January 1 – HMY Iolaire sinks off the coast of the Hebrides, 201 people, mostly servicemen returning home to Lewis and Harris, are killed.
January 1 – The Czechoslovak Legions occupy the Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia.
January 3 – The Faisal–Weizmann Agreement is signed by Emir Faisal and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, for Arab–Jewish cooperation in the development of Jewish and Palestinann homelands
January 5 – A communist uprising is attempted by the Spartacist League in Berlin
January 5 – The German Workers’ Party, predecessor of the Nazi Party, is formed by the merger of The Committee of Independent Workmen with The Political Workers’ Circle.
January 6 – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, dies in his sleep at the age of 60
January 7 – The Tragic Week in Argentina, an anarchist uprising in Buenos Aires, begins, it is later suppressed by official forces
January 15 – A wave of molasses released from an exploding storage tank sweeps through Boston, Massachusetts, killing 33 and injuring 150.
January 15 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are murdered, following the Spartacist uprising.
January 16 – The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing Prohibition, is ratified.
January 18 – The Paris Peace Conference opens in France, with delegates from 27 nations attending for meetings at the Palace of Versailles.
January 31 – Battle of George Square – The British Army is called in to deal with riots, during negotiations over working hours in Glasgow, Scotland.
February 5 – United Artists (UA) is incorporated by D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.
February 11 – Friedrich Ebert is elected the first President of Germany (Reichspräsident), by the Weimar National Assembly.
February 14 – The Polish–Soviet War begins, with the Battle of Bereza Kartuska.
February 24 – Four days after supressing an uprising, the Estonian government celebrate their first independence day
March 1 – The March 1st Movement against Japanese colonial rule in Korea is formed.
April 5 – The Pinsk massacre in Poland – 35 Jews are killed without trial, after being accused of Bolshevism.
April 10 – Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead in Morelos.
April 13 – The Amritsar Massacre – British and Gurkha troops massacre 379 Sikhs at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, in the Punjab.
May 4 – The League of Red Cross Societies is formed in Paris.
May 4 – The May Fourth Movement erupts in China as a result of the decision at the Paris Peace Conference to transfer former German concessions in Jiaozhou Bay to Japan rather than return sovereign authority to China.
May 6 – The Third Anglo-Afghan War begins – after a stalemate, Britain concede and settle on pre-war boundaries.
May 19 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Anatolian Black Sea coast, marking the start of the Turkish War of Independence.
June 21 – Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet interned at Scapa Flow, Scotland
June 25 – In the Russian Civil War, The White Volunteer Army capture Kharkiv, while Red Army forces take Perm.
June 28 – The Treaty of Versailles is signed, formally ending World War I.
July 20 – The Red Army captures the city of Ekaterinburg in the Ural mountains from the White rule of Admiral Alexander Kolchak.
July 21 – The dirigible Wingfoot Air Express catches fire over downtown Chicago. Two passengers, one aircrewman and ten people on the ground are killed.
July 27 – The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 begins when a white man throws stones at a group of four black teens on a raft.
August 4 – The Romanian army occupies Budapest.
September 10 – The Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed, ending World War I with Austria-Hungary and declaring that the latter’s empire is to be dissolved
September 12 – Gabriele D’Annunzio, with his entourage, marches into Fiume and convinces Italian troops to join him.
October 2 – President of the United States Woodrow Wilson suffers a serious stroke, rendering him an invalid for the remainder of his life.
November 9 – Felix the Cat debuts in Feline Follies.
November 11 – In The Russian Civil War, The Northwestern Army of General Nikolai Yudenich retreats to Estonia and is disarmed.
November 30 – Health officials declare the global ‘Spanish’ flu pandemic has ceased.
December 1 – American-born Nancy Astor becomes the first woman to take her seat in the UK House of Commons, having become the second to be elected on November 28.
December 4 – The French Opera House in New Orleans, Louisiana is destroyed by fire.
December 21 – Following the first ‘Red Scare’, The United States deports 249 people, including Emma Goldman, to Russia on the USAT Buford.
December 26 – American baseball player Babe Ruth is traded by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees for $125,000, the largest sum ever paid for a player at this time.