1919

Decades: 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s - 1910s - 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s

Years: 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 - 1919 - 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924

Events

• The Paris Peace Conference
• XWA (now CFCF),in Montreal, Quebec is the first public radio station in North America to go the air.
• January 1 - Edsel Ford succeeds his father as head of the Ford Motor Company
• January 11 - Romania annexes Transylvania.
• January - Spartacist uprising in Germany: an unsuccessful attempt at a communist coup.
• January 15 - The Boston Molasses Disaster kills 21 people
• January 15 - Ignace Paderewski becomes Premier of Poland
• January 16 - The 18th Amendment, authorizing Prohibition, goes into effect in the United States
• January 18 - World War I: A peace conference opens in Versailles, France.
• January 18 - Bentley Motors is founded
• January 21 - the First Dáil Éireann meets in the Mansion House in Dublin. It is from this meeting that the Irish state dates its existence.
• January 25 - The League of Nations is founded
• February 1 - The first Miss America is crowned (New York City).
• February 11 - Friedrich Ebert (SPD), is elected President of Germany.
• February 23 - Benito Mussolini forms the Fascist Party in Italy.
• February 25 - Oregon places a 1 cent per gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.
• February 26 - An act of the United States Congress establishes most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park (see Grand Canyon National Park).
• March 2 - The first Communist International meets in Moscow
• March 15 - The American Legion forms in Paris
• March 23 - In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.
• April 13 - At the Amritsar Massacre, British and Gurkha troops massacre 379 indians.
• May 4 - May Fourth Movement opposes foreign colonizers in China
• May 15 - Winnipeg launches general strike for better wages and working conditions.
• May 16 - US Navy Naval Curtiss aircraft NC-4 commanded by Albert Cushing Read departs Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight
• May 17 - Committee of One Thousand forms to oppose Winnipeg General Strike
• May 29 - Einstein's theory of General Relativity confirmed by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total eclipse of the Sun
• June 14 - John Alcock and Arthur Brown depart St. John's, Newfoundland on the first nonstop transatlantic flight
• July 6 - The British dirigible R-34 lands in New York, completing the first crossing of the Atlantic by an airship.
• August 11 - In Germany, the Weimar Constitution is passed into law.
• August 19 - Afghanistan gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• October 1 - Elaine Race Riot breaks out in Arkansas
• October 2 - US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partiallyparalyzed.
• October 9 - Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds "win" the World Series.
• October 28 - Prohibition begins: The United States Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.
• November - At end of month health officials declare the global Spanish Flu Pandemic over
• November 10 - The first national convention of the American Legion is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota (convention ended on November 12).
• November 28 - American-born Lady Nancy Astor is elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, becoming the first female member of that institution (she took her seat on December 1).

• The Åland Islands vote for a return to Swedish rule in a referendum.
• Les Champs Magnetiques, the first automatic book, is written by Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault.
• December 30 - Lincoln's Inn, in London admits its first female bar student.

Year in topic

• 1919 in film
  • February 5 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists
• 1919 in literature
• 1919 in music
• 1919 in fashion
  • Marcel Tolkowsky's Diamond Design is published.
• 1919 in science
• 1919 in sports
  • The Black Sox scandal -- Seven members of the Chicago White Sox take bribes to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds

Births

• January 1 - J. D. Salinger, novelist
• January 13 - Army Archerd, Hollywood journalist
• January 13 - Robert Stack, actor
• January 14 - Andy Rooney, television journalist
• January 23 - Hans Haas, zoologist and underwater scientist
• January 23 - Ernie Kovacs, comedian (d. 1962)
• January 25 - Edwin Newman, journalist, writer
• January 27 - Ross Bagdasarian, musician, actor (d. 1972)
• January 31 - Jackie Robinson, baseball player (d. 1972)
• February 5 - Andreas Papandreou, Greek politician (d. 1996)
• February 5 - Red Buttons, actor
• February 11 -Gretchen Fraser, slalom skier.
• February 11 - Eddie Robinson, football coach.
• February 12 - Forrest Tucker, actor (d. 1986)
• February 13 - Tennessee Ernie Ford, musician (d. 1991)
• March 2 - Jennifer Jones, actress
• March 11 - Mercer Ellington, musician, composer (d. 1996)
• March 15 - Lawrence Tierney, actor (d. 2002)
• March 17 - Nat King Cole, singer (d. 1965)
• March 24 - Lawrence Ferlinghetti, author and publisher
• March 30 - McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor (d. 1996)
• May 3 - Pete Seeger, singer and musician
• May 7 - Eva Peron, wife of Argentina's President Juan Peron (d. 1952)
• May 8 - Lex Barker, actor (d. 1973)
• May 16 - Liberace, pianist (d. 1987)
• May 16 - Gisela Uhlen, actress
• May 18 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, ballet dancer (d. 1991)
• May 20 - George Gobel, comedian (d. 1991)
• May 23 - Betty Garrett, actress, dancer
• June 5 - Richard Scarry, children's author
• June 26 - Richard Neustadt, political historian
• July 7 - Jon Pertwee, actor

• July 20 - Edmund Hillary, mountaineer
• October 11 - Art Blakey, jazz drummer
• October 22 - Doris Lessing, British writer
• October 26 - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran
• November 10 - Mikhail Kalashnikov - inventor, designer of the Ak-47
• November 18 - Andrée Borrel, WW II heroine executed by the Nazis

Deaths

• January 6 - Theodore Roosevelt
• January 15 - Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
• January 18- His Royal Highness The Prince John, son of George V and Queen Mary
• February 17 - Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada
• April 4 - Sir William Crookes, chemist and physicist
• May 6 - L. Frank Baum, writer
• August 9 - Ruggiero Leoncavallo, composer
• December 3 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir, a French painter.

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Johannes Stark
• Chemistry - not awarded
• Medicine - Jules Bordet
• Literature - Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler
• Peace - Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Referenced By