December 6, 1921: United Kingdom signs treaty recognizing independence of "Irish Free State"December 1, 1921: U.S. Navy airship C-7 demonstrates successful flight with helium rather than flammable hydrogenDecember 25, 1921: Sedition sentences, of Socialist Eugene V. Debs and 23 others, commuted by President Harding for release from prisonDecember 9, 1921: All 43 crew of U.S. Navy submarine S-48 rescued after sinnking
The United States government implemented regulations for the right to broadcast wireless radio signals commercially, requiring a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation, for all transmitters and setting aside two specific frequencies on the amplitude modulation (AM) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Initially, stations broadcasting news reports were allowed the 485 meter wavelength (equivalent to 620 kHz) and those broadcasting entertainment were allowed 360 meters (roughly 830 kHz).[1]
For the first time, a manned airship was flown filled with non-flammable helium rather than hydrogen, as the United States Navy flew the C-7, a C-class blimp from Hampton Roads, VirginiatoWashington, D.C. and back. C-7 was powered by two engines and had a gondola hanging from it that was large enough to carry a crew of four people.[2][3]
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George announced, for the first time in negotiations, that dominion status within the British Commonwealth would be offered to Ireland, similar to that existing at the time in Canada, as an alternative to independence.[4] In addition, the six counties of Ulster Province would remain as Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and a boundary commission would be created to arrange a permanent definition of the boundary between north and south.
Riots broke out in Vienna as a result of price increases. Shops were looted and foreign hotel guests were robbed.[5]
Nicaragua ended martial law in its northwestern provinces after receiving a shipment of weapons and munitions from the U.S.[4]
Laurel (seated) and Hardy in The Lucky Dog
The short (24 minutes) silent comedy film The Lucky Dog, starring Stan Laurel, was released by the Amalgamated Producing Company. Wearing a full mustache, another comedian, Oliver Hardy, had a role in the film as an armed robber confronting Laurel.
The Irish nationalist delegates rejected the British settlement offer of Dominion status, in that it continued to require an oath of allegiance to the British crown for all government members, and continued the partition of the island of Ireland.[4]
A delegation representing the "Far Eastern Republic" arrived in Washington, D.C., in hopes of obtaining American help in driving Japanese troops from Siberia and seeking diplomatic recognition.[4]
10,000 Mark note, worth $52 in January 1922, $3.15 in January 1923 [10]
The value of Germany's currency, referred to retrospectively as the "paper" Mark (Papiermark), dropped sharply on announcements that the cost of living had increased by 22% during the month of November, and that prices were almost 60 percent higher than they had been at the beginning of the year.[4]
Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins met UK prime minister David Lloyd George at 10 Downing Street to discuss the remaining "points of difference" between the two sides, and came to an agreement that retained the division of Ireland, but accepted dominion status for the predominantly Roman Catholic southern provinces and eliminated the requirement of an oath of allegiance.[13]
The Football Association, governing body of association football in England, banned women from playing at FA-affiliated pitches, the only ones with spectator facilities, saying that "the game of football was quite unsuitable for females".[14]
More than 20 people were killed in a train wreck near Philadelphia at Woodmont.[4]
The 67th United States Congress, elected more than a year earlier in 1920, convened its first regular session. The first order of business was the 1922-1923 U.S. budget sent over by U.S. president Warren G. Harding, showing a deficit of $167,571,977.[4]
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that picketing during labor strikes was a lawful exercise of the First Amendment right of free speech, but that it could be subject to an injunction if obstruction or intimidation were used.[4]
The Anglo-Irish Treaty establishing the Irish Free State, an independent nation incorporating 26 of Ireland's 32 counties, was signed at the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street in London at 2:00 in the morning by British and Irish negotiators, bringing to an end to the Irish War of Independence.[15]
Inelections for the Canadian House of Commons, the Liberal PartyofW. L. Mackenzie King won an overwhelming majority of the 225 seats over the ruling Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Arthur Meighen. Although Meighen's Conservatives had had a 153 to 82 lead in the House before the election, they lost 104 seats, with Meighen himself and 11 members of his cabinet losing their bids for re-election as MPs. After the voting, the Liberals had 118 seats, the new Progressives had 58 and the Conservatives had only 59. In the voting, Agnes Macphail of the Progressives became the first woman to be elected to the Canadian Parliament.[16]
