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[69]

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