Events 1 - 200 of 293
Beatty Made Admiral
Jan 1 Battle of Jutland British naval commander David Beatty is promoted to full admiral
- Jan 1 Belorussian SSR established
Henry Ford's Son Succeeds Him
Jan 1 Edsel Ford succeeds his father, Henry Ford, as president of the Ford Motor Company
Hoover Takes on War Relief
Jan 3 Herbert Hoover is placed in charge of war relief in Europe
- Jan 3 The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, which was a short-lived agreement for the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, is signed by the King of Iraq and the President of the World Zionist Organization
- Jan 5 German Workers' Party forms, precursor to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi)
- Jan 5 Left-wing Spartacus organization instigates a revolt in Berlin; terrified by the spread of Bolshevism, German troops brutally suppress the uprising
- Jan 7 Montenegrin guerrilla fighters rebel, but fail to prevent Serbia's annexation of Montenegro
- Jan 7 The Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of South Africa is founded, led by Clements Kadalie
- Jan 11 3-year-old German communist party (Spartacus) crushed
- Jan 11 Romania annexes Transylvania
- Jan 13 Dutch Soccer team OSV forms
- Jan 14 John McGraw, Charles A. Stoneham and Francis Xavier McQuade buy NY Giants
"The Last Days of Mankind"
Jan 15 Frank Wedekind's play "Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind)" premieres
- Jan 15 Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps
- Jan 15 Semana Tragica (Tragic Week): Bloodbath in Buenos Aires
- Jan 15 Two million gallons of molasses flood Boston Massachusetts in the "Great Molasses Flood" when a storage tank burst, drowning 21 and injuring 150
- Jan 15 Wilson Collison & Otto Harbach's play "Up in Mabel's Room" premieres in NYC
Prohibition is Ratified
Jan 16 The 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, authorizing the prohibition of alcohol, is ratified by a majority of US states
Bentley Motors Founded
Jan 18 Bentley Motors Limited is founded by Walter Owen Bentley in London, England
Ignacy Jan Paderewski Prime Minister
Jan 18 Composer and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Polish Prime Minister
- Jan 18 The Paris peace conference (aka the Versailles peace conference) opens to draw up the treaties formally ending the Great War (WWI)
- Jan 19 National elections held in Germany to form a National Constituent Assembly and draft a constitution
- Jan 21 Irish militant nationalist party Sinn Féin creates its own parliament in Dublin and declares Ireland independent of Great Britain, sparking the Irish War of Independence
- Jan 25 Founding of League of Nations, 1st meeting 1 year later
- Jan 25 The Hotel Pennsylvania, at the time the world's largest, opens in Manhattan
- Jan 31 The Battle of George Square takes place in Glasgow, Scotland: troops deployed against protesters for fear of a Bolshevik uprising
- Feb 1 Brooklyn Robins trade former NL MVP Jake Daubert to Cincinnati Reds for outfielder Tommy Griffith; result of a salary grievance
- Feb 2 Monarchist riot in Portugal
- Feb 3 Herbert and Blossom's musical "Velvet Lady" premieres in New York City
- Feb 3 Socialist conference convenes (Berne, Switzerland)
- Feb 3 The Bolshevik army is defeated in a series of clashes with the White Russians, who are fighting to reclaim the government after the 1917 revolution
- Feb 4 City of Bremen's Soviet Republic overthrown
United Artists Founded
Feb 5 Hollywood film studio United Artists founded by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith
- Feb 5 NL President John Heydler dismisses charges that Hal Chase bet against his team and threw games in collusion with gamblers
- Feb 6 1st day of 5-day Seattle general strike
- Feb 6 The first day of the Weimar Republic which, because of its support of the Treaty of Versailles, does not receive proper allegiance from the German nation
Election of Interest
Feb 11 Friedrich Ebert (SPD) elected president of Germany
NHL Record
Feb 18 Cy Denneny of NHL Ottawa Senators scores record 52nd goal
Pan-African Congress
Feb 19 Pan-African Congress, organized by American civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois is held at the Grand Hotel in Paris, France
- Feb 20 Foundation NHL club Toronto Arenas are permitted to cease operations due to financial difficulties; later become Toronto St. Patricks and then Maple Leafs
