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Top Song(s)
• Marion Harris - I Ain't Got Nobody
• Nora Bayes - Make Believe
• Van & Schenck - Ain't We Got Fun?
• Eddie Cantor - Margie
• Fanny Brice - Second Hand Rose
Top Film(s)
• The Kid
• The Phantom Carriage
• Destiny
• The Haunted House
• Orphans of the Storm
Best Selling Book(s)
• Rilla of Ingleside - L.M. Montgomery
• We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
• Six Characters in Search of an Author - Luigi Pirandello
• Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini
• The Story of Mankind - Hendrik Willem van Loon
Famous Deaths
• January 25 – William Thompson Sedgwick, American teacher, epidemiologist and bacteriologist.
• March 22 – Edward Theodore Compton, English-German painter and mountain climber.
• April 11 – Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, last German Empress, wife of Wilhelm II, German Emperor.
• May 5 – Alfred Hermann Fried, Austrian writer, pacifist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
• May 19 - Edward Douglass White, 9th Chief Justice of the United States.
• June 29 - Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill.
• July 13 – Gabriel Lippmann, Luxembourger-French physicist, academic and Nobel Prize laureate.
• September 10 – John Tengo Jabavu, editor of South Africa's first newspaper in Xhosa.
• October 23 – John Boyd Dunlop, British-born Irish inventor, veterinary surgeon.
• November 27 – Sir Douglas Cameron, Canadian politician, Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba.
Medical/Science/Technology
• Commencement of Gas Dynamics Laboratory, 1st Soviet research and development laboratory to focus on rocket technology.
• Winkel tripel projection proposed.
• Thomas Midgley discovers the effective anti-knocking properties of tetraethyllead, which is used in "leaded" gasoline.
• Danish explorer Lauge Koch first sets foot on and names Kaffeklubben Island, the northernmost point of land on Earth.
• The first BCG vaccination against tuberculosis.
• Researchers biochemist Frederick Banting announce the discovery of the hormone insulin.
• American biochemist Elmer McCollum identifies vitamin D.
• Fidel Pages pioneers epidural anesthesia.
• Hugo A. F. Abt is granted a patent for his design of bascule bridge.
• The vibraphone in its original form is invented in the United States.
Political Events
• March 4 – Warren G. Harding is sworn in as the 29th president of the United States.
• March 9 – Cilicia Peace Treaty is signed between the French Third Republic and the Turkish National Movement.
• May 19 – The Emergency Quota Act passes the U.S. Congress, establishing national quotas on immigration.
• June 27 – The first signings of Treaty 11, an agreement between George V, King of Canada, and various Canadian First Nations.
• July 2 – U.S. President Warren Harding signs a joint congressional resolution declaring an end to America's state of war with Germany.
• July 11 – Former President of the United States William Howard Taft is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.
• July 26 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding receives Princess Fatima of Afghanistan.
• August 11 - Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness strikes, on August 25 he is diagnosed with polio.
• November 11 – During an Armistice Day, the Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by U.S. President Warren G. Harding.
• November 23 – In the United States, the Sheppard–Towner Act is signed by President Harding.
National Events
• January 2 - The first religious radio broadcast is heard, over station KDKA (AM) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• January 21 – The full-length silent film The Kid, written, produced, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin.
• February 24 - 1st transcontinental flight in 24 hrs. flying time arrives in Florida.
• April – The United States Figure Skating Association is formed.
• March 4 - Hot Springs National Park created in Arkansas.
• March 25 – The first Lowe's opens in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina.
• May 3 - West Virginia imposes 1st state sales tax.
• August 25–September 2 – An uprising of striking coal miners in West Virginia leads to the Battle of Blair Mountain.
• October 8 – The first Sweetest Day is staged in Cleveland, Ohio.
• October 26 – The Chicago Theatre, the oldest surviving grand movie palace, opens.
Worldwide Events
• January 20 – British K-class submarine HMS K5 sinks in the English Channel; all 57 on board are lost.
• February 27 – A Socialist congress at Vienna ends with the International Working Union of Socialist Parties founded.
• March 18 – The second Peace of Riga ends the Polish–Soviet War.
• March 21 - The New Economic Policy starts in Soviet Russia.
• May 1–7 – Jaffa riots: Riots at Jaffa, Mandatory Palestine result in 47 Jewish and 48 Arab deaths.
• May 3 – The province of Northern Ireland is created within the United Kingdom.
• May 5 - Chanel No. 5 perfume launched by Coco Chanel.
• June 3 – The death penalty is abolished in Sweden.
• July 1 - The first BCG vaccination against tuberculosis is given, in Paris, France; to a newborn child.
• August 23 – King Faisal I of Iraq is crowned in Baghdad.