Tag: elsewhere

January 21 – Following the death of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin immediately begins to purge his rivals to clear the way for his leadership.

January 22 – Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

January 25 – The first Winter Olympics, the 1924 Winter Olympics open in Chamonix, in the French Alps.

January 27 – Lenin is buried in Lenin’s Mausoleum, in Moscow’s Red Square.

March 3 – The 407-year-old Islamic caliphate is abolished, when Caliph Abdülmecid II of the Ottoman Caliphate is deposed. The last remnant of the old regime gives way to the reformed Turkey of President Kemal Atatürk.

March 8 – The Castle Gate Mine disaster kills 172 coal miners in Utah, United States.

April 1 – Adolf Hitler is sentenced to 5 years in jail, for his participation in the Beer Hall Putsch (he serves only 8 months).

April 6 – Fascists win the elections in Italy with a ⅔ majority.

April 16 – American media company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) is founded in Los Angeles.

April 23 – The British Empire Exhibition opens; it is the largest colonial exhibition, with 58 countries of the empire dramatically represented.

April 26 – Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his ”death ray” in London, but fails to convince the British War Office.

May 4 – The 1924 Summer Olympics opening ceremonies are held in Paris, France.

May 10 – In the United States, J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

May 24 – The Immigration Act of 1924 is signed into law in the United States, including the Asian Exclusion Act.

June 8 – George Mallory and Andrew Irvine are last seen ”going strong for the top” of Mount Everest by teammate Noel Odell at 12-50 P.M. The two mountaineers are never seen alive again.

June 10 – Fascists kidnap and kill Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti in Rome.

June 30 – J. B. M. Hertzog becomes the third Prime Minister of South Africa.

July 12 – United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–24) comes to an end. The constitutional government headed by General Horacio Vázquez, elected in the elections held in March, is established.

August 16 – The Dawes Plan is accepted.

August 28 – The August Uprising – Georgia rises against rule by the Soviet Union in an abortive rebellion, in which several thousands die.

September 9–September 11 – The Kohat riots break out in India.

September 28 – U.S. Army pilots John Harding and Erik Nelson complete the first aerial circumnavigation. It has taken them 175 days and 74 stops before their return to Seattle.

October 12–15 – Zeppelin LZ-126 makes a transatlantic delivery flight from Friedrichshafen, Germany, to Lakehurst, New Jersey.

October 15 – The first Surrealist Manifesto is published, in which André Breton defines the movement as ”pure psychic automatism”

October 24 – The British Foreign Office publishes the fraudulent Zinoviev letter, which is then printed on the cover of the Daily Mail, the day before the general election.

November 4 – In the U.S. presidential election, Republican Calvin Coolidge defeats Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

December 30 – Astronomer Edwin Hubble announces that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe.

 

 

January 1–7 – In a violent, racially motivated attack, at least 8 people are killed, and the town of Rosewood, Florida is abandoned and destroyed.

January 9 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt, to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory).

January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, to force Germany to make reparations payments.

January 17 – Juan de la Cierva invents the autogyro, a rotary-winged aircraft with an unpowered rotor.

March 3 – The first issue of Time Magazine is published. Retired U.S. Speaker of the House Joseph G. Cannon appears on the cover.

March 9 – Vladimir Lenin suffers his third stroke, which renders him bedridden and unable to speak. Consequently he retires from his position as Chairman of the Soviet government.

April 18 – Yankee Stadium opens its doors, as the home park of the New York Yankees baseball team.

April 26 – Prince Albert, Duke of York (later George VI) marries Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother) in Westminster Abbey.

April 28 – The original Wembley Stadium opens its doors for the first time to the British public, staging the FA Cup Final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United.

May 20 – British Prime Minister Bonar Law resigns, due to ill health. He dies in October.

May 23 – Stanley Baldwin is appointed British Prime Minister.

May 26 – The first 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race is held, and is won by André Lagache and René Léonard.

June 9 – A military coup in Bulgaria ousts prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski (he is killed June 14th)

June 13 – President Li Yuanhong of China abandons his residence, because a warlord has commanded forces to surround the mansion and cut off its water and electric supplies.

June 18 – Mount Etna erupts in Italy, making 60,000 homeless.

July 13 – The Hollywood Sign is inaugurated in California (originally reading Hollywoodland)

July 20 – Pancho Villa is assassinated at Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua.

July 24 – The Treaty of Lausanne (1923), settling the boundaries of the modern Republic of Turkey, is signed in Switzerland, bringing an end to the Ottoman Empire after 624 years.

