Return to home1920 Jan 2,
Isaac Asimov, Prolific American writer of over 300 books including
Foundation and I, Robot, was born.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1920 Jan 2, Some 2,700 arrests
were made in raids in 33 American cities as part of a campaign
against alleged political radicals and labor agitators spearheaded
by the Department of Justice under Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer. The Palmer Raids were in reaction to the so-called "Red
Scare" that followed the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the
founding in 1919 of the Worker‘s Party (later Communist Party) in
the U.S. Mass arrests of political and labor leaders and agitators
began in the fall of 1919 and ended in May of 1920.
(HNQ,
2/22/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids)
1920 Jan 3, The Red Sox sold
Babe Ruth to the Yankees for $100,000, twice the amount of any
previous player transaction. The deal also included a $300,000 loan
secured by a mortgage on Fenway Park, a contractual clause that made
the Yankees owners the Red Sox's landlords.
(http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00242487.html)
1920 Jan 3, The last of the
U.S. troops quit France.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1920 Jan 4, William Egan Colby,
CIA director under Nixon, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1920 Jan 5, GOP women demanded
equal representation at the Republican National Convention in June.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1920 Jan 6, Sun Myung Moon,
evangelist (Unification Church-Moonies), was born.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1920 Jan 8, Massachusetts’ Gov.
Calvin Coolidge stated: "There is a limit to the taxing power of the
state beyond which increased rates produce decreased revenues."
(www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/address_to_the_general_court_b.html)
1920 Jan 10, The League of
Nations was established as the Treaty of Versailles went into
effect. The Free City of Danzig (Gdansk) was constituted by the
treaty.
(WUD, 1994, p.367)(AHD, 1971, p.744)(AP, 1/10/98)
1920 Jan 13, A NY Times
editorial excoriated Dr. Robert H. Goddard, and reported that
rockets can never fly. In 1969 the NY Times belatedly apologized.
(WSJ, 8/7/03, p.A1)
1920 Jan 14, Berlin was placed
under martial law as 40,000 radicals rushed the Reichstag; 42 are
dead and 105 are wounded.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1920 Jan 15, John J. "Cardinal"
O'Connor, Phila, Roman Catholic Archbishop of NY, was born.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1920 Jan 15, The United States
approved a $150 million loan to Poland, Austria and Armenia to aid
in their war with the Russian communists.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1920 Jan 16, Prohibition began
as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect. It was
later repealed by the 21st Amendment. Alcohol was outlawed in the US
with the passage of the 18th amendment. It was made law on Jan 16,
1919, but became effective on this day. At the time US authorities
expected few violations of the new law. Over the next fourteen
years, Prohibition corrupted all levels of society, swamped the
judiciary, killed thousands of people, and gave rise to underworld
syndicates that still exist.
(www.browardpalmbeach.com/1997-12-04/news/the-gallows-and-the-deep/)(AP,
1/16/98)(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-11)
1920 Jan 16, The League of
Nations held its first meeting in Paris.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1920 Jan 16, Allies lifted the
blockade on trade with Russia.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1920 Jan 19, US Senate voted
against membership in the League of Nations.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1920 Jan 20, Movie director
Federico Fellini was born in Rimini, Italy.
(AP, 1/20/00)
1920 Jan 22, William Warfield,
singer (Show Boat), was born.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1920 Jan 23, The Dutch
government refused demands from the victorious Allies to hand over
Kaiser Wilhelm II, the dethroned German monarch who had fled to the
Netherlands.
(AP, 1/23/00)
1920 Jan 24, Amedeo Modigliani
(b.1884), Italian sculptor, painter, died in Paris. His mistress
Jeanne Hebuterne, pregnant with his child, committed suicide 2 days
later rather than live without him. In 2006 Jeffrey Meyers authored
“Modigliani: A Life." In 2011 Meryle Secrest authored “Modigliani: A
Life."
(http://tinyurl.com/4l4ocml)(WSJ, 10/16/98,
p.W14)(WSJ, 3/21/06, p.D8)(SSFC, 3/13/11, p.G5)
1920 Jan 26, Jeanne Hebuterne
(b.1898), the mistress of Amadeo Modigliani, killed herself 2 days
following Modigliani’s death while carrying his child.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_H%C3%A9buterne)
1920 Jan, Albanian leaders met
in Lushnjë and rejected the partitioning of Albania by the Treaty of
Paris. They created a bicameral parliament and warned that Albanians
would take up arms in defense of territory.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1920 Feb 1, 1st commercial
armored car was introduced in St. Paul, Minn.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1920 Feb 1, The Royal North
West Mounted Police was formed as the Royal Northwest Mounted Police
merged with Dominion Police and incorporated as the federal
organization called the Dominion Police. The name Royal Canadian
Mounted Police was adopted.
(AP, 2/1/97)(AP, 5/23/97)(HNQ, 5/5/98)(MC,
2/1/02)
1920 Feb 2, A. Wang, founder of
Wang Labs and Wang Computers, was born.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1920 Feb 3, The Allies demanded
that 890 German military leaders stand trial for war crimes.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1920 Feb 4, The 1st flight from
London to South Africa took off and lasted 1 month.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1920 Feb 7, Oscar Brand, folk
vocalist (Draw Me a Laugh), was born in Winnipeg, Canada.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1920 Feb 7, Adm. Alexander
Kolchak (b.1874), commander of the White Army in Siberia during the
civil war that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, was executed
by a firing squad in Irkutsk about a month after relinquishing
command of anti-Bolshevik forces. He was condemned in Soviet law as
a counterrevolutionary. In 2004 efforts began to exonerate him.
(AP,
12/7/04)(www.firstworldwar.com/bio/kolchak.htm)
1920 Feb 8, Swiss men voted
against women's suffrage.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1920 Feb 9, The Svalbard Treaty
gave Norway sovereignty over the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, but
allowed other countries to establish settlements there and to
exploit its natural resources. The treaty allowed Russia to pursue
mining at Spitsbergen. By 2017 there were more than 40 countries
party to the treaty.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A1)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.70)(Econ,
10/2/04, p.52)(Reuters,
10/26/17)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard)
1920 Feb 10, Alex Comfort,
English physician and author, was born. His books included "Joy of
Sex."
(HN, 2/10/01)
1920 Feb 11, Farouk I, last
King of Egypt (1936-52), was born in Cairo.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1920 Feb 12, The last German
forces withdrew from Klaipeda as French and English naval forces
arrived.
(LHC, 2/12/03)
1920 Feb 13, Eileen Farrell,
opera soprano (Interrupted Melody), was born in Willimantic, Conn.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1920 Feb 13, The League of
Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.
(AP, 2/13/98)
1920 Feb 13-1920 Feb 14, Andrew
“Rube" Foster (1879-1930) formed the 1st black baseball league, the
Negro National League, at a meeting at the Colored YMCA, Kansas
City, Mo.
(AH, 2/05,
p.17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Foster)
1920 Feb 14, The League of
Women Voters was founded in Chicago to encourage women's
participation in government; its first president was Maude Wood
Park.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(AP, 2/14/98)(SFC, 10/13/99,
p.E7)
1920 Feb 15, K Reinmuth
discovered asteroid #926 Imhilde.
(440 Int’l., 2/15/99)
1920 Feb 16, Patty Andrews,
vocalist (Andrews Sisters), was born in Minneapolis.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1920 Feb 16, The Allies
accepted Berlin’s offer to try World War I war criminals in
Leipzig’s Supreme Court.
(HN, 2/16/98)
1920 Feb 17, A directorship for
the Klaipeda (Kaliningrad) region was formed.
(LHC, 2/17/03)
1920 Feb 18, Vuillemin and
Chalus completed their first flight over the Sahara Desert.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1920 Feb 20, Robert E. Peary
(63), US pole explorer (North Pole, 6/4/1909), died.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1920 Feb 21, Robert S. Johnson,
was born. He became the American World War II fighter ace who shot
down 27 German planes.
(HN, 2/21/99)
1920 Feb 21, A Prussian
Lithuanian National Council urged the Lithuanian government and the
Allies to take measures for uniting the Klaipeda region to
Lithuania.
(LHC, 2/21/03)
1920 Feb 22, The American
Relief Administration appealed to the public to pressure Congress to
aid starving European cities.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1920 Feb 22, The 1st artificial
rabbit was used at a dog race track in Emeryville, Calif.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1920 Feb 24, A fledgling German
political party held its first meeting of importance at Hofbrauhaus
in Munich; it became known as the Nazi Party, and its chief
spokesman was Adolf Hitler.
(AP, 2/24/00)
1920 Feb 24, Samuel J. Harris
(b.1896), First Lieutenant, American Brigade, Republic of Lithuania,
died in an army revolt in Kaunas, Lithuania. The insurrection was
due to Communist agitation among the inexperienced peasant boys in
the Lithuanian army. The uprising was quelled immediately, through
the activity of the American and British officers of the military
missions present in Lithuania. Harris was buried in Arlington
National Cemetery.
(www.arlingtoncemetery.net/sjharris.htm)
1920 Feb 26, Tony Randall
[Leonard Rosenberg], actor (Felix-Odd Couple, Love Sidney), was born
in Tulsa, OK.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1920 Feb 27, The US rejected a
Soviet peace offer as propaganda.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1920 Feb 27, The Boys’ and
Girls’ Bureau, formed in 1919 and headed by Theodore N. Vail,
president of AT&T, changed its name to the Junior Achievement
Bureau.
(www.ja.org/about/about_history.shtml)
1920 Feb 27, The
Lithuanian government offered the representatives of the National
Council of Prussian Lithuania assent to co-optation in the
Lithuanian government. They co-opted March 20.
(LHC, 2/27/03)
1920 Feb 28, Maurice Ravel's
"Le Tombeau de Couperin," premiered.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1920 Feb, A New York Times
reporter suggested to lawyer Harry Daugherty, campaign manager for
Warren Harding, that Harding would be selected by backroom bosses on
Friday night of convention week at about 2 a.m. Daugherty said make
that 2:11 a.m. He was thus quoted in the NYT.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A12)
1920 Feb, Albanian government
moved to Tirana, which became the capital.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1920 Mar 1, Harry Caray,
baseball announcer (Chicago Cubs), was born.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1920 Mar 1, Howard Nemerov,
writer, 3rd US poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize recipient, was born.
[HN says 1921]
(HN, 3/1/01)(SC, 3/1/02)
1920 Mar 1, The National
Assembly of Hungary re-established the Kingdom of Hungary.
Miklos Horthy (1868-1957) became Regent of Hungary and continued to
1944.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikl%C3%B3s_Horthy)
1920 Mar 2, Karel Capek’s
"Loupeznik" premiered in Prague.
(www.enotes.com/peoples-chronology/year-1920/theater-film)
1920 Mar 3, Robert Searle,
cartoonist, was born.
(HN, 3/3/01)
1920 Mar 4, Last day of Julian
civil calendar in Greece.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1920 Mar 7, The Bolsheviks
opened major offensive on the Polish front.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1920 Mar 13, The 133-foot,
iron-hulled tune trawler Ituna sank outside the Golden Gate of San
Francisco as it headed from SF to Reedsport, Oregon. 12 of 14
crewmen escaped. Wreckage of the ship was found in 2015.
(SFC, 10/17/15, p.A6)
1920 Mar 13, The Kapp Putsch
took place, involving a group of Freikorps troops who gained control
of Berlin and installed Wolfgang Kapp (a right-wing journalist) as
chancellor. The national government fled to Stuttgart and called for
a general strike. The strike crippled Germany's ravaged economy and
the Kapp government collapsed after only four days on March 17.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic)
1920 Mar 14, Hank Ketchum,
cartoonist (Dennis the Menace), was born in Seattle, Wa.
(MC,
3/14/02)(http://www.askart.com/Biography.asp)
1920 Mar 16, Leo McKern, actor
(Blue Lagoon, Help, Mouse that Roared, Rumpole of the Bailey), was
born in Sydney, Australia.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1920 Mar 17, John La Montaine,
composer (Pulitzer 1959), was born in Oak Park, Ill.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1920 Mar 19, The U.S. Senate
rejected for the second time the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of
49-35, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
(AP, 3/19/97)(HN, 3/19/98)
1920 Mar 20, Pamela Churchill
Harriman (d.1997) was born. She was later appointed by Pres. Clinton
as ambassador to France. In 1996 Sally Bedell Smith wrote her
biography: "Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman."
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.E6)(SFC, 2/6/97, p.A14)
1920 Mar 20, Britain and its
allies formally occupied Istanbul.
(Econ, 10/21/06, p.95)
1920 Mar 21, Bruno Maderna,
composer, was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1920 Mar 23, Britain denounced
the U.S. because of their delay in joining the League of Nations.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1920 Mar 23, The Perserikatan
Communist of India (PKI) political party formed.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1920 Mar 25, Howard Cosell
(Cohen), was born. He came to be the most liked, and the most
disliked, sports journalist across America.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1920 Mar 25, Greek Independence
Day.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1920 Mar 27, Richard Hayman,
bandleader, conductor, pianist (Theme of 3 Penny Opera), was born.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1920 Mar 28, Dirk Bogarde,
actor (Death in Venice, Servant), was born in London, England.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1920 Mar 28, Thomas Masaryk was
elected president of Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1920 Mar 31, British parliament
accepted Irish "Home Rule" law.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1920 Mar, The US federal
government returned the railroads to private hands.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)
1920 Mar, Faisal I ibn Hussein
ibn Ali became the 1st king Syria.
(www.wordiq.com/definition/Faisal)
1920 Apr 1, Toshiro Mifune,
writer, actor (Shogun), was born in Tsing-tao, China.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1920 Apr 1, Germany's Workers
Party changed its name to Nationalist Socialist German Worker's
Party (Nazis). The National Socialist (Nazi) party was born in
Munich in the 1920s.
(HN, 4/1/98)(HNQ, 1/26/00)
1920 Apr 2, Jack Webb, actor
(Joe Friday-Dragnet), was born in Santa Monica, Calif.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1920 Apr 3, F. Scott Fitzgerald
and Zelda Sayre were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York
City.
(HN, 4/3/02)
1920 Apr 4, Arabs attacked Jews
in Jerusalem.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1920 Apr 5, Arthur Hailey
(d.2004), author, was born in Luton, England. His later novels
included “Hotel" and "Airport."
(HN, 4/5/01)(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
1920 Apr 5, Japanese forces
landed in Vladivostok.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1920 Apr 7, Ravi Shankar, sitar
player, was born in Benares, India.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1920 Apr 8, Carmen McRae, jazz
vocalist and pianist, was born.
(HN, 4/8/01)
1920 Apr 8, Charles Tomlinson
Griffes (35), US composer (White Peacock), died.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1920 Apr 9, Isaias Hellman
(b.1842), Jewish immigrant and California entrepreneur, died. In
2008 Frances Dinkelspiel authored “Towers of Gold: How One Jewish
Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaias_W._Hellman)(SSFC, 11/30/08,
Books p.1)
1920 Apr 12, In Colombia the
firm Nacional de Chocolates was founded. In the 1970s three of the
largest holding companies in the country bought stock from each
other in order to protect themselves from hostile takeovers. The
newly formed Antioquean Syndicate was composed of: Suramericana de
Seguros, Nacional de Chocolates, and Cementos Argos.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compan%C3%ADa_Nacional_de_Chocolates)(WSJ,
1/16/97, p.A12)
1920 Apr 14, John Paul Stevens,
US Supreme Court Justice, was born.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1920 Apr 15, A paymaster and
his guard at a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts, were killed
in a robbery. Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti were accused of
the crime.
(HN, 8/23/98)(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P8)
1920 Apr 15, Richard von
Weizsacker, baron, president (Germany, 1984-94), was born.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1920 Apr 20, John Paul Stevens,
103rd Supreme Court Justice (1975-), was born in Illinois.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1920 Apr 20, Tornadoes struck
northern Alabama and Mississippi. The final Alabama death toll
reached 92 people. As many as 219 people were reportedly killed.
(www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/significant_events/climate/top10.php)(SFC,
4/20/09, p.D8)
1920 Apr 20, Balfour
Declaration was recognized following a conference in San Remo,
Italy. It was agreed that a mandate to Britain should be formally
given by the League of Nations over an area, which in 2010 comprised
Israel, Jordan and the Golan Heights, to be called the "Mandate of
Palestine". The Balfour Declaration was to apply to the whole of the
mandated territory. The doctrine was named after British Foreign
Secretary Arthur James Balfour, who had first articulated it as a
policy on 2 November 1917.
(www.ijs.org.au/The-Balfour-Declaration/default.aspx)
1920 Apr 20, The VII Olympiad
opened in Belgium. The Olympic oath and flag showing 5 interlocking
rings as a symbol of the 5 continents made their first appearance at
the Antwerp Olympics. Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey and Hungary
were not invited and the new Soviet Union decided not to attend.