Said Halim Pasha, the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917, who had given his approval of the Armenian genocideinTurkey, was assassinated in RomebyArshavir Shirakian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. The former Grand Vizier had recently moved to Rome after being set free from imprisonment on the island of Malta earlier in the year, having been acquitted on charges of treason. He had never been charged with the war crimes for his role in the genocide. Said Halim was driving back to the hotel where he stayed when Shirakian found him and shot him to death.[citation needed]
U.S. president Harding addressed a joint session of Congress to present his State of the Union address in person rather than sending it over to be read out loud. Harding advocated early refunding of foreign debts, increased regulation of non-taxable securities, providing relief for cooperative agriculture associations, a flexible tariff, and other reforms, and a hope that humanitarian aid could be increased to relieve the famine in Soviet Russia.[4]
The names of 11,000 U.S. draft dodgers, as determined by the U.S. Department of War, were ordered published in the Congressional Record.[4]
In discussions at the Washington Disarmament Conference over the dispute between China and Japan over the Shandong peninsula, China agreed to reimburse money spent by Japan for improvements to Shandong, and Japan agreed to return all public property under lease in Kiau-Chau.[4]
France's Prime Minister Aristide Briand received a 249 to 12 vote of confidence from the French Senate for his foreign policy, a 400 to 100 approval by the French Chamber of Deputies.[4]
Future Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, then 32, was arrested for the first time in his life, along with his father, for his participation in a strike as part of Gandhi's Non-Cooperation movement.[17]
The first penalty shot in the history of ice hockey was taken in one of the first games of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, which had recently adopted the rule. The shot missed and it would be six more days before a goal was scored on a penalty shot.[18]
Died: Félix Arnaudin, 77, French folklorist and photographer
InLondon, King George V summoned parliament to ratify the Irish treaty, while Irish president Eamon de Valera called on similar approval from his cabinet in Dublin. Sir James Craig, the premier of Northern Ireland, asked the Stormont Assembly to delay any action on ratifying the agreement.[4]
A violent riot, involving an estimated 360,000 people, broke out in the U.S. city of Chicago when police attempted to make arrests during picketing by striking meatpackers. Nine people were shot, one fatally, and violence spread to Omaha, Nebraska and South St. Paul, Minnesota.[4]
Died: Nathan Cole Jr., 61, American newspaper publisher and co-founder, 1881, of the Los Angeles Times.[19]
A U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating capital punishment in the U.S. Army announced that only 11 of the servicemen given the death sentence during World War One had actually been executed.[4]
Irish republican leader Eamon de Valera declared that, after discussions with his cabinet, he and two ministers were opposed to ratification of the Anglo-Irish peace treaty, but referred the matter to the Irish parliament, the Dail Eireann, for further discussion. De Valera asked the Irish people to continue orderly conduct during the debate. Arthur Griffith, one of the Irish republicans who had signed the treaty as a delegate, declared that he was strongly in favor of ratification.[4]
Died: Henry D. Flood, 56, U.S. Congressman for Virginia since 1901, died in Washington three days after the beginning of his eleventh term.[4]
All 43 crew were rescued from the U.S. Navy submarine S-48 after it sank in waters 80 feet (24 m) deep in Long Island Sound, during the sub's first sea trial after departing from New York.[4] A civilian mechanic from Bridgeport, Connecticut, Peter F. Dunne, conceived a plan to raise the bow of the ship above the surface, where the crew was able to escape through a torpedo tube.[4]
The Estonian cargo ship Saaremaa collided with another ship off Kronstadt, part of the Soviet Union, and sank with the loss of 23 lives.[21]
The last Irish republican political prisoners were released from the Ballykinlar prison in Northern Ireland, a little more than three weeks after the shooting of Tadhg Barry.[4]
Anti-Christian pamphleteer John William Gott became the last person in England to be publicly prosecuted and imprisoned for blasphemous libel.[22] Gott, who had several prior jail sentences for blasphemy, had published a satire of the Christian religion in a pamphlet, including the statement that Jesus Christ had entered Jerusalem "like a circus clown on the back of two donkeys" and was sentenced to nine months imprisonment at hard labor. Shortly after his release in August, he died on November 4, 1922, at the age of 56.
Negotiations between China and Japan broke down when Japan announced that it would not cede the Tsingtao to Tsinan railroad to Chinese control, regardless of compensation.[4]
Died: Sir Arthur Pearson, 55, British newspaper publisher who founded the Daily Express, a London afternoon tabloid, in 1900. Pearson died accidentally, apparently from falling in his bathtub, striking his head, and drowning.[23]
The English Ladies Football Association was founded in Liverpool by representatives of 30 women's soccer football teams, five days after the ban by the Football Association of the use of FA stadiums by women.[25]
Cornell Mayer, American radio astronomer who made the first accurate measures (in 1958) of the temperature of the planet Venus; in Ossian, Iowa (d. 2005) [26]
InBritish India, Indian National Congress president-elect Chittaranjan Das (C. R. Das) and Bengal Caliphate Committee president Abul Kalam Azad were arrested by colonial authorities along with about 600 other independence advocates under the terms of the India Sedition Act, to prevent protests during the tour of Edward, Prince of Wales.[4]
The United States and Japan reached an agreement regarding the island of Yap and other South Pacific islands under mandate, with Japanese sovereignty recognized in return for the U.S. having equal rights with Japan on access to undersea cables and wireless service, as well as a guarantee that American missionaries and educators would be protected.[4]
As Germany's economic crisis worsened, the German Federal Council increased the rates for all communication (postal, telephone, telegraph) and railway transportation to a new level that was 20 times as much as it had been before World War One.[4]
In an attempt to resolve the dispute between Chile and Peru over the legal status of the Tacna and Arica territory on the borders of the two nations, Chile proposed that a plebiscite be held among the residents of the area in South America.[4]
AtAllahabad in India, the visit of the Prince of Wales was welcomed by a small crowd of British residents, while almost all native Indians boycotted the ceremonies.[4]
In the town of Franklin, Kansas, a group of 2,000 immigrants, mostly women whose husbands were striking miners, formed a mob and attacked non-union labor that had come to replace the strikers, using red pepper and throwing rocks. The Kansas National Guard was sent in to restore order.[4]
Britain extended the India Sedition Act to its territory in Burma, where the Prince of Wales was scheduled to visit.[4]
John A. Elston, 47, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California since 1915, committed suicide at the age of 47 by drowning himself in the Potomac River. Elston, who represented the area around the San Francisco Bay, left a suicide note in his coat, found at the bank of the river near the Washington Monument. He wrote "I am in a chain of circumstances that spell ruin, although my offense was innocently made in the beginning. I hope all the facts will come out. Staying means embarrassment to my district and to a worthy people, clean and generous." Earlier in the day, Elston had failed to answer roll call in the House and detectives looked for him, taking him to get medical attention. Hours later, he disappeared again and his body was found two days later.[30][31]
Signing the Four-Power Treaty on Insular Possessions, Japan, the United States, United Kingdom, and France agreed to recognize the status quo in the Pacific Ocean, pledging not to interfere with each other's territories.[32]
The U.S. Railway Labor Board ruled that "time-and-a-half" overtime pay would not be required except when a worker had been on the job for more than ten hours on a shift, but restricted railroads to scheduling workers for no more than an eight-hour shift, with allowance for overruns.[4]
Japan agreed to accept the "5:5:3 ratio" on total tonnage of ships in the Imperial Japanese Navy, with Japan to have 3/5ths as many warships in its fleet as the United States Navy and the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes had proposed the limitation on November 12, based on the total amount of coastline (including colonial possessions) that each nation had to defend. Numerically, the United Kingdom would have 20 warships totaling 582,050 tons; the United States would have 18 warships combining for 525,850 tons; and Japan would have 10 warships at 313,300 tons.[4]
The Allied Reparation Commission announced that it had been delivered forfeited German ships that the Commission valued as being worth 756 million gold marks based on the worth of the German mark at the end of World War One.[4]
Germany informed the Allied Reparation Commission that, because of the worsening economic crisis, Germany would be unable to pay the installments due in January and February 1922.[4]
Both houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom approved Prime Minister Lloyd George's agreement to create the Irish Free State, 401 to 58 in the House of Commons and 166 to 47 in the House of Lords.[34]
