* 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

* 1989 – Vladimir Horowitz, Russian pianist ( b. 1903 )

It is said that Vladimir Lenin and a young Joseph Stalin met in the Crown and Anchor pub ( now known as The Crown Tavern ) on Clerkenwell Green when the latter was visiting London in 1903.

* November 5 – Vladimir Horowitz, Russian pianist ( b. 1903 )

* Nicolas Nabokov ( 1903 – 1978 ), Russian-American composer, cousin of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

Between 1903 and the fall of the Russian Empire in February 1917, he was a leading Bolshevik and one of Vladimir Lenin's closest associates, working both within Russia and abroad as circumstances permitted.

Starting in 1903 a series of splits in the party between two main leaders was escalating, the Bolsheviks ( meaning " majority ") led by Vladimir Lenin, and the Mensheviks ( meaning minority ) led by Julius Martov.

He was also a member of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra and Iskra 1903, a trio with double-bass player Barry Guy and trombone player Paul Rutherford that was named after a newspaper published by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.

The first leaders of the Soviet state Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were in exile on the territory of the nowadays krai in 1897 – 1900 and in 1903 respectively.

It is said that Vladimir Lenin and a young Joseph Stalin met in the Crown and Anchor pub ( now known as The Crown Tavern ) on Clerkenwell Green when the latter was visiting London in 1903.

In 1903, N. Roerich together with his wife Helena Ivanovna Roerich toured through forty ancient Russian cities, including Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir, Suzdal, Yuriev-Polsky, Smolensk, Vilna, Izborsk, Pskov.

On his release from prison Tsereteli joined the Social Democratic Labour Party ( SDLP ) and at the party's 1903 congress in London sided with Julius Martov against Vladimir Lenin.

In 1903, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party began to split on ideological and organizational questions into Bolshevik (' Majority ') and Menshevik (' Minority ') factions, with Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin leading the more radical Bolsheviks.

20th century erotic fiction includes such classics of the genre as: Suburban Souls ( 1901 ), published by Carrington and possibly written by him also ; The Confessions of Nemesis Hunt ( issued in three volumes 1902, 1903, 1906 ), probably by George Reginald Bacchus, printed by Duringe of Paris for Leonard Smithers in London ; Josephine Mutzenbacher ( 1906 ) by Felix Salten ; Sadopaideia ( 1907 ) by Anon ( possibly Algernon Charles Swinburne ); Les Mémoires d ' un jeune Don Juan ( 1907 ) and the somewhat disturbing Les onze mille verges ( 1907 ) by Guillaume Apollinaire ; The Way of a Man with a Maid ( 1908 ) and A Weekend Visit by Anon ; Pleasure Bound Afloat ( 1908 ), Pleasure Bound Ashore ( 1909 ) and Maudie ( 1909 ) by Anon ( probably George Reginald Bacchus ); Manuel de civilité pour les petites filles à l ' usage des maisons d ' éducation ( 1917 ) and Trois filles de leur mère ( 1926 ) by Pierre Louys ; Story of the Eye ( 1928 ) by Georges Bataille ; Tropic of Cancer ( 1934 ) and Tropic of Capricorn ( 1938 ) by Henry Miller ; The Story of O ( 1954 ) by Pauline Réage ; Helen and Desire ( 1954 ) and Thongs ( 1955 ) by Alexander Trocchi ; Ada, or Ardor ( 1969 ) by Vladimir Nabokov ; Journal ( 1966 ), Delta of Venus ( 1978 ) and Little Birds ( 1979 ) by Anaïs Nin and The Bicycle Rider ( 1985 ) by Guy Davenport.

His close relationship with Plekhanov led Rakovsky to a position between the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, one he kept from 1903 to 1917 ; the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was initially hostile to Rakovsky, and at one point wrote to Karl Radek that " we Bolsheviks do not have the same road as his kind of people ".

* Vladimir Alexandrovich Borisov ( 1903 – 1993 ), Soviet army officer and Hero of the Soviet Union

In 1900, Axelrod, Plekhanov and Zasulich joined forces with younger revolutionary Marxists Julius Martov, Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Potresov and the six edited Iskra, a Marxist newspaper, from 1900 to 1903.

When Iskra supporters split at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903, Axelrod sided with the Menshevik faction against Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks.

Baudouin de Courtenay was the editor of the 3rd ( 1903 – 1909 ) and 4th ( 1912 – 1914 ) editions of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian language complied by Russian lexicographer Vladimir Dahl ( 1801 – 1872 ).

His second wife was Princess Irina Ivanovna Kurakina ( 22 September 1903 – 17 January 1993 ), a forty-eight-year-old exiled Russian noblewoman who was created HSH Princess Romanovskaya by Grand Duke Vladimir Cyrillovich.

Vladimir Yourkevitch attended Saint Petersburg Polytechnic Institute from 1903 to 1907 ; he was a pupil of Alexei Krylov.