Died (John Arnold Gerber)

John Arnold Gerber (1918 - 1920)

Born (John Arnold Gerber)

Ireland - New Government of Ireland Act proposes partition of Ireland into Ulster (north) and Irish Free State (south), each to have its own government

India - Bubonic Plague strikes

UK - League of Nations Established

UK - Population of England/Wales - 37,887, Scotland - 4,882, N.Ireland - 1,258

UK - Economic slump, 2,170,000 unemployed

Palestine - Serious clashes between Jews and Arabs

USA - US restricts immigration

Ireland - Southern Irish parliament passes Government of Ireland Act, civil war effectively ends (until 1968)

UK - Lloyd George sells honours in return for party contributions, partly responsible for downfall of Coalition government

Egypt - Britain recognizes Egyptian independence

UK - British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins transmission of speech over air to public

Italy - Benito Mussolini becomes fascist dictator

UK - First football cup final at Wembley

UK - Greyhound racing becomes popular

UK - Radio and cinema begin growth (by 1929, 3,000 cinemas in Britain)

UK - Convictions for drunkenness fall from 189,000 in 1913 to 53,000 in 1930

France - Tuberculosis vaccine developed

UK - The tommy gun patented by John T Thompson.

USA - The Band-Aid invented by Earle Dickson

Ireland - Irish Republican Army begins Civil War with raids on police barracks and income tax offices all over Ireland

UK - Communist Party of Great Britain founded; affiliation with Labour Party rebuffed = schism between communism and socialism

UK - Population of Great Britain has grown by 5 per cent, emigration overseas declines from 256,000 in 1923 (post-war peak) to 92,000 in 1930 and many return to offset those leaving; British population gravitates to south and away from depressed areas of South Wales and northern England, Greater London is now over 8 million

UK - Sir Ernest Rutherford publishes account of splitting atom

UK - Eddington and Frank W. Dyson measured the bending of starlight by the gravitational pull of the sun, thus confirming Einstein's general theory of relativity

USA - Prohibition Begins in the U.S.

Ireland - Irish Republican Army begins terrorist campaign against police ('Black and Tans') and their families

London, UK - First woman in House of Commons, Viscountess Astor

Ireland - Alcock and Brown arrive after flying across the Atlantic

UK - Strikes and riots in Glasgow for 40- hour week; National Industrial Conference convenes, trades union representatives resign in disgust

Europe - Regular air service commences across the English Channel

UK - Post-war boom collapses, unemployment problem, 1920 Act provides small payment under National Insurance Scheme

UK - Most war-time rationing ends

UK - One-week railway strike - Emergency Powers Act passed to give government war-time powers to deal with threats from 'Triple Alliance' of miners, railwaymen and dockers, re high prices, shortage of housing

UK - The pop-up toaster invented by Charles Strite.

UK - Short-wave radio invented.

UK - The arc welder invented.

UK - Runaway inflation; Coal Mines Act (1919) and Mining Industry Act (1920) create 7-hour day for miners plus minor reforms

Europe - Kaiser abdicates, peace signed two days later at Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I

UK - Influenza Epidemic

Russia - Czar Nicholas II and his family are killed

UK - Summer:Great Influenza Epidemic begins, reaches height end of year, new outbreak first quarter of 1919: England and Wales lose 150,000 (15,000 in London alone)

UK - Final casualties for World War I - almost 1 million British Empire men killed, about 3 million maimed (744,000 killed are from UK)

UK - Women over 30 given the vote (complete voting equality with men comes in 1928), all men over 21 (except peers, lunatics and felons) given vote

UK - Consumer purchasing power now about 1/3 of what it was in 1914

USA - Charles Jung invented fortune cookies.

UK - Police strikes this year and the next