* Andrew Ainslie Common ( 1841 – 1903 ), built his own very large reflecting telescopes and demonstrated that photography could record astronomical features invisible to the human eye.

* 1903 – The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev ( Bessarabia ) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Israel and the Western world.

* 1903 – Mickey Cochrane, American baseball player ( d. 1962 )

* 1903 – Harold Edgerton, American electrical engineer ( d. 1990 )

* 1903 – Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist, recipient of the Bank of Sweden Prize ( d. 1994 )

* 1903 – Ferenc Keserű, Hungarian water polo player ( d. 1968 )

* 1819 – Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet, Irish-English mathematician and physicist ( d. 1903 )

After what the MCC saw as the problems of the earlier professional and amateur series they decided to take control of organising tours themselves, and this led to the first MCC tour of Australia in 1903 – 04.

* 1903 – Fall of the Ottoman Empire: an unsuccessful uprising led by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden – Preobrazhenie Uprising, takes place.

In Serbia Nikola Pašić ( 1845 – 1926 ) and his Radical Party dominated Serbian politics after 1903 ; they also monopolized power in Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1929 ; during the dictatorship of the 1930s, it furnished the prime minister.

* 1903 – Macedonian rebels in Kruševo proclaim the Kruševo Republic, which exists only for 10 days before Ottoman Turks lay waste to the town.

* 1903 – Habib Bourguiba, Tunisian politician ( d. 2000 )

* 1903 – Louis Leakey, Kenyan-English archaeologist ( d. 1972 )

* 1903 – A 30 million cubic-metre landslide kills 70 in Frank, Alberta, Canada.

* 1876 – Alexander I of Serbia ( d. 1903 )

* Adrian ( costume designer ) ( 1903 – 1959 ), born Adrian Adolph Greenberg, costume designer for over 250 films

* Adrian Rollini ( 1903 – 1956 ), American multi-instrumentalist best known for his jazz music

* 1903 – German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright brothers.

* 1903 – James Gould Cozzens, American novelist ( d. 1978 )

* 1903 – Lewis Sargent, American actor ( d. 1970 )

* 1826 – Karl Gegenbaur, German anatomist ( d. 1903 )

* 1903 – Arpad Elo, American chess player, created the Elo rating system ( d. 1992 )

Alexander I or Aleksandar Obrenović ( Cyrillic: Александар Обреновић ; 14 August 1876 – 11 June 1903 ) was king of Serbia from 1889 to 1903 when he and his wife, Queen Draga, were assassinated by a group of Army officers, led by Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević

" Uncle Joe Cannon: The Brakeman of the House of Representatives, 1903 – 1911 " in Raymond W Smock and Susan W Hammond, eds.

The United Mine Workers in 1903 send Joe Fenoglio to organize the Italian workers, thus beginning the Thurber Coal Miners Strike.

* Big Joe Williams ( 1903 – 1982 ), Delta blues singer

Joseph " Joe Cargo " Valachi ( September 22, 1903 – April 3, 1971 ), Italian American, also known as " Charles Chanbano " and " Anthony Sorge " was the first Mafia member to publicly acknowledge the existence of the Mafia.

The first fiction film, Hiawatha, The Messiah of the Ojibways, was made in 1903 by Joe Rosenthal and the first Canadian feature film, Evangeline, was produced by the Canadian Bioscope Company in 1913 and shot in Nova Scotia.

; NL: Joe McGinnity, 5 ( 1903 – 1907 )

: 5 Joe McGinnity ( 1899 – 1900, 1903 – 1904, 1906 )

: 6 Joe McGinnity ( 1901, 1903 – 1907 )

: 4 Joe McGinnity ( 1900 – 1901, 1903 – 1904 )

Langford defeated World Lightweight Champion Joe Gans on December 8, 1903 via 15 round decision.

* Joe Curtis: played for Michigan ( 1903 – 1906 ), head coach for Tulane ( 1907 – 1908 ), Colorado Mines ( 1909 )

* Joe Maddock, played for Michigan ( 1902 – 1903 ), head coach for Utah ( 1904 – 1909 ), Oregon ( 1924 )

* Joe Juneau ( died March, 1899, buried August 16, 1903 ), co-founder of Juneau

* 1992 – Nathan Milstein, Ukrainian violinist ( b. 1903 )

** Nathan Milstein, Ukrainian-born violinist ( b. 1903 )

* July 22 – Luigi Arditi, violinist, conductor and composer ( d. 1903 )

* Nathan Milstein ( 1903 – 1992 ), Ukrainian-American violinist

In his personal life, in 1903 he married Countess Anna Julie Marie Széll von Bessenyö (* 1 March 1880 in Budapest ), niece of former Prime Minister of Hungary Kálmán Széll, with whom he had eight children, five violinist daughters and three sons, among them conductor Rafael Kubelík.

* Ivan Galamian – ( 1903 – 1981 ) violinist.

She was born Marcia Glick in New York City on June 9, 1903, the daughter of Bernard Glick and the opera singer Alma Gluck, and she became the stepdaughter of violinist Efrem Zimbalist when Alma Gluck remarried.

Luigi Arditi ( 16 July 1822 – 1 May 1903 ) was an Italian violinist, composer and conductor.