Our Family History

The Genealogy of Robert and Christina Barritt

1919 - 1921 (2 years)

	Date	Event(s)
1	1919	1919: 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 1919: USA - Prohibition Begins in the U.S. 1919: Ireland - Irish Republican Army begins terrorist campaign against police ('Black and Tans') and their families 1919: London, UK - First woman in House of Commons, Viscountess Astor 1919: Ireland - Alcock and Brown arrive after flying across the Atlantic 1919: UK - Strikes and riots in Glasgow for 40- hour week; National Industrial Conference convenes, trades union representatives resign in disgust 1919: Europe - Regular air service commences across the English Channel 1919: UK - Post-war boom collapses, unemployment problem, 1920 Act provides small payment under National Insurance Scheme 1919: UK - Most war-time rationing ends 1919: 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 1919: UK - The pop-up toaster invented by Charles Strite. 1919: UK - Short-wave radio invented. 1919: UK - The arc welder invented. 1919: UK - Runaway inflation; Coal Mines Act (1919) and Mining Industry Act (1920) create 7-hour day for miners plus minor reforms Jun 1919: UK - Sir Ernest Rutherford publishes account of splitting atom
2	1920	1920: India - Bubonic Plague strikes 1920: UK - League of Nations Established 1920: UK - Population of England/Wales - 37,887, Scotland - 4,882, N.Ireland - 1,258 1920: UK - Economic slump, 2,170,000 unemployed 1920: Palestine - Serious clashes between Jews and Arabs 1920: USA - US restricts immigration 1920: Ireland - Southern Irish parliament passes Government of Ireland Act, civil war effectively ends (until 1968) 1920: UK - Lloyd George sells honours in return for party contributions, partly responsible for downfall of Coalition government 1920: Egypt - Britain recognizes Egyptian independence 1920: UK - British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins transmission of speech over air to public 1920: Italy - Benito Mussolini becomes fascist dictator 1920: UK - First football cup final at Wembley 1920: UK - Greyhound racing becomes popular 1920: UK - Radio and cinema begin growth (by 1929, 3,000 cinemas in Britain) 1920: UK - Convictions for drunkenness fall from 189,000 in 1913 to 53,000 in 1930 1920: France - Tuberculosis vaccine developed 1920: UK - The tommy gun patented by John T Thompson. 1920: USA - The Band-Aid invented by Earle Dickson 1920: Ireland - Irish Republican Army begins Civil War with raids on police barracks and income tax offices all over Ireland 1920: UK - Communist Party of Great Britain founded; affiliation with Labour Party rebuffed = schism between communism and socialism 1920: 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 Dec 1920: Ireland - New Government of Ireland Act proposes partition of Ireland into Ulster (north) and Irish Free State (south), each to have its own government
3	1921	1921: UK - Stage debut of John Gielgud 1921: Germany - Extreme Inflation sets in 1921: Ireland - Irish Free State Proclaimed 1921: Washington, DC, USA - Warren Harding president in 1921. He dies of an embolism in San Francisco. He had taken ill on 31 Jul 1921 1921: Washington, DC, USA - Calvin Coolidge president 1921-1929. Vice president under Warren Harding, he was sworn in as president the day after Harding dies. 1921: UK - The first robot is built. 1921: CA, USA - John Larson, a University of California medical student, invented the modern lie detector (polygraph), used by police since 1924.