January

January 11: Use of insulin for diabetes.

• January 7 – Dáil Éireann, the extra-legal parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes.
• January 8 – The Social Democratic Youth League of Norway is founded.
• January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éireann.
• January 11 – The first successful insulin treatment of diabetes is made.
• January 12 – The British government releases the remaining Irish prisoners captured in the War of Independence.
• January 13 – The flu epidemic has claimed 804 victims in Britain.
• January 15 – Michael Collins becomes Chairman of the Irish Provisional Government.
• January 22 – Pope Benedict XV dies.
• January 24 – Christian K. Nelson patents the Eskimo Pie.
• January 26 – Italian forces occupy Misurata in Libya. The reconquest of Libya begins.
• January 29 – The union of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador is dissolved.

February

February 1: William Desmond Taylor murdered.

• February – Ring Magazine is first published.
• February 1 – American actor William Desmond Taylor is murdered.
• February 2 – Ulysses, by James Joyce, is published in Paris on his 40th birthday by Sylvia Beach.
• February 5 – DeWitt and Lila Wallace publish the first issue of Reader's Digest.
• February 6
  • Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti) succeeds Pope Benedict XV as the 259th pope.
  • Five Power Naval Disarmament Treaty signed between United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy
• February 8
  • President of the United States Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio in the White House.
  • In the Soviet Union, the Cheka becomes the GPU, a section of the NKVD.
• February 14 – Finnish Minister of the Interior Heikki Ritavuori is assassinated by Ernst Tandefelt.
• February 15 – Inaugural session of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ).
• February 22 – Following intense nationalist agitation after World War I, Great Britain proclaims Egypt formally independent but continues to occupy the country militarily and control its politics.
• February 25 – Murderer Henri Désiré Landru is beheaded by the guillotine.
• February 27 – A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
• February 28 – The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over Egypt through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

February 28: Egypt independent.

March

• March 1
  • An ice mass breaks the Oder Dam in Breslau.
  • The British Civil Aviation Authority is established.
• March 4 The movie Nosferatu was released.
• March 11 – Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in Bombay for sedition.
• March 13 – Prince of Wales Edward inaugurates the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College in Dehradun, India, marking a capitulation of the British Empire to growing pressure for the Indianization of the Officer Cadre of the British Indian Army.
• March 15 – Egypt having gained nominal independence from the United Kingdom, Fuad I becomes King of Egypt.
• March 18 – In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to 6 years in prison for sedition (he serves only 2 years).
• March 20 – The USS Langley is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.
• March 23 – Queensland, Australia abolishes the Legislative Council (Upper House).

April

• April 3 – Joseph Stalin is appointed General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party.
• April 7
  • Teapot Dome scandal: The United States Secretary of the Interior leases Teapot Dome oil reserves in Wyoming.
  • The first midair collision occurs, between a Daimler Airway de Havilland DH.18 and a Compagnie des Grands Express Aériens Farman Goliath over Poix-de-Picardie, Amiens, France.
• April 10 – The historic Genoa Conference commences in Genoa. The representatives of 34 countries convene to speak about monetary economics in the wake of World War I.
• April 13 – The State of Massachusetts opens all public offices to women.
• April 15 – The United Kingdom's Prince of Wales visits the Japanese paramilitary youth group Seinendan in annexed Korea.
• April 16 – The Treaty of Rapallo marks a rapprochement between the Weimar Republic and Bolshevik Russia.
• April 22 – The Lambda Chapter of the Joe Whelan Sorority, Incorporated (the first chapter of a black sorority in New York State) is chartered.

May

• May 5 – In The Bronx, construction begins on Yankee Stadium.
• May 11 – Radio station KGU begins broadcasting in Hawaii.
• May 12 – A 20-ton meteorite lands near Blackstone, Virginia, USA.
• May 18 – Sergei Diaghilev, James Joyce, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Proust and Igor Stravinsky dine together in Paris, at the Majestic hotel, their only joint meeting.
• May 19 – The Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union is established.
• May 29 – British Liberal MP Horatio Bottomley is jailed for seven years for fraud.
• May 30 – In Washington, D.C., the Lincoln Memorial is dedicated.

May 30: The Lincoln memorial dedicated.

