1921
World Events
January 31st
— A massive uprising of Siberian peasants in the Tyumen
Region revolt against the Bolsheviks; disorder continues for
over a
year¹²
February 21st
— Rezā Shāh stages a coup d’état
in Iran, ultimately replacing Ahmad Shah Qajar as the Shah of
Iran.¹
February 28th
—
Soviet sailors in Kronstadt draft the Petropavlovsk resolution,
comprising of a list of demands which become the basis for the
subsequent Kronstadt
Rebellion¹²
March 4th
— Warren G. Harding is inaugurated as the 29th President of the United States.¹
March 17th
—
Marie Stopes opens the first birth control clinic in
Britain.¹
March 18th
—
Poland, Soviet Russia and the Soviet Ukraine sign the Treaty of
Riga, ending the Polish-Soviet
War.¹
April 11th
— The territory designated by the British Mandate in
Palestine is divided along the river Jordan,
establishing the Emirate of Transjordan to the
east.¹
May 1st
— Riots erupt in
Jaffa between Jewish immigrants and Palestinians,
leaving 95 dead and 219
injured.¹
May 3rd
—
The Government of Ireland Act 1920, passed by the Parliament of the
United Kingdom, becomes law; Northern Ireland is
established.¹²
May 31st
—
The Tulsa Race Riots begin in Tulsa, Oklahoma between white and
black communities. Within a day, 35 square blocks are destroyed and over
1,200 houses burned, leaving an estimated 300 dead and nearly 10,000
homeless.¹²³º
July 1st
— The Communist Party of China is
founded.¹
July 2nd
—
President Harding signs a congressional resolution ending America's
formal state of war against Germany, Austria and
Hungary.¹
July 11th
—
The Irish War of Independence ends, as
Irish and British forces agree to a
truce.¹
July 14th
—
Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
are found guilty of first degree
murder.¹
July 18th
—
The first BCG vaccination against
Tuberculosis is administered to human
patients.¹
July 22nd
— The Spanish Army of Africa suffers a major defeat against Rif
combatants during the Battle of Annual; some 12,000 Spanish troops are
killed.¹
July 27th
— Canadian researchers at the University of Toronto, led by
Frederick Banting and Charles Best, announce the discovery of
insulin.¹
July 29th — Adolf Hitler is made the Führer of the Nazi Party.¹
August 5th
— Radio is used
to broadcast coverage of a baseball game for the first time (the
Pittsburgh Pirates beating the Philadelphia Phillies
8-5).¹
August 23rd
— Faisal I is crowned King of Iraq.¹
August 26th
—
German politician Matthias Erzberger is assassinated by extreme
nationalists for his role in signing the armistice that ended World War
I.¹
September 7th
— The first Miss America Pagent is held.¹
September 17th
— The Shackleton-Rowett Expedition sets out for Antarctica.¹
September 21st
—
An explosion at a BASF plant devastates the town of Oppau, Germany,
destroying most of its buildings, killing an estimated 500 people, and
injuring over 2000
others.¹
October 19th
— The Prime
Minister of Portugal António Granjo is
assassinated.¹
November 4th
— The Prime Minister of Japan Hara Takashi is assassinated.¹
November 9th
—
Benito Mussolini establishes the National Fascist Party in
Italy.¹²
November 11th
—
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is dedicated at
Arlington National Cemetary in
Virginia.¹
November 22nd
—
The Treaty of Rawalpindi is amended, concluding negotiations between
the United Kingdom and Afghanistan following the Third Anglo-Afghan
War, and acknowledging the latter country’s
independence.¹
December 6th
— The Irish Free State is established by the Anglo-Irish
Treaty.¹²
Agnes Macphail becomes the first woman elected to the Canadian
Parliament.¹
December 29th
— William Lyon Mackenzie King is appointed the 10th Prime Minister of Canada.¹
Ongoing
— Assyrian Genocide (1913-1922)¹
— Greek Genocide (1914-1923)¹