August 2 – President Warren G. Harding dies of a heart attack, and is succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge, who becomes the 30th President of the United States.

September 1 – The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing an estimated 142,807 people

September 13 – Miguel Primo de Rivera siezes power in a military coup in Spain, setting up a dictatorship.

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.

October 29 – Turkey becomes a republic, following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire; Kemal Atatürk is elected as first president.

November 8 – In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government. Police and troops crush the attempt the next day.

November 15 – Hyperinflation in Germany reaches its height. One US dollar is now worth 4,200,000,000,000 Papiermark. Chancellor Gustav Stresemann abolishes the old currency and replaces it with the Rentenmark.

December 1 – In Italy, the Gleno Dam on the Gleno River, in the Valle di Scalve in the northern province of Bergamo bursts, killing at least 356 people.

December 21 – The Nepal–Britain Treaty is the first to define the international status of Nepal, as an independent sovereign country.

January 7 – Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64 votes to 57

January 11 – The first successful insulin treatment of diabetes is made, by Frederick Banting in Toronto.

January 15 – Michael Collins becomes Chairman of the Irish Provisional Government

January 28 – Snowfall from the biggest-ever recorded snowstorm in Washington, D.C., causes the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre to collapse, killing 98.

February 1 – Irish American film director William Desmond Taylor is found murdered at his home in Los Angeles; the case is never solved.

February 2 – Ulysses, by James Joyce, is published in Paris on his 40th birthday by Sylvia Beach.

February 5 – DeWitt and Lila Wallace publish the first issue of Reader’s Digest.

February 6 – Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti) succeeds Pope Benedict XV, to become the 259th pope.

February 6 – The Five Power Naval Disarmament Treaty is signed between the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France and Italy.

March 4 – The film Nosferatu is released.

March 10–14 – The Rand Rebellion, a strike by white South African mine workers, becomes open rebellion against the state.

March 15 – Egypt having gained self-government from the United Kingdom, Fuad I becomes King of Egypt.

March 18 – In British India, Mahatma Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for sedition (he serves only two).

March 31 – The Hinterkaifeck Murders occur in Germany, on a late evening.

April 3 – Joseph Stalin is appointed General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party.

May 3 – Viktor Kingissepp, leader of the underground Estonian Communist Party, is executed in Estonia.

June 11 – Nanook of the North, the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, premières in the U.S.

June 24 – Weimar Republic foreign minister Walther Rathenau is assassinated.

July 11 – The Hollywood Bowl opens.

August 2 – A typhoon hits Shantou, China, killing more than 5,000 people.

August 22 – Irish Civil War – General Michael Collins is assassinated in West Cork.

September 3 – The Autodromo Nazionale Monza, the world’s third purpose-built motorsport race track, is officially opened at Monza in the Lombardy Region of Italy.

September 9 – Turkish forces pursuing withdrawing Greek troops enter İzmir, effectively ending the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22).

September 13–15 – The Great Fire of Smyrna destroys most of İzmir. Responsibility is disputed.

September 24 (O. S. September 11) — 11 September 1922 Revolution in Greece.

September 29 – Drums in the Night (Trommeln in der Nacht) becomes the first play by Bertolt Brecht to be staged, at the Munich Kammerspiele.

October 15 – T. S. Eliot establishes The Criterion magazine, containing the first publication of his poem The Waste Land.

October 18 – The British Broadcasting Company is formed.

October 25 – The Third Dáil enacts the Constitution of the Irish Free State.

October 28 – In Italy, the March on Rome brings the National Fascist Party and Benito Mussolini to power.

October 28 – The Rose Bowl Stadium officially opened in Pasadena, California

November 1 – The Ottoman Empire is abolished after 600 years, and its last sultan, Mehmed VI, abdicates, leaves for exile in Italy on November 17.

November 21 – Rebecca Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first woman United States Senator.

November 22 – During a 3-day strike action in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, police and military fire into a crowd, killing at least 300.

November 24 – Popular author and anti-Treaty Republican Erskine Childers is executed by firing squad in Dublin, for the unlawful possession of a gun presented to him by Michael Collins in 1920

December 6 – The Irish Free State officially comes into existence. George V becomes the Free State’s monarch, and Tim Healy is appointed Governor-General.

December 9 – Gabriel Narutowicz is elected the first president of Poland.

