1923 in the United States

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

January–March

* January 1–7 – The Rosewood massacre, a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town, takes place in Rosewood, Florida.
* January 18 – Elon College's campus in North Carolina is destroyed by a fire.
*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".
* February 23 – The American Law Institute is incorporated.
* 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.

April–June

* April 1 – ''Safety Last!'', a silent romantic comedy film starring Harold Lloyd, is released.
* April 4 – Warner Bros. Film Studio is formally incorporated in the United States, as Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., by Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Sam Warner and Albert Warner.
* April 6 – Louis Armstrong makes his first recording, "Chimes Blues", with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.
* April 18 – The first Yankee Stadium opens its doors in the Bronx, New York City.
* May 9 – Southeastern Michigan receives a record of snow after temperatures plummeted from to degrees between 13:00-18:00 on the previous day.
* May 15 – Riegelmann Boardwalk at Coney Island officially opened.
* 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 3 – ''Illustrated Daily News'' first published in Los Angeles by Cornelius Vanderbilt IV.
* 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).
* September 8 – Honda Point Disaster: Seven U.S. Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast.
* September 17 – 1923 Berkeley Fire: 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.
* September 24 – Rowan University opens.
* September 29 – First American Track & Field championships for women, in New Jersey

October–December

* October 1, Mississippi something Road Signs Act came into effect.
* October 15 – The New York Yankees defeat the New York Giants (baseball), 4 games to 2, to win their first World Series Title.
* October 16 – Roy and Walt Disney found The Walt Disney Company.
* October 19 – War Resisters League organized by Jessie Wallace Hughan.
* December 10 – Sigma Alpha Kappa (the first social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the United States) is founded at Loyola University New Orleans, making it the first social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the U.S.
* December 20 – BEGGARS Fraternity (the second social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the United States) is founded by nine men, who have secured permission to do so from the Pope.

Undated

* Soledad C. Chacón takes office as Secretary of State of New Mexico; all subsequent holders of this office through 2011 will also be women.
* The Moderation League of New York becomes part of the movement for the repeal of Prohibition in the U.S.
* 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 (1920–1933)
* 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 (died 2017)
* February 13
** James Abdnor, U.S. Senator from South Dakota from 1981 to 1987 (died 2012)
** Chuck Yeager, pilot (died 2020)
* February 20 – Helen Murray Free, chemist and educator (died 2021)
* February 28
**Jean Carson, actress (died 2005)
** Charles Durning, actor (died 2012)
* March 9
** James L. Buckley, judge and U.S. Senator from New York from 1971 to 1977
** Wayne B. Warrington Sr., Arizona civil servant (died 1989)
* March 10 – Val Logsdon Fitch, nuclear physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (died 2015)
* March 14 – Diane Arbus, photographer (died 1971)
* March 27 – Jack O'Neill, businessman ( O'Neill surfwear & equipment) (died 2017)
* April 1
** Leora Dana, actress (died 1983)
** Bobby Jordan, actor (died 1965)
* April 3 – Daniel Hoffman, poet (died 2013)
* April 13
** Don Adams, actor and director (died 2005)
** Stanley Tanger, businessman and philanthropist, founder of the Tanger Factory Outlet Centers (died 2010)
* April 23 – Walter Pitts, logician and cognitive psychologist (died 1969)
* April 25
** Timothy S. Healy, Jesuit priest and academic administrator (died 1992)
** 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)
* June 8 – Malcolm Boyd, priest and author (died 2015)
* June 22 – John Oldham, basketball player (died 2020)
* July 13 – Ashley Bryan, children's book writer and illustrator (died 2022)
* July 14 – Robert Zildjian, musical instrument manufacturer ( Sabian) (died 2013)
* July 22
** Bob Dole, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1969 to 1996, Presidential candidate (died 2021)
** The Fabulous Moolah, wrestler (died 2007)
* July 31 – Stephanie Kwolek, polymer chemist (died 2014)
* August 3 – Jean Hagen, actress (died 1977)
* August 10
** Rhonda Fleming, screen actress (died 2020)
** David H. Rodgers, politician (died 2017)
* August 20 – Jim Reeves, country singer (died 1964)
* September 1 – Rocky Marciano, boxer (died 1969)
* September 3
** Glen Bell, entrepreneur, founder of Taco Bell (died 2010)
** Mort Walker, cartoonist, creator of ''Beetle Bailey'' (died 2018)
* 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 1 – Babe McCarthy, basketball coach (died 1975)
* October 2 – Hershel W. Williams, Medal of Honour recipient (died 2022)
* October 4 – Charlton Heston, film actor (died 2008)
* October 20 – Robert Craft, orchestral conductor (died 2015)
* October 23
** Ned Rorem, composer (died 2022)
** Frank Sutton, actor (died 2022)
* October 27 – Roy Lichtenstein, pop artist (died 1997)
* November 6 – Robert P. Griffin, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1966 to 1979 (died 2015)
* November 8 – Jack Kilby, electrical engineer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (died 2005)
* November 9
** Charles Grier Sellers, historian (died 2021)Charles Sellers, 98, Historian Who Upset the Postwar Consensus, Dies
/ref>
** James Schuyler, poet (died 1991)
* November 18
** Ted Stevens, U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009 (died 2010)
** Alan Shepard, astronaut (died 1998)
* November 23
** Daniel Brewster, U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1963 to 1969 (died 2007)
** Billy Haughton, harness racer and trainer (died 1986)
* November 26 – Nat Allbright, sports commentator (died 2011)
* December 2 – Maria Callas, singer (died 1977)
* December 10 – Harold Gould, actor (died 2010)
* December 11
** Betsy Blair, film actress (died 2009)
** Lillian 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 (died 2020)
** 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 (died 2017)

Deaths

* January 1 – Willie Keeler, baseball player (born 1872)
* January 18 – Wallace Reid, actor (born 1891)
* February 6 – Edward Emerson Barnard, astronomer (born 1857)
* February 14 – Charles Henry Turner, African American entomologist (born 1867)
* February 24 – Edward W. Morley, scientist (born 1838)
* February 26
** Walter B. Barrows, naturalist (born 1855)
** George Clement Perkins, U.S. Senator from California from 1893 to 1915 (born 1839)
* March 3 – Melancthon J. Briggs, lawyer and politician (born 1846)
* March 6 – Joseph McDermott, actor (born 1878)
* March 15 – Goat Anderson, baseball player (born 1880)
* April 6 – Alice Cunningham Fletcher, ethnologist and anthropologist (born 1838)
* April 28 – Knute Nelson, Governor of Minnesota from 1893 to 1895 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1895 to 1923 (born 1843 in Norway)
* August 2 – Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States from 1921 to 1923 (born 1865)
* August 10 – Laura Redden Searing, deaf poet and journalist (born 1839)
* October 19 – Eleanor Norcross, painter (born 1854)
* October 23 – Hannah Johnston Bailey, temperance advocate and suffragist (born 1839)
* November 11 – Elizabeth Eggleston Seelye, biographer (born 1858)
* November 17 – Mary Bigelow Ingham, author, educator, and religious worker (born 1832)
* December 28 – Frank Hayes, actor (born 1871)

See also

* List of American films of 1923
* Timeline of United States history (1900–1929)

References

External links

*

{{Year in North America, 1923

1920s in the United States
United States
United States
Years of the 20th century in the United States