September 1921

September 1, 1921 (Thursday)

• The “Poplar Rates Rebellion” broke out in London after several members of Poplar Borough Council were arrested, including council leader, George Lansbury, for refusing to hand over payments to London County Council.
• The first "superdreadnought" of the U.S. Navy, USS Washington, was launched at Camden, New Jersey. With an all-electric-driven engine, the warship had eight guns and was capable of a speed of 21 knots.
• The League of Nations Supreme Council appointed an international commission to determine the Silesian boundary between Germany and Poland, with Paul Hymans of Belgium, Dr. V. K. Wellington Koo of China, Count Quinones de Leon of Spain and Dr. Gastoa de Cunha of Brazil.

  September 2, 1921 (Friday)

• The first U.S. Army troops arrived in the state of West Virginia, reaching St. Albans by train to restore order to Mingo County and other areas where thousands of coal miners and strikebreakers were preparing to fight each other. A spokesman for U.S. President Warren G. Harding said that the administration would delay an actual proclamation of martial law in affected counties except as a last resort, noting that "martial law can never exist where courts are open and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction."
• International famine aid to Russia began as 28,000 tons of food were loaded on trains at Riga in Latvia, of which 20,000 tons were from the U.S. and 8,000 tons from European nations.
• U.S. Army General Leonard Wood announced that he would accept the appointment by U.S. President Harding to become the new Governor-General of the Philippines.
• The Kingdom of Norway signed a trade agreement giving diplomatic recognition to the government of Soviet Russia. Trade Minister Johan Ludwig Mowinckel signed at Oslo on behalf of Norway, which ratified the treaty on October 1.
• The Asociacion Argentina de Tennis was founded.
• The Football Association of Ireland held its first meeting, in Dublin.
• Died:
• *Austin Dobson, 81, British poet who introduced various forms of French poetry into the English language, including the triolet, the ballade and the rondeau.
• *Anthony F. Lucas, 65, Croatian-born American engineer, inventor and oil driller who struck the 1901 "Spindletop gusher" that spurred the oil boom in Texas.
• *Napoleone Colajanni, 74, Italian socialist politician and theorist, member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies since 1890

  September 3, 1921 (Saturday)

• On the first full day of U.S. Army intervention in the Battle of Blair Mountain in Mingo County, West Virginia, about 400 of 4,000 armed miners agreed to disarm and surrendered their weapons to the federal troops. Most miners in the insurrection fled into the West Virginia hills, and many hid their weapons.
• Representatives of U.S. oil companies signed an agreement with the government of Mexico after negotiating a favorable tariff on Mexican petroleum exports.
• The Republic of China appointed Dr. W. W. Yen to be its chief delegate to the November arms limitation conference.
• The SS Abessinia, a German-registered cargo ship, was wrecked on Knivestone in the Farne Islands off the coast of England, after being surrendered to the United Kingdom by Germany as part of World War One reparations. The wreckage can still be seen in the North Sea and the site is popular with divers.
• Ernest Hemingway, at the time a 22-year old American journalist, married 30-year old Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, the first of four marriages for Hemingway. The couple would divorce in 1927 after his affair with Pauline Pfeiffer.

  September 4, 1921 (Sunday)

• Irish Nationalist Éamon de Valera replied to the July 20 proposals by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and rejected the idea of limited self-government within the UK for southern Ireland. De Valera insisted on Dominion status similar to that of other dominions such as Canada, the end of British armed forces occupation, freedom from British acts of Parliament and a unity with the province of Northern Ireland.
• A treaty between the United States and the Kingdom of Siam went into effect, with the U.S. giving up extraterritorial rights within Siam and Siam gaining full fiscal autonomy.
• The Emirate of Afghanistan ratified a treaty of non-interference with the Soviet Union.
• France agreed to accept reparations of building supplies worth seven billion German marks as a substitute for German gold.
• The first Italian Grand Prix was staged on a series of roads near the village of Montichiari in the province of Brescia. The race would be moved in 1922 to a specially-built tract near Milan at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza.
• Prince Hirohito of Japan returned home after completing his tour of Europe. He would not return to Europe until almost exactly 50 years later, as the first Emperor of Japan to depart the nation.
• Born:
• *Ariel Ramírez, Argentine composer, in Santa Fe
• *Atasi Barua, Indian painter, in Shantiniketan, Bengal Province, British India

  September 5, 1921 (Monday)

