August 1920


August 1, 1920 (Sunday)

  • In British India, independence activist Mohandas K. Gandhi began the first of four stages of his non-cooperation movement with the British colonial government, as an extension of his Satyagraha movement, by "giving up all titles and honors conferred by the Crown" because Britain had failed to modify terms its policies regarding its Asian colonies. Gandhi began by returning the medals granted him by the Crown. Each stage was to be more severe, starting with resignation of Indian Muslims and Hindus from government jobs, then the resignation of officers and soldiers from the British Army, and finally, the refusal to pay taxes. Gandhi had announced the August 1 deadline in late June.
  • The Civil Service Retirement Act, establishing a retirement system for United States government employees, went into effect.
  • Radium treatment, at no cost, for victims of cancer was announced by New York's State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease, with treatments to begin at the research clinic of the American Association for Cancer Research in Buffalo, New York, on October 15. The state had recently purchased 2.25 grams of radium for $225,000 for human research. Although isotopes of radium are still used in for certain cancers in radiation therapy, the effects of long-term radiation exposure on technicians and patients had not yet been studied.
  • Born:
  • *Thomas McGuire, U.S. Army Air Forces ace fighter pilot with 38 kills, posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor; in Ridgewood, New Jersey
  • *Sammy Lee, American physician and diver, two time Olympic gold medalist in diving; in Fresno, California
  • *Ken Bald, American comic book and comic strip artist, known for the "Dr. Kildare" daily strip; in New York City
  • Died:
  • *Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 64, Indian nationalist and independence activist, first leader of the Indian Independence Movement, called "the Maker of Modern India" by Mahatma Gandhi
  • *Frank Hanly, 57, American politician and anti-alcohol crusader; killed in an automobile-train accident near Dennison, Ohio. Hanly was a passenger in a car that was crossing a double railroad track when the vehicle was driven "back of one freight train and directly in front of another."

    August 2, 1920 (Monday)

  • The first international meeting of the Universal Negro Improvement Association at New York's Madison Square Garden before a crowd of about 15,000 people who had come to hear an address by Marcus Garvey in favor of the Back-to-Africa movement. "ttired in a gorgeous robe of purple, gold and green," the Jamaican-born Garvey said "The hour has come for the 400,000,000 negroes to claim Africa as their home. Africa shall be the home of the black peoples of the earth. We pledge our sacred blood on the fields of Africa for our liberty and our freedom."
  • Italy, financially burdened by its administration of Albania as a protectorate, signed an agreement at the Albanian capital of Tirana, withdrawing its troops from all Albanian territory except for the island of Suseno, and ending the protectorate that had been established on June 23, 1917.
  • The U.S. Association of Railway Executives announced that the cost of interstate passenger railroad travel would take effect on August 20, and the cost for shipping freight would rise on August 25. Rates for travel and shipping within a state were controlled by the individual state governments.
  • William Bross Lloyd, a Chicago attorney and financial backer of the Communist Labor Party of America, was found guilty of violating the Sedition Act of 1918 in their anti-government speeches. He and 19 other Communists were tried by a single jury in a state court in Chicago, and all received jail sentences ranging from one to five years. Special Prosecutor Frank Comerford told reporters that the decision was "a history-making verdict which will silence sedition."
  • Governor Esteban Cantú Jiménez of the Mexican federal territory of Baja California declared that he was in "open revolt" against the Mexican national government. In announcing the revolt, the Mexican government assured the United States that it was sending troops to the territory, but that it would not permit fighting near the U.S. border. The U.S. State Department, in turn, announced that it had denied Cantú permission to purchase weapons in the United States.
  • In Los Angeles, film comedian Charlie Chaplin was sued for divorce by his wife, actress Mildred Harris, who cited as her causes "extreme mental cruelty" and "bodily injury." Mrs. Chaplin's lawyer also asked the court to issue an injunction to prevent Chaplin from selling his ownership rights to his films, valued at $750,000, without accounting to the court for a fair division of marital property.
  • Born: Hugh Hickling, British colonial administrator who drafted the Internal Security Act 1960 for Malaysia; in Derby, Derbyshire
  • Died: Ormer Locklear, 28, American stunt pilot and action film star, was killed in a fiery plane crash, along with his co-pilot "Skeets" Elliot, during the filming of ''The Skywayman''

    August 3, 1920 (Tuesday)

