December 1922

December 1, 1922 (Friday)

The Bavarian towns of Passau and Ingolstadt were fined 50,000 gold marks each by the Allied governments for recent attacks on French and British military officers.

December 2, 1922 (Saturday)

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark was sentenced to lifelong exile from Greece for disobeying orders during the disastrous Greco-Turkish War.

The Uqair Protocol was signed, defining the borders between Iraq and the Sultanate of Nejd.

Queen's University beat the Edmonton Elks 13-1 to win the Grey Cup of Canadian football.

Born: Leo Gordon, actor, in Brooklyn, New York (d. 2000)

December 3, 1922 (Sunday)

Prince Andrew and wife Princess Alice of Battenberg boarded a British warship and left Greece to live in exile.

December 4, 1922 (Monday)

U.S. President Warren G. Harding presented a $3 billion budget to Congress for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1923.

Died: Hermann Baagøe Storck, 83, Danish architect and heraldist

December 5, 1922 (Tuesday)

British Parliament enacted the Irish Free State Constitution Act, sanctioning the new Constitution of the Irish Free State.

The Russian government closed all of Petrograd's Catholic churches.

Born: William Davidson, businessman, in Detroit, Michigan (d. 2009)

December 6, 1922 (Wednesday)

The Irish Free State was established by proclamation of King George V.

Georges Clemenceau spoke in Washington, D.C. during his American lecture tour and visited Woodrow Wilson at his home.

December 7, 1922 (Thursday)

The Reform Party led by Prime Minister William Massey won the New Zealand general election.

Northern Ireland voted itself out of the Irish Free State by the stipulation allowing for this in the Treaty.

Died: Sean Hales, Irish political activist (assassinated)

December 8, 1922 (Friday)

U.S. President Warren G. Harding delivered his State of the Union message to Congress. "It is four years since the World War ended", Harding said, "but the inevitable readjustment of the social and economic order is not more than barely begun." Harding spoke at length about the country's recent labor strife and recommended the creation of a non-partisan tribunal to replace the current Labor Board. On the matter of Prohibition he said "The day is unlikely to come when the Eighteenth Amendment will be repealed. The fact may as well be recognized and our course adapted accordingly."

Born: Lucian Freud, painter, in Berlin, Germany (d. 2011)

Died: Rory O'Connor, 39, Irish republican (executed by firing squad)

December 9, 1922 (Saturday)

The Second London Conference began, with the purpose of once again talking about reparations. British Prime Minister Bonar Law made a surprising statement when he said that the Balfour Note no longer existed for the British government and indicated that Britain would consider canceling France's debt if a new reparations settlement made it possible.

Born: Redd Foxx, comedian and actor, in St. Louis, Missouri (d. 1991)

December 10, 1922 (Sunday)

The 1922 Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm. The recipients were Niels Bohr of Denmark for Physics, Francis William Aston of the United Kingdom (Chemistry), Archibald Hill of the United Kingdom and Otto Fritz Meyerhof of Germany (Physiology or Medicine), Jacinto Benavente of Spain (Literature) and Fridtjof Nansen of Norway (Peace).

Japan returned Jiaozhou City, which it had taken from the Germans during the World War, to China.

December 11, 1922 (Monday)

The Second London Conference broke up with no agreement in place except to meet again in Paris on January 2. Benito Mussolini was asked which side he would take if France were to carry out its threat to occupy the Ruhr in response to Germany's failure to pay any more reparations. He replied, "Wait and see."

Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

Gabriel Narutowicz became the 1st President of the Second Republic of Poland.

The Free State Seanad met for the first time and elected Lord Glenavy as its first chairman (Cathaoirleach).

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon.

Born: Dilip Kumar, actor, in Peshawar, British India; Maila Nurmi, actress and television personality, in Petsamo, Finland (d. 2008)

December 12, 1922 (Tuesday)

A disarmament conference in Moscow among Russia, the Baltic states and Poland broke up without an agreement.

The Labour Party started a filibuster that kept the House of Commons sitting continuously from 3 p.m. until 7 a.m. the next morning. The filibuster was a form of protest against the government for its decision to adjourn Parliament on Friday until the middle of January without addressing Britain's unemployment problem.

Born: Christian Dotremont, painter and poet, in Tervuren, Belgium (d. 1979); Edythe Perlick, baseball player, in Chicago, Illinois (d. 2003)

Died: John Wanamaker, 84, American merchant, religious leader and political figure

December 13, 1922 (Wednesday)

A box arrived of chocolates arrived at the Home Secretary's Office for W.C. Bridgeman. The police found it contained arsenic and suspected the same person who poisoned police commissioner William Horwood the previous month.

The first trial in the Herrin Massacre began in Marion, Illinois.

Irish irregulars took Carrick-on-Suir.