(WSJ, 4/12/08,
p.R2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Summer_Olympics)
1920 Apr 21, Bruno Maderna,
conductor, composer, Hyperion), was born in Venice, Italy.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1920 Apr 23, The Turkish Grand
National Assembly held its first meeting in Ankara.
(HN, 4/23/99)
1920 Apr 24, British Mandate
over Palestine went into effect and lasted for 28 years. The British
organized a police force with some 3,000 British, Arab and Jewish
officers.
(MC, 4/24/02)(WSJ, 2/2/04, p.A12)
1920 Apr 26, Srinivasa
Ramanujan (b.1887), Indian mathematician, died in India. In 1913
English mathematician G.H. Hardy recognized his brilliant work, and
asked Ramanujan to study under him at Cambridge. In 2007 British
playwright Simon McBurney created “A Disappearing Number," for his
theater group “Complicite," based on Ramanujan’s 5 years a
Cambridge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan)(Econ, 9/1/07,
p.76)
1920 Apr 28, Azerbaijan joined
the USSR.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1920 May 1, Belgian-Luxembourg
toll tunnel opened.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1920 May 2, 1st game of
National Negro Baseball League was played in Indianapolis.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1920 May 3, John Lewis, jazz
pianist, was born.
(HN, 5/3/01)
1920 May 3, "Sugar" Ray
Robinson, American middleweight boxer, was born. He won the
world title for a record five times.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1920 May 5, US Pres. Wilson
made the Communist Labor Party illegal.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1920 May 5, Anarchists Nicola
Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for murder.
(HN, 5/5/98)
1920 May 8, Sloan Wilson,
American author, was born in Norwalk, Conn. He wrote "The man in the
Gray Flannel Suit" and "A Summer Place."
(HN, 5/8/99)(MC, 5/8/02)
1920 May 10, Richard Adams,
English novelist (Watership Down), was born.
(HN, 5/10/02)
1920 May 16, Joan of Arc was
canonized by Pope Benedict XV.
(AP, 5/16/97)(HN, 5/16/98)
1920 May 18, Pope John Paul II
(d.2005) was born as Karol Jozef Wojtyla, in Wadowice, Poland. In
1978 he became the 264th Roman Catholic pope. He was the first
non-Italian Roman Catholic pope since the Renaissance and wrote the
international bestseller "Crossing the Threshold."
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A13)(HN, 5/18/99)(SSFC, 4/3/05,
p.A12)
1920 May 18, In the 46th
Preakness: Clarence Kummer aboard Man o' War won in 1:51.6.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1920 May 19, In Matewan, West
Virginia, a gunbattle between coal company-hired detectives and
local townspeople leaving 10 men dead, including mayor Cabell
Testerman, 2 miners and 7 detectives.
(AH, 4/07,
p.62)(www.matewan.com/History/battle.htm)
1920 May 22, Thomas Gold,
astronomer, was born.
(HN, 5/22/01)
1920 May 23, Helen O'Connell,
big band vocalist, was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1920 May 26, Peggy Lee
(d.2002), jazz singer, was born in Jamestown, ND, as Norma Dolores
Egstrom.
(HN, 5/26/01)(SFC, 1/23/02, p.A2)
1920 May 31, Edward Bennett
Williams, Washington lawyer, was born.
(HN, 5/31/98)
1920 May, Wireless pioneer Lee
de Forest began operating a radio station in Marin County, Ca., six
months before national elections.
(SSFC, 9/27/15, p.F3)
1920 Jun 4, The Treaty of
Trianon, signed at Versailles, was forced upon Hungary by the
victorious Allies after WWII and resulted in Hungary giving up
nearly three-fourths of its territory to Romania, Czechoslovakia and
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croat and Slovenes. Hungary lost more than
half its population, including some 3 million Hungarians. Hungary
ceded the hills of Transylvania to Romania.
(HNQ, 7/5/98)(WSJ, 1/2/97,
p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon)
1920 Jun 4, After the treaty of
Trianon was signed the Danube river became the official border
between Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
(AP, 11/1/18)
1920 Jun 5, Cornelius Ryan, US
historian, writer (The Longest Day), was born.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1920 Jun 5, The US congress
passed the Merchant Marine Act. It provided incentives and
assistance to the American shipping industry stating that
government-owned vessels should be sold only to American shipping
companies. It also created a federal agency to offer loans to US
shippers. The statute, sponsored by Senator Wesley L. Jones of
Washington, governed the workers compensation rights of sailors and
the use of foreign vessels in domestic trade. Section 27, better
known as the Jones Act, deals with coastal shipping and requires
that all goods transported by water between US ports be carried in
US-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by US
citizens, and crewed by US citizens and US permanent residents.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920)(Econ,
6/26/10, p.18)
1920 Jun 10, The Republican
convention in Chicago endorsed woman suffrage.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1920 Jun 11, Robert Hutton,
actor (Torture Garden, Rocket), was born in Kingston, NY.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1920 Jun 11, Hazel Scott,
singer, pianist (Hazel Scott), was born in Trinidad.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1920 Jun 11, The US Republican
Senate bosses gathered in rooms 408 & 410 of the Blackstone
Hotel in Chicago and selected Sen. Warren Harding to break a
deadlock. Harding, disregarding his mistress of four years, Nan
Britton, declared himself to be of good character. The Republicans
nominated Warren G. Harding at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago.
Britton later wrote a book, "The President’s Daughter," about their
relations and claimed that she bore his daughter. Harding had
another mistress named Carrie Phillips. In 1999 Martin Blinder
published his novel "Fluke" based on Harding's political career and
presidency.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A12)(Hem, 8/96, p.84)(SFC,
2/5/98, p.A8)(SFEC, 5/2/99, BR p.8)
1920 Jun 12, Republicans in
Chicago nominated Warren G. Harding for president and Calvin
Coolidge, governor of Massachusetts, for vice president.
(HN, 6/12/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)
1920 Jun 13, The U.S. Post
Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel
post.
(HN, 6/13/98)
1920 Jun 14, Max Weber
(b.1864), German sociologist, died. His books included “The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1905).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber)(Econ,
11/16/13, p.73)
1920 Jun 15, Three African
Americans were lynched in Duluth, Minnesota, by a white mob of
5,000.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1920 Jun 16, John Howard
Griffin, writer, was born. He posed as an African-American in the
south in the early 1960s and his experiences resulted in the book
"Black Like Me."
(HN, 6/16/99)
1920 Jun 20, Race riots in
Chicago, Illinois left two dead and many wounded.
(HN, 6/20/98)
1920 Jun 25, The Greeks took
8,000 Turkish prisoners in Smyrna.
(HN, 6/25/98)
1920 Jun 27, I.A.L. Diamond,
screenwriter, was born.
(HN, 6/27/01)
1920 Jun 28, The Democrats
opened their convention, the first in the West, in San Francisco.
James Cox of Ohio was elected presidential candidate on the 44th
ballot on July 6.
(WSJ, 1/29/98, p.A19)(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(AH,
10/04, p.56)
1920 Jun 28, Clarissa Eden was
born to Major Jack Spencer-Churchill and Lady Gwendoline Bertie. In
1952 she married Anthony Eden (1897-1977) who later became Britain’s
PM (1955-1957). Her father was the younger brother of Winston
Churchill. In 2008 Cate Haste edited “Clarissa Eden, A Memoir: From
Churchill to Eden."
(Econ, 1/19/08,
p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarissa_Eden,_Countess_of_Avon)
1920 Jul 4, Leona Helmsley,
(wife of Harry), real estate billionaire, tax cheat, was born.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1920 Jul 6, The Democrats ended
their convention in San Francisco with the selection James Cox of
Ohio and running mate Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Cox and FDR were
committed internationalists and lost the elections due to the
isolationism of the times.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(AH, 10/04, p.56)
1920 Jul 7, A device known as
the radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy
airplane.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1920 Jul 8, The Galician Soviet
Socialist Republic (Galician SSR) was formed and lasted to September
21, 1920, during the Polish-Soviet War within the area of the
South-Western front of the Red Army.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_Soviet_Socialist_Republic)
1920 Jul 10, David Brinkley
(d.2003), broadcaster, was born in Wilmington, NC.
(HN, 7/10/01)(MC, 7/10/02)
1920 Jul 11, Yul Brynner, actor
(The King and I, The Ten Commandments) , was born.
(PGA, 12/9/98)
1920 Jul 16, Gen. Amos Fries
was appointed 1st US army chemical warfare chief.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1920 Jul 20, Elliot L.
Richardson, US Attorney General (1973), Sec of Defense (1973), was
born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1920 Jul 21, Isaac Stern,
violinist, was born in Kreminiecz, Russia.
(HN, 7/21/98)
1920 Jul 23, King Faisal’s Arab
Army was defeated at Maysaloun and Syria fell effectively under
French.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1920 Jul 24, Bella Abzug, the
first Jewish woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was
born.
(HN, 7/24/98)
1920 Jul 27, A radio compass
was used for 1st time for aircraft navigation.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1920 Jul 28, Revolutionary and
bandit Pancho Villa surrendered to the Mexican government.
(HN, 7/28/98)
1920 Aug 2, Marcus Garvey
presented his "Back To Africa" program in NYC.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1920 Aug 3, P.D. James (Phyllis
Dorothy James), British mystery writer, was born.
(HN, 8/3/00)
1920 Aug 3, Maria Karnilova,
actress (Olga-Ivan the Terrible), was born in Hartford, Ct.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1920 Aug 10, The first blues
recording by a black singer was recorded by Mamie Smith and Her Jazz
Hounds. “Crazy Blues" was composed by Perry Bradford, a black
songwriter, bandleader, and promoter who had moved from Alabama to
New York.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Blues)
1920 Aug 10, Allies recognized
Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1920 Aug 10, The Ottoman
sultanate at Constantinople signed the Treaty of Sevres with the
Allies and associated powers. It promised a homeland for the Kurds,
but the nationalist government in Ankara did not sign the treaty. It
set the borders of Turkey recognized Armenia as an independent
state. France and Britain backed the treaty and a Kurdish state, but
refused to allow Kurds in Iraq and Syria to join it.
(SFC, 2/17/99,
p.A10)(www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/versa/sevres1.html) (EWH, 4th ed,
p.1086)(Econ, 7/13/13, SR p.5)
1920 Aug 10, Turkish government
renounced its claim to Israel and recognized the British mandate.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1920 Aug 13, George Shearing,
blind pianist, composer (Lullaby of Byrdland), was born in
London.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1920 Aug 14, Nehemiah Persoff,
actor (Al Capone, Yentl), was born in Jerusalem, Palestine.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1920 Aug 16, Charles Bukowski,
poet and novelist, was born.
(HN, 8/16/00)
1920 Aug 17, Georgia Gibbs,
singer (Ballin the Jack, Kiss of Fire), was born in Worcester, Mass.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1920 Aug 17, Ray Chapman died
after he was hit in the head by Yanks' pitcher Carl Mays.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1920
Aug 18, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment
to the Constitution, which guaranteed the right of all American
women to vote. This completed the three-quarters necessary to put
the amendment into effect. Aaron Sargent, who wrote the 19th
amendment, also built Grandmere's Inn in Nevada City. Carrie Chapman
Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters, played a crucial role
in its passage. She also held some very racist views: she called the
ballots of proletarian voters "undesirable" and referred to Indians
as "savages." [see Aug 26, 1920]
(SFC, 4/14/96, T-3)(SFC, 6/9/96, p.B-11)(AP,
8/18/97)(HN, 8/18/01)
1920 Aug 20, Pioneering
American radio station 8MK in Detroit (later WWJ) began daily
broadcasting.
(AP, 8/20/97)
1920 Aug 20, A preliminary
meeting was held in Akron, Ohio, to form the American Pro Football
League.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1920 Aug 22, Ray Bradbury,
science fiction writer whose works include "The Martian Chronicles"
and "Fahrenheit 451," was born.
(WSJ, 11/22/95, p.A-3)(HN, 8/22/98)
1920 Aug 22, Denton Cooley,
heart surgeon (1st artificial heart implant), was born in Houston.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1920 Aug 22, Swedish artist
Anders Zorn (b.1860) died. His work included “the Thorn Bush"
(1886).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Zorn)(SFC,
11/9/13, p.E1)
1920 Aug 23, M.R. Rinehart and
A. Hopwood's "Bat," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1920
Aug 26, US Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified
ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. The amendment had been
first introduced in Congress in 1878, setting in motion supporters
who demonstrated, lobbied, marched and spoke out for woman suffrage.
They were often met with venomous opposition. Early on, the two main
factions of the movement disagreed about how to achieve their goal,
but they ultimately united in 1890 to form the National American
Woman Suffrage Association and worked together to get the amendment
passed. By August 18, 1920, three-fourths of the United States had
agreed to the bill.
(AP, 8/26/97)(HNPD, 8/26/99)
1920 Aug 29, Charlie "Bird"
Parker, self-taught jazz saxophonist, pioneer of the new "cool"
movement, was born.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1920 Aug, Hugo Gernsback
changed the title of his magazine Modern Electrics to Science and
Invention and began to include 2 fiction pieces in every issue.
(ON, 11/05, p.11)
1920 Aug, Max Reinhardt
conducted the world premier of Hugo von Hofmannstahl’s version of
"Everyman" in front of the Salzburg Cathedral.
(WSJ, 8/10/95, p.A-9)
1920 Sep 2, W. Somerset
Maugham's "East of Suez," premiered in London.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1920 Sep 4, Craig Claiborne,
food critic, food columnist (NY Times Cookbook) and cookbook author,
was born.
(HN, 9/4/00)(MC, 9/4/01)
1920 Sep 4, Maggie Higgins, the
first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize (1951) for international
reporting, for her work in Korean war zones, was born.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1920 Sep 8, New York-to-San
Francisco air mail service was inaugurated. US postal planes began
flying across the country, but these flights took place only in
daylight because pilots relied on visual landmarks to navigate.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/1918-1924/POL3.htm)(AP,
9/8/00)
1920 Sep 16, A bomb exploded in
front of the Morgan building at 23 Wall St. in NYC at noon on a busy
Thursday. 30 people were immediately killed and 8 soon died from
their wounds. A 16-foot stretch of the Tennessee-marble façade with
pockmarks of the blast was retained as a memorial.
Investigators believed the bombing was carried out by Galleanists
(Italian anarchists), a group responsible for a series of bombings
the previous year. Ron Chernow described the incident in his book
"The House of Morgan." No one was charged but Prof. Paul Avrich, in
his book "Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background," later held
that Mario Buda, an Italian immigrant, was the culprit.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing)(WSJ, 12/10/98,
p.B1)(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A3)(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.E4)(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P8)
1920 Sep 17, The American
Professional Football Association -- a precursor of the NFL -- was
formed in Canton, Ohio. 12 teams paid $100 each to join American
Prof Football Assn. Jim Thorpe was the first president. The name was
changed to the National Football League (NFL) in 1922. The NFL
merged with the AFL in 1970.
(AP, 9/17/97)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.B3)(HNQ,
11/19/00)(MC, 9/17/01)
1920 Sep 21, Jay Ward,
cartoonist (Rocky & his Friends, Bullwinkle), was born.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1920 Sep 22, Chicago grand jury
convened to investigate charges that 8 White Sox players conspired
to fix the 1919 World Series.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1920 Sep 23, Mickey Rooney,
actor, was born Joe Yule, Jr. in Brooklyn, NY.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, DB p.61)
1920 Sep 27, Eight Chicago
White Sox players were charged with fixing the 1919 World Series.
[see Sep 28]
(HN, 9/27/98)
1920 Sep 28, 8 White Sox
players were indicted for throwing the 1919 World Series (Black Sox
scandal). [see Sep 27]
(MC, 9/28/01)
1920 Sep, African American
boxer Jack Johnson (1878-1946) was imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth
for ten months following a plea bargain after an all-white jury
convicted him of violating the Mann Act. Johnson was arrested in
1912 on charges of violating the Mann Act, forbidding one to
transport a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes," a
racially motivated charge that embroiled him in controversy for his
relationships with white women. Johnson had skipped bail and lived
in Europe for seven years.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Johnson_%28boxer%29)(SFC,
4/24/18, p.A10)
1920 Sep, Albania forced Italy
to withdraw its troops and abandon claims on Albanian territory.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1920 Oct 1, Walter Matthau
(d.2000), actor, was born as Walter Matuchanskayasky in NYC to
Russian-Jewish immigrants.
