February 1921

February 1, 1921 (Tuesday)

• Germany's Foreign Minister Walter Simons said in a speech to the Reichstag that Germany would not accept the Allied Council resolution for reparations, and said that his government was working on counterproposals.
• The Bengal Legislative Council was inaugurated in Calcutta by the Duke of Connaught, the uncle of King George V of the United Kingdom, as the first advisory council of India representatives for the Bengal Province of British India.
• Born: Peter Sallis, English actor, known for his roles as Norman Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine and Wallace in Wallace and Gromit; in Twickenham, Middlesex, England

  February 2, 1921 (Wednesday)

• In the Clonfin Ambush, "The first major IRA attack with what we would now recognise as an IED with sufficient explosive power to bring the fight to a quick result" the Irish Republican Army detonated an improvised explosive device to stop two truckloads of the Royal Irish Constabulary auxiliary and then to fire on them. In the fight that followed at Clonfin in County Longford, four of the 19 RIC men were killed and eight wounded, and further ambushes using IEDs followed.
• The British-registered ship Esperanza de Larrinaga departed from Norfolk, Virginia on a voyage to Reggio Calabria in Italy, but never arrived. On the same day, the Italian steamship Monte San Michele left New York with a cargo of grain to ship to Genoa and was not seen again. The search for both ships, as well as the freighter Ottawa, would be abandoned after more than two months after searchers concluded that the vessels had been lost with all hands.
• Born: Hyacinthe Thiandoum, Senegalese Roman Catholic Cardinal and the Archbishop of Dakar from 1962 to 2000; in Poponguine, Senegal
• Died:
• *Andrea Carlo Ferrari, 70, Italian Roman Catholic Cardinal and the Archbishop of Milan from 1894 until his death; died of throat cancer
• *Antonio Jacobsen, 70, Danish-born American maritime artist

  February 3, 1921 (Thursday)

• An ambush by the Irish Republican Army killed 17 policemen in Queenstown in County Cork. On the same day at Burgatia, 500 Sinn Feiners fought a pitched battle against the constabulary.
• Thirty-six unemployed workers and six Chilean Army soldiers were killed in a clash with a larger number of unemployed workmen at the nitrate factory at San Gregorio.
• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, at the request of President-Elect Warren G. Harding, called a special session of the U.S. Senate to begin on the morning of the March 4 presidential Inauguration Day to approve Harding's appointments for a new cabinet.
• Born: George E. Felton, British computer scientist who developed the GEORGE series of operating systems; in Paris, France

  February 4, 1921 (Friday)

• Germany had been preparing in 1918 to bomb New York City with the Airship L-72, U.S. Army Brigadier General Billy Mitchell testified before the U.S. House Naval Affairs Committee, and the ship was "ready to make the trip when the Armistice was signed." "I believe that it could have attacked New York City with success," General Mitchell told the committee. "It was designed to fly at a height of, thus making it virtually immune from attacks by airplanes on its trip here." Mitchell added that the U.S. Army was working on producing a similar weapon. L-72 was surrendered to France as part of German disarmament, and renamed the Dixmude.
• Dimitrios Rallis resigned as Prime Minister of Greece after a disagreement with his Minister of War, Dimitrios Gounaris over going to war with Turkey.
• Lonnie Eaton, an African American convicted of murder, was scheduled to be executed in Monroe, Louisiana, but Ouachita Parish Sheriff T. A. Grant forgot to carry out the hanging and nobody reminded him of the Governor's death warrant. Four days later, the embarrassed sheriff notified Governor John M. Parker and asked what he should do. On April 22, Governor Parker commuted Eaton's sentence to life in prison upon recommendation of the state board of pardons.
• Japan's War Minister, Count Tanaka Giichi, announced that another division of troops would be sent to its Governorate of Chosen, the Japanese Empire's Korea territory.
• Born:
• *Betty Friedan, American feminist and women's rights pioneer whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique launched the "women's lib" movement in the 1960s; as Bettye Naomi Goldstein, in Peoria, Illinois, United States
• *K. R. Narayanan, President of India from 1997 to 2002 ; as Kocheril Raman Narayanan, in Perumthanam, Travancore princely state, British India

  February 5, 1921 (Saturday)

• Francis Burton Harrison, the U.S. Governor-General of the Philippines, transmitted his resignation by cable to U.S. President Wilson, to take effect on March 4.
• A train crash in Austria killed 25 people and seriously injured 40 more when a southbound freight train collided with an express train traveling north from Tarvisio in Italy to Vienna. The impact occurred near Felixdorf when both trains were on the same track approaching from opposite directions during a heavy snowfall.
• The Republic of Honduras became the first nation to approve the agreement to merge four nations into the Federation of Central American Republics. The deputies of the National Congress of Honduras voted unanimously in favor of reunification.
• Born: Zbigniew Czajkowski, Polish fencer, 1964 Olympic gold medalist, coach of Poland's fencing team; in Modlin, Poland

  February 6, 1921 (Sunday)

