Timeline 1920-1921
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1920 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 27, Pogrom leader Petljoera (Petlyura) declared Ukraine Independence.
(MC, 4/27/02)
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 Sigmund Freud authored "Beyond the Pleasure Principle."
(WSJ, 5/5/06, p.A16)
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 3, Francois-Arnold Reichenbach, documentary filmmaker, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
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)
Go to 1922-1923
Return to home
1920 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 27, Pogrom leader Petljoera (Petlyura) declared Ukraine Independence.
(MC, 4/27/02)
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 Sigmund Freud authored "Beyond the Pleasure Principle."
(WSJ, 5/5/06, p.A16)
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 3, Francois-Arnold Reichenbach, documentary filmmaker, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
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)
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