1923 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January-June

• 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
• February 22 - Barcelona (Catalonia): Albert Einstein visits the city, invited by the scientist Esteban Terradas i Illa, as part of the monografics course of High Studies and Exchange organized by the Mancomunitat de Catalunya and conducted by Rafael de Campalans .
• March - Antigone by Jean Cocteau appears on a Paris stage. Settings by Pablo Picasso, music by Arthur 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
• May 23 - Launch of Belgium's SABENA Airlines
• May 27 - Ku Klux Klan defies law requiring publication of its members
• June 9 - Military coup in Bulgaria - prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski is ousted (he is killed June 14)
• June 18 - Etna volcano erupts - 60.000 made homeless

July-September

• July 6 - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics established
• 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 G. 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 an Italian officer. League of Nations protests and they leave September 29
• September 8 - Honda Point Disaster: Seven US Navy destroyers ran aground off the California coast.
• September 13 - Military coup in Spain - Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship.
• September 18-26 - Newspaper printers strike in New York
• September 26 - In Bayern, Gustav von Kuhr declares independence from Berlin

October-December

• 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 Reichsmarks (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

Unknown dates

• Juan de la Cierva invents the autogyro, a rotary-winged aircraft with an unpowered rotor.
• Finnish flag carrier Finnair airline is started in Aero Oy.
• Interpol is set up.
• International Police Conference in Vienna
• Hoda Cha'arawi Association (formerly The Egyptian Feminist Union) is established in Egypt.
• Trade unions banned in Spain for 10 years.
• Police strike in Australia
• Regia Aeronautica, air force of Fascist Italy, is founded.

Year in topic

• 1923 in aviation
• 1923 in film
• 1923 in literature
• 1923 in music
• 1923 in rail transport
• 1923 in science
• 1923 in sports
• 1923 in Canada

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 16 - Anthony Hecht, poet
• 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 13 - Yfrah Neaman, violinist and teacher
• 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 13 - Jose Mojica Marins , movie director
• 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-August

• May 1 - Joseph Heller, novelist (d. 1999)
• May 2 - Patrick Hillery, sixth President of Ireland
• May 3 - Ralph Hall, American politician
• May 7 - Anne Baxter, actress (d. 1985)
• May 13 - Bea Arthur, actress
• May 15 - John Lanchbery, English ballet composer (d. 2003)
• May 21 - Ara Parseghian, American football coach
• May 21 - Dorothy Hewett, writer (d. 2002)
• May 27 - Henry Kissinger, American diplomat and recipient of the Nobel Prize in peace 1973
• May 28 - György Ligeti, composer
• May 31 - Prince Rainer III of Monaco (d. 2005)
• July 2 - Wislawa Szymborska, Polish poet, the Nobel Prize in Literature laureate in 1996
• July 4 - Rudolf Friedrich, member of the Swiss Federal Council
• July 8 - Harrison Dillard, American athlete
• July 20 - Stanisław Albinowski, Polish economist and journalist (d.2005)
• July 22 - Robert Joseph Dole, United States Republican Party Presidential candidate
• July 22 - Mukesh, singer
• July 23 - Witto Aloma, Major League Baseball player (d. 1997)
• August 20 - Jim Reeves, singer
• August 24 - Arthur Jensen, educational psychologist
• August 26 - Wolfgang Sawallisch, German conductor and pianist

September-December

• September 1 - Kenneth Roy Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, businessman, art collector
• September 3 - Mort Walker, American cartoonist (Beetle Bailey)
• September 6 - King Peter II of Yugoslavia
• September 9 - Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, Virologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate in 1976
• September 11 - Dharmsamrat Paramhans Swami Madhavananda, Hindu guru
• September 17 - Hank Williams, American country musician
• September 22 - Dannie Abse, Welsh poet
• October 5 - Glynis Johns, British actress
• October 23 - Frank Sutton, American actor
• November 1 - Victoria de los Angeles, Catalan soprano (d. 2005)
• November 20 - Nadine Gordimer, South African writer
• November 22 - Arthur Hiller, film director
• November 25 - Mauno Koivisto, former President of Finland
• December 2 - Maria Callas, opera diva (d. 1977)
• December 12 - Bob Barker, US game show host
• December 13 - Larry Doby, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 2003)
• December 13 – Antoni Tàpies , Spanish abstract expressionist painter
• December 14 - Gerard Reve, Dutch writer
• December 23 - Claudio Scimone, Italian conductor
• December 23 - James Stockdale, United States Navy admiral
• December 25 - Sonia Olschanezky , World War II heroine executed by the Nazis (d. 1944)

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
• December 12 - Raymond Radiguet, French author
• December 13 - Théophile Steinlen, Swiss/French painter

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Robert Andrews Millikan
• Chemistry - Fritz Pregl
• Medicine - Frederick Grant Banting, John James Richard Macleod for the discovery of insulin
• Literature - William Butler Yeats
• Peace - Not awarded