This page relates to the year 1920 Gregorian Calendrier.

Events

World

Europe

  • January 10th: The Traité of Versailles comes into force. The Germany loses the eighth of its territory of 1914.
  • February 24th: With Munich, the German working Party becomes the Parti national-Socialist the German workers (Nazi).
  • March 10th: Karl Hjalmar Branting, Social Democrat, Prime Minister in Sweden (1920, 1921 - 1923 and 1924 - 1925).
  • March 13rd: Putsch of Kapp. The general von Lüttwitz and Wolfgang Kapp try a putsch reactionary in Germany. A general strike ruins the attempt.
  • March 29th: Crisis of Passover to the Denmark. In front of the difficulty of the successive governments of finding a majority following the crumbling of the parties, the king Christian X returns the ministry Zahle and replaces it by a business consultancy of which all the members were chooses apart from the Parliament. It results a serious political tension from it. The trade unions start a general strike. A new neutral cabinet is indicated then with the agreement of the parties and of the general elections follow, then a modification of the Constitution which reinforces the capacities of the Lower House ( Folketing ).
  • In April, beginning of the occupation of German cities (April-May).
  • May 16th: The Catholic church canonizes Jeanne d' Arc.
  • June 6th: Election with the Reichstag in Germany. The “coalition of Weimar (SPD, Zentrum, DDP) loses ground and must find a support on the right near the populist party of Gustav Stresemann. Ministerial instability in Germany (seven cabinets of June 1920 to May 1924).
  • July 24th: Referendum attaching Eupen to the Belgium.
  • October 10th: Votes by plebiscite in Carinthie which decides for fastening with the Austria.
  • October 14th: Treaty of Dorpat (Tartu) fixing the borders between the Russia and the Finland.
  • October, Spain: The general Franco is charged to form the Legion for the combat in the Rif.

  • Portugal: Union of the legitimists (claiming itself of king Miguel Ier) and of the antirépublicains of the Integralismo lusitano, which preaches a return to a strong, respectful mode of the religion and authority. 325 attacks with Lisbon between 1920 and 1925. The international crisis causes monetary inflation and the return to the speculation (1920 - 1922). 65  000 emigrants leave Portugal.

the United Kingdom

  • Day eight work hours daily newspaper.
  • Extension of the system of the insurances unemployment to all the workers to weak incomes.
  • Foundation of the Communist party. It does not obtain success.
  • Fall of birth rate during the inter-war period with 18, then 16 ‰. Popularization of the techniques of birth control. The standard English family counts two children, against three at the end of the 19th century.
  • Gay twenties : unslung behavior of youth, assiduous frequentation of the Cinema and the Variety, emancipation of the young women ( Flapper ), introduction of the Jazz and the charleston of the the United States.

France

See also: 1920 in France

Italy

  • Taken again strikes with the beginning of the year (“grévomanie”). In August, several hundreds of factories are occupied.
  • 8 - April 12th: At the time of its second congress in Naples, the popular party, under the influence of moderate, withdraws its support with the government Nitti.
  • June 15th: Giovanni Giolitti returns to the capacity to try to solve the political and social serious attack.
  • September 8th: The workmen occupy the factories and proceed to the election of “council of company”. Giolitti does not call upon the force and lets the movement be blown.
  • the September 19th, the representatives of the workmen sign in Rome a document which recognizes the principle of the working control, but which will remain dead letter.
  • September: Gabriele D' Annunzio makes adopt a constitution making of Fiume an independent state.
  • October - November: The Socialists conquer 2162 communes on a total of 8059 with the administrative elections.
  • November 12th: The Italian government signs a treaty with the Yugoslavia with Rapallo making Fiume a free city under the control of SDN. Italy gives up the Dalmatie but obtains an Eastern border more favorable than that recommended by Woodrow Wilson.
  • November - December: Alliance enters the agrarian industrialists, bankers and, followers of a preventive counter-revolution, and the fascistic, directed against the Socialists and the trade unionists of the CGL (autumn). The sections ( squadre ) fascistic pass to the violent action, initially against the peasants and the rural organizations (Labor market, co-operatives, leagues agrarian). The police force does not intervene, except when a beginning of resistance on behalf of the peasants appears. The assassination of a fascistic city council man with Bologna causes bloody confrontations between fascists and Socialists. The December 20th, to Ferrare, the fascists émiliens, gathered in the city, are devoted to violent reprisals. Giolitti benefits from the situation to dissolve the socialist municipalities of a hundred cities (Ferrare, Bologna, Modena…).

