1923

1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar.  The Julian calendar was made obsolete starting that year, though Eastern Orthodox churches still use the Julian Calendar.

Events 
 January 1 – Grouping of all UK railway companies into four larger companies
 January 10 – Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel
 January 11 – Troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to pay its reparation payments
 February 16 – Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun
 February 22 – Barcelona (Catalonia): Albert Einstein visits the city, invited by the scientist Esteban Terradas i Illa, as part of the monografics course of High Studies and Exchange organized by the Mancomunitat de Catalunya and conducted by Rafael de Campalans.
 March – Antigone by Jean Cocteau appears on a Paris stage. Settings by Pablo Picasso, music by Arthur Honegger, and costumes by Gabrielle Chanel. Antonin Artaud played the part of Tiresias.
 March 1 – USS Connecticut decommissioned
 March 2 – Time Magazine hits newsstands for the first time
 March 9 – Vladimir Lenin suffers a stroke, his third, which renders him bedridden and unable to speak; consequently he retires his position as Chairman of the Soviet government.
 April – End of Irish Civil War
 April 12 – Kandersteg International Scout Centre came into existence.
 April 23 – Ceremonial inauguration of Gdynia Seaport
 April 26 – Wedding of Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Westminster Abbey
 May 23 – Launch of Belgium's SABENA Airlines
 May 27 – Ku Klux Klan defies law requiring publication of its members
 June 9 – Military coup in Bulgaria – prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski is ousted (he is killed June 14)
 June 18 – Etna volcano erupts – 60.000 made homeless

Births

January 

 January 15 – Lee Teng-hui, 4th President of the Republic of China (d. 2020)
 January 25 – Arvid Carlsson, Swedish neuroscientist (d. 2018)
 January 31 – Norman Mailer, American writer and journalist (d. 2007)

February 

 February 4 - Conrad Bain, Canadian-American actor (d. 2013)
 February 4 – Belisario Betancur, 26th President of Colombia (d. 2018)
 February 12 – Franco Zeffirelli, Italian film director (d. 2019)

March 

 March 22 – Marcel Marceau, French actor (d. 2007)

April 

 April 5 – Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, 2nd President of South Vietnam (d. 2001)
 April 23 - Krastyu Trichkov, Bulgar  politician

May 

 May 7 – Anne Baxter, American actress (d. 1985)
 May 10 – Heydar Aliyev, 3rd President of Azerbaijan (d. 2003)
 May 27 – Henry Kissinger, 56th United States Secretary of State
 May 28 – N. T. Rama Rao, Indian actor, director and politician (d. 1996)
 May 31 – Rainier III, Prince of Monaco (d. 2005)

June 
 June 25 – Sam Francis, American painter (d. 1994)

July 

 July 6 – Wojciech Jaruzelski, 1st President of Poland (d. 2014)
 July 11 – Richard Pipes, Polish-American academic and political expert (d. 2018)
 July 22 – Bob Dole, American politician (d. 2021)

August 

 August 2 – Shimon Peres, 9th President of Israel (d. 2016)
 August 10 – Rhonda Fleming, American actress (d. 2020)

September 

 September 16 – Lee Kuan Yew, 1st Prime Minister of Singapore (d. 2015)

October 

 October 4 – Charlton Heston, American actor and political activist (d. 2008)
 October 5 – Glynis Johns, Welsh stage and film actress, dancer, pianist and singer
 October 15 – Italo Calvino, Italian writer (d. 1985)

November

December 

 December 13 – Philip W. Anderson, American Nobel physicist (d. 2020)

Deaths 
 February 10 – Wilhelm Röntgen, German physician and Nobel Prize laureate

Nobel Prize 
 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine won by Frederick Banting, Canadian doctor, and John James Rickard Macleod, Scottish physiologist