Events, Verisoph

23 December 1913 Founding of the US Federal Reserve 0 cit. The Federal Reserve Act created a central banking system for the United States after repeated banking panics, most recently the Panic of 1907. It set up twelve regional reserve banks, of which the New York Fed became the most influential. economy / politics ●●●●

19 June 1913 Natives Land Act restricts African land ownership 0 cit. The Natives Land Act barred Black South Africans, roughly two-thirds of the population, from buying or leasing land outside designated reserves, which made up less than ten percent of the country's land. The law forced many Black farmers into wage labor or tenancy on white-owned farms and mines. It became one of the foundational pieces of segregationist legislation later expanded under apartheid. economy / politics ●●●

31 May 1913 Mombasa Lodge consecrated 0 cit. Mombasa Lodge No. 3645 was consecrated on 31 May 1913 under the English constitution, giving the coastal port its own Masonic lodge distinct from the earlier Nairobi and Zanzibar foundations. Mombasa's role as the colony's main port and a mixed British, Arab, and Indian trading town gave its lodge a somewhat different membership base than the upcountry railway and settler lodges. A Freemasons' Hall was later built in Mombasa to house the lodge. economy / society ●●

c. 1914 New York as the world's financial capital 0 cit. The First World War turns the United States into the world's creditor and shifts financial leadership from London to Wall Street. Home to the New York Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the largest banks and asset managers, the city has topped global rankings ever since. economy ●●●●●

1914 Founding of Merrill Lynch 0 cit. Charles Merrill opens a brokerage in New York, joined months later by Edmund Lynch. The firm brings Wall Street to Main Street with retail stockbroking and is sold to Bank of America in September 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. economy ●●●

26 September 1914 Founding of the Federal Trade Commission 0 cit. Woodrow Wilson signs the act creating an independent commission to police unfair methods of competition and deceptive business practices. The FTC becomes a twin pillar of antitrust enforcement alongside the Justice Department. economy ●●

1914 to 1918 World War I turns the United States into the world's creditor 0 cit. Wartime loans and arms sales shifted the United States from a net debtor to the world's leading creditor nation, while Britain ran up heavy debts to American lenders. The financial balance of the Atlantic began tilting westward. economy / war ●●

October 1914 Benjamin Strong takes charge of the New York Fed 0 cit. Benjamin Strong became the first Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He dominated American monetary policy through the 1920s and built close personal ties with Europe's central bankers. economy / politics ●●●

1914 Maserati's logo is the trident of the Roman god Neptune 0 cit. The Italian carmaker, founded in Bologna in 1914, took its trident logo from the statue of Neptune, the Roman sea god, in the city's central fountain. economy / religion / technology ●●

1914 FTD's emblem is the messenger god Mercury 0 cit. The florist network, founded in 1910, took a running Mercury as its emblem in 1914. The winged messenger god fit a business that carried flowers across distances. economy / religion ●

1914 The British state buys into Persian oil 0 cit. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, formed out of the D'Arcy concession, gained a controlling investment from the British government at the urging of Winston Churchill, who wanted secure fuel for the Royal Navy. This tied Britain's military and strategic interests directly to Persian oil. The company, later Anglo-Iranian and then BP, would keep the lion's share of oil profits for decades. economy / politics / war ●●

1914 The Giriama Uprising and the Burning of Kaya Fungo 0 cit. The Giriama refusal to supply labour hardened into open revolt in 1913 and 1914, met with a military campaign that killed hundreds and drove people from their land. Colonial forces razed Kaya Fungo, the sacred forest shrine at the heart of Giriama religion and authority, and imposed a heavy collective fine and demands for carriers for the coming world war. Destroying the kaya was an attack on the community's very identity, meant to break the elders and the spirits who sanctioned resistance. economy / religion / war ●●

August 1914 Marcus Garvey founds the UNIA in Jamaica 0 cit. Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which after he moved to the United States grew into the largest mass Black movement of its era. It preached racial pride, economic self-reliance, and a redemption of Africa often summed up as Back to Africa. Garvey remains a contested figure: admirers hail his mass appeal, while critics point to his 1922 meeting with the Ku Klux Klan and his 1923 conviction for mail fraud tied to the Black Star Line. economy / politics / society ●●●

