February 1920


The following events occurred in February 1920:

February 1, 1920 (Sunday)

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)

February 4, 1920 (Wednesday)

February 5, 1920 (Thursday)

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)

February 9, 1920 (Monday)

February 10, 1920 (Tuesday)

  • In a plebiscite taken in the former northern portion of the German Duchy of Schleswig, residents voted by a 3 to 1 margin to become part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The formal transfer would take place on June 15 as the districts of Hadersleben, Apenrade, Sonderburg and Tondern became Haderslev, Aabenraa, Sønderborg and Tønder. The official results issued in Copenhagen were 75,023 Schleswig voters in favor of their land becoming part of Denmark, and 25,087 voting in favor of remaining part of Germany.
  • French Army troops, under the command of General Louis Albert Quérette, abandoned their garrison at the former Ottoman Empire city of Maraş and allowed the Turkish National Forces to reclaim the site, bringing an end to the Battle of Marash. The French forces had been protecting 20,000 Armenian civilians who had been relocated to Maraş following the Armenian Genocide, and although more than 4,000 fled with the French troops, more than 8,000 left behind were killed when the Turks entered the city. Of the Armenians who did depart with the French troops, only 1,500 survived the winter weather during the retreat to another French fortress at İslâhiye.
  • There ceremony of the "Wedding to the Sea" was carried out as Poland regained territory from Germany along the Baltic Sea. Lieutenant General Józef Haller of the Polish Army carried out the symbolic union of Poland to the sea at the seaport town of Puck, formerly Putzig.

February 11, 1920 (Wednesday)

February 12, 1920 (Thursday)

February 13, 1920 (Friday)

February 14, 1920 (Saturday)

February 15, 1920 (Sunday)

February 16, 1920 (Monday)

February 17, 1920 (Tuesday)

February 18, 1920 (Wednesday)

February 19, 1920 (Thursday)

  • The Russian port of Arkhangelsk, part of the Severnaya Oblast region defended by the White Army of Admiral Kolchak, was entered and occupied by the Soviet Bolshevik army; Murmansk, the last bastion of the White Army, would fall on March 13. Most of the White Army government officials had evacuated to Norway the week before.
  • China's Foreign Minister Lu Zhengxiang and Vice Foreign Minister Chen Lu resigned in protest after interference by conservatives during negotiations with Japan over the Shandong peninsula.
  • The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that average wages had risen during 1919 by at least 25%, and in some cases, as high as 125%, in eleven leading industries. The BLS also concluded that the number of employees had risen by as much as 50% in some of the businesses surveyed.
  • Shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada voted to turn operation of the system over to the Canadian government.
  • Khosrov bey Sultanov, assigned to be the Governor of Karabakh, a primarily Armenian area claimed by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, met with a council of Armenian leaders and demanded that they agree to the incorporation of the area into Azerbaijan. After the Armenians met and rejected the demand, Azerbaijan troops carried out a massacre of civilians on March 22.
  • The U.S. Navy demonstrated its new weapon to reporters, an artillery shell powerful enough to penetrate more than of armor siding. The new shell, produced at the naval ordnance plant in South Charleston, West Virginia, was fired on the Navy's proving grounds at Indian Head, Maryland.
  • Born:
  • *Richard E. Byrd, Jr., American arctic explorer, grandson of North Pole explorer Richard E. Byrd; in Boston, United States
  • *Jim Fritzell, American television and film screenwriter; in San Francisco, United States
  • *C. Z. Guest, American fashion model, stage actress and socialite; as Lucy Cochrane Guest, in Boston, United States
  • Died: Georges Fragerolle, 64, French musician, composer, novelist and theatrical producer

February 20, 1920 (Friday)

  • The Communist Party of Azerbaijan, which favored a merger of the Azerbaijan Republic into a federation of Communist republics in the old Russian Empire, was formed at a meeting in Baku by delegates from four political parties, with Mirza Davud Huseynov of the Hummet party as its first General Secretary. By April, the Communists would have a majority in the Azerbaijan government; in 1922, they would join with parties in the Armenian and Georgian republics to create a federation and the independent nation would become part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at the end of that year. The Azerbaijan Communists would remain in power until 1991.
  • Kin Canada, a Canadian service club, was founded as the Kinsmen of Canada at a meeting in Hamilton, Ontario. Plumbing supply salesman Harold A. Rogers created the group after his application to the Hamilton Rotary Club was denied.
  • The city of Metapa, in Nicaragua, was renamed Ciudad Darío in honor of its most famous native, poet Rubén Darío.
  • U.S. Customs authorities made their first reported confiscation of imported liquor since Prohibition had gone into effect a few weeks earlier. The yacht Genesee, owned by playboy W. K. Vanderbilt Jr., had been carrying "about $1,800 worth of spirituous liquors" as it arrived at Key West, Florida, after its departure from Cuba.
  • The Greek cargo ship Aghia Paraskevi wrecked off of the coast of Cape St. Thomas, Argentina, with the loss of 15 of her crew, while survivors were rescued by the British ship SS Carnarvonshire.
  • Died:
  • * Robert E. Peary, 63, American Arctic explorer and officer in the U.S. Navy, long credited as the first to reach the North Pole in 1909, although now considered to have been unlikely
  • * Jacinta Marto, 9, Portuguese saint, one of first people to report the prophecy of the Miracle of Fátima, canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2017; died of influenza

