Sir Francis Galton defines his new science of Eugenics as ‘the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage.’

The French government, expanding its educational system, asks psychologist Alfred Binet for ways to detect mentally deficient children. Binet and colleague Theophile Simon draw up a series of tests consisting of numerous short problems designed to probe such qualities as memory, ratiocination, and verbal facility. Binet believed that the Binet-Simon scale was simply a measure of a child's ability to perform specific tasks at a particular moment in the student's life. He felt that intelligence was too complex to be defined by a single number, and he warned against efforts to attach greater meaning to the results.

Colonial Exhibitions in Marseilles display human beings in cages, often nude or semi-nude.

Indiana passes the first eugenic sterilisation law in the US. As part of the eugenics movement, over 35 states will pass sterilisation laws allowing individuals in state institutions to be forcibly sterilised if judged to be genetically defective.

Ota Benga commits suicide. His death certificate names him as ‘Otto Bingo’.

US Eugenicist Madison Grant publishes one of the most notorious books of racist science, The Passing of the Great Race, in which he elaborates on his theory of the superiority of the ‘Nordic’ races from Scandinavia who - according to Grant - were close to committing ‘race suicide’ by being mixed with and out-bred by more inferior stock. The book was immensely popular and went through multiple print runs in the US, and was translated into a number of other languages, notably German, in 1925. The theory of Nordic superiority was strongly embraced by the racial hygiene movement in Germany in the early 1920s and 1930s; however, they typically used the term ‘Aryan’ instead of ‘Nordic’. The book was the first non-German book ordered to be reprinted by Hitler’s NSDAP party when it took power, and Adolf Hitler wrote to Grant that ‘the book is my Bible’.

A Virginia law is passed that prohibits ‘whites’ from marrying anyone with ‘a single drop of Negro blood’. Virginia was not unique; inter-racial marriage was by this time illegal in 38 states. Furthermore, in the same year Congress passed the Immigration Act, a series of strict anti-immigration laws calling for the severe restriction of ‘inferior’ races from southern and eastern Europe.

The United Nations adopts the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights.’ This statement declares that any man or woman of age has the right to marry and have a family (procreate) regardless of nationality, race, or religion. Eleanor Roosevelt helped in the drafting of the declaration for adoption by the United Nations.

In that year, interracial marriage is still illegal in 16 US states

At the original trial, the Virginia judge gave the Lovings a choice: they could spend one year in jail or move to another state. In his opinion, ‘Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.’ The couple appealed their case, which eventually made it to the US Supreme Court. Ultimately, the Court found the laws against interracial marriage unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the Court’s decision: “under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed upon by the State.” With that decision, all the remaining anti-miscegenation laws in the country were null and void.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, directed by Stanley Kramer, shows the first interracial kiss in a Hollywood mainstream movie, between Sidney Poitier and Katherine Houghton

Ohio school teacher Jane Elliott does her first controversial ‘blue eye brown eye’ exercise with her pupils.

An Alabama high school principal tried to cancel the senior prom when he discovered that mixed race couples would attend. He was sacked and then reinstated two weeks later.

In the USA a white principal at a South Carolina high school agrees to allow mixed race relationships if the parents give written consent. The couples are still not allowed to hold hands or dance. He contends that allowing relationships between people from different races - which he has described as ‘genetic blending’ - runs against the Biblical order and is not to be encouraged.