Darcy Press is a publisher of books, both Fiction and Non-fiction, featuring the history of the twentieth century. Please look at the rest of the website by clicking the Home tab above. Below is Mr Darcy's own timeline of his selection of events that interest him and is not intended to be completely comprehensive. He offers it here for information and for others to enjoy.   1900s  |  1910s  |  1920s  |  1930s  |  1940s  |  1950s  |  1960s  |  1970s  |  1980s  |  1990s   1920 Peaceful demonstration of independents in Berlin ends in bloodshed when agitators incite the crowd to storm the Reichstag. 13 Jan 16 Jan Prohibition on the sale of alcohol goes into force in the US Dutch government refuses to extradite the Kaiser 23 Jan 11 Feb League of Nations launched in London Final attempt to ratify the treaty of Versailles and join the League of Nations fails in the US Senate 19 Mar 7 Apr French troops occupy the Ruhr in Germany Turkish parliament ousts Sultan Mehmet VI and Mustafa Kemal heads new government 23 Apr 25 Apr League of Nations hands Mandate for Palestine to the UK Sinn Fein supporters and Unionists fight pitched battles in Londonderry, Northern Ireland 17 May 24 May Seventh modern Olympic Games opens in Antwerp, Belgium Treaty of Trianon signed between Hungary and Allies 4 Jun 15 Jun Nellie Melba makes the first advertised wireless broadcast in the UK Death of hunger striker Tomas MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, sparks riots across Ireland 27 Oct 2 Nov Republican Warren Harding elected American President Defeat of Baron Wrangel in the Crimea brings an end to the Russian civil war 16 Nov 21 Nov Fourteen British officers and officials killed by the IRA in Dublin Martial law declared in large parts of Ireland 11 Dec 23 Dec British King George V signs the Irish Partition Bill 1921 British airships R36 and R37 completed 3 Jan 18 Feb Frenchman Etienne Oehmichen achieves first true flight of a helicopter British, French and Belgian troops occupy Dusseldorf and other Ruhr towns to enforce Reparations 8 Mar 24 May Sinn Fein wins 124 out of 128 Southern Irish seats and Ulster Unionists win 40 out of 52 Ulster seats UK Sunday postal deliveries and collections end 12 Jun 24 Jun Maiden flight of R38 the world's largest airship, built in Britain for the US Navy Truce declared in Ireland 22 Jul 29 Jul Adolf Hitler voted president of the National Socialist German Workers party Airship R38 designated ZR II by the Americans explodes during a trial flight at Hull 24 Aug 26 Sep Eduard Benes becomes premier of Czechoslovakia Benito Mussolini declares himself 'Il Duce', the leader of the fascist party 7 Nov 7 Dec Irish and British sign treaty creating Irish Free State Albert Einstein wins the Nobel Prize for Physics 10 Dec 1922 British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton dies 5 Jan 5 Feb First 'Readers Digest' published Irish pro-Treaty party wins large majority in first election 20 Jun 22 Aug Irish leader Michael Collins shot dead British Broadcasting Company is formed 18 Oct 19 Oct Lloyd George is deposed as British Prime Minister and replaced by Bonar Law George Cadbury chocolate magnate and philanthropist dies 25 Oct 30 Oct Benito Mussolini becomes dictator of Italy Conservative Bonar Law wins British election 16 Nov 29 Nov Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon unearth tomb of Tutankhamun Dane Niels Bohr wins Nobel Prize for Physics for work on the structure of the atom 10 Dec 1923 Strikes and demonstrations in the Ruhr protesting against French occupation and reparations 25 Jan 27 Jan Nazi party holds rally in Munich Lenin gives up power after stroke 9 Mar 4 Apr Lord Carnarvon dies in Egypt from an insect bite. Said to be the curse of Tutankhamun The Duke of York, later British King George VI, marries Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon 26 Apr 21 May British prime Minister Bonar law resigns and is replace by Stnley Baldwin German mark collapsing – reaches 622,000 to the pound sterling 22 Jun 10 Jul Mussolini dissolves all Italian opposition parties Treaty of Lausanne signed bringing peace between Greece and Turkey 24 Jul 2 Aug American President Harding dies and is replaced by Calvin Coolridge Huge earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama – 300,000 dead 1 Sep 6 Sep German mark falls to 200 million to the pound sterling Mark reaches 183,000 million to the pound 22 Sep 11 Nov Nazis stage coup in Munich which fails and Adolf Hitler is arrested Germans introduce new unit of currency worth 1,000 million marks to try to end inflation 15 Nov 7 Dec British General Election returns hung parliament with no overall majority 1924 Lenin dies leaving a power vacuum in Russia 21 Jan 22 Jan Ramsay MacDonald becomes British Prime minister bringing the Labour party to power Adolf Hitler sentenced to imprisonment for his part in the 'Beer Hall Putsch' 1 Apr 23 Apr British King George opens Imperial Exhibition Wireless conversation between England and Australia achieved 2 Jun 5 Jul Olympic Games opens with 42 nations taking part German Mark replace by new Reichsmark 8 Aug 25 Aug Liner