February 21, 1920 (Saturday)

February 22, 1920 (Sunday)

February 23, 1920 (Monday)

February 24, 1920 (Tuesday)

  • The National Socialist German Workers' Party, colloquially known as the Nazi Party, was founded at a meeting at the Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in Munich. With over 2,000 people in attendance, German Workers' Party Chairman and founder Anton Drexler introduced Adolf Hitler, who then presented his German nationalist "25-Point Program" that changed the DAP's mission statement, its flag and its name to the new NSDAP. The term "Nazi" derived from the abbreviation for Nationalsozialistische.
  • The Dairy Council, which has promoted the consumption of milk in the United Kingdom for over a century, was founded. During its first 63 years of existence, it was called the National Milk Publicity Council.
  • The rights to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published continuously since its founding in Great Britain in 1768, was purchased by American philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, the chief executive officer of Sears, Roebuck and Company.
  • Soviet Army general Yakov Tryapitsyn and 4,000 troops entered the city of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, which had been occupied by the Japanese Army's 14th Infantry Division, a Russian White Army garrison, and 6,000 Russian and Japanese civilians. Outnumbered by 4,000 Soviet troops against the combined Japanese and White Russian force of 650, the Japanese commander allowed the Soviets to enter the city. General Trapitsyn's men then began a roundup of the White Russian troops for execution.
  • The League of Nations Supreme Council decided that it would not recognize the Soviet Union as the government of Russia until outrages by the Bolsheviks were halted, but said that the League nations would resume trade with Russia, and that neighboring nations would receive "every possible support" from the League if they were attacked by the Soviets.
  • Mathias Erzberger was forced to resign as Germany's Minister of Finance after his financial scandals were revealed in testimony during a lawsuit he had brought against Dr. Karl Helfferich for libel.
  • The U.S. state of Maryland rejected the 19th Amendment for women's suffrage nationwide. In 1941, Maryland would become the first of nine southern states to reverse its decision to reject the amendment.
  • Born: V. Nanammal, Indian yoga teacher, trained over one million students during her 45-year career; in Coimbatore, Madras Presidency, British India
  • Died: John Charles Olmsted, 67, American landscape architect

February 25, 1920 (Wednesday)

  • Dr. Anna Weld and Professor Leila Andrews became the first and second women to be admitted into the American College of Physicians.
  • Within a month of the beginning of Prohibition, the U.S. House rejected the Igoe proposal to repeal the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of the ban against liquor.
  • Born:
  • *Wladyslaw Machejek, Polish propaganda writer and legislator; in Chodów, Poland
  • *Molly Bobak, Canadian war artist; born as Molly Lamb, in Vancouver, Canada
  • Died: James Gayley, 64, American inventor and metallurgist, credited with improving in the production of steel and iron

February 26, 1920 (Thursday)

February 27, 1920 (Friday)

  • Prime Minister Millerand of France issued an order drafting striking railroad workers into the French Army, after a nationwide walkout had stopped service on three of the nation's five railway lines. The strike ended three days later, on March 1.
  • The British government released the text of proposed legislation in the House of Commons providing for Irish Home Rule, with an autonomous government and a dual parliament.
  • French troops in Syria, formerly territory of the Ottoman Empire, were forced to retreat from Aleppo after heavy fighting. A French study concluded that at least 20,000 Armenians had been massacred by the Ottoman military.
  • U.S. Army Major R. W. Schroeder took off from McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio, and set a new world record for highest altitude obtained by a human being, but lost consciousness after reaching an altitude later determined to be. His plane fell more than six miles before Schroeder was able to regain control of it before impact. Major Schroeder was trying to reach an altitude of in his unpressurized, open cockpit Packard-Le Père plane.

February 28, 1920 (Saturday)

  • The patent application for the mass production of silica gel was filed by its inventor, chemistry professor Walter A. Patrick of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, under the title "Process of producing gels for catalytic and adsorbent purposes." U.S. Patent No. 1,577,186 was not granted until more than six years later, on March 16, 1926. Silica gel is now widely used in packaging as a means of keeping perishable products dry by removing moisture from the air within the package.
  • U.S. President Wilson signed the Esch–Cummins Act, returning control of the nation's railroads to their corporate owners, effective at 12:01 a.m. on March 1. "Thus ends twenty-six months of federal control and operation of the lines," a reporter noted.
  • President Wilson also said in a statement to U.S. Senate leaders that if the Senate failed to ratify all of the articles of the Treaty of Versailles, he would decline to sign the ratification bill, exercising the pocket veto of the legislation. At issue was Article 10 of the Treaty.
  • Italy began the blockade of the disputed city of Fiume.
  • Greece ratified the Treaty of Versailles.
  • The Emperor of Japan dissolved the nation's legislature, the Diet, because of disagreements between the Cabinet and the Diet over extended male suffrage. Under the law, new elections were required within five months.
  • Mexican bandits crossed the border into the U.S. state of Arizona and killed an American storekeeper at the mining town of Ruby.

February 29, 1920 (Sunday)

  • The freighter ship SS Cubadist made its last communication after departing from Havana en route to Baltimore with a cargo of molasses. At that time, it identified its position as south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The ship and its crew of 40 were never seen again, and was believed to have been lost in a gale that swept through that area of the Atlantic Ocean.