1905

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As the second year of the massive Russo-Japanese War begins, more than 100,000 die in the largest world battles of that era, and the war chaos leads to the 1905 Russian Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia (Shostakovich's 11th Symphony is subtitled The Year 1905 to commemorate this) and the start of Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland. Canada and the U.S. expand west, with the Alberta and Saskatchewan provinces and the founding of Las Vegas. 1905 is also the year in which Albert Einstein, at this time resident in Bern, publishes his four Annus Mirabilis papers in Annalen der Physik (Leipzig) (March 18, May 11, June 30 and September 27), laying the foundations for more than a century's study of theoretical physics. Template:TOC limit

Events

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"Baby New Year", a cartoon by John T. McCutcheon depicting the new year 1905 chasing the old 1904 into the history books

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1905: Einstein's "miracle year"

January

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January 22 (9 O.S.): The Bloody Sunday massacre of Russian demonstrators at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg

January 1 – In a major defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, Russian General Anatoly Stessel surrenders Port Arthur, located on mainland China, to the Japanese.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
January 3 – Japan formally repossesses Port Arthur, and renames it Ryojun, holding it for the next 40 years. The area will revert in 1945 to China, and become the Lushunkou District.<ref name=Jan05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews (February 1905) pp. 154-156</ref>
January 4
- Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino becomes Prime Minister of Romania for the second time, having previously served from 1899 to 1900, and remains in office for more than two years.<ref>"Cantacuzino, Gheorghe Grigore", in Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, ed. by Wojciech Roszkowski and Jan Kofman (Taylor & Francis, 2016) p. 1862</ref>
- The city of Bend, Oregon, plotted out in 1900 by Alexander Drake, is incorporated as a town for local logging companies, and will have a population of 536 in 1910. By the year 2020, it will have almost 100,000 residents.<ref>Jon Abernathy, Bend Beer: A History of Brewing in Central Oregon (Arcadia Publishing, 2014)</ref>
January 5 – Baroness Emma Orczy's play The Scarlet Pimpernel, the forerunner of her novel, opens at the New Theatre in London, beginning a run of 122 performances and numerous revivals.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
January 6 – The Lick Observatory announces the discovery on 3 December 1904 of a sixth moon of Jupiter, made by their astronomer Charles D. Perrine.<ref name=Jan05/>
January 11 – Under the supervision of five editors, work begins on the comprehensive Catholic Encyclopedia, subtitled "An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church." The first volume will appear in 1907.
January 15 – A series of three Template:Convert high tsunamis kill 61 people in Norway, after a rockslide sweeps down Mount Ramnefjell and crashes into Lake Lovatnet.<ref>"Loen Accidents in 1905 and 1936" Template:Webarchive, by Christer Hoel, Fjords.com</ref>
January 17 – In France, Prime Minister Émile Combes and his cabinet announce their resignations after being implicated in the Affair of the Cards (L'Affaire des Fiches), a system set up by the War Ministry to purge the French Army officers corps of Jesuits.<ref>Piers Paul Read, The Dreyfus Affair: The Scandal That Tore France in Two (Bloomsbury, 2012) p. 338</ref>
January 21 – The Dominican Republic signs an agreement with the United States to allow the U.S. to administer the collection of customs taxes for Santo Domingo for 50 years, with the U.S. to assume responsibility for payment of the Republic's debts to foreign nations from Dominican income. The agreement is done as an exercise of the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine.<ref name=Feb05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews (March 1905) pp. 283-286</ref>
January 22 (January 9 O.S.) – The Bloody Sunday massacre of peaceful Russian demonstrators at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg takes place, leading to an unsuccessful uprising.
January 26 – (January 13 O.S. in Russia)
- Russian Revolution of 1905: The Imperial Russian Army opens fire on demonstrators in Riga, Governorate of Livonia, killing 73 people and injuring 200.
- Elections are held in Hungary for the Országgyűlés, the Kingdom's parliament within Austria-Hungary. Voters overwhelmingly reject the Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister István Tisza, that has ruled Hungary since 1875. The Liberals lose 118 of their 277 seats, but Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary ignores the results and keeps Tisza in power.<ref name=Feb05/>
January 27 – The Nelson Act is passed into law in the United States, providing for racial segregation of schools in the Alaska Territory.<ref>David S. Case and David A. Voluck, eds. Alaska Natives and American Laws (University of Alaska Press, 2012) p. 203</ref>
January 29 – Rioting breaks out in Warsaw, at this time under Russian Imperial rule with a Russian Governor-General.<ref name=Feb05/>
January 30 – The U.S. Supreme Court renders its unanimous decision in the landmark case of Swift & Co. v. United States, allowing the federal government to regulate monopolies.<ref name=Feb05/>
January 31 – "The greatest ball of the Gilded Age"<ref>"Panic of 1907", in The 100 Most Significant Events in American Business: An Encyclopedia, by Quentin R. Skrabec (Greenwood Publishing, 2012) p. 134.</ref> is held by James Hazen Hyde, the heir to the fortune of the founder of the Equitable Life Assurance Association, at New York City's Sherry Hotel, spending $200,000 for a "Louis XV costume ball."<ref>Michael Lesy and Lisa Stoffer, Repast: Dining Out at the Dawn of the New American Century, 1900-1910 (W. W. Norton, 2013) pp. 195-197</ref>

