* 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

* 1837 – Nikolai Bugaev, Russian mathematician ( d. 1903 )

* September 14 – Nikolai Bugaev, prominent Russian mathematician ( d. 1903 )

In 1903 Nikolai K Koltsov proposed that the shape of cells was determined by a network of tubules which he termed the cytoskeleton.

Nikolai Podgorny ( 1903 – 1983 ) was a Soviet politician.

Nikolai Ivanovich Krylov (; April 29, 1903 – February 9, 1972 ) was a Russian Marshal of the Soviet Union ( from 1962 ).

* Nikolai Aleksandrovich Aristov ( 1847-c. 1903 ), a Russian türkologist

Among the major representatives of Russian cosmism was Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov ( 1828 — 1903 ), an advocate of radical life extension by means of scientific methods, human immortality and resurrection of dead people.

The collection consists of choreographic notations documenting the compositions of Marius Petipa for his original ballets and revivals ( the collection also includes two notations for ballets by Lev Ivanov-his 1893 La Flûte magique and 1887 La Forêt enchantée ), and one by the brothers Nikolai and Sergai Legat ( their 1903 revival of The Fairy Doll ), as well as Petipa's choreography for dances from operas, along with various Pas, incidental dances, etc.

Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov (; surname also Anglicized as " Fedorov ") ( June 9, 1827 – December 28, 1903 ) was a Russian Orthodox Christian philosopher, who was part of the Russian cosmism movement and a precursor of transhumanism.

Nikolai Vasilievich Bugaev (; September 14, 1837 – June 11, 1903 ) was a prominent Russian mathematician, the father of Andrei Bely.

Ignaz Wechselmann ( 1828, Nikolai, Prussian Silesia – January 17, 1903, Budapest ) was a Hungarian architect and philanthropist.

Podgorny was born in the city of Karlovka in 1903 to a Ukrainian working-class family.

* September 12-Charles Foulkes, general and first Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff ( b. 1903 )

In 1894 he was elected as Chairman of the London School Board, standing down after one year when the Unionists won the general election and he became Secretary of State for India under Salisbury, which he remained until 1903, the last year under the premiership of Arthur Balfour.

He served as Chairman of the Committee of Ministers between 1895 and 1903, the precursor to the post of prime minister.

By the time that the Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904, the company was operated under the direction of former Admiral Francis T. Bowles, who had become the company's president in a late 1903 reorganization, displacing Thomas Watson, who assumed the title Chairman of the Board.

From 1896 Sir Jeremiah Colman became Chairman: in 1903, under his leadership, the firm took over rival mustard maker Keen Robinson & Company ( makers of Keen's Mustard ), through which it also acquired the Robinsons Lemon Barley Water brand and baby food business.

He then returned to the United States and served for a year as Chairman of the Lighthouse Board before retiring 10 August 1903.

He was elected Chairman of the State Republican Party when Quay stepped-down from the position in 1903.