Directory

1922 CE

A year in which the Soviet Union was formally established, Mussolini's March on Rome brought fascism to power in Italy, Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun's tomb, and the Irish Free State was born amid civil war.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formally established on December 30, uniting Soviet Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and the Transcaucasian republics into a single federal state.
  • The Irish Free State was officially established on December 6, one year after the Anglo-Irish Treaty, with W.T. Cosgrave serving as president of the Executive Council.
  • The Treaty of Rapallo was signed on April 16 between Germany and Soviet Russia, reestablishing diplomatic relations and secretly providing for military cooperation.
  • Egypt was granted formal independence from Britain on February 28, though Britain retained control over the Suez Canal, defense, and foreign affairs.
  • The Washington Naval Treaty was signed on February 6, establishing a ratio of capital ship tonnage among the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy.
  • The League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine on July 24, formalizing British administration of the territory.
  • Japan agreed to return the Shandong Peninsula to China at the Washington Conference, resolving a major source of Chinese nationalist resentment.
  • Mahatma Gandhi was arrested on March 10 and sentenced to six years in prison for sedition, temporarily halting the Indian noncooperation movement.
  • The Genoa Conference opened in April, bringing together 34 nations including Soviet Russia to discuss European economic reconstruction.
  • The Nine-Power Treaty was signed at the Washington Conference on February 6, pledging respect for Chinese territorial integrity and the Open Door Policy.

Conflict & Security

  • Benito Mussolini led the March on Rome on October 28, and King Victor Emmanuel III invited him to form a government, bringing the fascists to power in Italy.
  • The Irish Civil War began on June 28 when Free State forces attacked anti-Treaty IRA fighters occupying the Four Courts in Dublin.
  • Michael Collins, commander-in-chief of the Irish Free State Army and a key figure in Irish independence, was killed in an ambush at Béal na Bláth, County Cork, on August 22.
  • The Greco-Turkish War ended in a decisive Turkish victory as Turkish nationalist forces recaptured Smyrna in September, followed by a devastating fire that destroyed much of the city.
  • The Chanak Crisis in September brought Britain and Turkey to the brink of war over control of the Dardanelles straits, but was resolved through negotiation.
  • Arthur Griffith, president of Dáil Éireann and co-founder of Sinn Féin, died on August 12 from a cerebral hemorrhage during the early weeks of the Irish Civil War.
  • The Great Fire of Smyrna broke out in September following the Turkish recapture of the city, destroying much of the Greek and Armenian quarters and displacing hundreds of thousands.
  • Soviet forces completed the reconquest of the Russian Far East, incorporating the Far Eastern Republic into Soviet Russia in November.
  • The Rif War in Spanish Morocco continued as Abd el-Krim's Berber fighters maintained their resistance against Spanish colonial forces.
  • Political assassinations rocked the Weimar Republic as Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau was murdered by right-wing extremists on June 24.

Economy & Finance

  • German inflation accelerated rapidly as the mark fell from 320 to the dollar in January to over 7,000 by the end of the year.
  • The Fordney-McCumber Tariff was signed into law in the United States on September 21, raising import duties and further restricting international trade.
  • Britain experienced continued economic difficulties with high unemployment, particularly in the coal, steel, and shipbuilding industries.
  • The Soviet New Economic Policy allowed limited private enterprise and foreign concessions, producing modest economic recovery in urban areas.
  • The Dawes Committee was informally discussed as a potential mechanism for restructuring German reparation payments amid the worsening economic crisis.
  • Japan's economy remained sluggish following the postwar recession, with the silk industry continuing to suffer from weak international demand.
  • Italian economic instability contributed to Mussolini's rise, as strikes, inflation, and unemployment drove support for the fascist promise of order and prosperity.
  • The United States experienced economic recovery from the 1920-1921 recession, with industrial production rising and unemployment declining through the year.
  • Brazil's coffee industry faced a crisis of overproduction, prompting the government to purchase surplus stocks to support prices.
  • The Austrian economy stabilized somewhat after the League of Nations arranged an international loan to prevent complete financial collapse.

Technology & Infrastructure

  • The British Broadcasting Company, forerunner of the BBC, was founded on October 18 and began regular radio broadcasts from London on November 14.
  • The first commercially successful sound-on-film motion picture, produced using the Phonofilm process invented by Lee de Forest, was demonstrated publicly.
  • The aircraft carrier HMS Hermes was launched in September, becoming the first ship designed from the keel up as an aircraft carrier.
  • The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., on May 30, honoring the sixteenth president with a massive neoclassical structure.
  • Regular radio broadcasting expanded rapidly across the United States, with over 500 stations licensed by the end of the year.
  • Insulin was first administered to a human patient, fourteen-year-old Leonard Thompson, at Toronto General Hospital in January, though a purified version was needed before successful treatment.
  • The first shopping mall, Country Club Plaza, opened in Kansas City, Missouri, in November, designed by J.C. Nichols as an automobile-oriented retail center.
  • Herbert T. Kalmus and the Technicolor Corporation demonstrated an improved two-color Technicolor process for motion pictures.
  • The first successful use of an aircraft catapult for launching planes from warships was demonstrated by the U.S. Navy.
  • Telephone service continued to expand in the United States, with the number of installed telephones reaching approximately 14 million.

