1909
Bleriot crosses the English Channel
In a wood-and-fabric monoplane he had built himself, Louis Bleriot flew thirty-seven minutes from Calais to Dover, hopping from wave crest to wave crest with no compass and a sputtering engine. Britain's great moat had just been jumped. An English newspaper ran the headline: England no longer an island. The military implications were not lost on anyone in the War Office.
Peary claims the North Pole
After years of failed pushes across broken Arctic ice, Robert Peary, his partner Matthew Henson, and four Inuit guides stood at what Peary reckoned was ninety degrees north. His rival Frederick Cook said he had been there first. The feud ran for decades. The top of the world had been reached, or close enough.
Adana massacre
As reformers in Constantinople argued over the new constitution, Ottoman mobs and soldiers attacked Armenian quarters in Adana and neighboring towns in Cilicia. Perhaps twenty thousand Armenians died in two waves of killing over several weeks. It was a preview of 1915. The Young Turks who had promised brotherhood and equality presided, unable or unwilling to stop it.
Robert Peary and Matthew Henson at the Pole
After two decades of Arctic expeditions, Robert Peary and his African-American partner Matthew Henson claimed to reach the North Pole with four Inuit guides. Peary took most of the glory; Henson, equally accomplished, was ignored for decades. Later evidence suggests they may not have quite reached ninety north, but the age of polar exploration had crested.