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July 1920

Month in 1920 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

July 1920
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July 26, 1920: Charles Ponzi scheme exposed by The Boston Post
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July 5, 1920: Ohio Governor James M. Cox nominated as Democratic presidential candidate after 44 ballots, selects Assistant U.S. Navy Secretary Franklin Roosevelt as running mate
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July 10, 1920: Arthur Meighen becomes new Prime Minister of Canada
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July 4, 1920: DuPont chemist's accidental discovery of Duco process opens the era of colorful mass-produced automobiles (pictured: a 1924 "True Blue" Oakland Tourer, first model lacquered with Duco paint)
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July 1, 1920 (Thursday)

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Borden
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July 2, 1920 (Friday)

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Secretary McAdoo vs. Attorney General Palmer
  • Delegate voting for the presidential nomination began at the 1920 Democratic National Convention at San Francisco. With a two-thirds majority (or 729½ of the 1102 delegate votes) necessary for a nomination, former Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo, had 266 votes on the first ballot, followed by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer with 256, Ohio Governor James M. Cox with 134 and New York Governor Al Smith with 109. The other votes were split among 19 other candidates.[5] The convention adjourned for the day after the second roll call, with McAdoo still in first place.
  • Sir Herbert Samuel arrived in Jaffa to begin his duties as the first British High Commissioner for Palestine, placed under mandate by the Allied Powers.[6]
  • The Soviet Army and Ukrainian Bolsheviks captured the former Austro-Hungarian town of Lemberg, occupied at the time by Poland (which had named in Lwow), driving out Polish and Ukrainian forces.[7] For decades, it was part of the Ukrainian SSR as Lvov, and is now the Ukrainian city of Lviv.
  • Died: General William L. Marshall, 74, Chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1908 to 1910 (b. 1846)[citation needed]
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July 3, 1920 (Saturday)

  • Germany's Chancellor Constantin Fehrenbach and his new coalition government received a vote of confidence in the Reichstag by a margin of 313 to 64.[8]
  • Meeting at Brussels, the Allied Conference agreed upon a division of the reparation payments that would be expected from Germany, with the initial 8 percent being allocated to Belgium; 52% to France, 22% to the United Kingdom, 5 1/2 % to Serbia and 4% apiece to Italy, Japan and Portugal.[9] The reparation was reportedly going to be based on a principal of 6,000,000,000 British pounds sterling, along with interest, payable in installments of £150,000,000 per year for the first five years, and £250,000,000 from 1926 onward.[3]
  • Sixteen more roll calls were taken in the Democratic National Convention. On the seventh ballot, Governor Cox gained 100 votes to surpass Attorney General Palmer, and, on the twelfth ballot, Cox passed Secretary McAdoo to become the front runner. Cox had 458 when the day adjourned after the eighteenth ballot, still short of the necessary 729½ votes, and McAdoo had 330½.[10]
  • A bolt of lightning led to 18 deaths and over 100 injuries in the wreck of three streetcars near Pittston, Pennsylvania. Most of those killed were sports fans returning to Scranton from the annual Caledonian Club games against Pittston. At 7:30 in the evening, the lightning struck and knocked down a telegraph pole adjacent to the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad line, just as the lead streetcar was approaching. Moments later, the second streetcar crashed into the back of the first one, and then "a third car telescoped the second car."[11]
  • Born: Lennart Bladh, Swedish politician, member of the Riskdag from 1974 to 1985; in Kristianstad (d. 2006)[citation needed]
  • Died: William C. Gorgas, 65, Surgeon General of the United States Army during World War I (b. 1854)[citation needed]

July 4, 1920 (Sunday)

  • A researcher at the DuPont chemical laboratories ("more by accident, I think, than by intention" General Motors CEO Alfred P. Sloan would note later), effected a chemical reaction "which led to the development of a nitrocellulose lacquer eventually called Duco."[12] Because the lacquer base could carry more color pigment in suspension, the color of automobiles was no longer limited to black and, in 1923, GM's Oakland Motor Car Company would introduce the dark blue 1924 Oakland Tourer. While cars had been custom painted in other colors in the past (with a finish that would take a month to dry), the Duco Finish permitted the mass production of cars in other colors.[13] The Duco Finish was described by the DuPont company as "a pyroxylin material made from chemically treated cotton, pigments and solvents" that "will practically revolutionize the enameling business" because it dried at room temperature in a few minutes, as well as being "tough, durable, adhesive, pleasing to the eye and touch."[14]
  • Born:
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July 5, 1920 (Monday)

