1923 in the United States

Events from the year 1923 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government

• President:

:Warren G. Harding (R-Ohio) (until August 2)

:Calvin Coolidge (R-Massachusetts) (starting August 2)

• Vice President:

:Calvin Coolidge (R-Massachusetts) (until August 2)

:vacant (starting August 2)

• Chief Justice: William Howard Taft (Ohio)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Frederick H. Gillett (R-Massachusetts)
• Senate Majority Leader: Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Massachusetts)
• Congress: 67th (until March 4), 68th (starting March 4)

State governments

Events

January–March

• January 1–7 – The Rosewood massacre, a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town, takes place in Rosewood, Florida.
• January 15 – William W. Brandon is sworn in as the 37th governor of Alabama replacing Thomas Kilby.
• January 13 – Passenger seaplane Columbus ditches in the Straits of Florida between Key West and Havana, resulting in four fatalities, becoming the first fatal passenger flight incident in U.S. history.
• January 18 – Elon College's campus in North Carolina is destroyed by a fire.
• February 5 – United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind: The Supreme Court decides that Bhagat Singh Thind cannot become a naturalized U.S. citizen because, as a Punjabi Sikh, he is not a "white person".
• February 23 – The American Law Institute is incorporated.
• March 1 – The USS Connecticut is decommissioned.
• March 2 – The first issue of Time magazine is published.
• March 23 – The governor of Oklahoma signs House Bill 197 with the Montgomery amendment outlawing the theory of evolution in public school textbooks purchased by the state, the first anti-Darwinian legislation passed in the U.S.

April–June

• April 1 – Safety Last!, a silent romantic comedy film starring Harold Lloyd, is released.
• April 4 – Warner Bros. Film Studio is formally incorporated in the United States, as Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., by Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Sam Warner and Albert Warner.
• April 6 – Louis Armstrong makes his first recording, "Chimes Blues", with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.
• April 15 – Nihon Shōgakkō fire: 10 Japanese-American children are killed in a racially motivated arson attack on a Japanese Buddhist mission school in Sacramento, California, by an itinerant Mexican-American serial arsonist.
• April 18 – The first Yankee Stadium opens its doors in the Bronx, New York City.
• May 9 – Southeastern Michigan receives a record of snow after temperatures plummeted from to degrees between 13:00-18:00 on the previous day.
• May 15 – Riegelmann Boardwalk at Coney Island officially opened.
• May 27 – The Ku Klux Klan defies a law requiring publication of its members.

July–September

• July 13 – The Hollywood Sign is inaugurated in California (originally reading Hollywoodland).
• August 2 – Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes the 30th president of the United States, upon the death of President Warren G. Harding.
• September 3 – Illustrated Daily News first published in Los Angeles by Cornelius Vanderbilt IV.
• September 4 – The United States Navy's first home-built rigid airship USS Shenandoah makes her first flight at Naval Air Station Lakehurst (New Jersey); she contains most of the world's extracted reserves of helium at this time (named and commissioned October 10).
• September 8 – Honda Point Disaster: Seven U.S. Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast.
• September 17 – 1923 Berkeley Fire: Berkeley, California erupts, consuming some 640 structures, including 584 homes in the densely built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University of California.
• September 18–26 – Newspaper printers strike in New York City.
• September 24 – Rowan University opens.
• September 29 – First American Track & Field championships for women, in New Jersey

October–December

• October 1 – Mississippi something Road Signs Act came into effect.
• October 15 – The New York Yankees defeat the New York Giants (baseball), 4 games to 2, to win their first World Series Title.
• October 16 – Roy and Walt Disney found The Walt Disney Company.
• October 19 – War Resisters League organized by Jessie Wallace Hughan.
• December 10 – Sigma Alpha Kappa is founded at Loyola University New Orleans, making it the first social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the U.S.
• December 20 – BEGGARS Fraternity (the second social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the United States) is founded by nine men, who have secured permission to do so from the Pope.

