February 1920

February 1, 1920 (Sunday)

• The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was created by the merger of the Dominion Police Force and the North-West Mounted Police.
• The Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia authorized the Central Union of Russian Cooperatives to resume trade with the Allied powers of World War I.
• Died: Konstantin Mamontov, 50, Russian military officer who commanded the Don Cossacks army during its fight against the Bolsheviks

  February 2, 1920 (Monday)

• The Treaty of Tartu was signed between the Soviet Union and Estonia, with the Soviets recognizing Estonia as an independent nation and renouncing claims to Estonian territory. The pact, signed at the city of Tartu in Estonia, brought a successful end to the Estonian War of Independence after more than a year of fighting. The Soviet government also agreed to pay five million gold rubles and permission to purchase 2.5 million acres of Russian timber, in return for use of the Narva River for development of hydroelectric power. Estonian independence would last for 20 years, but the nation would be annexed into the Soviet Union on August 6, 1940. The Republic of Estonia would remain part of the U.S.S.R. until August 20, 1991.
• The U.S. Census Bureau announced that the death rate in the United States in 1918 was the highest on record, with 1,471,367 people dying, a rate of 18 per every 1,000 people. Of the total, nearly one-third—477,467—had died in the Spanish influenza epidemic from either the flu or from complications with pneumonia.
• Born: Han Young-suk, Korean folk dancer, preserved the art of the traditional Seungmu and Taepyeongmu Korean dances, honored as a Ingan-munhwage; in Cheonan, Chōsen, Japanese Empire
• Died:Maurice "Moss" Enright, American gangster and labor racketeer; killed in a drive-by shooting after stepping out of his car in front of his home on Chicago's Garfield Avenue.

  February 3, 1920 (Tuesday)

• The Allies submitted a list to the German government, with the names of almost 1,000 accused German war criminals whose extradition for trial would be sought. Germany's Defense Minister, Gustav Noske commented to a London Daily Mail reporter, "the surrender of these men is virtually impossible, turn it how you will."
• Born:
• *George Armitage Miller, American psychologist, co-founder of cognitive psychology; in Charleston, West Virginia, United States
• *Khieu Ponnary, Cambodian Khmer Rouge official, wife of Pol Pot; in Battambang Province, Cambodia, French Indochina

  February 4, 1920 (Wednesday)

• Australia's NRMA, an automobile owners group offering roadside assistance and travel advice to its members, was established as the National Roads and Motorists' Association.
• The Hultschiner region of the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia, inhabited mostly by speakers of the Czech language, was turned over to Czechoslovakia pursuant to treaty. The territory is now part of the Czech Republic. Among the villages renamed was Schreibersdorf, now called Hněvošice. The city of Hultschin itself was renamed Hlučín.
• Born:
• *Gerardo Guerrieri, Italian playwright, known for translating numerous foreign plays into the Italian language; in Matera, Kingdom of Italy
• *LeRay Wilson, U.S. Navy sailor, killed after saving the ship USS William B. Preston. Another ship, USS LeRay Wilson, was later named in his honor; in Cove, Oregon, United States
• Died:
• *Edward Payson Ripley, 74, American railroad executive, 14th president of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway
• *O. C. Barber, 78, American industrialist, owner of the Diamond Match Company, founded the town of Barberton, Ohio
• *Jean Louis Émile Boudier, 92, French mycologist, discovered multiple species of fungi

  February 5, 1920 (Thursday)

• A fire destroyed the buildings of the 130-year old University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia. The university would be rebuilt by a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, but only on the condition that it be relocated to Halifax, adjacent to the campus of Dalhousie University.
• Fifty-six officers and soldiers of the New Zealand Army, commanded by then-Major Edward Puttick were dispatched to the island of Fiji during a period of civil unrest, departing on the government-owned ship Tutanekai. The Fiji Expeditionary Force would serve as a peacekeeping unit as part of the first peacetime overseas deployment of New Zealand forces until April 18.
• Smith College of Northampton, Massachusetts, began an unusual fundraising campaign by directing its alumni to call on every family in the United States with the surname "Smith" to donate one dollar "to perpetuate the name of the largest college for women in the world."
• Born: Willemiena Bouwman, Dutch social worker and member of the Dutch Resistance, credited with the rescue of numerous Jewish children in the Netherlands during World War II; in Gees, Netherlands
• Died:
• * James Grant, 88, Canadian physician and political figure, last surviving member of Canada's first House of Commons
• *Earl Burgess, 30, American film stuntman; slipped and fell 700 feet from an airplane during the filming of a comedy in California