Clemenceau Wounded in Assassination Attempt
Feb 20 French Prime Minister Georges Clémenceau injured during assassination attempt
- Feb 21 German National Meeting accepts Anschluss: incorporation of Austria
- Feb 21 Kurt Eisner, Premier of the Bavarian Republic, is assassinated by a far-right German nationalist in Munich
- Feb 21 Revolutionary strike in Barcelona
Italian History
Feb 23 Fascist Party formed in Italy by Benito Mussolini
- Feb 25 Oregon is 1st state to tax gasoline (1 cent per gallon)
- Feb 26 Acadia National Park forms (as Lafayette N P), Maine
- Feb 26 US Congress establishes Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona
- Feb 27 1st public performance of Holst's "Planets"
- Feb 27 American Association for Hard of Hearing forms (NYC)
- Mar 1 The March 1st, or Samil Movement, begins in Korea: it is a demonstration of resistance to Japanese occupation
- Mar 2 1st congress of Communist International opens at the Kremlin
- Mar 3 1st international air mail service from US, Seattle-Victoria, BC
- Mar 3 Communist Party in Germany announces a general strike
- Mar 5 Louis Hirsch & Harold Atteridge's musical premieres in NYC
- Mar 11 General strike in Germany crushed
- Mar 12 Austrian National Meeting affirms Anschluss (incorporate into Germany)
Augustus Does His Bit
Mar 12 George Bernard Shaw's comedy play "Augustus Does His Bit" premieres in NYC
- Mar 15 American Legion forms (Paris)
- Mar 16 Frank Wedekind's play "Elius Erweckung" premieres in Hamburg
- Mar 17 Dutch steel workers strike for 8 hr day & minimum wages
- Mar 18 Order of DeMolay forms in Kansas City
Littérature
Mar 19 Literary Magazine "Littérature", edited by André Breton, Philippe Soupault, and Louis Aragon publishes its first issue
The Politburo Five
Mar 23 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party re-establishes a five-member Politburo which becomes the center of political power in the Soviet Union. Original members Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Krestinsky.
- Mar 23 Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, designated as the first autonomous republic of Soviet Russia
- Mar 23 Benito Mussolini forms Fascist group Fasci di Combattimento (Italian Fighting Bands) in Milan, Italy - later reorganized into National Fascist Party
League of Nations
Mar 25 Woodrow Wilson's dream of a League of Nations becomes a reality after the League Covenant is adopted at the Paris Peace Conference
- Mar 30 Belgian Army occupies Düsseldorf
- Mar 30 Paul Claudel's "Tête d'Or" premieres in Paris
- Mar 31 Strike against Ruhrgebied government of Scheidemann
- Apr 1 Stanley Cup Final, Seattle Ice Arena, Seattle, WA: With Montreal Canadiens (NHL) & Seattle Metropolitans (PCHA) tied at 2-2-1, trophy not awarded due to worldwide flu epidemic
- Apr 1 The influential Bauhaus School opens in Weimar, Germany, headed by architect Walter Gropius teaching painting, sculpture, architecture, and design [1]
- Apr 3 Austria expels all Habsburgers
- Apr 5 Antwerp is officially declared the host city for the Games of the 7th Olympiad to be conducted in 1920; first post WWI Olympics
Eamon de Valera President
Apr 5 Eamon de Valera becomes President of Dail Eireann, the Irish parliament
- Apr 5 Polish Army executes 35 young Jews
- Apr 6 Bavaria proclaims itself a soviet republic
- Apr 6 Mahatma Gandhi organizes a general strike in India to protest the Rowlatt Acts, which allowed political cases to be tried without juries and internment without trial
- Apr 7 1st parcel of land is purchased for Cleveland Metroparks
- Apr 10 Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead by government forces in Morelos
- Apr 11 The International Labour Organization is founded.
- Apr 12 British Parliament passes a 48-hour work week with minimum wages
- Apr 13 British troops open fire on demonstrators in Amritsar, India, killing 350
- Apr 13 Establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea
- Apr 19 André Messager's romantic opera "Monsieur Beaucaire", based on Booth Tarkington's novel, opens at the Prince's Theatre in London, England
- Apr 19 French assembly decides on 8 hour work day
- Apr 20 King Nicholas of Montenegro abdicates under duress
- Apr 20 Polish Army captures Vilno, Lithuania from Soviet Army