(SFC, 7/3/00, p.C2)
1920 Oct 2, Max Bruch, composer
(Scottish Fantasy), died at 82.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1920 Oct 8, Frank [Patrick]
Herbert, US, sci-fi author (Dune), was born.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1920 Oct 12, Construction began
on Holland Tunnel connecting NJ and NYC.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1920 Oct 12, Man O'War ran his
last race and won.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1920 Oct 13, Laraine Day
(d.2007), film actress, was born in Roosevelt, Utah. Her work
included over 4 dozen films from the late 1930s to 1960.
(SFC, 11/13/07, p.D9)
1920 Oct 14, In the Dorpart
Treaty the Soviet Bolsheviks reaffirmed Finnish independence, gave
Finland the ice-free port of Pechenga towards the Arctic Ocean and
put the Finnish border 18 miles west of Leningrad. The treaty,
signed by Stalin, was precipitated by Gustaf Mannerheim’s victory
over much larger Bolshevik and Finnish Red Guard forces in 1918.
(DrEE, 10/26/96, p.4)
1920 Oct 15, Mario Puzo,
novelist and screenwriter, was born. His work included "The
Godfather." [see Oct 15, 1921]
(HN, 10/15/00)
1920 Oct 15, The Paris
Conference on Passports & Customs Formalities and Through
Tickets opened. The week-long event ending on Oct 21 was hosted by
the League of Nations and set standards for passports.
(Econ, 3/3/12,
p.73)(www.indiana.edu/~league/1920.htm)
1920 Oct 17, Montgomery Clift,
actor (From Here to Eternity), was born in Omaha, Neb.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1920 Oct 20, Max Bruch (82),
German composer (Kol Nidre), died.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1920 Oct 22, Timothy Leary,
American psychologist who experimented with psychedelic drugs, was
born.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1920 Oct 23, Chicago grand jury
indicted Abe Attell, Hal Chase, and Bill Burns as go-betweens in
Black Sox World Series scandal.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1920 Oct 25, Alexander
(27), king of Greece (1917-20), died following a pet monkey bite.
(www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0803222.html)
1920 Oct 27, League of Nations
moved headquarters in Geneva.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1920 Oct 31, Dick Francis,
jockey and detective writer (Whip Hand, High Stakes), was born in
Wales.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1920 Nov 1, Eugene O'Neill's
"Emperor Jones," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1920 Nov 2, Warren G. Harding
was elected 29th president. He defeated James Cox, governor of Ohio,
and his VP running mate Franklin Delano Roosevelt (38).
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.E7)(AH, 10/04, p.50)
1920 Nov 2, Of the 68
women who signed the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls,
NY, only one, Charlotte Woodward Pierce (1830-1921), lived to
finally see women vote.
(www.nps.gov/wori/biographies/woodward.htm)
1920 Nov 2, The first radio
broadcast of presidential elections in the United States were made
by radio. Westinghouse had built radio station KDKA on its factory
roof in Pittsburgh and was among the first to broadcast returns from
the Harding-Cox presidential election. 8MK, the first US station
owned by a newspaper (the Detroit News), also broadcast the election
returns.
(www.oldradio.com/current/the1st.htm)(WSJ,
1/12/98, p.A19)(HN, 11/2/98)(AP, 11/2/99)
1920 Nov 2, In Ocoee, Fla., on
election day gunfire erupted after 2 black men tried to vote. By the
next day a number of residents, black and white, lay dead.
(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.A1)
1920 Nov 3, Oodgeroo Noonuccal
[Kath Walker], Australian Aboriginal poet, was born.
(HN, 11/3/00)
1920 Nov 3, "Emperor Jones"
opened at Provincetown Theater.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1920 Nov 10, George Bernard
Shaw's "Heartbreak House," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1920 Nov 12, Baseball got its
first "czar" as Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was elected
commissioner of the American and National Leagues. Landis became the
first commissioner of baseball, a position he held until his death
in 1944. Replacing the powerless three-man National Baseball
Commission, Landis was given almost dictatorial powers and charged
by the owners with cleaning up the game, which had been rocked by
scandal when eight Chicago White Sox players were accused of
throwing the 1919 World Series. The players' 1921 conspiracy trial
ended with acquittal for lack of hard evidence, but Landis needed to
reassure fans of baseball's integrity. The eight White Sox,
including "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and Oscar "Happy" Felsh, were
barred from baseball for life.
(AP, 11/12/97)(HNPD, 11/12/98)
1920 Nov 15, Forty-one nations
opened the first League of Nations session in Geneva.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1920 Nov 16, Metered mail was
born in Stamford, Connecticut, with the first Pitney Bowes postage
meter.
(HN, 11/16/98)
1920 Nov 20, The Nobel Peace
Prize was awarded to US president W. Wilson.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1920 Nov 21, Stan "The Man"
Musial, Hall of Fame baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals,
was born.
(HN, 11/21/98)
1920 Nov 21, Mussolini's squad
began terror and 11 died in Bologna, Italy.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1920 Nov 25, radio station WTAW
of College Station, Texas, broadcast the first play-by-play
description of a football game, between the University of Texas and
Texas A&M.
(AP, 11/25/00)
1920 Nov 25, The 1st
Thanksgiving Parade was held in Philadelphia.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1920 Nov 26, Cyril Cusack,
Irish actor, was born.
(HN, 11/26/00)
1920 Nov 28, The film "The Mark
of Zorro" with Douglas Fairbanks opened in NYC at the Capitol
Theater. It was based on “The Curse of Capistrano, a story by
Johnston McCulley, a NY journalist and pulp magazine writer.
(www.silentsaregolden.com/markofzorroreview.html)(SSFC, 5/8/05,
p.B4)
1920 Nov, California voters
passed an anti-Japanese Alien Land law that barred Japanese
immigrants from purchasing land in the name of their American-born
children. A federal court deemed it constitutional in 1921.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W7)
1920 Nov, In West Virginia
Democratic Gov. John Cornwell invoked martial law and called for
help from Washington to quell violence between mine owners and
striking coal miners.
(AH, 4/07, p.63)
1920 Nov, White Russian Major
Gen’l. Paul Petroff entrusted 20 boxes of gold coins and 2 boxes of
gold bullion to Colonel R. Isome of the Japanese forces that
occupied part of Siberia in order to cross Manchuria and not loose
the money to bandits. He was fleeing to the anti-Bolshevik
stronghold at Vladivostok. The money was never returned. The events
were later documented by his son Serge Petroff in the 1997 book "Let
the War Rage."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.D2)
1920 Nov, Chechens joined with
other Caucasian peoples to form the Republic of the Mountain
Peoples. Chechens had rebelled during the civil war that followed
the Russian Revolution of 1917, clashing with local Cossacks and the
anti-Communist White forces as well as with the Communists' Red
Army. With the establishment of Soviet authority in the region.
(www.chechnyawar.com/history)
1920 Dec 6, Dave Brubeck, jazz
pianist and composer, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1920 Dec 6, In Boston, Mass., a
dog with spectacles was shown at the annual fair of the Animal
Rescue League.
(http://tinyurl.com/5hbur6)
1920 Dec 8, President Wilson
declined to send a representative to the League of Nations in
Geneva.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1920 Dec 13, George P. Schultz,
US Secretary of State (1982-89), was born.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1920 Dec 13, League of nations
established the Int’l. Court of Justice in The Hague.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1920 Dec 14, George Gipp
(b.1895) died in Indiana from pneumonia and a strep infection during
his senior year at Notre Dame. He was buried in northern Michigan.
Gipp was the school's first All-American and set a school career
rushing record that stood for more than 50 years. Ronald Reagan
portrayed Gipp in the 1940 movie "Knute Rockne, All American," in
which he made famous the phrase "win one for the Gipper."
(AP,
11/10/07)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1595)
1920 Dec 14, The League of
Nations created a credit system to aid Europe; U.S. export trade was
threatened.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1920 Dec 15, China won a place
on the League Council; Austria was admitted.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1920 Dec 16, In China an 8.6
earthquake killed some 100,000 people in the northwestern province
of Gansu. The quake in mid-western China caused massive landslides
and the deaths of over 200,000 people. [see Dec 16, 1932; Dec 26,
1932]
(SFC, 1/800, p.A8)(MC, 12/16/01)
1920 Dec 18, Rita Streich,
German singer, was born.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1920 Dec 20, The opera "Die
Tote Stadt" by Erich Korngold (1897-1957) premiered in Germany. It
was first recorded in a 1975 production by Charles Allan Gerhardt
(d.1999 at 72).
(www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Nov02/Korngold_Die_Tote_Stadt.htm)(SFC,
3/2/99, p.A20)
1920 Dec 23, Ireland was
divided into 2 parts, each with its own parliament.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1920 Dec 24, Enrico Caruso gave
his last public performance, singing in Jacques Halevy’s "La Juive"
at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
(AP, 12/24/97)
1920 Dec 28, U.S. resumed the
deportation of Communists.
(HN, 12/28/98)
1920 Dec 29, Syd Dernley,
hangman, was born.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1920 Dec 30, Ho Chi Minh helped
found the Communist Party of France on December 30, 1920, while a
student there. Known then as Nguyen Ai Quoc, Ho went on to Moscow in
1923 for training in revolutionary strategy by the Communist
International. After several years in the Soviet Union and China, Ho
returned to Vietnam to lead his nation’s revolutionary movement.
(HNQ, 4/13/99)
1920 Dec, Albania was admitted
to the League of Nations as sovereign and independent state.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1920 Isaac Stern (d.2001),
Russian-Jewish immigrant to the US and legendary violinist, was born
in the Ukraine. His family arrived in San Francisco a year later. In
1960 he saved Carnegie Hall from the wrecking ball.
(SSFC, 9/23/01, p.A24)(SFC, 9/24/01, p.G1)
1920 Otto Dix painted "Souvenir
of the Hall of Mirrors in Brussels."
(WSJ, 2/3/00, p.A24)
1920 Matisse painted his
"Marguerite Sleeping."
(SFC, 5/19/96, BR, p.8)
1920 Man Ray (aka Manuel
Radnitsky, 1890-1976) made his "Obstruction," a hanging mobile
contrived with wooden clothes hangers.
(WSJ, 12/2/96, p.A16)
1920 Stanley Spencer painted
"Christ Carrying the Cross."
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.C1)
1920 The National Women’s Party
commissioned the Portrait Monument, a sculpture in honor of the
suffragists Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton by Adelaide Johnson. It was presented to Congress in 1921.
In 1997 the National Political Congress of Black Women removed their
support for exhibiting the piece beneath the Capital dome because it
did not include Sojourner Truth, a black suffragist.
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A4)
1920 Isaac Babel (d.1940) wrote
a wartime diary as he rode horseback with Budyonny’s First Cavalry
Army as the Cossacks participated in the Bolshevik invasion of
Poland. An essay on the diary was written by Cynthia Ozick in her
1996 book: "Fame & Folly."
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-18)
1920 F. Scott Fitzgerald (23)
authored his 1st novel “This Side of Paradise."
(WSJ, 7/29/06, p.P12)(www.bartleby.com/115/)
1920 William Dean Howells
published his last novel "Vacation at the Kelwyn’s." In it he
satirized the romances of the 1860s and 1870s.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.37)
1920 Ernst Juenger (Jünger)
(d.1998) published his first book "In Storms of Steel." The book
glorified the horrors of WW I and put him in the rank of militant
nationalists whose writings helped pave the way for the Third Reich.
In 2003 Michael Hoffman made a translation, Storm of Steel, to
English.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.A18)(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P12)
1920 Sinclair Lewis (1865-1951)
authored "Main Street."
(WSJ, 1/18/02, p.W8)
1920 "The Story of Dr.
Doolittle" by Hugh Lofting was published.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1920 Arthur Pigou (1877-1959),
English economist, authored “The Economics of Welfare."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Cecil_Pigou)
1920 Eugene O’Neill wrote his
first full-length play "Beyond the Horizon."
(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A20)
1920 Ring Lardner and George S.
Kaufman wrote the musical comedy "June Moon."
(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A20)
1920 George Saintsbury
(1845-1933), English writer and wine connoisseur, authored “Notes on
a Cellar-Book," later considered one of the great pieces of wine
criticism in literature.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Saintsbury)(SFC, 5/31/17,
p.D3)
1920 Margaret Sanger authored
“Woman and the New Race."
(SSFC, 10/26/14, p.P2)
1920 The 1897 play, "Reigen,"
by Arthur Schnitzler had its premiere In Vienna. The name meant
round dance and represented a circle of sexual encounters and was
promptly closed down by police. A 1998 adaptation by David Hare
featured Nicole Kidman and Ian Glen in "The Blue Room."
(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A21)
1920 George and Ira Gershwin
began collaborating and wrote their first song "Waiting for the Sun
to Come Out."
(SFC, 12/4/96, p.E1)(SFEC, 8/16/98, DB p.38)
1920 The film “The Daughter of
Dawn" was first screened in Los Angeles. It featured a large cast of
Comanche and Kiowa people with scenes of buffalo hunting and
ceremonial dances. A damaged copy was reported found in 2015.
(SFC, 4/30/15, p.A7)
1920 The ballet "Pulcinella" by
Igor Stravinsky had its premiere.
(WSJ, 4/17/01, p.A18)
1920 The art-deco GM Building
on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit was completed. In 1996 GM
purchased the downtown Renaissance Center for $72 mil and planned to
vacate its old headquarters.
(WSJ, 5/17/96,p.B-2)
1920 Sara (b.1883) and Gerald
Murphy rented a floor of the Hotel du Cap on the French Riviera for
the summer while their villa was being built, and invited their
friends, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Marlene Dietrich, and the
Windsors... Hemingway’s book, "A Moveable Feast," was a memoir on
the Murphys. Fitzgerald’s characters of Dick and Nicole Diver in
"Tender Is the Night" was based on the Murphys. In 1982 Calvin
Tompkins published "Living Well is the Best Revenge." In 1983 Sara
Murphy Donnelly (d.1998 at 81) authored "Sara and Gerald: Villa
America and After." In 1998 Amanda Vaill published "Everybody Was So
Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy—A Lost Generation Love Story."
(CNT, Nov.,1994, p.219)(SFEC, 8/9/98, BR 9
p.9)(SFC, 12/25/98, p.B6)
1920 The Catholic Church
recognized Joan of Arc as a saint.
(WSJ, 1/23/96, p.A-12)
1920 NYC extended its subway
from Manhattan to Coney Island.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, Z1 p.8)
1920 The Steel Pier in Atlantic
City, New Jersey, opened and was called "The World's Playground."
(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.D12)
1920 Eastman Chemical Co. was
founded in Kingsport, Tenn., as a unit of Eastman Kodak Co. It was
spun off in 1994. In 1998 the company agreed to pay an $11 million
fine for price-fixing on sorbates, a chemical used to keep food and
beverages fresh.
(SFC, 10/2/98, p.B6)
1920 General Steamship Corp.
was founded with operations on the US West Coast.
(SFC, 9/30/04, p.B7)
1920 The Central Bureau for
Astronomical Telegrams was established by the Int’l. Astronomical
Union. It was the official arbiter for comet nomenclature.
(WSJ, 4/22/97, p.A1)
1920 Emile Coue (1857-1926),
French pharmacist, devised the mantra "Every day, in every way, I’m
getting better and better" to promote his theory of self-improvement
through auto-suggestion. [2nd source says 1910]
(NH, 7/98, p.20)(SFEC, 6/20/99, Z1 p.8)
1920 Henry Burt created the
"Good Humor Bar," a chocolate covered ice cream bar on a stick, in
Youngstown, Ohio. Good Humor trucks cruised America's streets until
1976 and the company merged with Breyer's Ice Cream in 1993.
(SFEC,10/19/97, Z1 p.2)(WSJ, 7/16/99, p.W12)
1920 The Baby Ruth candy bar
made its debut. It was named after Pres. Grover Cleveland's
daughter.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.E7)
1920 Raymond "Chappie" Chapman,
a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians baseball team, was killed by a
pitched ball during a game against the NY Yankees.
(SFC, 6/2/96, p.T-12)
1920 Lefty Grove, a Hall of
Fame pitcher, was traded for a new outfield fence.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.C5)
1920 Bill Doak, a pitcher for
the St. Louis Cardinals, asked the Rawlings sporting goods company
to design a glove with a piece of leather sewn between the thumb and
forefinger.
(WSJ, 4/1/02, p.A1)
1920 Louis Chevrolet won the
Indianapolis 500 auto race.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(SFEC, 1/9/00, Z1 p.2)
1920 Golfers began wearing
metal-spiked golf shoes as standard wear about this time.
(Hem, 4/96, p.83)
1920 Suzanne Lenglen of France,
wearing a shockingly short skirt, won 2 gold medals in tennis at the
Olympic games in Antwerp, Belgium.
