* 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

* Dona Maria Antónia of Braganza ( 1903 – 1973 ), married Sidney Ashley Chanler ( son of William Astor Chanler ) and had issue

* Lee, Sidney ( 1903 ), Dictionary of National Biography Index and Epitome

The story was first published in Strand Magazine in 1903 with original illustrations by Sidney Paget.

Sidney Farber ( 1903 – 1973 ) was a pediatric pathologist.

* Sidney Franklin ( bullfighter ) ( 1903 – 1976 ), American bullfighter

Wells purchased the Palestine Farm from Benjamin Franklin Guy in 1878 and 1879 and continued the farm's dairy operations until 1903.

However the team returned to the World Series of Football in 1903 where the played the Watertown Red & Black and, the eventual champion, the Franklin Athletic Club.

Of architectural interest in Greenpoint are: The Episcopal Church of the Ascension ( Ascension Greenpoint ) ( 1853 ) the oldest church in Greenpoint on Kent Street, The Astral Apartments ( 1885 ) ( NRHP ) on Franklin Street, the Saint Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church ( 1875 ) on Manhattan Avenue, the Eberhard-Faber Pencil Factory on Greenpoint Ave at Franklin St., the Polish Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord ( 1921 ) ( NRHP ) on North 12th Street, the Oliver Hazard Perry School () ( 1867 ) on Norman Avenue ( the oldest continuously operating public school building in New York City ); the Capital One ( formerly Green Point ) Savings Bank ( 1908 ), the Saint Stanislaus Kostka Roman Catholic Church ( 1896 )() on Humboldt Street, which serves as a Catholic shrine for the Polish community, and the synagogue building of Congregation Ahavas Israel ( 1903 ) on Noble Street ( the sanctuary, with stained glass windows and a torah shrine with turn-of the century wood carvings, is currently open only during services on Saturday mornings ).

The Franklin family were also responsible for the building of several cottages within the village and conversion of a blacksmith's shop into a Reading Room in 1903 to mark the coronation of King Edward VII.

He was awarded The Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1893, the Edward Longstreth Medal in 1903, and the John Scott Medal in 1887, 1890, 1904 and 1906.

* Gustavus Franklin Swift ( 1839 – 1903 ), U. S. entrepreneur, founder of Swift & Company meatpacking plants

He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1903 to 1921 and from 1923 to his death as a Democrat from Illinois, and was its Speaker during the famous Hundred days of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, and the last Speaker of the House born before the Civil War.

Gustavus Franklin Swift ( June 24, 1839 – March 29, 1903 ) founded a meat-packing empire in the Midwest during the late 19th century, over which he presided until his death.

William Buel Franklin ( February 27, 1823 – March 8, 1903 ) was a career United States Army officer and a Union Army general in the American Civil War.

William Franklin died in Hartford, Connecticut in 1903 ( one of relatively few general officers from the Civil War who lived to see the 20th century ) and is buried near his birthplace in York, Pennsylvania, in Prospect Hill Cemetery.

The division was created in 1903 and is named for Sir John Franklin, the polar explorer who was Lt Governor of Van Diemen's Land 1843-46.

* Franklin Gothic ( 1903 )

In 1903 Herman Franklin Lape purchased Oak Nose Farm, named for a white oak on a promontory overlooking the Schoharie Valley.

The program's life was short, being closed in 1903 following a veto of state appropriations by New York governor Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr. in response to a conflict over the direction and management of the School's experimental forest in Franklin County, New York.

Benjamin Franklin McGrath, known as Frank McGrath ( February 2, 1903 – May 13, 1967 ), was an American television actor who played the comical and optimistic cook, " Charlie B. Wooster ", on the Western television series Wagon Train on, first, NBC and then ABC.

Prior to the Ohio League, the 1900 and 1901 Homestead Library and Athletic Club teams, as well as the 1903 Franklin Athletic Club, all had perfect seasons.