The following events occurred in January 1923:
January 1, 1923 (Monday) The Rosewood Massacre began when racial violence erupted in Rosewood, Florida after a white woman accused a black man of assaulting her. When it was discovered that a black convict, Jesse Hunter, had escaped from a prison work gang, a posse of at least 200 white men from the neighboring white town of Sumner invaded Rosewood and made a house-to-house search for anyone who might be harboring the fugitive. By January 4, houses in Rosewood were being set afire, and four black and two white men had died. The Railways Act 1921 went into effect, consolidating 24 major British railway companies into four large regional companies. The new "Big Four" were Great Western Railway (GWR); London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS); London and North Eastern Railway (LNER); and Southern Railway (SR). With effect from January 1, 1948, the Big Four companies were nationalized to create British Railways (later renamed British Rail). L'Air Union was established as the largest airline in France by a merger between the airlines Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes (CMA) and Compagnie des Grands Express Aériens(CGEA). The new airline would merge with four other French airlines to become Air France on August 30, 1933. The first megachurch in the U.S., the 5,300-seat Angelus Temple was opened in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles by evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. In the Rose Bowl football game, the USC Trojans beat the Penn State Nittany Lions, 14 to 3. The game was the first to be played in the new Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California and was attended by 53,000 people. In the first college football game between colleges in the U.S. and Cuba, the Tars of Rollins College (located in Winter Park, Florida near Orlando played a team representing the University of Havana and won, 80 to 0 in Miami. Born: Takeshi Hirayama, Japanese epidemiologist and cancer researcher who made the first study showing a link between passive smoking ("second-hand smoke") and increased risk of lung cancer; in Kyoto) (d. 1995) Valentina Cortese, Italian actress; as Valentina Elena Cortese Rossi di Coenzo, in Milan (d. 2019) Vulo Radev, Bulgarian film director; in Lesidren, Bulgaria (d. 2001) Roméo Sabourin, Canadian World War II spy; in Montreal (d. 1944) Milt Jackson, American jazz musician; as Milton Jackson, in Detroit (d. 1999) Died: Willie Keeler, 50, American baseball player, died from heart failure (b. 1872)"Willie Keeler Dies of Heart Disease", January 2, 1923, p. 10
January 2, 1923 (Tuesday) The Legislative Council of Burma, the first measure of limited self-government for Burma and the first elected legislature there, opened with 80 of its 103 seats voted into office and the other 23 appointed by colonial officials, as part of the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms in British India. An interallied conference began in Paris (with the Prime Ministers of the UK, France and Italy) to address German war reparations. The British government submitted a plan with easier payments for Germany in the early years to help avoid another default until the country got back on its feet. The nations agreed to reduce Germany's reparations debt to 50 billion gold marks, equivalent to $12.5 billion U.S. dollars. The first legally-opened birth control clinic in the United States, the Clinical Research Bureau, began services in New York City as the second clinic of Margaret Sanger and the American Birth Control League. Pierce Butler was sworn in as the newest Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court after having been confirmed on December 21 by the U.S. Senate. BKD, LLP, one of the largest accounting firms in the U.S., was founded by William Baird, Wade Kurtz and Claire Dobson with an initial investment of $1,700. Born: Chalmers Goodlin, Royal Canadian Air Force and U.S. Navy test pilot who was the first to fly the Bell X-1 rocket plane; in Greensburg, Pennsylvania (d. 2005) Died: Harrison Hunter, 53, Scottish-American actor, died from complications after minor surgery (b. 1870)
January 3, 1923 (Wednesday) At least 17 people were killed in the collapse of a bridge over the Cowlitz River in the U.S. state of Washington. At least 20 vehicles and more than 100 pedestrians, most of them employees of mills in Longview were crossing the bridge to return to their homes on the other side of the river in Kelso when two towers collapsed and a 300-foot long span fell into the river. The private secretary for King George V issued a denial of reports (made the day before by The Daily News of London) that Edward, Prince of Wales was arranging to marry Princess Yolanda of Savoy. Born: K.S. "Bud" Adams, American businessman who founded and owned the Houston Oilers American football team; as Kenneth Stanley Adams Jr., in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (d. 2013) Hank Stram, American professional football coach for the Dallas Texans and Kansas City Chiefs; as Henry Stram, in Chicago (d. 2005) Stephen Yang Xiangtai, Chinese Roman Catholic bishop who survived the Cultural Revolution; in Gaocun, Hunan province, Republic of China (d. 2021) Died: Jaroslav Hašek, 39, Czech writer noted for his series of books about The Good Soldier Švejk, died of a heart attack (b. 1883) Cora L. V. Scott, 82, American spiritualist medium (b. 1840)