— Armenian Genocide (1915-1923)¹
—
The Turkish War of Independence
(1918-1923)¹
—
The Irish War of Independence (1919-1921)¹
— The Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)¹
— The Rif War (1919-1926)¹
— The North China Famine (1920-1921)¹
— The Russian Famine of 1921¹
Innovations
— The German AVUS, precursor to the Autobahn, opens¹
— After years of outdoor trading, the American Stock Exchange
building is established on Greenwich Street, in Lower
Manhattan¹
— The
character Betty Crocker is created by the Washburn Crosby
Company¹
— The Bloody Mary is said by some to have been invented by Pete
Petiot of Harry's New York Bar in
Paris¹
— Max Braun opens an engineering shop, founding the company
Braun¹
—
The first children's carseats
debut¹
— The first upward-lifting garage door is invented by the Overhead Door Company¹
— Guccio Gucci founds Gucci and begins selling leather travel bags¹
— C.A. Dawson-Scott founds International PEN, an association of
poets, playwrights, editors, essayist and
novelists¹
— Land O'Lakes is founded¹
— The National Honor Society is founded by the National Association
of Secondary School
Principals¹
— Master Lock is founded¹
— Professor Walter Cady of Wesleyan University builds the first
crystal-controlled
oscillator¹
—
The first Pep Boys auto parts supply store is opened in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania¹
— The phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” is coined by an advertiser in the trade journal Printer’s Ink¹
— Quick Quaker Oats are first introduced¹
— Theodore and Milton Deutschmann open the first RadioShack in downtown Boston,
Massachusetts¹
— Hermann Rorschach publishes his book Psychodiagnostik,
which serves as the foundation for the Rorschach
test¹
— The first See's Candies kitchen is opened in Los Angeles, California¹
— The first White Castle restaurant is opened in Wichita, Kansas¹
—
Wonder Bread is introduced by the Taggart Baking
Co.¹
Art
— Max Beckmann, The Dream¹
— Lovis Corinth, Death and the Artist¹
— Stuart Davis, Lucky Strike¹
— Charles Demuth, Incense of a New Church¹
— Charles Demuth, Modern Conveniences¹
— Max Ernst, Celebes¹
— Fernand Léger, The Three Women¹
— James Edward Harvey Macdonald, The Solemn Land¹
— Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray¹
— Piet Mondrian, Diagonal Composition¹
— Pablo Picasso, Nude Seated on a Rock¹
— Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians¹
— Pablo Picasso, Three Women at the Spring¹
— Man Ray, Gift¹
— Paul Signac, Port of La Rochelle¹
— Mario Sironi, Urban Landscape¹
— Chaim Soutine, Landscape at Céret¹
— Stanley Spencer, Christ's Entry into Jerusalem¹
— Georges Vantongerloo, Construction of Volume Relations¹
Literature
— Sherwood Anderson, The Triumph of the
Egg¹
— Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow¹
— H.P. Lovecraft, The Nameless City¹
— Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an
Author¹
— Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, vol. 4: Sodom and Gomorrah¹
— William Carlos Williams, Sour Grapes¹
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus¹
— W.B. Yeats, Michael Robartes and the Dancer¹
Physics
— Albert
Einstein, for "his many contributions to theoretical physics, and
especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric
effect."¹
Chemistry
— Frederick Soddy, for his research on radioactive decay and his formation of the theory of isotopes.
Medicine
— No award given.
Literature
— Anatole France
Peace
— Hjalmar Branting, Christian Lange
Reporting
— Louis Seibold of New York World, "for an interview with President Wilson."
Editorial Writing
— No award given.
Public Service
— The Boston Post, "for its exposure of the operations of Charles Ponzi by a series of articles which finally led to his arrest."
