1923

Year 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1923

January-February

January 1 - Grouping of all UK railway companies into four larger companies.
January 10 - Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel.
January 11 - 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 - Barcelona (Spain): Albert Einstein visits the city, 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 played the part of Tiresias.
March 1

USS Connecticut decommissioned.
Greece adopts the Gregorian calendar.

March 2 - Time magazine hits newsstands for the first time.
March 9 - Vladimir Lenin suffers a stroke, his third, which renders him bedridden and unable to speak; consequently he retires his position as Chairman of the Soviet government.
March 28 - Regia Aeronautica, air force of Fascist Italy, is founded.
April 6 - The first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia is formed in Victoria Institution, Malaysia.
April 12 - Kandersteg International Scout Centre came into existence.
April 23 - The Turkish Council is founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
April 26 - Wedding of Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Westminster Abbey.
April 29 - Ceremonial inauguration of Gdynia seaport.

May-June

May 3 - Creation of Aleph Zadik Aleph
May 23 - Launch of Belgium's SABENA Airlines.
May 24 - End of Irish Civil War.
May 27 - Ku Klux Klan defies law requiring publication of its members.
June 9 - Military coup in Bulgaria - prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski is ousted (he is killed June 14).
June 13 - China President Li abandoned his residence because a warlord had commanded forces to surround the mansion and cut off water and electric supplies of the residence in order to force him to abandon his post.
June 16 - Storming of Ayan in Siberia concludes the Yakut Revolt and the Russian Civil War
June 18 - Etna volcano erupts - 60,000 made homeless.
June 25 - Rapid Bucureşti is formed on the initiative of the Griviţa railroad workers. The name given at the time was CFR Bucureşti.

July-August

July 1 - Alberta Hospital Edmonton was founded.
July 10 - Large hailstones kill 23 in Rostow, Soviet Union.
July 19 - July 20 - Assassination of Pancho Villa.
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

First major seagoing ship arrives at Gdynia, newly constructed Polish seaport.
Gustav Stresemann is named chancellor and founds a coalition government in Weimar Republic Germany.

September-October

September 1 - Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing an estimated 142,807 people, but according to Japanese construction reserch center report on 2005, 105,000 confirmed dead 1923 quake.
September 4 - In Lakehurst, New Jersey, the first American airship, the USS Shenandoah, takes to the sky for the first time.
September 6 - Italian navy occupies Corfu in retaliation of murder of an Italian officer. The League of Nations protests and they leave on September 29.
September 8 - Honda Point Disaster: Seven US Navy destroyers ran aground off the California coast.
September 9 - Atatürk founded the CHP.
September 10 - Ireland joins 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, consumed 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 26 - In Bayern, Gustav Ritter von Kahr declares independence from Berlin.
October 13 - Ankara replaces İstanbul as the capital of Turkey.
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 - Finnish flag carrier Finnair airline is started in Aero Oy.
November 8 - Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government; police and troops crush the attempt the next day.
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.
December 12 - In Italy, the Po River dam bursts - 600 dead.
December 20 - First social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the United States is founded, BEGGARS Fraternity, by a group of 9 men who secured permission to do so from the Pope.
December 27 - Assassination attempt against the crown prince of Japan in Tokyo.

Undated

International Police Conference in Vienna. International Criminal Police (Interpol) is set up.
Hoda Cha'arawi Association (formerly The Egyptian Feminist Union) is established in Egypt.
Police strike in Australia.
American Law Institute established.
Moderation League of New York becomes part of the movement for repeal of prohibition in the United States.
Rainbow Trout introduced into the upper Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park

Ongoing

Pontic Greek Genocide (1916–1923).
Third Rif War (1920-1926)
United States occupation of Haiti (1915-1934)

Births

January - February

January 1

Vulo Radev, Bulgarian film director (d. 2001)
Roméo Sabourin, Canadian World War II spy (d. 1944)

January 5 - Sam Phillips, American record producer (d. 2003)
January 6 - Jacobo Timerman, Argentine writer (d. 1999)
January 7 - Hugh Kenner,boom Canadian literary critic (d. 2003)
January 8 - Johnny Wardle, English cricketer (d. 1985)
January 16 - Anthony Hecht, American poet (d. 2004)
January 19 - Jean Stapleton, American actress
January 23

Cot Deal, major league baseball player and coach
Stephanie Kwolek, inventor of Kevlar fibers

January 25 - Arvid Carlsson, Swedish scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
January 26 - Anne Jeffreys, American actress
January 29 - Paddy Chayefsky, American writer (d. 1981)
January 31 - Norman Mailer, American writer and journalist (d. 2007)

February 2

James Dickey, American poet and author (d. 1997)
Liz Smith, American gossip columnist

February 9 - Brendan Behan, Irish author (d. 1964)
February 10 - Cesare Siepi, Italian opera singer
February 12 - Franco Zeffirelli, Italian film and opera director
February 13 - Yfrah Neaman, Lebanese-born violinist (d. 2003)
February 13 - Chuck Yeager, American pilot and NASA official
February 20 - Forbes Burnham, President of Guyana (d. 1985)
February 24 - David Soyer, American cellist
February 27 - Dexter Gordon, American jazz saxophone player (d. 1990)

March - April

March 4 - Sir Patrick Moore, British astronomer and broadcaster
March 6 - Ed McMahon, American television personality
March 7 - Mahlon Clark, American musician (d. 2007)
March 9 - Walter Kohn, Austrian-born physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
March 10 - Val Logsdon Fitch, American nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
March 12 - Wally Schirra, astronaut (d. 2007)
March 21 - Shri Mataji Nirmala Srivastava, Indian founder of Sahaja Yoga
March 22 - Marcel Marceau, world renown French Mime (d. 2007)
March 25 - Wim van Est, Dutch cyclist (d. 2003)
March 26 - Bob Elliott, American comedian
March 27 - Louis Simpson, Jamaican-born poet
March 28 - Thad Jones, American jazz musician (d. 1986)
March 30 - Milton Acorn, Canadian writer (d. 1986)

April 2 - G. Spencer-Brown, British mathematician
April 6 - Ramon Valdes, Mexican comedian (d. 1988)
April 8

George Fisher, American political cartoonist (d. 2003)
Edward Mulhare, Irish actor (d. 1997)

April 13 - Don Adams, American actor and comedian (d. 2005)
April 20 - Mother Angelica, American founder of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN)
April 22