December 16 – Gabriel Narutowicz is assassinated by a right-wing sympathizer in Warsaw.

December 30 – Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian Republic come together to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, dissolved in 1991.

January 2 – The De Young Museum opens in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

January 20 – British K-class submarine HMS K5 sinks in the English Channel. All 56 on board die.

January 21 – The film The Kid, written, produced, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Jackie Coogan, is released in the United States.

February 12 – The Democratic Republic of Georgia is invaded by forces of Bolshevist Russia.

February 21 – Rezā Khan and Zia’eddin Tabatabaee stage a coup d’état in Iran.

February 28 – The Kronstadt rebellion is initiated by sailors of the Soviet Navy’s Baltic Fleet.

March 4 – Warren G. Harding is sworn in as the 29th President of the United States.

March 8 – Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato e Iradier is assassinated while exiting the parliament building in Madrid.

March 13 – The Russian White Army captures Mongolia from China. Roman von Ungern-Sternberg declares himself ruler.

April 11 – The Emirate of Transjordan is created, with Abdullah I as emir.

May 1–7 – Riots at Jaffa, Mandatory Palestine result in 47 Jewish and 48 Arab deaths.

May 25 – The Irish Republican Army occupies and burns The Custom House in Dublin. Five IRA men are killed, and over 80 are captured by the British Army.

May 31–June 1 – Mobs of white residents attack black residents and businesses in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between 100 and 300 are killed.

June 28 – The Constitutional Assembly of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes passes the Vidovdan Constitution, despite a boycott of the vote by the communists, and Croat and Slovene parties.

July 1 – The Communist Party of China (CPC) is founded.

July 11 – The Red Army captures Mongolia from the White Army, and establishes the Mongolian People’s Republic.

July 21 – At The Battle of Annual, Spanish troops are dealt a crushing defeat, at the hands of Abd el-Krim.

July 29 – Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of the Nazi Party.

August 23 – King Faisal I of Iraq is crowned in Baghdad.

August 24 – R38-class airship ZR-2 explodes on her fourth test flight near Kingston upon Hull, England, killing 44 of the 49 Anglo-American crew on board.

September 7 – In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant is held.

September 13 – White Castle hamburger restaurant opens in Wichita, Kansas, the foundation of the world’s first fast food chain.

September 21 – The Oppau explosion occurs at BASF’s nitrate factory in Oppau, Germany. 500–600 are killed.

October 13 – The Treaty of Kars is signed between Turkey and the Soviet Socialist Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, establishing the boundaries of the south Caucasus.

October 19 – The ‘Bloody Night’ (Noite Sangrenta) massacre in Lisbon claims the lives of Portuguese Prime-Minister António Granjo and other politicians.

November 9 – The National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista or PNF) is founded in Italy.

November 11 – During an Armistice Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is dedicated by Warren G. Harding, President of the United States.

November – Hyperinflation is rampant in Germany, where 263 marks are now needed to buy a single American dollar, more than 20 times greater than the 12 marks needed in April 1919.

December 6 – The Anglo-Irish Treaty establishing the Irish Free State is signed in London.

December 13 – In the Four-Power Treaty on Insular Possessions, Japan, the United States, United Kingdom, and France agree to recognize the status quo in the Pacific.

December 23 – Visva-Bharati College is founded by Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan, Bengal Presidency, British India.

January 2 – The first Red Scare in the United States – 4025 suspected communists and anarchists are arrested and held without trial in several cities

January 7 – In the Russian Civil War, the forces of Russian White Admiral Alexander Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk – the Great Siberian Ice March ensues

January 16 – Prohibition in the United States begins, with the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution coming into effect

February 2 – The Tartu Peace Treaty is signed, ending the Estonian War of Independence and recognizing the independence of both the Republic of Estonia and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic

February 7 – Admiral Kolchak and Viktor Pepelyayev are executed by firing squad near Irkutsk

February 17 – A woman named Anna Anderson tries to commit suicide in Berlin, and is taken to a mental hospital, where she claims she is Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia

February 24 – Adolf Hitler presents his National Socialist Program in Munich to the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), which renames itself as the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

March 7 – The Syrian National Congress proclaims Syria independent, with Faisal I of Iraq as king

March 10 – The world’s first peaceful establishment of a social democratic government takes place in Sweden, as Hjalmar Branting takes over as Prime Minister

March 13–17 – Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz’s Kapp Putsch (an attempted coup in Germany) briefly ousts the Weimar Republic government from Berlin, but fails due to public resistance and a general strike

March 15 – The Ruhr Red Army, a communist army 60,000 men strong, is formed in Germany

March 15–16 – Constantinople is occupied by British Empire forces, acting for the Allied Powers against the Turkish National Movement

March 19 – The United States Senate refuses to ratify the Treaty of Versailles

March 25 – British recruits to the Royal Irish Constabulary begin to arrive in Ireland. They become known from their improvised uniforms as the ‘Black and Tans’

April 4 – Violence erupts between Arab and Jewish residents in Jerusalem – 9 are killed, 216 injured

April 20 – The 1920 Summer Olympics open in Antwerp, Belgium. The Olympic symbols of five interlocking rings and the associated flag are first displayed at the games

April 23 – The Grand National Assembly of Turkey is founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in Ankara. It denounces the government of Sultan Mehmed VI, and announces a temporary constitution

May 2 – The first game of Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis

May 16 – Over 30,000 people attend the Canonization of Joan of Arc in Rome

May 20 – President Venustiano Carranza of Mexico arrives in San Antonio Tlaxcalantongo, where he is shot and killed by the troops of Rodolfo Herrero

June 4 – With the Treaty of Trianon, peace is restored between the Allied Powers and Hungary, which loses 72% of its territory

June 22 – In the Greek Summer Offensive, Greece attacks Turkish troops

July 19 – The Second Congress of the Communist International begins in Saint Petersburg and Moscow

July 24 – The French defeat the Syrian army at the Battle of Maysalun, occupy Damascus, and depose Faisal I of Syria as king

August 10 – Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI’s representatives sign the Treaty of Sèvres with the Allied Powers, confirming arrangements for the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire

August 11 – Bolshevik Russia recognizes independent Latvia

August 19–25 – The Poles in Upper Silesia rise up against the Germans.

August 20 – The first commercial radio station in the United States, 8MK, begins operations in Detroit

August 26 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed, guaranteeing women’s suffrage

September 16 – A bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J. P. Morgan building in New York City, killing 38 and injuring 400

October 9 – In the Polish–Lithuanian War, Polish troops take Vilnius

November 2 – In the US presidential election, Republican Warren G. Harding defeats Democrat James M. Cox and Socialist Eugene V. Debs

November 13 – The White Army’s last units and civilian refugees are evacuated from the Crimea on board 126 ships

November 15 – In Geneva, the first assembly of the League of Nations is held

November 21 – The Irish Republican Army shoot dead 14 British undercover agents in Dublin. Later that day in retaliation, the Royal Irish Constabulary open fire on a crowd at a Gaelic Football match, killing 14

December 1 – The Mexican Revolution ends with a new regime coming to power, which couples with the end of the Old West

December 11 – British forces set fire to 5 acres of the centre of Cork, Ireland, including the City Hall, in reprisal attacks, after a British auxiliary is killed in a guerilla ambush

December 16 – An 8.6 Richter scale Haiyuan earthquake causes a landslide in Gansu Province, China, killing 180,000

December 22 – The 8th Congress of Soviets of the Russian SFSR adopts the GOELRO plan, the major plan of the economical development of the country

January 1 – HMY Iolaire sinks off the coast of the Hebrides, 201 people, mostly servicemen returning home to Lewis and Harris, are killed.

January 1 – The Czechoslovak Legions occupy the Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia.

January 3 – The Faisal–Weizmann Agreement is signed by Emir Faisal and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, for Arab–Jewish cooperation in the development of Jewish and Palestinann homelands

January 5 – A communist uprising is attempted by the Spartacist League in Berlin

January 5 – The German Workers’ Party, predecessor of the Nazi Party, is formed by the merger of The Committee of Independent Workmen with The Political Workers’ Circle.

January 6 – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, dies in his sleep at the age of 60

January 7 – The Tragic Week in Argentina, an anarchist uprising in Buenos Aires, begins, it is later suppressed by official forces

January 15 – A wave of molasses released from an exploding storage tank sweeps through Boston, Massachusetts, killing 33 and injuring 150.

January 15 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are murdered, following the Spartacist uprising.

January 16 – The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing Prohibition, is ratified.

January 18 – The Paris Peace Conference opens in France, with delegates from 27 nations attending for meetings at the Palace of Versailles.

January 31 – Battle of George Square – The British Army is called in to deal with riots, during negotiations over working hours in Glasgow, Scotland.