(NG, 8/04, Geographica)
1920 Oscar Swahn (72) of Sweden
won a silver medal for shooting in the Antwerp Olympics.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A1)
1920 The Olympics dropped the
tug-of-war event this year.
(Econ, 2/8/14, p.59)
1920 Knut Hamsun (1859-1952),
Norwegian writer, won the Nobel Prize in literature for his work
"The Growth of the Soil."
(Econ, 11/7/09, p.79)
1920 Leon Bourgeois (b.1851),
French premier (1895-96) won the Nobel Peace Prize.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1920 The US Congress repealed
60 wartime measures despite the objections of Pres. Wilson.
Republican presidential nominee Harding pledged that he would abjure
executive autocracy.
(AH, 6/07, p.44)
1920 US law dictated that all
goods shipped between the mainland and Puerto Rico must be on
American-flagged vessels.
(Econ, 7/11/15, p.34)
1920 In the US the Mineral
Leasing Act was established.
(WSJ, 7/31/96, p.A15)
1920 The US Dept. of Labor
established a Women’s Bureau.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, Z1 p.3)
1920 The US Postal Service
introduced the postage meter.
(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.B1)
1920 Oregon re-instated the
death penalty.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A11)
1920 Julius Hammer, father of
Armand Hammer, was sent to Sing Sing prison for killing a woman
during a botched abortion. It was later asserted that the crime was
actually committed by Armand.
(SFC, 1/17/97, p.D7)
1920 Italian-born anarchists
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for the murders
of two men during a robbery. They were executed in 1927. [see
8/23/27] (Sacco and Vanzetti were vindicated in 1977 by
Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis.)
(HFA, ‘96, p.36)(TMC, 1994, p.1927)(AP, 8/23/97)
1920 Robert Stroud (1890-1963),
imprisoned for murder at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, rescued 3 young
sparrows in his prison yard following a storm and began studying
birds. He later wrote “Stroud’s Dictionary of Diseases of Birds."
Stroud was later transferred to Alcatraz and then to Missouri, where
he died.
(SSFC, 1/15/09, DB
p.54)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdman_of_Alcatraz)
1920 Cecelia Cudahy Casserly of
Hillsborough, Ca., was appointed Director of Women’s Relations for
the Army by Sec. of War Newton Baker.
(Ind, 4/7/01, 5A)
1920 In California James D.
Phelan (1861-1930), a former mayor of San Francisco (1897-1902),
campaigned for re-election as US state senator using the slogan
“Keep California white." In 1912 he had secured then-presidential
candidate Woodrow Wilson's support for restricting Japanese
immigration and in 1913 helped push through California's
discriminatory alien land law.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Phelan)(SFC, 7/27/17, p.A11)
1920 Harvard University, under
president A. Lawrence Lowell (1909-1933), conducted a clandestine
court and “tried" 30 male students and staff members for the “crime
of homosexuality." As a result 2 men committed suicide and the lives
of most of the others were shattered. In 2005 William Wright
authored “Harvard’s Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus
Homosexuals."
(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.M5)
1920 Michigan set up the first
four-way traffic signal.
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A16)
1920 The Cowtown Coliseum in
Fort Worth, Texas, hosted the world's 1st indoor rodeo.
(SSFC, 8/3/03, p.C4)
1920 A Packard Twin-Six Town
Car by Fleetwood was commissioned by the Atwater Kent family.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.D4)
1920 William Durant, a salesman
who founded GM, lost control of GM for the 2nd time. He then started
Durant Motors, but with no success. Pierre S. duPont became the
president of GM.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1920 Arthur Perdue began a
backyard egg business in Maryland. His son Frank (1920-2005) later
turned it into one of the nation's largest poultry processors.
(AP, 4/1/05)(SFC, 4/2/05, p.B5)
1920 Charles Ponzi (37), an
immigrant from Italy, began selling notes in Boston with 50%
interest payments payable in 45 days. In 1921 he pleaded guilty to
mail fraud. He was released from prison in 1924 and went to Florida
for the land boom offering investors profits of 200%. He again spent
time in jail and was eventually deported and died broke. In 2005
Michael Zuckoff authored “Ponzi’s Scheme."
(WSJ, 3/4/05, p.W6)
1920 Harry Winston opened his
diamond firm, Premier Diamond Company, at 537 Fifth Avenue in New
York.
(SFEM, 1/26/97, p.48)
1920 Westinghouse, General
Electric and AT&T formed the RCA Corp. RCA was founded in 1919
with patents from GE and American Marconi.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/4/99, p.B6)
1920 The Mayo Clinic published
research on how to grade the severity of tumors and helped to lay
the foundation for modern cancer research.
(SFC, 7/5/96, PM, p.5)
1920 Rural Canadian physician
Dr. Frederick G. Banting first conceived the idea of extracting
insulin from the pancreas. It took him and 3 others 8 months to
develop the process.
(HNPD, 1/23/99)(SFC, 7/1/00, p.B5)
1920 The chemical compound
cyclonite, actually cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, was identified in
Germany. It is more powerful than TNT and the British renamed it RDX
for Research Department Explosive. It is the primary ingredient in
plastic explosives such as C-3, C-4 and Semtex which also contains
PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A5)
1920 Leon Theremin invented the
theremin musical instrument. He was a Russian inventor who invented
the instrument made of vacuum tubes and oscillators in the 1920s in
New York. He was later abducted by operators of Stalin and taken
back to Moscow where he is forced to work on devices for the Soviet
Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was an early electronic instrument
with an eerie, sliding tone. The 1994 film "Theremin: An Electronic
Odyssey," featured the instrument. Clara Rockmore (d.1998 at 88),
born Clara Reisenberg in Vilnius, became a theremin virtuoso, and
was the focus of the 1998 video documentary: "Clara Rockmore, The
Greatest Theremin Virtuoso."
(WSJ, 9/19/95, p.A20)(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A21)
1920 The Dalton Plan, a
secondary education technique based on individual learning, was
developed in Massachusetts. The plan grew out of the reaction of
some progressive educators to the fact that students learned at
different speeds. The Dalton Plan divided each subject in the
curriculum into monthly assignments and the students had to finish
one assignment before starting another. They were given
freedom in planning their work schedules and were encouraged to work
in groups. Its popularity in the United States waned, but it gained
influence in England and France.
(HNQ, 9/8/00)
1920 David Mackenzie, dean of
Detroit Junior College, was elected the first president of the
American Association of Junior Colleges.
(WSUAN, Winter 1997, p.7)
1920 S. Ansky (b.1863),
Russian-Jewish journalist and playwright, died. In 2003 Joachim
Neugroschel edited and translated "The Enemy at His Pleasure: A
Journey Through the Jewish Pale of Settlement During World War I."
(SSFC, 4/20/03, p.M4)
1920 John Francis Dodge
(1864-1920) and his brother Horace Elgin (1868-1920) died. They had
started with a bicycle company and evolved into a significant car
company.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1920 Reginald Farrer (b.1880),
Edwardian rare-plant collector, died in Burma. In 2004 Nicola
Shulman authored the biography “Rock Gardening."
(WSJ, 10/29/04, p.W10)
1920 John Wesley Hyatt
(b.1837), considered the founder of the American plastics industry,
died.
(ON, 11/03, p.5)
1920 The first Arctic onshore
oil wells were sunk in Canada’s Mackenzie River valley.
(Econ, 6/16/12, SR p.13)
1920 Australia-based Qantas
Airlines was founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial
Services Ltd. Regular passenger service began in 1922.
(AP, 7/25/08)(http://airlines.ws/qantas.htm)
1920 In Austria the Salzburg
festival began. The annual summer festival grew to become the pole
star of the operatic world.
(Econ, 11/17/12, p.79)
1920 The Republic of Armenia in
order to stave off attacks by Turkey, turned the government over to
the Communists and the Soviet Republic of Armenia came into being.
(Compuserve Online Enc. / Armenia)
1920 In Belgium Godiva
Chocolates, founded by Joseph Draps, began as a family business.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, p.T9)
1920 A midshipman in the Royal
Navy helped evacuate Gen'l. Denikin’s White Army at the Black Sea
port of Novorossik. The midshipman was the father of Neal Ascherson,
author of "Black Sea," a broad historical work on the confrontation
between civilization and barbarism over a 2,000 year period around
the Black Sea.
(WSJ, 12/27/95, p. A-8)
1920 In Burma students rebelled
against British rule.
(WSJ, 12/6/96, p.A1)
1920 Solomon Frank Samuels
(S.F. Samuels) founded the Reliable Toy Co. in Toronto.
(SFC, 2/7/07, p.G7)
1920 Chad was separated from
Ubangi-Shari to form a 4th colony of French Equatorial Africa.
(www.discoverfrance.net)
1920 In China Chao Shao-An,
artist, became a student of Gao Qifeng. He mastered the technique of
brush and ink on absorbent paper. His work included "Katydid and
Weed" (1959); "Penglai Banana" (1964); "Vegetables" and "Autumn
Colors" (1985); and "Cicada and Bamboo" (1971). He donated 80 works
to the Asian Art Museum in SF in the 1990s.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.D1,2)
1920 England passed a Firearms
Bill to regulate private use.
(WSJ, 8/6/02, p.D6)
1920 France, following
populations losses in World War I, devised the Medal of the French
Family with a special gold medal award to women who had 8 or more
children.
(Econ, 4/19/08, p.62)
1920 The Brudorhof Church was
founded in Germany. It was an offshoot of the Anabaptists and
distantly related to the Amish. The church was expelled from Germany
by the Nazis just before WW II and the group settled in the US
Northeast. The church has about 2,100 members in the US and about
500 in England.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.B1)
1920 In Germany a Weimar 5
pfennig postage stamp of this year doubled in cost the following
year. It jumped to 10 marks in 1922, 30 marks in January 1923, 1,000
marks in May and 800,000 marks in October. By the end of 1923
sending a letter cost 10 billion marks.
(Econ, 6/16/12, p.64)
1920 Another Government of
Ireland Act was passed by the British government. This act had a
proviso that the reunification of Ireland was an ultimate goal.
(WSJ,3/13/95, p.A-15)
1920 Kenya became a colony
under the British crown.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/30/08, p.A18)
1920 During the Russian Civil
War, Mongolia was invaded by a White Russian force of 5,000 men.
Freiherr Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg hoped to use
Mongolia as a base to restore the Romanov regime. During his 130-day
rule he ordered that Commissars, Communists, and Jews, together with
their families, be exterminated. In 2009 James Palmer authored “The
Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman
Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia."
(www.gobiexpeditions.com)(Econ, 2/14/09, p.96)
1920 Russia became the first
country to allow abortion.
(Econ, 5/19/07, p.66)
1920 The French carved Lebanon
out of Syria to create a predominantly Christian country. A
constitution was drawn up that required the president to be a
Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the
speaker of parliament a Shiite.
(SFC, 9/28/98, p.A10)
1920s The original Carter
Family, A.P. Carter, Sarah Carter and sister-in-law Mother Maybelle
Carter, began recording sessions that marked the beginning of the US
country music industry.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A17)
1920s Rudolf von Laban invented
a notation system, Labanotation, for choreographers.
(SFC, 5/3/03, p.A21)
1920s Fatty Arbuckle arrived in
Lone Pine, Ca., to star in the film "The Roundup."
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.T3)
1920s Artist Stephan Haweis
(d.1966) drifted to Dominica. He made his home on Mount Joy near
Soufriere. He painted in a Gauguin-like style and inspired other
Dominican artists in his wake.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.T7)
1920s Music played on the
khaen, a giant mouth organ containing 16 reed pipes was recorded. It
is part of the assembled music of the CD series "The Secret Museum
of Mankind - Ethnic Music Classics: 1925-1948," by Pat Conte on the
Yazoo label.
(NH, 6/97, p.66)
1920s The Ludwig Black Beauty
drums were produced.
(Hem., 8/96, p.96)
1920s SF founded the company
town of Moccasin at Moccasin Creek when it bought land for a
reservoir, powerhouse and tunnel to take the Tuolemne River water
from Hetch Hetchy to SF.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, Z1 p.4)
1920s Gertrude Lintz raised a
baby gorilla in New York in the 1920s. This was depicted in the 1997
drama film "Buddy." Her autobiography was titled: "Animals Are My
Hobby." [second source says 1930s]
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.D3)(SFEC, 6/8/97, DB p.53)
1920s The Newton Boys were 4
brothers from rural Texas who became bank robbers in the early
1920s. They held up over 80 banks. The 1998 film "The Newton Boys"
was based on their true story.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, DB p.10)(SFC, 3/23/98, p.E2)(WSJ,
3/31/98, p.A20)
1920s In the late 1920s the
Cosa Nostra was formed with 24 crime families coast to coast. Each
family had an identical paramilitary structure with a national
commission that set rules and policies. This structure was not
publicly revealed until the public testimony of Joe Valachi in 1964.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Par p.4)
1920s John Roebling bought most
of what is now Archibald Biological Station on the Lake Wales Ridge
along Rt. 27 in Florida. He planned to build a wilderness estate
with family funds accrued from cable construction (that included the
building of the Brooklyn Bridge). [see Archibald 1941]
(PacDisc, Spring ‘96, p.6)
1920s Elections in Plentywood,
Montana, put Communists in control of local government.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W9)
1920s Ford dealers under the
direction of Henry Ford promoted and broadcast fiddle contests
across the South and Midwest aimed at showcasing traditional
American music.
(WSJ, 6/25/98, p.A20)
1920s Retail tycoon Marshall
Field built the Merchandise Mart as a city within a city. The 25
floors of retail space was connected by underground railroad to
other important places of commerce.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)
1920s Pacific Mail Steamship
Co. added San Francisco to New York routes.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.R46)
1920s The tractor made its
debut on the American rural landscape and marked the beginning of
the end for the need for horses as farm animals.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.T5)
1920s The garbage disposal, aka
grinder, macerator or electric pig, was invented.
(WSJ, 10/1/97, p.A1)
1920s A handful of companies
manufactured chewing gum made from chicle, a form of sapodilla tree
sap that had been chewed in Belize, Guatemala and Mexico for
centuries.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A19)
1920s Harvey Fletcher built the
Western electric Model 2A hearing aid at the Research Division of
Bell.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1920s Serge Voronoff, a
Russian-French surgeon, transplanted the testicles of monkeys into
ageing male celebrities in what came to be known as the Monkey Gland
Affair.
(WSJ, 9/5/01, p.A26)
1920s An injectable cure was
found for yaws.
(SFC, 10/27/98, p.A4)
1920s An oyster blight
devastated the oysters in the SF Bay.
(Hem., 1/97, p.92)
1920s In Egypt the statue of
Ramses II was found in Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, 15
miles from Cairo.
(WSJ, 8/21/97, p.A12)
1920s England’s King Edward
VIII met Wallis Simpson at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego.
(Hem., 8/96, p.21)
1920s Rene Lacoste (1904-1996),
French tennis star, transformed his nickname "the crocodile" onto
polo shirts around the world.
(SFC, 10/14/96, p.A23)
1920s In Argentina Serge
Nekrassoff made pewter and copper pieces with or without enamel
decoration. He moved to New York in 1925 and opened a workshop in
Darien, Conn., in 1931. He moved to Florida with his son in 1952 and
opened a shop called Serge S. Nekrassoff & Son where they made
enameled giftware from aluminum, copper or pewter until 1979.
(SFC,12/10/97, Z1 p.9)
1920s In India British
architect Edward Luyten built New Delhi in the late 20s.
(Hem., 2/97, p.57)
1920s In Russia Dziga Vertov
created a cinematic mosaic of Moscow in his film "The Man With a
Movie Camera."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.8)
1920s In Turkey in the late 20s
Constantinople was renamed Istanbul.
(Sky, 4/97, p.58)
1920s A census in Turkey in the
early 1920s counted the Alevi as about 35% of the 13 million
population. Alevi claimed to be a purely Anatolian faith based on
Shaman and Zoroastrian beliefs going back 6,000 years with
Christian, Jewish and Islamic influences. By this time the Shiite
Islamic influence was the strongest.
(Econ, 3/19/05, Survey p.11)
1920-1921 Arthur Meighen, Unionist Party, served
as the 9th Prime Minister of Canada.
(CFA, ‘96, p.81)
1920-1921 The Indus Valley, or Harrapan,
civilization was discovered when engraved seals were discovered near
present-day Sahiwal in Pakistani Punjab at a place called Harappa.
(EAWC,
p.2)(http://inic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html)
1920-1924 Helen Keller appeared onstage in a
vaudeville act that was followed by a question-and-answer period.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.3)
1920-1924 In Mexico Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928),
general and statesman, served as president. Obregon was killed by an
assassin, who pretended to do his portrait.