  February 6, 1920 (Friday)

• France's Prime Minister, Alexandre Millerand, called for a vote of confidence on his government's foreign policy of strict adherence to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and received an endorsement of 518 to 68.
• The Commonwealth of Virginia became the third U.S. state to reject women's suffrage and the proposed 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as the vote in the state Senate failed, 10 to 24. More than 30 years after the amendment had been ratified, Virginia's legislature would approve the amendment on February 21, 1952.
• During a blizzard, the American concrete cargo ship SS Polias ran aground on a reef off the U.S. coast near Port Clyde, Maine, and 11 of her crew disregarded the skipper's orders and abandoned ship in a lifeboat rather than wait to be rescued. All 11 were killed when their boat was blown against the hull of Polias, broke up, and sank. The rest of the crew evacuated the next day in lifeboats and were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Acushnet.

  February 7, 1920 (Saturday)

• Admiral Alexander Kolchak, the former "Supreme Leader of Russia" was executed in a prison in Irkutsk, along with his former prime minister, Viktor Pepelyayev.
• French aviator Joseph Sadi-Lecointe set a new record for fastest time to travel one kilometer — 13.05 seconds — with an average speed of in a Nieuport-Delage NiD 29 airplane.
• Having recovered from a stroke that had kept him bedridden for several months, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson confronted his Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, asking, "Is it true, as I have been told, that during my illness you have frequently called the heads of the executive departments of government into conference?", adding that if it was true, "Under our constitutional law and practice, no one but the president has the right to summon" cabinet members to a meeting, "and no one but the president and the congress has the right to ask their views or the views of any one of them on any public question." Lansing responded two days later, conceding that he frequently called meetings "in view of the fact that we were denied communication with you." The response led Wilson to ask Lansing's resignation on February 11.
• The Soviet government established an agency to audit its civil servants, Rabkrin.
• Died: Richard Bullock, 72, Cornwall-born American trickshot artist who portrayed "Deadwood Dick" in vaudeville

  February 8, 1920 (Sunday)

• The first American film cartoon to be shown in color, The Debut of Thomas Katt, was released to American theaters by Bray Productions. The animated movie film used the Brewster Color process that had been patented by Percy Douglas Brewster in 1913.
• In Albania, the Congress of Lushnjë proclaimed Tirana as the new nation's temporary capital, after the city of Durrës had served as the capital since 1918. Tirana would still be the Balkan nation's capital a century later.
• Prima ballerina Elena Smirnova performed in Russia for the final time, as the production of Romance of the Roses closed. Smirnova and other artists subsequently fled from the Soviet Union. She would never return to Russia, and would die in 1934.
• Born:
• *George W. George, American stage and film producer, known for the 1981 movie My Dinner with Andre; as George Warren Goldberg, in New York City, United States
• *Viola Herms Drath, German-American playwright, journalist and author; as Viola Herms, in Düsseldorf, Weimar Republic

  February 9, 1920 (Monday)

• The Svalbard islands, located above the Arctic Circle, were recognized as territory of Norway in the Spitsbergen Treaty signed in Paris by seven European nations.
• The Battle of Urfa began after a former Ottoman Empire official, Ali Saip Bey, had unsuccessfully demanded that a garrison of French occupation forces withdraw from the area that they were claiming as French territory. The 473 soldiers defending Urfa would withstand a siege by Turkish and Kurdish forces for 61 days; almost all of the defenders would be killed after having been promised that they would receive safe passage following a surrender.
• The U.S. Senate voted, 63 to 9, to allow consideration of the Treaty of Versailles again and referred it to the Foreign Relations Committee.
• The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees and Railway Shop Workers, an American labor union, called for its 300,000 members to walk out on strike on February 17 if an agreement on wages could not be resolved with the U.S. Railroad Administration.
• Five people in Lexington, Kentucky, were killed by the state National Guard after attempting to storm the city courthouse to lynch Will Lockett, an African-American serial killer who had confessed to the killing of three women and a child, 10-year old Geneva Hardman. Lockett would be executed by electric chair on March 11.
• Born:
• *Herbert Bachnick, German Luftwaffe fighter ace, credited with 80 aerial victories, awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross; in Mannheim, Weimar Republic
• *Grigory Rechkalov, Soviet ace fighter pilot, credited with more than 50 shootdowns during World War II, awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union; in the Irbitsky District, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russian SFSR
• Died: David Ward King, 62, American inventor, created the horse-drawn King road drag and the first road grader