| 1903 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
| January 5 |
Pacific underwater telephone cable is brought into public use between San Francisco and
Hawaii. |
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| January 18 |
Marconi's third North American wireless station at South Wellfleet on Cape Cod,
Massachusetts, sends 2,000 word signal, including a message from President Theodore Roosevelt, to
the station at Glace Bay, Canada for onward transmission to Poldhu, England, but it is received
directly—the first eastward transatlantic radio transmission. |
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| l |
In its 1902/03 financial year, UK's Gramophone and Typewriter Company makes £252,285
net profit, equivalent to £16m in 2001. |
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| April 30 |
Victor Records' first Red Seal recording, by contralto Ada Crossley, is made. |
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| May |
Georges Méliès' Star Film Company, whose Voyage dans la
lune has enjoyed a major success in US vaudeville film shows (often in pirated copies), opens
a New York distribution office and printing laboratory, run by his brother Gaston. The films in the
company's catalogue are registered for copyright. |
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| l |
Cecil Hepworth's British production of Alice in Wonderland, directed by Percy
Stow, consisting of 16 scenes based on Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations, is the earliest known
literary film adaptation and, at 800 feet, the longest film to date. |
à 1926
The film is included as an 'extra' on a BFI video release of Jonathan
Miller's 1966 version of Alice in Wonderland. Click on bullet for details |
| September 21 |
First two known westerns—Kit Carson and The Pioneers—are
copyrighted in the US. |
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| September 26 |
New Zealand Wireless Telegraphy Act receives the Royal Assent from the Governor of
New Zealand. It is a pre-emptive move to give the state a monopoly on wireless operations as at this
time there is no activity. The penalty for unauthorised wireless transmission or reception is £500. |
à 1904 |
| October |
First Japanese cinema (denki-kan, electric theatre) opens in Asakusa, Tokyo. |
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| November 2 |
Daily Mirror is founded in London by Alfred Harmsworth as a women's paper costing
1d (0.42p). The first issue sells 265,217 copies. It becomes the first newspaper to rely exclusively
on photography for illustrations. |
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| November 7 |
Léon Gaumont demonstrates his first sound film to Société de Photographie in Paris. |
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| December 1 |
Edwin S Porter’s The Great Train Robbery, with a storyline pioneering
dramatic close-up (but see 1900), is copyrighted in US by the Edison
Company. Regarded as the first classic Western (but see September 21), it is
shot on the Delaware and Lackawanna Western Railroad near Paterson, New Jersey and features 'Bronco
Billy' Anderson and three Baldwin 4-4-0 locomotives. The flimsy sets and often crude acting are
significantly inferior in these respects to the quality of Hepworth's Alice in
Wonderland. |
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| December 17 |
First successful powered flight of a heavier-than-air machine by the Wright brothers,
Orville and Wilbur, is captured on film at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. |
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| l |
Biograph Studio—first in US with artificial light—opens at 11 East 14th
Street, New York. |
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| l |
First Danish fiction film is Henrettelsen, made by the royal photographer,
Peter Elfelt. |
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| l |
Charles Urban leaves the Warwick Trading Company to set up his own Charles Urban
Trading Company to make and sell cinema equipment and films. Having already assisted
Edward Turner in the development of a three-colour film system, for
which a camera has been designed and built by Alfred Darling in Brighton, he buys up the patents when
Turner dies suddenly. Urban interests George Albert Smith in pursuing the project. |
 |
| l |
First Japanese film production company is Komatsu. |
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| l |
Edvard Grieg records some of his piano miniatures at The Gramophone Company's
studio in Paris. |
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| l |
First shellac gramophone record is made by Nicole Frères, using a cardboard substrate. |
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| l |
First 12-inch gramophone record is released by the Monarch label. |
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| l |
Complete recording of Giuseppi Verdi's opera Ernani is issued as a set of
40 discs. |
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| l |
Telegraphone Company is incorporated to
produce a steel wire magnetic recorder. |
à 1907 |
| l |
 By now Boots has
a Booklovers' Library in 143 of its 300 stores. Subscribers pay 10s 6d a year
for one book at a time, rising to £2 2s 0d for six books, plus 7s for each additional volume. |
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