Novel
— The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Drama
— Miss Lulu Bett by Zona Gale
History
— The Victory at Sea by William Sowden Sims in collaboration with Burton J. Hendrick
Biography or Autobiography
— The Americanization of Edward Bok by Edward Bok
Births
January 5th
— Jean,
Grand Duke of Luxembourg
(1964-2000)¹
January 9th
— Lister Sinclair, Canadian broadcaster¹
January 19th
— Patricia Highsmith, author of The Talented Mr. Ripley¹
January 27th
— Donna Reed, co-starred in It's a Wonderful Life¹
January 31st
— Carol Channing, American actress & singer¹
February 1st
— Peter Sallis, British actor¹
February 4th
— Betty Friedan, writer & feminist activist¹
February 14th
— Hugh Downs, American broadcaster¹
February 16th
— Hua Guofeng, 2nd Chairman of the Communist Party of China (1976-1981)¹
February 24th
— Abe Vigoda, American actor ¹
February 25th
—
Pierre Laporte, Canadian politician kidnapped and murdered by the
FLQ¹
March 1st
— Richard Wilbur, 2nd U.S. Poet Laureate¹
March 11th
— Frank Harary, American mathematician¹
March 12th
— Giovanni Agnelli, chairman of Fiat (1966-2003)¹
March 13th
— Al Jaffee, American cartoonist¹
March 17th
—
Meir Amit, head of the Mossad
(1963-1968)¹
March 24th
— Vasily Smyslov, chess grandmaster¹
March 25th
—
Simone Signoret, first French citizen to win an Academy
Award¹
April 9th
— Yitzhak Navon, 5th President of Israel (1978-1982)¹
April 14th
—
Thomas Schelling, awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in
Economics¹
April 16th
— Peter Ustinov, English actor and writer¹
May 2nd
— Satyajit Ray, Indian filmmaker¹
May 3rd
— Sugar Ray Robinson, American boxer¹
May 5th
—
Arthur Leonard Schawlow, awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics for
his part in the development of the
laser¹
May 6th
— Erich Fried, Austrian poet¹
May 9th
—
Sophie Scholl, German activist executed for high treason by the Nazi
party¹
— Mona Van Duyn, 6th U.S. Poet Laureate¹
May 12th
— Joseph Beuys, German artist¹
— Farley Mowat, author of Never Cry Wolf¹
May 16th
— Harry Carey, jr., American actor¹
May 18th
—
Anthony Epstein, co-discoverer of the Epstein-Barr
virus¹
May 21st
— Andrei Sakharov, Russian scientist¹
May 23rd
— Humphrey Lyttelton, English musician¹
May 25th
—
Jack Steinberger, awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics for his
part in discovering the muon
neutrino¹
June 7th
— Bernard Lown, inventor of the defibrillator¹
June 8th
— Alexis Smith, Canadian actress¹
— Suharto, 2nd President of Indonesia (1967-1998)¹
June 10th
—
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen
Elizabeth
II¹
June 21st
— Jane Russell, American actress¹
June 25th
— Celia Franca, founder of the National Ballet of Canada¹
June 26th
— Violette Szabo, English spy¹
June 28th
— P. V. Narasimha Rao, 10th Prime Minister of the Republic of India (1991-1996)¹
July 4th
— Gérard Debreu, awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Economics¹
July 6th
— Nancy Reagan, wife of U.S. President Ronald Reagan¹
July 10th
— Harvey Ball, American artist¹
— Jake LaMotta, boxer known as the Raging Bull¹
— Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics¹
July 14th
—
Geoffrey Wilkinson, awarded 1973 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his
work with organometallic
compounds¹
July 15th
—
Robert Bruce Merrifield, awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
the invention of solid phase peptide
synthesis¹
July 17th
—
Hannah Szenes, considered a national heroine of Israel for her efforts
to save deportees to
Auschwitz¹
July 18th
—
Aaron T. Beck, father of cognitive
therapy¹
— John Glenn, first American to orbit Earth ¹
July 19th
—
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine for the development of the radioimmunoassay
