1923
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s
Years: 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 - 1923 - 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928
Events
- January 1 - Grouping of all UK railway companies into four larger companies
- January 10 - Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel
- January 11 - Troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to pay its reparation payments
- February 16 - Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun
- March - Antigone by Jean Cocteau appears on a Paris stage. Settings by Pablo Picasso, music by Honegger, and costumes by Gabrielle Chanel. Antonin Artaud played the part of Tiresias.
- March 1 - USS Connecticut decommissioned
- March 2 - Time Magazine hits newsstands for the first time
- March 9 - Vladimir Lenin suffers a stroke, his third, which renders him bedridden and unable to speak; consequently he retires his position as Chairman of the Soviet government.
- April - End of Irish Civil War
- April 23 - Ceremonial inauguration of Gdynia Seaport
- April 26 - Wedding of Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Westminster Abbey
- June 9 - Military coup in Bulgaria - prime minister Alexander Stambulisk is ousted (he is killed June 14)
- June 18 - Etna volcano erupts - 60.000 made homeless
- July 20 - Pancho Villa assassinated
- July 24 - The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in the First World War
- August 2 - Warren Gamaliel Harding, 29th President of the United States (1921 - 1923) dies in office and is succeeded by Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929).
- August 13 - First major sea-going ship arrives at Gdynia, newly constructed Polish seaport
- August 13 - Gustav Stresemann is named chancellor and founds a coalition government in Weimar Republic Germany
- September 1 - Great Kanto earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama killing 142.807 people
- September 4 - In Lakehurst, New Jersey, the first American airship, the "USS Shenandoah, takes to the sky for the first time
- September 6 - Italian navy occupies Corfu in retaliation of murder of Italian officer. League of Nations protests and they leave September 29
- September 13 - Military coup in Spain - Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over
- September 18-26 - Newspaper printers strike in New York
- September 26 - In Bayern, Gustav von Kuhr declares independence from Berlin
- October 29 - Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
- November 8 - Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government. Police and troops crush the attempt the next day
- November 12- Her Highness Princess Maud of Fife marries Captain Charles Alexander Carnegie in Wellington Barracks, London.
- November 15 - The inflation in Germany reaches its height. One dollar is worth 4,200,000,000,000 Reichsmark (4.2 trillion). Gustav Stresemann abolishes the old currency
- November 23 - Gustav Stresemann's coalition government collapses
- December 27 - Assassination attempt against the crown prince of Japan in Tokyo
Year in topic
Births
January-February
- January 1 - Roméo Sabourin, SOE agent (d. 1944)
- January 7 - Pinkas Braun, actor and film director
- January 5 - Sam Phillips, country music producer (d. 2003)
- January 6 - Jacobo Timerman, writer (d. 1999)
- January 10 - Ingeborg Drewitz, writer (d. 1986)
- January 11 - Jacqueline Maillan, French actress
- January 19 - Jean Stapleton, actress
- January 25 - Arvid Carlsson, Nobel Prize winning scientist
- January 26 - Anne Jeffreys, actress
- January 29 - Paddy Chayefsky, writer (d. 1981)
- January 31 - Norman Mailer, writer and journalist
- February 2 - James Dickey, poet, author (d. 1997)
- February 2 - Liz Smith, gossip columnist
- February 9 - Brendan Behan, author (d. 1964)
- February 11 - Ronald Arculus, British diplomat
- February 12 - Franco Zeffirelli, Italian director
- February 13 - Chuck Yeager, pilot
- February 27 - Dexter Gordon, jazz saxophone player (d. 1990)
March-April
- March 1 - Kuczka Péter, Hungarian writer, poet and Science Fiction editor († 1999)
- March 6 - Ed McMahon, television personality
- March 6 - Jürgen von Manger, cabaretist (d. 1994)
- March 8 - Walter Jens, writer
- March 9 - Walter Kohn, physicist, winner 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- March 12 - Wally Schirra, astronaut
- March 21 - Shri Mataji Nirmala Shrivastava, the founder of Sahaja Yoga
- March 22 - Marcel Marceau, mime
- March 24 - Kermit Schafer, humorist (d. 1979)
- March 26 - Bob Elliott, comedian
- March 27 - Louis Simpson, poet
- March 30 - Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer, and playwright
- April 2 - G. Spencer-Brown, British mathematician
- April 20 - Mother Angelica, founder of Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) Catholic cable TV channel
- April 22 - Bettie Page, pinup model
- April 22 - Aaron Spelling, television producer, writer
- April 23 - Dolph Briscoe, former governor of Texas
May-November
- May 1 - Joseph Heller, novelist (d. 1999)
- May 2 - Patrick Hillery, sixth President of Ireland
- May 7 - Anne Baxter, actress (d. 1985)
- May 13 - Bea Arthur, actress
- May 21 - Ara Parseghian, American football coach
- May 27 - Henry Kissinger, American diplomat and recipient of the Nobel Prize in peace 1973
- May 28 - György Ligeti, composer
- May 31 - Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi, later Prince Rainer III of Monaco
- July 2 - Wislawa Szymborska, Polish poetess, the Nobel Prize in Literature laureate in 1996
- July 8 - Harrison Dillard, American athlete
- August 20 - Jim Reeves, singer
- August 24 - Arthur Jensen, educational psychologist
- September 1 - Kenneth Roy Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, businessman, art collector
- September 6 - King Peter II of Yugoslavia
- September 9 - Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, Virologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate in 1976
- September 22 - Dannie Abse, Welsh poet
- October 5 - Glynis Johns, British actress
- October 23 - Frank Sutton, actor (Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.) (d. 1974)
- November 22 - Arthur Hiller, film director
December
Deaths
- January 23 - Max Nordau, author, philosopher and Zionist leader (* 1849)
- February 10 - Wilhelm Röntgen, physicist, discoverer of X-rays, Nobel laureate
- February 23 - Théophile Delcassé, French statesman (b. 1852)
- March 26 - Sarah Bernhardt, French actress
- March 27 - Sir James Dewar, chemist
- June 9 - Princess Helena of the United Kingdom, third daughter of Queen Victoria, aunt of King George V
