July 1921

[July 1], 1921 (Friday)

• The Communist Party of China is founded.
• British troops arrive in Upper Silesia to support French forces in occupying the region, to maintain order in the wake of the Upper Silesia plebiscite.
• Born: Seretse Khama, 1st President of Botswana, in Serowe, Bechuanaland

  [July 2], 1921 (Saturday)

• U.S. President Warren Harding signs a joint congressional resolution ending America's war with Germany, Austria and Hungary.
• The first “million dollar gate” in the sport of boxing takes placein Jersey City, New Jersey, United States. when Jack Dempsey meets Georges Carpentier in front of crowd of more than 80,000. Dempsey wins by a fourth round knockout in a scheduled 12-round fight which is broadcast on radio with ringside commentary relayed over the new radiophone to people in the northeastern United States.
• The 1921 Wimbledon tennis championships conclude with the US's Bill Tilden defeating South African Brian Norton in the final of the Men's Singles.

  [July 3], 1921 (Sunday)

• Died: Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, French-born German royal, 77

  [July 4], 1921 (Monday)

• Ivanoe Bonomi becomes Prime Minister of Italy.
• Ireland's President Éamon de Valera calls a peace conference at the Mansion House, Dublin, which is attended by St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton, and other southern Unionists. James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, declines an invitation to the conference because it is wrongly addressed.
• The US schooner Gertrude, travelling from Nome, Territory of Alaska, to Siberia with a crew of five and a cargo of 15 tons of general merchandise, collides with ice and is trapped in it for seven hours approximately southwest of "East Cape" on the coast of Saint Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. The crew survived, but the beached ship is completely destroyed.
• Died: Antoni Grabowski, 64, Polish engineer and Esperantist

  [July 5], 1921 (Tuesday)

[July 6], 1921 (Wednesday)

• Members of the recently-formed Arditi del Popolo, an Italian anti-fascist movement, are arrested by police in Rome.
• The US ship Margaret is destroyed by an explosion and fire while loading distillate oil at a dock at Katalla, Territory of Alaska. All three crew members suffer burns but survive.
• Born: Nancy Reagan, actress and First Lady of the United States, in New York City, as Anne Frances Robbins

  [July 7], 1921 (Thursday)

• Professor Anne Louise McIlroy delivers a paper at the Medico-Legal Society London, and described the contraceptives dispensed at Marie Stopes Mothers' Clinic as the "most harmful method of which I have experience". Dr Halliday Sutherland quoted her words in his 1922 book "Birth Control". When Stopes sued Sutherland for libel, McIlroy testified for the defence.
• Born: Ezzard Charles, US boxer, World Heavyweight Champion 1951, in Lawrenceville, Georgia

  [July 8], 1921 (Friday)

• A by-election in the UK parliamentary constituency of Heywood and Radcliffe, resulting from the elevation to the peerage of Liberal MP Albert Illingworth, ends in victory for Labour candidate Walter Halls, with a majority of just over 300 votes.
• Born: John Money, Psychologist and sexologist, known for controversial sexual identity study on David Reimer, in Morrinsville, New Zealand

  [July 9], 1921 (Saturday)

• The Mongolian Revolution of 1921 culminates in a declaration of independence.

  [July 10], 1921 (Sunday)

• Portugal's Parliamentary elections result in the Republican Liberal Party winning 79 seats, just short of an overall majority.
• "Bloody Sunday" in Belfast, Northern Ireland: Following the ambush of an armoured police truck by a unit of IRA volunteers, resulting in the death of an officer, Protestant loyalists attack the Catholic population, resulting in 17 deaths.
• Born: Eunice Kennedy Shriver, US philanthropist, fifth child and third daughter of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and Rose Fitzgerald, in Brookline, Massachusetts

  [July 11], 1921 (Monday)

• Irish War of Independence: A ceasefire is agreed between the British Government, led by David Lloyd George, and the Irish Republican Army.
• The Bogd Khan is restored as constitutional ruler of Mongolia and is enthroned in a special ceremony.
• Former US President William Howard Taft is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States, appointed by President Harding.
• The US-registered steamship Western Front, carrying 7,000 tons of naval stores, including naphtha, turpentine and resin from Jacksonville to London, founders several miles west of the Isles of Scilly after a fire is caused by an explosion, with the loss of one crew member.
• The five-masted Norwegian schooner General Pershing strikes the Endymion Rock, Turks Islands, and is wrecked, but its crew are rescued.

  [July 12], 1921 (Tuesday)

• Spanish passenger ship Manuel L. Villaverde strikes rocks off the coast of Colonial Nigeria, breaks in two and sinks. All those on board are rescued.
• US baseball player Babe Ruth hits his 33rd and 34th home run of the season. His 33rd home run gives him a 136 career home runs, tying with Roger Connor's all-time record; his 34th home run makes him the all-time home run champion, a title he will hold until.

