1923 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Warren G. Harding , Calvin Coolidge
• Vice President: Calvin Coolidge , vacant
• Chief Justice: William Howard Taft
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Frederick H. Gillett
• Senate Majority Leader: Henry Cabot Lodge
• Congress: 67th, 68th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• February 5 - United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind: The Supreme Court decides that Bhagat Singh Thind cannot become a naturalized U.S. citizen because, as a Punjabi Sikh, he is not a "white person".
• February 23 – The American Law Institute is incorporated.
• March 1 – The USS Connecticut is decommissioned.
• March 2 - The first issue of Time magazine is published.
• March 23 - The governor of Oklahoma signs House Bill 197 with the Montgomery amendment outlawing the theory of evolution in public school textbooks purchased by the state, the first anti-Darwinian legislation passed in the U.S.

  April–June

• April 18 - The first Yankee Stadium opens its doors in the Bronx, New York City.
• May 9 - Southeastern Michigan receives a record of snow after temperatures plummeted from to degrees between 13:00-18:00 on the previous day.
• May 27 - The Ku Klux Klan defies a law requiring publication of its members.

  July–September

• July 13 - The Hollywood Sign is inaugurated in California.
• August 2 - Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes the 30th President of the United States, upon the death of President Warren G. Harding.
• September 4 - The United States Navy's first home-built rigid airship USS Shenandoah makes her first flight at Naval Air Station Lakehurst ; she contains most of the world's extracted reserves of helium at this time.
• September 8 - Honda Point Disaster: Seven U.S. Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast.
• September 17 - 1923 Berkeley Fire: A major fire in Berkeley, California erupts, consuming some 640 structures, including 584 homes in the densely built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University of California.
• September 18-26 - Newspaper printers strike in New York City.
• September 29 - First American Track & Field championships for women, New Jersey

  October–December

• October 15 - The New York Yankees defeat the New York Giants, 4 games to 2, to win their first World Series Title.
• October 16 - Roy and Walt Disney found The Walt Disney Company.
• October 19 - War Resisters League organized by Jessie Wallace Hughan.
• December 10 - Sigma Alpha Kappa is founded at Loyola University New Orleans, making it the first social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the U.S.

  Undated

• Soledad C. Chacón takes office as Secretary of State of New Mexico; all subsequent holders of this office through 2011 will also be women.
• The Moderation League of New York becomes part of the movement for the repeal of Prohibition in the U.S.
• Rainbow trout introduced into the upper Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.

  Ongoing

• Lochner era
• U.S. occupation of Haiti
• Prohibition
• Roaring Twenties

  Births

• January 1 - Daniel Gorenstein, mathematician
• January 16 - Anthony Hecht, poet
• January 29
• *Jack Burke, Jr., golfer and coach
• *Paddy Chayefsky, writer
• January 31 - Norman Mailer, writer
• February 2
• *James Dickey, poet and author
• * Liz Smith, gossip columnist
• February 13
• * James Abdnor, U.S. Senator from South Dakota from 1981 to 1987
• * Chuck Yeager, pilot
• February 28
• *Jean Carson, actress
• * Charles Durning, actor
• March 9 - James L. Buckley, judge and U.S. Senator from New York from 1971 to 1977
• March 10 - Val Logsdon Fitch, nuclear physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
• March 14 - Diane Arbus, photographer
• March 27 - Jack O'Neill, businessman
• April 1
• * Leora Dana, actress
• * Bobby Jordan, actor
• April 3 - Daniel Hoffman, poet
• April 23 - Walter Pitts, logician and cognitive psychologist
• April 25 - Albert King, blues guitarist and singer
• May 1 - Joseph Heller, novelist
• May 16 - Merton Miller economist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
• June 8 - Malcolm Boyd, priest and author
• July 14 - Robert Zildjian, musical instrument manufacturer
• July 22
• * Bob Dole, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1969 to 1996
• * The Fabulous Moolah, wrestler
• July 31 - Stephanie Kwolek, polymer chemist
• August 3 - Jean Hagen, actress
• August 20 - Jim Reeves, country singer
• September 1 - Rocky Marciano, boxer
• September 3
• * Glen Bell, entrepreneur, founder of Taco Bell
• * Mort Walker, cartoonist, creator of Beetle Bailey
• September 9 - Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, virologist
• September 17 - Hank Williams, country musician
• September 26 - John Ertle Oliver, geophysicist
• October 4 - Charlton Heston, film actor
• October 20 - Robert Craft, orchestral conductor
• October 27 - Roy Lichtenstein, pop artist
• November 6 - Robert P. Griffin, U.S. Senator from Michigan from 1966 to 1979
• November 8 - Jack Kilby, electrical engineer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
• November 9 - James Schuyler, poet
• November 18 - Ted Stevens, U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009
• November 18 - Alan Shepard, astronaut
• November 23 - Daniel Brewster, U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1963 to 1969
• November 26 - Nat Allbright, sports commentator
• December 10 - Harold Gould, actor
• December 11
• * Betsy Blair, film actress
• * Lillian Cahn, Hungarian-American businesswoman, co-founder of Coach, Inc.
• December 12 - Bob Barker, game show host
• December 13
• * Philip Warren Anderson, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
• * Larry Doby, baseball player
• December 23 - James Stockdale, U.S. Navy admiral and vice presidential candidate
• December 24 - George Patton IV, U.S. Army general
• December 29 - Dina Merrill, actress, heiress, socialite, and philanthropist

  Deaths

• January 1 - Willie Keeler, baseball player
• February 26 - George Clement Perkins, U.S. Senator from California from 1893 to 1915
• April 28 - Knute Nelson, Governor of Minnesota from 1893 to 1895 and U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1895 to 1923
• August 2 - Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States from 1921 to 1923
• August 10 - Laura Redden Searing, deaf poet and journalist
• October 19 - Eleanor Norcross, painter
• October 23 - Hannah Johnston Bailey, temperance advocate and suffragist
• December 28 - Frank Hayes, actor