1914 The First World War drains British power 0 cit. The war of 1914 to 1918 cost Britain enormous sums and turned it from the world's leading creditor into a debtor, largely to the United States. British industry and manpower were strained to the limit, and much overseas investment was sold off to pay for the fighting. Britain won the war but came out of it financially weakened and dependent on American credit. economy / politics / war ●●●●

c. 1915 Hollywood becomes the film capital 0 cit. Film companies gathered in Hollywood for its sun, space, and cheap land, and built the studio system. Los Angeles became the center of the world film business. culture / economy ●●●

1915 Morgan bank funds Allied war loans 0 cit. During the First World War the Morgan bank acted as purchasing agent for Britain and France and arranged large Allied loans in 1915. The role tied American finance closely to the Allied cause. economy / war ●●●

c. 1915 to c. 1920 Rise of Service Clubs 0 cit. Groups such as Kiwanis and Lions Clubs joined Rotary in building networks of business people organized around charity and civic projects. They spread the service club model across many countries. economy / society ●

28 July 1915 US Marines occupy Haiti and take over its treasury 0 cit. US Marines landed in Haiti and, citing instability and unpaid debts to American and French creditors, occupied the country until 1934. Washington placed US officials in direct control of Haitian customs revenue and the national bank to guarantee bondholders were paid. The occupation is a frequently cited early example of a foreign power controlling a nominally independent state's finances by force. economy / politics ●●

20 February 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition 0 cit. This fair celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal and San Francisco's rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake. Its Palace of Fine Arts, designed by Bernard Maki, is the only major structure still standing, later rebuilt in permanent materials because of its popularity. economy / technology ●●

1915 Crown Lands Ordinance Entrenches the White Highlands 0 cit. The Crown Lands Ordinance extended settler leases to 999 years and confirmed African land as Crown property, hardening the reservation of the fertile central highlands for white settlers. Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru communities lost claim to land they regarded as ancestral, and Africans were legally barred from owning land in the areas that became known as the White Highlands. This land alienation is the documented root grievance behind the later uprising. economy / politics ●●●

1915 American capital takes over Chuquicamata copper 0 cit. The Guggenheim mining interests developed Chuquicamata in northern Chile into one of the largest open-pit copper mines on Earth, later held by the American firm Anaconda. Chilean copper became a foreign-owned enclave whose profits left the country for shareholders abroad. Resentment at this arrangement built for decades and fed a national demand to reclaim the copper. economy / technology ●●

1915 The Native Registration Ordinance imposes the kipande 0 cit. The Native Registration Ordinance of 1915, enforced from 1919-20, requires every African man over fifteen to be fingerprinted and to carry a registration certificate, the kipande, in a metal container worn around the neck. It recorded his employment and movements, tied him to his employer, and was used to control labour and hunt down deserters. Africans loathed it as a badge of servitude, and its abolition became a central demand of the independence movement. economy / politics / society ●●

c. 1915 Land alienation and the making of a grievance 0 cit. British settlement took much of the fertile Kikuyu highland for European farms, an area that became the White Highlands. Many Kikuyu lost land near Kiambu, Nyeri, and Murang'a and became squatters and laborers on farms that had once been their own. This loss of land, and the tenant status that came with it, created the deep grievance that oathing would later mobilize. The oath gave a scattered, dispossessed population a way to act as one. economy / politics / society ●●

1915 Crown Lands Ordinance formalises the White Highlands 0 cit. Legislation entrenched European control of the highlands and made it effectively impossible for Indians to acquire farmland there. Combined with limits on the franchise and on immigration, it sharpened the contest between settlers and the Indian community. This bundle of grievances became known as the Indian Question. economy / politics ●●

c. 1915 Britain turns to America to finance the Great War 0 cit. To pay for the First World War, Britain borrowed heavily in the United States, with the bank J.P. Morgan acting as its purchasing agent for American munitions and supplies. The world's greatest creditor nation was becoming a debtor, and Adam Tooze argues in The Deluge that this dependence quietly shifted financial power across the Atlantic. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●

c. 1915 Banda walks south to the mines 0 cit. As a young man Banda leaves Nyasaland on foot, travelling hundreds of miles through Southern Rhodesia to the goldfields of the Witwatersrand. He works as a clerk and interpreter around the mines of the Rand for several years. There he saves money and forms the plan to seek an education abroad. economy / society ●