February 5 – United Artists (UA) is incorporated by D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

February 11 – Friedrich Ebert is elected the first President of Germany (Reichspräsident), by the Weimar National Assembly.

February 14 – The Polish–Soviet War begins, with the Battle of Bereza Kartuska.

February 24 – Four days after supressing an uprising, the Estonian government celebrate their first independence day

March 1 – The March 1st Movement against Japanese colonial rule in Korea is formed.

April 5 – The Pinsk massacre in Poland – 35 Jews are killed without trial, after being accused of Bolshevism.

April 10 – Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead in Morelos.

April 13 – The Amritsar Massacre – British and Gurkha troops massacre 379 Sikhs at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, in the Punjab.

May 4 – The League of Red Cross Societies is formed in Paris.

May 4 – The May Fourth Movement erupts in China as a result of the decision at the Paris Peace Conference to transfer former German concessions in Jiaozhou Bay to Japan rather than return sovereign authority to China.

May 6 – The Third Anglo-Afghan War begins – after a stalemate, Britain concede and settle on pre-war boundaries.

May 19 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Anatolian Black Sea coast, marking the start of the Turkish War of Independence.

June 21 – Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet interned at Scapa Flow, Scotland

June 25 – In the Russian Civil War, The White Volunteer Army capture Kharkiv, while Red Army forces take Perm.

June 28 – The Treaty of Versailles is signed, formally ending World War I.

July 20 – The Red Army captures the city of Ekaterinburg in the Ural mountains from the White rule of Admiral Alexander Kolchak.

July 21 – The dirigible Wingfoot Air Express catches fire over downtown Chicago. Two passengers, one aircrewman and ten people on the ground are killed.

July 27 – The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 begins when a white man throws stones at a group of four black teens on a raft.

August 4 – The Romanian army occupies Budapest.

September 10 – The Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed, ending World War I with Austria-Hungary and declaring that the latter’s empire is to be dissolved

September 12 – Gabriele D’Annunzio, with his entourage, marches into Fiume and convinces Italian troops to join him.

October 2 – President of the United States Woodrow Wilson suffers a serious stroke, rendering him an invalid for the remainder of his life.

November 9 – Felix the Cat debuts in Feline Follies.

November 11 – In The Russian Civil War, The Northwestern Army of General Nikolai Yudenich retreats to Estonia and is disarmed.

November 30 – Health officials declare the global ‘Spanish’ flu pandemic has ceased.

December 1 – American-born Nancy Astor becomes the first woman to take her seat in the UK House of Commons, having become the second to be elected on November 28.

December 4 – The French Opera House in New Orleans, Louisiana is destroyed by fire.

December 21 – Following the first ‘Red Scare’, The United States deports 249 people, including Emma Goldman, to Russia on the USAT Buford.

December 26 – American baseball player Babe Ruth is traded by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees for $125,000, the largest sum ever paid for a player at this time.

January 8 – Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech

January 27 – The Finnish Civil War begins with the Battle of Kämärä

February 1 – Austrian sailors in the Gulf of Cattaro, led by two Czech Socialists, mutiny

February 6 – The Representation of the People Act gives most women over 30 the vote in the UK

February 16 – The Council of Lithuania adopts the Act of Independence of Lithuania, declaring Lithuania’s independence from Russia

February 19 – The Capture of Jericho by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force begins the British occupation of the Jordan Valley

February 19-25 – The Imperial Russian Navy evacuates Tallinn through thick ice, over the Gulf of Finland

February 24 – Estonia declares its independence from Russia, after seven centuries of foreign rule. German forces capture Tallinn the following day

March 3 – The Central Powers and Russia sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia’s involvement in WW1

March 8 – The Battle of Tell ‘Asur is launched by units of the British Army’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force against Ottoman defences

March 21 – The Spring Offensive by the German Army begins with Operation Michael – there are nearly 20,000 British Army dead on the first day

March 23 – In London at the Wood Green Empire, Chung Ling Soo (William E. Robinson, U.S.-born magician) dies during his trick, where he is supposed to catch two bullets when one of them perforates his lung

March 23 – The giant German cannon, the ‘Paris Gun’, begins to shell Paris from 114 km away

March 26 – Dr. Marie Stopes publishes her influential book Married Love in the U.K

March 27 – The First Battle of Amman is launched by units of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force

March 30 – Bolshevik and Armenian Revolutionary Federation forces suppress a Muslim revolt in Baku, Azerbaijan, resulting in up to 30,000 deaths

April 5 – Sālote succeeds as Queen of Tonga – she will remain on the throne until her death in 1965

April 21 – Manfred von Richthofen, ‘The Red Baron’, dies in combat at Morlancourt Ridge near the Somme River

April 23 – A general strike is held in Ireland against conscription

April 23 – The British Navy raids Zeebrugge and Ostend, attempting to seal off the German U-boat bases there

April 28 – Gavrilo Princip, assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, dies in Terezin, Austria-Hungary, after three years in prison

May 11 – The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus is officially established

May 26 – Georgia declares its independence as the Democratic Republic of Georgia.

