April 1920

April 1, 1920 (Thursday)

• Delaware turned down the chance to become the necessary 36th U.S. state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as the House of Delegates voted 23 to 9 on a motion to reject the amendment.
• Ian Macpherson, resigned from the position as the UK's Chief Secretary of Ireland, in the wake of the second reading that favored the Irish Home Rule bill.
• Agreeing to the demand of the Allies occupying Constantinople, Salih Pasha and the Turkish cabinet resigned.
• The New York State House of Assembly voted to expel its five Socialist members, all of whom had been elected from boroughs in New York City. Louis Waldmann, August Claessens and Charles Solomon, who had been allowed by a court action to take their seats after the Assembly had voted against seating them, were expelled by a vote of 116 to 28. Samuel Orr and Samuel A. DeWitt were voted out by a margin of 104 to 40.
• Born: Toshiro Mifune, Japanese film star; in Qingdao, Japanese-occupied China

  April 2, 1920 (Friday)

• Germany sent troops into the Ruhr valley in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, in order to confront leftist workers. The German refusal to withdraw the troops prompted France to send its army to occupy Frankfurt, Hamburg and other German cities. Herr Wilhelm von Mayer, Germany's chargé d'affaires to France, met with Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand and said that some German troops had entered the demilitarized neutral zone on Thursday evening, but requested a waiver of the treaty in order to confront the leftist rebels. Premier Millerand informed von Mayer that the German troops would have to be withdrawn.
• José Batlle y Ordóñez, former President of Uruguay and founder of the Montevideo newspaper El Pais, was challenged to a duel by newspaper editor Washington Beltrán Barbat of El Dia after Batlle accused Beltrán of libel. Batlle killed Beltrán with a pistol shot to the chest.
• The Aqua String Band, a mainstay at the annual Mummers Parade in Philadelphia, was first organized.
• Born: Jack Webb, American actor, known for starring as Sergeant Joe Friday in Dragnet and the creator of the TV shows Adam-12 and Emergency!; as John Randolph Webb, in Santa Monica, California
• Died: Matty McIntyre, 39, American baseball outfielder; died of tuberculosis

  April 3, 1920 (Saturday)

• In one of the great celebrity marriages of the year, novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and flapper Zelda Sayre were married in New York City, eight days after the publication of his bestselling novel, This Side of Paradise.
• Attempts are being made to carry out the failed assassination attempt on General Mannerheim, led by Aleksander Weckman by order of Eino Rahja, during the White Guard parade in Tampere, Finland.
• Died: Patrick D. Tyrrell, 88-89, Irish-born American detective who foiled a plot by grave robbers to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln

  April 4, 1920 (Sunday)

• France announced that it would send troops to occupy the German cities of Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Homburg and Hanau, located within the neutral zone in the Ruhr Valley, because Germany had declined to withdraw its troops at French Prime Minister Millerand's request.
• The 1920 Nebi Musa riots began in old Jerusalem and lasted for three days in a clash between Arab Palestinians and Jewish immigrants.
• Denmark's Prime Minister Liebe resigned after only a few weeks in office, and King Christian X promised electoral reforms. The planned general strike in Denmark was called off.
• The Soviet Union issued a law requiring all workers to carry passbooks on their person as proof of employment.

  April 5, 1920 (Monday)

• After eight hours of fighting, Japanese Imperial Army troops took control of the Russian city of Vladivostok in order to stop the advance of Soviet troops. The Japan's imperial flag replaced the Russian ensign over all city government buildings.
• A strike of Chicago's railroad yard workers, not authorized by their labor union, put 50,000 related laborers out of work and tied Chicago's 25 railway lines. The strike spread to the rest of the United States during the week.
• Daylight saving time or "summer time", the practice of setting a clock forward in order to allow more daylight at the end of the workday, went into effect in Austria, Hungary and the Netherlands. It had been implemented in Belgium on February 14, France on March 1, and the United Kingdom on March 28, and would take effect in Yugoslavia on April 5.
• Born:
• *Arthur Hailey, British-born Canadian suspense novelist; in Luton, Bedfordshire, England
• *Barend Biesheuvel, Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1971 to 1973; in Haarlemmerliede
• Died: Laurent-Honoré Marqueste, 71, French sculptor

  April 6, 1920 (Tuesday)

• The Far Eastern Republic was established on Russia's Pacific coast as a buffer state between Russia and Japanese-occupied Russian territory. Verkhneudinsk was the first capital, and Bolshevik politician Alexander Krasnoshchyokov was installed as the regime's first President and Prime Minister. The DVR would be annexed into the Russian SFSR in 1922.
• Two days after France announced the occupation of Germany's Rhine Valley, French Army troops under the command of General Degoutte marched into Frankfurt and Darmstadt erected the French Tricolor over the Town Halls of both cities. In a military operation that New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty described as "the most wonderful ever carried out by one army in another country", the Third Regiment of the Moroccan Rifles, Morocco natives under French Army command, arrived in Frankfurt at 12:30 in the morning and met no resistance. Troops also moved into Hamburg, Hanau and Dieburg and disarmed striking workmen.
• Germany's Army, the Reichswehr, marched into Essen, site of the largest concentration of leftist rebels in the Ruhr zone.
• General Romanovsky, former Chief of Staff to White Russian Lieutenant General Anton Denikin, was murdered when he arrived at the Russian Embassy in Constantinople, shortly after his arrival in the Turkey. General Denikin resigned and was succeeded by General Pyotr Wrangel.
• Herbert Hoover, who had recently declared that he would only accept a Republican nomination for president, was on the presidential primary ballot for both parties in Michigan, finishing in first place as a Democrat and fourth place as a Republican. California U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson won the Republican primary.
• In Wisconsin, Daniel Hoan, the Socialist Party of America Mayor of Milwaukee, was elected to a second term of office.
• The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the government could not control the supply of paper for newsprint under a law permitting rationing control for necessities of life.
• Anatolia News Agency was founded in Ankara, Turkey.
• Born: Edmond H. Fischer, Swiss-American biochemist, 1992 Nobel Prize laureate; in China's Shanghai International Settlement, Shanghai, Republic of China

  April 7, 1920 (Wednesday)

• Turkish forces destroyed the Armenian village of Harouniyi and an American missionary orphanage in the village.
• French Moroccan troops in Frankfurt fired on a mob of protesters, killing seven people, including three women and a boy.
• Born: Ravi Shankar, Indian musician known for his influence on The Beatles and other western artists; as Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury, in Benares, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, British India

  April 8, 1920 (Thursday)

• Rebels took control of Guatemala City, and the Guatemalan Army under the command of President Estrada began shelling the capital.
• Britain refused to join France in occupying the German Rhineland, and all other Allies except for Belgium agreed.
• Germany appealed to the Supreme Council of the League of Nations to arbitrate the issues of the French occupation. Because Germany was not a League member, the appeal was rejected.
• The German cabinet voted to accede to France's demand for the withdrawal of German troops from the Ruhr Valley. The withdrawal of forces, to the treaty limit of 17,000 men, was accomplished by the Germans by April 26.
• An agreement was reached between Italy and Yugoslavia over the Adriatic territory, with Italy to acquire Fiume and Albazia, and Yugoslavia getting Susak, Canale della Fiumara, Porto Baross, Volosca and Scutari.
• The Soviet Navy auxiliary cruiser Caspian foundered in a storm in the Caspian Sea and 52 of her 65 crew were killed. The 13 survivors were rescued by the destroyer Proletarskiy. Fourteen years after its sinking, the Caspian would be raised from the Soviet lake in 1934 and restored to service as a transport ship.
• During a tour of Hawaii, Edward, Prince of Wales, the 25-year old heir to the British throne and the future King Edward VIII, became the first member of British royalty to try surfing. In the evening, Prince Edward then boarded the Royal Navy battleship HMS Renown to begin his state visit to Australia.
• Died:
• *John A. Brashear, 79, American astronomer and inventor
• *Charles Tomlinson Griffes, 35, American composer, died of influenza

  April 9, 1920 (Friday)

• New York City became the latest metropolis to see the shutdown of railroad service across the United States as workers went on strike in the largest city in the U.S., stopping freight from being shipped into the city; subway service ceased at 5:00 the next morning. At the time, railroad workers were on strike in California, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Indianapolis. By the end of April, most strikes were settled and rail service resumed nationwide.
• Although the U.S. Senate had failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an alternative to officially declaring the end of World War I, voting 242 to 150 "to declare war with Germany at an end."
• Germany warned the government of France that the French would be held responsible for any property damage or injuries arising from the Rhineland occupation.
• Former U.S. Food Relief Administrator Herbert Hoover sent a telegram to Democratic Party officials to make clear that he would not accept a nomination to run for President of the United States as a Democrat. Hoover would be elected president in 1928 as a Republican.