21 January 1915 Kiwanis founded in Detroit 0 cit. Kiwanis was organized in Detroit as a club of business and professional men, at first focused on networking and later on community service. Within a few years it committed to service work and made helping children its central and lasting cause. It grew into an international organization with clubs across North America and beyond. economy / society ●●

c. 1915 The ban on raiding dissolves the warrior order 0 cit. Confined to the reserves, the Maasai were forbidden to raid or make war, which stripped the ilmurran of their central purpose. Without raiding to rebuild herds or prove themselves, the moran system lost its military meaning and became mostly ceremonial. The pastoral economy that had depended on mobility and cattle exchange was fenced into a shrinking space. economy / society ●●●

15 July 1916 Founding of Boeing 0 cit. William Boeing incorporates the Pacific Aero Products Company in Seattle, renamed Boeing the next year. It becomes the world's leading builder of airliners, including the 707 and 747 that define the jet age. economy / technology ●●●●

c. 1916 Rockefeller becomes the first US dollar billionaire 0 cit. John D. Rockefeller's fortune is generally reckoned to have reached one billion dollars around 1916. He is often described as the richest American in modern history relative to the economy. economy ●●●

1916 Trojan condoms are named for the warriors of ancient Troy 0 cit. The Trojan condom brand, introduced in the United States in 1916, is named and pictured after the warriors of ancient Troy from the Trojan War of Greek legend. economy / religion / war ●●

c. 1916 Great Migration begins 0 cit. Starting around World War I, millions of Black Southerners began moving to cities in the North, Midwest, and West to escape Jim Crow laws, lynching, and sharecropping poverty, and to take up wartime industrial jobs. The migration continued in waves until about 1970 and reshaped the racial makeup of major American cities. It also produced new patterns of housing segregation and racial tension in Northern cities. economy / society ●●●

c. 1916 B. R. Ambedkar studies economics at the LSE 0 cit. Bhimrao Ambedkar, later the chief architect of the Indian constitution and a leader of India's Dalits, studied at the LSE and earned higher degrees in economics there. His time in London shaped his thinking on economics and rights. He is one of the School's most influential alumni in world politics. economy / politics ●●

1917 Ambrosia is named for the food of the gods 0 cit. The English creamery Ambrosia, founded in Devon in 1917, is named after ambrosia, the food of the gods in Greek mythology. culture / economy / religion ●

25 September 1917 Anglo American Corporation of South Africa founded 0 cit. Ernest Oppenheimer founded Anglo American Corporation with British and American financial backing, initially to invest in Witwatersrand gold mines. The company became the base from which Oppenheimer would later mount his takeover of De Beers. economy ●●●

12 July 1917 Bisbee Deportation 0 cit. A sheriff-organized posse of about 2,000 armed men rounded up roughly 1,300 striking copper miners in Bisbee, Arizona, many of them Mexican, Mexican American, and other immigrant workers who had walked out demanding better pay and safety. The strikers were loaded onto cattle cars without food or water and dumped in the New Mexico desert near Tres Hermanas, more than 170 miles away. No one was ever convicted for the deportation, which was carried out with the cooperation of the mining company Phelps Dodge. economy / society ●●

c. 1917 Forced labour and the cotton and mining economy 0 cit. The colonial state imposed compulsory cultivation of crops such as cotton and drafted men to work in mines, on plantations, and on infrastructure. Villagers faced quotas, taxes payable only in labor or cash, and harsh discipline enforced by officials. Forced and coerced labor remained a defining feature of the Belgian Congo well into the twentieth century. economy / society ●●

c. 1917 Compulsory cultivation and forced labour in the Belgian Congo 0 cit. The colonial state imposes compulsory cultivation of crops such as cotton and drafts men to work in mines, on plantations, and on infrastructure. Villagers face quotas, taxes payable only in labour or cash, and harsh discipline enforced by officials. Forced and coerced labour remains a defining feature of the Belgian Congo well into the twentieth century. economy / politics / society ●●●

