January 1920

January 1, 1920 (Thursday)

• Harvard University narrowly defeated the University of Oregon, 7 to 6, in the Tournament of Roses East-West Football Game held at Pasadena, California, between the two teams chosen by the tournament committee as the best in the eastern and western United States. All of the scoring came in the second quarter, on a field goal by Oregon's Bill Steers, a 13-yard touchdown run by Fred Church and Arnold Horween's extra point kick for Harvard, and another field goal by Clifford "Skeet" Manerud. In the final minutes of the game, two Oregon field goal tries by Steers were blocked, and a final try by Manerud from the 20 yard line missed by a few inches Harvard, then an independent, was undefeated and went into the game with an 8-0-1 record; it had outscored its opponents 229 to 19 in the 1919 college football season. Oregon had a 5-1-0 record in the Pacific Coast Conference, and had given the other 5-1-0 team, the University of Washington, its only loss. The event, which is now called the Rose Bowl, was the only post-season college football game at the time.
• At 4:00 in the afternoon on the first day of the year, Chicago police began raids on 300 suspected "open and secret gathering places" of "radical cults" in an effort by Chicago's state prosecutor to "wipe out Bolshevism." Hoyne accused U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer of "playing petty politics" and "pursuing a pussyfoot policy" by failing to aid Chicago in the roundup of subversives. Palmer would begin his own raids the following day. The raid led to 4,025 arrests of accused communists and anarchists in more than 30 cities. Among the persons arrested was international opera star Georges Baklanoff of Russia on the affidavit of a former girlfriend.
• The United Kingdom's Union of Post Office Workers began operations following the 1919 merger of three labor unions, the Postmen's Federation, Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association and the Fawcett Association.
• Already plagued with post-defeat inflation, the Imperial Bank of Germany printed an additional 1.4 billion marks and placed it into circulation, bringing the total of paper money in Germany to 47,724,000,000 marks.
• The Russian Red Army increased its troops along its border with Poland from four divisions to 20.
• Born:
• * José Antonio Bottiroli, Argentinean classical music composer; in Rosario, Argentina
• * Heinz Zemanek, Austrian computer pioneer, designed the transistorized Mailüfterl computer; in Vienna, Austria
• * Elisabeth Andersen, Dutch stage actress, three-time winner of the Theo d'Or award; as Anna Elisabeth de Brujin, in The Hague, Netherlands
• Died: Zygmunt Gorazdowski, 74, Polish Roman Catholic priest, founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph, canonized as a saint in 2005

  January 2, 1920 (Friday)

• Counting began for the 1920 United States census, the 14th decennial census taken since the 1789 adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Census Bureau predicted that the count would show that the United States now had more than 100,000,000 people, an increase over the 1910 final count of 92,228,496.
• At the Cook County Jail in Chicago, Charles W. Peters carried out a "psychological experiment" by having a prisoner executed in front of 200 of his fellow inmates. Prisoners were transferred to cells overlooking the jail courtyard, where a scaffold had been erected, and double-murderer Raffaelo Durrago was hanged at sunrise. Despite objections by Illinois Governor Frank Orren Lowden, who asked the sheriff and jailer W.T. Davies not to make a spectacle of the hanging, the sentence was carried out as planned. Sheriff Peters said in a statement afterward that "well-meaning, but misguided" reformers had "destroyed the fear of punishment by criminals" and that mere incarceration was no longer a deterrent to repeat offenders.
• Born:
• * Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American science and science fiction author; as Izaak Azimov, in Petrovichi, Russian SFSR
• * George Herbig, American astronomer, known for discovery of Herbig–Haro objects; in Wheeling, West Virginia, United States
• * Anne-Sofie Østvedt, Norwegian resistance leader, member of XU intelligence group during World War II; in Christiania, Norway
• Died: Frank Lascelles, 78, British diplomat, UK Ambassador to Persia, Russia and Germany

  January 3, 1920 (Saturday)

• Hundreds of people were killed in an earthquake in Mexico, with an epicenter near the Pico de Orizaba in Veracruz state. Although initial reports were that thousands of people had died, the final death toll of the 7.8 magnitude quake was 648 people. The area was rocked by a tremor for five minutes starting at 9:45 in the evening, with the most intense damage happening forty minutes later at 10:25 p.m. Hardest hit were the villages of Teocelo and Couzatlan.
• Troops from Poland and Latvia retook the city of Dvinsk from control of the Bolshevik army. The Latvians subsequently renamed the city Daugavpils.
• U.S. Attorney General Palmer told newspaper reporters that the roundup of subversives came after discovery of a plot by radical leaders "to overthrow the government and seize control of the country" and to create a Soviet-style system to rule in its place. Palmer cited the Chicago convention of the Communist Party of America and a manifesto adopted on September 1 as advocacy for the overthrow "by force and violence".
• The city of Yuma, Arizona, was without sunshine all day long for the first time since 1874, according to residents of the desert locale. A steady rainfall pelted the usually-dry town after 45 years with minimal precipitation.
• Born: Renato Carosone, Italian musician and singer, known for his 1958 hit song Torero; as Renato Carusone, in Naples, Kingdom of Italy
• Died: Zygmunt Janiszewski, 31, Polish mathematician; died of Spanish flu

