June 1923

June 1, 1923 (Friday)

• The Albert Roussel opera Padmâvatî was first performed at the Paris Opéra.
• Mabel Philipson, a stage actress who had been better known as Mabel Russell, became the third woman in British history to be elected to the House of Commons. Her husband, Hilton Philipson, had won the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency in the 1922 general election, but the result had been overturned following charges of corruption against him. Mrs. Philipson took her seat on June 7.
• The U.S. state of New York became the first to repeal enforcement of the nationwide prohibition of the sale of alcohol, as Governor Alfred E. Smith signed the Mullen-Gage bill repealing the law.

  June 2, 1923 (Saturday)

• French boxer Eugène Criqui knocked out Johnny Kilbane in the sixth round at the Polo Grounds in New York City to win the World Featherweight Title. Babe Ruth hurried over from Yankee Stadium to attend the bout.
• The Kaufman Act was signed, mandating the electrification of all railroads in New York City by January 1, 1926.

  June 3, 1923 (Sunday)

• Voters in Switzerland overwhelmingly rejected restrictions on the production of alcohol, turning down a proposal that would have given the Swiss government an exclusive monopoly on brewing and distilling.
• A commission in New York City released the findings of its investigation into charges that some American history textbooks included anti-American propaganda. The report found eight such textbooks that were seen as pro-British. "Any history which, after 150 years, attempts to teach our children that the War of Independence was an unnecessary war and that it is still a problem as to who was right and who was wrong, should be fed to the furnace and those responsible for those books branded as un-American", commissioner David Hirschfeld said.

  June 4, 1923 (Monday)

• The British cargo ship Trevessa foundered in the Indian Ocean while traveling from Australia to Mauritius. While all but ten of the 44 crew were able to escape to lifeboats before the ship sank, sixteen men in one lifeboat spent the next 25 days drifting at sea before they were able to reach land, finally getting to the Mauritius island of Rodrigues on June 29 after a voyage of.
• The Unitarian Universalist communion service known as the "Flower Communion", created by Norbert Čapek, was performed for the first time. The ceremony took place in a Unitarian church in the Czechoslovak capital of Prague.
• The U.S. Supreme Court decided Meyer v. Nebraska, overturning bans in 20 states against the teaching of languages other than English in school. The case in chief had been brought by Robert T. Meyer, a teacher in a private Lutheran school, who had instructed a 10-year-old child in the German language, and had been consolidated with cases from Iowa and Ohio as well.
• The "Zero Milestone", marking the geographic center of the city of Washington, D.C., as originally designed by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, was dedicated at a spot near the White House at latitude 38°53′42.38736″ N, longitude 77°02′11.57299″ W.
• The musical revue that would bring the Marx Brothers to Broadway, I'll Say She Is, debuted at the Walnut Street Theatre.
• Born:
• *Elizabeth Jolley, English-born Australian writer; as Monica Elizabeth Knight, in Birmingham, England
• *Dr. Margot Shiner, German-born British pediatrician and gastroenterologist; as Margot Last, in Berlin, Germany
• Died:
• *Frank Hayes, 22, American jockey, attained posthumous fame while riding the horse Sweet Kiss to victory at the Belmont Park in New York. Hayes crossed the finish line on Sweet Kiss ahead of everyone for his first, and only, victory in horse racing, then died of a heart attack. Doctors attributed Hayes's death to heart disease, aggravated by his efforts to lose weight in order to reach the required limit for entering the race, and the excitement of the event itself, making Hayes the only person known to have won a horse race after dying.
• *Filippo Smaldone, 74, Roman Catholic priest canonized in 2006 as a Catholic saint
• *Juan Soldevila y Romero, 79, Spanish cleric, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Zaragoza, who had been elevated to the rank of cardinal by the Pope, was assassinated by gunmen who also killed his chauffeur. Cardinal Soldevila was seated in his car, preparing to visit a monastery, when members of the terrorist group Los Solidarios fired multiple gunshots into the vehicle.

  June 5, 1923 (Tuesday)

• Germany asked for a new reparations conference. The proposal, as presented by Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno, asked for a new arrangement in which Germany would transfer materials worth 2.5 billion gold marks over the next five years while rebuilding the nation's economy and would then pay 1.5 billion gold marks every year beginning in 1928.
• In an address in Washington D.C. to open the national convention of the Shriners, U.S. President Warren G. Harding delivered what was seen by reporters as a thinly veiled criticism of the Ku Klux Klan, which had recently held a large demonstration in nearby Maryland, though not mentioning the Klan by name. "Secret fraternity is one thing," Harding said. "Secret conspiracy is another. In the very naturalness of association, men band together for mischief, to exert misguided zeal, to vent unreasoning malice, to undermine our institutions. This isn't fraternity. This is conspiracy. This isn't associated with uplift; it is organized destruction. This is not brotherhood; it is the discord of disloyalty and a danger to the Republic."
• The White House released President Harding's "Voyage of Understanding", a 19-stop speaking tour by train that would travel to 10 western states, as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. territory of Alaska, starting on June 20 and continuing until August 4, after which the presidential train was scheduled to take him back to Washington.
• The tiny nation of San Marino established the Order of Saint Agatha for charitable work in the service of the republic.
• Born: George Montague, British gay rights activist; in Hackney, London, England

  June 6, 1923 (Wednesday)

• The Russian Civil War saw its last major battle as the Soviet Army defeated the remnants of the White Army near Okhotsk.
• France and Belgium released a joint statement saying that Germany's request would not be considered until passive resistance in the Ruhr ended.
• Papyrus won the Epsom Derby, the United Kingdom's premier thoroughbred horse race. Edgar Wallace became the first British radio sports reporter when he reported on the Derby for the British Broadcasting Company.
• Women over 25 with a grammar school-level education were granted the right to vote in local elections in Italy.
• The U.S. Army dirigible TC-1, which had set a dirigible airspeed record of earlier in the year and was the largest American airship, was destroyed at Wilbur Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio during a severe electrical storm. Though not struck by lightning, the hydrogen-filled bag was "highly charged with electricity" when winds blew it into contact with a steel mooring tower. A U.S. Army sergeant and a civilian from the Goodyear Rubber Company were injured after having to jump to the ground from an altitude of while escaping the fire.
• Born:
• *Joe Hyams, American syndicated gossip columnist and author; in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
• *Jean Pouliot, Canadian broadcasting magnate and founder of the Télé-Capitale broadcasting company and the TVA network, the first French language TV network in Canada; in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

  June 7, 1923 (Thursday)

• King George V of the United Kingdom granted a charter of incorporation to the Federation of British Industries.
• Four radio stations in the United States made a simultaneous broadcast of a live program that was from New York City to Chicago and by hundreds of thousands of listeners in North America, making a performance from Carnegie Hall the most listened to broadcast up to that time. Persons tuning in to WEAF, KDKA, KYW or WGY heard the singing of Metropolitan Opera soprano Anna Case, followed by a speech by Julius H. Barnes, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, after the radio event was set up for the annual convention of the National Electric Light Association.
• Born: Kinuko Emi, Japanese modern art and abstract painter; as Kinuko Ogino, in Akashi, Hyōgo Prefecture, Empire of Japan

  June 8, 1923 (Friday)

• The British House of Commons passed a bill giving women the right to divorce their husbands on the grounds of infidelity, without having to prove cruelty or desertion.
• The Craven Holding Corporation purchased the trademark for Pepsi-Cola, including the secret manufacturing process, from the soft drink's inventor, Caleb Bradham, for $30,000. Bradham had filed for bankruptcy eight days earlier, on May 31, after having marketed the beverage since 1893.
• Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah was designated as a U.S. national monument by proclamation of U.S. President Warren G. Harding.
• Died:
• *Ambroise-Dydime Lépine, 83, Canadian Métis Indian leader in the Red River Rebellion of 1869 and 1870
• *Herbert Jenkins, 47, British book publisher

  June 9, 1923 (Saturday)

• The government of Bulgaria's Prime Minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski was toppled in a bloodless coup led by General Ivan Valkov's Vonnyat Soyuz, a private organization of reserve officers. Stamboliyski had been vacationing in his home village of Slavovitsa and had returned by train to the capital, Sofia, the night before and was detained at the station by troops. Aleksandar Tsankov, a professor of political science at Sofia University, was installed as the new Prime Minister with the approval of Bulgaria's king, Tsar Boris III. Stamboliyski, who had survived an assassination attempt by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization on February 2, fled back to Slavovitsa, where he was arrested by his former bodyguards.
• Brink's unveiled its first armored security vans.
• Australia's national soccer football team hosted its first international game, after having played three games in New Zealand in 1922. The 2 to 1 win against New Zealand took place at Brisbane Cricket Ground before 7,000 people.
• The Belmont amusement park opened in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It would close in 1983.
• Died: Princess Helena of the United Kingdom, 77