  • the index of the general level of the prices passes from 100 in 1913 to 405 in 1918 and 591 in 1920.

Central Europe & Balkans

  • defensive Alliance enters the Czechoslovakia and the Yugoslavia against the Hungarian revisionism.

  • Land reform in Romania, highly disputed by the Hungarians.
  • the Bucovine, the Transylvania, the Eastern Banat and the Bessarabia are joined together with the Romania, which doubles its surface and its population, with 295  000 km ² and 16  300  000 inhabitants against 138  000 km ² and 7  500  000 inhabitants in 1914.
  • the kingdom of Yugoslavia gathers twelve million inhabitants, including six million Serb.
  • the Hungary lost two thirds of its territory and the three fifths of its inhabitants. It counts 8 million inhabitants then. 3,5 million Magyars lives apart from its borders.

Soviet Russia, Poland & Country-Baltic

  • January 14th: In Siberia, the admiral Koltchalk, commander-in-chief of the white armies, is stopped and delivered to the Bolsheviks.

  • January 16th: The Allies put an end to the blockade of Russia Bolshevik.
  • February 2nd: Peace treaty signed to Tartu between the Russia and the Estonia. Russia gives up all its claims on the country.
  • April - June: Operation Kiev. Polish offensive in Ukraine. Kiev is taken in May but the Polish troops must ebb in front of against offensive of the Red Army which goes against the Poland.
    • the nationalist government of Ukraine is combined with Poland against Russia. The projection of the troops Bolsheviks makes it possible the Soviet government of Ukraine to take the control of the country.
  • 5 - July 16th: The Conference of Spa fixes the Russo-Polish border along the Ligne Curzon.
  • August 10th: The Red Army crosses the the Vistula.
  • August 11th: Peace treaty between the Latvia and Russia which recognizes the sovereignty of Latvia.
  • 13 - August 25th: Miracle of the Vistula. The Red Army is driven back in front of Warsaw by the Poles helped by the French military mission ordered by the general Weygand.
  • October 9th: Poland takes again Vilnius with the Lithuania.
  • November 7th: Final defeat of the white armies of the general Piotr Vrangel in the Crimea. 146  000 people of which 70  000 soldiers his evacuated in three days by boats towards Constantinople.
  • the plebiscites in Mazurie (1920) and into High Silesia (1921) are unfavourable to the Poles.
  • the Soviet Russia is the first State to legalize the abortion.

Africa

  • the Kenya and the Tanganyika become a colony of the British crown.

  • Creation of the Nigerian Improvment Association and National Congress off British West Africa .
  • Of the West-Indians and the Africans creates the French League for the Accession with the Rights of Citizens of the Natives of Madagascar.
  • Strike of the workmen of the railroad Dakar - Saint-Louis with the Senegal.
  • Introduction of a tax of forest repopulation to the Gabon by the administration of AEF.
  • the Secondary Course of Saint-Louis of Senegal becomes the Faidherbe College.
  • Development of the religious movement of Wellington Butelezi in South Africa and civil disobedience.
  • In the Algerian South, the French authorities collect in camps the nomads of the tribe of the Larba, which die of hunger after having lost two thirds of their herds (1920 - 1921).
  • Forwarding of Forbes in the oases of Koufra, in the south of the Cyrénaïque.
  • Raid of 32 cars Ouargla - Tamanrasset - Ouargla. Two only arrive.