Undated

• Soledad C. Chacón takes office as Secretary of State of New Mexico; all subsequent holders of this office until December 2015 will also be women.
• The Moderation League of New York becomes part of the movement for the repeal of Prohibition in the U.S.
• Rainbow trout introduced into the upper Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.

Ongoing

• Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)
• U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934)
• Prohibition (1920–1933)
• Roaring Twenties (1920–1929)

Births

• January 1 – Daniel Gorenstein, mathematician (died 1992)
• January 3 – Hank Stram, American football coach and broadcaster (died 2005)
• January 5
• Virginia Halas McCaskey, American football executive (died 2025)
• Sam Phillips, record producer (died 2003)
• January 16 – Anthony Hecht, poet (died 2004)
• January 29
• Jack Burke Jr., golfer and coach (died 2024)
• Paddy Chayefsky, writer (died 1981)
• January 31 – Norman Mailer, writer (died 2007)
• February 2
• James Dickey, poet and author (died 1997)
• Red Schoendienst, baseball player (died 2018)
• Liz Smith, gossip columnist (died 2017)
• February 13
• James Abdnor, U.S. Senator from South Dakota from 1981 to 1987 (died 2012)
• Chuck Yeager, pilot (died 2020)
• February 18 – Perry J. Dahl, World War II flying ace (died 2024)
• February 20 – Helen Murray Free, chemist and educator (died 2021)
• February 28
• Jean Carson, actress (died 2005)
• Charles Durning, actor (died 2012)
• March 2 – Bob Chinn, restaurateur (d. 2022)
• March 9
• James L. Buckley, judge and U.S. Senator from New York from 1971 to 1977 (died 2023)
• Wayne B. Warrington Sr., Arizona civil servant (died 1989)
• March 10 – Val Logsdon Fitch, nuclear physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (died 2015)
• March 12
• Helen Parrish, actress (died 1959)
• Mae Young, wrestler (died 2014)
• March 14 – Diane Arbus, photographer (died 1971)
• March 27 – Jack O'Neill, businessman (O'Neill surfwear & equipment) (died 2017)
• April 1
• Leora Dana, actress (died 1983)
• Bobby Jordan, actor (died 1965)
• April 3 – Daniel Hoffman, poet (died 2013)
• April 13
• Don Adams, actor and director (died 2005)
• Stanley Tanger, businessman and philanthropist, founder of the Tanger Factory Outlet Centers (died 2010)
• April 23 – Walter Pitts, logician and cognitive psychologist (died 1969)
• April 25
• Timothy S. Healy, Jesuit priest and academic administrator (died 1992)
• Albert King, blues guitarist and singer (died 1992)
• May 1 – Joseph Heller, novelist (died 1999)
• May 16 – Merton Miller, economist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (died 2000)
• May 27 – Henry Kissinger, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize (died 2023)
• June 2 – Lloyd Shapley, mathematician, economist and Nobel Prize laureate (died 2016)
• June 8 – Malcolm Boyd, priest and author (died 2015)
• June 19 – Geri M. Joseph, diplomat and political figure (died 2023)
• June 22 – John Oldham, basketball player (died 2020)
• July 13 – Ashley Bryan, children's book writer and illustrator (died 2022)
• July 14 – Robert Zildjian, musical instrument manufacturer (Sabian) (died 2013)
• July 22
• Bob Dole, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1969 to 1996, presidential candidate (died 2021)
• The Fabulous Moolah, wrestler (died 2007)
• July 31 – Stephanie Kwolek, polymer chemist (died 2014)
• August 3 – Jean Hagen, actress (died 1977)
• August 10
• Rhonda Fleming, screen actress (died 2020)
• David H. Rodgers, politician (died 2017)
• August 20 – Jim Reeves, country singer (died 1964)
• September 1 – Rocky Marciano, boxer (died 1969)
• September 3
• Glen Bell, entrepreneur, founder of Taco Bell (died 2010)
• Mort Walker, cartoonist, creator of Beetle Bailey (died 2018)
• September 9
• Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, virologist (died 2008)
• Charles Grier Sellers, historian (died 2021)
• September 17 – Hank Williams, country musician (died 1953)
• September 18 – Al Quie, politician (died 2023)
• September 26 – Jack Oliver, geophysicist (died 2011)
• October 1 – Babe McCarthy, basketball coach (died 1975)
• October 2 – Hershel W. Williams, Medal of Honour recipient (died 2022)
• October 4 – Charlton Heston, film actor (died 2008)
• October 20 – Robert Craft, orchestral conductor (died 2015)
• October 23
• Ned Rorem, composer (died 2022)
• Frank Sutton, actor (died 2022)
• October 27 – Roy Lichtenstein, pop artist (died 1997)
• November 1 – Ann B. Walker, journalist and radio broadcaster (died 2025)
• November 3 – Charles Nolte, actor (died 2010)
• November 6 – Robert P. Griffin, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1966 to 1979 (died 2015)
• November 8 – Jack Kilby, electrical engineer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (died 2005)
• November 9 – James Schuyler, poet (died 1991)
• November 10 – Robert Carrier, chef (died 2006 in France)
• November 18
• Ted Stevens, U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009 (died 2010)
• Alan Shepard, astronaut (died 1998)
• November 23
• Daniel Brewster, U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1963 to 1969 (died 2007)
• Billy Haughton, harness racer and trainer (died 1986)
• November 26 – Nat Allbright, sports commentator (died 2011)
• December 2 – Maria Callas, singer (died 1977)
• December 10 – Harold Gould, actor (died 2010)
• December 11
• Betsy Blair, film actress (died 2009)
• Lillian Cahn, Hungarian-American businesswoman, co-founder of Coach, Inc. (died 2013)
• December 12 – Bob Barker, game show host (died 2023)
• December 13
• Philip W. Anderson, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (died 2020)
• Larry Doby, baseball player (died 2003)
• December 23 – James Stockdale, U.S. Navy admiral and vice presidential candidate (died 2005)
• December 24 – George Patton IV, U.S. Army general (died 2004)
• December 29
• Dina Merrill, actress, heiress, socialite and philanthropist (died 2017)
• Mike Nussbaum, actor and director (died 2023)

