Board of Immigration organized to encourage settlement from the mainland.

County system of administration introduced to Hawai'i.

Legislature petitions Congress for the first time to accept Hawai'i as a state of the union.

George Carter appointed governor by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Laws prohibiting the alteration of food and drugs and providing for their inspection first enacted in Hawai'i, before the passage of the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act.

Hawai'i establishes a Board of Agriculture and Forestry with support of the HSPA and allows lands to be set aside for forest and water reserves.

Walter Frear begins tenure as chairman of Code Commission, supervising compilation, revision and annotation of the complete laws of Hawai'i.

Sanford B. Dole, former president of the Republic of Hawai'i, begins serving as U.S. District Judge.

Largest array of U.S. warships arrives in Honolulu Harbor to take on supplies: flagship Kentucky, battleships Wisconsin and Oregon, and cruisers New Orleans, Albany, Cincinnati and Raleigh carry two Admirals and over 3,000 men.

First major wave of Korean immigration begins, bringing 7,843 individuals to the Islands by 1905. The first group of 103 Koreans is sent to Waialua Plantation to work. Read More.

First pack of canned pineapple produced.

Alexander Young Hotel on King and Bishop Streets opens for business.

Joint Tourist Committee formed, later known as the Hawai`i Promotion Committee and then as the Hawai`i Visitors Bureau.

Over 200 rice farms in operation, many covering marshes and reclaimed swamplands.

Christian Conradt buys Kaho'olawe lease from B.F. Dillingham for about $15,000 and proposes reclaiming the island by planting windbreaks and grasses on barren portions.

Hawaii's customs district ranks 11th in the U.S., collecting just under two million dollars.

Kalakaua silver coins cease being used as legal tender after 20 years of circulation in the Islands.

$14,086,000 worth of imports arrive in Hawai'i; exports total $26,275,000.

U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey install a Milne seismograph at their Barbers Point Magnetic Observatory.

First message by commercial cable sent from San Francisco to Waikiki; the westward extension of this cable connects O'ahu with Midway, Guam and the Philippines.

Hawaiian Tramways' cars make their last run before "electrical rapid transit" replaces them.

First public performance of the Honolulu Symphony Society given at the Hawaiian Opera House.

Pastor Takie Okumura organizes Aiyu Kai, the nucleus of the Makiki Christian Church.

First church service among Korean immigrants held at Mokuleia on O'ahu with Kim E-je leading. Between 1903 and 1905, 400 Christians arrive from Korea, as many as 30 having done evangelical work prior to their departure from Korea.

Orville and Wilbur Wright take first flight in a heavier-than-air machine.

First full-length movie plays: "The Great Train Robbery."

French painter Paul Gaugin dies.

Nobel Prize in physics awarded to Marie and Pierre Curie and Antoine-Henri Becquerel.

First electrocardiogram measures electrical pulse of the heart.