962)
June 13
Tage Erlander, Swedish politician (social democrat), prime minister of Sweden for 23 years (1946–1969) (d. 1985)
Jean Prévost, French writer and journalist, member of the Maquis (d. 1944)
June 16 – Henri Lefebvre, French Marxist philosopher and sociologist (d. 1991)
June 17 – F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, English World War II hero (d. 1964)
June 18 – Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia (d. 1918)
June 23 – Chuck Taylor, American basketball player and salesman (d. 1969)
June 24
Marcel Mule, French saxophonist (d. 2001)
Harry Partch, American composer (d. 1974)
June 27 – Merle Tuve, American physicist (d. 1982)
June 29 – Nelson Eddy, American singer and actor (d. 1967)
July 7
Eiji Tsuburaya, Japanese film director and special effects designer (d. 1970)
Vittorio De Sica, Italian actor and film director (d. 1974)
July 9 – Barbara Cartland, British novelist (d. 2000)
July 10 – Daniel V. Gallery, American admiral and author (d. 1977)
July 17 – Bruno Jasieński, Polish poet (d. 1938)
July 20 – Heinie Manush, American baseball player (d. 1971)
July 21 – Albert Hamilton Gordon, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2009)
July 24 – Mabel Albertson, American actress (d. 1982)
July 28 – Rudy Vallee, American jazz musician (d. 1986)
July 31 – Jean Dubuffet, French painter (d. 1985)
August 1 – Pancho Villa, Filipino boxer (d. 1925)
August 4 – Louis Armstrong, American jazz musician (d. 1971)
August 5 – Thomas J. Ryan, American admiral (d. 1970)
August 8 – Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)
August 10 – Franco Dino Rasetti, Italian scientist (d. 2001)
August 14 – Alice Rivaz, Swiss writer (d. 1998)
August 18
Lucienne Boyer, French singer (d. 1983)
Jean Guitton, French writer and philosopher (d. 1999)
August 20 – Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
August 24 – Edmund Germer German electrical engineer and inventor (d. 1987)
August 26
Maxwell Taylor, American general (d. 1987)
Chen Yi, Chinese military commander and politician (d. 1972)
August 28 – Babe London, American actress and comedian (d. 1980)
August 30 – John Gunther, American writer (d. 1970)
September 4 – William Lyons, British automobile engineer and designer (d. 1985)
September 9
James Blades, English percussionist (d. 1999)
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa (d. 1966)
September 12
Ben Blue, Canadian-born comedian and actor (d. 1975)
Shmuel Horowitz, Russian-born Israeli agronomist (d. 1999)
September 15 – Sir Donald Bailey, British civil engineer (d. 1985)
September 17 – Sir Francis Chichester, British sailor (d. 1972)
September 22
Charles B. Huggins, Canadian-born cancer researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1997)
Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalin, second wife of Joseph Stalin (d. 1932)
September 23 – Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
September 24 – Gerald Warner Brace, American writer, educator, sailor and boat builder (d. 1978)
September 25 – Gordon Coventry, Australian rules footballer (d. 1968)
September 26 – George Raft, American film actor (d. 1980)
September 28
Ed Sullivan, American entertainer (d. 1974)
William S. Paley, American businessman (CBS) (d. 1990)
September 29
Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
Lanza del Vasto, Italian philosopher, poet, and activist (d. 1981)
October 2 – Alice Prin, French singer (d. 1953)
October 3 – Jean Grémillon, French film director (d. 1959)
October 10 – Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor (d. 1966)
October 19 – Arleigh Burke, American admiral (d. 1996)
October 20 – Adelaide Hall, American jazz singer and entertainer born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1993)
October 24
Gilda Gray, Polish-born dancer and actress (d. 1959)
Moultrie Kelsall, Scottish film and television actor (d. 1980)
October 28 – Hilo Hattie, Native Hawaiian singer and actress (d. 1979)
October 29 – Ana María Vela Rubio, Spanish supercentenarian
November 3
Prithviraj Kapoor, pioneer of Indian Cinema and Indian Theatre (d. 1972)
Léopold III of Belgium (d. 1983)
November 4
Masako Nashimoto, Crown Princess of Korea (d. 1989)
Max Wagner, Mexican-born American film actor (d. 1975)
November 7 – Norah McGuinness, Irish painter and illustrator (d. 1980)
November 13 – Arturo Jauretche, Argentine writer, politician, and philosopher (d. 1974)
November 18 – George Gallup, American statistician and opinion pollster (d. 1984)
November 22 – Joaquín Rodrigo, Spanish composer (d. 1999)
November 28
Walter Havighurst, American critic, novelist, literary and social historian of the Midwest, professor of English at Miami University, (d. 1994)
Roy Urquhart, British general (d. 1988)
November 29 – Mildred Harris, American actress (d. 1944)
December 5
Milton Erickson, American psychiatrist (d. 1980)
Walt Disney, American animator and film producer (d. 1966)
Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)
December 7 – Troy Sanders, American film score composer (d. 1959)
December 8 – Arthur Leslie, British actor (d. 1970)
December 12 – Fred Barker, American criminal, youngest son of Ma Barker (d. 1935)
December 16 – Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist (d. 1978)
December 19 – Rudolf Hell, German inventor (d. 2002)
December 25 – Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (d. 2004)