(WUD, 1994, p.994)
1920-1925 Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith served as
Prohibition agents in New York City for five years, often resorting
to zany measures to put the pinch on speak-easy owners. From 1920 to
1932, the manufacture and sale of liquor was illegal in the United
States, but the clandestine traffic of liquor was plentiful. The job
of enforcing the law fell on 1,550 "Feds." Izzy and Moe, with their
imagination and good humor, managed to take the credit for 20
percent of all Prohibition cases that came to trial in New York
City. While their ruses and disguises earned them much success and
notoriety, they also led to them being fired in 1925.
(HNPD, 6/27/99)
1920-1925 In Paris, The Swedish Ballet, founded by
Rolf de Mare, brought together painters, filmmakers, actors, dancers
and composers in Paris. Designs by Ferdnand Leger, Francis Picabia,
Pierre Bonnard and Giorgio de Chirico, music by Eric Satie, Darius
Milhaud, Arthur Honegger and Cole Porter, and film by Rene Clair
marked the performances. The choreography was by Jean Borlin.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.D1)(SFEM, 6/9/96, p.24-26)
c1920-1929 Henry C. Wallace, served under
Presidents Harding and Coolidge as Secretary of Agriculture.
(HN, 11/2/98)(HNQ, 8/28/99)
1920-1929 Medical studies in 2014 confirmed that the common ancestor
of HIV-1 group M virus originated in Kinshasa about this time.
(Econ, 10/4/14, p.88)
1920-1933 Joseph Roth, Austrian novelist, spent
this period in Berlin. In 2002 his writings from this time were
translated by Michael Hofmann and published as "What I Saw: Reports
From Berlin 1920-1933." His later novel "The Radetzky March covered
the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M3)
1920-1935 In the US thousands of mustangs were
sent to slaughter to provide cheap meat in what came to be called
the “Great Removal." In 2008 Deanne Stillman authored “Mustang: The
Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West."
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.90)
1920-1944 Montagu Norman (1871-1950) served as
governor of the Bank of England.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8pp4h62)(Econ, 2/26/05,
p.12)
1920-1950 Fore people of Papua New Guinea were
devastated by an epidemic of kuru, a brain-destroying disease caused
by abnormal proteins called prions.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.A6)
1920-1955 Charlie Parker, aka "Bird," jazz
saxophonist and composer.
(WUD, 1994, p.1049)
1920-1940 Kaunas was the capital of Lithuania.
(DrEE, 11/23/96, p.4)
1920-1946 Syria was a French-mandated territory.
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A11)
1920-1990s In NYC 5 mob organizations dominated
the Mafia. The Lucchese Cosa Nostra was founded by Gaetano Lucchese.
In 1998 Ernest Volkman published "Gangbusters: The Destruction of
America’s Last Great Mafia Dynasty."
(SFEC, 8/9/98, BR 9 p.4)
1920-1994 Amy Clampitt, American poet. Her
collected works from 5 books were published in 1997 as: "The
Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt."
(WSJ, 11/7/97, p.A17)
1920s-1950s Louis Armstong recorded with Decca.
The album "Highlights From Louis Armstong’s Decca Years" resulted.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.D9)
World War timeline 1921:
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/start.html
1921 Jan 1, The Cal Bears beat
Ohio State 28-0.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W7)
1921 Jan 2, Religious services
were first broadcast on radio when KDKA aired the regular Sunday
service of Pittsburgh's Calvary Episcopal Church.
(AP, 1/2/00)
1921 Jan 3, John Russell,
actor: Forever Amber, Rio Bravo, Pale Rider, was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1921 Jan 3, The state capitol
in Charleston, West Virginia, was destroyed by a fire. Ammunition,
bought by the West Virginia State Police two years before, was
stored on the top floor of the building. The ammunition had been
purchased for use in the coal field disputes which had threatened to
erupt into civil war.
(http://www.charlestonwv.net/community/capitol.html)
1921 Jan 3, Italy halted the
issue of passports to those emigrating to the U.S.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1921 Jan 4, Congress overrode
President Wilson’s veto, reactivating the War Finance Corps to aid
struggling farmers.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1921 Jan 5, Friedrich
Durrenmatt (d.1990), Swiss author and playwright, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_D%C3%BCrrenmatt)
1921 Jan 5, Wagner’s "Die
Walkyrie" opened in Paris. This was the first German opera performed
in Paris since the beginning of WWI.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1921 Jan 6, The U.S. Navy
ordered the sale of 125 flying boats to encourage commercial
aviation.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1921 Jan 21, Barney Clark, the
1st person to receive a permanent artificial heart, was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1921 Jan 21, J.D. Rockefeller
pledged $1 million for the relief of Europe's destitute.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1921 Jan 23, Marija
Alseika-Gimbutas, archeologist and pre-historian, was born in
Vilnius. She died in LA, Ca., on Feb 2, 1994.
(LHC, 1/23/03)
1921 Jan 25, Karel Capek's "
R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots" (1920), premiered in
Prague. The play introduced the term robot (robota for forced
labor).
(www.czech-language.cz/translations/rur-introen.html)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/capek.htm)
1921 Jan 26, Akio Morita
(d.1999), CEO of Sony Corp., was born in Kasugaya, Japan.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1921 Jan 28, Albert Einstein
startled Berlin by suggesting the possibility of measuring the
universe.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1921 Jan 29, A hurricane hit
Washington and Oregon.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1921 Jan 31, Carol Channing,
actress (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Hello Dolly), was born.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1921 Jan 31, Mario Lanza
(d.1959), actor, singer (Great Caruso, Toast of New Orleans), was
born in Philadelphia.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1921 Feb 2, Airmail service
opened between New York and San Francisco. [see Sep 8, 1920]
(HN, 2/2/99)
1921 Feb 4, Betty Friedan,
writer, feminist, was born. She founded the National Organization of
Women in 1966.
(HN, 2/4/01)
1921 Feb 5, John M. Pritchard,
conductor, was born in London, England.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1921 Feb 5, Yankees purchased
20 acres in Bronx for Yankee Stadium.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1921 Feb 6, The film "The Kid,"
starring Charlie Chaplin & Jackie Coogan, was released.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1921 Feb 8, Pjotr A. Kropotkin
(78), Russian anarchist and son of Prince Alexei Petrovich
Kropotkin, died. Books by Peter Kropotkin included “Mutual Aid: A
Factor of Evolution" (1902)
(www.en.wikipedia.org)
1921 Feb 8, The Turkish
Parliament gave the city of Antep the title Gazi ("victorious
warrior" – “warrior of the faith"), a day before the city
surrendered to the French, in recognition of the valor of its
inhabitants during the Turkish War of Independence. Gaziantep,
amongst the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, had
withstood a 10-month siege by French forces.
(Econ, 10/23/10, SR
p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaziantep)
1921 Feb 9, James Huneker
(b.1857), American musical writer and critic, died.
(WSJ, 2/11/06,
p.P10)(www.britannica.com/ebi/article-9326842)
1921 Feb 12, Winston Churchill
of London was appointed colonial secretary.
(HN, 2/12/97)
1921 Feb 12, In Delhi, India,
the Duke of Connaught laid the foundation stone of the Parliament
building, designed by Herbert Baker.
(www.indfy.com/places-to-see-in-delhi/central-delhi/parliament-house.html)
1921 Feb 12, Soviet troops
invaded neighboring Georgia.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1921 Feb 14, In the "Gasoline
Alley" cartoon by Frank O. King, Skeezix was left as a newborn on
Walt’s doorstep.
(WSJ, 6/20/01, p.A1)
1921 Feb 18, British troops
occupied Dublin.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1921 Feb 19, Claude Rene
Georges Pascal, composer, was born.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1921 Feb 19, The U.S. Red Cross
reported that approximately 20,000 children died yearly in auto
accidents.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1921 Feb 20, Riza Khan Pahlevi
seized control of Iran. Pahlevi marched into Tehran with 2,500
soldiers and took over the government. Britain helped topple the
Qajar dynasty and replaced it with Reza Shah Pahlavi, a former
military officer. Five years later he was crowned Shah and placed
the crown upon his head with his own hands, as did Napoleon.
(NG, Sept. 1939, p.330)(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)
1921 Feb 22, An air mail plane
left San Francisco at 4:30 a.m., landing at New York (Hazelhurst
Field, L. I., N. Y.) at 4:50 p.m. on February 23.
(www.airmailpioneers.org/history/Sagahistory.htm)
1921 Feb 22, Jean-Bedel
Bokassa, dictator Central African Republic, was born.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1921 Feb 23, The 1st
transcontinental airmail plane set a record of 33 hours and 20
minutes from San Francisco to New York.
(HN, 2/23/98)(MC, 2/23/02)
1921 Feb 24, Herbert Hoover
became Secretary of Commerce.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1921 Feb 24, A giant plane was
completed at 421 Colyton Street, Los Angeles. The "leviathan of the
Skies" or "The Cloudster," was designed by Donald Douglas and was
the first to carry a load greater than it own weight.
(www.lahistoryarchive.org)
1921 Feb 26, Betty Hutton,
actress (Greatest Show on Earth), was born in Battle Creek, MI.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002149/)
1921 Feb 26, The Russo-Persian
Treaty of Friendship was signed in Moscow between representatives of
Iran and the Soviet Russia. Both the Soviet Russia and Iran were
given full and equal shipping rights in the Caspian Sea along with
the right to fly their respective national flags on their commercial
vessels.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Persian_Treaty_of_Friendship_(1921))
1921 Feb 26, Karl Menger
(b.1840), Austrian economist, died in Vienna. He was the founder of
the Austrian School of economics, famous for contributing to the
development of the theory of marginal utility. In 1892 he said that
the monetization of an economy starts when agricultural communities
move away from subsistence farming and start to specialize.
(Econ, 8/18/12,
p.68)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Menger)
1921 Feb 28, A treaty between
the Bolshevik government of Russia and the amir of Afghanistan is
signed. British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon states on one occasion
that the Soviet government has offered the Afghans a subsidy of
£100,000 a year.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_in_Afghanistan)
1921 Feb, The obscenity trial
over the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses in The Little Review ,
an American literary magazine, effectively banned publication
of Joyce's novel in the United States.
(http://tinyurl.com/oq9glvj)
1921 Mar 1, Richard Wilbur, 2nd
US Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winning poet and translator, was
born.
(HN, 3/1/01)(SC, 3/1/02)
1921 Mar 1, The Allies
rejected a $7.5 billion reparations offer in London. German
delegations decided to quit all talks.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1921 Mar 1, Montenegro’s Prince
Nikola (b.1841) died. He was the ruler of Montenegro from 1860 to
1918, reigning as sovereign prince from 1860 to 1910 and as king
from 1910 to 1918.
(http://tinyurl.com/y9vj8zsm)
1921 Mar 1, Rwanda was ceded to
England.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1921 Mar 1, Sailors revolted in
Kronstadt, Russia.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1921 Mar 3, Allen Ginsberg,
beat generation poet (1969 Arts and Letters Award), was born.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1921 Mar 3, In India the
Central Legislative Assembly opened. The Committee on Public
Accounts was first set up in the wake of the Montague-Chelmsford
Reforms. The Finance Member of the Executive Council used to be the
Chairman of the Committee. The Secretariat assistance to the
Committee was rendered by the then Finance Department (later the
Ministry of Finance). This position continued right up to 1949.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tnbet)(www.parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/intro/p14.htm)
1921 Mar 4, Warren G. Harding
was sworn in as America’s 29th President. By the time Pres. Woodrow
Wilson left office, the top tax rate was 77%.
(HN, 3/4/98)(WSJ, 9/25/02, p.D8)
1921 Mar 4, Hot Springs
National Park was created in Arkansas.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1921 Mar 6, Julius Rudel,
conductor (NYC Opera), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1921 Mar 6, The National
Association of Moving Picture Industry announced their intention to
censor U.S. movies.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1921 Mar 6, Police in Sunbury,
Penn., issued an edict requiring Women to wear skirts at least 4
inches below the knee.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1921 Mar 7, Red Army under
Trotsky attacked the sailors of Kronstadt.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1921 Mar 8, Spanish Premier
Eduardo Dato was assassinated while leaving Parliament in Madrid.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1921 Mar 8, French troops
occupied Dusseldorf.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1921 Mar 12, The Cairo
Conference, called by Winston Churchill, convened to establish a
unified British policy in the Middle East. Britain and France carved
up Arabia and created Jordan under Emir Abdullah; his brother Faisal
became King of Iraq. France was given influence over Syria and
Jewish immigration was allowed into Palestine. Faisal I died
one year after independence and his son, Ghazi I succeeded him.
Colonial Sec. Winston Churchill wanted to keep an air corridor to
Iraq, where the Royal Air Force was dropping poison gas on
rebellious Arab tribes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Conference_%281921%29)(SSFC,
10/14/01, p.D3)(Econ, 7/13/13, SR p.5)
1921 Mar 13, Mongolia (formerly
Outer Mongolia) declared independence from China.
(HN, 3/13/98)(MC, 3/13/02)
1921 Mar 16, Britain signed a
bilateral trade agreement with Russia.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1921 Mar 17, Dr Marie Stopes
opened Britain's 1st birth control clinic in London.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Stopes)
1921 Mar 18, Steamer "Hong Koh"
ran aground off Swatow China killing 1,000.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1921 Mar 21, Arthur Grumiaux,
Belgian violinist, was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1921 Mar 21, Herbert Hoover,
U.S. Secretary of Commerce opposed all trade with Russia.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1921 Mar 21, "Big Jim"
Colisimo, US gangster, was murdered by Al Capone.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1921 Mar 21, Lenin’s New
Economic Policy (NEP) was promulgated by decree.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy)
1921 Mar 23, Arthur G. Hamilton
set a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1921 Mar 25, The US Navy tug
Conestoga sailed out the Golden Gate bound for Hawaii with a 56 man
crew and was never heard from again. Its suspected wreckage was
spotted near the Farallon Islands in 2009. In 2016 government
scientists confirmed the find.
(SFC, 3/24/16, p.D1)
1921 Mar 25, Simone Signoret,
(Casque d'Or, Room at the Top), was born in Wiesbaden, Germany.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1921 Mar 30, Countess of
Sutherland, English great land owner, multi-millionaire, was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1921 Mar 31, Great Britain
declared a state of emergency because of the thousands of coal
miners on strike.
(HN, 3/31/98)
1921 Mar, Ceremonies at the
Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery have been an
important part of America's Memorial Day observance since March
1921, when Congress provided for the burial of an unidentified
American soldier from World War I in that place of honor. Soldiers
from World War II, Korean and Vietnam wars are also interred at the
Tomb of the Unknowns.
(HNPD, 5/31/99)
1921 Mar, San Francisco police
closed down Sid Purcell’s So Different Club, a 20-cents-a-dance
joint with upstairs bedrooms, located at 520 Pacific St. Louis
Sidney Le Protti (1886-1958) and his So Different Orchestra had been
playing jazz there since the club opened after the 1906 earthquake.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.D7)(SFC, 9/30/17, p.C1)
1921 Mar, Communist rebellions
were put down in Saxony and Hamburg.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic)
1921 Apr 2, Einstein
(1879-1955) made his first visit to the US on a fundraising tour
with Zionist leader Chaim Weizman. Prof. Albert Einstein lectured in
NYC on his new theory of relativity. In 2007 Jurgen Neffe authored
“Einstein: A Biography;" and Jozsef Illy edited “Albert Meets
America."
(SSFC, 5/13/07,
p.M6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein)
1921 Apr 5, Alphons Diepenbrock
(b.1862), Dutch composer, died in Amsterdam. His work included
“Wandering Through the Woods" (1910).
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.B7)
1921 Apr 8, Betty Bloomer Ford,
first lady to President Gerald Ford, was born.
(HN, 4/8/99)
1921 Apr 9, Russo-Polish
conflict ended with the signing of the Riga Treaty.
(HN, 4/9/98)
1921 Apr 10, Chuck Connors,
actor (Rifleman, Branded, Cowboy in Africa), was born in Brooklyn,
NY. He later auditioned for the Chicago Cubs with Fidel Castro and
played for them for a while.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1921 Apr 11, Iowa became the
first state to impose a cigarette tax.
(AP, 4/11/97)
1921 Apr 15, Georgi
Timofeyevich Beregovoi, USSR cosmonaut (Soyuz 3), was born.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1921 Apr 15, The Black Friday
Labour Party strike of mine workers failed.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1921 Apr 16, Peter Ustinov
(d.2004), actor (Death on Nile, Logan's Run, Billy Budd), was born
in London.
(AP, 3/29/04)
1921 Apr 18, Junior
Achievement, created to encourage business skills in young people,
was incorporated.
