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January 1920

Month in 1920 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

January 1920
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The following events occurred in January 1920:

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January 10, 1920: Treaty of Versailles goes into effect, changing map of Europe
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January 17, 1920: Possession of alcohol and beer no longer allowed outside the home in the U.S.
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January 12, 1920: French cruise ship SS Afrique sinks, killing 575 of its 609 passengers and crew
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January 5, 1920: Boston Red Sox sell rights for Babe Ruth to New York Yankees
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January 2, 1920: U.S. arrests 4,025 suspected Communists and anarchists
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January 1, 1920 (Thursday)

  • Harvard University narrowly defeated the University of Oregon, 7 to 6, in the Tournament of Roses East-West Football Game held at Pasadena, California, between the two teams chosen by the tournament committee as the best in the eastern and western United States.[1] All of the scoring came in the second quarter, on a field goal by Oregon's Bill Steers, a 13-yard touchdown run by Fred Church and Arnold Horween's extra point kick for Harvard, and another field goal by Clifford "Skeet" Manerud. In the final minutes of the game, two Oregon field goal tries by Steers were blocked, and a final try by Manerud from the 20 yard line missed by a few inches[2] Harvard, then an independent, was undefeated and went into the game with an 8-0-1 record; it had outscored its opponents 229 to 19 in the 1919 college football season. Oregon had a 5-1-0 record in the Pacific Coast Conference, and had given the other 5-1-0 team, the University of Washington, its only loss. The event, which is now called the Rose Bowl, was the only post-season college football game at the time.
  • At 4:00 in the afternoon on the first day of the year, Chicago police began raids on 300 suspected "open and secret gathering places" of "radical cults" in an effort by Chicago's state prosecutor to "wipe out Bolshevism."[3] Hoyne accused U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer of "playing petty politics" and "pursuing a pussyfoot policy" by failing to aid Chicago in the roundup of subversives.[4] Palmer would begin his own raids the following day.[5][6] The raid led to 4,025 arrests of accused communists and anarchists in more than 30 cities. Among the persons arrested was international opera star Georges Baklanoff of Russia (who was quickly released) on the affidavit of a former girlfriend.[7]
  • The United Kingdom's Union of Post Office Workers began operations following the 1919 merger of three labor unions, the Postmen's Federation, Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association and the Fawcett Association.[8]
  • Already plagued with post-defeat inflation, the Imperial Bank of Germany printed an additional 1.4 billion marks and placed it into circulation, bringing the total of paper money in Germany to 47,724,000,000 marks.[9]
  • The Russian Red Army increased its troops along its border with Poland from four divisions to 20.[6]
  • Born:
  • Died: Zygmunt Gorazdowski, 74, Polish Roman Catholic priest, founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph, canonized as a saint in 2005 (b. 1845)
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January 2, 1920 (Friday)

  • Counting began for the 1920 United States Census, the 14th decennial census taken since the 1789 adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Census Bureau predicted that the count would show that the United States now had more than 100,000,000 people, an increase over the 1910 final count of 92,228,496.[10]
  • At the Cook County Jail in Chicago, Charles W. Peters (Cook County sheriff) carried out a "psychological experiment" by having a prisoner executed in front of 200 of his fellow inmates.[11] Prisoners were transferred to cells overlooking the jail courtyard, where a scaffold had been erected, and double-murderer Raffaelo Durrago was hanged at sunrise. Despite objections by Illinois Governor Frank Orren Lowden, who asked the sheriff and jailer W.T. Davies not to make a spectacle of the hanging, the sentence was carried out as planned. Sheriff Peters said in a statement afterward that "well-meaning, but misguided" reformers had "destroyed the fear of punishment by criminals" and that mere incarceration was no longer a deterrent to repeat offenders.[12]
  • Born:
  • Died: Frank Lascelles, 78, British diplomat, UK Ambassador to Persia, Russia and Germany (b. 1841)
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January 3, 1920 (Saturday)