  • Lige Daniels, a 16-year old African American, was lynched by an angry mob in Center, Texas, where he had been held in jail since the July 29 murder of a 45-year old white woman. While the Shelby County sheriff was out of town, having taken the keys to the jail with him, a mob of more than 1,000 men broke into the courthouse, battered down the steel doors of the jail, then hanged him from an oak tree in front of the building. As with many lynchings at the time, a photograph of the event was widely circulated as a postcard. The Daniels lynching would be forgotten for almost 80 years until the postcard's appearance in 1999 on the cover of Without Sanctuary, a book by Atlanta antique store owner James Allen, who had collected 68 lynching postcards for a revelation of an ignored chapter of American history. The Daniels photo continues to be seen in references to the era.
  • Rear Admiral Cary T. Grayson, the personal physician to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, went on vacation after 10 months, signaling that the president was out of danger. Wilson had suffered a stroke on October 2 and gradually recovered under Dr. Grayson's care.
  • Born: P. D. James, British detective novelist, author of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries; as Phyllis Dorothy James, in Oxford, Oxfordshire

    August 4, 1920 (Wednesday)

  • U.S. President Woodrow Wilson ordered U.S. Navy destroyers to block the laying of a Western Union telegraphic cable that would have connected Miami to Barbados to be linked to a cable to Brazil. A British ship equipped for the purpose, the cable layer Colonia, had been chartered by the company to bring the undersea cable line to the Miami harbor, without having waited for the U.S. government to act on its application. On August 6, two U.S. Navy admirals and a U.S. Army colonel boarded Colonia and warned it to stay three miles from shore, outside of U.S. territorial waters. The dispute would drag on for almost two years, until the approval of Western Union's application on June 25, 1922.
  • President Adolfo de la Huerta of Mexico, a general in the Mexican Army, removed all military officers from his cabinet except for his Minister of War, and sent them out of the country on diplomatic appointments.
  • President Wilson proclaimed December 21 to be honored as "Pilgrim's Day" to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower in America.
  • The British cabinet first discussed the possibility of King Faisal of Syria, recently deposed by France, to become the puppet ruler for the British Mandate of Iraq as "King of Mesopotamia."
  • Born:
  • *Helen Thomas, American journalist who worked for United Press International and Hearst Newspapers in the White House press corps from 1961 to 2010; in Winchester, Kentucky,
  • *John Figueroa, Jamaican poet; in Kingston
  • *Adolph Dubs, American diplomat, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan who was kidnapped and killed during a rescue mission; in Chicago

    August 5, 1920 (Thursday)

  • Germany's Foreign Minister, Dr. Walter Simons, told the Reichstag that Germany would not allow the Allies to send their troops across German territory to help Poland in the Polish-Soviet War.
  • The Executive Council of the League of Nations announced that the first international financial congress would be held at Brussels, starting on September 24.
  • Born: Selma Diamond, Canadian-born American comedian, known for portraying bailiff Selma Hacker on the TV series Night Court; in London, Ontario

    August 6, 1920 (Friday)

  • At Moscow, the "Twenty-one Conditions" for admission to the Communist International were adopted by the delegates to the organization's second World Congress, which had opened on July 19.
  • The House of Commons passed the "Irish Crimes Act", 206 to 18. One of the Irish MPs, Joseph Devlin, was suspended when he shouted "I hate, loathe and despise you all!" at his fellow members of parliament.
  • U.S. troops were ordered to stop rioting in Denver, Colorado, after five people had been killed and 50 injured, during a strike against the Denver Tramway Company.
  • Born: Ella Raines, American actress, starred in the 1944 film noir Phantom Lady and later in the short-lived syndicated TV show Janet Dean, Registered Nurse; in Snoqualmie Falls, Washington

    August 7, 1920 (Saturday)

  • The first World Scout Jamboree came to an end in London at the Olympia Exhibition Hall in West Kensington. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who had founded the Boy Scouts in 1907, was celebrated by the 8,000 children and adults who had come from around the world with "the shout of pure hero worship... acclaiming their one and undisputed chief and founder" with the honor of Chief Scout of the World. A successor would note later, "This had not been planned as a part of the Jamboree program but was a spontaneous decision by the assembled Scouts."
  • The swastika was adopted as the official symbol of Germany's Nazi Party at a conference held in neighboring Austria in Salzburg.
  • Lithuania's parliament voted to ratify the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty that had been signed on July 12. In return, the Soviet Union ordered its remaining troops to leave the Lithuanian Republic.
  • Following up on a June 28 announcement, Tennessee Governor Albert H. Roberts called the state legislature into special session, to begin on August 9, to consider ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
  • Ohio Governor and Democrat presidential nominee James M. Cox formally began his nationwide campaign by delivering his acceptance speech at festivities in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio. "We are in a time which calls for straight thinking, straight talking and straight acting," Cox said, adding "This is no time for wabbling." Cox pledged to bring the United States into the League of Nations, but only on condition that the U.S. would enter only "to maintain peace and comity." "This was the old order of procedure when the action of the national convention was formalized by the candidate being officially told he was the candidate," Cox would write in his memoir. "With the coming of radio, the old method is passing out; nevertheless, acceptance day as an event took on the appearance and character of a festival day in Ohio at that time."
  • Born: Francoise Adret, French ballet dancer and choreographer; in Versailles, Yvellines departement, France