  • After 43 ballots for a presidential nominee, the U.S. Democratic Party nominated Ohio Governor James M. Cox.[3] In the 30th round of voting, Secretary McAdoo had taken a 403½ to 400½ lead over Governor Cox, and maintained the lead until the 39th round, when the votes shifted to 468½ to 440 in Cox's favor. As midnight arrived, voting was in progress on a motion to adjourn.
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Clay
  • Laura Clay, one of the Kentucky delegates to the Democratic National Convention, became the first American woman to receive a vote for a presidential nomination for a major U.S. political party. On the 33rd ballot, Augustus O. Stanley, the chairman of the Kentucky delegation, cast one of the state's 26 votes for Mrs. Clay.[15]
  • The Spa Conference between the Supreme War Council (composed of the prime ministers of the Allied nations who had won the First World War) and the German Reich, opened in the town of Spa in Belgium.[16]
  • Died:
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July 6, 1920 (Tuesday)

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Ohio Governor Cox, the Democratic Party nominee
  • The Democratic Convention finally had a nominee for President of the United States at 1:39 in the morning in San Francisco, as Ohio Governor James M. Cox was picked by delegates on the 44th ballot, with 699½ votes cast. "[I]t was apparent that before the ballot was completed he would obtain more than 729 votes, the two-thirds majority required to nominate," The New York Times noted, and the Vice Chairman of the Democratic National Committee then "interrupted the voting and moved to have the nomination made unanimous."[18] The 42nd balloting began at 12:26 in the morning.
  • King Christian X of Denmark ratified the treaty with Germany, returning the northern part of the former German Duchy of Schleswig to Danish control as the province of Slesvig.[19]
  • A mob in Paris, Texas, forced its way into the jail at the Lamar County courthouse and seized two African American brothers, Irving Arthur and Herman Arthur, who had been arrested on suspicion of the July 2 murder of their landlord and his son. The group then took the Arthur brothers to the county fairgrounds and burned the men at the stake.[20]
  • With the help of an army of 100,000 Cossacks, General Pyotr Wrangel's White Russian Army announced that it had surrounded and captured 18 regiments of the Red Army Cavalry, taking 20,000 prisoners and driving the Bolsheviks from Novorossiysk, Taganrog and Ekaterinodar.[21]
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Navy, was nominated by the Democratic Party for Vice President of the United States.[22] Roosevelt, the selection of Democratic nominee James M. Cox, was approved by acclamation without a roll call vote.
  • Died: Andrew Traynor, 77, American Union soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1843)[citation needed]
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July 7, 1920 (Wednesday)

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July 8, 1920 (Thursday)

  • In the city of Spa in Belgium, the Allied powers gave a 24-hour ultimatum to Germany for a reduction of the German Army from 200,000 to 150,000 by the end of October, and to 100,000 by the end of January, 1921. Speaking for the Allies, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George said that if the German government failed to sign an acceptance of the disarmament plan by 12:00 noon on July 9, the Allied Powers were prepared to send troops across the Rhine river to occupy Germany.[27]
  • The Louisiana state legislature adjourned at midnight without taking up the question of the women's suffrage amendment.[28] The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution would take effect the following month. Almost 50 years later, Louisiana's legislature would finally ratify the amendment.[29][30]
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July 9, 1920 (Friday)

  • At the Spa Conference in Belgium on terms of Germany's post-war obligations, representatives of Germany agreed to the reduction of the republic's army.[31]

July 10, 1920 (Saturday)

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July 11, 1920 (Sunday)

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July 12, 1920 (Monday)

July 13, 1920 (Tuesday)

