1923

Events

January–February

• January 5 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region.
• January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, to force Germany to make reparation payments.
• January 17 – First flight of the first rotorcraft, Juan de la Cierva's Cierva C.4 autogyro, in Spain.
• February 5 – Australian cricketer Bill Ponsford makes 429 runs to break the world record for the highest first-class cricket score for the first time in his third match at this level, at Melbourne Cricket Ground, giving the Victoria cricket team an innings total of 1,059.
• February 9 – Billy Hughes, having resigned as Prime Minister of Australia, after the Country Party refuses to govern in coalition with him as the leader of the Nationalist Party, is succeeded by Stanley Bruce. A Liberal–National Coalition will persist in the politics of Australia for at least 100 years.

  March–April

• March 1 – Eskom, the largest electricity producer in Africa, is established in South Africa.
• March 3 – The first issue of TIME magazine is published.
• March 6 – The Egyptian Feminist Union, the first nationwide feminist movement in Egypt, is founded at the home of activist Huda Sha'arawi.
• 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.
• March 17 - Dobrolyot is formed as the first Soviet civil aviation service; it will become part of flag carrier Aeroflot.
• March 23 – The Posey War, the last conflict between American Indians and settlers concludes, ending the American Indian Wars.
• March 28 – Regia Aeronautica, the air force of Fascist Italy, is founded.
• April 6 – The first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia is formed, in Victoria Institution, Federated Malay States.
• April 12 – The Kandersteg International Scout Centre comes into existence in Switzerland.
• April 19
• * Hjalmar Branting leaves office as Prime Minister of Sweden, after the Swedish Riksdag has rejected a government proposal regarding unemployment benefits. Right-wing academic and jurist Ernst Trygger succeeds him.
• * The Egyptian Constitution of 1923 is adopted, introducing a parliamentary system of democracy in the country.
• April 23 – The Gdynia seaport is inaugurated, on the Polish Corridor.
• April 26 – Wedding of Prince Albert, Duke of York, and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon: The future King George VI of the United Kingdom marries the future Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in Westminster Abbey.
• April 28 – The original Wembley Stadium in London, England, opens its doors to the public for the first time, staging the FA Cup Final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United.

  May–June

• May 9
• * Southeastern Michigan receives a record of snow, after temperatures plummeted from to between 1 and 6 pm on the previous day.
• * The premiere of Bertolt Brecht's play In the Jungle , at the Residenztheater in Munich, is interrupted by Nazi demonstrators.
• May 20 – British Prime Minister Bonar Law resigns, due to ill health.
• May 23
• * Stanley Baldwin is appointed British Prime Minister.
• * Belgium's Sabena Airlines is created.
• May 24 – The Irish Civil War ends.
• May 26 – The first 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race is held, and is won by André Lagache and René Léonard.
• May 27 – The Ku Klux Klan in the United States defies a law requiring publication of its membership.
• June 9 – Bulgarian coup d'état of 1923: A military coup in Bulgaria ousts prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski.
• June 12 – William Walton's Façade is performed for the first time, in London.
• 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 in order to force him to abandon his post.
• June 16 – The storming of Ayan in Siberia concludes the Yakut Revolt and the Russian Civil War.
• June 17 – On the Savio Circuit in Ravenna, Italy, Enzo Ferrari won his first Grand Prix as a racecar driver. It also marked the first time he ever painted the prancing horse logo on his car, which would later become the symbol of Scuderia Ferrari and Ferrari S.p.A.
• June 18 – Mount Etna erupts in Italy, making 60,000 homeless.

  July–August

• July 10 – Large hailstones kill 23 people in Rostov, Soviet Union.
• July 13
• * The Hollywood Sign is inaugurated in California.
• * American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews discovers the first dinosaur eggs near Flaming Cliffs, Mongolia.
• July 20 – Pancho Villa is assassinated at Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua.
• July 24 – The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of the modern Republic of Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in the First World War, bringing an end to the Ottoman Empire after 624 years.
• July – Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic sees the number of marks needed to purchase a single American dollar reach 353,000 – more than 200 times the amount needed at the start of the year.
• August 2 – Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes the 30th president of the United States, upon the death of President Warren G. Harding in San Francisco.
• August 13
• * The first major seagoing ship arrives at Gdynia, the newly constructed Polish seaport.
• * Gustav Stresemann is named Chancellor of Germany, and founds a coalition government for the Weimar Republic, where hyperinflation means that more than 4,600,000 marks are now needed to buy a single American dollar.
• August 18 – The first British Track & Field championships for women are held in London.
• August 30 – Hurricane season begins, with a tropical storm northeast of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
• August 31 – The Italian navy occupies Corfu, in retaliation for the murder of an Italian officer. The League of Nations protests, and the occupation ends on September 30.

