1921
| 1921 by topic |
| Subject: Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Aviation – Comics – Film – Literature (Poetry) – Meteorology – Music (Country) – Rail transport – Radio – Science – Sports – Television |
| Countries: Australia – Canada – China – Ecuador – France – Germany – Greece – India – Ireland – Italy – Japan – Malaysia – Mexico – New Zealand – Norway – Palestine Mandate – Philippines - Russia – Singapore – South Africa – UK – USA |
| Leaders: Sovereign states – State leaders – Religious leaders – Law |
| Categories: Births – Deaths – Works – Introductions – Establishments – Disestablishments – Awards |
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1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1921 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
Events of 1921
January
February
March
April
- April – The Allies of World War I reparations commission announce that Germany has to pay 132 billion gold marks ($33 trillion) in annual installments of 2.5 billion gold marks.
- April 11 – The Emirate of Transjordan is created, with Abdullah I as emir.
- April 14 – In Britain, labour unions for mining, railway and transportation workers call for a strike; the government threatens to call in the army.
- April 16 – The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia is founded.
- April 20 – Ferenc Molnár's play Liliom is first produced on Broadway in English.
May
June
July
August
- August – The United States formally ends World War I, declaring a peace with Germany.
- August 5 – The first radio baseball game is broadcast; Harold Arlin announces the Pirates-Phillies game from Forbes Field over Westinghouse KDKA, in Pittsburgh.
- August 11 – The temperature reaches 39 degrees Celsius in Breslau; the heat wave continues elsewhere in Europe as well.
- August 23 – King Faisal I of Iraq is crowned in Baghdad.
- August 24 – Airship ZR 2 explodes during a test flight near Hull, England; 41 are killed.
- August 26
- Rising prices cause major riots in Munich.
- The assassination of German politician Matthias Erzberger causes the government to declare martial law.
September
October
- October 8 – The first Sweetest Day is staged in Cleveland, Ohio.
- October 10 – Teaching at the University of Szeged starts in Hungary.
- October 19 – A massacre in Lisbon claims the lives of Portuguese Prime Minister António Granjo and other politicians.
- October 21 – A peace conference between Ireland and the United Kingdom begins in London.
- October 24 – The Spanish Army defeats the rifkabyls.
- October 29
- Construction of the Link River Dam, a part of the Klamath Reclamation Project, is completed.
- Centre College's football team, led by quarterback Bo McMillin, defeats Harvard University 6–0 to snap Harvard's five-year winning streak. For decades afterward, this is called "football's upset of the century."
November
December
|===Undated===
- Abkhazia becomes an autonomous republic within the Soviet Union.
- Russian famine: 5 million die.
- Regular radio broadcasting services begin in Italy.
- Edward Harper, the 'father of broadcasting' in Ceylon, arrives in Colombo to take up his post as Chief Engineer of the Ceylon Telegraph Department.
- The vibraphone in its original form is invented.
- The Sauerländer Heimatbund is founded in Meschede, Germany.
- Jewish immigration to Palestine grows rapidly. Before Jews preferred the USA but the USA drastically limited immigration from Eastern Europe.
- E.W. Scripps founds Science Service, later renamed Society for Science & the Public, with the goal of keeping the public informed of scientific achievements.
- Weimar Republic makes its first payment of reparations.
