Timeline of social events from the “Jazz” Age

The Steel Strike of 1919- An 8-hour day was instituted on war contract work
• Because there are so many mixed-race persons and because so many Americans with some
black ancestry appear white, the United States Census stops counting mixed-race peoples and
the one drop rule becomes the national legal standard.
1920
• the great influenza epidemic The worst epidemic in American history killed over 600,000
Americans during World War I. Nicknamed "Spanish influenza," it died out quickly the
following winter.
• The Lincoln memorila in Washington DC begins to be built

-1920s, Harlem became the capital of black America, attracting black intellectuals and artists from
across the country and the Caribbean and was first self-conscious literary and artistic movement in
African American history.
-two Atlanta publicists, Edward Clarke, a former Atlanta journalist, and Bessie Tyler, a former madam,
gave KKK part of the 10 dollars member ship fee very time someone signed up; resulted in 3 million
members of the KKK

• January 9 – Thousands of onlookers watch as "The Human Fly" George Polley climbs the New
York Woolworth Building. He reaches the 30th floor before being arrested.

• January 16, 1920- the 18th amendment is enacted, and all alcohol is prohibited due to Anti-
Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union defined as a war measure
•

• .
• January 28 – Turkey gives up the Ottoman Empire and most of the non-Turkish areas.
• January 30 – The oldest surviving pro wrestling match on film happens, with Joe
Stecher defeating Earl Caddock.

•
• February 14 – The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago.
• February 17 – A woman named Anna Anderson tries to commit suicide in Berlin and is taken to
a mental hospital, where she claims she isGrand Duchess Anastasia of Russia.
• February 22 – In Emeryville, California, the first dog racing track to employ an
imitation rabbit opens.

• March 28 – The 1920 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak hits the Great Lakes region and Deep
South states.
• May 19, 1920 thirteen detectives, including Baldwin-Felts president Thomas Felts, younger
brothers Albert and Lee, arrived in Matewan to evict miners and their families from their homes
in the Stone Mountain Mine camp.
• July 29 – The United States Bureau of Reclamation begins construction of the Link River
Dam as part of the Klamath Reclamation Project.
• August 26 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed,
 guaranteeing women's suffrage.
• September Eight players from the Chicago White Sox (later nicknamed the Black Sox) were
accused of throwing the series against the Cincinnati Reds.
• September 16 – The Wall Street bombing: A bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J.
P. Morgan building in New York City, killing 38 and injuring 400.
• September 17 – The National Football League was founded.

• September 29 The first domestic radio sets come to stores in the United States;
a Westinghouse radio costs $10.
•
• November 2 United States presidential election, 1920: Republican Warren G. Harding defeats
Democrat James M. Cox and Socialist Eugene V. Debs, in the first national U.S. election in
which women have the right to vote.
• In the United States, KDKA AM of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (owned by Westinghouse) starts
broadcasting as a commercial radio station. The first broadcast is the results of the presidential
election.

1921
• Tulsa, Oklahoma 40 city blocks and 12 black churches burnt down due to strikebreakers and
bootlegers
• George Washington Carver of the Tuskegee Institution presents his innovative ideas on
agriculture to the U. S. House of Representatives.
• January 1 – In American football, the University of California defeats Ohio State 28–0 in
the Rose Bowl.
• 2 April. Albert Einstein lectures in New York about his theory of relativity.
• May 19 – The Emergency Quota Act passes the U.S. Congress, establishing national quotas
on immigration.
• May 31 – Tulsa Race Riot: The official death toll is 39, but recent investigations suggest the
actual toll may be much higher.
•
• July 14 – A Massachusetts jury finds Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti guilty of first
degree murder following a widely publicized trial.
• July 18 – The first BCG vaccination against tuberculosis is given
• August – The United States formally ends World War I, declaring a peace with Germany.
• September 7 – In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant is held.
• October 29
• Construction of the Link River Dam, a part of the Klamath Reclamation Project, is complete
• November 9- Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the
photoelectric effect
• November 10- Margaret Sanger forms the American Birth Control League.
•

1922
• The Capper-Volstead Act permits farmers to form cooperatives for buying and selling goods
 without being prosecuted for anti-trust violations.
• January 11 – The first successful insulin treatment of diabetes is made.

• February 5, 1922 - Reader's Digest is founded and the first issue published by Dewitt and Lila
Wallace.
• February 8 President of the United States Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio in
the White House.