  • Hundreds of people were killed in an earthquake in Mexico, with an epicenter near the Pico de Orizaba in Veracruz state.[13] Although initial reports were that thousands of people had died,[14] the final death toll of the 7.8 magnitude quake was 648 people. The area was rocked by a tremor for five minutes starting at 9:45 in the evening, with the most intense damage happening forty minutes later at 10:25 p.m. Hardest hit were the villages of Teocelo and Couzatlan.
  • Troops from Poland and Latvia (referred to at the time by the North American and British press as "Lettland") retook the city of Dvinsk from control of the Bolshevik army.[15] The Latvians subsequently renamed the city Daugavpils.
  • U.S. Attorney General Palmer told newspaper reporters that the roundup of subversives came after discovery of a plot by radical leaders "to overthrow the government and seize control of the country" and to create a Soviet-style system to rule in its place. Palmer cited the Chicago convention of the Communist Party of America and a manifesto adopted on September 1 as advocacy for the overthrow "by force and violence".[16]
  • The city of Yuma, Arizona, was without sunshine all day long for the first time since 1874, according to residents of the desert locale. A steady rainfall pelted the usually-dry town after 45 years with minimal precipitation.[17]
  • Born: Renato Carosone, Italian musician and singer, known for his 1958 hit song Torero; as Renato Carusone, in Naples, Kingdom of Italy (present-day Italy) (d. 2001)
  • Died: Zygmunt Janiszewski, 31, Polish mathematician; died of Spanish flu (b. 1888)

January 4, 1920 (Sunday)

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Admiral Kolchak
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January 5, 1920 (Monday)

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January 6, 1920 (Tuesday)

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January 7, 1920 (Wednesday)

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Sir Edmond Barton
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January 8, 1920 (Thursday)

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Maud Powell
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January 9, 1920 (Friday)

  • With a crew of 42 aboard, the British cargo ship Treveal ran aground in a storm as it was nearing the end of its first voyage. The Treveal was on its way to Dundee in Scotland after having departed Calcutta, but got stranded on the Kimmeridge Ledge off of the English coast near Dorset. For hours, rescue boats were unable to get close to the wrecked ship, and as the Treveal started to break up, its crew climbed into two lifeboats, both of which were swamped by the waves. Only seven crewmembers were able to swim to shore, and the other 35 drowned in the English Channel.[28][29]
  • Born:

January 10, 1920 (Saturday)

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Socialist Congressman-elect Berger
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January 11, 1920 (Sunday)

  • The Supreme Council of the League of Nations members voted to give full recognition of the independence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic,[37] the Democratic Republic of Armenia and the Democratic Republic of Georgia as separate from the former Russian Empire.[38] Within the next two years, all three of the nations would be invaded and annexed into the Soviet Union.[citation needed]
  • The Smithsonian Institution announced in Washington, D.C., that a "multiple charge high efficiency rocket" had been invented by Clark College Professor Robert H. Goddard. Citing Goddard's discovery that the increase of the ratio of propulsion material to the weight of a projectile, coupled with an improved nozzle for the rocket engine, had raised the efficiency of the rocket from two percent to 64%, and that a rocket could be developed to reach a speed of 8,000 feet per second (2,400 m/s). "The great scientific value of Professor Goddard's experiments", the Smithsonian press release stated, "lies in the possibility of sending recording apparatus to moderate and extreme altitudes", noting that the highest altitude of a balloon was 19 miles (31 km), and added that "Weather forecasting... would undoubtedly be improved if daily observations could be taken in the upper levels of the atmosphere" and that a craft could actually reach the Moon.[39]
  • France held its first elections for the French Senate since the start of World War I, with 240 seats up for voting.[40]
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January 12, 1920 (Monday)

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ARA Director Hoover

January 13, 1920 (Tuesday)

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Goddard U.S. stamp
  • The New York Times published an editorial ridiculing American rocketry pioneer Robert H. Goddard, referring to Goddard's statement that a rocket fired from Earth could reach the Moon after crossing into the vacuum of space. Observing that "after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that." The editorial writer added "That Professor Goddard, with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react— to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."[44] The Times would rescind the editorial on July 17, 1969, following the launch of Apollo 11, commenting "[I]t is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error."[45]
  • Forty-two demonstrators were killed in Berlin when city police began using bombs and machine guns to disperse the crowd.[46]

January 14, 1920 (Wednesday)

January 15, 1920 (Thursday)