Americas

Canada
  • January 1st: The remaining portions of the Territoires of the North-West are divided into three provisional districts: Mackenzie, Keewatin and Franklin.
  • February 12th: Died of Dawn Gagnon, alias Dawn, the child martyrdom.
  • February 14th: Law of creation of the University of Montreal.
  • February 26th: The Amerindian obtain the right to vote.

the United States
  • January 16th: The 18th amendment, issuing the Prohibition consumption of alcoholic drinks, is applied.
  • January 19th: The American Senate vote against the accession of the United States to the Company of the Nations.
  • January-September, Red Scare (Red Terror):
    • Arrest and eviction of four thousand foreign radical opponents.
    • Mort of the anarchist Andreo Salsedo of a fall of the fourteenth stages Park Row Building of New York where it had been held for six weeks in the offices of FBI.
    • May 5th: Arrest of the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, shown to be authors of a holdup and a murder made in a factory of shoe.
  • August 16th: 19th amendment, granting the right to vote with the American women.
  • November 2nd:
    • Election of Warren Harding (Republican) like President of the United States on the topic of the “return to the Normal”.
    • First radio broadcasts. The station KDKA of Pittsburgh, first deprived radio, diffuses the first political emission, a report on the election of Warren Harding.
  • November 19th: Final refusal of the American Senate to ratify the peace treaties.

  • which gallops Inflation (105% since 1914). Recession (1920 - 1922).

  • the working trade union AFL account five million members.
  • Census: the urban population (towns of more 2500 inhabitants) exceeds the rural population. 5,6 million inhabitants with New York, 2,7 with Chicago, 0,6 with Los Angeles.
  • the intermediate duration of the life passed from 49 years in 1901 to 56 years in 1920.
  • Construction of a tower of glass to Chicago (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe).

Latin America

  • the National City Bank control public finances with Haiti.

  • American Intervention with the Guatemala.
  • In the Years 1920, a group of young artists and intellectuals wants to tear off the Brésil with the worship of last and Europe and to give birth to a properly Brazilian culture: Anita Malfatti (painter), Victor Brecheret (sculptor), Mario de Andrade, Manual Bandeira, Ronald de Carvalho, Di Calvacanti and Menotti del Picchia (writers).

Asia

  • Mars: The populations of Nikolaïevsk massacre of the Japanese. The Japan reinforces its troops in Siberia.
  • First celebration of May 1st to the Japan.
  • May 23rd: A scission within the nationalist organization Sarekat Islam brings the creation of the Communist party indonésien (PKI), the first Communist party of Asia.
  • June: Following the signature of the Treated of Sevres which dismembers the Ottoman Empire, the Mohammad brothers and Shaukat Ali, members of the Congress, decide to launch a movement of not-co-operation. Gandhi succeeds in with sorrow making adopt this program by the Congress. This movement of not-co-operation and the Caliphate (1920-1922) will be a great success.
  • : The Mahatma Gandhi begins a civil disobedience campaign.
  • September 8th: Adoption by the Left the Congress, in India, of the program of fight nonviolent of the Mahatma Gandhi.
  • October: Benefitting from general confusion, several thousands of guards Russian white, ordered by the Baltic general Romance Fedorovitch Von Ungern-Sternberg, come from Siberia, invade the Mongolia and occupy the capital, Ourga. Sanguinary mythomaniac, supported by the Japanese, Ungern-Sternberg intends to reconstitute the empire of Gengis Khan.
  • December 16th: A Earthquake of magnitude estimated at 8,5 fact 180  000 victims in the Gansu following landslides in China.
  • China: CAD Kun removes Beijing. Its chief of staff Wu Peifu directs the Henan (Luoyang).
  • the Turkménistan is divided between the autonomous Soviet socialist Republic (RSSA) Turkestan and the Soviet popular republics of Bukhara and Khorezm. The vassal States of Khiva and Bukhara preserve their old territories and become officially independent republics.
  • political and cultural Repressions in Kirghizie. The Russians settle there massively and the Industrialization develops with large scales.
  • Plantation of the forest of Yoyogi in the center of the capital of the Japan, Tōkyō.
  • the Indies Dutchwomen: Creation of the institutes of higher learning, accessible to Indonésiens.
  • With Sumatra, the Deli Maatschappij occupies more 35  000 workmen out of thirty plantations of tobacco and rubber.