(AP, 4/18/97)
1921 Apr 26, The first weather
news was aired by station WEW in St. Louis, Mo.
(440 Int’l. Internet, 4/26/97, p.1)
1921 Apr 30, Pope Benedict XV
issued his encyclical "On Dante."
(MC, 4/30/02)
1921 Apr, The German bill for
reparations was tallied. An int’l. reparations commission determined
that damages caused by Germany amounted to $33 billion or 133
billion gold marks.
(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1369.html)
1921 May 2, Satyajit Ray,
Indian film director (Aparajito, The World of Apu), was born.
(HN, 5/2/02)
1921 May 3, West Virginia
imposed the first state sales tax.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1921 May 8, Sweden abolished
capital punishment.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1921 May 9, The play "Sei
Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore" (Six Characters in Search of an
Author) by Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) premiered in Rome.
(http://tinyurl.com/qs2xg8)
1921 May 10, Nancy Walker,
Bounty ads, actress (Rhoda, McMillan & Wife), was born in
Philadelphia.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1921 May 11, Tel Aviv became
the 1st all Jewish municipality.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1921 May 12, Farley Mowat,
Canadian nature writer (Never Cry Wolf), was born.
(HN, 5/12/01)
1921 May 15, The Italian
Communist Party won 15 parliament seats out of 535.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_general_election,_1921)
1921 May 17, Pres. Harding
opened the 1st Valencia Orange Show via telephone.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1921 May 17, Toronto's Dr.
Banting (1891-1941) and graduate student Charles Best (1899-1978)
began research at the Univ. of Toronto that led to their discovery
of insulin. [see Jul 27] In 1982 Michael Bliss authored “The
Discovery of Insulin."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Banting)(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.W8)
1921 May 19, Congress passed
the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for
immigrants entering the United States.
(AP, 5/19/97)
1921 May 19, Edward W. White
(1845-1921), Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (1910-1921),
died. He served 26 years with the last 10 as Chief Justice.
(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/55/)
1921 May 21, Andrei Sakharov,
Russian physicist, was born. He is known as "the father of the
Soviet H-bomb" and was the first recipient of the 1975 Nobel Peace
Prize.
(HN, 5/21/99)
1921 May 23, James [Benjamin]
Blish, US-UK sci-fi author (Hugo, Black Easter, Star Trek
Reader), was born.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1921 May 23, The German Supreme
Court began a series of 9 trials for German WWI war criminals.
Several cases ended in an acquittal of the accused, but most were
followed by imprisonment or incarceration in a fortress.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_in_Germany)
1921 May 25, Hal David,
lyricist (Promises Promises-Grammy 1969), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1921 May 27, Caryl Chessman,
kidnapper who got death penalty in 1960, was born.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1921 May 27, Afghanistan
achieved sovereignty after 84 years of British control.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1921 May 29, James Clifton,
actor (Live & Let Die), was born in Spokane, WA.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1921 May 29, Clifton James,
actor (Buster & Billie, David & Lisa), was born in NYC.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1921 May 30, U.S. Navy
transferred Teapot Dome oil reserves to the Department of Interior.
(HN, 5/30/98)
1921 May 30, Salzburg, Austria,
voted to join Germany.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1921 May 31, American
Lithuanians gave Pres. Harding a million signatures requesting de
jure recognition of Lithuania.
(LC, 1998, p.16)
1921 May 31, A major race riot
broke out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood, the black section of town,
was burned. In 1997 Jewell Parker Rhodes wrote the novel "Magic
City" based on this event. As many as 10,000 white men and boys
attacked the black community and 35 blocks of the black business
district were burned with participation by police officers and a
local unit of the National Guard. Some 200-300 people were believed
to have been killed. In 2000 the Tulsa Race Riot Commission
recommended that reparations be paid to survivors of the riots. In
2001 a final state commission recommended that reparations be paid
to survivors and their descendants.
(NPR, 5/31/96)(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.3)(SFC,
8/10/99, p.A2)(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A4)
1921 Jun 1, A race riot erupted
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing 85 people (21 whites & 60 blacks
killed). [see May 31, 1921]
(HN, 6/1/98)(MC, 6/1/02)
1921 Jun 7, James Craig
(1871-1940) became the first prime minister of Northern Ireland and
served until his death in 1940.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Northern_Ireland)
1921 Jun 8, Suharto (d.2008),
later dictator of Indonesia, was born.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)(AP, 1/27/08)
1921 Jun 10, The US Budget and
Accounting Act of 1921 required the President to submit the budget
to Congress for each fiscal year which is the 12-month period
beginning on October 1 and ending on September 30 of the next
calendar year. The act was approved by President Warren G. Harding
to provide a national budget system and an independent audit of
government accounts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process)(Econ,
2/7/15, p.31)
1921 Jun 10, Philip
Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince, Consort of Elizabeth II, was
born in Greece.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1921 Jun 12, President Harding
urged every young man to attend military training camp.
(HN, 6/12/98)
1921 Jun 19, Howell Heflin,
senator from Alabama, was born.
(HN, 6/19/98)
1921 Jun 19, Turks and
Christians of Palestine signed a friendship treaty against Jews.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1921 Jun 21, Jane Russell
(d.2011), film star, was born in Bemidji, Minn.
(SFC, 3/1/11, p.A7)
1921 Jun 21, U.S. Army Air
Service pilots bombed the captured German battleship Ostfriesland to
demonstrate the effectiveness of aerial bombing on warships. At the
time, the ship was one of the world’s largest war vessels. Brigadier
General William "Billy" Mitchell, assistant chief of the Army Air
Service, arranged the demonstration to prove that air power should
become the country’s first line of defense.
(HNPD, 6/22/98)
1921 Jun 22, Joseph Papp,
theater director and producer, founder of the New York Public
Theatre and Shakespeare-in-the-Park, was born.
(HN, 6/22/01)
1921 Jun 25, Samuel Gompers was
elected head of the AFL for the 40th time.
(HN, 6/25/98)
1921 Jun 28, A coal strike in
Great Britain was settled after three months.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1921 Jun 28, P.V. Narasimha Rao
(d.2004), later India’s Prime Minister (1991-1996), was born to an
upper-caste farming family in Andhra Pradesh state.
(SFC, 12/24/04, p.B4)
1921 Jun 30, President Harding
nominated former President Taft chief justice of the United States,
to succeed the late Edward Douglass White. Republican William Howard
Taft (72), 27th president of the United States (1909-1913), served
as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1921 until illness forced
him to resign in 1930.
(WSJ, 3/11/98, p.A20)(AP, 6/30/08)
1921 Jul 2, J. Andrew White
announced the Dempsey-Carpentier fight in Jersey City and was
thereby credited with being the first professional radio announcer.
Dempsey defeated Georges Carpentier of France in the 1st million
dollar gate ($1.7m) boxing match.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.E4)(SFC, 10/14/99, p.C5)(SC,
7/2/02)
1921 Jul 6, Nancy Reagan, wife
of President Ronald Reagan, was born.
(HN, 7/6/98)
1921 Jul 8, Great Britain and
Ireland agreed to end hostilities after centuries of strife. In
December British and Irish representatives signed a treaty in London
providing for creation of an Irish Free State a year later on the
same date. Southern Ireland was granted independence and 6 counties
in Northern Ireland remained part of the UK.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.C5)(AP, 12/6/06)
1921 Jul 10, Greek forces
launched a frontal attack with five divisions on Sakarya, Turkey.
(www.allaboutturkey.com/ata_life.htm)
1921 Jul 11, Mongolia gained
independence from China (National Day). The holiday of Naadam, which
originated in the time of Ghenghis Khan, was later fixed to July
11-13 to the anniversary of the Revolution.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.F5)
1921 Jul 13, Ernest Gold,
composer, was born.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1921 Jul 13, Charles Scribner
Jr., music publisher (Scribner), was born.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1921 Jul 14, Italian anarchists
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted for the May 5,
1920 killing of a paymaster and guard at a shoe factory in South
Braintree, Massachusetts. Many claimed there was unsubstantial
evidence and that the two were tried for their radical views rather
than any crime. A defense committee secured a stay of their death
sentences and the cause of Sacco and Vanzetti grew around the world.
In 1927 a commission appointed by the governor of Massachusetts
examined the conduct and evidence of the trial and sustained the
verdict. Sacco and Vanzetti were put to death in the electric chair
on August 23, 1927.
(HNQ, 4/26/00)
1921 Jul 18, John Glenn, Jr.,
first man to orbit the Earth, was born in Cambridge, OH.
(HN, 7/18/98)(MC, 7/18/02)
1921
Jul 18, The prosecution gave its opening remarks in the trial of the
Chicago Black Sox, accused of throwing the 1919 World Series.
(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/blacksox/chronology.html)
1921 Jul 20, The Gramophone
Company opened the first dedicated HMV shop in Oxford Street,
London, in a former men's clothing shop; the composer Edward Elgar
participated in the opening ceremonies. In 2018 HMV collapsed close
to bankruptcy just before the new year after weak Christmas sales
and amid a declining market for CDs and DVDs.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMV)AP,
4/6/13)(AFP, 2/5/19)
1921 Jul 21, Billy Taylor, jazz
pianist, was born.
(HN, 7/21/02)
1921 Jul 21, Gen. Billy
Mitchell flew off with a payload of makeshift aerial bombs and sank
the former German battle ship Ostfriesland off Hampton Roads,
Virginia; the 1st time a battleship was ever sunk by an airplane.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1921 Jul 27, Canadians Sir
Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated insulin at the
University of Toronto.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1921 Jul 29, Adolf Hitler
became the president of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’
Party (Nazis).
(HN, 7/29/98)
1921 Jul 31, Whitney Young,
Jr., civil rights leader and executive director of the National
Urban League, was born.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1921 Jul, An 18-month US
economic depression came to an end. In 2014 James Grant authored
“The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1920%E2%80%9321)(Econ,
11/8/14, p.84)
1921 Jul, Mao Tse-tung, a young
librarian, formed the Chinese Communist Party. Their 1st meeting was
held in Shanghai.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.46)
1921 Jul, Juan Miro
(1893-1983), Spanish artist, began working on his painting titled
“The Farm." He completed it 9 months later. Ernest Hemingway, one of
his sparring partners in Paris, purchased the painting in 1925. In
1987 the Hemingway family donated the painting to the National
Gallery of Art.
(WSJ, 12/13/08, p.W8)
1921 Aug 1, Sid Hatfield,
police chief of Matewan, WV, and Ed Chambers were murdered on
the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse by Baldwin-Felts
detectives. Hatfield and 22 miners had been recently been acquitted
of the May 19, 1920 shootings in Matewan, WV, but he was indicted
for conspiracy for continuing mine violence. Hatfield had been a
long-time supporter of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).
This soon led to the Battle of Blair Mountain, a labor uprising also
know as the Red Neck War.
(http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj66/newsinger.htm)(AH,
4/07, p.63)
1921 Aug 2, A jury in Chicago
acquitted several former members of the Chicago White Sox baseball
team and two others of conspiring to defraud the public in the
notorious "Black Sox" scandal.
(AP, 8/2/01)
1921 Aug 2, Opera singer Enrico
Caruso (b.1873) died in Naples, Italy. The body of the great tenor
Enrico Caruso was entombed for 6 years in a transparent coffin.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.B4)(AP, 8/2/00)(MC, 8//02)
1921 Aug 3, Hayden Carruth,
novelist (Crow & Heart), was born in Waterbury, Ct.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1921 Aug 3, Marilyn Maxwell,
actress (East of Sumatra), was born.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1921 Aug 3, Baseball
commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis refused to reinstate the former
Chicago White Sox players implicated in the "Black Sox" scandal,
despite their acquittals on a technicality in a jury trial.
(AP, 8/3/01)(SC, 8/3/02)
1921 Aug 3, The 1st aerial crop
dusting was in Troy, Ohio, to kill caterpillars.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1921 Aug 5, The first radio
broadcast of a baseball game took place in Pittsburgh.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.B8)
1921 Aug 10, Franklin D.
Roosevelt (39) was stricken with polio at his summer home on the
Canadian island of Campobello, New Brunswick. Mrs. Roosevelt acted
as her partially paralyzed husband’s eyes and ears by traveling,
observing and reporting her observations to him. As First Lady, an
author and newspaper columnist and, later, a delegate to the United
Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt labored tirelessly for the poor and
disadvantaged. In the words of historian John Kenneth Galbraith, she
showed "more than any other person of her time, that an American
could truly be a world citizen."
(HNPD, 10//99)(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D11)
1921 Aug 11, Alex Haley,
genealogist and author of "Roots," was born.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1921 Aug 12, Marjorie Reynolds,
actress (Peggy-Life of Riley), was born in Buhl, Idaho.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1921 Aug 15, The US Congress
passed the Packer and Stockyards Act. The Act's purpose was to
"regulate interstate and foreign commerce in live stock, live-stock
produce, dairy products, poultry, poultry products, and eggs, and
for other purposes."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packers_and_Stockyards_Act)
1921 Aug 17, Maureen O'Hara,
actress (Miracle on 34th St), was born in Dublin, Ireland.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1921 Aug 19, Gene Roddenberry,
television writer and producer, best known for the series "Star
Trek," was born in El Paso, Texas.
(HN, 8/19/98)(MC, 8/19/02)
1921 Aug 20, Jacqueline Susann,
author (Valley of the Dolls), was born in Phila., Pa.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1921 Aug 21, Nancy Kulp,
actress (Jane-Beverly Hillbillies), was born in Harrisburg, Pa.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1921 Aug 22, J. Edgar Hoover
became asst. director of FBI.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1921 Aug 23, In the great
battle of Sakarya, which continued without interruption from the
23rd of August to the 13th of September, Turkey defeated the Greek
Army.
(www.allaboutturkey.com/ata_life.htm)
1921 Aug 25, Brian Moore, Irish
novelist, was born. His work included "The Lonely Passion of Judith
Hearne."
(HN, 8/25/00)
1921 Aug 25, The United States,
which never ratified the Versailles Treaty ending World War I,
finally signed a peace treaty with Germany.
(AP, 8/25/97)(HN, 8/25/98)
1921 Aug 26, Ben Bradlee,
editor, journalist, executive (Washington Post), was born in Boston.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1921 Aug 27, J.E. Clair of Acme
Packing Co. of Green Bay was granted an NFL franchise.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1921 Sep 2, At the Battle of
Blair Mountain in West Virginia an army of 10 to 15 thousand miners
and their families faced a private army of some 2,000 men and 2,100
state and federal troops. The fledgling US Air Force dropped a few
bombs as a demonstration meant to overawe the labor organizers and
in the event. The death toll for the battle was estimated from fewer
than 20 to more than 50. This was the largest confrontation between
workers and the state in US history.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain)(Econ,
5/26/07, p.32)(AH, 4/07, p.67)(Econ 7/1/17, SR p.6)
1921 Sep 3, Ernest Hemingway
married Hadley Richardson, a wealthy debutante 8 years his senior,
in Horton Bay, Mich.
(ON, 7/05,
p.9)(www.boynecountry.com/media_kit/mediamain.html)
1921
Sep 5, Roy Gardner (1886-1940), train and mail robber, made his
escape from McNeil Island in Washington state during an inmate
baseball game. He was probably the first and only man to escape from
the Island, which led the US Government to build another "escape
proof" federal prison on Alcatraz Island.
(www.cybersleuths.com/billkelly/bkbonuschap1.htm)
1921 Sep 5, Actress Virginia
Rappe died in suite rooms (1219-1221) rented by film comedian Roscoe
"Fatty" Arbuckle at the St. Francis Hotel in SF. Arbuckle was
charged with her murder. In 1922 he was acquitted of a reduced
charge of manslaughter, but his career was over. In 2004 Jerry Stahl
authored the imaginary memoir “I, Fatty." Evidence suggested that
Rappe had died due to a botched abortion.
(SFC, 8/4/04, p.E4)(AH, 2/05, p.46)
1921 Sep 8, Margaret Gorman of
Washington, D.C., was crowned the first Miss America in Atlantic
City, N.J.
(AP, 9/8/97)(HN, 9/8/98)
1921 Sep 13, Ludwig-Alexander
von Battenberg [Mountbatten], WW I admiral, died at 67.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1921 Sep 14, Constance Baker
Motley, first African-American women to be appointed a federal
judge, was born.
(HN, 9/14/98)
1921 Sep 18, John Glenn,
astronaut, was born. [see Jul 18]
(MC, 9/18/01)
1921
Sep 19, WBZ in Springfield, Mass., made its first radio broadcast.
It operated under one of the first three "commercial licenses" for
broadcasting in the new 360 meter frequency.