• February 27 – A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,

allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
• March 20 – The USS Langley is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier
• April 7, 1922 - The Teapot Dome scandal begins when the U.S. Secretary of the Interior leases
the Teapot Oil Reserves in Wyoming.
• May 5 – In The Bronx, construction begins on Yankee Stadium.
• May 30, 1922 - The Lincoln Memorial, located on the opposite end of the National Mall from
the Capitol building, is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
• June 14 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding makes his first speech on the radio.

1923
- New Year's Day in 1923 town of Rosewood 150 residents burned down
• January 7 – Rosewood Massacre Ends
• March 2, 1923 - Time Magazine is published for the first time.
• May 27 – The Ku Klux Klan defies a law requiring publication of its members.

April 1923 - The first sound on film motion picture "Phonofilm" is show in the Rivoli Theatre
in New York City by Lee de Forest.

• Clarence Birdseye invents frozen food with his quick-freezing process. He would patent the
concept on August 12, 1930.
• September 4 – In Lakehurst, New Jersey, the first American airship, the USS Shenandoah, takes
to the sky for the first time.
• September 17 – A major fire in Berkeley, California erupts, consuming some 640 structures,
including 584 homes in the densely built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University
of California.
• September 18 – September 26 – Newspaper printers strike in New York
• October 16 – Roy and Walt Disney Founded The Walt Disney Company.
• December 20 – BEGGARS Fraternity (the first social fraternity at a Jesuit college in the United
States) is founded by 9 men, who secured permission to do so from the Pope.

1924
• January 25, 1924 - The first Winter Olympic Games are held in the French Alps in Chamonix,
France with sixteen nations sending athletes to participate, including the United States, which
 won four medals. Norway, with four gold and eighteen meals total had the most in both
categories. The Winter Olympic Games have been held since this year, except during World
War II, and will continue in February 2006 in Turin, Italy, and four years later, for the second
time, in Vancouver, Canada.

• February 14, 1924 - The IBM corporation is founded.

• April 16 – American media company Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) is founded in Los
Angeles, California.

• May 11 – Mercedes-Benz is formed by the merging companies owned by Gottlieb

Daimler and Karl Benz.
• May 21 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-
year-old Bobby Franks in a thrill killing.
• June 12 – Rondout Heist: Six men of the Egan's Rats gang rob a mail train in Rondout, Illinois;
the robbery is later found to have been an inside job.
• June 15, 1924 - All Indians are designated citizens by legislation passed in the U.S. Congress
and signed by President Calvin Coolidge. The Indian Citizenship Act granted this right to all
Native Americans that had been born within the territory of the United States.
• September 9 The Hanapepe Massacre occurs on Kauai, Hawaii.
• October 10 – The Alpha Delta Gamma Fraternity is founded at the Lake Shore Campus of
Loyola University, Chicago
• Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is elected as the first woman governor in the United States.
• November 27 – In New York City the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held.

• Leopold and Loeb trial- two wealthy University of Chicago students who murdered 14-year-
old Bobby Franks in 1924, and were sentenced to life imprisonment. In desire to commit the
“perfect crime”

1925
• February 21 – The New Yorker magazine publishes its first issue.
• February 25 – Art Gillham records for Columbia Records the first Western Electric masters to
be commercially released
• March 4 – Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to have his
inauguration broadcast on radio.
• March 18 – The Tri-State Tornado rampages through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695
people and injuring 2,027. It hits the towns of Murphysboro, Illinois; Gorham,
Illinois; Ellington, Missouri; and Griffin, Indiana.
• March 21 – Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signs the Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching
of evolution in the state's public schools.

• May 5 – Scopes Trial: Dayton, Tennessee, biology teacher John Scopes is arrested for
teaching Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
• June 6 – The Chrysler Corporation is founded by Walter Percy Chrysler.
• June 13 – Charles Francis Jenkins achieves the first synchronized transmission of pictures and
sound, using 48 lines, and a mechanical system. A 10-minute film of a miniature windmill in
motion is sent across 5 miles from Anacostia to Washington, DC. The images are viewed by
 representatives of the National Bureau of Standards, the U.S. Navy, theCommerce Department,
and others. Jenkins calls this "the first public demonstration of radiovision"
• June 29 – Santa Barbara Earthquake of 1925: A 6.3 earthquake destroys downtown Santa
Barbara, California.
• July 18 – Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
• July 21- American legal case that tested the Butler Act which made it unlawful "to teach any
theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach
instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals" in any Tennessee state-funded
school and university.
• December 26 – The Great Sphinx of Giza is unearthed after restoration.
• Willis Haviland Carrier invents refrigerated air conditioning
• 1925 Frigidaire the first refrigerator invented