Oceania & the Pacific

  • the population of the Aborigènes of Australia falls to less 70  000 individuals.

The Middle East & Arab world

  • January 6th: Secret agreement signed between Clemenceau and Fayçal, wire of Hussein. Recognition of a French protectorate on the Lebanon; recognition by the France of the independence of the Syria with Fayçal for Head of State and Damas for capital; nomination of a French High-Commissioner in Syria, in charge of the relations of France with the emir and sends French advisers attached to the Arab government. Fayçal recognizes the primacy of the economic interests and cultural French in its country. The agreement is not made public and will never be applied.
  • January 28th: The Turkish House of Commons adopts the “national Pact” proclaiming the indivisibility of the nonoccupied territories.
  • February 10th: The French fold up Marach in Cilicie (700 killed). They lose Ourfa and evacuate Ain-.

  • February - March: The conference of London confirms the abandonment of Fayçal by the Great Britain. Lloyd George obtains a correction of border, with the profit of Great Britain, the north of the Galileo.

  • March 23rd: Beginning of the Massacres of Şuşa in the Haut-Karabagh (20.000 Armenians killed in 4 days).

  • Mars: Disorders in Palestine against the British policy of creation of a national hearth Jewish. The Arab nationalists of Damas launch a raid on the Galileo and cause human losses in certain Jewish colonies of the area. The Jews decide to arm themselves clandestinely while the “Jewish Agency” is created to repurchase ground with the Arabs.

  • Of the demonstrations Chiites bursts in spring with Baghdad in collusion with the Sunnites.

  • April 4th, Palestine: At the time of the festival of the Musa Nabi with Jerusalem (Moslem pilgrimage in the honor of Brace), the Jewish districts are attacked, making 9 died and 244 wounded. Shown not to have known to control the situation, the mayor Musa Kazim Al-Husseini is relieved by the British. His/her Amin brother is shown to be one of the organizers of the riot and is condemned by contumacy to a heavy custodial sentence.

  • April 23rd, Turkey: Meeting with Ankara of the Large National Assembly which declares itself representative of the nation and which delegates her powers to Mustafa Kemal. The sultan remains passive. The British occupy the ministries, make stop the notable ones, which involves the dissolution of the room of Constantinople and the resumption of the hostilities.

  • April 24th: End of the interallied Conference of San Rémo . SDN entrusts the mandate on the Palestine and the Transjordanie to the the United Kingdom). France gives up the Capitulations in Palestine. Fayçal, which with refused this to return to the conference, is summoned to yield with the decisions taken.

  • April 28th: The Azerbaïdjan is attached to RSFSR.

