ABSTRACT
The twentieth century is only five years old and a multitude of events which are later to become the hallmark of this century have already taken place: massive demonstrations are being reported in many Russian cities, the biggest one taking place in St. Petersburg and being brutally crushed by the czarist police; George Bernard Shaw has just published his “Major Barbara.” A year earlier, the Rolls Royce company was founded and Picasso completed his famous painting, “The Two Sisters.” Two years before, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully flew a powered airplane and Jack London finished his well-known novel “The Call of the Wild.” Four years before, the first year of the twentieth century, as if ushering us into the new century, Marconi transmitted telegraphic radio messages from Cornwall to Newfoundland; the first motor driven bicycle was invented; the first Mercedes car was constructed, the first Nobel Prize was awarded; and, as if officially closing the gates on the nineteenth century, the prominent figure of that era who ruled England for 64 years, Queen Victoria, died.
