100 Years Ago Today

[Jimbuna]

17th April 1920

French troops with FT-17 tanks occupying Frankfurt, as leftist paramilitary forces in Germany clash with government troops.


French Machine Guns in Frankfurt. The Scene of the Firing on a German Mob,' Illustrated London News.

[Jimbuna]

18th April 1920

Prisoner of war welcome ceremony in the Busch Circus in Berlin. On April 18, the Reich Committee of the War Damaged organized a welcoming ceremony for comrades who had returned from captivity, in which well-known artists participated, and a gift was given to each prisoner of war


Ship Losses:

William O'Brien (United States) The cargo ship probably foundered on this date. She had issued a SOS that she was leaking in a severe storm and had lost her cargo hatches in the Atlantic Ocean (40°00′N 65°50′W) which was answered by Baltic and Minniekahda (both United Kingdom), some debris was found. Lost with all 40 hands

[Mr Quatro]

Is this okay here? This is a great read (a little long) about the USA a hundred years ago The Nation Calls, 1908-1923 or there abouts.

If it belongs some where else I will make a new thread

https://www.fbi.gov/history/brief-history

The United States was, well, united, with its borders stretching from coast to coast and only two landlocked states left to officially join the union. Inventions like the telephone, the telegraph, and the railroad had seemed to shrink its vast distances even as the country had spread west. After years of industrializing, America was wealthier than ever, too, and a new world power on the block, thanks to its naval victory over Spain.

But there were dark clouds on the horizon.

The country’s cities had grown enormously by 1908—there were more than 100 with populations over 50,000—and understandably, crime had grown right along with them. In these big cities, with their many overcrowded tenements filled with the poor and disillusioned and with all the ethnic tensions of an increasingly immigrant nation stirred in for good measure, tempers often flared. Clashes between striking workers and their factory bosses were turning increasingly violent.

And though no one knew it at the time, America’s cities and towns were also fast becoming breeding grounds for a future generation of professional lawbreakers. In Brooklyn, a nine-year-old Al Capone would soon start his life of crime. In Indianapolis, a five-year-old John Dillinger was growing up on his family farm. And in Chicago, a young child christened Lester Joseph Gillis—later to morph into the vicious killer “Baby Face” Nelson—would greet the world by year’s end.

But violence was just the tip of the criminal iceberg. Corruption was rampant nationwide—especially in local politics, with crooked political machines like Tammany Hall in full flower. Big business had its share of sleaze, too, from the shoddy, even criminal, conditions in meat packaging plants and factories (as muckrakers like Upton Sinclair had so artfully exposed) to the illegal monopolies threatening to control entire industries.

[Jimbuna]

19th April 1920

Germany and Soviet Russia agree to the exchange of prisoners of war.

Allied leaders from the UK, France, Italy and Japan meet in Sanremo, Italy to discuss the division of former Ottoman territories in the Middle East.


April 19–23, 1920: Partition of the Ottoman Empire agreed on by the Allied Powers, with British Mandates in Red, French Mandates in Blue.


Ship Losses:

St. Barcran (United Kingdom) The coaster collided with Whinhill ( United Kingdom) at Liverpool, Lancashire and was beached. She was later refloated and taken to Manchester.

[Jimbuna]

20th April 1920

French President Paul Deschanel decorating members of the Gendarmerie.


Ship Losses:

Bayonnaise (France) The schooner foundered in the Bristol Channel. Her crew were rescued by the Mumbles Lifeboat.

[Jimbuna]

21st April 1920

American soldiers posing on 12-inch mortars at Fort Stevens, Oregon.

[Jimbuna]

22nd April 1920

Poland and Ukraine signed treaty of Warsaw that resulted in joined Polish-Ukrainian offensive on Kiev.

Polish General Antoni Listowski (left) and exiled Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura (second from left) following Petliura's alliance with the Poles.


Former Prime Minister of France Joseph Caillaux was acquitted by the French Senate of charges of high treason, but was convicted of "commerce and correspondence with the enemy" during World War One and was exiled for five years.


Ship Losses:

Matilde (United Kingdom) The schooner was driven ashore at Whitby, Yorkshire and was wrecked.

[Jimbuna]

22nd April 1920

Poland and Ukraine signed treaty of Warsaw that resulted in joined Polish-Ukrainian offensive on Kiev.

Polish General Antoni Listowski (left) and exiled Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura (second from left) following Petliura's alliance with the Poles.


Former Prime Minister of France Joseph Caillaux was acquitted by the French Senate of charges of high treason, but was convicted of "commerce and correspondence with the enemy" during World War One and was exiled for five years.


Ship Losses:

Matilde (United Kingdom) The schooner was driven ashore at Whitby, Yorkshire and was wrecked.

[Jimbuna]

23rd April 1920

"Plan of Agua Prieta". Three generals, Plutarco Elías Calles, Álvaro Obregón and Adolfo de la Huerta, rebel against the president of Mexico Venustiano Carranza who is assassinated in his flight to Veracruz on May 21.

The Turkish Grand National Assembly meets in Ankara for the first time. Mustafa Kemal and his colleagues praying in front of the Assembly building.


[April 23rd, 1920] Vladimir Lenin is photographed.

[Jimbuna]

24th April 1920

A British armoured car patrolling Dublin during the Irish War of Independence.


Polish and Ukrainian troops begin an offensive to recapture Kiev from Soviet troops. Polish General Listowski (left) with exiled Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura (right).


Ship Losses:

Arthur V. S. Woodruff (United States) The schooner came ashore on the east coast of Barbados. She was a total loss.
Westgate (United Kingdom) The cargo ship was abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean.
Ernst (Sweden) The sailing ship struck a mine at Herthas Flak in Kattegat on April 24 or 25 and sank with all hands, 22 in all.

[Jimbuna]

25th April 1920

Start of Operation Kiev, a Polish offensive in Ukraine. Kiev was taken on May 8, but Polish troops were to retreat on June 12 in front of the Red Army's counter-offensive marching against Poland.

Former Ottoman-Turkish ruled territories in the Middle East are assigned by the Supreme Allied Council as League of Nations mandates to Britain and France: Britain receives Palestine and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq); while France receives Greater Syria (modern Syria and Lebanon).


A group of Samoan chiefs in Suva during the visit of Edward, Prince of Wales.

[Jimbuna]

26th April 1920

The Great Astronomy Debate, in which two astronomers debated the universe's size, was held at the Smithsonian.

On April 26, 1920, astronomers Harlow Shapley (left) and Heber Curtis (right) presented their views on the scope of the cosmos.

[Jimbuna]

27th April 1920

British soldiers stopping carts for inspections in Ireland as the Irish War of Independence continues to intensify.


Ship Losses:

Gubitelnyy (Soviet Navy Red Movement) The gunboat was shelled and sunk at Chernobyl on the Pripyat River by Polish artillery. Salvaged post war.

[Texas Red]

April 27th, 1920

Tommy Milton sets the car speed record in the U.S. with his Duesenberg LSR, achieving 156 mph (251 km/h). His car bursts into flames during the attempt:

[Jimbuna]

28th April 1920

A Curtiss R-6L floatplane testing torpedoes at Pensacola, Florida. The torpedo “porpoised,” bouncing off the water.


Yi Un, Crown Prince of Korea, marries Princess Masako of Nashimoto in Tokyo. Korea is currently a colony of Japan.


Russia. at night from April 27, an uprising began in Baku, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Azerbaijan was formed, headed by Nariman Narimanov, the 11th Army of the Red Army entered Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic proclaimed.