Deaths

• January 1 – Willie Keeler, baseball player (born 1872)
• January 18 – Wallace Reid, actor (born 1891)
• February 6 – Edward Emerson Barnard, astronomer (born 1857)
• February 14 – Charles Henry Turner, African American entomologist (born 1867)
• February 15 – Minnie Willis Baines, author (born 1845)
• February 24 – Edward W. Morley, scientist (born 1838)
• February 26
• Walter B. Barrows, naturalist (born 1855)
• George Clement Perkins, U.S. Senator from California from 1893 to 1915 (born 1839)
• March 3 – Melancthon J. Briggs, lawyer and politician (born 1846)
• March 6 – Joseph McDermott, actor (born 1878)
• March 15 – Goat Anderson, baseball player (born 1880)
• April 6 – Alice Cunningham Fletcher, ethnologist and anthropologist (born 1838)
• April 11 – Mary Treat, naturalist (born 1830)
• April 28 – Knute Nelson, Governor of Minnesota from 1893 to 1895 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1895 to 1923 (born 1843 in Norway)
• August 2 – Warren G. Harding, 29th president of the United States from 1921 to 1923 (born 1865)
• August 10 – Laura Redden Searing, deaf poet and journalist (born 1839)
• October 19 – Eleanor Norcross, painter (born 1854)
• October 23 – Hannah Johnston Bailey, temperance advocate and suffragist (born 1839)
• November 11 – Elizabeth Eggleston Seelye, biographer (born 1858)
• November 17 – Mary Bigelow Ingham, author, educator, and religious worker (born 1832)
• December 28 – Frank Hayes, actor (born 1871)

See also

• List of American films of 1923
• Timeline of United States history (1900–1929)

References

External links