May 28 – Armenia and Azerbaijan declare their independence as the First Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic

May 29 – The Battle of Sardarabad concludes with defending Armenian forces victorious over the Ottomans.

June – The ‘Spanish ‘flu’ becomes pandemic. Over 30 million people die in the following 6 months.

June 1 – The Battle of Belleau Wood begins.

June 10 – Austro-Hungarian dreadnought battleship SMS Szent István is sunk by two Italian MAS motor torpedo boats off the Dalmatian coast.

June 12 – Grand Duke Michael of Russia is killed, becoming the first of the Romanovs to be executed by the Bolsheviks.

July 3 – The Siberian Intervention is launched by the Allies, to extract the Czechoslovak Legion from the Russian Civil War

July 4 – Mehmed VI succeeds as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire on the death of his half-brother Mehmed V

July 9 – In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express, killing 101.

July 12 – Japanese battleship Kawachi blows up off Tokuyama, killing at least 621

July 15 – The Second Battle of the Marne begins near the River Marne, with a German attack

July 17 – By order of the Bolshevik Party, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, their children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, Alexei and retainers are shot at the Ipatiev House, in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

August 2 – British anti-Bolshevik forces occupy Arkhangelsk in North Russia.

August 8 – British, Canadian and Australian troops begin a string of almost continuous victories, the ‘Hundred Days Offensive’, with an 8-mile push through the German front lines at the Battle of Amiens, taking 12,000 prisoners.

August 21 – The Second Battle of the Somme begins

August 27 – U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas and their German advisors at Nogales, Arizona, in the only battle of WWI fought on United States soil.

September 3 – The Bolshevik government of Russia publishes the first official announcement of the Red Terror, a period of repression against political opponents, as an ‘Appeal to the Working Class’ in the newspaper Izvestia

September 4 –The Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin concludes with the Australian Corps breaking the German line.

September 15–18 – At The Battle of Dobro Pole, The Allied Army of the Orient defeats Bulgarian defenders.

September 19 – The British Army launches the Battle of Megiddo, an attack in the Judaean Mountains, which breaks the Ottoman front line stretching from the Mediterranean coast to the Judaean Mountains.

September 26 – The Meuse-Argonne Offensive begins, the largest and bloodiest operation of the war for the American Expeditionary Forces.

September 27 – The Battle of the Canal du Nord, launched by British and Empire forces, continues the advance towards the Hindenburg Line.

September 29 – The Battle of St Quentin Canal begins – Allied forces advance towards the Hindenburg Line

October 3 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany appoints Max von Baden Chancellor of Germany.

October 7 – The Regency Council declares Polish independence from the German Empire, and demands that Germany cede the Polish provinces of Poznań, Upper Silesia and Polish Pomerania

October 8–10 – British and Canadian troops take Cambrai from the Germans and the First and Third British Armies break through the Hindenburg Line

October 18 – The Washington Declaration proclaims the independent Czechoslovak Republic

October 31 – The Hungarian government terminates the personal union with Austria, officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian Empire

November 1 – The Polish–Ukrainian War is inaugurated, by the proclamation of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic in Galicia, with a capital at Lwów.

November 1 – The worst rapid transit accident in world history occurs under the intersection of Malbone Street and Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 93 dead

November 3 – Austria-Hungary enters an armistice with the Allies, at the Villa Giusti in Padua

November 9 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates and chooses to live in exile in the Netherlands. The German Republic is proclaimed by Philipp Scheidemann in Berlin, on the Reichstag balcony

November 11 – Emperor Charles I of Austria gives up his absolute power, but does not abdicate

November 11 – Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies, between 5:12 AM and 5:20 AM, in Marshal Foch’s railroad car, in the Forest of Compiègne in France. It becomes official on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

November 21 – Polish troops, volunteers and freed criminals massacre at least 320 Ukrainian Christians and Jews in Lwów, Galicia

November 28 – The Red Army invades Estonia, starting the Estonian War of Independence

December 1 – Following the March 27 incorporation of Bessarabia and Bucovina, Transylvania unites with the Kingdom of Romania

December 1 – Iceland regains independence, but remains in personal union with the King of Denmark, who also becomes the King of Iceland until 1944

December 28 – Sinn Féin wins wins 73 of the 105 seats in the Irish General Election. Countess Constance Markievicz, while detained in Holloway Prison (London), becomes the first woman elected to (but does not take her seat in) the British House of Commons.