  • Bolivia's President José Gutiérrez Guerra was overthrown in a coup led by General Bautista Saavedra, who led a junta of several officers and then won an election in 1921. Gutiérrez had been elected president in 1917 as the Liberal Party candidate.[44] Saavedra, leader of the Republican Party, brought an end to 21 years of Liberal Party rule would serve as President of Bolivia until his term's expiration in 1925.[citation needed]
  • The United Kingdom and Japan reported to the League of Nations that they were renewing treaty of alliance.[45]
  • The Trades Union Congress of the United Kingdom conducted a vote on the future of Ireland, with union members casting card votes overwhelmingly (almost 2.76 million to 1.64 million) in favor of withdrawing British troops from Ireland and Russia, and establishing a separate Irish parliament.[46]
  • Born: Anna Halprin (stage name for as Hannah Schuman) American choreographer and dancer, known for her innovations in postmodern dance and for her books on "The Five Stages of Healing" following her recovery from cancer diagnosed in 1972;, in Winnetka, Illinois (d. 2021)[citation needed]

July 14, 1920 (Wednesday)

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King Faisal of Syria

July 15, 1920 (Thursday)

  • The Allies served an ultimatum on Germany demanding delivery of two million tons of German coal per month, or 24 million per year, less than the 29 million per year agreed upon in the Treaty of Versailles.[3] Germany responded that it had capacity to deliver no more than 1.1 million per month.[49]
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Gibson
  • Serial killer Mose Gibson killed his seventh and last victim. Gibson broke into the home of Roy G. Trapp, a wealthy rancher near Fullerton, California, and beat Trapp to death with a miner's hammer. He then beat Trapp's wife unconscious and raped her. Gibson was arrested in Drake, California, after his description was recognized by a telegraph operator.[50] Gibson confessed to the murder of Trapp, as well as the June murder of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Earhart in Arizona, and victims in Louisiana and Florida. Convicted of the Trapp murder, Gibson was hanged on September 24 at the San Quentin State Prison.[citation needed]
  • Chile mobilized 10,000 of its troops after Bolivian rebels deported former President Gutierrez to the port of Arica.[51]
  • Sinn Féin raided the Dublin post office during the daytime and, without encountering resistance, carried away government mail and mail addressed to law enforcement agencies.[52]
  • Meeting in Chicago, delegates of the Farmer-Labor Party nominated Parley Park Christensen for President and Max F. Hayes for Vice President.[53]
  • The America's Cup yachting race series was held for the first time since 1903. The UK challenger, Sir Thomas Lipton's yacht, Shamrock IV defeated the American championship representative, Resolute, in the first race.[54] No foreign challenger had won a single race except on October 19, 1871, when England's Livonia outraced the U.S. yacht Columbia.[55]

July 16, 1920 (Friday)

July 17, 1920 (Saturday)

July 18, 1920 (Sunday)

July 19, 1920 (Monday)

July 20, 1920 (Tuesday)

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Johnson
  • Jack Johnson, the former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, surrendered to U.S. authorities at the Mexican border, more than seven years after fleeing the country to avoid prison. With newsreel cameras rolling, the former champion and Los Angeles County Sheriff John Cline walked together from Tijuana over to the border patrol office at San Ysidro, California, at 10:30 in the morning local time.[72] Johnson served slightly less than a year at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, as inmate number 15461.[73]
  • France's Assemblée nationale approved of Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand by a margin of 420 to 152 in a vote of confidence.[74]
  • The British yacht Shamrock IV, piloted by Sir Thomas Lipton, took a 2 to 0 lead over the defending U.S. champion, Resolute, in the best 3-of-5 America's Cup series. With Shamrock IV one victory away from winning the Cup for the first time, Resolute was put in the situation that it "must take three straight to keep the famous cup on this side of the Atlantic."[75]

July 21, 1920 (Wednesday)

  • The Interallied Mission to Poland began, with a delegation of French and British diplomats traveling to Warsaw in order to negotiate a peaceful end to the Polish–Soviet War. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George told the House of Commons "If ever a nation in history has gone war mad, that nation is Poland. The present Polish government has not the slightest support of a majority of the people," and added, "I am depending upon the wisdom and farsightedness of the Bolsheviks to end the war when they realize the Allies' support is with the Poles."[76] Meanwhile, the evacuation of Warsaw began as women and children left the city by train in advance of a Soviet invasion.[77]
  • In the third round of the America's Cup yachting race, Shamrock IV and Resolute finished the 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 mi) course in exactly the same amount of time — 4 hours, 3 minutes and 6 seconds— but Resolute was awarded the victory based on a seven-minute time allowance.[78]
  • Born:

July 22, 1920 (Thursday)