technique¹
July 26th
— Jean Shepherd, author and narrator of A Christmas Story¹
August 4th
— Maurice Richard, hockey player known as the Rocket¹
August 11th
— Alex Haley, author of Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X¹
August 19th
— Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek¹
August 23rd
—
Kenneth Arrow, awarded the 1972 Nobel Prize in
Economics¹
August 26th
— Shimshon Amitsur, Israeli mathematician¹
August 28th
—
Lidia Gueiler Tejada, first female President of
Bolivia¹
September 5th
— Jack Valenti, president of the MPAA (1966-2004)¹
September 12th
— Stanisław Lem, author of Solaris¹
September 15th
— Norma MacMillan, voice of Casper the Friendly Ghost¹
September 24th
—
Jim McKay, host of The Wide World of Sports
(1961-1998)¹
September 25th
— Robert Muldoon, 31st Prime Minister of New Zealand (1975-1984)¹
September 30th
— Deborah Kerr, star of The King and I¹
October 17th
— Maria Gorokhovskaya, Ukranian gymnist¹
October 21st
—
Victor A. McKusick, father of clinical medical
genetics¹
October 25th
—
Michael of Romania, King of the Romanians (1927-1930,
1940-1947)¹
November 3rd
— Charles Bronson, American actor¹
November 5th
— Fawzia Shirin, Queen of Iran (1941-1948)¹
November 6th
— James Jones, author of The Thin Red Line¹
November 8th
— Gene Saks, American director¹
November 20th
—
Jim Garrison, district attorney investigating the J.F.K.
assassination¹
November 22nd
— Rodney Dangerfield, American comedian & actor¹
November 27th
—
Alexander Dubček, First Secretary of the Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia
(1968-1969)¹
December 4th
— Deanna Durbin, Canadian actress¹
December 26th
— Steve Allen, host of The Tonight Show (1964-1957)¹
Deaths
January 1st
— Theobald von
Bethmann-Hollweg, Chancellor of the German
Empire (1909 to
1917)¹
February 8th
— Peter Kropotkin, Russian anarchist¹
March 29th
— John Burroughs, American naturalist¹
April 6th
— Maximilian Berlitz, founder of the Berlitz Language Schools¹
May 5th
—
Alfred Hermann Fried, awarded the 1911 Nobel Peace
Prize¹
May 19th
— Edward Douglass White, Jr., 9th Chief Justice of the United States (1910-1921)¹
August 2nd
— Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor¹
August 16th
— Peter I, King of Serbia (1903-1918)¹
August 26th
—
Matthias Erzberger, German signatory of the Armistice that ended World
War
I¹
September 9th
— Virginia Rappe, American actress¹
September 11th
— Subramania Bharati, Indian poet ¹
September 27th
— Engelbert Humperdinck, German composer¹
October 18th
— Ludwig III, King of Bavaria
(1913-1918)¹
October 19th
— António Granjo, 77th Prime Minister of Portugal (1920)¹
October 25th
— Bat Masterson, gunfighter & lawman¹
November 4th
— Hara Takashi, 19th Prime Minister of Japan (1918-1921)¹
November 11th
— Jennie Kidd Trout, first female Canadian doctor¹
November 14th
— Isabel, Empress of Brazil (1891-1921)¹
November 28th
— `Abdu'l-Bahá, head of the Bahá'í Faith (1892-1921)¹
December 16th
— Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer¹
December 21st
— P.B.S. Pinchback, first black U.S. governor ¹
Notes
The amount of misinformation I encountered while researching
this write-up was obscene, particularly regarding specific dates. I've
tried to compensate for this as best I can, but, even so, if anyone
comes across any factual errors, send me a message. If you have any
ideas or suggestions about things to add, I would like to hear them as
well.
This write-up originally began as a contribution for the
Everything Quest: Node the Ages, though I'm afraid I've long since
missed the deadline. I'd also like to mention that my grandfather was
born on April 23rd , 1921.
<< 1920 || 1922 >>