1921

Events

January

• January 2
• * The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in Brazil.
• * The Spanish liner Santa Isabel breaks in two and sinks off Villa Garcia, Mexico, with the loss of 244 of the 300 people on board.
• January 16 - The Marxist Left in Slovakia and the Transcarpathian Ukraine holds its founding congress in Ľubochňa.
• January 17 - The first recorded public performance of the illusion of "sawing a woman in half" is given by English stage magician P. T. Selbit at the Finsbury Park Empire variety theatre in London.
• January 20 - British K-class submarine HMS K5 sinks in the English Channel; all 57 on board are lost.
• January 21 - The full-length silent comedy drama film The Kid, written, produced, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Jackie Coogan, is released in the United States.
• January 25 - Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci is righted in Taranto Harbour.

  February

• February 12 - Red Army invasion of Georgia: The Democratic Republic of Georgia is invaded by forces of Bolshevist Russia.
• February 19 - The French Third Republic and Second Polish Republic form a defensive alliance.
• February 20 - The Young Communist League of Czechoslovakia is founded.
• February 21
• * 1921 Persian coup d'état: Rezā Khan and Zia'eddin Tabatabaee stage a coup d'état in Qajar dynasty Iran.
• * Conference of London of 1921–1922 convenes in an attempt to resolve problems arising from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
• February 23 - The moderately conservative public official Oscar von Sydow takes over the Swedish premiership from Baron Louis De Geer the Younger.
• February 25 - Red Army invasion of Georgia: The Red Army enters the Georgian capital Tbilisi and occupies the country, installing a new government and proclaiming the Georgian Soviet Republic.
• February 27 - A Socialist congress at Vienna ends with the International Working Union of Socialist Parties founded.
• February 28 - The Kronstadt rebellion is initiated by sailors of the Soviet Navy's Baltic Fleet.

  March

• March - The Group Settlement Scheme in Western Australia begins.
• March 1
• * The city of Kiryū, located in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, is founded.
• * The Australia national cricket team, led by Warwick Armstrong, becomes the first to complete a whitewash of the touring England team in The Ashes, something that will not be repeated for 86 years.
• March 5 - Irish War of Independence: Clonbanin ambush: A force of about 100 Irish Republican Army members attacks a British Army convoy of 40 soldiers, killing several, including Brigadier General Cumming.
• March 6 – The Allied Powers force Germany to pay war reparations.
• March 8
• * Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato e Iradier is assassinated while exiting the parliament building in Madrid.
• * Allied forces occupy Düsseldorf, Ruhrort and Duisburg.
• March 9 - Cilicia Peace Treaty is signed between the French Third Republic and the Turkish National Movement in an attempt to end the Franco-Turkish War.
• March 12 - The İstiklâl Marşı, the Turkish national anthem, is officially adopted.
• March 13 - Occupation of Mongolia: The Russian White Army captures Mongolia from China; Roman von Ungern-Sternberg declares himself ruler.
• March 14 - Armenian Soghomon Tehlirian assassinates Mehmed Talaat, former Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire, in Charlottenburg, Berlin.
• March 16
• * Treaty of Moscow establishes friendly relations between the Government of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.
• * Six Irish Republican Army men of the Forgotten Ten are hanged in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin.
• March 17
• * The Red Army crushes the Kronstadt rebellion, and a number of sailors flee to Finland.
• * Marie Stopes opens the first birth control clinic in the British Empire in London, UK.
• * The Second Polish Republic adopts the March Constitution.
• March 18 - The second Peace of Riga ends the Polish–Soviet War. A permanent border is established between the Polish and Soviet states.
• March 20 - Upper Silesia votes for re-annexation to Germany.
• March 21
• * The New Economic Policy starts in Soviet Russia.
• * Irish War of Independence: Headford Ambush - The Irish Republican Army kills at least 9 British Army troops.
• March 24 - The 1921 Women's Olympiad begins in Monte Carlo.
• March 31
• * Abkhazia becomes the Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia.
• * The British government formally returns the coal mines from wartime control to their private owners, who demand wage cuts; in response, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain calls on its partner trade unions in the Triple Alliance to join it in strike action, leading in turn to the government declaring a state of emergency for the first time under the Emergency Powers Act 1920. On April 1, a lockout of striking coal miners begins.

  April

• April 11 - The Emirate of Transjordan is created under British Mandate, with Abdullah I as emir.
• April 15 - "Black Friday" in Britain: transport union members of the 'Triple Alliance' refuse to support national strike action by coal miners.
• April 20 - Ferenc Molnár's play Liliom is first produced in English on Broadway. The play would later be adapted as the musical Carousel.