1926
• January 12 – Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll premiere their radio program Sam 'n' Henry,
in which the two white performers portrayed two black characters from Harlem looking to
strike it rich in the big city. It is a precursor to Gosden and Correll's more popular later
program, Amos 'n' Andy.
• February 1 – Land on Broadway and Wall Street in New York City is sold at a record $7 per sq
inch.
• March 6 – The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is destroyed by fire.
• March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts
• March 16, 1926 - Robert H. Goddard demonstrated the viability of the first liquid fueled rockets
with his test in Auburn, Massachusetts. The rocket flew one hundred and eighty-four feet over
2.5 seconds..

• May 9, 1926 - The first flight to the North Pole and back occurs when pilot Floyd Bennett, with
Richard Evelyn Byrd as his navigator, guided a three-engine monoplane. They were awarded
the Medal of Honor for their achievement.

• May 31, 1921 - The Sesqui-Centennial Exposition opened in Philadelphia to celebrate the one
hundred and fiftieth birthday of the United States. With nineteen nations and four colonies
participating, the event failed to live up the the wonder and expectation of the former Centennial
Exposition, and is often regarded as a failure in world expo circles.
• July 26 – The National Bar Association incorporates in the United States
• August 8- A weather map is televised for the first time, sent from NAA Arlington to the Weather
Bureau Office in Washington, D.C.
• September 11 Aloha Tower is officially dedicated at Honolulu Harbor in the Territory of
Hawai'i.
• September 16 – Philip Dunning and George Abbott's play Broadway premieres in New York
City.
• September 18 – Great Miami Hurricane: A strong hurricane devastates Miami, Florida, leaving
over 100 dead and causing several hundred million dollars in damage (equal to nearly $100
billion dollars today).
• September 20 – Twelve blue cars full of gangsters open fire at the Hawthorne Inn, Al
Capone's Chicago headquarters. Only one of Capone's men is wounded.
 • October 14 – Alan Alexander Milne's book Winnie-the-Pooh is released.
• November 10
• In San Francisco, California, a necrophiliac serial killer named Earle Nelson (dubbed
"Gorilla Man") kills and then rapes his 9th victim, a boardinghouse landlady named Mrs.
William Edmonds.
• November 11 – U.S. Route 66 is established.

• November 15, 1926 - The NBC Radio Network is formed by Westinghouse, General Electric,
and RCA, opening with twenty-four stations.

1927

• February 23 – The U.S. Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications
Commission) begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies.
• Sweet trials occur
• March 5, 1927 - The civil war in China prompts one thousand United States marines to land in
order to protect property of United States interests.
• March 11 In New York City, the Roxy Theater is opened by Samuel Roxy Rothafel.
• The first armoured car robbery is committed by the Flatheads Gang near Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania

• April 22 to May 5, 1927 - The Great Mississippi Flood occurs, affecting over 700,000.
• May 14 – The ship Cap Arcona is launched at Blohm & Voss shipyard, in Hamburg.
• In the U.S., the University of Chicago's local collegiate organization, Phi Sigma, becomes
incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois as Eta Sigma Phi, the National Honorary
Classical Fraternity

• May 18 – Bath School disaster: Bombings result in 45 deaths, mostly children, in Bath
Township, Michigan.
•

• May 20, 1927 - Charles Lindbergh leaves Roosevelt Field, New York on the first non-stop
transatlantic flight in history. He would reach Paris thirty-three and one-half hours later in the
Spirit of St. Louis, his aircraft. A ticker tape parade would be held in New York City after his
return on June 13.
• May 23 – Nearly 600 members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and
the Institute of Radio Engineers view the first live demonstration of television at the Bell
Telephone Building in New York.

• August 7 – The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.

• August 10, 1927 - Work on the gigantic sculpture at Mount Rushmore began. Sculptor Gutzon
Borglum would complete the task of chiseling the busts of four presidents; George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, fourteen years later.
 • September 18 – The Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System (later known as CBS) is
formed and goes on the air with 47 radio stations.
• September 27 – 79 are killed and 550 are injured in the East St. Louis Tornado, the 2nd costliest
and at least 24th deadliest tornado in U.S. history
• October 6, 1927 - The advent of talking pictures emerges. Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer debuts
in New York City.