Ongoing
Births
January–February
- January 1
- César Baldaccini, French sculptor. (d. 1998)
- Doris Tetzlaff, American female professional baseball player (d. 1998)
- January 5
- January 9
- William 'Billy Batts' Devino (d. 1970)
- Lister Sinclair, Canadian broadcaster and playwright (d. 2006)
- January 10 – Rodger Ward, American race car driver (d. 2004)
- January 14 – Murray Bookchin, American libertarian socialist (d. 2006)
- January 19 – Patricia Highsmith, American author (d. 1995)
- January 21 – Howard Unruh, American spree killer (d. 2009)
- January 27 – Donna Reed, American actress (d. 1986)
- January 31
- Carol Channing, American actress
- Mario Lanza, American tenor and actor (d. 1959)
- February 1 – Peter Sallis, English actor (Last of the Summer Wine & Wallace and Gromit)
- February 4
- February 5 – John Pritchard, English conductor (d. 1989)
- February 7 – Nexhmije Hoxha, widow of Enver Hoxha
- February 8 – Betsy Jochum, American female baseball player
- February 11 – Lloyd Bentsen, American politician (d. 2006)
- February 14 – Hugh Downs, American game show host and journalist (20-20)
- February 16
- Vera-Ellen, American actress and dancer (d. 1981)
- Hua Guofeng, former Premier of the People's Republic of China (d. 2008)
- February 20 – Buddy Rogers, American professional wrestler (d. 1992)
- February 22 – Wayne Booth, American literary critic (d. 2005)
- February 24 – Abe Vigoda, American actor (Fish)
- February 25 – Pierre Laporte, Canadian statesman (d. 1970)
- February 26 – Betty Hutton, American actress (d. 2007)
- February 28 – Pierre Clostermann, French World War II pilot (d. 2006)
March–April
- March 1
- Jack Clayton, British film director (d. 1995)
- Terence Cooke, American cardinal archbishop (d. 1983)
- Richard Wilbur, American poet
- March 2 – Robert Simpson, English composer (d. 1997)
- March 3
- Paul Guimard, French writer (d. 2004)
- Diana Barrymore, American actress (d. 1960)
- March 4
- Halim El-Dabh, Egyptian-born U.S. composer, performer, ethnomusicologist and educator
- Joan Greenwood, British actress and director (d. 1987)
- Wilson Harris, Guyanese writer
- March 5 – Elmer Valo, Czech Major League Baseball player (d. 1998)
- March 8 – Alan Hale, Jr., American actor (Gilligan's Island) (d. 1990)
- March 11 – Frank Harary, American mathematician (d. 2005)
- March 12
- Gianni Agnelli, Italian auto executive (d. 2003)
- Gordon MacRae, American singer and actor (d. 1986)
- March 13
- Al Jaffee, American cartoonist (MAD Magazine)
- Cyril Poole, English cricketer (d. 1996)
- March 14 – Lis Hartel, Danish equestrian athlete (d. 2009)
- March 17 – Meir Amit, Israeli politician and general (d. 2009)
- March 20 – Sister Rosetta Tharpe, American singer (d. 1973)
- March 21 – Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist (d. 1986)
- March 24 – Vasily Smyslov, Soviet chess player (d. 2010)
- March 25 – Simone Signoret, French actress (d. 1985)
- March 28 – Dirk Bogarde, English actor (d. 1999)
- April 1 – Beau Jack, American boxer (d. 2000)
- April 8 – Franco Corelli, Italian opera singer (d. 2003)
- April 10
- Sheb Wooley, American actor and singer (Flying Purple People Eater) (d. 2003)
- Chuck Connors, American actor, basketball and baseball player (The Rifleman) (d. 1992)
- April 14 – Thomas Schelling, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- April 15 – Georgi Beregovoi, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 1995)
- April 16 – Peter Ustinov, English actor and director (d. 2004)
- April 23
- April 21 – Vivian Dandridge, African-American actress (d. 1991)
- Warren Spahn, American baseball player (d. 2003)
- Janet Blair, American actress (d. 2007)
- April 25 – Karel Appel, Dutch painter (d. 2006)
- April 30 – Dottie Green, American professional baseball player (d. 1992)
May–June
- May 2 – Satyajit Ray, Indian filmmaker (d. 1992)
- May 5 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
- May 6 – Erich Fried, Austrian author (d. 1988)
- May 9
- May 11 – Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, German politician
- May 12
- May 16 – Harry Carey, Jr., American actor
