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Top Song(s)
• Al Jolson - Swanee
• Paul Whiteman - Whispering
• Mamie Smith - Crazy Blues
• Ben Selvin - Dardanella
• Marion Harris - St Louis Blues
Top Film(s)
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• One Week
• The Golem
• Way Down East
• The Scarecrow
Best Selling Book(s)
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
• The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
• The Story of Doctor Dolittle - Hugh Lofting
• Glinda of Oz - L. Frank Baum
• R.U.R. - Karel Capek
Famous Deaths
• January 1 – Zygmunt Gorazdowski, Polish Roman Catholic priest and saint.
• February 3 – Frank Brown, 42nd governor of Maryland.
• March 15 – Rudolf Berthold, German World War I fighter ace.
• May 1 – Princess Margaret of Connaught, Crown Princess of Sweden.
• June 13 – Essad Pasha Toptani, Prime Minister of Albania.
• August 12 – Hermann Struve, Russian-born astronomer.
• September 25 – Jacob Schiff, German-born banker, philanthropist.
• October 2 - Winthrop M. Crane, Governor of Massachusetts and Senator.
• November 3 – Warren Terhune, United States Navy Commander and 13th governor of American Samoa.
• November 25 - Madeline McDowell Breckinridge, American leader of the women's suffrage movement.
Medical/Science/Technology
• Black Cross Nurses founded in the United States.
• F.W. Aston shows that the molar mass of chlorine is a weighted average of the almost integral masses for the two isotopes.
• The New York Times ridicules rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard, stating that spaceflight is impossible.
• The red giant star Betelgeuse is the first to have its diameter determined by an optical astronomical interferometer.
• Andrew Douglass proposes dendrochronology dating.
• The HIV pandemic almost certainly originates in Léopoldville, modern-day Kinshasa, the capital of the Belgian Congo.
• Newcomen Society founded in the United Kingdom for the study of the history of engineering and technology.
• Dr. Frederick Banting of Ontario first records his insight on how to isolate insulin for the treatment of diabetes.
• Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt first describes some of the symptoms of what will become known as Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.
• Hydrocodone, a narcotic analgesic closely related to codeine, is first synthesized in Germany.
Political Events
• January 5 – 1920 United States Census count begins.
• January 7 – The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.
• January 17 – Prohibition in the United States begins with the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.
• January 19 - The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.
• February 14 – The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago.
• March 19 – United States Congress refuses to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.
• June 11 – During Republican National Convention in Chicago, party leaders gather to decide their presidential candidate.
• June 13 – The U.S. Post Office rules that children may not be sent via parcel post.
• July 29 – The United States Bureau of Reclamation begins construction of the Link River Dam.
• August 26 – Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed, guaranteeing women's suffrage.
National Events
• January 6 – Babe Ruth's December 26 trade to the New York Yankees is made public.
• January 19 - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is founded.
• March 28 – The 1920 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak hits the Great Lakes region and Deep South states.
• April 28 – Monongahela National Forest is established.
• May 2 – The first game of the Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• June 14 – Cherokee National Forest is established.
• July 6 – Lynching of Irving and Herman Arthur in Paris, Texas.
• August 1–6 – Denver streetcar strike of 1920.
• September 29 – First domestic radio sets come to stores in the United States – a Westinghouse radio costs $10.
• November 2 - KDKA (AM) of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starts broadcasting as a commercial radio station.
Worldwide Events
• January 1 - The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20.
• January 10 - The Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I.
• February 1 – The South African Air Force is established, the second autonomous Air Force in the world.
• February 13 – Switzerland joins the League of Nations.
• February 20 – An earthquake hits Gori in the Democratic Republic of Georgia, killing 114.
• March 15 – The Ruhr Red Army, a communist army 50,000 men strong, is formed in Germany.
• April 4 – Violence erupts between Arab and Jewish residents in Jerusalem; 9 are killed, 216 injured.
• May 3 – A Bolshevik coup fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
• July 30–August 8 – The 1st World Scout Jamboree is held at Olympia, London.
• September 5 - Mahatma Gandhi launches the Non-Cooperation Movement in India.