abour, worried about unemployment, by reformers worried about the poverty and slums in the US, and by those who felt that the Asian races were inferior to Europeans.
12/4/1921, US President Harding rejected joining the League of Nations.
10/12/1920, Woodrow Wilson and Leon Bourgeois were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
7/12/1920, US President Woodrow Wilson made his State of the Union speech.
16/10/1920, US Marines killed the Haitian rebel leader.
26/8/1920. Under the 19th Amendment, women received the vote in the USA.
5/7/1920, In the US, the Democratic Convention nominated James M Cox for Presidency and F D Roosevelt for Vice-Presidency.
19/3/1920. The US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, and the US refused to join the League of Nations.
16/1/1920. Prohibition began in the USA (18th Amendment), and the sale, manufacture, or involvement with alcohol was banned.
See also Morals and Fashion for more details on Prohibition.
5/1/1920. Radio Corporation of America was formed for world-wide broadcasting.
2/1/1920. Major US crackdown on suspected Communists began. The ‘Palmer Raids’ in over 30 cities across the USA resulted in the arrest of almost 3,000 anarchists, communists and other radicals. These raids were the idea of Attorney-General A Mitchell Palmer. The raids were controversial; some protested at the disregard for civil liberties, but some on the Right wanted those detained to be executed. Palmer himself, a Democrat, lost the Presidential nomination in late 1920 but maintained he had foiled a Bolshevik plot to overthrow the US Government.
27/11/1919. A large meteor landed in Lake Michigan.
11/11/1919, Death of Andrew Carnegie, US steel magnate and philanthropist. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on 25/11/1835, his family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when Andrew was 13. \he gave considerable sums to education and set-up the Carnegie Endowment for International Pece.
13/10/1919. Dock strike in New York.
2/10/1919, US President Wilson suffered a massive stroke, leaving his left side paralysed.
22/9/1919. Major steel strike in the USA.
31/8/1919. The US Communist Party was founded.
15/3/1919, Delegates from the American Expeditionary Force founded the American Legion Organisation of Veterans, to support veteran’s welfare.
11/2/1919, The Overman Committee was set up in the US, and played a crucial role in constructing image of the Red Radical Soviet’ threat to the US. It was a precursor to the HUAC (House Committee of Un-American Activities).
3/2/1919, US President Woodrow Wilson attended the first meeting of the League of Nations in Paris.
26/2/1919, In the USA, the Grand Canyon National Park opened.
15/1/1919, A tank containing 8.7 million litres of warm molasses in Boston, USA, burst. A 5-metre high wave of molasses swept through the docks area at 60 mph, wrecking buildings. 21 people were killed and 150 injured. Many died as the molasses cooled and became more viscous, suffocating its victims.
14/12/1918, President Woodrow Wilson arrived in Paris for peace talks.
11/11/1918. Armistice Day. World War One ended. Fighting ceased on the Western Front, and Austro-Hungary signed an armistice with the Allies. See 29/9/1918. Church bells rang out across Britain in celebration. The Allies had not expected such a sudden collapse of Germany; in September 1918 they were planning campaigns for 1919. However General Ludendorff was shaken by the sudden Allied advance (see 8/8/1918) and begged Kaiser Wilhelm to seek an armistice immediately. The Armistice was signed in Marshal Foch’s railway carriage, near Compiegne. Warsaw became the capital of a restored Polish State. The armistice required Germany to relinquish 5,000 heavy guns, 30,000 machine guns, 2,000 aircraft, all U-boats, 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 wagons and 5,000 lorries. The surface fleet was to be interned (see 21/11/1918), the Allies were to occupy the Rhineland, and the blockade of German ports would continue. World War One cost 9 million lives, with a further 27 million injured. Britain alone had lost 750,000 men, and a further 200,000 from the Empi