- May 17 – Dennis Brain, English French horn player (d. 1957)
- May 18 – Sir Michael Epstein, British medical researcher
- May 19 – Karel van het Reve, Dutch writer (d. 1999)
- May 20
- Wolfgang Borchert, German writer (d. 1947)
- Hal Newhouser, baseball player (d. 1998)
- May 21
- Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, Indian philosopher, author of the socio-economic "Progressive Utilization Theory" (d. 1990)
- Andrei Sakharov, Soviet physicist and human rights activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (declined) (d. 1989)
- May 23
- James Blish, American science fiction author (d. 1975)
- Humphrey Lyttelton, British jazz musician and radio personality (d. 2008)
- May 25
- May 26 – Stan Mortensen, English footballer (d. 1991)
- May 28 – Heinz G. Konsalik, German author (d. 1999)
- June 1 – Nelson Riddle, American bandleader (d. 1985)
- June 3 – Forbes Carlile, Australian athlete
- June 3 – John Shelton Wilder, American politician, former Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee (d. 2010)
- June 8
- Alexis Smith, Canadian actress (d. 1993)
- Suharto, former President of Indonesia (d. 2008)
- June 9 – Margaret Danhauser, American female professional baseball player (d. 1987)
- June 10 – Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
- June 12 – Christopher Derrick, British writer (d. 2007)
- June 13 – Nancy Warren, American female professional baseball player (d. 2001)
- June 15 – Errol Garner, American jazz musician (d. 1977)
- June 21- Jane Russell , American actress
- June 22 – Ralph K. Hofer, American fighter pilot (d. 1942)
- June 25 – Celia Franca, Canadian ballet dancer (d. 2007)
- June 26 – Violette Szabo, French World War II heroine (d. 1945)
- June 28 – P. V. Narasimha Rao, Prime Minister of India (d. 2004)
July–August
- July 3 – Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, Hasidic rebbe (d. 2009)
- July 4
- Gerard Debreu, French economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
- Tibor Varga, Hungarian violinist and conductor (d. 2003)
- July 6 – Nancy Davis Reagan, wife of U.S President Ronald Reagan
- July 10
- Harvey Ball, American designer (d. 2001)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver, member of the Kennedy family (d. 2009)
- July 11 – Ilse Werner, German actress (d. 2005)
- July 13 – Friedrich Peter, Austrian poltitician (d. 2005)
- July 14
- Leon Garfield, English children's author (d. 1996)
- Geoffrey Wilkinson, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1996)
- July 15 – Robert Bruce Merrifield, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2006)
- July 17
- František Zvarík, Slovakian actor (d. 2008)
- Hannah Szenes, Hungarian World War II heroine (d. 1944)
- July 18
- Richard Leacock, Documentary filmmaker, Pioneer of Cinéma Vérité
- John Glenn, American astronaut and former U.S. Senator
- Aaron T. Beck, American psychiatrist
- July 19 – Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, American physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- July 22 – William Roth, U.S. Senator (d. 2003)
- July 30 – Grant Johannesen, American concert pianist (d. 2005)
- August 3 – Richard Adler, American Broadway composer
- August 4 – Maurice Richard, Canadian hockey player (d. 2000)
- August 8 – John Herbert Chapman, Canadian physicist (d. 1979)
- August 9 – J. James Exon, Governor of Nebraska and U.S. Senator (d. 2005)
- August 13 – Barney Liddell, American musician (The Lawrence Welk Show) (d. 2003)
- August 18 – Zdzislaw Zygulski, Jr., Polish art historian
- August 19 – Gene Roddenberry, American television producer (Star Trek) (d. 1991)
- August 23 – Kenneth Arrow, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- August 25
- Monty Hall, Canadian actor and game show host (Let's Make A Deal)
- Brian Moore, Northern Irish-born writer (d. 1999)
- August 26 – Shimshon Amitsur, Israeli mathematician and Israel Prize recipient (d. 1994)
- August 27 – Georg Alexander, Duke of Mecklenburg, head of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1996)
- August 28 – Lidia Gueiler Tejada, President of Bolivia
- August 31 Vicencio Masauding, Sr. Lt. Philippine Scout.