January 4, 1923 (Thursday) The first radio network in the U.S. was created when the AT&T company used special telephone lines to broadcast programming simultaneously on New York City's WEAF and Boston's WNAC stations."Early History of Network Broadcasting (1923—26)", Report on Chain Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission, May 1941, pages 5-6 The day after its Tuesday report of plans by the Prince of Wales to marry Princess Yolanda of Savoy, London's Daily News published a new report that "The formal announcement of the engagement of the Prince of Wales to a young Scottish lady of noble birth will be made within the next two or three months," without directly identifying the woman but implying through other items in its report that the Prince's future fiancée would be Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. Lady Bowes-Lyon had previously been proposed to by the brother of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York. The reparations conference in Paris broke up without success. Born: Tito Rodríguez, singer and bandleader; as Pablo Rodríguez Lozada, in Santurce, Puerto Rico (d. 1973)
January 5, 1923 (Friday) Alois Rašín, the Finance Minister of Czechoslovakia, was shot and mortally wounded while walking out of his apartment in Prague and preparing to get into a car to travel to work. Struck in the back and in the side by gunshots fired by an anarchist, Josef Šoupal, Rašín would linger in pain for more than six weeks before dying on February 18. French airplanes were reported over unoccupied parts of Germany as rumors circulated that France was preparing to move troops into the Ruhr region. Twelve people were killed and 40 injured in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, after the explosion of a set of artillery shells left over from World War One and being handled by a local junk dealer. The dealer had purchased the shells from the Interallied Disarmament Commission, which decided to liquidate Bulgaria's stockpile of arms by selling the shells rather than disposing them. The football club C.D. Oro, based in Guadalajara, Mexico, was founded. Born: Sam Phillips, American business executive and record producer; in Florence, Alabama (d. 2003) Boris Leskin, Soviet and American stage and film actor; in Petrograd, Soviet Union (present-day Saint Petersburg, Russia) (d. 2020)
January 6, 1923 (Saturday) The government of the Soviet Union endorsed a campaign by Komsomol, the Young Communists League, against the celebration of the Christmas holiday, which had been celebrated by Russian Christians since the start of the 20th century on January 7 (December 25 on the Julian calendar). Although the Gregorian calendar, used in most of the rest of the world, had been adopted by the Communist government of Russia in 1918, the Russian Christmas remained in accordance with the traditional calendar. Newspapers ran satires and criticism and anti-religious demonstrations were held indoors on Saturday, pamphlets were distributed and parades were held on Sunday. The government had issued cautions to Komsomol chapters to avoid violence, and prohibited any demonstrations after nightfall. The U.S. Senate voted, 57 to 6, to recall the remaining American troops in Germany rather than to participate further in the occupation of the Rhineland. President Harding gave the order of withdrawal on January 10 for the 1,200 soldiers remaining. Born: Jacobo Timerman, Soviet-born Argentine writer; in Bar, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (present-day Ukraine) (d. 1999)
January 7, 1923 (Sunday) The Rosewood Massacre ended when Rosewood, Florida ceased to exist, with all but two buildings razed to the ground. Born: Hugh Kenner, Canadian literary scholar and critic; in Peterborough, Ontario (d. 2003) Gertrude Ehrlich, Austrian-born American mathematician; in Vienna (d. 2025) Died: Emil G. Hirsch, 71, Luxembourgish-born Jewish American rabbi (b. 1851)
January 8, 1923 (Monday) The United Kingdom and the United States opened a conference in Washington, D.C. to discuss British war debts to the U.S. Born: Larry Storch, American comedian and actor; as Lawrence Storch, in New York City (d. 2022) Johnny Wardle, English cricketer; as John Wardle, in Ardsley, South Yorkshire (d. 1985)
January 9, 1923 (Tuesday) After an 8-month trial of 217 defendants at Gorakhpur Sessions Court for the February 5, 1922, burning of a police station and the deaths of 22 policemen, verdicts were returned. While 47 people were acquitted of all charges, 170 others were found guilty of various crimes. Of the 170, 19 were ultimately sentenced to be hanged while 14 were sentenced to life imprisonment."Legal Murder in India", by M. N. Roy, International Press Correspondence (January 24, 1923), reprinted in Documents of the History of the Communist Party of India: Volume 2, 1923–1925 (People's Publishing House, 1974) pp. 62–64 The Allied Reparation Commission approved a resolution declaring Germany to be in willful default of her coal deliveries under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The commissioners of France and Belgium voted to occupy Germany's industrial Ruhr Area (located in what is now the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia) to enforce Germany's reparation commitments, while the United Kingdom opposed the move. The U.S. federal board for vocational education released its findings that 1.7 million boys and girls dropped out of school between fourth and eighth grade each year, usually drifting into low-paying jobs. Died: Edith Thompson, 29, and Frederick Bywaters, 20, convicted murderers for the October 9 murder of Edith's husband, Percy Thompson; were hanged at 9:00 in the morning in different prisons (Thompson b. 1893, Bywaters b. 1902). Edith's hanging took place at the Holloway Prison while Frederick was dropped from the gallows at Pentonville Prison half a mile away. Katherine Mansfield, 34, New Zealand-born short fiction writer, died of pulmonary tuberculosis (b. 1888) Satyendranath Tagore, 80, Indian composer and author (b. 1842) Gustave Kahnt, 74, Luxembourgish composer (b. 1848)
January 10, 1923 (Wednesday) At the Near East Conference in Lausanne in Switzerland, the representatives of the nations present voted to accept a proposal made by Turkey "to exchange the Greek population of Turkey against the Turkish population of Greece", a move that would forcibly resettle 600,000 Greeks in Turkey and 450,000 Turks in Greece. Exemptions were made for 200,000 Greeks in Constantinople (Istanbul) and 300,000 Turks in Western Thrace.