After scandal-plagued U.S. President Warren G. Harding died unexpectedly, Vice President Calvin Coolidge ascended to the Oval Office. Adolf Hitler gained worldwide attention—and a five-year prison sentence—as leader of a failed coup in Munich, Germany, the Beer Hall Putsch. In Japan, a massive earthquake killed more than 140,000 people. And in Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter opened the sealed tomb of Tutankhamun, finding the ancient boy king’s mummified body in a solid-gold coffin.
Jan
01
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 and beat Black residents, set buildings aflame and raze the small, but prosperous mill town that was home to approximately 200 people.
Jan
02
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 months later, illuminated a deeply corrupt relationship between western developers and the federal government.
New Mexico Senator Albert Fall, circa early 1900s. Fall was notoriously involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal.
HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Jan
10
Feb
13
Feb
16
On February 16, 1923, in Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen.
British archaeologists Howard Carter (1874 – 1939) (left) and Arthur Callender (died 1937) carry out the systematic removal of objects from the antechamber of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut, with the assistance of an Egyptian laborer, Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egypt, 1923.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Mar
07
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 house is in the village though,” has introduced millions of American students to poetry.
Jul
23
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 forged in a single 12-month period, during which he robbed more banks than Jesse James did in 15 years and became the most wanted fugitive in the nation.
Aug
02
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 West Coast, a journey some believed he had embarked on to escape the rumors circulating in Washington of corruption in his administration.
Aug
03
Sep
01
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 noon. The shaking causes more than half of Tokyo’s brick buildings, most of Yokohama’s buildings, and hundreds of thousands of homes to collapse, killing tens of thousands of people.
TOKYO, JAPAN – SEPTEMBER 01: Destroyed Asakusa Park and Ryounkaku Tower are seen after the Great Kanto Earthquake in September 1923 in Tokyo, Japan. The estimated Magnitude 7.9 strong earthquake hit Japan’s capital Tokyo and surrounding area, the death toll was estimated up to 105,000 people. Approximately 38,000 victims were killed by fire whirl engulfed the former Army Clothing Depot site, where people had evacuated.
The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
Sep
23
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 sold about 1,200 copies in its first year with little fanfare, but gradually gained readers by word of mouth over subsequent decades, becoming something of a phenomenon by 1957, when it sold its millionth copy. Today, The Prophet has sold in excess of 10 million copies and been translated into over 100 languages.
Oct
16
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 oversized impact on the entertainment industry and is now one of the largest media companies in the world.
Nov
08
Nov
15
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 more than 25 years in prison before his conviction was overturned and he was released.
Nov
20
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 traffic signal (that one had been installed in London in 1868), it was an important innovation nonetheless: By having a third position besides just “Stop” and “Go,” it regulated crossing vehicles more safely than earlier signals had.
Dec
24
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