The Italian king Victor Emmanuel III, alarmed at the prospect of a Fascist march on Rome, asks Mussolini to form a government

A triumphant Mussolini arrives in Rome on the overnight train from Milan to take up his appointment as prime minister

Columns of blackshirts, brought into Rome for the day, parade before Mussolini and the king

The nationalist government in Turkey abolishes the sultanate and the last Ottoman emperor, Mehmed VI, goes into exile

The British Broadcasting company launches a regular broadcasting service from the Marconi 2LO studio in London

Erskine Childers is sent before a firing squad in the Irish Free State for possession of a revolver

Valéry's collection Charmes includes probably his best-known poem, 'Le Cimetière marin'

Lenin has a second stroke, putting him finally out of action in political terms

With the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the 26 counties of southern Ireland formally become the Irish Free State

William Thomas Cosgrave becomes the first prime minister of the Irish Free State

At a congress in Moscow four soviet republics (Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine and the Transcaucasian Republic) agree to unite

The Czech novelist Jaroslav Hasek dies with his masterpiece, The Good Soldier Schweik, incomplete

Benito Mussolini sets up a Fascist Grand Council as a token assembly to conceal his authoritarian rule

De Valera and the IRA lay down their arms, bringing to an end the Irish civil war

France, with Belgian support, occupies Germany's industrial heartland in the Ruhr

With Mussolini already installed as Il Duce, his party wins 65% of the votes in a general election

Lenin's third stroke prevents the publication of his Testament, which urges upon the party the removal of Stalin

Military leader Miguel Primo de Rivera takes power in Spain in a military coup

De Valera and his followers do well in elections to the Dáil but decline to take their seats

The Italian novelist Italo Svevo has his first great success when The Confessions of Zeno is published in France

German inflation reaches fantasy levels, at 242 million marks to the dollar

Arnold Schoenberg's Suite for piano is his first piece entirely in the 12-note serial method

Sean O'Casey's first play The Shadow of a Gunman is performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin

Maxim Gorky publishes My Universities, completing his autobiographical trilogy

Germany's communists organise uprisings in Saxony, Thuringia and Hamburg