  • May 7th: The independence of the Georgia is recognized by the Soviet Russia.
  • In May, the general Gouraud, ordering French Forces of Raising, sign a provisional armistice to turn over against the emir Fayçal who attacks it in the South, and to crush it.
  • June 2nd: Tribal revolt in Iraq prepared by notable the Shiite against the British military government. Driven out area of the Means-Euphrate, the British take again control of it only after several months of engagements, making more than 8000 died on the Iraqi side. The financial blow of the resumption in military hand is considerable. The insurrectionary movement fails because of political divisions. Large the shaykhs rival of the south remained faithful to Great Britain, like the Arab nationalists of Iraqi origin driven out of Damas by the French.
The British must create a self government with at its head the king hachémite Fayçal.
  • June 22nd: Greek offensive against the kemalists in Turkey with the agreement of the Allies.
  • June 30th: Sir Herbert Samuel, liberal of Jewish confession favorable to the Zionism, is named civil High-Commissioner in Palestine. He considers that the public power should not intervene to finance the Jewish national hearth but only to allow the conditions of its blooming. He thus grants industrial grounds and concessions the Zionists and issues certificates of emigration to the Juifs of Russia which flee the civil war. In August, it amnesties the Arab personalities condemned following the riots of April.
  • June:
    • Following the Commission Report Milner, of the negotiations opens with London between the British government, the Wafd and the representatives of the Egyptian government. London proposes an abandonment of protectorate but request the recognition of the British interests in Egypt. Saad Zaghlul wants to obtain more in favor of independence, which involves the rupture of the talks in October.
    • Second Turkish offensive in Cilicie against the French (end in February 1921). Dubious combat, in particular with Ain-, which remains divided.
  • July: The French Army of Gouraud enters in Syria, demolishes the Arab troops with the Bataille of Maysaloun the July 23rd then seizes Damas, putting fine at the attempt Fayçal to create large a Syria gathering the Palestine and the Lebanon. Fayçal and the principal nationalists are driven out of Syria. Local risings against the French in the north of the country. The martial law is founded.
  • August 10th: Treated of Sevres , ever ratified by the Turkey. Dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire to the profit of the Great Britain (Iraq, Palestine and Transjordanie) and of the France (Syria, Lebanon, Cilicie); internationalization of Constantinople and the Straits; occupation of the Eastern Thrace, Smyrna and its back-country by the Greece; the Italy occupies the area of Adalia; creation of independent States in Arménie and to the Kurdistan. Turkey delivers its fleet of war and its army is reduced to 50  000 men. The project of Large Arménie will be never carried out.
  • September 1st: The general Gouraud proclaims the creation of Large-Lebanon with Beirut. A French governor is charged to manage the country.
  • September 22nd - December 2nd: turco-Armenian War . The Turks attack the Arménie the September 22nd and go on Olti and Sarikamich. Arménie issues the general mobilization and carries its army to 35  000 men. It resist during nearly one month, but the October 17th, the Turkish forces make with Iktir their junction with the Tartar of Azerbaïdjan. The famine prevails in Arménie and resistance crumbles. The Soviets make trail the negotiations with the mission Chanth-Derderian (October 22nd). Stalin, with Bakou, decides the sovietization of the Arménie. The Turks enter to Kars (October 30th), with Alexandropol (November 7th). The Great powers refuse to intervene in spite of the request of Romania (November 15th). The Armenians are rejected on the the Caucasus by the general kemalist Karabekir. An agreement with the RSS of Arménie is signed with Gümrü (December 2nd). Arménie gives up the Traité of Sevres and agrees to limit its army to 1500 men. The Russians restore with the Turkey Kars, Ardahan and Artvin conquered since 1878.
  • October, Palestine: The British support the training of a National council elected, responsible for the internal management of the Jewish community.
  • December 3rd: The Eastern Arménie is proclaimed Soviet socialist République (RSS) on the initiative of Anastas Mikoïan, one of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in the the Caucasus. Only the Zankézour enters in dissidence under the control of the Nejtch general.
  • December:
    • Third Congress islamo-Christian of Haïfa, which claims the stop of the Sionisme and the independence of an Arab State of Palestine under the British influence. The Palestinians give up any idea of Arab unit and Large Syria.
    • the Jewish socialist parties train a confederated trade union, the Hisdrahut which quickly becomes the first employer of the Jewish population of Palestine.

  • the Jewish emigration in Palestine remains weak in the Années 1920, the majority of the Juifs of Eastern Europe emigrating towards Western Europe after the introduction of the American quotas

  • Abdallah Ier of Jordan proclaimed king of Iraq.

