Albert Einstein publishes four papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity and mass–energy equivalence.
Soldiers fire on peaceful workers marching to the Winter Palace, sparking the Russian Revolution of 1905.
The first Nobel Prizes are awarded on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death; Wilhelm Röntgen receives the first Nobel Prize in Physics.
Guglielmo Marconi reports receiving a radio signal in Newfoundland transmitted from Cornwall across the Atlantic.
Max Planck presents the hypothesis that energy is emitted in discrete quanta, marking the birth of quantum physics.
From alpha-particle scattering experiments, Ernest Rutherford proposes that the atom has a small, dense, positively charged nucleus.
Nguyễn Tất Thành (later Hồ Chí Minh) leaves Saigon as a kitchen hand aboard the Amiral Latouche-Tréville, bound for France.