  [July 13], 1921 (Wednesday)

• The Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 expires while the 1921 Imperial Conference is in progress.
• Died: Gabriel Lippmann, Luxembourg-born French physicist, academic and Nobel laureate, 75

  [July 14], 1921 (Thursday)

• Born: Sixto Durán Ballén, Ecuadorian politician, President 1992-1996, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States

  [July 15], 1921 (Friday)

• *Greco-Turkish War: Greek forces reoccupy Afium Karahissar, in present-day Turkey.
• Having been rammed by the British ship Harmodius, the US schooner E. Marie Brown sinks in the Atlantic Ocean east of Fire Island, New York, with the loss of four crew members. SMS|V43||2USS|Florida|BB-30|2

  [July 16], 1921 (Saturday)

• The sixth annual Aerial Derby, sponsored by the Royal Aero Club of Great Britain, is won by J. H. James, who completes the course in a Gloster Mars at an average speed of 163.34 mph in 1 hour 18 minutes 10 seconds with a handicap of 4 minutes 42 seconds.
• Born: Guy Laroche, fashion designer, in La Rochelle

  [July 17], 1921 (Sunday)

• An explosion at Blantyre Ferme Colliery in Scotland, caused by gas being ignited by a Glennie lamp, kills two men.

  [July 18], 1921 (Monday)

• The BCG vaccine for tuberculosis is administered to a patient for the first time, in Paris, France, by Benjamin Weill-Halle.
• In the general election in Alberta, Canada, the United Farmers of Alberta defeats the incumbent Liberals.
• An appeal by writer Maxim Gorky on behalf of Russian famine victims is published in international media.
• Born: John Glenn, US aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician, in Cambridge, Ohio

  [July 19], 1921 (Tuesday)

• Born: Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, US medical physicist and Nobel laureate, in New York City

  [July 20], 1921 (Wednesday)

• Born: Ted Schroeder, US tennis player, in Newark, New Jersey

  [July 21], 1921 (Thursday)

• Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are controversially found guilty of murder by a court in Dedham, Massachusetts, United States.
• Russian Civil War: The Soviet ship Sawa is shelled and sunk by the Soviet submarine Trotsky in the Black Sea while trying to defect to the Whites. The vessel and most of her crew are lost; four men are rescued.

  [July 22], 1921 (Friday)

• Rif War: At the Battle of Annual in Morocco, Spanish troops are defeated by Berber rebels under Abd el-Krim. King Alfonso XIII cuts short his holiday in San Sebastián to return to Madrid.
• The U.S. Open golf tournament is won by the UK's Jim Barnes.

  [July 23], 1921 (Saturday)

• The Communist Party of China holds its first national congress in Shanghai, with fifty members.

  [July 24], 1921 (Sunday)

• Turkish War of Independence: The Battle of Kütahya–Eskişehir between Greek and Turkish forces ends in a Turkish retreat.
• Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's documentary film, Manhatta, receives its première at the Rialto Theatre in New York City, United States, under the title New York the Magnificent.
• Born: Giuseppe Di Stefano, Italian operatic tenor, in Motta Sant'Anastasia

  [July 25], 1921 (Monday)

• US boxer Pete Herman defeats Joe Lynch on points in a rematch for the World bantamweight title at Ebbets Field, New York.
• The British coaster Frontier hits the pier at Port Natal, South Africa, as a result of which it is holed and beached.
• The US cargo ship Parthian sinks at Oran, Algeria, following a fire; it is later refloated.

  [July 26], 1921 (Tuesday)

• U.S. President Warren G. Harding grants an official reception to impostor Stanley Clifford Weyman, posing as a representative of Princess Fatima Sultana, a daughter of Mohammad Yaqub Khan, Emir of Afghanistan.
• Born: Amedeo Amadei, Italian footballer and manager, in Frascati

  [July 27], 1921 (Wednesday)

• Frederick Banting and his team at the University of Toronto announce their discovery of insulin.

  [July 28], 1921 (Thursday)

• The Church of Scotland Act 1921 receives the royal assent from King George V of the United Kingdom, giving the Presbyterian Church of Scotland complete independence in spiritual questions and appointments.

  [July 29], 1921 (Friday)

• Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of the Nazi Party in Germany.

  [July 30], 1921 (Saturday)

• Police from the Shanghai French Concession close down the 1st National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Delegates agree to move the meeting to a rented tourist boat on South Lake in Jiaxing.

  [July 31], 1921 (Sunday)

• In Sarzana, Italy, a group of 500 Fascists occupies the station in an attempt to secure the release of Fascist prisoners, but is defeated by 12 Carabinieri and some local people, resulting in 18 deaths.