N-rays: a discovery that never was
Scores of scientists studied rays that did not exist
Physicist René Blondlot of Nancy announced a new kind of radiation and named it after his home town. Dozens of scientists confirmed it, until American Robert Wood secretly pocketed a key prism from the apparatus and Blondlot went on 'seeing' the rays.
Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Did you know
In 1904 a physicist debunked a discovery by slipping part of the apparatus into his pocket. Robert Wood quietly removed the prism from Blondlot's set-up, and Blondlot went on 'seeing' N-rays. Hundreds of papers on them had already appeared. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1914–1918 World War I — 11 years later
- 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — 15 years later
- 1920 League of Nations founded — 17 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1895 Popov's radio receiver — 8 years earlier
- 1905–1907 Russian Revolution of 1905 — 2 years later
- 1908 Tunguska event — 5 years later
- 1917 October Revolution — 14 years later
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — 14 years later
Middle East
- 1905–1911 Persian Constitutional Revolution — 2 years later
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 5 years later
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — 5 years later
- 1915–1917 Armenian genocide — 12 years later
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 13 years later
Africa
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 18 years earlier
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — 18 years earlier
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 17 years earlier
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — 6 years earlier
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — 1 year later
Asia
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 20 years earlier
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 18 years earlier
- 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War — 9 years earlier
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — 7 years earlier
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — 8 years later
Americas
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 24 years earlier
- 1903 Wright brothers' first flight — same year
- 1906 San Francisco earthquake — 3 years later
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — 7 years later
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — 11 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 10 years earlier
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 10 years earlier
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 8 years later
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 9 years later
Alive at the time
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 75)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 69)
- Thomas Edison (aged 56)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 47)
- Marie Curie (aged 36)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 34)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 33)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 32)
- Winston Churchill (aged 29)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 25)