Arts & culture

See also: 1920 with the cinema, 1920 in music, 1920 in literature, 1920 with the theater, 1920 as a cartoon, 1920 on television

Art schools

Sciences & technology

Sports

Economy & company

The United States

  • Movement of concentration of the companies to the the United States in the Years 1920. The manufactured goods account for 52% of exports.

  • Taylorism: the productivity increases by 72% in manufacturing industries of 1919 with 1929.
  • In the years 1920, the primary sector (agriculture and mines) declines (of 12,1 to 11,9 million), the secondary industry stagnates for the first time (11 million) and the tertiary sector increases by 50% (11,5 to 16,7 million).
  • Success during years 1920 of the fundamentalist Protestant, which fight against the modernism and liberalism in Théologie, against the secular Humanisme, the evolutionism darwinien, the Marxisme and the Catholicisme.

Latin America

  • Massive arrival of capital deprived coming from the the United States towards the Latin America in the Years 1920. The economic policies are limited to try to create a favorable climate with the overseas investments.
  • Economic crisis of reconversion to the Brazil following the World war. The Brazilian industrialists reinvest the currencies accumulated to increase production capacity.
  • With the Chile, exports which had increased by 9,8% per annum between 1915 and 1919, increases only by 0,6% between 1920 and 1924.
  • Social conflicts in the banana enclaves in Colombia during the Years 1920. Repression. Laws restricting the right to strike (1919 and 1920).

Africa

  • 20 700 white in Angola, is 0,5% of the population. 7500 mulattos, is 0,2% of the population.

  • Boom of African exports .

    • In AEF, the collapse of the company dealers before the war of 1914-1918 leaves three companies: the CFHC ( French Company of High Congo ), the Company of Kouilou-Niari and the SHO ( Company of High Ogooué ).
    • the forest production in AEF knows a true boom in the Années 1920, in particular thanks to the development of the Contreplaqué (Okoumé). Wood exports pass from 2  000 tons in 1897 with 34  636 in 1906, 47  401 in 1920,104  806 in 1923, 248  285 in 1926 and 397  754 in 1930.
    • large commercial companies (UAC, SCAO, CFAO…) share the monopoly in Western Africa and make large profits, while intending itself to buy with low to the African producers. Some revolt, like the producers of Cacao of Gold Coast in the years 1920-1930, which on several occasions refuse to sell their harvest in the hope to see the course going up. As the purchasers are also suppliers (material, seeds, goods various, etc), they make so that the producers are permanently their debtors and do not hesitate to swindle them. In addition the exportation of products Europeans (cotton fabric, artificial silk, household utensil, food products…) sold at competitive prices ruins the local artisanal production.

  • the saving in Traite is essential in Uganda in the Années 1920. The European growers are the exception there. The African peasants produce Coton, Café, Sucre and The for export. Purchasers ( ginners ), often of Indian origin, organized in associations to avoid competing with itself, drain this production towards the ports.

  • With the Kenya, it is the saving in plantation which dominates, thanks to a strong white immigration since 1903. Large plantations are with the hands of the aristocracy British (Lord Delamere, Lord Francis Scott, major Grogan…), beside more fragile small farmers. The installation of the colonists is done in Highlands, mainly along the way of railroad of the Uganda. The cultures of the coffee, of corn in the years 1920, the flax after 1914 and corn dominate. The grounds have summers acquired after the expropriation of the Kikuyu (those have initially accommodated the colonists and offered temporary rights of installation). The growers have recourse to the squatteurs (Kikuyu who did not leave the plantations) to obtain a cheap labor and flexible. Series of measure taken by the government involve the proletarianization of the African population (1900 - 1930).

Births in 1920

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Death in 1920

Beats-smg: 1920 Be-X-old: 1920 Map-bms: 1920 Simple: 1920 Zh-yue: 1920 年

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