  January 4, 1920 (Sunday)

• Imperial Russian Navy Admiral Alexander Kolchak, recognized by the Allied Powers as "Supreme Leader of Russia" after the Armistice that ended World War I in 1918, resigned his post and transferred his authority as commander of the White Army to General Grigory Semyonov. Kolchak then departed Krasnoyarsk ahead of the arrival of the Bolsheviks of the Red Army, traveling on a train to Irkutsk, where he had been promised safe passage to the west under Allied protection.
• Died:
• *Benito Pérez Galdós, 76, Spanish novelist, leading literary figure in 19th century Spain
• * Manuel de la Cámara, 84, Spanish naval officer, leader of Spanish operations during the Spanish–American War
• *Thomas Richard Fraser, 78, British physician and physiologist

  January 5, 1920 (Monday)

• Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox, the most famous player in Major League Baseball and the American League's home run leader in 1919, was sent to the New York Yankees after Red Sox owner Harry Frazee was paid a sum of at least $100,000 for the rights to Ruth's contract. Frazee, already struggling financially from his purchase of the Red Sox, balked at paying Ruth's salary demand of $20,000 for the 1920 baseball season.
• Born: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Italian classical pianist; in Brescia, Kingdom of Italy

  January 6, 1920 (Tuesday)

• The League of Women Voters was created by the merger of the National Council of Women Voters and the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
• Prince Faisal ibn-Hussein al-Hashemi of Syria and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau agreed privately in Paris that France would recognize limited autonomy for Syria under a League of Nations mandate, with Faisal as the King of Syria responsible for the nation's internal affairs.
• Kentucky and Rhode Island both ratified the proposed Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on the same day, each as their first order of business in the opening of their 1920 sessions. In Kentucky, the measure passed 72 to 25 in the state House of Representatives and 30 to 8 in the state Senate, while the vote in Rhode Island was unanimous in the state Senate and 80 to 3 in the state House. In doing so, they became the 23rd and 24th of the 48 states to ratify, with 36 needed for the process to be completed. Oregon, Indiana, and Wyoming ratified later in January, but South Carolina rejected the amendment during the month.
• Born:
• *Sun Myung Moon, Korean religious leader, founder of the Unification Church, colloquially known as "the Moonies"; as Mun Yong-myeong in Chongju, Chōsen, Empire of Japan
• *Early Wynn, American baseball pitcher, inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame; in Hartford, Alabama, United States
• *John Maynard Smith, British theoretical evolutionary biologist; in Lewes, England
• Died:
• *Heinrich Lammasch, 66, the last Prime Minister of the Austrian lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, for the final two weeks of the Empire's existence
• *Lord Cunliffe, 64, British banker, served as Governor of the Bank of England from 1913 to 1918 during Britain's involvement in World War I
• *Hieronymus Zeuthen, 80, Danish mathematician, known for the original proposal of the Zeuthen–Segre invariant

  January 7, 1920 (Wednesday)

• In the Russian Civil War between the Red Army of Bolsheviks and the White Army of Mensheviks, members of the Whites formerly under the command of Admiral Alexander Kolchak surrendered at Krasnoyarsk. The defeated rebels were then forced by the Bolshevik government to march to exile in Siberia.
• The New York State Assembly voted to bar five recently elected members of the Socialist Party of America from being seated, in spite of their election to office. After the members voted, 140 to 6, to make an inquiry into whether the Socialists could be loyal to their oath, the five men were informed that they would have to prove their loyalty to the satisfaction of a tribunal of the Assembly. Those affected were August Claessens and Louis Waldman of Manhattan, Sam De Witt and Samuel Orr of the Bronx, and Charles Solomon of Kings County. All five would be expelled from the Assembly without being allowed to take office.
• Born: Vincent Gardenia, Italian-born American film and TV actor; as Vincenzo Gardenia Scognamiglio, in Naples, Kingdom of Italy
• Died:
• *Sir Edmund Barton, 70, Australian politician, first Prime Minister of Australia from 1901 to 1903, founding justice on the High Court of Australia
• *Hunter Corbett, 84, American Presbyterian Missionary, established one of the earliest universities in China