- Apr 23 US Major League Baseball opens a reduced 140-game season
- Apr 28 1st jump with US Army Air Corps (rip-cord type) parachute (Les Irvin)
- Apr 28 American stuntman and parachute developer Leslie Irvin (23) makes first premeditated free-fall parachute jump from a plane above US the Army Air Service's McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio [1]
- Apr 30 Phillies beat Brooklyn Dodgers 9-0 in 20 innings
L'Ordine Nuovo
May 1 "L'Ordine Nuovo" Italian socialist weekly newspaper established in Turin by Antonio Gramsci, Angelo Tasca and Palmiro Togliatti
- May 1 British naval officer David Beatty is promoted to Admiral of the Fleet
- May 1 Mount Kelud (Indonesia) erupts, boiling crater lake which broke through crater wall killing 5,000 people in 104 small villages
- May 3 Afghanistan Emir Amanoellah begins war against Great Britain
- May 4 1st legal Sunday baseball game in NYC, 35,000 watch the Phillies beat the NY Giants 4-3
- May 4 Demonstrates organised by students erupt in China, after news from the Paris Peace Conference that the Allies intend to give Shangtung to Japan
- May 6 Paris Peace Conference disposes of German colonies; German East Africa is assigned to Britain and France, German South West Africa to South Africa
- May 7 A draft of the Versailles Treaty is shown to the Germans
- May 8 1st transatlantic flight take-off by a navy seaplane
- May 8 Appingedam soccer team forms
End of World War I
May 8 Edward George Honey first proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I, leads to the creation of Remembrance Day
Johnson - Quinn Pitching Duel
May 11 Washington Senators future Baseball Hall of Fame ace Walter Johnson pitches 12 scoreless innings in a famous 0-0 duel with Jack Quinn of the NY Yankees at the Polo Grounds
- May 12 New York Yankees and Washington Senators play second straight extra inning tie, 4-4 in 15 innings at the Polo Grounds; 0-0 in 12 the previous day
- May 12 The Transvaal British Indian Association calls a mass meeting to organise opposition to the proposed Asiatics (Land and Trading) Amendment Act; in the Act, Transvaal Indians are prohibited from owning shares in limited companies
- May 14 Pope Benedictus XV publishes encyclical In hac tanta
- May 15 Beginning of the Winnipeg General Strike as more than 30,000 workers walk off the job in the largest strike in Canadian history (ends 25 June) [1]
- May 15 Brooklyn Dodgers score 10 runs in 13th to beat Reds 10-0
Alborada del gracioso
May 17 Maurice Ravel's orchestral piece "Alborada del gracioso" premieres in Paris by the Pasdeloup Orchestra
- May 17 UK War Department orders use of National Star Insignia on all airplanes
- May 19 Kelud volcano on Java, erupts killing 5,160
Atatürk Lands at Samsun
May 19 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Black Sea coast, beginning the Turkish War of Independence
Wood Sample Dating
May 22 A. E. Douglass establishes the relative dates of two archaeological sites using ancient wood samples, marking a major step forward in the dating of archaeological sites
Stengel Releases Sparrow
May 25 Casey Stengel releases a sparrow from under his baseball cap
Eddington Confirms Theory of Relativity
May 29 Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, that when light passes a large body, gravity will bend the rays confirmed by Arthur Eddington's expedition to photograph a solar eclipse on the island of Principe, West Africa
Pop-up Toaster
May 29 Charles Strite files patent for the automatic pop-up toaster
- May 29 The Republic of Prekmurje founded - a short-lived, unrecognised state, which on June 6, 1919 was incorporated into the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed "Yugoslavia" in 1929)
- May 31 NC-4 aircraft commanded by AC Read completes 1st crossing of Atlantic
- Jun 1 Rhineland Republic forms in Wiesbaden
- Jun 2 Pulitzer prize awarded to Carl Sandburg (Cornhuskers)
- Jun 3 Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Co (Chicago) - first insurance company organized by African Americans formed
- Jun 4 US Congress passes the Women's Suffrage Bill, the 19th Amendment
- Jun 4 US marines invade Costa Rica
- Jun 6 Assent is given to an Act to amend the Canadian Currency Act, 1910
- Jun 6 Finland declares war on bolsheviks
- Jun 6 The Republic of Prekmurje ends
- Jun 7 Sette giugno: Riot in Malta; four are killed.