April 1917 The United States enters the First World War 0 cit. The United States declared war on Germany and began lending directly to Britain and France on a vast scale, replacing the private loans that had funded the Allied war effort. American money and manpower helped decide the war and left the European victors owing large war debts to Washington. diplomacy / economy / war ●●●

1917 Lenin publishes Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism 0 cit. Lenin's pamphlet argued that the rich nations had grown wealthy by carving up the world into colonies and spheres of profit, tying capitalism directly to empire. The book gave colonized readers a theory that named their poverty as the flip side of Europe's wealth. Historians point to it as a main reason Marxism-Leninism appealed to anti-colonial thinkers, whatever they made of Soviet politics. economy / politics ●●●

1917 The Rotary Foundation is established 0 cit. Arch C. Klumph, a Rotary president, proposed an endowment to do good in the world, seeded with an initial gift of about twenty-six dollars. The fund was formally named The Rotary Foundation in 1928 and grew into the movement's charitable arm. It later funded scholarships, grants, and large public-health campaigns. economy / society ●●

7 June 1917 Melvin Jones founds Lions Clubs International 0 cit. The insurance man Melvin Jones brought together several independent business clubs to form the Association of Lions Clubs at a meeting in Chicago. He argued that a club should serve its community rather than only advance its members' business interests. Lions grew into one of the largest service organizations in the world, best known for its work on blindness and sight. economy / society ●●

c. 1917 German money reaches the Bolsheviks through intermediaries 0 cit. German Foreign Ministry records, later published by historians, show funds channeled toward Bolshevik agitation through middlemen such as Alexander Parvus and the Stockholm banker Olof Aschberg. The amounts and their exact effect are debated, but the flow of German state money is documented. It was wartime subversion aimed at Russia's collapse, not ideological sympathy. diplomacy / economy / politics ●●●

c. November 1917 American businessmen make contact with the new Soviet regime 0 cit. Members of the American Red Cross mission in Russia, including the financier William Boyce Thompson, had contact with revolutionary figures and Thompson personally gave money toward pro-Bolshevik publicity. That these Wall Street figures made contact is documented. Sutton built on such episodes to argue Wall Street actively engineered the revolution; that stronger claim is his, and it is disputed. economy / politics ●●●

7 March 1918 Founding of Panasonic 0 cit. Konosuke Matsushita founds Matsushita Electric in Osaka, starting with light socket adapters. It becomes one of the world's largest consumer electronics makers under the Panasonic and National brands. economy / technology ●●●

c. 1918 The Kikuyu Squatters on the Settler Farms 0 cit. Short of land in the reserves, tens of thousands of Kikuyu moved onto European farms as squatters, known as ahoi, giving their labour in return for the right to graze stock and cultivate a plot. For a time it offered land and a living the reserves could not, and squatter families put down roots in the Rift Valley over a generation. When settlers later cut back these rights, the squatters' loss of land and security became a direct road into the Mau Mau movement. economy / society ●●●

c. 1918 The squatter labour system on settler farms 0 cit. Many Kikuyu families lived on settler estates as 'squatters' or resident labourers, working for the owner in exchange for the right to farm a small plot and graze stock. Later laws steadily cut their plots and grazing rights to force out more labour. The squeeze on squatters pushed thousands into landlessness and later into the Mau Mau revolt. economy / society ●●

11 April 1919 Founding of the International Labour Organization 0 cit. The Paris Peace Conference adopts the ILO constitution as part of the Treaty of Versailles, creating a body that brings governments, employers and workers together to set international labor standards. Its first conference met in Washington in October 1919. diplomacy / economy / society ●●●

1919 Olympus cameras are named for Mount Olympus 0 cit. The Japanese optical company, founded in 1919, took the name Olympus after Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods. It mirrored the firm's first brand Takachiho, a sacred peak of Japanese myth. economy / religion / technology ●●