December 27 – Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress (d. 1992)
December 31
Julia Bathory, Hungarian glass designer (d. 2000)
Karl-August Fagerholm, Prime Minister of Finland (d. 1984)
January 1 – Ignatius L. Donnelly, U.S. politician and writer (b. 1831)
January 8 – John Barry, Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1873)
January 10 – Sir James Dickson, Premier of Queensland, Australian Minister for Defence (b. 1832)
January 11 – Vasily Kalinnikov, Russian composer (b. 1866)
January 14 – Víctor Balaguer, Spanish politician and author, (b. 1824)
January 16
Arnold Böcklin, Swiss artist (b. 1827)
Mahadev Govind Ranade, Indian reformer (b. 1842)
January 17 – Frederic W. H. Myers, British poet (b. 1843)
January 19 – Albert, 4th duc de Broglie, French politician and 2-Time Prime Minister of France (b. 1821)
January 21 – Elisha Gray, American inventor and appliance manufacturer (b. 1835)
January 22 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Empress of India (b. 1819)
January 27 – Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (b. 1813)
January 28 – Iosif Gurko, Russian field marshal (b. 1828)
February 7 – Ana Betancourt, Cuban national heroine (b. 1832)
February 10 – Max von Pettenkofer Bavarian chemist and hygienist (b. 1818)
February 11
King Milan I of Serbia (b. 1854)
Ramón de Campoamor, Spanish poet (b. 1817)
February 22 – George Francis FitzGerald, Irish mathematician (b. 1851)
February 26 – Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, Polish writer (b. 1829)
March 13 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833)
April 3 – Richard D'Oyly Carte, English impresario (b. 1844)
April 19 – Alfred Horatio Belo, American businessman and newswriter (b. 1839)
May 1 – Lewis Waterman, American inventor and businessman (b. 1837)
May 5
Axel Wilhelm Eriksson, Swedish settler and trader in South-West Africa (b. 1846)
Mariano Ignacio Prado, Peruvian military and statesman, 2-Time President of Peru (b. 1826)
May 19 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, 1st President of South Africa (b. 1819)
May 22 – Gaetano Bresci Italian anarchist and assassin (b. 1869)
May 24 – Charlotte Mary Yonge, English novelist (b. 1823)
May 31 – Ernest de Sarzec, French archeologist (b. 1832)
June 2 – George Leslie Mackay, Canadian missionary (b. 1844)
June 9
Walter Besant, English writer (b. 1836)
Adolf Bötticher, German art historian (b. 1842)
June 13 – Leopoldo Alas, 'Clarín', Spanisn novelist (b. 1852)
June 16 – Herman Grimm, German historian (b. 1828)
July 4
John Fiske, American philosopher (b. 1842)
Johannes Schmidt, German linguist (b. 1843)
July 6
Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1819)
Joseph LeConte, American physician and geologist, (b. 1823)
July 7 – Johanna Spyri, Swiss writer (b. 1827)
July 10 – Kliment of Tarnovo, 2nd Prime Minister of Bulgaria (b. 1841)
July 18 – Jan ten Brink, Dutch writer (b. 1834)
July 28 – John Irwin, American admiral (b. 1832)
August 5 – Victoria, Empress of Germany (b. 1840)
August 12 – Francesco Crispi, 11th Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1819)
August 19 – Shō Tai, last king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in Japan (b. 1843)
August 21 – Adolf Eugen Fick, German-born physician and physiologist (b. 1829)
August 24 – Clara Maass, American nurse (b. 1876)
September 5 – Ignacij Klemenčič, Slovenian physicist (b. 1853)
September 9 – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter (b. 1864)
September 14 – William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (b. 1843)
October 1 – Abdur Rahman Khan, Emir of Afghanistan (b. 1844)
October 10 – Lorenzo Snow, Mormon leader (b. 1814)
October 15 – Carlos María Fitz-James Stuart, 16th Duke of Alba, Spanish aristocrat (b. 1849)
October 19 – Carl Frederik Tietgen, Danish financier and industrialist (b. 1829)
October 23 – Georg von Siemens, German banker (b. 1839)
October 29 – Leon Czolgosz, Polish-American assassin of U.S. President William McKinley (b. 1873)
November 7 – Li Hongzhang, Chinese general (b. 1823)
November 27 – Clement Studebaker, American manufacturer (b. 1831)
November 29 – Francisco Pi y Margall, Spanish politician, former president of the Republic (b. 1824)
November 30 – Edward John Eyre, English explorer (b. 1815)
December 1 – George Lohmann, English cricketer (b. 1865)
Physics – Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
Chemistry – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
Medicine – Emil Adolf von Behring
Literature – Sully Prudhomme
Peace – Jean Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy
The date of Friday December 13 20:45:52 1901 is significant for modern computers because it is the earliest date representable with a signed 32-bit integer on systems that reference time in seconds since the Unix epoch. This corresponds to -2147483648 seconds from Thursday January 1 00:00:00 1970. For the same reason, many computers are also unable to represent an earlier date. For related reasons, many computer systems suffer from the Year 2038 problem. This is when the positive number of seconds since 1970 exceeds 2147483647 (01111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 in binary) and wraps to -2147483648. Hence the computer system erroneously displays or operates on the time Friday December 13 20:45:52 1901. In this way, the year 1900 is to the Year 2000 problem as the year 1901 is to the Year 2038 problem.