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"Five Minute" Prime Minister
  • Francisco Fernandes Costa was asked to form a new government for the Kingdom of Portugal after Alfredo de Sá Cardoso resigned as the nation's presidente do Ministerio (president of the cabinet, equivalent to prime minister). Preparing to take office with his coalition of ministers, he was holding his first cabinet meeting when a mob of protesters assembled in the streets. Anticipating violence, Fernandes Costa resigned the same day that he had started the job, an event now called “O Governo dos Cinco Minutos” — "The Five Minute Government."[48][49][50] Fernandes Costa returned to form a new ministry the next day, on the condition that he also be appointed to serve as Foreign Minister.[citation needed]
  • A group of about 300 anti-government rebels in Haiti, the "Cacos", made a surprise early morning attack on the capital at Port-au-Prince, only to discover that government police and an occupational force of U.S. Marines had been informed of the plot. At least 116 of the cacos, and one of the Marines, were killed in the battle.[51] The tipoff of the impending attack was reportedly given by a U.S. resident, Mr. Elliott, who was the general manager of the Haitian-American Sugar Company refinery on the outskirts of town. Elliott was awake at 2:00 in the morning when he noticed the marching troops and telephoned the U.S. Marine barracks.[52]
  • Born: John O'Connor, American Roman Catholic Cardinal, served as Archbishop of New York from 1984 until his death; in Philadelphia, United States (d. 2000)
  • Died: Richard Cockburn Maclaurin, 49, Scottish-born American educator and mathematical physicist, 6th President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (b. 1870)

January 16, 1920 (Friday)

  • Prohibition in the United States began at the end of the day, with the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution coming into effect. The amendment had been ratified on January 16, 1919, and provided in Section 1 "After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exporation therefor from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."[53][54] The final day of legal alcohol sales saw minimal celebration and, at midnight in each United States time zone, all 177,790 licensed saloons in the U.S. ceased alcohol sales.[55]
  • At 10:30 in the morning in the clock room of the French Foreign Ministry, the new League of Nations began operations with the holding of its first Executive Council meeting. With Léon Bourgeois of France presiding, representatives from Belgium, Brazil, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom participated in the first session. As New York Times reporter Edwin L. James described it, "The nine men gathered about the table started a work which may influence the lives of untold millions of humans for centuries to come." In addition, the Allied blockade of Russia was partially lifted in order for grain to be exchanged for Russian manufactured products, but recognition was not otherwise accorded to the Soviet government.[56]
  • The Allies of World War I served a summons upon the Netherlands Ambassador to France, demanding for the extradition of former German Kaiser Wilhelm II for trial for war crimes.[57] The Kaiser, who was charged with three counts of a treaty violation by invading Belgium, permitting German U-boats to sink civilian ships, and using poison gas in warfare. He had fled after his abdication in 1918.[citation needed]
  • U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing announced that U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Siberia on February 1.[58]
  • Born: Al Morgan, American novelist and TV producer (d. 2011)
  • Died: Reginald De Koven, 59, American operatic composer, founder of the Washington Symphony Orchestra (b. 1859)

January 17, 1920 (Saturday)

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President-elect Deschanel and challenger Clemenceau
  • Paul Deschanel was elected as the new President of France, with 734 of 889 members of the National Assembly casting votes in his favor. Only 56 voted for Prime Minister Clemenceau.[59] Deschanel was inaugurated on February 18 for a seven-year term, but would soon be forced to resign because of a deterioration of his sanity.[citation needed]
  • At one minute after midnight, any liquor or beer in a public place in the United States, became subject to seizure and destruction by the U.S. government.[60]

January 18, 1920 (Sunday)

January 19, 1920 (Monday)

January 20, 1920 (Tuesday)

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Federico Fellini, DeForest Kelley and Fabian Ver
  • Former White Forces commander Alexander Kolchak, defeated by the Bolshevik Army in the Russian Civil War, was surrendered by the White Army authorities at Irkutsk. The Bolsheviks placed him on trial the next day and would execute him on February 7[18]
  • The League of Nations Council voted to deliver an ultimatum to Yugoslavia, giving the government four days to comply with the Pact of London by allowing Italy to occupy the Adriatic seaport of Fiume.[64] The pact had been made with Italy in World War I to bring Italy into the side of the Allied Powers in the war against the Central Powers.
  • The foundering of the U.S. freighter Macona off of the coast of the Sweden in sight of the Nidingen Lighthouse killed 40 of the 41 crew aboard.[65]