February

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February 1 – U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell of Oregon is indicted by a federal grand jury on charges arising from a scandal involving land grants in the state and illegally using his influence for private clients.<ref name=Feb05/>
February 3 – The first performance of A Shropshire Lad, the setting to music of the 1896 set of 63 poems of A. E. Housman by Arthur Somervell as a song-cycle, takes place at Aeolian Hall in London.<ref>Stephen Banfield, Sensibility and English Song (Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 233-234</ref>
February 4 – A simultaneous uprising begins at six cities in Argentina against the government of President Manuel Quintana.
February 5 – The French ship Anjou is wrecked off of the coast of the uninhabited Auckland Island, located Template:Convert from the nearest inhabited land in New Zealand. The castaways live on the isle for more than three months until being rescued on May 7.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
February 6 – Eliel Soisalon-Soininen, the Chancellor of Justice of the Grand Duchy of Finland (at this time part of the Russian Empire) is assassinated at Helsingfors (Helsinki).<ref name=Feb05/>
February 9 – Prince A. Morrow begins the movement in the U.S. for sex education, with the founding of the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis.<ref>Maurice A. Bigelow, Sex-Education: A Series of Lectures Concerning Knowledge of Sex and Its Relation to Human Life (The Macmillan Company, 1916) p. 227</ref>
February 12 – The Switzerland national football team plays its first international game, losing to France, 1 to 0.
February 16 – Six of the 11 crew of the British Royal Navy submarine HMS A5 are killed by a pair of explosions caused by gasoline fumes in port in Ireland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
February 17 – Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the Governor-General of Moscow and uncle of Tsar Nicholas II, is assassinated.<ref name=Mar05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews (April 1905) pp. 413-416</ref>
February 20 – In the Russo-Japanese War, the Battle of Mukden begins in Manchuria.
February 21 – Sir Wilfrid Laurier introduces a resolution in the Canadian parliament proposing that two new provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, be created out of the Northwest Territories.<ref name=Mar05/>
February 23 – Rotary International is founded in Chicago in the U.S.<ref>"Our History" Template:Webarchive, Rotary International</ref>
February 26 – Russia sustains a severe defeat in Manchuria at Tsen-ho-Cheng.<ref name=Mar05/>
February 28 – Jane Stanford, the co-founder with her husband Leland of Stanford University, is fatally poisoned while visiting the Moana Hotel in Hawaii.<ref>Richard White, Who Killed Jane Stanford? A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits, and the Birth of a University (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022)</ref>

March

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March 2 – Russia's Committee of Ministers votes to grant religious freedom to the subjects of the Russian Empire.<ref name=Mar05/>
March 3 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia announces the creation of an elected assembly, the Duma, to represent the people of the Russian Empire in an advisory capacity, although the real power to make laws will remain with the Tsar and the cabinet of ministers.
March 10 – Russo-Japanese War: The Japanese capture of Mukden (modern-day Shenyang) completes the rout of Russian armies in Manchuria.
March 13 – Mata Hari introduces her exotic dance act in the Musée Guimet, Paris.<ref>Denise Noe Mata Hari is Born Template:Webarchive. Crimelibrary.com</ref>
March 14 – 23 of the 26 crew of the British barque Kyber die when the ship is wrecked off England's Land's End.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
March 18 – Albert Einstein submits his paper "On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the production and transformation of light", in which he explains the photoelectric effect using the notion of light quanta, for publication.
March 20
- The Grover Shoe Factory disaster kills 58 employees in Brockton, Massachusetts, when a boiler explodes and the factory building collapses.
- The title Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is officially recognised by King Edward VII by a royal warrant.<ref>Template:Cite web Template:ODNBsub</ref>
March 23 – The Theriso revolt begins in Crete as about 1,500 people led by Eleftherios Venizelos demand unification with Greece.
March 29 – Jimmy Walsh knocks out Monte Attell, in a controversial six-round bout in Philadelphia, to win recognition of the World Bantamweight Championship by the National Boxing Association, despite being disqualified by the referee.

