1900: Key Events

• Lord Curzon rejects the Congress Party’s pleas for permanent land settlements, alleging that the weather, rather than excessive taxes, had caused the famine, but he later reduces salt tax and raises income tax thresholds. He also sets up a Railway Board, and opens 6100 miles of new rail track.

• Major Warwick establishes a cinema in Madras. F. B. Thanawala’s Grand Kinetoscope newsreels establish the genre’s commercial possibilities. Footage of the Boer War is released at the Novelty Cinema, Bombay.