June

• June 1
  • The Royal Ulster Constabulary is officially founded.
  • Bolshevik forces defeat Basmachi troops under Enver Pasha.
• June 11 – U.S. première of Robert J. Flaherty's Nanook of the North, the first commercially successful feature length documentary film.
• June 14 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding makes his first speech on the radio.
• June 22 – Irish Republican Army agents assassinate British field marshal Henry Hughes Wilson in Belgravia; the assassins are sentenced to death July 18.
• June 24 – Weimar Republic foreign minister Walter Rathenau is assassinated; the murderers are captured July 17.
• June 26 – Louis Honoré Charles Antoine Grimaldi becomes Reigning Prince Louis II of Monaco.
• June 28 – The Irish Civil War begins.

July

• July 11 – The Hollywood Bowl opens.

August

• August 2 – A typhoon hits Shantou, China, killing more than 50,000 people.
• August 22 – General Michael Collins is assassinated in West Cork.
• August 23
  • Morocco revolts against the Spanish.
  • The Turkish large-scale attack opened against Greek forces in Afyon.
• August 28 – Japan agrees to withdraw its troops from Siberia.

September

• September 9 – Turkish forces pursuing withdrawing Greek troops enter İzmir.
• September 11
  • The Sun News-Pictorial, a predecessor of the Melbourne, Australia Herald Sun, is founded.
  • The Mandate of Palestine is approved by the Council of the League of Nations.
• September 13
  • The Gdynia Seaport Construction Act is passed by the Polish Parliament.
  • The highest temperature in recorded history is taken in at 136.4 degrees F (58 degrees C), in El Aziziyah, Libya in the shade.
• September 13 – 15 – Fire, probably started by Turkish troops, destroys most of Smyrna, killing an estimated 100,000.
• September 17 – Dutch cyclist Piet Moeskops becomes World Champion Sprinter.
• September 18 – Hungary joins the League of Nations.
• September 29 – Drums in the Night (Trommeln in der Nacht) becomes the first play by Bertolt Brecht to be staged, at the Munich Kammerspiele.

October

Benito Mussolini and Fascist Blackshirts during the March on Rome.

• October 1 – G.I. Gurdjieff opens his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Fontainebleau in France.
• October 9 – Sir William Horwood, London Metropolitan Police Service commissioner, is poisoned by arsenic-filled chocolates.
• October 18 – The British Broadcasting Company is formed.
• October 23 – The German army occupies Saxony and crushes the Soviet Republic of Saxony.
• October 25 – The Third Dáil enacts the Constitution of the Irish Free State.
• October 28
  • In Italy, with the March on Rome, Fascism obtains power and Benito Mussolini becomes prime minister.
  • The Red Army occupies Vladivostok.
• October 30 – Benito Mussolini becomes the youngest Premier in the history of Italy.

November

• November 1
  • The Ottoman Empire is abolished and its last sultan Mehmed VI Vahdettin abdicates.
  • A broadcasting licence fee of 10 shillings is introduced in the United Kingdom.
• November 4 – In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
• November 12 – Sigma Gamma Rho (ΣΓΡ) Sorority, Incorporated is founded by 7 educators in Indianapolis, Indiana. The group becomes an incorporated national collegiate sorority on December 30, 1929, when a charter is granted to the Alpha Chapter at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• November 14 – The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) begins radio service in the United Kingdom. 2LO becomes the first radio station in the United Kingdom.
• November 15 – In the United Kingdom general election forced by the Conservatives' withdrawal from the coalition government, the Conservative Party wins an overall majority. (The 1922 Committee, popularly believed to take its name from this occasion, is not founded until the following year.)
• November 17 – Former Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI leaves for exile in Italy.
• November 19 – Abdul Mejid II, Crown Prince of the Ottoman Empire, is elected Caliph.
• November 21 – Rebecca Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first woman United States Senator.
• November 24 – Popular author and Irish Republican Army member Robert Erskine Childers is executed by an Irish Free State firing squad for illegally carrying a revolver.
• November 26 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3,000 years.

December

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is created. (Second flag of the USSR).

• December 5 – The British Parliament enacts the Irish Free State Constitution Act, by which it legally sanctions the new Constitution of the Irish Free State.
• December 6 – The Irish Free State officially comes into existence. George V becomes the Free State's monarch. Tim Healy is appointed first Governor-General of the Irish Free State and W. T. Cosgrave becomes President of the Executive Council.
• December 11 – End of the trial of Frederick Bywaters and Edith Thompson at the Old Bailey. Both found guilty and sentenced to death.
• December 16 – Gabriel Narutowicz, president of Poland, is assassinated.
• December 30 – Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasia come together to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Date unknown