September–October
- September 2 – Josephine Lenard, American professional baseball player (d. 2007)
- September 3 – Thurston Dart, English harpsichordist and conductor (d. 1971)
- September 8 – Harry Secombe, Welsh entertainer (d. 2001)
- September 12 – Stanislaw Lem, Polish science fiction writer (d. 2006)
- September 13 – Sergey Nepobedimiy, Soviet rocket weaponry designer
- September 14 – Dario Vittori, Argentine actor (d. 2001)
- September 15 – Norma Macmillan, voice actress (d. 2001)
- September 24
- Jim McKay, American sportscaster (ABC's Wide World of Sports) (d. 2008)
- Charlene Pryer, American professional baseball player (d. 1999)
- September 30 – Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress (d. 2007)
- October 2 – Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 2000)
- October 5 – Bill Willis, American football player (d. 2007)
- October 7 – Tommy Farrell, American supporting actor and comedian (d. 2004)
- October 8 – Abraham Sarmiento, Filipino Supreme Court jurist
- October 13 – Yves Montand, French singer and actor (d. 1991)
- October 17 – Maria Gorokhovskaya, Soviet gymnast (d. 2001)
- October 18 – Jesse Helms, U.S. Senator from North Carolina (d. 2008)
- October 19 – Gunnar Nordahl, Swedish footballer (d. 1995)
- October 21 – Malcolm Arnold, British music composer (d. 2006)
- October 22 – Georges Brassens, French singer-songwriter (d. 1981)
- October 25 – King Michael of Romania
- October 26 – Frances Scott Fitzgerald, daughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre (d. 1986)
November–December
- November 3 – Charles Bronson, American actor (d. 2003)
- November 5 – Princess Fawzia of Egypt
- November 6 – James Jones, American writer (d. 1977)
- November 8 – Gene Saks, American actor and film director
- November 11 – Ron Greenwood, English football manager (d. 2006)
- November 14 – Brian Keith, American actor (Family Affair) (d. 1997)
- November 17 – Albert Bertelsen, Danish artist
- November 22 – Rodney Dangerfield, American actor and comedian (d. 2004)
- November 23 – Fred Buscaglione, Italian singer and actor (d. 1960)
- November 27 – Alexander Dubcek, Slovak politician and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (d. 1992)
- November 29 – Jackie Stallone, American astrologer and mother of Sylvester Stallone
- December 3 – Phyllis Curtin, American soprano
- December 4 – Deanna Durbin, Canadian-American singer & actress
- December 6 – Otto Graham, American football player (d. 2003)
- December 23 – Marge Callaghan, Canadian female professional baseball player
- December 26 – Blaže Koneski, Macedonian poet and linguist (d. 1993)
- December 26 – Steve Allen, American actor, composer, comedian, and author (d. 2000)
Deaths
January–June
- January 1 – Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1856)
- February 2 – Antonio Jacobsen, maritime artist (b. 1850)
- February 8
- February 26 – Carl Menger, Austrian economist (b. 1840)
- February 27 – Schofield Haigh, English cricketer (b. 1871)
- March 1 – King Nicholas I of Montenegro (b. 1841)
- March 29 – John Burroughs, American naturalist and essayist (b. 1837)
- April 11 – Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Last German Empress, wife of Wilhelm II (b. 1858)
- April 17 – Manuel Dimech, Maltese philosopher and social reformer (b. 1860)
- April 21 – Tom O'Brien, American major league baseball player (b. 1860)
- April 27 – Arthur Mold, English cricketer (b. 1863)
- May 5 – Alfred Hermann Fried, Austrian writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1864)
- May 19 – Edward Douglass White, 9th Chief Justice of the United States (b. 1845)
- May 19 – Michael Llewelyn-Davies, one of the 'Lost Boys' for the Peter Pan book (b. 1900)
- June 5 – Georges Feydeau, French playwright (b. 1862)
- June 9 – Lady Randolph Churchill, Mother of Winston Churchill (b. 1854)
- June 28 – Gjorche Petrov, Macedonian and Bulgarian revolutionary
- June 29 – Otto Seeck, German classical historian (b. 1850)
July–December
- August 2 – Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor (b. 1873)
- August 7 – Aleksandr Blok, Russian poet (b. 1880)
- August 16 – Peter I of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, King of Yugoslavia (b. 1844)
- August 19 – Georges Darien, French writer (b. 1862)
- September 2 – Henry Austin Dobson, English poet (b. 1840)
- September 7 – Alfred William Rich, English watercolour painter (b. 1856)
- September 9 – Virginia Rappe, American model and actress (b. 1895)
- September 11 – Subramanya Bharathy, Tamil poet (b. 1882)
- September 27 – Engelbert Humperdinck, German composer (b. 1854)
- October 12 – Philander C. Knox, American politician (b. 1853)
- October 18 – Ludwig III of Bavaria, last king of Bavaria (b. 1845)
- October 25 – Bat Masterson, American gunfighter (b. 1853)
- November 4 – Hara Takashi, 19th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1856)
- November 14 – Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil, daughter of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (b. 1846)
- November 20 – Christina Nilsson, Swedish operatic soprano (b. 1843)
- November 27 – Douglas Colin Cameron, Canadian politician (b. 1854)
- November 28 – `Abdu'l-Bahá, Persian religious leader (b. 1844)
- December 10 – George Ashlin, Irish architect (b. 1837)
- December 16 – Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer (b. 1835)
- December 31 – Boies Penrose, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania (b. 1860)
Nobel Prizes
Notes
Further reading
External references