May 1921

May 1, 1921 (Sunday)

• Riots began in Jaffa, at the time in the British Mandate for Palestine. The activities of the Jewish Communist Party, calling for the establishment of a "Soviet Palestine," culminated in a march through the Jewish-Arab border neighborhood of Manshiyya, where they clashed with the rival socialist Ahdut HaAvoda group, leading to large-scale rioting involving Jews, Christians, Arabs and Muslims. Within days, at least 40 people had been killed.
• The U.S. Navy opened a commercial wireless service between North America and Indo-China.

  May 2, 1921 (Monday)

• The third Silesian civil war began with "Operation Bridges", in which the Wawelberg Group, destroyed German rail bridges near Neustadt, Kreuzburg, Cosel, Oppeln and Schwientochlowitz. In response, the Inter-Allied Commission declared a martial law for the urban and rural districts of Beuthen, Ratabor, Pless, Rybnick, Hindenburg and Tarnowitz.
• Giovanni Ancillotto flew across the Andes in Peru in an Ansaldo A.1 Balilla, making the journey from Lima to Cerro de Pasco in 1 hour 35 minutes, at an average altitude of 5,500 meters, reached a maximum altitude of 7,000 meters while passing Mount Meiggs; he covered the 76 miles from Lima to La Oroya at an average speed of 230 km/h.
• U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes sent a memorandum to Germany announcing that the United States would not serve as a moderator in the reparations dispute.
• General Jean Degoutte of France concentrated nine divisions of French Army troops on the border with Germany in preparation of occupying the Ruhr valley.
• The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Senator Truman Newberry of Michigan for violation of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act.
• The Japanese passenger ship Tokuyo Maru caught fire and sank in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Army transport ship USAT Buford rescued 65 survivors.
• Born: Satyajit Ray, Indian filmmaker, screenwriter, music composer, graphic artist, lyricist and author; in Calcutta, British India
• Died: Yosef Haim Brenner, 39, Russian-born Hebrew writer; murdered in the Jaffa Riots

  May 3, 1921 (Tuesday)

• Ireland is partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.
• U.S. Secretary of War John W. Weeks announced that all draft evaders of the recent World War would be arrested, and that he would issue a list of willful deserters. The published lists proved to be an embarrassment to Weeks after it was clear that they hadn't been verified.
• U.S. Steel Corporation announced that it was reducing the wages of 150,000 day laborers by 20%, with salary cuts to take place on May 16. Wages, which had been raised in early 1918 because of the shortage of workers due to World War I, were returned to their pre-war level. The minimum wage rate for a U.S. Steel employee was changed from 46 cents per hour to 36 cents per hour.
• The third population census of the population of the Union of South Africa was enumerated. According to the final enumeration, the population of the minority-ruled Union in 1921 was 6,927,403 of whom 1,521,343 were white and 5,406,060 were non-whites.
• The government of France called up 200,000 men in preparation for the occupation of Germany's Ruhr Valley.
• The U.S. Senate passed the Dillingham Immigration Bill, similar to one vetoed by President Wilson in February, by a vote of 78 to 1 in favor.
• Born: Sugar Ray Robinson, American professional boxer; as Walker Smith Jr., in Ailey, Georgia
• Died: William Robert Brooks, 76, British-born American astronomer who discovered 27 comets during his career

  May 4, 1921 (Wednesday)

• Chancellor Constantin Fehrenbach of Germany and his cabinet resigned upon news that an ultimatum would be sent from the Allies to agree to binding reparations payments.
• Born: Edo Murtić, Croatian painter; in Velika Pisanica, Kingdom of Yugoslavia

  May 5, 1921 (Thursday)

• The Allied Supreme War Council notified Germany of a default on the May 1 payment due for 12 billion gold marks and announced that Germany would have until May 12 to accept a total debt of 135 billion marks, to be "paid in an indeterminate number of annual installments" worth of gold. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George handed the ultimatum, signed by himself and representatives of France, Belgium, Italy and Japan to Germany's Ambassador Friedrich Sthamer.
• Sir James Craig, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, and Éamon de Valera, leader of the Sinn Féin party of Ireland, met in conference.
• The lowest attendance in the history of The Football League was recorded when only 13 paying spectators attended a football match between Leicester City and Stockport County F.C. in England.
• Died:
• * Alfred Hermann Fried, 56, Austrian Jewish pacifist writer and Nobel laureate
• *W. Friese Greene, 66, English inventor and motion picture pioneer
• *Arthur P. Schmidt, 75, pioneering German-American music publisher

  May 6, 1921 (Friday)

• A provisional treaty was signed in Berlin, by which Germany recognized the Soviet regime in Russia.
• A proposed resolution by U.S. Representative George H. Tinkham of Massachusetts, to investigate disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South, was rejected by the House of Representatives, with only 46 in favor and 285 against.
• U.S. President Warren G. Harding accepted Britain's invitation to send representatives to the Reparations Conference.

