Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan develops the Kaplan turbine, a propeller-type water turbine with adjustable blades. This invention, created in Austria, was a major advance in turbine technology, allowing for high efficiency even with low water heads and variable flow rates. The Kaplan turbine became essential for large-scale, low-head hydroelectric projects and is still widely used today, representing a key innovation in the efficient utilization of water power.

The Kaplan turbine is a testament to the ingenuity of early 20th-century engineering, a period of intense technological and artistic ferment in Central Europe. This era saw the rise of modernism in literature and the arts, and the turbine's efficiency and adaptability can be seen as a metaphor for the modernist quest for new forms and techniques. The Austrian context of this invention is also significant, linking it to the rich literary and cultural world of fin-de-siècle Vienna.