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A "jungle gym"
  • The patent application for the newly invented playground structure of interlocking horizontal bars and uprights, called the "jungle gym" (also known as the "monkey bars"), was filed by Chicago lawyer Sebastian Hinton and his company, Junglegym, Inc., under the title "climbing structure".[79] Hinton, a resident of Winnetka, Illinois, wrote in his application, "I have designed a climbing apparatus, so proportioned and constructed that it provides a kind of forest top through which a troop of children may play in a manner somewhat similar to that of a troop of monkeys through the tree tops in a jungle." U.S. Patent No. 1,471,465 was awarded on October 23, 1923.
  • Losing the Polish–Soviet War, Poland replaced its government as the nation's chief of state, General Józef Piłsudski, dismissed recently appointed Prime Minister Władysław Grabski and selected Wincenty Witos and a new cabinet of ministers.[80] The selection of Witos, leader of the Polish Peasants' Party, was a compromise to the Soviet demand that a soviet government be appointed before negotiations would be considered. Witos then transmitted a request to Moscow asking for an armistice in the war. Pilsudski also placed General Tadeusz Rozwadowski in command of the defending Polish troops.
  • Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI convened a Crown Council (Suray-i Saltanat), at the Yıldız Palace in Istanbul, attended by 55 prominent royal, political and military figures, including his prime minister, Grand Vizier Damat Ferid Pasha. The group recommended in favor of signing the treaty with the Allied Powers leaving Turkey intact, while dividing the lands of the Ottoman Empire, and some recommended that he abdicate his throne.[81][82]
  • U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who had been nominated as the Republican Party candidate for president on June 12, opened his national campaign as the ceremonial formal notification was delivered to him at his home at 380 Mount Vernon Avenue in Marion, Ohio. Harding then delivered his acceptance speech from his front porch to a crowd of thousands of supporters.[83]
  • The Prohibition Party nominated Aaron S. Watkins as its third-party presidential candidate and D. Leigh Colvin for vice president, at its convention in Lincoln, Nebraska.[84] The Prohibitionists, having accomplished their purpose in ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, would win slightly less than 189,000 votes in the presidential election.
  • Born: Hubert "Bertie" Lewis, American-born Royal Air Force airman and anti-nuclear activist; in Chicago (d. 2010)[citation needed]
  • Died:

July 23, 1920 (Friday)

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Kenya colonial flag

July 24, 1920 (Saturday)

  • The French Army (composed mostly of troops from Algeria, Morocco and Senegal) fought an army of 2,000 Arab volunteers at the Battle of Maysalun outside of Damascus. After eight hours, the Syrian defenders were routed and Yusuf al-'Azma, King Faisal's Minister of War, was among the dead. French forces then marched into Damascus, "marking the start of an unhappy colonial occupation that would last twenty-six years."[87][page needed] King Faisal of Syria and his supporters fled Damascus to British protection in Palestine.[88]
  • The Soviet Union agreed to a temporary armistice in the Polish-Soviet War, as Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar Georgy Chicherin replied to Poland's request for a ceasefire on Soviet terms.[89][90] Chicherin announced that General Mikhail Tukhachevsky would send a flag of truce to Poland's General Rozwadowski to allow Polish negotiators safe passage to a neutral zone.
  • Born: Bella Abzug, American politician, lawyer, and feminist, U.S. Representative for New York from 1971 to 1977; as Bella Savitsky, in New York City (d. 1998)[citation needed]

July 25, 1920 (Sunday)

  • General Mariano Goybet and the French Army marched into Damascus to begin France's mandate over Syria, two weeks in advance of his commanding officer, General Henri Gourard. Making a reference to the First Crusade more than 800 years earlier, General Goybet then made a visit to the Umayyad Mosque, burial place of the 12th century Muslim commander Saladin, and declared "Saladin, nous voici."— "Saladin, we're back." The remark is usually attributed to General Gouraud.[91]
  • Born: Rosalind Franklin, English chemist and X-ray crystallographer, recognized posthumously for her work that led to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA; in London (d. 1958)[citation needed]

July 26, 1920 (Monday)

July 27, 1920 (Tuesday)

July 28, 1920 (Wednesday)