• Earl W. Bascom, rodeo cowboy and artist, designs and makes rodeo's first hornless bronc saddle at Lethbridge, Alberta Canada.
• Inter-Parliamentary Union
• Vegemite is invented by Australian Fred Walker.
• Kurd Istigdul Djemijetin, the Kurdish Independence Committee, is founded.
• The Molly Pitcher Club is formed to promote the repeal of prohibition in the United States.
• Thompson Webb founds the Webb School for Boys.
• The Barbary Lion becomes extinct in the wild, with the last killed in Morocco, in the area of the Zelan and Beni Mguild Forests.^[1].
• The Amur Tiger becomes extinct in South Korea.^[2].
• The California grizzly bear becomes extinct.
• Japan signs a naval arms limitation treaty with the Western powers and returns some of its control over the Shandong Peninsula to China.
• Wracked by rapid inflation and political assassinations and motivated by hostility and arrogance as well, the Weimar Republic announces its inability to pay more and proposes a moratorium on reparations for 3 years.
• Bronisław Malinowski's influential ethnological text Argonauts of the Western Pacific is published.
• Following the annexation of former German colonies after the First World War, the British Empire reaches its height and largest extent, covering a quarter of the world and ruling over one in four humans.

Births

January–February

• January 1 – Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, U.S. Senator from South Carolina
• January 7 – Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flutist (d. 2000)
• January 8 – Jan Nieuwenhuys, Dutch painter (d. 1986)
• January 9
  • Har Gobind Khorana, Indian biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
  • Ahmed Sékou Touré, African politician (d. 1984)
• January 12 – Tadeusz Żychiewicz, Polish journalist, art historian and publicist (d. 1994)
• January 13 – Albert Lamorisse, French film director (d. 1970)
• January 16 – Ernesto Bonino, Italian singer (d. 2008)
• January 17
  • Nicholas Katzenbach, former U.S. Attorney General
  • Betty White, American television actress (The Golden Girls)
• January 19 – Guy Madison, American actor (d. 1996)
• January 21
  • Paul Scofield, English actor (d. 2008)
  • Telly Savalas, American actor and singer (Kojak) (d. 1994)
• January 22
  • Leonel Brizola, Brazilian politician (d. 2004)
  • Annabelle Lee, American female professional baseball player (d. 2008)
  • Howard Moss, American poet, dramatist, and critic (d. 1987)
  • Helen Smith, American female baseball player
• January 24 – Charles Socarides, American psychiatrist (d. 2005)
• January 28 – Robert W. Holley, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1993)
• January 30 – Dick Martin, American comedian (Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In) (d. 2008)
• February 1 – Renata Tebaldi, Italian soprano (d. 2004)
• February 2 – Stoyanka Mutafova, Bulgarian actress
• February 6
  • Patrick Macnee, British actor (The Avengers)
  • Bill Johnston, Australian cricketer (d. 2007)
  • Denis Norden, British television and radio scriptwriter and personality
• February 9
  • Kathryn Grayson, American actress (d. 2010)
  • Jim Laker, British cricketer (d. 1986)
• February 10 – Arpad Goncz, President of Hungary
• February 12 – Tun Hussein Onn, third Prime Minister of Malaysia (d. 1990)
• February 13 – Gordon Tullock, American economist
• February 15 – John Bayard Anderson, U.S Congressman and Presidential candidate
• February 17
  • Enrico Banducci, American nightclub owner (d. 2007)
  • Marshall Teague, American race car driver (d. 1959)
• February 18
  • Helen Gurley Brown, American editor and publisher (Cosmopolitan)
  • Connie Wisniewski, American female professional baseball player (d. 1995)
• February 24
  • Richard Hamilton, British painter
  • Steven Hill, American actor
• February 26
  • William Baumol, American economist
  • Margaret Leighton, British actress (d. 1976)
  • Karl Aage Præst, Danish football player

