Jan 4 In Bulgaria, people have tired of Prime Minister Tsankov's reign of terror. Bulgaria is crippled by debt. Tsankov steps down after having failed to secure a loan for the country. Andrey Lyapchev replaces him and will remove some of Tsankov's restrictions and allow trade unions to form. The Communist Party will remain banned. In 1932 Tsankov will imitate the Nazi Party with his own National Social Movement. At the close of World War II Tsankov he will flee to Argentina.
Jan 16 Britain is on the gold standard and its currency is over valued. Coal exports are down and mine owners want to cut the wages of coal miners. Labor unrest is on the rise. In London, a BBC radio play about a revolution by workers creates panic.
Jan 27 The US Senate agrees to have the United States join the World Court.
Jan 31 Britain and Belgium remove their troops from Cologne, the foremost city in Germany's Rhineland. The people of Cologne are joyous. Their occupation of a defeated Germany has accomplished nothing.
Feb 9 Teaching theory of evolution is forbidden in schools in Atlanta, Georgia.
Feb 11 The Mexican government nationalizes all property belonging to the Roman Catholic Church.
Feb 23 US President Calvin Coolidge opposes a large air force. He believes it would menace world peace.
Mar 2 The Conservative Party's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, denies "that foundations of British commerce and industrial greatness have been sapped, that the stamina of our people has been impaired, that our men are mutinous and lazy, that our employers are indolent." He agrees that times are difficult but says they are slowly getting better. To think otherwise, he concludes, was "idiotic nonsense."
Apr 2 More riots begin in India. In Calcutta riots begin that are to last to May 9, with an eight day break between April 13 and 21. The number killed will be 110, and injured 975. From the year 1923 to August 22 of 1926, 76 riots will have been officially recorded across the sub-continent, 23 of them in 1926. In recent rioting the military will be put on the streets. Nationalist sentiments have been on the rise in India.
Apr 24 With their Treaty of Berlin, Germany and the Soviet Union pledge neutrality in the event in of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years.
May 1 Satchel Paige begins as a pitcher in the Negro Southern League.
May 3 US Marines return to Nicaragua, after having been away for nine months. There the Liberals, supported by Mexico's leftist government, are threatening US supported Conservative rule of Adolfo Díaz.
May 4 A general strike begins in Britain in support of coal miners. Britain's conservative government, led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin declares martial law. The strike is to last nine days. A member of Baldwin's cabinet, Winston Churchill, is to argue that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country." He claims that Benito Mussolini has shown "a way to combat subversive forces."
May 5 Sinclair Lewis refuses his Pulitzer Prize for "Arrowsmith." He complains that "The seekers for prizes tend to labor not for inherent excellence but for alien rewards; they tend to write this, or timorously to avoid writing that, in order to tickle the prejudices of a haphazard committee."
May 9 The French are still waging the war against Syrians that began in July 1925. The French have upset the Syrians by an attempt to control at the local level more than had their Turkish overlords prior to World War One. The French navy bombards Damascus in response to rioting there by its Druze population. In ten days the French air force will bomb in Damascus.
May 13 In South Africa, Prime Minister Herzog has introduced a Mines and Works Amendment Act, which excludes blacks and people of Indian heritage from all skilled and some semi-skilled mining jobs. After months of debate the act finally passes, by a majority of 16 votes.
May 14 Józef Pilsudski has returned to power with a coup d'etat. He is to refuse the presidency but remain the power "behind the throne." The coup wins the support of the Polish Socialist Party, which calls for a general strike, and it is supported by the Railwaymen's Union, which prevents pro-government military reinforcements from reaching Warsaw. Pilsudski wants to stabilize Poland politically by reducing the influence of political parties, whom he blames for corruption and inefficiency, and he wants to strengthen the army. He will quickly distance himself from his leftist supporters.
May 26 In Morocco, French and Spanish forces have been using artillery barrages, aerial bombardment and the use of chemical bombs against a rebellion by Rifian tribes and their recently establish Rif Republic. The popular leader of the rebellion, Abd el-Krim, surrenders. The French want Krim to be forgotten rather than honored as a martyr. They will exile him and his family to an estate on a French Island in the Indian Ocean, Réunion, and give them an annual stipend. Spain wants revenge against Krim and will view France's treatment of him as a disgrace.
May 28 A miliary coup d'etat in Portugal installs what coup leaders call a National Dictatorship. Portugal's First Republic, which began in 1910, becomes history.
Jul 18 According to a coming Cairo newspaper article, a ten day battle in Damascus beings today, involving 18,000 French troops, without a decisive victory for the French. Also the French will be described as razing several villages and bombarding the Kurdish quarter of Pamaseus.
Aug 23 The sudden death of popular Hollywood actor and sex symbol Rudolph Valentino at the age of only 31 years creates mass grief and hysteria.
Aug 24 A bloodless coup d'etat in Greece ousts a dictator, Theodoros Pangalos, from power. Parliamentary elections will be held on November 7th. A coalition government will be formed consisting of the Liberal Union, the Democratic Union, the People's Party and the Freethinkers' Party.
Sep 1 From an area that Arabs consider part of the Arab Kingdom of Syria, France creates the Republic of Lebanon with a parliamentary system of government. Lebanon is largely Christian (Maronites with some Greek Orthodox enclaves) and a sizeable Muslim population, including Druze.
Sep 8 Germany joins the League of Nations.
Sep 14 Reconciliation with Germany appears to have been established. France has promised to remove its troops from the Rhineland and the last of its troops will leave in 1930. Today, participants in the Locarno Treaties of 1925 ratify the seven treaties and the treaties become effective. Germany, France, Belgium, Britain and Italy have agreed to respect each other's borders and to cooperate against any aggressor so far as military capabilities allow. The Soviet Union is feeling ignored and isolated.
Sep 23 In the US, Gene Tunney defeats Jack Dempsey and becomes heavyweight champion of the world.
Sep 25 The League of Nations Slavery Convention abolishes all types of slavery.
Oct 1 In California five gasoline distribution companies announce they will lower the price of their gasoline to 18 cents a gallon to compete with the Richfield Oil Company having cut its price to 19 cents – $2.34 and $2.47 is 2012 dollars.
Nov 21 In Lithuania, nationalistic students organize an illegal march to protest the liberal government's soft policy regarding Communists.
Dec 17 In Lithuania a military coup d'etat takes place under the pretext that a Communist plot to take over Lithuania was imminent. The coup brings the president in 1919-20, Antanas Smetona, back to power. He is a member of the right-wing Lithuanian Nationalist Union Party, another political party that believes in the nation having a strong leader. His party had managed to win only 3 of 85 seats in parliament in Lithuania's May elections. He will take office the 19th. Members of his party have sympathies and contacts with Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy, but the party will distance itself from Europe's fascists (Italian and German) as early as 1932. The deposed president, Kazys Grinius, will migrate to the United States in 1947.
Dec 25 Japan's Emperor Taisho dies of a heart attack. Tomorrow he will be succeeded by his son, Hirohito, 25. Emperor Hirohito favors peace and cooperation with foreign powers. The political party in power, the Democratic (Minseito) Party, will express agreement.
Copyright © 2015 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.