April

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April 1 – The British Imperial Penny Post is extended to include Australia.<ref name=Apr05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews (May 1905) pp. 537-539</ref>
April 2 – The Simplon Tunnel through the Alps is opened to railway traffic.<ref name=Apr05/>
April 3 – A coal mine explosion at Zeigler, Illinois, kills 50 miners.<ref name=Apr05/>
April 4 – In India, the 1905 Kangra earthquake hits the Kangra Valley, kills 20,000 and destroys most buildings in Kangra, McLeod Ganj and Dharamshala.
April 5 – The body of John Paul Jones, "Father of the American Navy", is located in Paris almost 113 years after his death.
April 6 – A violent strike by the Teamsters' Union begins in Chicago.<ref>Robert Fitch, Solidarity for Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise (Perseus Books, 2006)</ref>
April 8 – Hundreds of people are killed in Spain in the collapse of a dam holding back a reservoir near Madrid.<ref name=Apr05/>
April 20 – The largest ocean liner in the world at this time, the German SS Amerika is launched.<ref>James E. Wise, Jr. and Scott Baron, "Appendix A. Early Ships Named USS America", in At the Helm of USS America: The Aircraft Carrier and Its 23 Commanders, 1965-1996 p. 229</ref>
April 23 – German General Lothar von Trotha commander of troops in Germany's colony of Südwestafrika (modern-day Namibia), orders the extermination of the Nama people within the colony's borders, ultimately killing 10,000.<ref>"Hendrik Witbooi and Samuel Maharero", by Werner Hillebrecht, in Re-Viewing Resistance in Namibian History, ed. by Jeremy Silvester (University of Namibia Press, 2015) p. 51</ref> Von Trotha's proclamation Aan de oorlogvorende Namastamme, proclaims that "The Nama who chooses not to surrender and lets himself be seen in German territory will be shot, until all are exterminated."<ref>"Talking About Genocide: Namibia 1904" Template:Webarchive, Peace Pledge Union</ref>
April 24 – China's Empress Regent Cixi (Tzu Hsi) abolishes further use in executions of the nation's three most cruel torture execution methods, lingchi ("death by a thousand cuts"), gibbeting (similar to crucifixion, hanging until dying of exposure, thirst or starvation), and desecration of a dying person.<ref>"Traditionalising Chinese Law", by Li Chen, in Chinese Legal Reform and the Global Legal Order: Adoption and Adaptation, ed. by Yun Zhao and Michael Ng (Cambridge University Press, 2018) p. 198</ref>
April 28 – A tornado strikes Laredo, Texas and kills 100.<ref name=May05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews (June 1905) pp. 665–668</ref>
April 30 – Albert Einstein completes his doctoral dissertation, A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions (submitted July 30 to the University of Zurich).

May

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May 4 –The first world championship of professional wrestling takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
May 9 – Upon the death of U.S. social activist Ann Reeves Jarvis In West Virginia, her daughter Anna Jarvis resolves to campaign across the United States for a proposed "Mother's Day".
May 10 – The 1905 Snyder tornado destroys the town of Snyder, Oklahoma, killing 97.<ref>"The Snyder, Oklahoma Tornado of 10 May 1905" Template:Webarchive, National Weather Service</ref>
May 11 – Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen" ("On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat"), based on his doctoral research, delineating a stochastic model of Brownian motion.
May 15 – Las Vegas, Nevada, is founded when Template:Convert of land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks are auctioned to form what becomes Downtown Las Vegas.<ref>"The History of Las Vegas", Las Vegas official website, lasvegasnevada.gov</ref>
May 22 – Abdul Hamid II, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire establishes the Ullah millet for the Aromanians of the empire. For this reason, the Aromanian National Day is sometimes celebrated on this day.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The decision is publicly announced the next day, which is more commonly celebrated.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
May 28 – At the end of two days in fighting in the Battle of Tsushima, the Russian Imperial Navy has suffered the deaths of more than 14,000 of the 18,000 sailors and officers it had brought to the battle, and all but four of its Pacific ships. The Japanese loss is three torpedo boats and 800 men.<ref name=Jun05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews Template:Webarchive (July 1905) pp. 26-29</ref>
May 30 – Japan's Prime Minister Katsura Tarō asks U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to moderate peace discussions to end the Russo-Japanese War.<ref>Ian Nish, Japanese Foreign Policy 1869-1942: Kasumigaseki to Miyakezaka (Taylor & Francis, 2013)</ref>

