LBE 1900–1913

Paris - La Belle Époque

1900

13 February – Whistles are issued to Paris traffic policemen.

24 February – The first newsreel films, of the Boer War, are shown at the Olympia Theater.

14 April – The opening of the Exposition Universelle (1900), including the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, and the Pont Alexandre III. Before it closes on 12 November, the Exposition attracts more than fifty million visitors.

13 May – Right wing candidates win the municipal elections, after twenty years of domination by the left.

14 May – The opening of the 1900 Summer Olympics, Olympiad II, held in Paris—the first Olympic games held outside Greece.

19 July – The opening of the first line of the Paris Métro between Porte de Versailles and Porte Maillot.

15 September – automatic ticket gates for the metro are replaced by ticket agents, because of the high number of people jumping the gates.

4 December – Law passed permitting women to practice law.

1901

Population: 2,715,000

The Pathé opens film production studio in Vincennes.

April 1 – The opening of the new Gare de Lyon train station, including the restaurant Le Train bleu.

1 July – The opening of the first electric train line in Europe between Les Invalides and Versailles.

28 September – First European lawn tennis championship held in Paris.

1902

26 January – First Gitanes cigarettes go on sale.

16 October – First use of fingerprints by Paris police to identify a murderer.

Premiere of Méliès' film A Trip to the Moon.

Premiere of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande.

1903

1 July – Start of the first Tour de France, ending 19 July, with a parade of the winners at the Parc des Princes.

10 August – first serious metro accident at Couronnes station – eighty-four persons killed.

4 September – Opening of the high-fashion house of Paul Poiret.

First Vélodrome d'hiver cycling stadium opens in the former Galerie des Machines of the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Premiere of Mirbeau's play Business is Business.

1904

6 February – Opening of the Alhambra music hall on rue de Malte.

18 April – The socialist (later Communist) newspaper L'Humanité newspaper begins publication.

8 May – Socialists and radicals win the Paris municipal elections.

23 November – Consecration of the first Paris church built of concrete, Saint-Jean-l'Évangéliste de Montmartre.

20 December – first automobile taxis go into service.

1905

After viewing the boldly colored canvases of Henri Matisse, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees van Dongen, Charles Camoin, and Jean Puy at the Salon d'automne of 1905, the critic Louis Vauxcelles disparaged the painters as "fauves" (wild beasts), thus giving their movement the name by which it became known, Fauvism.

Gaumont Film Company studio opens at Buttes-Chaumont.

First underground public toilets open at place de la Madeleine.

1906

Population: 2,722,731.

22 March – First England-France Rugby match played at Parc des Princes.

11 June – first motorized bus line begins service between Montmartre and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Horse-drawn omnibuses continued to run until January 1913.

23 October – First airplane flight in Paris by Santos Dumont, flying sixty meters at an altitude of three meters at the Parc de Bagatelle.

1907

22 February – First woman receives a license to drive a taxi in Paris.

25 March – first traffic roundabout created in Paris at Place de l'Étoile.

Summer. Pablo Picasso, living in Montmartre, paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a major turning point in modern art.

Kahnweiler art gallery opens.

An exhibition at the Galerie Notre-Dame-des-Champs includes Jean Metzinger, Georges Braque, Sonia Delaunay, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Auguste Herbin, Jules Pascin and Pablo Picasso.[86]

1909

1 March – First escalator installed in a Paris metro station.

29 May – opening of Luna Park amusement park at Porte Maillot.

2 June – Paris premiere of the ballet Les Sylphides by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, with Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova in the leading roles.

13 December – Creation of first one-way streets in Paris on rue de Mogador and rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin.

1910

January 21–28 – Great flood of Paris. The Seine rises 8.5 meters, the highest level since 1658, and overflows its banks. The flood affects one sixth of the buildings in Paris.

13 February – Opening of the Vélodrome d'hiver cycling stadium on rue de Grenelle.

3 December – First use of neon lights on the Grand Palais. The first neon advertising sign appears on Boulevard Montmartre in 1912.

Coco Chanel Opens her first boutique, called Chanel Modes, at 21 rue Cambon.

First Gauloises cigarettes go on sale.

Odéon metro station opens.

According to Robert Delaunay, the Salle II of the 1910 Salon des Indépendants was "the first collective manifestation of a new art (un art naissant), known two years later as Cubism.

At the Salon d'automne of 1910, held from 1 October to 8 November, Jean Metzinger introduced an extreme form of what would soon be labeled Cubism.

1911

24 January – Departure of the first Paris-Monte Carlo automobile race.

22 August – The Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre. It was recovered in Florence in December, 1913.[91]

Gaumont-Palace cinema opens.

Fictional Fantômas crime series begins publication.

The 1911 Salon des Indépendants officially introduced "Cubism" to the public as an organized group movement.

1912

15 February – Opening of the Maison de Beauté salon of Helena Rubenstein at 255 rue Saint-Honoré.

4 May – Criminal Brigade of the Sûreté formed to deal with major crimes and criminals.

1 June – First world tennis championship held at the stade de la Faisanderie in Saint-Cloud.

29 May – Premiere of Nijinsky's ballet Afternoon of a Faun.

The Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d'automne created a controversy in the Municipal Council of Paris, leading to a debate in the Chambre des Députés about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such art. The Cubists were defended by the Socialist deputy, Marcel Sembat.

1913

31 March – Opening of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

29 May – Premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

1 October – First collection of trash my motorized trucks instead of handcarts.

24 December – First presidential Christmas tree, placed at Trocadéro, is lit by President Raymond Poincaré.