This Year in History:
1923
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On the first day of 1923, white vigilante mobs begin their descent upon the predominantly Black community of Rosewood, Florida. In an attack that would last several days, they shoot and beat Black residents, set buildings aflame and raze the small, but prosperous mill town that was home to approximately 200 people. Earlier that day, […]
Albert Fall, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, announces he is resigning in response to public outrage over the Teapot Dome scandal. Fall’s resignation, which took effect two months later, illuminated a deeply corrupt relationship between western developers and the federal government. Born in Kentucky in 1861, Albert Fall moved to New Mexico […]
Four years after the end of World War I, President Warren G. Harding orders U.S. occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home. In 1917, after several years of bloody stalemate along the Western Front, the entrance of America’s fresh, well-supplied forces into the Great War—a decision announced by President Woodrow Wilson in April and […]
On February 13, 1923, the New York Renaissance, the first all-Black professional basketball team, is organized. The Renaissance, commonly called the Rens, become one of the dominant teams of the 1920s and 1930s. The team’s founder was Robert L. Douglas, whose primary objective was to give New York City’s male, Black athletes opportunities to better themselves. In […]
On February 16, 1923, in Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen. Because the ancient Egyptians saw their pharaohs as gods, they carefully preserved their bodies after death, burying them in elaborate tombs containing rich treasures to accompany the rulers into the afterlife. In […]
The New Republic publishes Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The poem, beginning with the famous line “Whose woods these are, I think I know. His house is in the village though,” has introduced millions of American students to poetry. Like most of Frost’s poetry, “Stopping by Woods” adopts the tone […]
John Herbert Dillinger joins the Navy in order to avoid charges of auto theft in Indiana, marking the beginning of America’s most notorious criminal’s downfall. Years later, Dillinger’s reputation was forged in a single 12-month period, during which he robbed more banks than Jesse James did in 15 years and became the most wanted fugitive […]
In a hotel in San Francisco, President Warren G. Harding dies of a stroke at the age of 58. Harding was returning from a presidential tour of Alaska and the West Coast, a journey some believed he had embarked on to escape the rumors circulating in Washington of corruption in his administration. Harding, a relatively […]
On August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge is sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, hours after the death of President Warren G. Harding. Born July 4, 1872, in Plymouth, Vermont, Coolidge was the son of a village storekeeper. He graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts and worked his way up in the […]
On September 1, 1923, a routine lunch hour in Japan’s capital city of Tokyo and neighboring “City of Silk” Yokohama is disrupted when a massive, 7.9-magnitude earthquake strikes just before noon. The shaking causes more than half of Tokyo’s brick buildings, most of Yokohama’s buildings, and hundreds of thousands of homes to collapse, killing tens […]
On September 23, 1923, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, a Romantic book of prose poetry centered on a prophet who shares wisdom about family, work, death, love and freedom, is published. It sold about 1,200 copies in its first year with little fanfare, but gradually gained readers by word of mouth over subsequent decades, becoming something of […]
On October 16, 1923, Walt Disney and his brother Roy found the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood, California. The studio, now known as the Walt Disney Company, has had an oversized impact on the entertainment industry and is now one of the largest media companies in the world. A talented artist from a young age, […]
Adolf Hitler, president of the far-right Nazi Party, launches the Beer Hall Putsch, his first attempt at seizing control of the German government. After World War I, the victorious allies demanded billions of dollars in war reparations from Germany. Efforts by Germany’s democratic government to comply hurt the country’s economy and led to severe inflation. […]
Mamie Snow, a mentally disabled white woman from Waukegan, Illinois, claims that James Montgomery, a Black veteran and factory worker, raped her. Montgomery, who was promptly thrown in jail, spent more than 25 years in prison before his conviction was overturned and he was released. From the start, Montgomery’s trial seemed ill fated. Local Ku […]
On November 20, 1923, the U.S. Patent Office grants Patent No. 1,475,074 to 46-year-old inventor and newspaperman Garrett Morgan for his three-position traffic signal. Though Morgan’s was not the first traffic signal (that one had been installed in London in 1868), it was an important innovation nonetheless: By having a third position besides just “Stop” […]
On December 24, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge touches a button and lights up the first national Christmas tree to grace the White House grounds. Not only was this the first White House “community” Christmas tree, but it was the first to be decorated with electric lights—a strand of 2,500 red, white and green bulbs. The […]