June

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June 1 – The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition opens in Portland, Oregon.<ref name=Jun05/>
June 7 – The Norwegian Parliament, the Storting, declares dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden, giving Norway full independence.<ref name=Jun05/>
June 13 – Theodoros Diligiannis, Prime Minister of Greece, is assassinated.
June 15 – British Princess Margaret of Connaught marries Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, Duke of Skåne, the future King Gustaf VI Adolf.
June 17 – Austrian Football Club FC Admira Wacker is founded as SK Admira Wien in Vienna.
June 18 – A coal mine explosion in Russia kills 500 employees at the Ivan Colliery at Kharsisk.<ref name=Jun05/>
June 20 – Ernest Henry Starling introduces the word "hormone" into the English language.<ref>Abel Lajtha, Handbook of Neurochemistry 8: Neurochemical Systems (Springer, 2013) p. x</ref>
June 21 – New York Central Railroad's 20th Century Limited train is derailed in an apparent act of sabotage, killing 21 people.<ref name=JUL05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews (August 1905) pp. 158-161</ref>
June 25 – The Danish Navy training ship Georg Stage is accidentally sunk in port in Copenhagen after English steamship Ancona collides with it, killing 22 teenage recruits.
June 28 – "Pomp and Circumstance" is first played as a graduation march, after Yale University music professor Samuel Sanford invited its composer, Sir Edward Elgar, to receive an honorary degree.
June 29 – The Automobile Association is founded in the United Kingdom.
June 30 – Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", establishing his theory of special relativity.<ref name=JUL05/>

July

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July 1 – Hundreds of people die in the flooding of Guanajuato in Mexico.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
July 3 – France's Chamber of Deputies passes a bill for separation of church and state, 341 to 233.<ref name=JUL05/>
July 5 – Alfred Deakin takes office as the new Prime Minister of Australia.<ref name=JUL05/>
July 10 – A Japanese expedition takes control of the Russian island of Sakhalin after a short battle.
July 11 – National Colliery disaster at Wattstown in the Rhondda valley of Wales: an underground explosion kills 120, with just one survivor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
July 12 –The University of Sheffield is officially opened by King Edward VII in England.<ref>Melvyn Jones, The Making of Sheffield (Wharncliffe Books, 2004) p. 158.</ref>
July 14 – In New Zealand, the first known suicide attack by a civilian (as opposed to sacrifices made in military combat) takes place in Murchison.<ref>"NZ suicide bombing a world first", by Gerard Hindmarsh, The Press (Christchurch), January 16, 2016. p. A13</ref>
July 15 – The popular fictional character Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief, is introduced in France.
July 21 – Sixty members of the crew of the USS Bennington are killed in an explosion of the U.S. Navy gunboat in the harbor at San Diego.<ref name=Aug05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews (September 1905) pp. 283-286</ref>
July 24 – The 1905 Bolnai earthquake (8.4 magnitude) strikes Mongolia, the second-largest on record here.
July 27 – The Taft–Katsura agreement is reached in Tokyo.
July 30 – At Basel in Switzerland, the International Zionist Conference delegates vote to reject the British offer of land in Uganda for a Jewish homeland.<ref name=Aug05/>

August

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August 8 – Fourteen employees of a department store in Albany, New York are killed when the building collapses suddenly.<ref name=Aug05/>
August 9 – The peace conference to end the Russo-Japanese War between Russia and Japan begins at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.<ref name=Aug05/>
August 11 – The Russian Council appointed by Tsar Nicholas II meets at Peterhof and approves a plan for a national Duma, the first representative assembly in the Empire.<ref name=Aug05/>
August 12 – The first running takes place of the Shelsley Walsh Speed Hill Climb in England, the world's oldest motorsport event to be staged continuously on its original course.
August 13 – At a referendum in Norway, voters opt almost unanimously for dissolution of the union with Sweden.<ref name=Aug05/>
August 20 – Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen forms the first chapter of Tongmenghui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchu dynasty.
August 22 – The sinking of the Japanese ferry Kinjo Maru kills 160 people after the British ship HMS Baralong collides with it in the Sea of Japan.<ref>Ian Collard, Ellerman Lines Remembering a Great British Company (The History Press, 2014) p. 199.</ref>
August 26 – Near Point Barrow, Alaska, the crew of the Norwegian ship Gjoa, led by Roald Amundsen, make the breakthrough of finding the long-sought "Northwest Passage" from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.<ref>Marilyn Landis, Antarctica: Exploring the Extreme (Chicago Review Press, 2001) p.149</ref>
August 30 – A solar eclipse takes place, with greatest visibility in North Africa.<ref name=Sep05>The American Monthly Review of Reviews (October 1905) pp. 410-413</ref>

