January 11, 1923. Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to pay its reparation payments. Hyperinflation in Germany means that 17,000 marks are now needed to buy an American dollar. The Germans couldn’t pay the reparations if they wanted to.
June 18, 1923. Mount Etna erupts in Italy, making 60,000 homeless.
July, 1923. The USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, officially comes into being, consisting of Russia, Ukraine, White Russia, and Transcausia.
August 2, 1923. Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States, dies in office and is succeeded by his vice-president Calvin Coolidge.
September 1, 1923. The Great KantÅ earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing an estimated 140,000 people.
October 29, 1923. Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Kemal Atatürk is elected as the president.
November 8, 1923. Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government. Hitler and his supporters burst inot a beer hall, armed and declaring that “the national revolution has begun.!” Police and troops crush the “revolution” the next day. On November 12 the fugitive Hitler is arrested.
November 15, 1923. The hyperinflation in Germany reaches its height. One United States dollar is worth 4,200,000,000,000 Papiermark (4.2 trillion). Chancellor Gustav Stresemann abolishes the old currency, and begins again with a new currency, the Rentenmark. 1923 will be called “the year of crises” in Germany.