The British cargo ship Stevenstone left Blyth, Northumberland, for Helsingør, Denmark, and was never seen again. It was presumed to have foundered with the loss of all hands.[35]
As the Washington Disarmament Conference continued, U.S. Secretary of State Hughes modified the 5:5:3 ratio to a "5-5-3-1.75-1.75", with the navies of France and Italy to have 35% as much total warship tonnage as the U.S. or the British Navy.[34]
U.S. president Harding eliminated the fringe benefit of free rent and utilities for all U.S. civilian employees working in the Panama Canal Zone, and directed that the government workers would be responsible for their own expenses.[34]
Peru rejected the Chilean proposal for a plebiscite to determine the status of the Tacna-Arica region, and made a counter-proposal that the matter be submitted for arbitration by a neutral party.[34]
The U.S.–Hungarian Peace Treaty, signed on August 29, went into effect as instruments of ratification were exchanged, ending the state of war between the U.S. and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The earliest known example of the moth species Batrachedra astricta was discovered and collected by entomologist Charles E. Clarke at Opoho in New Zealand.[41]
Born:Nadezhda Popova, "The Night Witch", Soviet Air Force officer and Heroine of the Soviet Union for her leadership of the 46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment during World War II"; in Shabanovka, Orel Oblast, Russian SFSR (d. 2013) [42]
Died:
Gabriela Zapolska, 64, Polish stage actress, playwright and novelist
RAF Captain Edmund Tempest, 27, British flying ace during World War One with 17 victories, was killed in an accidental plane crash while serving in Baghdad.
Austria and Czechoslovakia adjourned their international conference over border disputes and agreed to submit further controversies to international arbitration.[34]
Poland's soccer football team played its first international match, losing, 1 to 0, to Hungary in a match in Budapest.[43]
Sir George Fuller took office as the new Premier of the Australian state of New South Wales, seven days after Premier James Dooley lost a vote of confidence in the state legislature. Only seven hours after Fuller had formed a government and became the head of government as premier, he lost another vote of confidence in the legislature and was not seated. On December 27, Dooley was appointed premier again after forming a new government.[45]
The U.S. Senate voted to pass the Russian Famine Relief Act and approved the appropriation of $20,000,000 ($300 million in 2021) for that purpose, pursuant to the request of president Harding and following the approval by the House on December 17, subject to the condition that all purchases of food be made in the U.S. and shipped to the Soviet Union in American vessels.[34]
The Italian-built dirigible Roma, purchased by the U.S. Army, was commissioned to service and made a demonstration flight over Washington, D.C.[34]
Groundbreaking took place for the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, an outdoor stadium which would be completed on May 1, 1923, would host the 1932 and the 1984 Summer Olympics, and would continue to host sporting events nearly 100 years later.[48]
Born:Luigi Creatore, U.S. songwriter and record producer, in New York City (died 2015)[49]
Died:James W. Cannon, 69, American textile manufacturer who founded the Cannon Mills company, at one time the world's largest producer of towels.
At the Washington Conference, Arthur Lee, First Lord of the Admiralty for the United Kingdom, proposed the abolition of all submarine warships. At the time, the U.S. and Britain had over 80,000 tons of submarines, while Japan, France and Italy had less than 35,000.[34]
Died:
General Hans von Beseler, 71, retired German military officer who led the Siege of Antwerp during World War One and forced the surrender of the Belgian city, then served as the military Governor-General of the German-occupied parts of Poland styled the puppet-state Regentschaftskönigreich Polen or "Regency Kingdom of Poland".[34]
Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin, the Governor of Manchuria, reorganized his government appointing Yan Huiqing as Foreign Minister, and new ministers for finance and for communications.[34]
Forty-four people were killed in tornadoes that swept across the U.S. states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi on Christmas Eve, and 100 more were injured.[34]
Colombia ratified the treaty with the United States recognizing the independence of Panama, a former Colombian province that had been declared a separate nation after the intervention of the U.S. in 1903.[34]
The first radio station in France, Radio Tour Eiffel, began broadcasting from a studio near the Eiffel Tower, where the transmitter was installed. The inaugural broadcast, of 30 minutes, consisted of an engineer with the message,『Allô, allô, ici poste militaire de la Tour Eiffel』("Hello, hello, this is the military post of the Eiffel Tower.") Regular transmissions would begin on February 6.[51]