• American actress Virginia Rappe attended a party hosted by film comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at a suite at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Rappe died four days later from a ruptured bladder and peritonitis. Arbuckle was subsequently arrested under allegations he had raped Rappe, causing her death.
• As the second plenary session of the League of Nations opened in Geneva, the League admitted five new member nations and elected Netherlands Foreign Minister Herman van Karnebeek as the new President of the League Assembly.
• The Teatro Nacional Cervantes was inaugurated in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• The 16th International Lawn Tennis Challenge, was retained by the United States, after they defeated Japan 5–0 in the challenge round.
• Born:
• *Eddy Goldfarb, American toy inventor known for creating the popular Stompers toy cars, the Vac-U-Form, and the chattering teeth novelty ; as Adolph Edward Goldfarb in Chicago
• *Queen Farida, consort of King Farouk of Egypt; in Gianaclis
• *Carsten Bresch, German geneticist; in Berlin
• *Edna Reed Clayton DeWees, one of the first women to be elected a county sheriff in the United States ; in Mississippi

  September 6, 1921 (Tuesday)

• A New York City daily newspaper, the New York World began its exposé of the Ku Klux Klan The series ran for 21 consecutive days, finishing on September 26, and was picked up by 15 major U.S. newspapers.
• The Peace Arch, situated near the westernmost point of the Canada–United States border, between the communities of Surrey, British Columbia and Blaine, Washington, one of the first earthquake-resistant structures built in North America, was publicly dedicated to commemorate 100 years of peace between the U.S. and Canada. Samuel Hill, the president of the Pacific Highway Association, had conceived the idea in 1914 as a centennial of the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, but construction and fundraising had been delayed by World War One.
• Born:
• *N. Joseph Woodland, U.S. inventor known for his creation of the barcode, in Atlantic City, New Jersey
• *Michael Streicher, German-born American metallurgist known for his development of corrosion-resistant alloys by creating the "Streicher test" of ferric sulfate and sulfuric acid to test durability; in Hamburg

  September 7, 1921 (Wednesday)

• The British government cabinet met outside of England for the first time, holding an emergency session at the Town House of the city of Inverness in Scotland. Prime Minister Lloyd George was on vacation in nearby Gairloch. From the meeting came the government's counteroffer to Ireland's Éamon de Valera, proposing a September 20 conference at Inverness in Scotland with Dáil Éireann delegates on the condition that Ireland agree to remain within the British Empire.
• The Army of Nicaragua successfully repelled Nicaraguan rebels who were attempting to invade the Central American nation from neighboring Honduras. After the rebels fled back across the border, 1,300 of them were captured by troops of the Army of Honduras.
• Distribution of American famine relief for Russia began in Petrograd as kitchens were opened and food was distributed.
• Major League Baseball Commissioner and former judge K. M. Landis, who had agreed to be the arbitrator in a dispute between unionized construction workers and construction firms, ordered a reduction of up to one-third in the wages of the laborers, from $1.25 an hour to 70¢ an hour.
• The British-registered ocean liner Almanzora ran aground at Porto, Portugal. Her 1,200 passengers were taken off the following day, and the ship was refloated on September 13.
• Born:
• *Alfred Schild, Turkish-born American theoretical physicist
• *René Derolez, Belgian philologist and specialist in the study of rune inscriptions; in Aalst
• Died:
• *Johann Christoph Neupert, 78, founder of the Neupert company that manufactured pianos and harpsichords.
• *John Tamatoa Baker, 69, Hawaiian-born politician who served as the governor of the Island of Hawaii within the Kingdom of Hawaii during 1892 and 1893.

  September 8, 1921 (Thursday)

• The Soviet government of Russia denied the Allied Relief Commission authority to investigate famine conditions in the Russian interior.
• The American representatives for the November 11 arms limitation conference scheduled for Washington were named, to be led by U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, former Secretary of State Elihu Root, and to include both the Republican and Democratic U.S. Senate leaders, Henry Cabot Lodge and Oscar W. Underwood.
• Soviet troops completed their withdrawal from the short-lived Soviet Republic of Gilan, following negotiations with Persia.
• U.S. philanthropist Urbain Ledoux, who billed himself as "Mister Zero", staged a job fair in Boston in which he displayed 150 unemployed job seekers on an auction block in the same manner of slaves, including having the men pose shirtless, to be "auctioned off" to potential employers.
• British Prime Minister David Lloyd George offered Ireland's new leader Éamon de Valera a compromise allowing Ireland limited sovereignty within the British Empire.
• Margaret Gorman was crowned the first Miss America at a beauty pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States.
• U.S. Marine Sergeant Theodore B. Crawley set a new world record for marksmanship, shooting 177 consecutive bullseyes with a U.S. Army standard rifle from a distance of in a competition at Camp Perry in Ohio. The previous world record was 106 bullseyes in a row.
• Born: Harry Secombe, Welsh entertainer, in Swansea