- Jun 9 General steel strike in France
- Jun 9 Red Army captures Ufa in Russia
- Jun 12 Dutch 2nd Chamber accord for equal Christian-public education
- Jun 14 1st nonstop air crossing of Atlantic (Alcock & Brown) leaves Newfoundland
- Jun 15 1st nonstop Atlantic flight (Alcock & Brown) lands in Ireland
- Jun 17 "Barney Google" cartoon strip, by Billy De Beck, premieres
- Jun 19 Opposed to dismemberment of Turkey by the Allies, Mustafa Kemal declares his Turkish Nationalist Congress, headquartered in Ankara, independent of Constantinople
- Jun 20 150 die at the Teatro Yaguez fire, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Signing of the Treaty of Versailles
Jun 20 Philipp Scheidemann resigns as chancellor of the new German Republic, which he helped establish, refusing to sign the Treaty of Versailles
- Jun 20 Treaty of Versailles: Germany ends incorporation of Austria
- Jun 21 Social Democrat Gustav Bauer forms a German government
Scuttling at Scapa Flow
Jun 21 The German Navy, feeling betrayed by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, scuttles most of its ships interned at Great Britain's Scapa Flow Naval base in the Orkney Islands
Universal Negro Improvement Association
Jun 23 Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) incorporates
- Jun 23 Nitti government forms in Italy
- Jun 25 1st advanced monoplane airliner flight (Junkers F13)
- Jun 25 Revolt of Spartacus in Hamburg
- Jun 26 NY Daily News begins publishing
- Jun 28 Boston Red Sox Carl Mays pitches a complete doubleheader against NY Yankees, winning 1st game, 2-0, losing 2nd game, 4-1 (Polo Grounds, NYC)
- Jun 28 Treaty of Versailles is signed in France, ending World War I and establishing the League of Nations
- Jul 1 SVV Scheveningen soccer club is established in the Dutch seaside town
- Jul 1 US 1st class postage drops from 3 cents to 2 cents
- Jul 4 ADGB (Allgemeine Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund) party forms
Dempsey vs Willard
Jul 4 Jack Dempsey beats champion Jess Willard, retired in 3rd round in Toledo, Ohio for world heavyweight championship
- Jul 6 British R-34 lands in NY, 1st airship to cross Atlantic (108 hr)
Institute for Sexual Science
Jul 6 Institute for Sexual Science opened in Berlin by physician Magnus Hirschfeld to establish study of sexual science
- Jul 7 Philadelphia Phillies tie MLB record of 8 steals in an innings (9th) in a 10-5 loss vs NY Giants
- Jul 8 US President Woodrow Wilson returns to NYC from Versailles Peace Conference
- Jul 10 Dutch parliament approves women's right to vote
- Jul 10 US President Woodrow Wilson personally delivers Treaty of Versailles to Senate
- Jul 11 Dutch 2nd chamber approves 8-hour day and no Sunday work
- Jul 13 Boston Red Sox pitcher Carl Mays walks off mound blaming teammates for lack of support in field
- Jul 13 Race riots in Longview, Gregg County, Texas
- Jul 17 Finland adopts constitution
- Jul 17 Yanks 21 hits, Browns 17 hits Browns win 7-6 in 17, on squeeze play
- Jul 19 Following Peace Day celebrations marking the end of World War I, ex-servicemen rioted and burnt down Luton Town Hall.
Dutch Aircraft Factory
Jul 21 Anthony Fokker establishes his new aircraft company, the Dutch Aircraft Factory in Amsterdam
- Jul 21 Dirigible crashes through bank skylight killing 13 in Chicago, Illinois
- Jul 22 De Falla & Massine's "Three-cornered Hat" premieres in London
- Jul 24 Race Riot in Washington, D.C. (6 killed, 100 wounded)
- Jul 27 Chicago race riot (15 whites & 23 blacks killed, 500 injured)
- Jul 28 Vrije Vakbewegings Internationale (VVI) forms in Amsterdam
- Jul 31 The Weimar Constitution establishing the German Republic is adopted
First Aviation Exhibition Amsterdam
Aug 1 Queen Wilhelmina opens 1st Air Fair in Amsterdam
- Aug 4 Hungarian communist leader Béla Kun flees to Vienna after the Hungarian Soviet Republic is overthrown by the Romanian Army
Rodin Museum Opens
Aug 4 Rodin Museum opens in Paris in The hôtel Biron containing works left to the state by the sculptor Auguste Rodin
Green Bay Packers Founded
Aug 11 Green Bay Packers football club founded by George Calhoun and Curly Lambeau - named after sponsor Indian Packing Company
- Aug 11 Weimar Republic begins in Germany
- Aug 13 American thoroughbred racehorse Man o' War's only defeat in 21 start career; Upset wins Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga Race Course
- Aug 14 Chicago White Sox outfielder Happy Felsch ties MLB record of 4 outfield assists in a game in 15-6 loss to Boston Red Sox
- Aug 18 Anti-Cigarette League of America forms in Chicago, Illinois
- Aug 19 After nearly 100 years of British control, Afghanistan declares itself independent
- Aug 20 Wichita outfielder Joe Wilhoit (Western League) fails to get a hit, ending a 69-game streak (155 hits in 299 at bats for .505 average)
- Aug 23 "Gasoline Alley" cartoon strip premieres in Chicago Tribune
- Aug 24 Having pitched into the 9th inning Cleveland's Ray Caldwell is flattened by a bolt of lightning; goes on to record final out for Indians' 2-1 win over Philadelphia A's
- Aug 25 1st scheduled passenger service by airplane (Paris-London)
- Aug 30 Ernst Toller's "Die Wandlung" premieres in Berlin
- Aug 31 John Reed forms American Communist Labor Party in Chicago
- Aug 31 Petlyura's Ukrainian Army kills 35 members of a Jewish defense group
- Aug 31 Ukrainian (Petlyura) Army recaptures Kiev
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