• 3–4 November – Floods devastating Vermont incur the "worst natural disaster in the state's
history"

• .
• November 21 – The Colorado state police open fire on 500 rowdy but unarmed miners during a
strike, killing six.
• December 2 – Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor
Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automoble
• December 15 – Marion Parker, 12, is kidnapped in Los Angeles. Her dismembered body is
found on December 19, prompting the largest manhunt to date on the West Coast for her
killer, William Edward Hickman, who is arrested on December 22 in Oregon.
• December 17 – The U.S. submarine S-4 is accidentally rammed and sunk by the United States
Coast Guard destroyer John Paulding off Provincetown, Massachusetts, killing everyone aboard
after several unsuccessful attempts to raise the sub.
• December 27 – Kern and Hammerstein's musical play Show Boat, based on Edna Ferber's
novel, opens on Broadway and goes on to become the first great classic of the American
musical theatre.

• Television begins to emerge when American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth invented a
complete electronic television system, its first success in 1927. The system would be patented
three years later on August 26, 1930.

1928
• January 12 – U.S. murderer Ruth Snyder is executed at Ossining.

• March 12 – In California, the St. Francis Dam north of Los Angeles fails, killing 600.
• March 21 – Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.
.

• May 15, 1928 - The first appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse on film occurs with the
release of the animated short film, "Plane Crazy".

• June 17, 1928 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly over the Atlantic Ocean.

• June 29 – New York Governor Alfred E. Smith becomes the first Catholic nominated by a major
political party for U.S. President, at the Democratic National Convention in Houston, Texas.
• August 16 – Murderer Carl Panzram is arrested in Washington, D.C. after killing about 20
people.
 • September 16 – The 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane kills at least 2,500 people in Florida.
• September 25 – Paul Galvin and his brother Joseph incorporate the Galvin Manufacturing
Corporation (now known as Motorola).

• November 18 – Mickey Mouse appears in Steamboat Willie, the third Mickey Mouse cartoon
released, but the first sound film.
• December 21, 1928 - The United States Congress approves the construction of Boulder, later
named Hoover Dam.

1929

• January 15, 1929 - Future Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King is born in his grandfather's
house in Atlanta, Georgia.

• February 14, 1929 - In Chicago, Illinois, gangsters working for Al Capone kill seven rivals in
the act known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

• March 2 – The longest bridge in the world, the San Francisco Bay Toll-Bridge, opens.

• May 16 – The 1st Academy Awards are presented at the Hollywood Roosevelt
Hotel in Hollywood, California, with Wings winning Best Picture.

• June 27 – The first public demonstration of color TV is held, by H. E. Ives and his colleagues
at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. The first images are a bouquet of roses and
anAmerican flag. A mechanical system is used to transmit 50-line color television images
between New York and Washington.

• October 24 – October 29 – Wall Street Crash of 1929: Three multi-digit percentage drops wipe
out more than $30 billion from the New York Stock Exchange (10 times greater than the annual
budget of the federal government).

• November 1, 1929 - The Teapot Dome scandal comes to a close when Albert B. Fall, the former
Secretary of the Interior, is convicted of accepting a $100,000 bribe for leasing the Elk Hills
naval oil reserve. He is sentenced to one year in jail and a $100,000 fine.
• November 7 – In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public.
• November 18 – 1929 Grand Banks earthquake[3]
• November 29 – Floyd Bennett, U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd, Captain Ashley McKinley, and
Harold June, become the first to fly over the South Pole.
•

1930
• January 6
 • The first diesel engine automobile trip is completed (Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York
City).

• January 13 – The Mickey Mouse comic strip makes its first appearance
• January 31 – The 3M company markets Scotch Tape.
• February 18
• While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh confirms the existence
of Pluto, a heavenly body considered a planet until 2006, when the term "planet" was
officially defined. Pluto is now considered a Dwarf Planet.
• Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in an airplane, and also the first cow to be
milked in an airplane.
• March 6 – The first frozen foods of Clarence Birdseye go on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• April 6 – Hostess Twinkies are invented.
• April 21 A fire in the Ohio Penitentiary near Columbus kills 320 people.
• William "Red" Hill Sr. makes his famous five-hour journey down the Niagara lower rapids.

.
• June 17 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.
• July 7- Building of the Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam) is started.
• December 7 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts broadcasts video from the CBS radio
orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The broadcast also includes the first television
commercialin the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio
show.
• A Jake paralysis outbreak occurs in United States