Mauretania sets a new record for an Atlantic crossing of 5 days 1 hour and 35 minutes Three US Army aeroplanes complete round the world flight 28 Sep 16 Sep Mahatma Gandhi fasts in protest at riots between Hindus and Moslems Labour government defeated in Britain 9 Oct 13 Oct Forces under Ibn Saud take Mecca in Arabia Conservatives win British General Election – Zinoviev letter thought to be important factor 31 Oct 30 Nov Last French and Belgian troops withdraw from the Ruhr Adolf Hitler is paroled after serving 8 month in prison 20 Dec 1925 Capital of Norway renamed from Christiania to Oslo 1 Jan 16 Jan Leon Trotsky sacked in Soviet power struggle with Josef Stalin Dr Sun Yat-sen leaser of the Chinese Kuomintang dies and is replaced by General Chang Kai-shek 12 Mar 25 Apr Germany elects wartime hero Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg as President British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill returns the Pound to the Gold Standard 28 Apr 1 May Cyprus becomes a British Colony Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf', the book he dictated in prison, is published 18 Jul 1 Sep American dance the Charleston takes Britain by storm American airship 'Shenandoah' is wrecked in a storm over Caldwell Ohio 3 Sep 16 Oct Germans sign pact with Britain, France, Belgium and Italy in Locarno Sergei Eisenstein's film 'Battleship Potemkin' opens in Russia 21 Dec 1926 Abdul Aziz ibn Saud declared King of country now named Saudi Arabia 8 Jan 27 Jan John Logie Baird demonstrates moving pictures transmitted by wireless at the Royal Institution in London British troops pull out of the Rhineland 30 Jan 13 Mar Alan Cobham welcomed back to Croydon near London after a 16000 mile flight to Cape Town and back Princess Elizabeth the future Queen of England is born 21 Apr 5 May UK general strike General strike called off. Miners continue alone 12 May 13 May Umberto Nobile flies the Airship Norge over the North Pole from Spitzbergen to Alaska Marshal Josef Pilsudski seizes power in Poland 13 Jun 5 Oct Striking Miners finally return to work in UK Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Newfoundland become self-governing Dominions under the British Crown 20 Nov 6 Dec Claude Monet the Impressionist painter dies at his home in Giverny, Normandy Crime novelist Agatha Christie found in Yorkshire after her disappearance 14 Dec 1927 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broadcasts its first programmes 1 Jan 4 Feb Malcolm Campbell sets new world land speed record of 174.224 mph General Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist army conquers Shanghai 21 Mar 29 Mar Major Henry Seagrove sets a new land speed record of 203.841 mph Captain Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic by flying non-stop from New York to Paris 21 May 15 Jul Communist inspired riots in Vienna put down by loyalist troops American dancer Isadora Duncan killed when her scarf becomes entangled in the car wheel 14 Sep 6 Oct Al Jolson speaks in the first 'Talkie' film 'The Jazz Singer Britain's first automatic telephone exchange installed in Holborn, London 13 Nov 15 Nov Stalin expels Trotsky and Zinoviev from the Soviet Communist Party 1928 People over 65 receive state pensions for the first time 5 Jan 6 Jan Thames breaks its banks and floods low lying areas of London Malcolm Campbell sets a new land speed record of 206.35 mph 19 Feb 9 Apr In Turkey Islam is abolished as the state religion and the Roman alphabet is introduced Corinth in Greece is devastated by an earthquake 22 Apr 12 Jul Umberto Nobile and the crew of the airship Italia are finally rescued from their ill fated Arctic crossing by a Russian icebreaker Olympic Games held in Amsterdam 12 Aug 27 Aug Fifteen counties including Britain sign treaty outlawing war A germ-killing mould Penicillium Notatum is discovered by Professor Alexander Fleming of Queen Mary's Hospital, London 30 Sep 15 Oct German airship the Graf Zeppelin lands in New Jersey after a 111 hour flight from Germany Mount Etna in Sicily erupts 5 Nov 6 Nov Herbert C. Hoover is elected president of the US Hirohito is crowned Emperor of Japan 10 Nov 22 Nov The first One Pound and Ten Shilling notes come into circulation in the UK 1929 Major Henry Seagrove sets a new land speed record of 231 mph 11 Mar 3 May Berlin is declared a city under siege after many deaths in riots British general election end in stalemate between the Tories and Labour. Liberals hold balance of power 31May 7 Jun Ramsay MacDonald becomes Prime Minister of Labour Government Tiny colour television picture demonstrated by Bell Labs in US 27 Jun 21 Aug Flying Officer Waghorn achieves 350 mph in a Supermarine Rolls-Royce S6 Seaplane Airship Graf Zeppelin circumnavigates the earth in 21 days 7 hours and 26 minutes 29 Aug 7 Sep Flying officer Waghorn wins the Schneider Trophy for Britain New British airship the R101 makes her maiden voyage 14 Oct 24 Oct Wall street Stock market crashes American Richard Byrd flies over the South Pole 29 Nov   1900s  |  1910s  |  1920s  |  1930s  |  1940s  |  1950s  |  1960s  |  1970s  |  1980s  |  1990s