  • Archibald "Archie" Leach, a 16-year old English vaudeville performer, arrived in the United States at Ellis Island, on the ocean liner RMS Olympic along with seven other members of "The Penders" and manager Robert Pender.[98] The troupe had been hired by American producer Charles Dillingham to be featured in a two-week engagement at New York's Globe Theatre as an act in Dillingham's Broadway production, the Good Times revue.[99] In 1931, Leach would be signed to a movie contract with Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation (now Paramount Pictures) and would be given the stage name Cary Grant.[citation needed]
  • Pancho Villa surrendered to Mexican Army General Eugenio Martinez, a representative of President de la Huerta, after an all-night conference.[100] Villa and his 180 troops then traveled by train to Torreón, where they disbanded. In return for laying down his weapons, Villa was allowed to return to Chihuahua and granted an annual allowance by the Mexican government, while his 180 troops were allowed a year's pay from the Mexican Army and given farming land. Carl Haeglin, an American businessman who had been held for ransom, was released and all of the rebels were restored to full Mexican citizenship.[101]
  • The former Austro-Hungarian territory of the Duchy of Teschen was divided between Czechoslovakia (where it was called Těšín) and Poland (where it was Cieszyn), by order of the Allied Premiers at the Spa Conference.[citation needed]
  • Two all-metal airplanes departed from New York for the first trans-continental postal flight. They would arrive in San Francisco on August 8.[54]

July 29, 1920 (Thursday)

  • Women were allowed to be part of jury trial in the United Kingdom for the first time, as a result of the new Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 that had been granted royal assent on December 23. At the court of quarter sessions in Bristol, William Henry Ayton was put on trial on charges of stealing parcels from a railway station.[102][page needed] R. E. Dummett, the prosecutor, began his opening statement by saying "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury— this the first occasion on which I have used this unfamiliar phrase. As far as I know, it has not been used before in the annals of the jurisdiction in this country, and certainly not in this city." The jury of six men and six women found Ayton guilty of the crime charged and he was sentenced to one year in jail.[103][page needed]

July 30, 1920 (Friday)

  • The 1st World Scout Jamboree opened at Olympia in London.[104][105]
  • With two days left before the supply of coal for railroads would be exhausted, U.S. President Wilson sent a telegram to John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers of America, warning Lewis to end the walkout of coal miners in Illinois and Iowa or face the end of government recognition of the UMWA. "[Y]our action in refusing to mine coal on the terms which you had accepted may result in great suffering in many households during the coming winter and interfere with the continuation of industrial and agricultural activity," Wilson wrote, adding "the violation of the terms of your solemn obligation impairs your own good name" and "destroys the confidence which is the basis of all mutual agreements." The President promised to revisit the findings of the Bituminous Coal Commission in August about alleged inequalities in an agreement, but not "as long as the mine workers continue on strike."[106]
  • A record sized crowd for a golf match (more than 7,000 people) the largest group to ever witness a golf match in the United States, came to the Belmont Country Club at Waverley, Massachusetts, to watch English professional golfers Harry Vardon and Ted Ray play against the top U.S. amateur team of Francis Ouimet and Jesse Guilford. The British pros won the exhibition match, hyped as a revenge match for Vardon's victory over Ouimet and Ray in a tiebreaker playoff in the 1913 U.S. Open.[107]
  • Born: Martin Knowlton, American travel agent and hostel administrator, co-founder of Elderhostel; in Dallas (d. 2009)[citation needed]

July 31, 1920 (Saturday)

  • France prohibited the sale or prescription of contraceptives, as well as forbidding the distribution of "antinatalist propaganda", as a means of remedying the loss of 1.5 million men during World War I. Sociologists would determine later that the severe penalties did not restore the fertility rate to its pre-war level of an average of 2.5 children per women.[108]
  • The price of traveling by train in the United States was increased by 20 percent per person, and freight shipping rates increased by 40%, in a decision by the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission.[109][110]
  • The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was created by the Belarusan Communist Party, 20 days after the capital city of Minsk was recovered from Poland's control. In 1922, the Russian-dominated state would join with other "Soviet Socialist Republics" (the Russian Federation, the Trancaucasian Federation, and the Ukrainian Republic) to form the Soviet Union.[citation needed]
  • The Communist Party of Great Britain was formed by representatives of various British revolutionary socialist groups, at a meeting at the Cannon Street Hotel in London.[citation needed]
  • Died: Ion Dragoumis, 41, Greek diplomat, was assassinated by Pavlos Gyparis, bodyguard of Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos.

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