The following events happened in February 1921:
February 1, 1921 (Tuesday) Germany's Foreign Minister Walter Simons said in a speech to the Reichstag that Germany would not accept the Allied Council resolution for reparations, and said that his government was working on counterproposals. The Bengal Legislative Council was inaugurated in Calcutta by the Duke of Connaught, the uncle of King George V of the United Kingdom, as the first advisory council of India representatives for the Bengal Province of British India. Born: Peter Sallis, English television actor known for the situation comedy Last of the Summer Wine, and for voicing Wallace on Wallace and Gromit; in Twickenham, Middlesex (d. 2017)
February 2, 1921 (Wednesday) In the Clonfin Ambush, "The first major IRA attack with what we would now recognise as an IED with sufficient explosive power to bring the fight to a quick result" the Irish Republican Army detonated an improvised explosive device to stop two truckloads of the Royal Irish Constabulary auxiliary and then to fire on them. In the fight that followed at Clonfin in County Longford, four of the 19 RIC men were killed and eight wounded, and further ambushes using IEDs followed. The British-registered ship Esperanza de Larrinaga departed from Norfolk, Virginia on a voyage to Reggio Calabria in Italy, but never arrived. On the same day, the Italian steamship Monte San Michele left New York with a cargo of grain to ship to Genoa and was not seen again. The search for both ships, as well as the freighter Ottawa, would be abandoned after more than two months after searchers concluded that the vessels had been lost with all hands. Born: Hyacinthe Thiandoum, Senegalese Roman Catholic Cardinal and the Archbishop of Dakar from 1962 to 2000; in Poponguine (d. 2004) Died: Andrea Carlo Ferrari, 70, Italian Roman Catholic Cardinal and the Archbishop of Milan from 1894 Antonio Jacobsen, 70, Danish-born American maritime artist
February 3, 1921 (Thursday) An ambush by the Irish Republican Army killed 17 policemen in Queenstown in County Cork. On the same day at Burgatia, 500 Sinn Feiners fought a pitched battle against the constabulary. Thirty-six unemployed workers and six Chilean Army soldiers were killed in a clash with a larger number of unemployed workmen at the nitrate factory at San Gregorio. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, at the request of President-Elect Warren G. Harding, called a special session of the U.S. Senate to begin on the morning of the March 4 presidential Inauguration Day to approve Harding's appointments for a new cabinet. Born: George E. Felton, British computer scientist who developed the GEORGE series of operating systems, in Paris, France (d. 2019)
February 4, 1921 (Friday) Germany had been preparing in 1918 to bomb New York City with the Airship L-72, U.S. Army Brigadier General Billy Mitchell testified before the U.S. House Naval Affairs Committee, and the ship was "ready to make the trip when the Armistice was signed". "I believe that it could have attacked New York City with success," General Mitchell told the committee. "It was designed to fly at a height of , thus making it virtually immune from attacks by airplanes on its trip here." Mitchell added that the U.S. Army was working on producing a similar weapon. L-72 was surrendered to France as part of German disarmament, and renamed the Dixmude. Dimitrios Rallis resigned as Prime Minister of Greece after a disagreement with his Minister of War, Dimitrios Gounaris over going to war with Turkey. Lonnie Eaton, an African-American convicted of murder, was scheduled to be executed in Monroe, Louisiana, but Ouachita Parish Sheriff T. A. Grant forgot to carry out the hanging and nobody reminded him of the Governor's death warrant. Four days later, the embarrassed sheriff notified Governor John M. Parker and asked what he should do. On April 22, Governor Parker commuted Eaton's sentence to life in prison upon recommendation of the state board of pardons. Japan's War Minister, Count Tanaka Giichi, announced that another division of troops would be sent to its Governorate of Chosen, the Japanese Empire's Korea territory. Born: Betty Friedan, American feminist and women's rights pioneer whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique launched the "women's lib" movement in the 1960s; as Bettye Naomi Goldstein in Peoria, Illinois (d. 2006) K. R. Narayanan (Kocheril Raman Narayanan), President of India from 1997 to 2002 (his official birthdate was listed as October 27, 1920 because of a mistake by his uncle); in Perumthanam, Travancore princely state, British India (now part of Uzhavoor, Kerala state) (d. 2005)