- Jan 2 1st religious service radio broadcast in US, KDKA-Pittsburgh
- Jan 2 DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park opens
- Jan 3 Turkey makes peace with Armenia
Theater Premiere
Jan 4 Eugene O'Neill's play "Diff'rent" premieres in NYC
- Jan 6 The Iraqi Army is formed
Election of Interest
Jan 16 Eleftherios Venizelos becomes Prime Minister of Greece (4th time)
- Jan 18 William Archer's "Green Goddess" premieres in NYC
- Jan 19 Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras & El Salvador sign Pact of Union
- Jan 20 British submarine HMS K5 (which was unusually equipped with steam turbines) sinks with 57 crew during exercises in the Bay of Biscay
- Jan 20 Dagestan ASSR forms in RSFSR
- Jan 20 Mountain Autonomous Republic established in RSFSR
- Jan 20 Republic of Turkey declared out of remnants of Ottoman Empire
Historic Publication
Jan 21 British crime writer Agatha Christie publishes her first novel "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" introducing the character Hercule Poirot
Event of Interest
Jan 21 Italian Communist Party founded at Livorno by Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci
- Jan 24 Paris Conference on reparations is held
- Jan 25 Karel Čapek's play "R.U.R." premieres in Prague, introduces the word "robot"
- Jan 29 Hurricane hits Washington & Oregon
- Jan 30 French rapist-murderer Henri-Desire Landru sentenced to death
- Feb 11 Ambassador Theater opens at 215 W 49th St NYC
- Feb 12 Soviet troops invade Georgia
Event of Interest
Feb 12 Winston Churchill becomes British Minister of Colonies
- Feb 14 Canadian 5 cent nickel coin is authorized
- Feb 14 Little Review faces obscenity charges for publishing "Ulysses," in New York
- Feb 18 British troops occupy Dublin
- Feb 20 Riza Khan Pahlevi seizes control of Iran
- Feb 21 Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country's first constitution
- Feb 21 The London Conference on the Near East begins: the issue is the Allies' 1920 Treaty of Sevres, which had given part of Turkish Asia Minor to Greece
- Feb 23 1st US transcontinental air mail flight arrives in NYC from San Francisco
- Feb 24 1st transcontinental flight in 24 hrs flying time arrives in Florida
- Feb 25 Tbilisi, capital of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, occupied by Bolshevist Russia
- Feb 25 The Living Buddha, Hutuktu, is crowned King of Mongolia as the country declares independence from China
- Feb 26 The USSR signs treaties respecting the integrity of Persia and of Afghanistan
- Feb 27 The Fascists incite a riot in Florence, Italy
- Feb 27 The International Working Union of Socialist Parties is founded in Vienna
- Mar 1 Rwanda ceded to Great Britain
- Mar 1 Sailors revolt in Kronstadt, Russia
- Mar 3 The Asiatic Inquiry Commission, established by the South African Government, proposes a system of voluntary repatriation and segregation of Indians and prohibits Indians from buying agricultural land in a specified area along the coast
- Mar 3 Toronto's Dr Banting & Dr Best announce discovery of insulin
- Mar 4 Hot Springs National Park created in Arkansas
President Inaugurated
Mar 4 Warren G. Harding is inaugurated as the 29th President of the United States
- Mar 5 The Durban Land Alienation Ordinance passes, enabling the Durban City Council to exclude Indians from ownership or occupation of property in white areas, South Africa
- Mar 5 The US warns Costa Rica and Panama to settle disputes peacefully
- Mar 6 Police in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, issue an edict requiring Women to wear skirts at least 4 inches below the knee
- Mar 6 The Natal Indian Congress is resuscitated and reorganised at a meeting in Durban, with Ismail Gora as President
- Mar 8 Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato Iradier is assassinated while exiting the parliament building in Madrid.
Conference of Interest
Mar 12 Cairo Conference begins, British meeting to determine Middle Eastern policies, Gertrude Bell and T. E. Lawrence attend
- Mar 13 Mongolia (formerly Outer Mongolia) declares independence from China
- Mar 16 Britain signs a trade agreement with the USSR and sends a trade mission to Moscow: this goes against the US, who in the same month refused to sign a trade agreement
- Mar 17 Dr Marie Stopes opens Britain's 1st birth control clinic in London
- Mar 17 Sailors revolt in Kronstadt (thousands die)
- Mar 17 The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution
Soviet History
Mar 17 Vladimir Lenin proclaims New Economic Politics
- Mar 18 2nd Peace of Riga, Poland enlarged
- Mar 18 Steamer "Hong Koh" runs aground off Swatow China killing 1,000
- Mar 19 Italian Fascists shoot from the Parenzana train at a group of children in Strunjan (Slovenia): two children are killed, two mangled and three wounded
- Mar 20 Upper Silesia votes for amalgamation with Germany in a plebiscite that is 63% in favor
- Mar 23 Germany announces it will be unable to meet its Great War reparation payments
- Mar 31 British coal miners goes on strike
Event of Interest
Apr 2 Albert Einstein lectures in New York City on his new "Theory of Relativity"
Election of Interest
Apr 7 Revolutionary leader, Sun Yat-sen is elected President of China at Canton, though China remains divided into north and south and subject to rivalries of warlords
- Apr 11 Iowa imposes 1st state cigarette tax
- Apr 11 The Emirate of Transjordan created
- Apr 11 Turkestan ASSR forms in Russian SFSR
- Apr 13 Foundation of the Spanish Communist Workers' Party.
- Apr 14 Prince Henry opens Rotterdam-Amsterdam-Bremen-Hamburg air route
- Apr 15 Black Friday in Britain: leaders of transport and rail unions announce a decision not to call for strike action in support of the miners; despite widespread feeling decision a breach of solidarity and a betrayal of the miners
- Apr 16 Liberal Freedom League forms in The Hague
- Apr 18 Junior Achievement incorporated in Colorado Spring
- Apr 18 Philip James Barry's "Punch for Judy" premieres in NYC
- Apr 19 Funeral of last German Emperoress, Augusta Victoria
- Apr 23 Charles Paddock runs world record 100m (10.4 secs)
- Apr 24 1st municipal elections for men & women in Belgium
- Apr 24 Under Allies supervision, a plebiscite in the Tyrol favors merging with Germany; unhappy with the outcome, Allies give the area to Italy
- Apr 27 Hadjememaar, [Corn de Gelder] elected in Amsterdam
Catholic Encyclical
Apr 30 Pope Benedict XV encyclical "On Dante"
- May 1 Drusian sultan Pasja al-Atrasj elected governor of Suwayda
- May 2 Start of 3rd anti-German revolt in Upper Silesia
- May 3 Northern Ireland is created under the UK Government of Ireland Act partitioning off six north eastern counties with a Protestant majority
- May 3 West Virginia imposes 1st state sales tax
- May 5 1st ranger for Cleveland Metroparks hired
- May 5 Miniature newspaper published (Brighton Gazette 10 x 13 cm)
Event of Interest
May 5 Perfume Chanel No. 5 released by fashion designer Coco Chanel
- May 8 Sweden abolishes capital punishment
- May 10 Luigi Pirandello's "Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore" premieres
- May 11 Tel Aviv is 1st all Jewish municipality
- May 11 The Allied Supreme Council warns Germany to pay reparations or the entire Ruhr Valley will be occupied; Germany agrees
- May 12 National Hospital Day 1st observed in the United States
- May 14 Florence Allen is 1st woman judge to sentence a man to death in Ohio
- May 15 British Legion formed to care for ex-servicemen
- May 17 Belgian and Luxembourg sign customs union
- May 17 US President Warren G. Harding opens (via telephone) 1st Valencia Orange Show
- May 19 Congress sharply curbs immigration, setting a national quota system
- May 21 Oldest radio station west of Mississippi River licensed in Greeley Co.
- May 24 1st parliament for Northern Ireland elected
- May 24 Bulhoek Massacre: police commissioner Colonel Theodore Truter leads 6 squadrons and artillery detachment against Israelite religious sect collected at annual gathering on land of leader Enoch Mgijima at Ntabalanga; 190 killed
- May 30 Lord Dunsany's "If" premieres in London
- May 30 Memorial to Capt. Eddie Grant, killed in WW I, unveiled at Polo Grounds, NYC
- May 30 Salzburg, Austria, votes to join Germany
- May 31 A large-scale race riot breaks out in Tulsa, Oklahoma, later described as the worst incident of racial violence in American history; around 150-300 African Americans killed [1] [2]
- Jun 3 A sudden cloudburst kills 120 near Pikes Peak, Colorado
- Jun 6 Detroit Stars' Bill Gatewood pitches the 1st no-hitter in Negro League history, defeating the Cuban Stars 4-0
- Jun 11 Brazil adopts women's suffrage
Event of Interest
Jun 15 Bessie Coleman earns her pilot license in France becoming the 1st African-American woman and Native American to hold one
- Jun 19 Census held in Great Britain
- Jun 19 Turks and Christians of Palestine sign a friendship treaty against Jews
- Jun 20 11.5" (29.2 cm) of rainfall, Circle, Montana (state record)
- Jun 20 At the Imperial Conference in London, V.S. Srinivasa Sastri puts forward a case for the granting of full citizenship rights to Indians in South Africa and other British colonies
- Jun 21 The UK, the Dominions, and India, become the British Commonwealth of Nations
- Jun 25 Charlie McCartney scores 300 in 205 mins Aust v Notts
- Jun 30 The South African Reserve Bank is established
- Jul 1 The Communist Party of China is founded and Chen Duxiu elected its leader
- Jul 2 Warren G. Harding signs a joint congressional resolution declaring the official end of war with Germany
- Jul 11 Mongolia gains independence from China (National Day)
- Jul 14 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti convicted of killing their shoe company's paymaster and sentenced to death, in Dedham Massachusetts
Event of Interest
Jul 16 Encouraged by the British, King Constantine of Greece launches a drive to take Asia Minor from nationalists under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
- Jul 18 Black Sox trial begins in Chicago
Event of Interest
Jul 20 Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson becomes the first woman to preside over the floor of US House of Representatives
- Jul 21 To prove his contention that air power is superior to sea power, US Colonel William Mitchell demonstrates how bombs from planes can sink a captured German battleship
- Jul 23 Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao (among others) form Chinese Communist Party, with guidance from Soviet backed Communist International (Comintern) forms under guidance of Henk Sneevliet
- Jul 27 2nd government of Ruijs de Beerenbrouck forms
Event of Interest
Jul 27 Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolate insulin at the University of Toronto
Event of Interest
Jul 29 Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party
- Jul 29 New rules of language assumed (equal rights Flemings/Walen Belgium)
- Jul 30 The Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) forms; the party changed its name to the South African Communist Party (SACP) in 1953, after it had been forced underground
- Aug 3 1st aerial crop dusting in Troy, Ohio, to kill caterpillars
- Aug 5 Treaty of Berlin: US and Germany sign separate peace treaty
- Aug 6 Clason Point, Bronx to College Point, Queens muni ferry system begins
Theater Premiere
Aug 13 Simon Kaufman & Marc Connelly's comedic play "Dulcy" premieres in NYC
Event of Interest
Aug 22 J. Edgar Hoover becomes Assistant Director of the FBI
- Aug 23 Austria and the US formally end war; the US does the same with Germany on the 25th, and Hungary on the 29th
- Aug 23 British declare a truce with Irish Nationalists Sinn Féin
- Aug 24 Battle of Sakaray Valley begins between Turkey & Greece
- Aug 24 British airship R-38 crashes in River Humber, 44 die
- Aug 25 The first skirmishes of the Battle of Blair Mountain, a civil uprising in Logan County, West Virginia
- Aug 25 US signs peace treaty with Germany
- Aug 28 2nd Pan-African Congress meets (London, Brussels & Paris)
- Sep 1 Nederlander Theater opens at 208 W 41 St NYC (Billy Rose, Trafalgar)
- Sep 3 KPB, Communist Party of Belgium forms
- Sep 9 Guatemala, Honduras and San Salvador agree to Central American Union
- Sep 11 Nahalal, the first moshav in Israel, is settled
- Sep 15 Pope Benedict XV publishes encyclical Alcohol Paraclitus
- Sep 15 WBZ-AM in Boston MA begins radio transmissions
- Sep 21 A storage silo at a BASF fertiliser producing plant explodes in Oppau, Germany, 500—600 killed
- Sep 21 Pope Benedictus XV donates 1 million lire to feed Russians
- Sep 22 The League of Nations accepts membership of independent Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
- Sep 29 Pirates drop doubleheader to Cards to allow idle Giants to clinch NL
- Oct 1 WJZ, Newark NJ begins broadcasting
- Oct 4 League of Nations refuses to assist starving Russians
- Oct 4 Riccardo Zanella becomes first elected President of Free State of Fiume
- Oct 5 Present constitution of Liechtenstein comes into effect
- Oct 6 Century Theater opens at 7th Ave & 59th St NYC (demolished 1962)
- Oct 6 International PEN, a worldwide association of writers is founded in London
- Oct 17 Belgium's public library law goes into force
- Oct 18 Biding its time, Soviet Russia agrees to independence for the Crimea
Historic Invention
Oct 18 Charles Strite granted US patent #1,394,450 for his invention, the automatic pop-up toaster
- Oct 19 Portuguese Prime Minister António Granjo and other politicians are murdered in a Lisbon coup
- Oct 20 Germany and Allies comes to an agreements over reparation payments in a meeting at Wiensbaden
- Oct 20 The French and Mustafa Kemal nationalists sign a treaty at Ankara fixing the Turko-Syrian border
- Oct 21 Former Hungarian King Karl stages a second attempted coup and is arrested
- Oct 21 Tuschinski Theater opens in Amsterdam
- Oct 26 Solomon Porter Hood named US minister to Liberia
- Oct 28 First American gubernatorial recall election is held in North Dakota. Governor Lynn Frazier loses to Ragnvald A. Nestos by just over 4,000 votes (1.8%).