Socialist Party of America leader Eugene V. Debs was released from federal prison, along with 23 other inmates who had been convicted of violating anti-sedition laws during World War One, after U.S. president Harding commuted their sentences to time served.[34]
The British cargo ship Atherton capsized in the Thames Estuary near the Girdlers Lightship. Its crew was rescued by SS Falcon before it sank.[52]
Died: Vladimir Korolenko, 68, Ukrainian-born Russian novelist and human rights activist.[4]
The Kingdom of Italy signed its first trade agreement with the Soviet Union, a prelude to full diplomatic recognition with the Communist government in 1924. One historian noted that the pact "signified the de facto recognition of the Soviet government by its Italian counterpart."[53]
Born:
Steve Allen, American comedian and TV personality known for being the co-creator and first host of The Tonight Show, the first nationwide late night talk show; in New York City (d. 2000)[54]
Saad Zaghloul, the former Prime Minister of Egypt, was deported by British authorities to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), roughly 3,500 miles (5,600 km) away. Sent with Zaghloul were five of his political allies, after the British government concluded that the original plan for exile on the island of Malta was insufficient.[34]
Stinson and Bertaud
A new record for airplane endurance was set by Edward Stinson and Lloyd W. Bertaud, who flew over 24 hours in a Larsen metal monoplane around Long Island after taking off from Mineola, New York. They finally landed after 26 hours, 19 minutes and 35 seconds.[34]
In what would become known as the “Gun Alley Murder” in MelbourneinAustralia, a 12-year-old schoolgirl was raped and murdered after having last been seen near the Australian Wine Saloon, owned by Colin Campbell Ross.[61] Ross was charged and convicted based on the testimony of two witnesses and circumstantial evidence, and would be hanged on April 24. More than 80 years later, DNA analysis of a key piece of evidence and doubts about the reliability of the witness would lead to a posthumous pardon by the Governor of the state of Victoria on May 27, 2008, the only pardon up to that time for a person executed in Australia.[62]
At the Washington Disarmament Conference, the U.S. and Japan reached an agreement on the use of telegraph cables on the South Pacific island of Yap, with the U.S. having exclusive use and responsibility for the cable to Guam, Japan to have the cable to Shanghai via Okinawa, and the Netherlands controlling the cable to Manado in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).[34]
Roman Romanovich Rosen, 74, former Russian Ambassador to the United States who negotiated the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth to settle the Russo-Japanese War on terms favorable to Russia, died of pneumonia 17 days after being struck by a taxi in New York City.[67]
Boies Penrose, 61, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania since 1897, died shortly after the 67th U.S. Congress had adjourned for the holidays.[68]
^Basil Clark, The History of Airships (St. Martin's Press, 1961) p. 147
^"Aeronautics and Astronautics Chronology, 1920-1924" from Eugene M. Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics: An American Chronology of Science and Technology in the Exploration of Space, 1915-1960 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1961), pp. 11-19
^Shashi Tharoor, Nehru: The Invention of India (Arcade Publishing, 2003) p.41-42
^"The Pacific Coast Hockey Association", by Ron Boileau and Philip Wolf, Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Hockey League (Total Sports, 2000) pp. 51–54
^"Early-Day Editor Is Summoned," Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1921, page I-1
^Albert Lidgett (1970). Petroleum Times. Petroleum Times. p. 23.
^"Imperial and Foreign News Items". The Times. No. 42909. London. 21 December 1921. col G, p. 11.
^"Robert Lipshutz, Carter Aide, Dies at 88", by Robert Hevesi, The New York Times, November 10, 2010
^"Judith Wallerstein Dies at 90; Psychologist Was Described by Time Magazine as the 'godmother of the Backlash against Divorce'", by Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times, July 4, 2012
^Trewhella Cameron, Jan Smuts: An Illustrated Biography (Human & Rousseau, 1994) p. 90
^"GUN ALLEY MURDER". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. XLII, no. 3. Tasmania, Australia. 4 January 1922. p. 5. Retrieved 30 July 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
^Kevin Morgan, Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice (Hardie Grant Books, 2012)
^États africains d'expression française et République malgache, Paris, Éditions Julliard, 1964, p. 73 (French)
^"Baron Rosen Dies After Auto Injury; Ex-Russian Ambassador, 74, Whose Shin Bone Was Broken, Succumbs to Pneumonia— Struck Down on Dec. 14", The New York Times, January 1, 1922, p. 18