1919 Aurora pens are named for the Roman goddess of dawn 0 cit. The Italian fountain-pen maker Aurora, founded in Turin in 1919, is named after Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn. culture / economy / religion ●

c. 1919 Anglo American acquires major diamond interests in South West Africa 0 cit. Anglo American, through related companies, took control of the rich alluvial diamond fields in South West Africa that had been developed under German rule. This gave Oppenheimer a diamond-producing base independent of De Beers, strengthening his position for a future merger. economy ●●

9 September 1919 Boston Police Strike and the State Guard 0 cit. When most of the Boston police force walked off the job, looting broke out and Governor Calvin Coolidge called out the Massachusetts State Guard to restore order, resulting in several deaths in clashes with crowds. Coolidge's declaration that there is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time made him a national figure. The episode became a touchstone case for using militia forces to end a public-sector strike. economy / politics ●●

1919 Forced labour and the Northey circulars 0 cit. Labour circulars issued under Governor Edward Northey from 1919 pressed administration officers and police to encourage, and in practice compel, Africans to work on settler farms and public projects. The pressure amounted to forced labour and drew protest from missionaries and questions in Britain. Police and chiefs' forces supplied and disciplined the labour. economy / politics ●●

1919 The Soldier Settlement Scheme After the Great War 0 cit. After the First World War the government threw open highland land to British ex-servicemen through a lottery scheme, hoping to plant a larger, loyal white population. Thousands of new farms were carved out, many on land recently used by Africans, and the European population climbed sharply. The scheme deepened the alienation of African land and sharply increased the demand for squatter and wage labour to work the new farms. economy / politics / war ●●

c. 1920 to c. 1941 Shanghai as the financial center of East Asia 0 cit. In the 1920s and 1930s the banks lining Shanghai's Bund make the treaty port the leading financial center of East Asia, with deep markets in money, gold and foreign exchange. War with Japan and then revolution end this first golden age. economy ●●●

c. 1920 The Hollywood studio system takes shape 0 cit. Through the 1920s a handful of vertically integrated studios came to control film production, distribution, and theaters. The studio system concentrated creative and economic power over American mass entertainment. culture / economy ●●●

c. 1920 The British Empire reaches its greatest extent 0 cit. After World War I redistributed former German and Ottoman territories, the British Empire covered about a quarter of the world's land and people. This peak of reach came just as the financial cost of the war began to erode Britain's global position. economy / politics ●●

March 1920 Montagu Norman becomes Governor of the Bank of England 0 cit. Montagu Norman began a record run as Governor of the Bank of England that lasted until 1944. Secretive and devoted to the gold standard, he became the central figure in the interwar network of central bankers. economy / politics ●●●

1920 Mazda is named after the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda 0 cit. The Japanese automaker, founded in 1920, drew its name from Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god of light and wisdom. The name also echoes founder Jujiro Matsuda's surname. economy / religion / technology ●●●

19 May 1920 Matewan Massacre 0 cit. Baldwin-Felts agents arrived in Matewan to evict striking miners' families from company housing, and a shootout broke out with Matewan's pro-union police chief Sid Hatfield and armed townspeople. Seven Baldwin-Felts agents, two miners, and the town's mayor were killed. The confrontation helped ignite the broader West Virginia mine wars and is remembered as a defining clash between organized labor and company-hired private police. economy / society ●●

17 January 1920 Prohibition Unit begins enforcing the Volstead Act 0 cit. When national alcohol prohibition took effect under the Volstead Act, enforcement fell to the newly formed Prohibition Unit inside the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Agents raided speakeasies, breweries, and stills for the next thirteen years, an effort widely criticized at the time and since for chronic underfunding, corruption among agents, and its practical failure to stop the illegal liquor trade. economy / politics ●●

December 1920 Soviet Armenia established 0 cit. The Red Army enters Armenia and it becomes a Soviet republic, joined into the Transcaucasian federation in 1922 and made a full union republic in 1936. Soviet rule brings industrialization, education, and relative stability along with repression and loss of independence. During this period Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly Armenian region, is placed within Soviet Azerbaijan, planting a long-running dispute. economy / politics / society ●●