  September–October

• September 1
• * The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing more than 100,000 people.
• * The Kantō Massacre begins and continues for several weeks. Ethnic Koreans are killed by lynch mobs based on rumors that Koreans are committing crimes and plotting to overthrow the government. The death toll the massacre is disputed, with figures ranging from a few dozen to over 6,000 deaths. Most of the deaths were of Korean people, although it is said that other ethnic minorities and even Japanese people with unusual dialects were also killed.
• September 4 – The United States Navy's first home-built rigid airship makes her first flight at Naval Air Station Lakehurst ; she contains most of the world's extracted reserves of helium at this time.
• September 6 – The Fukuda Village Incident occurs as a part of the larger Kantō Massacre. Nine Japanese people, including a pregnant woman and children, are killed based on false beliefs that they are ethnic Koreans.
• September 7 – At the International Police Conference in Vienna, the International Criminal Police Commission, better known as Interpol, is set up.
• September 8 – Honda Point disaster: Nine United States Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast.
• September 9 – Turkish head of state Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founds the Republican People's Party.
• September 10 – The Irish Free State joins the League of Nations.
• September 11 – Struggling for a foothold in southern China, Sun Yat-sen decides to ally his Nationalist Kuomintang party with the Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party.
• September 13 – Military coup in Spain: Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship. Trade unions are prohibited for 10 years.
• September 17 – 1923 Berkeley fire: 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.
• September 18–26 – Newspaper printers strike in New York City.
• September 24 – Atlantic hurricane season: The second major hurricane strikes north of Hispaniola.
• September 26 – In Bavaria, Gustav Ritter von Kahr takes dictatorial powers.
• September 29
• * The first American Track & Field championships for women are held in New Jersey.
• * The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine comes into effect, officially creating under British administration the protectorates of Palestine and the separate Emirate of Transjordan under Abdullah I. The French-administered Mandate for Syria and Lebanon also takes effect.
• September 30 – Küstrin Putsch: Outside Berlin, Major Ernst Buchrucker, a leader of the Black Reichswehr, attempts a putsch by seizing several forts.
• October 1 – The Johor–Singapore Causeway opens to public traffic.
• October 2 – Küstrin Putsch: After two days of siege, Major Buchrucker and his men surrender.
• October 6 – The Occupation of Constantinople ends when the great powers of World War I withdraw.
• October 13
• * Ankara replaces Istanbul, as the capital of Turkey.
• * The first recorded example of a storm crossing from the Eastern Pacific into the Atlantic occurs in Oaxaca.
• October 14 – The fourth tropical storm of the year forms just north of Panama.
• October 15 – The fifth tropical storm of the year forms north of the Leeward Islands.
• October 16
• * A sixth tropical storm develops in the Gulf of Mexico; a rare occurrence, it consists of four active tropical storms simultaneously.
• * Roy and Walt Disney found The Walt Disney Company, at this time known as the Disney Brothers Studio.
• October 23 – Hamburg Uprising: In Germany, the Communists attempt a putsch in Hamburg, which results in street battles in that city for the next two days, when it ends unsuccessfully.
• October 27 – In Germany, General Hans von Seeckt orders the Reichswehr to dissolve the Social Democratic-Communist government of Saxony, which is refusing to accept the authority of the Reich government.
• October 28 – In Qajar dynasty Persia, Reza Khan becomes Ahmad Shah Qajar's prime minister.
• October 29 – Turkey becomes a republic, following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire; Kemal Atatürk is elected as first president.
• October 30 – İsmet İnönü is appointed as the first prime minister of Turkey.