Science & Discovery

  • Howard Carter discovered the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings on November 4, revealing the most intact pharaonic tomb ever found.
  • Niels Bohr received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory.
  • Alexander Friedmann published his mathematical solutions to Einstein's field equations, demonstrating that the universe could be expanding, a concept Einstein initially rejected.
  • The Stern-Gerlach experiment demonstrated space quantization by passing silver atoms through an inhomogeneous magnetic field, confirming key predictions of quantum mechanics.
  • Arthur Compton began his experiments on X-ray scattering by electrons, providing evidence for the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation.
  • Egyptologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon opened Tutankhamun's tomb on November 26, discovering the sealed burial chamber with its treasures intact.
  • Frederick Banting and John Macleod shared credit for the clinical development of insulin, though Banting credited Charles Best as his essential collaborator.
  • Soviet mathematician Alexander Friedmann challenged the prevailing view of a static universe by showing Einstein's equations permitted dynamic cosmological solutions.
  • Vilhelm Bjerknes and the Bergen School of meteorology continued developing the polar front theory, advancing scientific weather forecasting.
  • The element hafnium was discovered by Dirk Coster and George de Hevesy in Copenhagen, confirming Niels Bohr's prediction of its properties based on his atomic model.

Health & Medicine

  • Insulin was first successfully used to treat a diabetic patient when Leonard Thompson received purified insulin at Toronto General Hospital in January, transforming diabetes from a death sentence into a manageable condition.
  • The BCG tuberculosis vaccine began broader clinical trials in France, with Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin administering it to newborns at risk of infection.
  • The Russian famine continued into 1922, with typhus, cholera, and other diseases killing hundreds of thousands alongside starvation.
  • Vitamin D was identified as the substance that prevented rickets, advancing understanding of nutritional deficiencies and their role in disease.
  • The Rockefeller Foundation expanded its international public health programs, funding hookworm eradication and yellow fever research in tropical countries.
  • Archibald Hill and Otto Meyerhof shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries relating to heat production in muscles and lactic acid metabolism.
  • The American Hospital Association established standards for hospital accreditation, working to improve the quality of institutional medical care.
  • Scarlet fever remained a significant childhood illness, with high mortality rates in crowded urban areas before the development of effective antibiotics.
  • Public health authorities in the United States continued campaigns against tuberculosis, promoting chest X-rays and sanatorium treatment.
  • International efforts to combat malaria expanded as the League of Nations Health Organisation coordinated research and control programs.

Climate & Environment

  • Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was approximately 304 parts per million, as estimated from ice core records and early chemical measurements.
  • The Swatow typhoon's aftermath continued to affect the coastal regions of Guangdong province, with recovery from the devastating 1921 storm still ongoing.
  • A severe ice storm struck the northeastern United States in late November, downing telegraph and power lines and disrupting transportation.
  • The Izmir fire in September, following the Turkish recapture of Smyrna, created an environmental catastrophe as the burned city's ruins contaminated water supplies.
  • Yellowstone National Park celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, drawing attention to the American conservation movement and the value of wilderness preservation.
  • The U.S. Forest Service continued reforestation efforts in the eastern United States, planting millions of trees on cutover and abandoned farmland.
  • Commercial whaling operations expanded in Antarctic waters, with Norwegian and British fleets establishing factory ships to process whale carcasses at sea.
  • The Dust Bowl's preconditions worsened as farmers on the Great Plains continued to plow native grasslands for wheat cultivation.
  • Coastal erosion along the British coast prompted early engineering studies into shoreline protection and sea defense structures.
  • Flooding along the Yangtze River in China caused significant damage to agricultural lands and displaced communities in the river's middle reaches.

Culture & Society

  • James Joyce published Ulysses on February 2 in Paris, revolutionizing the modern novel with its stream-of-consciousness narrative and dense literary allusions.
  • T.S. Eliot published The Waste Land in October, a landmark modernist poem reflecting postwar disillusionment and cultural fragmentation.
  • Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau's unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, was released in Germany, becoming a landmark of Expressionist cinema.
  • The Reader's Digest was founded by DeWitt and Lila Wallace in February, becoming one of the most widely circulated magazines in the world.
  • Emily Post published Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home, establishing the definitive guide to American manners and social conduct.
  • Louis Armstrong left New Orleans to join King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in Chicago, helping to spread jazz music from its birthplace to a national audience.
  • The tomb of Tutankhamun captivated the world's imagination, sparking a global fascination with ancient Egypt that influenced fashion, art, and architecture.
  • Hermann Hesse published Siddhartha, a novel exploring spiritual self-discovery that drew on Hindu and Buddhist philosophies.
  • The first Newbery Medal was awarded to Hendrik Willem van Loon for The Story of Mankind, establishing the premier prize for American children's literature.
  • The world population was approximately 1.89 billion.