1920 The Kipande Pass Ties the Worker to the Employer 0 cit. Under the Native Registration Ordinance, from about 1920 every adult African man had to carry a kipande, a pass recording his name, fingerprints, and employment, usually in a metal case worn on a cord around the neck. It let employers and the police track workers, control movement, and stop men leaving for better pay. Deeply resented as a badge of servitude, the kipande became a lasting symbol of colonial control over African labour and one of the KCA's central grievances. economy / politics / society ●●

c. 1920 The Destruction of the Maasai Pastoral Economy 0 cit. Penned into a single reserve, the Maasai lost the wide seasonal range their herding depended on, cut off from dry-season pastures and salt licks now inside settler farms. Veterinary quarantines, grazing controls, and pressure to reduce stock further squeezed a way of life built on moving cattle across the plains. A people once dominant in the Rift became a controlled, impoverished margin, their economy deliberately hemmed in. economy / society ●●

c. 1920 The West Made a Reservoir of Migrant Labour 0 cit. Nyanza and the western districts became the main source of workers for farms, ports, and towns across the colony, their men circulating out to labour and back to the reserves. The kipande registration pass, carried around the neck, tracked and disciplined this workforce. Historians describe the region as deliberately underdeveloped, kept as a pool of cheap labour rather than developed in its own right, a pattern that shaped Kenya's economy long after independence. economy / society ●●

c. 1920 The north and dry margins deliberately left out 0 cit. Judged to offer little export value, the arid north and pastoralist margins were sealed off and starved of investment, held as buffers rather than governed as regions. The closed-district passes and the absence of schools and roads were two sides of the same calculation. In the colonial map of worth, these lands were written down to nearly nothing. economy / politics ●●

c. 1920 The colonial state built for extraction 0 cit. Britain built colonial Kenya around a settler economy. It alienated the fertile 'White Highlands' for European farms, pushed Africans into reserves, and used a hut and poll tax to force them into wage labour. Power ran through a centralised Provincial Administration of appointed chiefs and district commissioners. The historian Bruce Berman, in 'Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya' (1990), argues this was less a development state than an apparatus for extracting land, labour and taxes for a small ruling group. economy / politics / society ●●●

1920 The kipande pass controls African movement 0 cit. Under the Native Registration Ordinance passed in 1915 and enforced from 1920, adult African men had to carry a kipande, a registration document held in a metal case, recording identity, fingerprints, and employment. It controlled where Africans could move and work and tied them to their reserve and their labor contracts. The pass tightened the link between a person, an assigned ethnic home, and the colonial economy. The system is documented fact and became a central grievance of the later independence movement. economy / politics / society ●●

c. 1920 Rotary functions as a business and civic elite network 0 cit. From early on Rotary drew local business owners, professionals, and civic leaders, admitting roughly one member per line of work in each club. Weekly luncheons put bankers, lawyers, doctors, and merchants at the same table, mixing service with contacts and influence. This gave clubs a real role in local commerce and civic life, a documented feature of how they worked. economy / society ●●

c. 1920 The long legacy in coastal land and status contested 0 cit. After abolition many former slaves stayed on the plantations as squatters, working land that still belonged to their old owners. The coastal land question and the memory of who once owned whom shaped the region for generations. Descent from slaves remained a quiet source of stigma, and the unequal hold on coastal land it left behind is still argued over today. economy / society ●●●

c. 1920 Cash crops and wages flow to men 0 cit. The colonial economy paid men. Wage labour on settler farms and in towns was recruited from men, and the cash crops that were allowed were registered and marketed through male household heads. Women kept doing the food farming but lost ground as money and mobility became the new measure of power. Their control of the food economy no longer counted for as much once cash ruled. economy / society ●●

30 June 1921 Founding of the South African Reserve Bank 0 cit. The South African Reserve Bank opens in Pretoria as the first central bank in Africa. It takes over note issue from commercial banks and becomes the anchor of the continent's largest financial system. economy ●●●

10 June 1921 Budget and Accounting Act 0 cit. The act requires the president to submit a unified annual budget and creates the Bureau of the Budget, later the Office of Management and Budget, along with the General Accounting Office as Congress's auditor. It centralizes control of federal spending for the first time. economy / politics ●●●

March 1921 New Economic Policy Introduced 0 cit. Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy, allowing limited private trade and small business to revive an economy shattered by war and requisitioning. It was a partial retreat from strict state control. economy / politics ●●●

c. 1921 to c. 1922 Russian Famine of 1921 0 cit. Drought, war, and grain requisitioning produced a famine that killed millions, mainly along the Volga. International relief, including a large American effort, helped feed the starving. economy / society ●●●