(www.hammondmuseumofradio.org/wbz.html)
1921 Sep 21, Pope Benedictus XV
donated 1 million lire to feed Russians.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1921 Sep 21, In Oppau, Germany,
an explosion at the Bradishe Aniline chemical works, a nitrate
manufacturing plant, destroyed the plant and a nearby village with
561 deaths and over 1500 persons injured.
(HSAB, 1994, p.46)(MC, 9/21/01)
1921 Sep 27, Engelbert
Humperdinck, German opera composer (Hansel & Gretel), died.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1921 Sep, Germany made an
initial reparations payment of $250 million. However, an economic
crisis which had gripped the country, caused runaway inflation and
an end to additional installments.
(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1369.html)
1921 Oct 4, League of Nations
refused to assist starving Russians.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1921 Oct 5, The World Series
was broadcast on radio for the first time. By series' end, the NY
Giants had beaten the NY Yankees five games to three in the
best-of-nine contest.
(AP, 10/5/06)
1921 Oct 12, The Medal of
Honor, emblem of highest ideals and virtues, is bestowed in the name
of Congress of the United States of America upon the unknown,
unidentified Italian soldier to be buried in the National Monument
to Victor Emanuel II, in Rome.
(http://homeofheroes.com/gravesites/unknowns/foreign_italy.html)
1921 Oct 12, The cruise ship
City of Honolulu caught fire sailing from Honolulu to Long Beach.
All on board were rescued.
(SFC, 9/21/99, p.E4)
1921 Oct 13, The Daily Colonist
in Victoria BC mentioned the term "cold turkey" in reference to
quitting an addiction. This was the first know use of the term in
print.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.8)
1921 Oct 13, In the Treaty of
Kars Turkey formally recognized the Armenian Soviet Republic.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.1086)
1921 Oct 13, Yves Montand,
French actor and singer (Z, Napoleon, Grand Prix), was born.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1921 Oct 15, Mario Puzo,
novelist (Godfather, Cotton Club, Earthquake), was born in NYC. [see
Oct 15, 1920]
(MC, 10/15/01)
1921 Oct 18, Russian Soviets
granted Crimean independence.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1921 Oct 21, Malcolm Arnold,
composer (Bridge over River Kwai), was born in Northampton, England.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1921 Oct 23, Green Bay Packers
played their 1st NFL game. They won 7-6 over Minneapolis.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1921 Oct 23, Leos Janacek
(1854-1928) completed his opera "Katya Kabanov," and it premiered in
Brno. It was inspired by Alexander Ostrovsky’s mid 19th century play
"The Storm."
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A7)(WSJ, 1/16/98, p.A12)(MC,
10/23/01)
1921 Oct 25, Bat Masterson
(b.1853) died in NYC.
(MesWP)
1921 Oct 29, Bill Maudlin,
American political cartoonist whose GI "Willie" and "Joe" characters
appeared in Stars and Stripes newspapers, was born in New Mexico. He
won Pulitzer Prizes in 1945 and 1959.
(HN, 10/29/98)(MC, 10/29/01)
1921 Oct, Benton MacKaye
published his paper “An Appalachian Trail: A Project in regional
Planning" in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects."
The project with major changes to the original plan was completed in
1937.
(ON, 5/06, p.9)
1921 Nov 2, Fernando Correia de
Oliveira, composer, was born.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1921 Nov 2, Eugene O'Neill's
"Anna Christie," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1921 Nov 2, Margaret Sanger and
Mary Ware Dennett formed the American Birth Control League.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1921 Nov 3, Charles Bronson
(d.2003), [Buchinsky], actor (Death Wish, Dirty Dozen), was born in
Pennsylvania.
(SFC, 9/1/03, p.A2)
1921 Nov 3, Milk drivers on
strike dumped thousands of gallons of milk on New York City streets.
(HN, 11/3/98)
1921 Nov 4, Takasji Hara,
premier of Japan, was murdered.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1921 Nov 5, Gyorgy Cziffra,
Hungarian-French pianist, was born.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1921 Nov 6, James Jones,
American novelist, was born. His work included "From Here to
Eternity."
(HN, 11/6/00)
1921 Nov 7, Benito Mussolini
declared himself to be leader of the National Fascist Party.
(HN, 11/7/98)
1921 Nov 9, In Italy Mussolini
formed the Partito Nazionalista Fascista.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1921 Nov 11, President Harding
dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National
Cemetery. The unknown soldier was buried in Virginia’s Arlington
National Cemetery on Armistice Day. He had been taken from an
American cemetery in France.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.B8)(AP, 11/11/97)(HN, 11/11/98)
1921 Nov 12, Representatives of
nine nations gathered for the start of the Washington Conference for
Limitation of Armaments.
(AP, 11/12/97)
1921 Nov 13, "Sheik," starring
Rudolph Valentino, was released.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1921 Nov 14, The Cherokee
Indians asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review their claim to 1
million acres of land in Texas.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1921 Nov 18, New York City
considered varying work hours to avoid long traffic jams.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1921 Nov 18, The trial of film
actor Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle opened in San Francisco. [see Sep 5]
(AH, 2/05, p.46)
1921 Nov 19, Roy Campanella,
baseball star, was born.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1921 Nov 21, Geza Anda,
Hungarian-Swiss pianist, was born.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1921 Nov 21, The 1st mid-air
refueling was done by hand over Long Beach on a Curtiss JN-4.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1921 Nov 22, Rodney
Dangerfield, [John Cohen], comedian (Caddyshack), was born in
Babylon, NY.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Dangerfield)
1921 Nov 22, A treaty (amending
the Treaty of Rawalpindi agreed originally in August 1919) between
the Britain and Afghanistan is signed at Kabul, on the Afghan
government giving written assurances that no Russian consulates will
be permitted in the areas adjoining the Indian frontier.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_in_Afghanistan)
1921 Nov 23, President Harding
signed the Willis Campell Act, better known as the anti-beer bill.
It forbade doctors to prescribe beer or liquor for medicinal
purposes.
(HN, 11/23/98)
1921 Nov 24, John V. Lindsay,
(Mayor-R/D-NY, 1965-73), was born.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1921 Nov 25, Hirohito became
regent of Japan.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1921 Nov 27, Alexander Dubcek
(d.1992), headed Czech Communist Party (1968-69), was born.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1921 Nov, Yugoslav troops
invaded Albania; The League of Nations commission forced Yugoslav
withdrawal and reaffirmed Albania's 1913 borders.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1921 Dec 1, The US Navy flew
the first nonrigid dirigible to use helium; the C-7 traveled from
Hampton Roads, Va., to Washington.
(AP, 12/1/06)
1921 Dec 5, The British Empire
reached an accord with Sinn Fein; Ireland was to become a free
state.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1921 Dec 6, James Showan, a
wealthy NY shipbuilder, was arrested after his palatial yacht was
seized off the California coast with more than 100 cases of whiskey.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.C5)
1921 Dec 6, British and Irish
representatives signed a treaty in London providing for creation of
an Irish Free State a year later on the same date. The partition
created Northern Ireland. [see Jul 8] Ireland’s 26 southern counties
became independent from Britain forming the Irish Free State.
(HN, 12/6/00)(AP, 12/6/06)
1921 Dec 8, Eamon de Valera
publicly repudiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1921 Dec 21, The US Supreme
Court ruled labor injunctions and picketing unconstitutional.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1921 Dec 21, Miss Henrietta S.
Leavitt (b.1868), American astronomer at Harvard, died. During her
lifetime, she discovered over 1,200 variable stars, half the number
of all such objects known at the time of her death. In 2005 George
Johnson authored “Miss Leavitt’s Stars: The Untold Story of the
Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe."
(www.womanastronomer.com/hleavitt.htm)
1921 Dec 23, President Harding
freed Socialist Eugene Debs and 23 other political prisoners. Debs,
a socialist, had run a campaign for the presidency from jail and got
920,000 votes.
(HN, 12/23/98)(SFEC, 3/19/00, Z1 p.2)
1921 Dec 26, Steve Allen
comedian, author, musician, composer, TV host, was born: The Tonight
Show, The Steve Allen Show; films: The Benny Goodman Story, cameo
with wife Jayne Meadows: Casino.
(440.com)
1921 Dec 29, Sears, Roebuck
President, Julius Rosenwald, pledged $20 million of his personal
fortune to help Sears through hard times.
(HN, 12/29/98)
1921 Dec, In Albania the
Popular Party, led by Xhafer Ypi, formed a government with Ahmet
Zogu as minister of internal affairs.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1921 Pierre Bonnard painted
"The Open Window." He is known for his intimate interiors and vivid
outdoor scenes.
(WSJ, 9/1/00, p.W2)
1921 Arthur Dove painted
"Thunderstorm."
(WSJ, 3/6/98, p.A13)
1921 Paul Klee painted "View of
Room With the Dark Door" and "Dream City."
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A8)
1921 Frank Knight authored
“Risk, Uncertainty and Profit." The term “Knightian uncertainty"
reflected his note that most business decisions involve a step into
an unknown that is to some degree unmeasurable.
(Econ, 11/24/07, p.80)
1921 Ferdnand Leger painted
"Woman With a Cat."
(SFC, 11/26/96, p.D5)
1921 Sir Alfred Munnings
painted a portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales, astride his mare
Forest Witch. It sold for $2.3 million in 1998.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A2)
1921 Florine Stettheimer
painted her work "Spring Sale at Bendel’s." It was later acquired by
the NYC Whitney Museum.
(www.newcriterion.com/archive/14/sept95/naves.htm)
1921 Ezra Pound edited “The
Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot.
(Econ, 12/4/04, p.85)
1921 W.B. Yeats published his
"Michael Robertes and the Dancer," it contains his well known 1919
poem "The Second Coming."
(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.7)
1921 Mary Clarissa Miller, pen
name Agatha Christie, published her 1st novel.
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.C5)
1921 Sheila Kaye-Smith wrote
her novel "Joanna Godden."
(SFEC, 11/17/96, DB p.40)
1921 Edith Wharton won the
Pulitzer Prize for her novel "Age of Innocence."
(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.8)
1921 Yevgeny Zamyatin (d.1937),
Russian author, completed his novel “We." It offended communist
censors and did not appear in print in Russia until 1988. Editions
outside Russia became available in 1924. In 2006 Natasha Randall
made a new English translation.
(WSJ, 7/26/06, p.D11)
1921 The African Theatre, the
first black company in the US, opened with "Richard III" in New
York.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.C15)
1921 H. Leivick wrote his
Yiddish play "The Golem." It was translated to English in 1966.
(WSJ, 4/17/02, p.D7)
1921 Eugene O’Neill wrote his
expressionist drama "The Hairy Ape," about a boiler stoker on a
transatlantic liner.
(WSJ, 4/4/97, p.A7)(WM, www,1999)
1921 Paul Robeson went on stage
for the first time on an invitation by Eugene O’Neill to star in
"All God’s Chillun Got Wings."
(WSJ, 4/9/98, p.A21)
1921 Sabato "Simon" Rodia,
Italian immigrant and cement finisher, began a project in Los
Angeles that later became known as the Watts Towers. He worked on
the towers for 33 and then deeded the property to a neighbor.
(WSJ, 10/16/01, p.A24)
1921 The Motion Picture and
Television Fund Country House in Woodland Hills, Ca., was founded by
Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks
as a retirement home for film stars.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, Par p.4)
1921 Ted Snyder wrote the hit
song "Sheik of Araby."
(WSJ, 6/3/03, p.D5)
1921 The John Burroughs
Association was founded to perpetuate the memory of this American
naturalist. It maintains his home, Slabsides, as a sanctuary in West
Park, New York.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.80)
1921 The PEN organization of
authors, editors and translators was founded to promote free
expression.
(SFEC, 4/10/00, p.B6)
1921 See’s Candies opened in
Los Angeles.
(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.8)
1921 The Phillips Collection in
Washington DC was established and called itself America’s first
museum of modern art. Duncan Phillips and his wife Marjorie were
among the first private collectors of modern art.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)(WSJ, 11/17/99, p.A20)
1921 Angelo Siciliano
(1892-1972), competing under his stage name Charles Atlas, won the
“World’s Most Handsome Man" contest held by Physical Culture
magazine. In late 1922 Siciliano legally changed his name to Charles
Atlas.
(ON, 12/09,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Atlas)
1921 Lloyd Olds, a Detroit
referee, came up with vertically striped black and white shirts for
sports officials.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.C4)
1921 Anatole France (d.1924),
French satiric master, won the Nobel Prize in Literature. His books
included “Thais" (1890), “Penguin Island" (1908) and “Revolt of the
Angels" (1914).
(WSJ, 2/20/96,
p.A-14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatole_France)
1921 Frederick Soddy (b.1877),
English radiochemist, received the Nobel prize for chemistry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Soddy)
1921 Carlos Chagas (1879-1934),
a Brazilian doctor, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his 1909
discovery of how a single cell parasite carried by insects
transmitted a disease (Chagas disease) to sleeping victims.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Chagas)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.36)
1921 Albert Einstein,
Germany-born physicist, won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his
discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". His prize was
announced and awarded in 1922.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physics)
1921 Pres. Warren Harding went
on a Maryland camping trip with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey
Firestone.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.E8)
1921 The Emergency Quota Act
based on national origins was passed in the US to help stem
immigration.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A9)(WSJ, 3/29/04, p.A8)
1921 US law required that the
name of exporting countries be marked in English on all imported
wares. Prior to this Japanese porcelain was marked “Nippon."
(SFC, 7/20/05, p.G4)
1921 State statute 6604 was
passed in Idaho that stated "any unmarried person who shall have sex
with an unmarried person of the opposite sex shall be found guilty
of fornication."
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.A1)
1921 In Louisiana the
Industrial Canal Lock connected the Mississippi River to the Gulf
Intracoastal Waterway. A replacement was authorized in 1956 and
construction of the replacement was authorized in 1998, but was then
stalled by lawsuits.
(Econ, 2/2/13, p.24)
1921 The Martin Act was adopted
in NY state under Gov. Al Smith in response to numerous security
fraud scandals. It was named after legislator Francis J. Martin, who
later became a state court judge. It provided a model for the 1934
federal statute that created the US Securities and Exchange
Commission.
(WSJ, 10/2/02, p.C1)
1921 North Dakota Republican
Gov. Lynn Frazier was recalled in the midst of an agricultural
recession. Frazier was elected to the US Senate in 1922 and served
for 18 years.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.A1)
1921 The editors of the Little
Review were convicted for obscenity for publishing an excerpt from
"Ulysses" by James Joyce.
(WSJ, 4/29/98, p.A20)
1921 In San Francisco the
Palace Garage was built at 125 Stevenson, an alley across from the
Palace Hotel. It was designed by the O’Brien Brothers.
(SSFC, 2/21/10, p.C4)
1921 In San Francisco the
Palace Garage was built at 125 Stevenson, an alley across from the
Palace Hotel. It was designed by the O’Brien Brothers.
(SSFC, 2/21/10, p.C4)
1921 In San Francisco a row of
houses was built in the Presidio for pilots with families stationed
at Crissy Army Air Field. In 2005 a $3 million project renovated 13
of the houses to be rented at current market prices, estimated at
$3-4 thousand.
(SFC, 6/17/05, p.F1)
1921 In San Francisco a tower
was added to the de Young building in Golden Gate Park.
(SSFC, 12/24/00, DB p.8)
1921 In SF Irene Bell Ruggles,
president of the California Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs,
opened the Madame C.J. Walker Home for Girls at 2066 Pine Street. It
was named after the cosmetics entrepreneur who became the first
female African American millionaire.
(SFC, 2/16/09, p.B2)
1921 In San Francisco the
Alexander building went up at the Montgomery, Pine and Bush
intersection.
(SSFM, 10/12/02, p.13)
1921 In San Francisco the
Forest Hill station of the Municipal Railway was constructed
opposite Laguna Honda.
(SFC, 1/19/99, p.A11)
1921 In San Francisco the
Daughters of Charity opened St. Elizabeth’s Infant Hospital for
unwed mothers.
(SFC, 9/15/98, p.A9)
1921 In San Francisco the
Community Music Center on Capp St. was founded with backing by the
Fleishhackers, Lilienthals and other wealthy families. Its Victorian
home date back to the 1880s.
(SFC, 1/18/96, p.A14)
1921 In San Francisco a trust
was created to finance the building of the War Memorial Veteran’s
Building and the Opera House. The American Legion and the SFMOMA
were original beneficiaries of the trust.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A19)
1921 The SF Convention and
Tourist League was renamed the SF Convention and Tourist Bureau.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W43)
1921 Margaret Mary Morgan was
elected as the 1st SF woman supervisor.
