The following events occurred in June 1921:
June 1, 1921 (Wednesday) The Greenwood massacre in the black section of Tulsa, Oklahoma was brought under control after 21 African-Americans and nine Whites had been killed, and the city had been placed under martial law. Initial reports listed at least 55 black and 30 white deaths The 1921 Canadian Census was taken and showed a total population of 8,788,483. It showed a 22 percent increase in the number of Canadians since 1911, with the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan having grown by more than 50 percent. Arturo Alessandri Palma, the President of Chile proposed to the Chilean Congress that a plebiscite be held in the disputed Tacna-Arica region, allowing voters to determine whether their region should remain part of Chile or become part of Peru. Born: Nelson Riddle, U.S. musician and bandleader; in Oradell, New Jersey (died 1985) Died: Yakov Lidski, Jewish bookseller and publisher from Warsaw (born 1868)
June 2, 1921 (Thursday) The International Olympic Committee voted to award the 1924 Summer Olympics to Paris, choosing the capital of France ahead of Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Prague and Rome. Eight members of a patrol of the Royal Irish Constabulary reserves were killed by the Irish Republican Army in the Carrowkennedy ambush near Westport, County Mayo as the RIC's two trucks and an auto were stopped in a rural area. The car had broken down while on its way back to Westport and was being towed by one of the trucks. After realizing that they were outnumbered, the 16 surviving RIC men surrendered to the IRA, which disarmed them and then released them. Died: Reverend Phebe Ann Hanaford, 92, Universalist minister
June 3, 1921 (Friday)
Lord Byng was appointed as the new Governor-General of Canada, succeeding the Duke of Devonshire. In Berlin, a German criminal court acquitted Soghomon Tehlirian of the charge of assassinating former Ottoman Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha on March 15. The Birthday Honours of King George V of the United Kingdom recognized, among others, Canadian manufacturer Douglas Alexander (baronet); Indian businessman and philanthropist Jehangir H. Kothari (knighted); and Scottish legal expert John Rankine (knighted). A British-operated artillery shell factory in Dublin, the only one in Ireland, was destroyed in an attack by Irish Republican forces. The 1921 Far Eastern Championship Games ended in Shanghai. China, Japan and the Philippines were the only competing countries. The Pueblo Flood in Pueblo, Colorado, United States, begins, caused by torrential cloudbursts. Died: Dr. Simon Baruch, 71, American physician and authority on hydrotherapy.
June 4, 1921 (Saturday) At least 127 people were drowned and large sections of the U.S. city of Pueblo, Colorado were heavily damaged by the bursting of several dams after heavy rains flooded the Arkansas River and the Fountain River. The business section of Pueblo was covered by waters at least deep and as high as in low-lying areas. The initial death estimate was 500 people. Menshevik forces captured Omsk in Siberia from the Soviet Bolsheviks, while Japan prepared to transport other anti-Bolshevik forces to reinforce the Menshevik capture of Vladivostok. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George presented an offer to striking British miners for settlement, and set a deadline of June 18 for them to accept it. At the Leipzig War Crimes Trials, a German court acquitted Karl Neumann, the U-boat commander who had torpedoed and sunk the British hospital ship HMHS Dover Castle, accepting his defense that he was just following orders. As commander of SM UC-67, Neumann ordered the sinking of Dover Castle on May 26, 1917, although 302 of the 314 crew were rescued and there were no hospital patients on the ship at the time. The Allied Reparations Commission awarded to the United States 600,000 tons of confiscated German ships. Died: Ludwig Knorr, 61, German chemist and co-developer of Aspirin