[66]

January 21, 1920 (Wednesday)

  • The Battle of Marash began as the Turkish National Forces besieged the former Ottoman Empire city of Maraş in order to reclaim it from the occupying French Army and the French Armenian Legion and French Senegalese troops from Africa. After three weeks, the French Army would flee the city and most of the 20,000 Armenians in Marash would be killed.[citation needed]
  • The final session of the Paris Peace Conference was held, even though peace treaties with Hungary and Turkey remain to be concluded. The United States would not conclude its own treaty with Germany until August 25, 1921.
  • Mississippi became the first U.S. state to decline to ratify the proposed Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, providing for the right of American women to vote in all U.S. elections. In the state House of Representatives, only 25 were in favor, while 106 were against ratification.[67][68] On March 22, 1984, almost 64 years after the Amendment went into effect, Mississippi would become the last state to pass its resolution to ratify.[69]
  • Railroad service across Italy was disrupted when the nation's railway workers went on strike. The Italian Army was sent to guard railroad stations, lines and trains, with orders to shoot at anyone attempting to interfere with the passage of the few trains that could be operated.[70] The strike ended one week later after an agreement was reached between the government and labor leaders.[71]
  • Mexico granted tentative permits to U.S. oil companies for oil exploration and drilling, to be made permanent after the election of a new president and Mexican Congress in July.[72]
  • Born: Errol Barrow, Barbadian statesman, first Prime Minister of Barbados from 1966 to 1976; in Saint Lucy, British Windward Islands (present-day Barbados) (d. 1987)

January 22, 1920 (Thursday)

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William McWilliams

January 23, 1920 (Friday)

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The former Kaiser (center) along with former Crown Prince Wilhelm (left), and grandson, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (right))

January 24, 1920 (Saturday)

January 25, 1920 (Sunday)

  • The republic of Germany suggested a compromise with the Allied Powers over demands that the German government surrender 334 citizens for prosecution for crimes committed by them during the First World War.[78] Under the German proposal, the Leipzig War Crimes Trials would take place before a group of seven criminal judges from the former Imperial Court of Justice of Germany. The Allies, who had been unable to persuade Germany to allow its people to be tried by foreign governments, agreed to the German proposal in May and delivered the names of 45 accused German war criminals.[citation needed]

January 26, 1920 (Monday)

  • Germany's Reich Minister of Finance, Matthias Erzberger, was wounded in an assassination attempt as he was standing outside the Criminal Courts Building in Berlin. Erzberger was struck in the shoulder, but a second bullet, aimed at his stomach, was deflected by the chain of his pocket watch.[79] Erzberger would be forced to resign two months later in a corruption scandal. Hated by German nationalists for signing the surrender of Germany in 1918, Erzberger was killed in a second assassination attempt on August 26, 1921.[citation needed]
  • Died:

January 27, 1920 (Tuesday)

January 28, 1920 (Wednesday)

  • Construction began on the Cincinnati Subway in Cincinnati, Ohio, as Mayor John Galvin operated a steam shovel to dig the first ground at Walnut Street and the former Miami and Erie Canal.[80][81] Two miles of tunnels had been excavated by 1923, but the project was abandoned when no additional funding was ever provided.[citation needed]
  • King Alfonso XIII of Spain issued a decree establishing the Spanish Legion, similar to the French Foreign Legion, under the name El Tercio de Extranjeros ("The Foreigners’ Regiment”).[citation needed]
  • South Carolina's legislature passed a resolution specifically rejecting the proposed 19th Amendment (as opposed to failing to approve a resolution for ratification), with the state Senate voting 30 to 4 to turn it down.[82] The state House of Representatives had voted 97 to 21 in favor of rejection on January 22. On July 1, 1969, almost 49 years after the amendment's effective date, South Carolina would ratify the amendment.[citation needed]

January 29, 1920 (Thursday)

January 30, 1920 (Friday)

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Whiskey available by prescription only

January 31, 1920 (Saturday)

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Joe Malone

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