1923

Years: 1920 1921 1922 - 1923 - 1924 1925 1926

Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s

Events

January-February

• January 1 – Grouping Act: All UK railway companies are grouped into 4 larger companies.
• January 10 – Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel.
• January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to pay its reparation payments.
• January 17 – Juan de la Cierva invents the autogyro, a rotary-winged aircraft with an unpowered rotor.
• January 18 – Elon College's campus is destroyed by a fire.
• February 8 – Billy Hughes resigns as Prime Minister of Australia, after the Country Party refuses to govern in coalition with him as the leader of the Nationalist Party. Hughes is succeeded by his Treasurer, Stanley Bruce.
• February 23 – Albert Einstein visits Barcelona, Spain, at the invitation of scientist Esteban Terradas i Illa.

March-April

• March – Antigone by Jean Cocteau appears on a Paris stage (settings by Pablo Picasso, music by Arthur Honegger, and costumes by Gabrielle Chanel). Antonin Artaud plays the part of Tiresias.
• March 1
  • The USS Connecticut is decommissioned.
  • Greece adopts the Gregorian calendar.
• March 2 – Time Magazine hits newsstands for the first time.
• March 9 – Vladimir Lenin suffers his third stroke, which renders him bedridden and unable to speak; consequently he retires his position as Chairman of the Soviet government.
• March 28 – Regia Aeronautica, the air force of Fascist Italy, is founded.
• April 6 – The first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia is formed in Victoria Institution, Malaysia.
• April 12 – The Kandersteg International Scout Centre comes into existence.
• April 23 – The Turkish Council is founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
• April 26 – Prince Albert marries Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Westminster Abbey.
• April 29 – The Gdynia seaport is inaugurated.

May-June

• May 9 – Southeastern Michigan receives a record 6 inches of snow after temperatures plummeted from 62 to 34 degrees between 1 and 6 pm on the previous day.
• May 23 – Belgium's SABENA Airlines is created.
• May 24 – The Irish Civil War ends.
• May 27 – The Ku Klux Klan defies a law requiring publication of its members.
• June 9 – A military coup in Bulgaria ousts prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski (he is killed June 14).
• June 13 – China President Li abandons his residence because a warlord has commanded forces to surround the mansion and cut off its water and electric supplies, in order to force him to abandon his post.
• June 16 – The storming of Ayan in Siberia concludes the Yakut Revolt and the Russian Civil War.
• June 18 – Mount Etna erupts in Italy, making 60,000 homeless.
• June 25 – Rapid Bucureşti is formed on the initiative of the Griviţa railroad workers (first named CFR Bucureşti).

July-August

• July 1 – Alberta school Edmonton is founded.
• July 10 – Large hailstones kill 23 in Rostow, Soviet Union.
• July 19 – July 20 – Pancho Villa is assassinated.
• July 24 – The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in the First World War.
• August 2 – Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States, (1921 – 1923) dies in office and is succeeded by Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929).
• August 13 – The first major seagoing ship arrives at Gdynia, the newly constructed Polish seaport.
• August 13 – Gustav Stresemann is named Chancellor of Germany and founds a coalition government for the Weimar Republic.
• August 30 – Hurricane season began, with a tropical storm northeast of Turks and Caicos.

September-October

• September 1 – The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing an estimated 142,807 people, but according to a Japanese construction research center report in 2005, 105,000 are confirmed dead.
• September 4 – In Lakehurst, New Jersey, the first American airship, the USS Shenandoah, takes to the sky for the first time.
• September 6 – The Italian navy occupies Corfu in retaliation for the murder of an Italian officer. The League of Nations protests and they leave on September 29.
• September 8 – Honda Point Disaster: Seven U.S. Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast.
• September 9 – Turkish head of state Atatürk founds the CHP.
• September 10 – Ireland joins the League of Nations.
• September 13 – Military coup in Spain: Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship. Trade unions are banned for 10 years.
• September 17 – A major fire in Berkeley, California erupts, consuming some 640 structures, including 584 homes in the densely-built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University of California.
• September 18 – September 26 – Newspaper printers strike in New York.
• September 24 – Second hurricane of the season, a major hurricane north of Hispaniola.
• September 26 – In Bayern, Gustav Ritter von Kahr declares independence from Berlin.
• October 13 – Ankara replaces Istanbul as the capital of Turkey.
• October 13 – The third hurricane of the season, the first recorded example of a storm crossing from the Eastern Pacific basin into the Atlantic basin, occurred in Oaxaca.
• October 14 – Fourth tropical storm of the year, formed just north of Panama.
• October 15 – Fifth tropical storm of the year, formed north of the Leeward Islands.
• October 16 – The sixth tropical storm developed in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a rare occurrence, it consisted of four active tropical storms simultaneously.
• October 16 – Roy and Walt Disney Founded 'The Walt Disney Company'.
• October 26 – In Persia, Reza Khan became Ahmad Shah Qajar's prime minister.
• October 29 – Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

November-December

• November 1 – The Finnish flag carrier Finnair airline is started in Aero Oy.
• November 8 – Munich Putsch: In Munich, Germany, Adolf Hitler and his party members attempt to overthrow the German government.
• 9 November Police and Reichswehr crush the uprising in Munich.
• November 12 – Her Highness Princess Maud of Fife marries Captain Charles Alexander Carnegie in Wellington Barracks, London.
• November 15 – The hyperinflation in Germany reaches its height. One United States dollar is worth 4,200,000,000,000,000 Papiermark (4.2 quadrillion). Gustav Stresemann abolishes the old currency (see inflation in the Weimar Republic).
• November 23 – Gustav Stresemann's coalition government collapses in Germany.
• December 12 – In Italy, the Po River dam bursts, killing 600.
• December 20 – BEGGARS Fraternity (the first social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the United States) is founded by a 9 men, who secured permission to do so from the Pope.
• December 27 – The crown prince of Japan survives an assassination attempt in Tokyo.

Births

• March 9 - Eustace Mullins, American nationalist and author (d. 2010)
• March 23 - David L. Hoggan, historical revisionist (d. 1988)
• May 27 - Henry Kissinger, United States Secretary of State
• June 19 - Colin Jordan, British National Socialist leader (d. 2009)

Deaths

• August 2 - Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States (b. 1865)
• December 26 - Dietrich Eckart, early supporter of NSDAP and member of the Thule Society (b. 1868)