25 August 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain 0 cit. Thousands of armed coal miners marching to unionize southern West Virginia clashed with a private army of sheriff's deputies and mine guards, in the largest armed labor uprising in American history. West Virginia's governor mobilized state militia and appealed for federal help, and President Harding sent Army troops and bombers to end the fighting after roughly a week. The confrontation, and the state and federal force used against it, marked the violent peak of the mine wars era. economy / politics ●●

c. 1921 The Shinkolobwe uranium mine opens 0 cit. Union Minière began working the Shinkolobwe deposit in Katanga, which held some of the richest uranium ore ever found. At first the mine was valued mainly for its radium. The site's uranium would soon take on strategic importance far beyond mining. economy / science ●●

c. 1921 Shinkolobwe uranium enriches the world radium trade 0 cit. After the discovery of the Shinkolobwe deposit around 1915, Union Miniere began producing radium from its unusually rich uranium ore in the early 1920s. For years the Congo mine dominated the world radium market, a valuable and dangerous trade run entirely for Belgian and shareholder profit. The same ore body would soon matter far more for a new reason, its uranium content. economy / science / technology ●●

c. 1921 The Soviet concessions policy opens the door to foreign capital 0 cit. Under the New Economic Policy, the Soviet government offered concessions that let foreign companies operate mines, factories, and trade inside Russia. The aim was to draw in Western capital and know-how while keeping political control. This began a decade of large technology transfers from Western firms into the Soviet economy. economy / politics ●●●

April 1922 Genoa Conference sets up the gold exchange standard 0 cit. An international conference at Genoa encouraged countries to hold reserves in gold-backed currencies rather than gold itself, to spread scarce gold further. This gold exchange standard shaped the fragile monetary order of the 1920s. economy / politics ●●●

1922 The movement adopts the name Rotary International 0 cit. As clubs spread across continents, the association renamed itself Rotary International to reflect its global reach. The body set common standards for clubs while leaving day-to-day service to local members. By this point Rotary had become a worldwide network of business and professional people. economy / society ●●

c. 1922 American service clubs spread across the world 0 cit. Through the 1910s and 1920s the leading clubs added chapters outside the United States, starting with Canada and Britain and then Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Rotary took the name Rotary International as its clubs multiplied abroad, and Lions and Kiwanis followed similar paths. The service club became a recognizable global institution of the business and professional middle class. economy / society ●

16 October 1923 Founding of Walt Disney Company 0 cit. Walt and Roy Disney found the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Los Angeles. Mickey Mouse, the first feature-length animated film, and theme parks make Disney the world's dominant entertainment company. culture / economy ●●●●

4 April 1923 Founding of Warner Bros 0 cit. The four Warner brothers incorporate their film studio in Hollywood. Its 1927 release The Jazz Singer, the first feature with synchronized speech, ends the silent film era. culture / economy ●●

1923 The German hyperinflation of 1923 0 cit. Germany printed vast amounts of money to cover debts and reparations, and prices spiraled so fast that banknotes became nearly worthless within hours. The episode became the classic example of hyperinflation destroying a currency. economy / politics ●●●●

22 December 1923 Hjalmar Schacht appointed head of the Reichsbank 0 cit. Hjalmar Schacht became President of the Reichsbank weeks after helping stop Germany's hyperinflation. He quickly formed a close working friendship with Montagu Norman and Benjamin Strong. economy / politics ●●●

15 November 1923 Germany stops hyperinflation with the Rentenmark 0 cit. Germany introduced the Rentenmark to end the hyperinflation that had destroyed the paper mark and wiped out middle-class savings. Hjalmar Schacht managed the stabilization, which restored a working currency but left deep social scars. economy / society ●●●●

c. 1924 Boston as an asset management center 0 cit. The first modern mutual fund, Massachusetts Investors Trust, launches in Boston in 1924. The city becomes a world center of asset management, home to Fidelity, State Street and other large fund houses. economy ●●

c. 1924 to c. 1931 An informal club of central bankers coordinates policy 0 cit. Through the 1920s Norman, Strong, Schacht, and the French governors ran monetary diplomacy largely among themselves, by letter, telegram, and private visits. Their shared belief in the gold standard shaped decisions that governments barely oversaw. economy / politics ●●●