(SFC, 11/7/03, p.E3)
1921 In San Francisco the
Market Street Railway Co. was created.
(SFC, 4/20/01, WBb p.7)
1921 In San Francisco Purcell’s
Jazz Club at 520 Pacific St. closed down.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, p.D7)
1921 In California the Daly
City Fire Dept. volunteers began publishing “The Alarm," a
department newsletter.
(DCFD, Centennial, 2007)
1921 The city of Berkeley Ca.,
installed radios in police cars.
(SFC, 4/29/08, p.A1)
1921 Col. J.G. Boswell, a
cotton farmer from Georgia whose business was ruined by the boll
weevil, arrived in California and began to acquire land in the
central valley. The Boswell family took advantage of federal
programs to stop droughts and floods and helped get the Army Corps
of Engineers to build Pine Flat Dam, which drained Lake Tulare. In
1952 his nephew J.G. Boswell II (1923-2009) took control of the
company. In 2003 Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman authored "The King of
California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American
Empire."
(Econ, 10/18/03, p.82)(SFC, 11/11/03, p.D1)(SFC,
4/8/09, p.B6)
1921 The Power family in
Vacaville, Ca. opened a roadside produce stand on I-80 that grew
into the Nut Tree Restaurant. A family feud put the restaurant and
adjoining 160 acre site up for sale in 1996. In 2006 it re-opened as
Nut Tree Family Park.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.C3)(SSFC, 10/29/06, p.G8)
1921 Adman Frederick Barnard
dreamed up the slogan "One picture is worth a thousand words," and
falsely called it to an old Chinese proverb.
(SFC, 12/31/00, WB p.2)
1921 Hendrik Baekeland
consolidated competitors Condensite and Redmanol with his own
Bakelite company to form Bakelite Corporation with himself as
president.
(ON, 9/05, p.12)
1921 Frankart Inc. began
business in NYC and continued to the 1940s. The company made
mass-produced lamps, ashtrays, bookends and vases.
(SFC, 1/14/09, p.G2)
1921 The Eureka Art Glass Co.,
later renamed Blenko glass Co., opened in Milton, West Virginia
under William Blenko.
(SFC, 10/22/08, p.G3)
1921 DuPont reorganized along
product lines. The multidivisional format soon became a standard in
America.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R46)
1921 Ford’s car production
comprised nearly 56% of the total output.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1921 The International
Harvester S was the first truck called a pickup.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, Z1 p.2)
1921 The Hearst Corp. acquired
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1921 Armand Hammer traveled to
Moscow to acquire a monopoly concession on asbestos mining. The
concession was later alleged to be a cover for Hammer to deal with
Soviet agents.
(SFC, 1/17/97, p.D7)
1921 Coco Chanel started
selling Chanel # 5. It was discovered by accident by an assistant of
perfume chemist Ernest Beaux. The assistant forgot to dilute a fatty
aldehyde which turned out to enhance and fix the scent.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.C4)(SFEM, 3/9/96, p.34)
c1921 Earle Dickson, a cotton
buyer for the Johnson gauze bandage company, devised a ready made
sterile bandage strip for his accident prone bride. In 1999 Johnson
& Johnson estimated that 100 billion Band-Aids had been used
since.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1921 The Seiberling Latex
Products Co. was founded by Frank Augustus Seiberling (1859-1954).
He had earlier started the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. In Akron,
Ohio.
(SFC, 5/26/99, Z1 p.6)
1921 The "Texas Pig Stand," the
1st drive-in car-service restaurant, was opened on the Dallas-Ft.
worth Highway by G. Kirby and R.W. Jackson.
(SFC, 8/12/00, p.B3)
1921 Drano came on the market.
It was produced by a Cincinnati chemical company.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.C4)
1921 The Electrolux vacuum
cleaner was introduced by a Swedish lamp salesman.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.C4)
1921 White Castle, the world’s
first hamburger chain, originated in Wichita, Kansas. It used small
beef patties that cooked quickly and sold for a nickel apiece.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Par p.19)(AH, 6/07, p.11)
1921 Walter P. Chrysler,
president of the General Motor’s Buick Motor Co., became chairman of
Maxmell Motor Corp.
(NYT, 10/8/04, p.D9)
1921 The Minneapolis-based
Washburn Crosby (later General Mills), purveyors of Gold Medal
Flour, invented Betty Crocker to serve as a public image food
expert. In 2005 Susan Marks authored “Finding Betty Crocker."
(WSJ, 12/30/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/25/05, p.W10)
1921 The polygraph (lie
detector), used to measure physiologic phenomena, was invented.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.71)
1921 Wyandotte Toys of
Wyandotte, Mich., was founded and initially concentrated on toy
pistols.
(SFC, 2/15/03, p.E7)
1921 In Colorado a major flood
on the Arkansas River caused Pueblo to divert the original river
channel away from downtown. The channel became the setting for a
1998 riverfront project.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.B10)
1921 Army City, established in
Kansas in 1917, burned to the ground.
(Econ, 10/4/03, p.75)
1921 Alexander Pell (formerly
known as Sergei Degaev), the 1st math prof. at the Univ. of South
Dakota, died. In 1883 Sergei Degaev (26) had shot and killed Lt.
Col. Georgii Sudeikin, security chief of Czar Alexander III. The 2
men had conspired to undermine both the government and the
Revolutionary People’s Will. Degaev fled Russia to the US where he
earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Johns Hopkins. In 2003 Richard
Pipes authored "The Degaev Affair."
(WSJ, 4/17/03, p.D8)
1921 Frederick E. Walrath
(b.1871), master studio potter, died. Most of his work was done
during the years he spent teaching at the Mechanics Institute of
Technology (later named the Rochester Institute of Technology) in
Rochester, NY, (1908-1918).
(SFC, 11/15/06, p.G7)
1921 Afghan leader Amanullah
Khan initiated a series of ambitious efforts at social and political
modernization.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
1921 Vilhjalmur Stefansson
organized an expedition to the Arctic Wrangel Island and became
trapped there with 3 companions and an Eskimo seamstress named Ada
Blackjack. In 2003 Jennifer Niver authored "Ada Blackjack: A True
Story of Survival in the Arctic."
(SSFC, 12/7/03, p.M4)
1921 The borders of Armenia
were gerrymandered when the Caucasus territories were made part of
the Soviet Union. This made the area of Nagorno-Karabakh, a
mountainous enclave of mostly Armenians surrounded by Azerbaijan
dependent on Moscow. The site of Ani, former capital of Armenia, was
ceded to Turkey.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C2)(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A18)(Econ,
6/17/06, p.59)
1921 Opals were discovered at
Big Flat, Australia, near Coober Pedy. Today 70% of the local people
(3,500) live underground in former mines and specially dug caves
since it gets so hot in the summer (130 degrees). Coober Pedy is
derived from the aboriginal term "kupa piti," which means white
man’s hole.
(WSJ, 6/12/95, p.A-12)
1921 In Austria economist
Ludwig von Mises wrote a full-scale refutation of socialist
economics and predicted the precise nature of its failure.
(WSJ, 1/30/97, p.A16)
1921 James Biggs of Bristol,
England, lost his sight. He painted his own cane white to make it
easily visible and to alert others to his presence. In 1931, the
Lion's Club International began a national program promoting the use
of white canes for persons who are blind.
(http://www.acb.org/tennessee/white_cane_history.html)(Econ 6/10/17,
p.78)
1921 The British M16
intelligence agency was formed.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.A12)
1921 Frederick Soddy (b.1877),
English radiochemist, received the Nobel prize for chemistry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Soddy)
1921 The British contrived the
election of Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974) as the Mufti of
Jerusalem. In 2008 David G. Dalin and John F. Rothman authored “Icon
of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam."
(WSJ, 6/26/08, p.A13)
1921 Winston Churchill, T.E.
Lawrence and archeologist Gertrude Bell promoted "the sherifian
solution," under which the Hashemite family-- Hussein, the sherif of
Mecca, and his sons, would rule over the region under Britain's eye.
(Econ, 7/19/03, p.69)
1921 The British made southern
Ireland a dominion of Gt. Britain.
(Compuserve, Online Encyclopedia)
1921 In Canada the lions in the
Royal Arms of Canada were designed by a committee of Parliament and
proclaimed by King George V.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A6)
1921 The Red Army forced
the Chechen government into exile and took nominal control. Armed
resistance continued. The "Mountain Peoples' Government" was forced
to emigrate as Soviet power became established in the Caucasus.
(SSFC, 11/10/02,
p.A11)(www.ciaonet.org/olj/crs/crs_1998sp/crs98sp_las01.html)
1921 In China Lu Xun authored
his allegorical novella “The Story of Ah Q." It contained
damning insights into the “feudal" thinking of the time.
(Econ, 10/27/07, p.54)
1921 China’s Xiamen University
was founded by Tan Kah Kee, a business tycoon, who made his fortune
in Southeast Asia, including what is now Malaysia. In 2013 Xiamen
University, based in eastern Fujian province, announced plans to
open a branch in Malaysia by 2015.
(AP, 6/11/13)
1921 Zhao Yuanren (1892-1982),
aka Yuen Ren Chao, Chinese-American linguist, recorded the Standard
Chinese pronunciation gramophone records distributed nationally, as
proposed by Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuen_Ren_Chao)(Econ, 7/5/14, p.15)
1921 The Tartu Peace Treaty
between Estonia and the Soviet Union recognized a free and
independent Estonian Republic in perpetuity with fixed borders
recognized in the treaty.
(BN, V.15, No.55, p.4)
1921 In France the Colombe d’Or
(Golden Dove) north of Nice began life as a restaurant called "A
Robinson" under Paul and Baptistine Roux. The restaurant changed its
name and was converted to a hotel in 1931 with the sign "lodgings
for men, horses, and painters."
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.T10)
1921 France, following
populations losses in World War I, created the “carte famille
nombreuse," a discount card for families with 3 or more children.
(Econ, 4/19/08, p.62)
1921 Mohandas Gandhi began
peaceful the noncooperation movement against British rule. The
Non-cooperation Movement of 1920-'22 sought to induce the British
government to grant self-government to India. The movement grew from
the Amritsar massacre of April 1919, when the British killed some
400 Indians. The movement marked the transition of Indian
nationalism from a middle class to a mass movement.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HNQ, 11/24/98)
1921 State Bank of India (SBI)
was formed in a state-backed merger. It was nationalized in 1955.
(Econ, 4/21/12, p.90)
1921 In Ireland Michael Collins
and statesman Arthur Griffith set up the Irish Free State (the
Republic of Ireland). Several northern counties went over to
Britain.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, Z1 p.6)
c1921 In Ireland, Michael Collins, founder of the
Irish Volunteers (precursor to the IRA), lost a political fight to
Eamon de Valera, who went on to run the country for 50 years.
(SFC, 9/22/96, Par p.31)
1921 In Israel there was an
Arab uprising in Jerusalem.
(SFC, 10/18/96, C8)
1921 In Italy the Corsini
Biscotti company was founded in the Tuscan village of Castel del
Piano. By 2015 the family business had annual revenues of $17
million (€14m)
(Econ, 1/3/15, p.52)
1921 Guccio Gucci (1881-1953)
and his wife, Aida, opened their 1st store in Florence following a
number of years in London. Their son, Aldo, later built the Gucci
brand into a global snob-appeal powerhouse. In 2000 Sara Gay Forden
authored "The House of Gucci."
(WSJ, 9/1/00, p.W1)(WSJ, 11/5/03, p.A1)
1921 The League of Nations
granted the Aland Island group to the new Finnish Republic. Aland
was populated by native Swedes. Under the accord Aland was given
veto power in international treaties signed by Finland.
(WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A1)
1921 In Mexico Fidel Velasquez
Sanchez (1900-1997) formed the Union of Milk Workers.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)
1921 Urga was renamed Ulan
Bator (Red Hero) after Mongolian freedom fighters and D. Sukhbaatar
sided with Russian communists and defeated the Chinese warlords. The
Mad Baron, Ungern-Sternberg, was executed.
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.28)
1921 In Mongolia Damdiny
Sukhbaatar, supported by the Bolshevik administration in Moscow,
organized a force that, with the help of Red Army troops, defeated
the White Russians and drove off the Chinese.
(www.gobiexpeditions.com)
1921 George Leigh Mallory (36)
took part in the 1st expedition of mountain climbers to explore Mt.
Everest on the border of Nepal and Tibet.
(ON, 3/05, p.6)
1921 In Poland the Solec
Hospital in central Warsaw was built.
(WSJ, 1/15/97, p.A1)
1921 At Melrose Abbey in the
Scottish Borders a casket was found with an embalmed heart that was
thought to belong to King Robert I of Scotland. It was reburied and
not found again until 1996.
(SFC, 9/3/96, p.A8)
1921 The South African Reserve
Bank was established as a privately owned entity.
(Reuters, 8/17/18)
1921 The Soviet Union and Iran
signed agreements concerning the Caspian Sea.
(SFC, 8/11/98, p.A8)
1921 In Russia a mineral
exploration mission discovered coal deposits Vorkuta, 1,200 miles
northeast of Moscow. The 1st coal mine there opened in 1931 using
prisoner labor. Use of prisoners for mining ended in 1962.
(ST, 7/29/04, p.A3)
1921 A Soviet famine began with
a drought that caused massive crop failures, including total crop
failure on about 20% of Soviet farmland. a Soviet estimate put the
death toll at 5.1 million.
(www.overpopulation.com/faq/Health/hunger/famine/soviet_famine.html)
1921 Hermann Rorschach
(1984-1922), Swiss psychiatrist, wrote his book Psychodiagnostik,
which was to form the basis of the inkblot test. He devised the
original Rorschach test to deduce elements of personality from a
series of inkblots.
(Econ, 11/12/11,
p.96)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Rorschach)
1921 In Turkey Kemal Ataturk, a
Muslim general, called for sustained military action to "chase the
enemy out of our land." He referred to British, French and Italian
forces that had helped defeat the Ottoman Empire and were stationed
in Istanbul.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.A3)
1921-1922 Poet Robert Frost was poet-in-residence
at the Univ. of Michigan.
(MT, Win. ‘96, p.4)
1921-1922 Following the Greco-Turkish war Turkey
lost some 1.5 million Greeks in a population exchange that brought
half a million ethnic Turks home from Greece.
(Econ, 2/6/15, SR p.10)
1921-1923 William G. Harding was the 29h President
of the US. He died of pneumonia on Aug 2, 1923, and was succeeded by
his Vice-President, Calvin Coolidge. The Teapot Dome oil leasing
scandal, the Veteran’s Bureau skimming scandal, Justice Dept.
bootlegging, influence peddling and pardon-fixing scandals plagued
his administration.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A15)
1921-1924 The number of Americans in Paris swelled
from 6,000 to 30,000.
(SFEC, 8/9/98, BR 9 p.9)
1921-1926 W.L. Mackenzie King, Liberal Party,
served as the 10th Prime Minister of Canada.
(CFA, ‘96, p.81)
1921-1927 General Leonard Wood (b.1860) served a
governor-general of the Philippines.
(www.wood.army.mil/MGLeonardwood.htm)
1921-1929 In South Africa the nomadic Nama people
were forced from their lands near the mouth of the Orange River
following the British discovery of diamonds in the area. In 1998
community elders initiated a bid to reclaim their land and asked for
ownership of the mining operations and compensation of $350 million
for the removed diamonds and environmental damage. A 2003 ruling
established that community members were entitled to both land and
monetary restitution.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A22)
1921-1932 The 52-mil Going-to-the-Sun Road in
Glacier National Park was constructed over Logan Pass.
(WSJ, 6/23/97, p.A1)
1921-1944 The Soviets allowed Tuva to call itself
independent as the Tuvan People’s Republic. Tannu Tuva stamps were
issued by Moscow in odds shapes and they became collector's items.
(WSJ, 4/1/06, p.A5)(Econ, 11/7/15, p.46)
1921-1958 In Iraq the period of the Hashemite
monarchy.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A22)
1921-1986 Joseph Beuys, German artist, recorded
his own blackboard scrawls as drawings and made performance art of
his freewheeling lectures. Andy Warhol made some prints of Beuys.
"Beuys saw himself as an avatar of the realization that art is a
mindful attitude toward the ordinary…" He was the most influential
European artist of his generation.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.E3)(WSJ, 8/27/98, p.A12)(SFC,
1/4/00, p.B7)(SFC, 2/15/00, p.B1)
1921-1998 George Wright, theater organist, was
born in Orland. He recorded over 60 albums and performed Wurlitzer
theater pipe organs at the Fox Theater on Market St. in SF and the
Paramount theater in New York. He received the first lifetime
achievement award from the American Theater Organ Society in 1995.
(SFC, 6/1/98, p.A17)