March–April

• March 1
  • William Gaines, American magazine publisher (MAD) (d. 1992)
  • Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1995)
• March 4
  • Richard E. Cunha, American cinematographer and film director (d. 2005)
  • Martha O'Driscoll, American film actress (d. 1998)
  • Dina Pathak (Deena Pathak), veteran Gujarati theatre and film actress (d. 2002)
• March 5 – Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian film director (d. 1975)
• March 8
  • Cyd Charisse, American actress and dancer (d. 2008)
  • Mizuki Shigeru, Japanese author
  • Ralph H. Baer, German-born American inventor
  • Evgeniy Matveyev, Russian actor and film director (d. 2003)
• March 9
  • Tommy Cooper, Welsh comedian and magician (d. 1984)
  • Flemming Valdemar, Count of Rosenborg, (d. 2002)
• March 11 – Tun Abdul Razak, second Prime Minister of Malaysia (d. 1976)
• March 12
  • Jack Kerouac, American author (On The Road) (d. 1969)
  • Lane Kirkland, American union leader (d. 1999)
• March 16 – Harding Lemay, American television scriptwriter and playwright
• March 17 – Patrick Suppes, American philosopher
• March 18 – Egon Bahr, German politician
• March 20 – Carl Reiner, American film director, producer, actor, and comedian (Your Show of Shows)
• March 21
  • Russ Meyer, American film director and producer (d. 2004)
  • Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister of Bangladesh (d. 1975)
• March 22
  • Josephine Kabick, American professional baseball player (AAGPBL) (d. 1978)
  • Claire Schillace, American baseball player (AAGPBL) (d. 1999)
• March 27 – Stefan Wul, French writer (d. 2003)
• March 28
  • Felice Chiusano, Italian singer (Quartetto Cetra) (d. 1990)
  • Joey Maxim, American boxer (d. 2001)
• March 31 – Richard Kiley, American actor and singer (d. 1999)
• April 1 – William Manchester, American writer (d. 2004)
• April 3
  • Maurice Riel, Canadian senator (d. 2007)
  • Doris Day, American singer and actress
• April 4 – Elmer Bernstein, American composer (d. 2004)
• April 5
  • Tom Finney, English footballer
  • Christopher Hewett, British actor (Mr. Belvedere) (d. 2001)
  • Gale Storm, American singer and actress (d. 2009)
• April 7 – Mongo Santamaria, Cuban jazz musician (Watermelon Man) (d. 2003)
• April 13 – Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania (d. 1999)
• April 14 – Ali Akbar Khan, Indian musician (d. 2009)
• April 16
  • Kingsley Amis, English novelist (d. 1995)
  • Leo Tindemans, former Belgian Prime Minister
• April 19 – Erich Hartmann, World War II German fighter pilot (d. 1993)
• April 22 – Charles Mingus, American musician (d. 1979)
• April 23 – Marjorie Cameron, American writer, painter, actress and occultist (d. 1995)
• April 24 – Susanna Agnelli, Italian politician (d. 2009)
• April 27 – Jack Klugman, American actor (The Odd Couple and Quincy, M.E.)
• April 28 – Alistair MacLean, Scottish writer (d. 1987)

May–June

• May 1 – Vitaly Popkov, Russian fighter ace (d. 2010)
• May 4 – Eugenie Clark, American marine biologist known as the "Shark Lady"
• May 7
  • Darren McGavin, American actor (Kolchak: The Night Stalker) (d. 2006)
  • Joe O'Donnell, American documentary photographer, photojournalist (d. 2007)
• May 10 – Nancy Walker, American movie and television actress (Rhoda) (d. 1992)
• May 11 – Ameurfina Melencio-Herrera, Filipino Supreme Court jurist
• May 13
  • Otl Aicher, German graphic artist (d. 1991)
  • Michael Ainsworth, British cricketeer (d. 1978)
  • Beatrice Arthur, American actress and comedienne (Maude and The Golden Girls) (d. 2009)
• May 14 – Franjo Tuđman, President of Croatia (d. 1999)
• May 15 – Jakucho Setouchi, Japanese writer and Buddhist nun
• May 18
  • Gerda Boyesen, Norwegian-born body psychotherapist (d. 2005)
  • Kai Winding, Danish-born musician (d. 1983)
• May 19 – Joe Gilmore, Irish, longest running Head Barmen at The Savoy Hotel's American Bar
• May 21 – James Lopez Watson, American judge (d. 2001)
• May 22 – Quinn Martin, American television producer (d. 1987)
• May 25 – Enrico Berlinguer, Italian politician (d. 1984)
• May 27 – Sir Christopher Lee, English actor
• May 28 – Lou Duva, American boxing trainer
• May 29 – Iannis Xenakis, Greek composer (d. 2001)
• May 29 – Eleanor Coerr, American writer (d. 2010)
• May 30 – Hal Clement, American writer (d. 2003)
• May 31 – Denholm Elliott, English actor (d. 1992)
• June 1 – Povel Ramel, Swedish musician (d. 2007)
• June 2 – Charlie Sifford, American golfer
• June 10
  • Robert Alan Aurthur, American screenwriter (d. 1978)
  • Judy Garland, American singer and actress (The Wizard of Oz) (d. 1969)
• June 18 – Claude Helffer, French pianist (d. 2004)
• June 19 – Aage Bohr, Danish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2009)
• June 22 – Mona Lisa, Filipino actress
• June 24 – Tata Giacobetti, Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra) (d. 1988)
• June 29 – Vasko Popa, Yugoslavian poet (d. 1991)