  May 7, 1921 (Saturday)

• The first fully professional soccer football league in the United States, the American Soccer League, was founded by representatives of eight of the strongest teams in the nation at that time. The ASL would begin play on September 17 with teams in Philadelphia; Newark, Jersey City and Kearney in New Jersey; New York City and Brooklyn in New York; Pawtucket, Rhode Island; and Fall River, and Holyoke in Massachusetts.
• The 47th Kentucky Derby took place at Churchill Downs and was won by Behave Yourself.
• Born: Asa Briggs, English historian; in Keighley, West Yorkshire,

  May 8, 1921 (Sunday)

• Sweden's Riksdag passed a bill abolishing capital punishment in Sweden.
• The League of Nations Commission in Åland awarded the territory to Finland.
• The 1921 Copa del Rey football tournament concluded in the San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao, Spain, with Athletic Bilbao winning the trophy, 4-1 over Atlético Madrid.

  May 9, 1921 (Monday)

• Japan's Crown Prince and future Showa Emperor, Hirohito, became the first member of Japanese royalty to visit the United Kingdom, arriving at Portsmouth where he was greeted by Edward, Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne and future King Edward VIII. The two heirs apparent then traveled by train to Victoria Station in London where they were greeted by King George V and Albert, Duke of York, the future King George VI.
• Albert Einstein was honored at Princeton University with the honorary degree of Doctor of Science during his visit to the United States. Praising Einstein, university president John Grier Hibben said "In his structural theory of our ever-old, ever-new universe, his name stands latest in that illustrious series wherein the other moderns are Clark Maxwell, Sir Isaac Newton and Galileo, and the earliest name is Pythagoras," and added, "So, today, for his genius and integrity, we, who inadequately measure his power, salute the new Columbus of science, 'voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.'"
• Born: Manuel Gregorio Acosta, Mexican-born American painter, muralist and illustrator; in Aldama, Chihuahua
• Died: William H. Frankhauser, 58, American politician, U.S. Representative for Michigan, committed suicide by slashing his throat with a razor blade while at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan.

  May 10, 1921 (Tuesday)

• Joseph Wirth replaced Constantin Fehrenbach as Chancellor of Germany, and named himself as the Foreign Minister.
• Germany's Reichstag voted, 221 to 175, to yield to Allied demands for immediate disarmament, to try German war criminals, and to accept the reparations terms.
• The first performance of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, at the Teatro Valle in Rome, met with a mixed response, provoking a brawl.

  May 11, 1921 (Wednesday)

• Germany sent a note unconditionally accepting the reparation terms described in the ultimatum of May 5. In London, German Ambassador Friedrich Sthamer delivered the note of acceptance to Prime Minister David Lloyd George, stating the German government had resolved "to carry out without reserve or condition its obligations" to guarantee reparations, partially disarm its armed forces and to put accused war criminals on trial in German courts.
• Thousands of people rioted in Kanchrapara after workers on the Eastern Bengal State Railway in British India went on strike.
• British cotton weavers and spinners had their wages reduced by 30% by their employers.
• Newspapers across North America, including The New York Times, printed what turned out to be a false report from the agent for comedian Charlie Chaplin that he had been "severely burned" during the filming of his latest movie, The Idle Class. According to the account, "An acetylene torch used in the scene set Chaplin's coat and voluminous trousers afire. In a second he was aflame from head to foot" and "was saved from fatal injury by employees, who wrapped him in wet blankets." Chaplin would write later that after a slight accident with a blowtorch requiring him to add "another layer of asbestos" to his outfit, his agent exaggerated the matter. "Carl Robinson saw an opportunity for publicity... That evening I was shocked to read headlines that I had been severely burnt about the face, hands and body.... I issued a denial, but few newspapers printed it." The papers that did print a correction generally did so as a less-prominently displayed followup.