  May

• May 1-7 - Jaffa riots: Riots at Jaffa, Mandatory Palestine result in 47 Jewish and 48 Arab deaths.
• May 2-July 5 - Third Silesian Uprising: Poles in Upper Silesia rise against the Germans.
• May 3 - The province of Northern Ireland is created within the United Kingdom.
• May 5
• * London Schedule of Payments sets out the World War I reparations payable by the German Weimar Republic and other countries considered successors to the Central Powers - 132 billion gold marks, in annual installments of 2.5 billion.
• * Chanel No. 5 perfume launched by Coco Chanel.
• * Only 13 paying spectators attend the football match between Leicester City and Stockport County F.C. in England, the lowest attendance in The Football League's history.
• May 6 - The German-Soviet Provisional Agreement is signed: Germany recognises the Soviet government in the RSFSR.
• May 14-15 - The major May 1921 geomagnetic storm occurs.
• May 14-17 - Violent anti-European riots occur in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt.
• May 16 - The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia is founded.
• May 19 - The Emergency Quota Act is passed by the United States Congress, establishing national quotas on immigration. Because this drastically limits immigration from Eastern Europe, Jews emigrating from there begin to prefer Palestine as a destination rather than the U.S.
• May 22 - In the first golf international between the two countries, the United States beats the United Kingdom 9 rounds to 3.
• May 23-July 16 - The Leipzig War Crimes Trials are held in Germany.
• May 24 - 1921 Irish elections: In the first Northern Ireland general election for the new Parliament of Northern Ireland, Ulster Unionists win 40 out of 52 seats. The dominant-party system here will last for fifty years.
• May 25 - Irish War of Independence: The Irish Republican Army occupies and burns The Custom House in Dublin, the centre of local government in Ireland. Five IRA men are killed, and over 80 are captured by the British Army which surrounds the building.
• May 26 - A general strike begins in Norway, begun by 120,000 workers led by Ole O. Lian.
• May 31-June 1 - Tulsa Race Massacre : Mobs of white residents attack black residents and businesses in Greenwood District, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The official death toll is 36, but later investigations suggest an actual figure between 100 and 300. 1,250 homes are destroyed and roughly 6,000 African Americans imprisoned in one of the worst incidents of mass racial violence in the United States.

  June

• June 3 - The death penalty is abolished in Sweden.
• June 10 - Paris declaration: Representatives of the three states of Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus proclaim their independence, establishing a customs union and military alliance, not internationally recognized.
• June 15
• * Compagnie Générale Transatlantique's liner makes her maiden voyage from Le Havre to New York.
• * 29-year-old African American Bessie Coleman obtains her pilot's licence in France and becomes the first black woman to have a pilot's licence.
• June 21 - The International Hydrographic Bureau is established as an agency of the League of Nations; it continues in this form until April 19, 1946.
• June 22-July 12 - The Third Congress of the Communist International takes place.
• June 27 - The first signings of Treaty 11, an agreement between George V, King of Canada, and various Canadian First Nations, are conducted at Fort Providence.
• 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.
• * The coal strike in the United Kingdom ends with the Miners' Federation of Great Britain obliged to accept pay cuts.

  July

• July 1
• * The Chinese Communist Party is founded.
• * The first BCG vaccination against tuberculosis is given, in Paris, France; the recipient is a newborn child.
• July 2 - U.S. President Warren Harding signs a joint congressional resolution, declaring an end to America's state of war with Germany, Austria and Hungary.
• July 4 - A new conservative government is formed in Italy by Ivanoe Bonomi.
• July 9 - Bloody Sunday occurs in Belfast, Northern Ireland with 20 killings, at least 100 wounded and 200 homes destroyed.
• July 11
• * The Irish War of Independence ends under the terms of the truce which becomes effective at noon between the British Army and the Irish Republican Army.
• * The Red Army captures Mongolia from the White Army and establishes the Mongolian People's Republic.
• July 14 - A Massachusetts jury finds Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti guilty of first degree murder following a widely publicized trial whose verdict will spark protests around the world.
• July 17 - The Republic of Mirdita is proclaimed near the Albanian-Serbian border, with Yugoslav support.
• July 21
• * Rif War: Battle of Annual - Spanish troops are dealt a crushing defeat at the hands of Abd el-Krim in Morocco.
• * Edward Harper, the "father of broadcasting" in Ceylon, arrives in Colombo to take up his post as Chief Engineer of the Ceylon Telegraph Department.
• July 23 - 1st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party opens in Shanghai.
• July 26 - U.S. President Warren G. Harding receives Princess Fatima of Afghanistan who is escorted by imposter Stanley Clifford Weyman.
• July 27 - Researchers at the University of Toronto, led by biochemist Frederick Banting, announce the discovery of the hormone insulin.
• July 29 - Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of the Nazi Party in Germany.