July–August

• July 3 – Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo painter, called Corneille (d. 2010)
• July 13 – Anker Jørgensen, Danish politician
• July 15 – Leon M. Lederman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• July 18 – Thomas Kuhn, American philosopher of science (d. 1996)
• July 19 – Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman, King of Malaysia (d. 2008)
• July 21 – Mollie Sugden, British actress (d. 2009)
• July 27 – Norman Lear, American television writer and producer
• July 31 – Bill Kaysing, American writer (d. 2005)
• August 3 – Robert Sumner, American evangelist and author
• August 15 – Lukas Foss, German-born composer (d. 2009)
• August 17 – Agostinho Neto, Angolan politician (d. 1979)
• August 21 – Mel Fisher, American treasure hunter and founder of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum (d. 1998)
• August 23 – George Kell, baseball player (d. 2009)
• August 24
  • René Lévesque, 23rd Premier of Quebec (d. 1987)
  • Howard Zinn, American social activist and historian (A People's History of the United States) (d. 2010)
• August 27 – Sosuke Uno, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1998)

September–October

• September 1
  • Yvonne De Carlo, Canadian-born actress (The Munsters) (d. 2007)
  • Vittorio Gassmann, Italian actor and director (d. 2000)
• September 3
  • Salli Terri, Canadian mezzo-soprano (d. 1996)
  • Steffan Danielsen, Faroese painter (d. 1976)
• September 7 – David Croft, British writer, producer and actor
• September 8
  • Sid Caesar, American actor and comedian (Your Show of Shows)
  • Lyndon LaRouche, American self-styled economist and political activist
• September 9
  • Hans Georg Dehmelt, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
  • Warwick Kerr, Brazilian geneticist
• September 10 – Yma Súmac, Peruvian singer (d. 2008)
• September 12 – Jackson Mac Low, American poet (d. 2004)
• September 15
  • Jackie Cooper, American actor and director
  • Phyllis Koehn, American female professional baseball player (d. 2007)
• September 17 – Vance Bourjaily, American writer, novelist, playwright, journalist, and essayist (d. 2010)
• September 22 – Chen Ning Yang, Chinese-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 24 – Floyd Levin, American-born musicologist (d. 2007)
• September 25 – Hammer DeRoburt, first President of Nauru (d. 1992)
• October 1 – Burke Marshall, American lawyer and politician (d. 2003)
• October 5 – José Froilán González, Argentine race car driver
• October 15 – Luigi Giussani, Italian Catholic priest (d. 2005)
• October 19 – Jack Anderson, American journalist (d. 2005)
• October 22 – John Chafee, American politician (d. 1999)
• October 26 – Madelyn Dunham, American maternal grandmother of Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States (d. 2008)
• October 27 – Poul Bundgaard, Danish actor and singer (d. 1998)
• October 31
  • Barbara Bel Geddes, American actress (Dallas) (d. 2005)
  • Norodom Sihanouk, former King of Cambodia

November–December

• November 6 – Vivian Kellogg, American professional baseball player
• November 8 – Christiaan Barnard, South African surgeon (d. 2001)
• November 9
  • Raymond Devos, French humorist (d. 2006)
  • Dorothy Dandridge, American actress (d. 1965)
• November 11 – Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist (Slaughterhouse Five) (d. 2007)
• November 14
  • Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egyptian Secretary General of the United Nations
  • Veronica Lake, American actress (d. 1973)
• November 15 – David Sidney Feingold, American biochemist
• November 16
  • Sidney Mintz, American anthropologist
  • José Saramago, Portuguese author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2010)
  • Hoang Minh Chinh, Vietnamese politician and dissident (d. 2008)
• November 17 – Stanley Cohen, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• November 19 – Yuri Knorozov, Russian linguist and epigrapher (d. 1999)
• November 23 – Donald Tennant, American advertising agency executive (d. 2001)
• November 25 – Shelagh Fraser, British actress (d. 2000)
• November 26 – Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist (Peanuts) (d. 2000)
• December 5 – William Davidson, American sports owner (d. 2009)
• December 9 – Redd Foxx, American comedian (Sanford and Son) (d. 1991)
• December 11 – Dilip Kumar, Indian actor
• December 12 – Christian Dotremont, Belgian painter and writer (d. 1979)
• December 14 – Nikolay Basov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
• December 17 – Alan Voorhees, American engineer and urban planner (d. 2005)
• December 20 – Charita Bauer, American actress/soap opera star (d. 1985)
• December 21 – Itubwa Amram, Nauruan pastor and politician (d. 1989)
• December 22
  • Jack Brooks, American politician
  • Edythe Perlick, American female baseball player (d. 2003)
• December 23 – Micheline Ostermeyer, French athlete and musician (d. 2001)
• December 24 – Ava Gardner, American actress (d. 1990)
• December 28 – Stan Lee, American comics creator (Marvel Comics)
• December 29 – William Gaddis, American writer (d. 1998)