- Oct 29 The Link River Dam, a part of the Klamath Reclamation Project, is completed in northern California and Oregon
- Nov 1 National Birth Control League & Voluntary Parenthood League merge as American Birth Control League
- Nov 2 Eugene O'Neill's play "Anna Christie" premieres in NYC
- Nov 4 Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi is assassinated by a right wing fanatic in Tokyo
- Nov 4 The Sturmabteilung or SA (the "Brown Shirts") is formally established by Adolf Hitler
- Nov 5 Soviet Russia signs a treaty with Mongolia, temporarily supporting the new government against China and Japanese incursions
- Nov 7 Hungary passes a law invalidating the Habsburg line of succession to the throne
- Nov 9 Partito Nazionalista Fascista formed in Italy by Mussolini
- Nov 11 US President Warren G. Harding dedicates Tomb of Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery
- Nov 12 Washington Conference for Limitation of Armaments
- Nov 13 US, France, Japan and British Empire sign a Pacific Treaty
- Nov 14 The Communist Party of Spain is founded
- Nov 15 KYW-AM in Philadelphia PA begins radio transmissions
- Nov 21 The trial of the accused of the Bulhoek Massacre commences in South Africa
- Nov 23 US President Warren G. Harding signs Willis Campell Act (anti-beer bill) forbidding doctors prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes
- Nov 28 Ascension of 'Abdu'l-Baha (Baha'i festival-Qawl 6, 78)
- Nov 29 Coldest day in November in Netherlands -14.0°C
- Dec 1 1st US helium-filled dirigible makes its 1st flight
- Dec 1 US Post Office establishes philatelic agency
- Dec 4 The Virginia Rappe manslaughter trial against Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle ends in a hung jury
Anglo-Irish Treaty
Dec 6 Anglo-Irish Treaty signed; Ireland receives dominion status; partition creates Northern Ireland
Election of Interest
Dec 6 Canada's Liberal Party and its leader Mackenzie King defeats Arthur Meighen's Conservative Party and Thomas Crerar' Progressive Party in general election, goes on to form a minority government
- Dec 7 KWG-AM in Stockton CA begins radio transmissions
Treaty of Interest
Dec 8 Eamon de Valera publicly repudiates Anglo-Irish Treaty
Treaty of Interest
Dec 16 The Anglo-Irish Treaty, agreed to by the British Parliament and Sinn Féin, is ratified
- Dec 16 The Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) calls for a united front in a pass burning campaign on Dingaan's Day
- Dec 21 Supreme Court rules labor injunctions & picketing unconstitutional
Event of Interest
Dec 23 Gangster Carlo Gambino enters the United States as an illegal immigrant on the SS Vincenzo Florio
Event of Interest
Dec 23 Visva-Bharati University is inaugurated in Santiniketan, West Bengal, India, founded by Rabindranath Tagore
- Dec 28 The beginning of the Rand Rebellion in Southern Africa; the rebellion started as a strike by white mineworkers on and became an open armed rebellion against the state
- Dec 29 Mackenzie King is sworn in as the 10th Prime Minister of Canada
- Dec 31 Last San Francisco firehorses retired