1919

Events

   * The Paris Peace Conference

   * XWA (now CFCF),in Montreal, Quebec is the first public radio station in
     North America to go the air.
   * January 1 - Edsel Ford succeeds his father as head of the Ford Motor
     Company
   * January 11 - Romania annexes Transylvania.
   * January 15 - The Boston Molasses Disaster kills 21 people
   * January 15 - Ignace Paderewski becomes Premier of Poland
   * January 16 - The 18th Amendment, authorizing Prohibition, goes into
     effect in the United States
   * January 18 - World War I: A peace conference opens in Versailles,
     France.
   * January 18 - Bentley Motors is founded
   * January 23 - Hans Haas, zoologist and underwater scientist
   * January 23 - Ernie Kovacs, comedian (+ 1962)
   * January 25 - The League of Nations is founded
   * February 1 - The first Miss America is crowned (New York City).
   * February 11 - Friedrich Ebert (SPD), is elected President of Germany.
   * February 23 - Benito Mussolini forms the Fascist Party in Italy.
   * February 25 - Oregon places a 1 cent per gallon tax on gasoline,
     becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.
   * February 26 - An act of the United States Congress establishes most of
     the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park (see Grand Canyon
     National Park).
   * March 2 - The first Communist International meets in Moscow
   * March 15 - The American Legion forms in Paris
   * March 23 - In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist
     political movement.
   * April 13 - At the Amritsar Massacre, British and Gurkha troops massacre
     379 indians.
   * May 4 - May Fourth Movement opposes foreign colonizers in China
   * May 15 - Winnipeg launches general strike for better wages and working
     conditions.
   * May 16 - US Navy Naval Curtiss aircraft NC-4 commanded by Albert
     Cushing Read departs Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores
     on the first transatlantic flight
   * May 17 - Committee of One Thousand forms to oppose Winnipeg General
     Strike
   * May 29 - Einstein's theory of General Relativity confirmed by Arthur
     Eddington's observation of a total eclipse of the Sun
   * June 14 - John Alcock and Arthur Brown depart St. John's, Newfoundland
     on the first nonstop transatlantic flight
   * July 6 - The British dirigible R-34 lands in New York, completing the
     first crossing of the Atlantic by an airship.
   * August 11 - In Germany, the Weimar Constitution is passed into law.
   * August 19 - Afghanistan gains independence from the United Kingdom.
   * October 1 - Elaine Race Riot breaks out in Arkansas
   * October 2 - US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke,
     leaving him partially paralyzed.
   * October 9 - Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds "win" the World
     Series.
   * October 28 - Prohibition begins: The United States Congress passes the
     Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.
   * November - at end of month health officials declare global Spanish Flu
     Pandemic over
   * The land Islands vote for a return to Swedish rule in a referendum.
   * Les Champs Magnetiques, the first automatic book, is written by Andre
     Breton and Philippe Soupault.
   * December 30 - Lincoln's Inn, in London admits its first women bar
     student.

Art, Culture & Fashion

   * 1919 in film
        o February 5 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and
          D.W. Griffith launch United Artists
   * 1919 in fashion
        o Marcel Tolkowsky's Diamond Design is published.
   * 1919 in sports
        o The Black Sox scandal -- Seven members of the Chicago White Sox
          take bribes to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds

Births

   * January 1 - J. D. Salinger, novelist
   * January 13 - Army Archerd, Hollywood journalist
   * January 13 - Robert Stack, actor
   * January 14 - Andy Rooney, television journalist
   * January 25 - Edwin Newman, journalist, writer
   * January 27 - Ross Bagdasarian, musician, actor (d. 1972)
   * January 31 - Jackie Robinson, baseball player (d. 1972)
   * February 5 - Andreas Papandreou, Greek politician (d. 1996)
   * February 5 - Red Buttons, actor
   * February 11 -Gretchen Fraser, slalom skier.
   * February 11 - Eddie Robinson, football coach.
   * February 12 - Forrest Tucker, actor (d. 1986)
   * February 13 - Tennessee Ernie Ford, musician (d. 1991)
   * March 2 - Jennifer Jones, actress
   * March 11 - Mercer Ellington, musician, composer (+ 1996)
   * March 15 - Lawrence Tierney, actor (d. 2002)
   * March 17 - Nat King Cole, singer (d. 1965)
   * March 24 - Lawrence Ferlinghetti, author and publisher
   * March 30 - McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor (d. 1996)
   * May 3 - Pete Seeger, singer and musician
   * May 7 - Eva Peron, wife of Argentina's President Juan Peron (d. 1952)
   * May 8 - Lex Barker, actor (d. 1973)
   * May 16 - Liberace, pianist (d. 1987)
   * May 16 - Gisela Uhlen, actress
   * May 18 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, ballet dancer (+ 1991)
   * May 20 - George Gobel, comedian (d. 1991)
   * May 23 - Betty Garrett, actress, dancer
   * June 5 - Richard Scarry, children's author
   * July 7 - Jon Pertwee, actor
   * July 20 - Edmund Hillary, mountaineer
   * October 11 - Art Blakey, jazz drummer
   * October 22 - Doris Lessing, British writer
   * October 26 - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran
   * November 10 - Mikhail Kalashnikov - inventor, designer of the Ak-47
   * November 18 - AndrŽe Borrel, WW II heroine executed by the Nazis

Deaths

   * January 6 - Theodore Roosevelt
   * January 15 - Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
   * February 17 - Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada
   * April 4 - Sir William Crookes, chemist and physicist
   * May 6 - L. Frank Baum, writer
   * August 9 - Ruggiero Leoncavallo, composer
   * December 3 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir, a French painter.

Nobel Prizes

   * Physics - Johannes Stark
   * Chemistry - not awarded
   * Medicine - Jules Bordet
   * Literature - Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler
   * Peace - Thomas Woodrow Wilson