| 1894–1895 | Japan defeats China in Sino-Japanese War |
| 1894–1899 | Dreyfus Affair exposes anti-Semitism in France |
| 1899–1902 | South African War fought between Dutch descendants and British in South African states |
| 1900 | Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams |
| 1901 | Irish National Theater is established by Maud Gonne and William Butler Yeats; death of Queen Victoria |
| 1903 | Emmeline Pankhurst founds Women's Social and Political Union |
| 1904–1905 | Japan defeats Russia in Russo-Japanese War |
| 1905 | Nicholas II establishes the Duma after revolution erupts in Russia; Albert Einstein publishes his special theory of relativity |
| 1906 | Women receive vote in Finland |
| 1907 | Pablo Picasso launches cubist painting with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon |
| 1908 | Young Turks revolt against rule by sultan in Ottoman Empire |
| 1911–1912 | Revolutionaries overthrow Qing dynasty and declare China a republic |
| 1914 | Assassination of Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife by Serbian nationalist precipitates World War I |