1 September 1924 The Dawes Plan restructures German reparations 0 cit. The Dawes Plan eased Germany's reparations schedule and brought in large American loans to stabilize the economy. It tied German recovery to a flow of foreign credit that would reverse sharply after 1929. economy / politics ●●●

December 1925 Founding of IG Farben 0 cit. BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, and other German chemical firms merge into IG Farben, the largest chemical company in the world. Deeply complicit in Nazi crimes, including a factory at Auschwitz, it is broken up by the Allies after 1945. economy / politics / war ●●●

28 April 1925 Britain returns to the gold standard 0 cit. Chancellor Winston Churchill announced Britain's return to gold at the prewar rate of 4.86 dollars to the pound, on the advice of Montagu Norman and the Treasury. The high rate overvalued the pound and hurt British exports and employment. economy / politics ●●●●

28 April 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs 0 cit. This design and decorative arts exposition gave the Art Deco style its name, showcasing furniture, architecture, and design meant to look modern and luxurious rather than emphasizing heavy industry. It shaped design trends across architecture, fashion, and consumer goods worldwide for the following decade. culture / economy ●●

c. 1925 A Mission-Educated Landowning Class Emerges 0 cit. By the 1920s the families of government chiefs and the mission-educated athomi were turning their positions into wealth, accumulating land within the reserves, schooling their children, and presenting themselves as a modern, progressive elite. Their advancement depended on cooperation with missions and the colonial administration rather than on defying them. This propertied, church-going class opened a lasting split within Kikuyu society that would later separate the loyalists from the landless and the fighters. economy / politics / society ●●●

c. 1925 The Settler Cash-Crop Economy 0 cit. Settler farms built an export economy of coffee, tea, sisal, pyrethrum, wheat, and dairy, worked by African hands and shipped out on the railway. To protect their prices and profits, settlers had the state bar Africans from growing coffee and other lucrative crops well into the colonial period. The rule kept the most profitable farming a white monopoly and forced Africans to sell their labour rather than compete. economy / politics ●●

1925 The Resident Native Labourers Ordinance 0 cit. Laws on resident native labourers, first passed in 1918 and tightened in 1925, redefined the squatter not as a tenant with rights but as a labourer who owed a set number of days' work for the right to live on a farm. The change quietly converted squatters from semi-independent farmers into a bound workforce. It gave settlers the legal tools they would later use to strip squatter rights away altogether. economy / politics ●●

c. 1925 Collective punishment and stock seizure in the rangelands 0 cit. Across the pastoralist margins, colonial officers routinely fined whole communities for raids or resistance by confiscating cattle, sheep, and goats, punishing the group for the acts of individuals. For herding peoples, stock was both wealth and survival, so collective seizure was a blunt and lasting form of impoverishment. The tactic recurred over many years, so the date marks a standing practice rather than a single event. economy / politics ●●

c. 1925 Uganda grows a peasant cash-crop economy 0 cit. Uganda's wealth came from cotton and coffee grown by African smallholders, not from a settler planter class. Because no white minority held the best land, there was no mass land alienation and no settler army to defend. This administrative, extractive model stood in sharp contrast to Kenya's settler colony right across the border. economy / society ●●

1925 Harriman wins the Georgian manganese concession 0 cit. The American firm W. A. Harriman and Company secured a concession to develop the rich manganese deposits at Chiatura in Soviet Georgia. It was one of the largest early Western business ventures inside the Soviet Union. Deals like it show established American finance doing normal, profit-seeking business with the new state. economy ●●

c. 1925 Missions monopolise schooling, and education splits by region 0 cit. Because the missions ran nearly all African schools, the denominational map became an education map. Regions with dense, well-funded missions produced clerks, teachers, and an early elite; thinly served regions like the north and much of the pastoral country fell behind. The uneven reach of the missions helped set the regional inequality that still shapes Kenya. economy / religion / society ●●●