Deaths

January–June

• January 1 – István Kühár, Slovene (Prekmurian) writer and politician (b. 1887)
• January 5 – Ernest Shackleton, Irish explorer (b. 1874)
• January 10 – Okuma Shigenobu, 8th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1838)
• January 22
  • Pope Benedict XV (b. 1854)
  • Fredrik Bajer, Danish politician and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1837)
• January 23 – Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor (b. 1855)
• January 27
  • Nellie Bly, American undercover journalist (b. 1864)
  • Giovanni Verga, Italian writer (b. 1840)
• February 1
  • Yamagata Aritomo, 3rd Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1838)
  • William Desmond Taylor, Irish-born film director (b. 1872)
• February 3 – John Butler Yeats, Northern Irish artist (b. 1839)
• February 14 – Heikki Ritavuori, Finnish Minister of Interior (b. 1880)
• March 1 – Rafael Moreno Aranzadi, Spanish footballer (b. 1892)
• March 4 – Bert Williams, American entertainer (b. 1874)
• March 24 – Walter Parr, British preacher (b. 1871)
• April 1 – Emperor Karl I of Austria (b. 1887)
• April 2 – Hermann Rorschach, Swiss psychiatrist (b. 1884)
• April 9 – Hans Fruhstorfer, German lepidopterist {b. 1866)
• May 3 – Viktor Kingissepp, Estonian Communist politician (b. 1888)
• May 7 – Max Wagenknecht, German composer (b. 1857)
• May 12 – John Martin Poyer, United States Navy Commander and the 12th Governor of American Samoa (b. 1861)
• May 18 – Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1845)
• May 19 – Son, Byong-Hi, Korean activist (b. 1861)
• June 4 – William Halse Rivers Rivers, English doctor (b. 1864)
• June 6 – Lillian Russell, American singer and actress (b. 1861)
• June 18 – Jacobus Kapteyn, Dutch astronomer (b. 1851)
• June 20 – Vittorio Monti, Italian Composer (b. 1868)
• June 26 – Albert I of Monaco (b. 1848)

July–December

• July 4 – Lothar von Richthofen, German World War I flying ace (b. 1894)
• July 20 – Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician (b. 1856)
• July 22 – Jokichi Takamine, Japanese chemist (b. 1854)
• August 2 – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born inventor (b. 1847)
• August 5 – Harry Boland, Irish republican (b. 1887)
• August 12 – Arthur Griffith, President of Ireland (b. 1872)
• August 14 – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, British newspaper magnate (b. 1865)
• August 22 – Michael Collins, Irish leader (killed in ambush) (b. 1890)
• August 29 – Georges Sorel, French socialist (b. 1847)
• September 4 – Sarah L. Winchester, American builder of the Winchester Mystery House (b. 1837)
• September 4 – James Young, Scottish footballer, motorcycle accident (b. 1882) ^[3]
• September 10 – Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, English poet (b. 1840)
• September 26 – Thomas E. Watson, American politician and senator (b. 1856)
• October 7 – Marie Lloyd, English singer (b. 1870)
• October 30 – Géza Gárdonyi, Hungarian author (b. 1863)
• November 1 – Lima Barreto, Brazilian writer (b. 1881)
• November 7 – Sam Thompson, American baseball player (b. 1860)
• November 18 – Marcel Proust, French author (In Search of Lost Time) (b. 1871)
• November 23 – Eduard Seler, Prussian scholar and Mesoamericanist (b. 1849)
• November 24 – Robert Erskine Childers, Irish novelist and nationalist (executed) (b. 1870)
• November 30 – René Cresté, French actor and director (b. 1881)
• December 12 – John Wanamaker, American businessman (b. 1838)
• December 13 – Hannes Hafstein, 1st Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1861)
• December 16 – Gabriel Narutowicz, President of Poland (b. 1865)