Born in the 1920s

The world they were born into

Children born in the 1920s arrived in the years after the First World War and the influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1920, into a decade that is remembered for its jazz, its dance halls and its sense of a world starting again. Radio broadcasting began in earnest, with the BBC founded in 1922, and the first feature-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer, opened in 1927. Alexander Fleming noticed penicillin in 1928, although it would be another fifteen years before it was made in quantity. In South Africa an act of 1925 made Afrikaans an official language beside English, in the place of Dutch.

Growing up

Women won the vote in the United States in 1920, and on the same terms as men in Britain in 1928. The decade ended with the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, so most of the people born in it spent their childhoods in the Depression that followed, and came of age in the Second World War.

Which generation

Births from 1920 to 1927 belong to the Greatest Generation, and from 1928 to 1929 to the Silent Generation. The boundaries are conventions rather than facts, and the generations page names the source for each one.

The marked line is 1920, where the decade begins.

Year by year

The Chinese year begins not on 1 January but at a new moon, usually the second after the December solstice, and from 1900 to 2100 always between 21 January and 20 February. In the 1920s it began as early as 23 January, in 1928, and as late as 20 February, in 1920, so a birthday in January or early February belongs to the animal of the year before. The table gives the day each year began.

New year dates are worked out from the new moons and the solar terms, and checked against published tables. Born before the new year →

Read on

• Greatest Generation
• Silent Generation
• How generations are defined
• The 1930s
• Every year