This Year in History:
1923
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On the first day of 1923, white vigilante mobs begin their descent upon the predominantly Black community of Rosewood, Florida. In an attack that would last several days, they shoot…
Albert Fall, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, announces he is resigning in response to public outrage over the Teapot Dome scandal. Fall’s resignation, which took effect two…
Four years after the end of World War I, President Warren G. Harding orders U.S. occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home. In 1917, after several years of bloody…
On February 13, 1923, the New York Renaissance, the first all‑Black professional basketball team, is organized. The Renaissance, commonly called the Rens, become one of the dominant teams of the 1920s…
On February 16, 1923, in Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen. Because the ancient Egyptians saw their pharaohs…
The New Republic publishes Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The poem, beginning with the famous line “Whose woods these are, I think I know. His…
John Herbert Dillinger joins the Navy in order to avoid charges of auto theft in Indiana, marking the beginning of America’s most notorious criminal’s downfall. Years later, Dillinger’s reputation was…
In a hotel in San Francisco, President Warren G. Harding dies of a stroke at the age of 58. Harding was returning from a presidential tour of Alaska and the…
On August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge is sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, hours after the death of President Warren G. Harding. Born July 4, 1872,…
On September 1, 1923, a routine lunch hour in Japan’s capital city of Tokyo and neighboring “City of Silk” Yokohama is disrupted when a massive, 7.9‑magnitude earthquake strikes just before…
On September 23, 1923, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, a Romantic book of prose poetry centered on a prophet who shares wisdom about family, work, death, love and freedom, is published. It…
On October 16, 1923, Walt Disney and his brother Roy found the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood, California. The studio, now known as the Walt Disney Company, has had an…
Adolf Hitler, president of the far‑right Nazi Party, launches the Beer Hall Putsch, his first attempt at seizing control of the German government. After World War I, the victorious allies…
Mamie Snow, a mentally disabled white woman from Waukegan, Illinois, claims that James Montgomery, a Black veteran and factory worker, raped her. Montgomery, who was promptly thrown in jail, spent…
On November 20, 1923, the U.S. Patent Office grants Patent No. 1,475,074 to 46‑year‑old inventor and newspaperman Garrett Morgan for his three‑position traffic signal. Though Morgan’s was not the first…
On December 24, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge touches a button and lights up the first national Christmas tree to grace the White House grounds. Not only was this the first…