• Elections were held for the parliament of the Union of South Africa, strengthening the majority of Prime Minister Jan Smuts and the South African Party, and temporarily ending General J. B. M. Hertzog's agitation for South Africa to secede from the British Empire. After having governed by a coalition with the Unionist Party since the 1920 election, the SAP won a majority on its own with 79 of the 134 seats in the Volksraad, the lower house of the South African Parliament.
• Nikolaos Kalogeropoulos was appointed as the new Prime Minister of Greece to replace Dimitrios Rallis. King Constantine appointed Kalogeropoulos shortly after midnight after conferring all day on Saturday with leaders of Rallis's party.
• The British freighter Ottawa made its last communication, in the middle of its voyage from Norfolk, Virginia in the U.S. to Manchester in the UK. The Ottawa was never heard from again and presumed to have been lost with all hands.
• The palace of Archbishop of Mexico City José Mora y del Río was struck by a bomb.

  February 7, 1921 (Monday)

• The Army Reduction Resolution, calling for the U.S. Army to be reduced to 175,000 soldiers, passed by Congress and then vetoed by U.S. President Wilson, became effective as both Houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly to override the veto. The House voted 271 to 16 to override on February 5, and the Senate followed suit, 67 to 1.
• Italy's Foreign Minister, Count Carlo Sforza, announced that the Allied Supreme Council was reducing the amount expected from Germany to pay for Allied occupation of the Rhineland by 83% to only 240 million gold marks, a savings equivalent of $300 million per year, to be made up for by the 12% tax on German exports.

  February 8, 1921 (Tuesday)

• Germany's Chancellor Constantin Fehrenbach accepted the invitation to attend the March 1 meeting of the Allied Premiers at the Reparations Conference in London.
• Born:
• *Lana Turner, American film actress and model; as Julia Jean Turner, in Wallace, Idaho, United States
• *Nexhmije Hoxha, Albanian Communist politician and the wife of Albanian leader Enver Hoxha; as Nexhmije Xhuglini, in Bitola, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
• *Hans Albert, German philosopher; in Köln, Weimar Republic
• Died:
• *George Formby, 45, English stage comedian and singer
• *Peter Kropotkin, 78, Russian anarchist

  February 9, 1921 (Wednesday)

• The Indian Legislative Assembly and the Indian Council of State, national advisory bodies composed of representatives of the natives of India, were inaugurated in New Delhi by the Duke of Connaught. The advisory body was the first ever to be elected in British India. Of the 104 seats in the Legislative assembly, 66 were elected by Indian voters and 38 were selected for Europeans by the Chambers of Commerce throughout the subcontinent. The 34-member Council of State had 24 elected seats and 10 reserved.
• France's Chamber of Deputies voted its confidence in the government of Prime Minister Aristide Briand and his policy toward reparations from Germany, by a margin of 387 to 125. The Chamber also ratified the restructured offer for reducing German reparations by a margin of 395 to 83.
• A joint session of Congress confirmed the results of the United States Electoral College, certifying the election of Warren G. Harding as President of the United States and Calvin Coolidge as vice president by a 404 to 127 margin.

  February 10, 1921 (Thursday)

• Thirty-two people were killed as a tornado swept through the African American town of Gardner in Washington County, Georgia, and 40 injured. Over 100 people were left homeless by the twister, that swept through the settlement shortly after 12:00 noon. All but two of the persons killed were African American, and the Red Cross provided the relief efforts for the injured and the homeless.
• Japan's House of Representatives voted 38 in favor and 245 against a proposal by opposition leader Yukio Ozaki to reduce the number of new ships to be built for the Imperial Japanese Navy.

  February 11, 1921 (Friday)

• The first interview with the former Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, since his abdication at the end of World War I, was published worldwide by United Press, which had bought the exclusive rights. A few months earlier, Dutch journalist Heinrich Petermeyer had been granted a brief meeting with the former German Emperor outside of Amerongen Castle in the Netherlands. The Kaiser opined that Germany's citizenry had "betrayed itself, its God and me", that "we would never have lost the war if the German people had remained true to themselves" and that since his betrayal, "notice how God scourges the whole world."
• The largest ocean liner up to that time, Germany's SS Bismarck, was purchased from the Allies by the White Star Line, after being surrendered to the United Kingdom as part of the German reparations. Renamed RMS Majestic, the Bismarck had been launched in 1914 but was never used by Germany's Hamburg-American Line because of World War One, and became part of the ships given up by Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
• An uprising in the Menshevik-controlled Democratic Republic of Georgia, incited by Soviet Bolsheviks, began in the primarily Armenian populated Lori Province, and was portrayed in the Russian press as a workers' insurrection against the Georgian government.
• Born:
• *Yozo Matsushima, Japanese mathematician who theorized Matsushima's formula; in Sakai City, Osaka prefecture, Empire of Japan
• *Lloyd Bentsen, American politician, served as U.S. Senator for Texas from 1971 to 1993 and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1993 to 1994; in Mission, Texas, United States
• Died: Sir William Blake Richmond, 78, English portrait painter