Died: Hannes Hafstein, 61, Icelandic politician and poet

December 14, 1922 (Thursday)

Prime Minister Bonar Law warned the House of Commons that Germany was very near to complete collapse.

The two men who attacked Maximilian Harden on July 3 were sentenced to two years nine months and four years nine months in prison.

Soviet Russia began to teach children that Santa Claus and angels were myths.

Born: Nikolay Basov, physicist and Nobel laureate, in Usman, Soviet Russia (d. 2001)

December 15, 1922 (Friday)

Vladimir Lenin had a second stroke.

December 16, 1922 (Saturday)

Polish President Gabriel Narutowicz was assassinated after just five days in office.

Federal elections were held in Australia. The incumbent Nationalist Party of Australia led by Prime Minister Billy Hughes lost its majority.

Died: Gabriel Narutowicz, 57, 1st President of Poland (assassinated)

December 17, 1922 (Sunday)

Józef Piłsudski was made Chief of the Polish General Staff to replace Władysław Sikorski, who became prime minister as well as acting president after the assassination of Narutowicz.

The last British troops left Dublin.

Born: Alan Voorhees, transportation engineer and urban planner, in Highland Park, New Jersey (d. 2005)

December 18, 1922 (Monday)

The Denver Mint Robbery occurred in Denver, Colorado.

Turin Massacre: 10 died in fighting between Fascists and Communists in Turin, Italy.

Born: Jack Brooks, lawmaker, in Crowley, Louisiana (d. 2012)

December 19, 1922 (Tuesday)

In Dublin, 7 men arrested by Free State troops on November 13 for sabotaging trains were executed.

Morehouse Parish, Louisiana was put under martial law by Governor John M. Parker due to threats from the Ku Klux Klan.

December 20, 1922 (Wednesday)

Will H. Hays reinstated Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and allowed him to make films again.

The play Antigone by Jean Cocteau with incidental music by Arthur Honegger premiered in Paris.

Born: Charita Bauer, actress, in Newark, New Jersey (d. 1985)

December 21, 1922 (Thursday)

The Women's Federation of Canada announced that it would fight to maintain the ban on Fatty Arbuckle's pictures in Canada, and that it would try to get an act passed in Canadian Parliament which would prohibit the showing of pictures featuring actors frequently mentioned in divorce courts and scandals.

Born: Itubwa Amram, pastor and political figure, in Nauru (d. 1989); Paul Winchell, ventriloquist, actor and comedian, in New York City (d. 2005)

December 22, 1922 (Friday)

The Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec in Quebec City, Canada was gutted by an early morning fire.

Stanisław Wojciechowski became President of Poland.

The bodies of the two men murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mer Rouge, Louisiana in August were found in a lake.

Died: Abdullah Muhammad Shah II of Perak, 80, 26th Sultan of Perak

December 23, 1922 (Saturday)

Pope Pius XI promulgated his first encyclical, Ubi arcano Dei consilio.

Lenin began dictating his notes expressing his views on the party leadership and the matter of who should succeed him. He expressed reservations about all the party leaders, but was particularly critical of Stalin.

Born: Micheline Ostermeyer, athlete and concert pianist, in Rang-du-Fliers, France (d. 2001)

December 24, 1922 (Sunday)

The Workers Party of America opened its second party congress in New York.

Born: Ava Gardner, actress, in Smithfield, North Carolina (d. 1990)

December 25, 1922 (Monday)

The Workers Party of America declared for the "dictatorship of the proletariat and the supplanting of the existing capitalist government with a soviet government", but abandoned agitating for armed insurrection in order to avoid being prosecuted by the American government.

December 26, 1922 (Tuesday)

By a vote of 3-1 the Allied Reparations Committee declared Germany in voluntary default due to a delayed timber delivery to France. Great Britain cast the only dissenting vote, while France, Belgium and Italy voted in favour of the declaration.

Mussolini ordered a new design for Italian coinage that would bear the fasces.

December 27, 1922 (Wednesday)

The Japanese aircraft carrier Hosho was commissioned, the first ship designed from the beginning to be a carrier.

The science fiction film The Man from M.A.R.S., notable for using an early 3-D process, was released.

December 28, 1922 (Thursday)

A letter from President Harding to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was read in the Senate. In the message Harding stated that the United States would not call a world economic conference unless European nations accepted that cancellation of war debts owed to America would not be considered.

Born: Stan Lee, comic book creator and president of Marvel Comics, in New York City

December 29, 1922 (Friday)

Germany's floating debt passed 1 trillion marks.

Born: William Gaddis, novelist, in New York City (d. 1998)

December 30, 1922 (Saturday)

Treaty on the Creation of the USSR: The Soviet Union was created as a federation of Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia and Transcaucasia.

December 31, 1922 (Sunday)

German Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno revealed in a speech in Hamburg that he had proposed a non-aggression pact with France but Raymond Poincaré had rejected it.