1923 in the United States

1923 in the United States
Years:	1920 1921 1922 – 1923 – 1924 1925 1926
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48 stars (1912–59)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1918–45)

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)

Events

August 2: Calvin Coolidge becomes President following the death of Warren G. Harding

January–March

• 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".
• 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.^[1]

April–June

• April 18 – The first Yankee Stadium opens its doors in the Bronx, New York City.
• May 9 – Southeastern Michigan receives a record 6 inches (15 cm) of snow after temperatures plummeted from 62 °F (17 °C) to 34 °F (1 °C) degrees between 1 and 6 pm on the previous day.^[2]
• 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 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).^[3]
• September 8 – Honda Point Disaster: Seven U.S. Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast.
• September 17 – A major fire in 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.

October–December

• October 16 – Roy and Walt Disney found The Walt Disney Company.
• December 10 – Sigma Alpha Kappa is founded at Loyola University New Orleans (making it the first social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the United States).

Undated

• The Moderation League of New York becomes part of the movement for the repeal of Prohibition in the U.S.
• Soledad C. Chacón is elected Secretary of State of New Mexico; all subsequent holders of this office through 2011 will also be women.
• The American Law Institute is established.
• War Resisters League organized.^[4]
• 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 (1919–1933)
• Roaring Twenties (1920–1929)

Births

• January 1 – Daniel Gorenstein, mathematician (died 1992)
• January 16 – Anthony Hecht, poet (died 2004)
• January 29
  • Jack Burke, Jr., golfer and coach
  • Paddy Chayefsky, writer (died 1981)
• January 31 – Norman Mailer, writer (died 2007)
• February 2
  • James Dickey, poet and author (died 1997)
  • Liz Smith, gossip columnist
• February 13
  • James Abdnor, U.S. Senator from South Dakota from 1981 to 1987 (died 2012)
  • Chuck Yeager, pilot
• February 28
  • Jean Carson, actress (died 2005)
  • Charles Durning, actor (died 2005)
• March 9 – James L. Buckley, judge and U.S. Senator from New York from 1971 to 1977
• March 10 – Val Logsdon Fitch, nuclear physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (died 2015)
• March 14 – Diane Arbus, photographer (died 1971)
• April 3 – Daniel Hoffman, poet (died 2013)
• April 23 – Walter Pitts, logician and cognitive psychologist (died 1969)
• April 25 – 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, U.S. Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• July 14 – Robert Zildjian, musical instrument manufacturer (Sabian) (died 2013)
• July 22
  • Bob Dole, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1969 to 1996
  • The Fabulous Moolah, wrestler (died 2007)
• July 31 – Stephanie Kwolek, polymer chemist (died 2014)
• August 3 – Jean Hagen, actress (died 1977)
• August 20 – Jim Reeves, country singer (died 1969)
• September 1 – Rocky Marciano, boxer (died 1969)
• September 9 – Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, virologist (died 2008)
• September 17 – Hank Williams, country musician (died 1953)
• September 26 – John Ertle Oliver, geophysicist (died 2011)
• October 4 – Charlton Heston, film actor (died 2008)
• October 20 – Robert Craft, orchestral conductor
• October 27 – Roy Lichtenstein, pop artist (died 1997)
• November 6 – Robert P. Griffin, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1966 to 1979
• November 8 – Jack Kilby, electrical engineer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (died 2005)
• November 9 – James Schuyler, poet (died 1991)
• November 18 – Ted Stevens, U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009 (died 2010)
• November 18 – Alan Shepard, astronaut (died 1998)
• November 23 – Daniel Brewster, U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1963 to 1969 (died 2007)
• November 26 – Nat Allbright, sports commentator (died 2011)
• December 10 – Harold Gould, actor (died 2010)
• December 11
  • Betsy Blair, film actress (died 2009)
  • Lilian Cahn, Hungarian-American businesswoman, co-founder of Coach, Inc. (died 2013)
• December 12 – Bob Barker, game show host (The Price Is Right)
• December 13
  • Philip Warren Anderson, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
  • 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

Deaths

• February 26 – George Clement Perkins, United States Senator from California from 1893 till 1915. (born 1839)
• April 28 – Knute Nelson, Norway-born Governor of Minnesota from 1893 till 1895 and United States Senator from Minnesota from 1895 till 1923. (born 1843)
• August 2 – Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States from 1921 till 1923. (born 1865)

References

See also

• List of American films of 1923

External links

• Media related to 1923 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons