Look ahead to the future is great, but looking back can be equally valuable and insightful. Looking back can also be a fun way to see how the world has changed. Those interested in what life might have been like 100 years ago can take note of these events, which occurred in the first month of 1922.
· The Rose Bowl, which remains one of college football’s most celebrated events, ends in a 0-0 tie on January 2. The Washington & Jefferson Patriots and California Golden Bears are each considered unofficial champions of the 1921 college football campaign.
· The royal family of Nilambur, a major municipality in the Indian state of Kerala, donates Guruvayur Keshavan, a 10.5-foot-tall elephant, to the Guruvayur temple on January 4. The elephant would serve at the temple until its death in December 1976.
· Workers begin constructing the Delaware River Bridge on January 6. The bridge, now known as the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, links the cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. Talks to construct such a bridge had begun more than 100 years earlier.
· Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old Canadian, becomes the first person to receive an insulin injection to treat type 1 diabetes on January 11. Thompson would receive an injection of refined insulin less than two weeks later after an allergic reaction to the initial injection. Thompson lived 13 more years before succumbing to his disease prior to his 27th birthday.
· Adolf Hitler receives a three-month prison sentence on January 13 for interrupting a meeting at a beer hall where his political rival, Otto Ballerstedt, was scheduled to speak. Twelve years later, Ballerstedt is killed during the Night of the Long Knives, a series of extrajudicial executions orchestrated by the Nazi party.
· Irish revolutionary Michael Collins is appointed Chairman of the provisional government of the Irish Free State with the passing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 on January 14.
· Betty White is born in Oak Park, Illinois on January 17. White would become a beloved and iconic actress.
· On January 26, the United States House of Representatives votes to approve the Anti-Lynching Bill, which would have made lynching a federal crime. The U.S. Senate never votes on the bill.
· A scandal breaks out in college football on January 27 when nine University of Illinois players are disqualified for accepting $200 apiece to play in a semi-professional game. Three University of Notre Dame players are implicated as well.
· Heavy snowfall causes the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C. to collapse on January 28. Nearly 100 people die when the roof falls in on people in the balcony, which then collapses onto the individuals seated below.
Image by Сергей Ремизов