January 9 – At the Battle of Rafa, the last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force

January 11 – Unknown saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion, one of the events leading to United States involvement in WWI

January 19 – A blast at a munitions factory in London kills 73 and injures over 400

January 25 – British armed merchantman SS Laurentic is sunk by mines off Lough Swilly (Ireland), with the loss of 354 of the 475 aboard

February 13 – Mata Hari is arrested in Paris for spying

February 24 – US ambassador to the UK Walter Hines Page is shown the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offers to give the American Southwest back to Mexico

March 8 – The February Revolution begins in Russia – Women calling for bread in Petrograd start riots, which spontaneously spread throughout the city

March 15 – Emperor Nicholas II of Russia abdicates his throne and his son’s claims. This is considered to be the end of the Russian Empire, after 196 years

March 26 – At the First Battle of Gaza, British Egyptian Expeditionary Force troops virtually encircle the Gaza garrison, but are then ordered to withdraw, leaving the city to the Ottoman defenders

April 6 – The United States declares war on Germany.

April 9 – At The Battle of Arras, British Empire troops make a significant advance on the Western Front but are unable to achieve a breakthrough.

April 17 – The Egyptian Expeditionary Force begins the Second Battle of Gaza, a frontal attack on Ottoman defenses, which results in 10,000 casualties, and the beginning of the Stalemate in Southern Palestine.

June 7 – The Battle of Messines opens with the British Army detonating 19 ammonal mines under the German lines, killing 10,000 in the deadliest deliberate non-nuclear man-made explosion in history.

July – The first Cottingley Fairies photographs are taken in Yorkshire, England, apparently depicting fairies (a hoax not admitted by the child creators until 1981).

July 6 – At the Battle of Aqaba, Arabian troops, led by T. E. Lawrence, capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire.

July 28 – The Silent Parade is organized by the NAACP in New York City, to protest the East St. Louis riot of July 2, as well as lynchings in Tennessee and Texas

July 31 – The Battle of Passchendaele – Allied offensive operations commence in Flanders.

August 18 – The Great Thessaloniki Fire in Greece destroys 32% of the city, leaving 70,000 homeless.

September 23 – Leon Trotsky is elected Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet.

October 12 – At the First Battle of Passchendaele, Allies fail to take a German defensive position, with the biggest loss of life in a single day for New Zealand, over 800 of whose men are killed, roughly 0.1% of the nation’s population

October 13 – The Miracle of the Sun is reported at Fátima, Portugal.

October 24 – At the Battle of Caporetto Austrian and German forces penetrate Italian lines as far south as the Piave River.

October 26 – Brazil declares war against the Central Powers.

October 31 – At the Battle of Beersheba, the British XX Corps and Desert Mounted Corps (Egyptian Expeditionary Force) attack and capture Beersheba from Ottoman forces, ending the stalemate in Southern Palestine.

November 2 – British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour makes the Balfour Declaration, proclaiming British support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”

November 6 – Second Battle of Passchendaele – After 3 months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Passchendaele in Belgium. The battle concludes on November 10

November 7 – The British Army XXI Corps occupies Gaza, after the Ottoman garrison withdraws.

November 7 – The workers of the Petrograd Soviet in Russia, led by the Bolshevik Party and leader Vladimir Lenin, storm the Winter Palace and successfully destroy the Kerensky Provisional Government.

November 7 – Women win the right to vote in New York State.

November 13 – Battle of Mughar Ridge – The Egyptian Expeditionary Force attacks retreating Yildirim Army Group forces, resulting in the capture of 10,000 Ottoman prisoners, 100 guns and 50 miles of Palestine territory.

November 15 – ‘Night of Terror’ in the United States – Influential suffragettes from the Silent Sentinels are deliberately subjected to physical assaults by guards while imprisoned.

November 15 – The Parliament of Finland passes another ‘Sovereignty Act’, dissolving Russian sovereignty over Finland and effectively declaring Finland independent.

November 17 – US Navy destroyers USS Fanning and USS Nicholson capture Imperial German Navy U-boat SM U-58 off the south-west coast of Ireland, the first combat action in which U.S. ships take a submarine (which is then scuttled).

December 9 – The British Egyptian Expeditionary Force accepts the surrender of Jerusalem by the mayor, Hussein al-Husayni, following the effective defeat of the Ottoman Empire’s Yildirim Army Group.

January 1 – The British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that had been stored and cooled.

January 10 – In the Erzurum Offensive, Russia inflicts a defeat on the Ottoman Empire.

January 13 – Ottoman Empire forces defeat the Allied British in the Battle of Wadi.

February 11 – Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control in the United States.

February 12 – At The Battle of Salaita Hill, South African and other British Empire troops fail to take a German East African defensive position.

February 21 – The Battle of Verdun begins in France.

March 8 – Pancho Villa leads 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 12 U.S. soldiers. A garrison of the U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment fights back and drives them away.

March 24 – French ferry SS Sussex is torpedoed by SM UB-29 in the English Channel, with at least 50 killed, including the composer Enrique Granados.

April 11 – The Egyptian Expeditionary Force begins the occupation of the Sinai Peninsula.

April 24 – The Easter Rising begins in Ireland. Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood proclaim an Irish Republic, and the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army occupy the General Post Office and other buildings in Dublin.

April 27 – The 47th Brigade, 16th (Irish) Division at Hulluch in France is decimated, in one of the most heavily concentrated German gas attacks of the war.

April 29 – The Easter Rising ends, as republican commanders issue an order for all companies to surrender.

April 29 – The Siege of Kut ends with the surrender of British forces to the Ottoman Empire, at Kut-al-Amara on the Tigris in Basra Vilayet.

May 16 – Britain and France conclude the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement, which is to divide Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire into French and British spheres of influence.

May 16 – United States Marines invade the Dominican Republic.

May 31 – The Battle of Jutland, between the British Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy, the war’s only large-scale clash of battleships, begins – the result is inconclusive.

June 4 – The Brusilov Offensive, the height of Russian operations in the war, begins with their breaking through Austro-Hungarian lines.

June 5 – HMS Hampshire sinks, having hit a mine off the Orkney Islands, Scotland, with Lord Kitchener aboard.

June 10 – The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire is formally declared by Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.

July 1 – On the first day of The Battle of The Somme around 30,000 British, French and German soldiers are killed

July 15 – Battle of Delville Wood – 766 men from the South African Brigade are killed, in South Africa’s biggest loss during the First World War.

July 29 – In Ontario, Canada, a lightning strike ignites a forest fire that destroys the towns of Cochrane and Matheson, killing 233.

July 30 – German agents cause the Black Tom explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey, an act of sabotage destroying an ammunition depot and killing at least 7 people.

August 5 – At the Battle of Romani British Imperial troops secure victory over a joint Ottoman-German force.

September 6 – The first true self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, is founded in Memphis, Tennessee, by Clarence Saunders.

September 11 – A mechanical failure causes the central span of the Quebec Bridge to crash into the Saint Lawrence River for the second time, killing 13 workers.

September 13 – Mary, a circus elephant, is hanged in the town of Erwin, Tennessee for killing her handler, Walter ‘Red’ Eldridge.

September 15 – Battle of Flers–Courcelette – significant for the first use of the tank in warfare and for the debut of the Canadian and New Zealand Divisions in The Somme.

September 27 – Iyasu V of Ethiopia is deposed in a palace coup, in favour of his aunt Zewditu.

October 21 – Friedrich Adler shoots and kills Count Karl von Stürgkh, Minister-President of Austria.

November 5 – An armed confrontation in Everett, Washington, between local authorities and members of the Industrial Workers of the World results in seven deaths.

November 7 – In The U.S. presidential election, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeats Republican Charles E. Hughes.

November 7 – Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.

November 18 – After 5 months and nearly half a million British casualties, BEF commander Douglas Haig calls off the Battle of the Somme.

November 21 – Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria dies of pneumonia at the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, aged 86, after a reign of 68 years and is succeeded by his grandnephew Charles I.

November 23 – Bucharest, the capital of Romania, is occupied by troops of the Central Powers.

December 12 – ‘White Friday’ in the Dolomites – 100 avalanches bury 18,000 Austrian and Italian soldiers.