September

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September 1 – The Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are established from the southwestern part of the Northwest Territories.
September 2 – The millennia-old imperial examination system for the civil service is abolished in Qing dynasty China.
September 5 – Russo-Japanese War: Treaty of Portsmouth – In New Hampshire, a treaty mediated by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is signed by Japan and Russia. Russia cedes the island of Sakhalin together with port and rail rights in Manchuria to Japan.
September 8 – The 7.2 Template:M Calabria earthquake shakes Southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing between 557 and 2,500 people.
September 10 – Crystal Palace F.C. is founded in London.
September 27
- Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", in which he puts forward the idea of mass–energy equivalence by publishing the equation E = mc² (published November 21).
- Da-Qing Bank, predecessor of Bank of China, is founded in Peiping.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

October

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File:HMS Dreadnought 1906 H61017.jpg

October 2: HMS Dreadnought

October 1
- A Czech worker, František Pavlík, is bayoneted to death during a demonstration for a Czech university in Brno. This event is the motivation for a piano sonata, 1. X. 1905, by Leoš Janáček, which premieres on 27 January 1906.
- Turkish Association football team Galatasaray is founded in Istanbul.
October 2 – Template:HMS is laid down in the United Kingdom, revolutionizing battleship design and triggering a naval arms race.
October 5 – The Wright brothers' third aeroplane (Wright Flyer III) stays in the air for 39 minutes with Wilbur piloting, the first aeroplane flight lasting over half an hour.
October 11 – The Institute of Musical Art, predecessor of the Juilliard School, opens in New York City.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
October 13 – Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst interrupt a Liberal Party (UK) rally at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, and choose imprisonment when convicted, the first militant action of the suffragette campaign.
October 16 – The Partition of Bengal is made by Lord Curzon to separate the region of Bengal into Muslim and Hindu territories until its reunification in 1911.
October 26 Sweden–Norway agrees to the repeal of the union with Norway, forming the two modern-day countries.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
October 29 (October 16 O.S.) – In the Russian Empire:
- Russian Revolution of 1905: The Imperial Russian Army opens fire on a meeting at a street market in Tallinn, Governorate of Estonia, killing 94 and injuring over 200 people.
- The Circum-Baikal Railway is brought into permanent operation, completing through rail communication on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
October 30 (October 17 Old Style) – October Manifesto: Tsar Nicholas II of Russia is forced to announce the granting of his country's first constitution (the Russian Constitution of 1906), conceding a national assembly (State Duma) with limited powers.
October – Fauvist artists, led by Henri Matisse and André Derain, first exhibit their works, at the Salon d'Automne in Paris.

November

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November–December – Russian Revolution of 1905: In the Baltic governorates, workers and peasants burn and loot hundreds of Baltic German manors. The Imperial Russian Army thereafter executes and deports thousands of looters.
November 4 – Russification of Finland: The application of the February Manifesto, removing the veto of the Diet of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland over matters considered by the Emperor to concern Russian imperial interests, is interrupted by the new November Manifesto. The Senate of Finland is ordered to put forward a proposal for parliamentary reform, based on unicameralism and universal and equal suffrage.
November 12 – Norway holds a plebiscite on the monarchy, resulting in popular approval of the Storting's decision to authorise the government to make the offer of the throne of the newly independent country.
November 17 – The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905 ("Eulsa Treaty") effectively makes Korea a protectorate of Japan.
November 28 – The Mataafa Storm buffets the Great Lakes region. Named after the Mataafa, a boat sunk outside of the Duluth Ship Canal, the storm ultimately destroys 29 vessels, leading to 29 deaths and shipping losses of US$3.567 million (1905 dollars).
November 28 – Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin in Dublin, as a political party whose goal is independence for all of Ireland.