1920

1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (dominical letter DC) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday (dominical letter ED) of the Julian calendar, the 1920th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 920th year of the 2nd millennium, the 20th year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 1920s decade. Note that the Julian day for 1920 is 13 calendar days difference, which continued to be used from 1582 until the complete conversion of the Gregorian calendar was entirely done in 1929.

Events

January

Bert Williams

Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920. In 1918, the New York Dramatic Mirror called Williams "one of the great comedians of the world."

Williams was a key figure in the development of African-American entertainment. In an age when racial inequality and stereotyping were commonplace, he became the first black American to take a lead role on the Broadway stage, and did much to push back racial barriers during his long career. Fellow vaudevillian W.C. Fields, who appeared in productions with Williams, described him as "the funniest man I ever saw – and the saddest man I ever knew."

Early life

Williams was born in Nassau, The Bahamas, on November 12, 1874, to Frederick Williams Jr. and his wife Julia. At the age of 11, Bert permanently emigrated with his parents to Florida. The family later moved to Riverside, California, where he graduated from Riverside High School. In 1893, while still a teenager, he joined different West Coast minstrel shows, including Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minstrels, where he first met his future partner, George Walker.

Palestine

Palestine usually refers to:

Palestine may also refer to:

Greater Syria

Greater Syria (Arabic: سوريّة الكبرى‎) or Natural Syria (Arabic: سوريّة الطبيعية‎), Bilad ash-Sham (Arabic: بلاد الشام‎), is a hypothetical united Fertile Crescent state. The term denotes the restoration of the Arab Kingdom of Syria. The proclaimed area extends roughly over the medieval Arab Caliphate province of Bilad al-Sham, encompassing the Eastern Mediterranean or the Levant and Western Mesopotamia at the peak glory of the Arab Muslim civilization.

The pre-Islamic, Hellenistic name of the region, "Syria", was used by the Ottomans in the Syria Vilayet until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. The wave of Arab nationalism in the region evolved towards the creation of a new "Great Syria" over French-governed Occupied Enemy Territory Administration, declared as Hashemite Kingdom on March 1920, claiming extent over the entire Levant. Following the Franco-Syrian War, in July 1920, French armies defeated the newly proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria and captured Damascus, aborting the Arab state. The area was consequently partitioned under French and British Mandates into Greater Lebanon, various Syrian states, Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan. The Syrian states were gradually unified as the State of Syria and became the independent Republic of Syria in 1946.

Syria

Coordinates: 35°N 38°E / 35°N 38°E / 35; 38

Syria (ⁱ/ˈsɪ.rɪə/; Arabic: سوريا‎ or سورية, Sūriyā or Sūrīyah), officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in Western Asia. De jure Syrian territory borders Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest, but the government's control now extends to approximately 30–40% of the de jure state area and less than 60% of the population.

A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Syrian Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Circassians,Mandeans and Turks. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, and Yazidis. Sunni Arabs make up the largest population group in Syria.

In English, the name "Syria" was formerly synonymous with the Levant (known in Arabic as al-Sham), while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Its capital Damascus is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt.