1919

Death of Theodore Roosevelt.

Prohibition Amendment ratified.

Peace Treaty and League of Nations rejected by Senate.

First trans-atlantic flight, first non-stop trans-atlantic flight all accomplished this year.

Concentric shell theory of atomic structure presented by Langmuir.

1920

January 1

WW1 peace treaty signed in Paris. It allowed for the establishment of the League of Nations. The League would never get passed in the U.S. Because the Republican Senate did not want Wilson and his Democratic party to make hay while the sun was shining. The treaty also stated that Germany would have to pay reparations to Britain and France, the amount of which was to be decided later.

January 10

League of Nations formed.

January 20

National Prohibition goes into effect.

August 26

Woman's Suffrage amendment ratified.

September 8

First regular transcontinental mail service (New York to San Francisco) inaugurated.

November 3

Republicans blast the Democrats out of the White House with the election of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

1921

April 4

Germany is directed to pay 132,000,000,000 gold marks in reparations and they are not allowed to have an army.

July 2

Resolution declaring peace with Austria and Germany signed by Harding.

July 7

A peace is established in Ireland between British and Irish forces.

November 12

Conference for the limitation of armaments meets in Washington, D. C.

December 7

The Irish Free State established. This event is important because it really heralds the eventual dissolution of the British Empire, and foreshadows the troubles in British colonies like Palestine, Cuprus, and India.

1922

Four-Power Treaty ratified bu the United States.

Supreme Court declares Federal child labor law unconstitutional.

Lincoln Memorial Temple at Washington dedicated.

Atoms of other elements are shown by Rowley to consist of multiples of hydrogen atoms

March 11

Gandhi is arrested in Bombay and charged with sedition. Again the British are presented with resistance they will not be able to deny in the long run.

October 31

Fascist coup in Italy; Mussolini forms cabinet.

1923

First treaty between Canada and the U.S. signed.

Last American troops withdrawn from the Rhine.

February 17

A tomb is discovered in Egypt. It belonged to a Pharaoh; it has a curse on it, and it has not been plundered, until now. The tomb is that of boy-king Tutankamen.

May 2-3

First non-stop airplane flight across continent, from New York to San Diego.

June 9

Juan de la Cierve makes the first successful autogyro flight.

August 3

A stroke claims President Harding in San Francisco. Calvin Coolidge becomes the 30^th president of the United States. His father administers the oath of office in Vermont.

September 6

A huge earthquake rocks Japan.

November 9

Munich beer-hall putsch led by Adolf Hitler is put down.

1924

Teapot Dome oil scandals. Albert B. Fall, the secretary of the interior, leased Teapot Dome to Henry Ford Sinclair (Sinclair Oil and Refining Co.) without competitive bidding and granted him exclusive rights to the oil and gas from the reserve. It was later disclosed that Fall had received large cash gifts from Sinclair. A Senate inquiry brought the scandal to light and the leases where canceled. Sinclair and others were indicted for bribery and conspiracy to defraud the government. Although acquitted of the major charge, Sinclair spent 6 and a half months in prison for contempt of court and contempt of the US Senate.

Japanese immigrants excluded from the U.S.

United States Navy fliers encircle globe.

The dirigible Los Angeles flies from Friedrichshaven, Germany to Lakehurst, New Jersey.

J. Edgar Hoover is placed in charge of the FBI and begins to clean up its act.

January 21

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin dies.

January 23

Lenin's death is reported to the West. Lenin is entombed in Red Square in a glass coffin. Pilgrims will line up to view the body (and continued to do so into the 1990's).

February 4

Woodrow Wilson dies. Wilson suffered bad health ever since he made a cross-country train journey to rally support for the League of Nations. His trip failed as badly as his health.

1925

Postal rates increase.

Dry ice first manufactured commercially.

April 22

Von Hindenburg is elected President of Germany.

July 22

The Scopes "Monkey" trial ends. William Jenning Byron is humiliated and Scopes is convicted of teaching evolution in school. The trial settles the question of teaching evolution in school for the next 50 or so years.

1926

Bullets fired from American and European makes of guns can be used to identify the weapon that fired them, hence helping in the location of murder weapons.

Senate votes adherence to the World Court but with unacceptable reservations.

North pole reached by U.S. Navy airplane from Spitzbergen.

May 10

Richard Byrd flies over the North Pole. A 1947 trip over the same area will convince Byrd that the earth is hollow, with a prehistoric jungle contained in the center of the earth.

1927

Federal Radio Commission appointed.

Trans-atlantic radio-telephone service is inaugurated.

Disastrous floods in the Mississippi valley and in northern New England states from April to May.

March 25

Foreigners are attacked in China. Consular offices in Nanking ar looted and burned while U.S. and British warships shell the city. It is reported to be a Bolshevik plot.

May 20-21

Lindbergh flies alone from New York to Paris.

August 23

Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti arouses protests. The State of Massachusetts executed immigrant anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, after an international campaign to stop their execution.

1928

President-elect Hoover makes tour of South America.

Notable expansion in air transportation.

First Academy Awards -- Best Picture: Wings

The dirigible Graf Zeppelin carries 20 passengers and 40 crew from Germany to the U.S.

June 19

Amelia Earhart is the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air.

August 27

Kellogg Peace Pact signed. 15 nations outlaw war.

November 7

Herbert Hoover is elected the 31^st president of the United States.

1929

Ballistic science progresses to the point where bullet comparisons between murder bullet or shell and test bullet and shell is acceptable in a court of law as evidence.

Canadian rum runner I'm Alone sunk by U.S. coast guard under circumstances resulting in diplomatic protest.

The dirigible Graf Zeppelin circumnavigates the globe.

October 29

Black Tuesday. The Stock Market collapses because of margin buying. Said one very rich man who got out of the market before it crashed, "When my chauffeur knows as much about the market as I do, it's time to get out." Many folks did not have chauffeurs, and got caught. Banks collapsed and the economy went with it. This was the beginning of the Great Depression; it would continue until WWII pulled us out of it.

November 30

Richard E. Byrd flies over the south pole.

1930

Admiral Byrd returns from Antarctic.

London conference provides for Anglo-American naval parity.

Hawley-Smoot tariff bill enacted. A projectionist bill that placed a duty of about 60 percent on imported goods. Aimed at alleviating the Depression, the tariff instead sparked a trade war and worsened economic conditions in the U.S. and Europe.

Detroit fields 200 police cars with one-way (receivers only) private police radios.

Renewed civil war in China.

International bank begins operations.

November 5

Franklin Roosevelt wins the election for Governor of New York in a Democratic landslide.

1931

Depression and bank failures.

Moratorium on war debts for one year.

Al Capone gets 11 years and a $50,000 fin for tax evasion.

May 1

Empire State Building opens; at 102 stories, 1250 feet tall it is the world's largest skyscraper.

September 21

Britain goes off the gold standard. This means that each bill of paper money, and each coin was not backed by gold equal to its value. This makes the money worthless. Oddly, this action was used by con-men in the U.S. as proof that Britain was actually going to pay off the mythical Drake estate, an estate that many Americans had bought a piece of.

October 18

Thomas Edision dies at the age of 84.

1932

St. Lawrence waterway treaty with Canada negotiated.

International exchange of fingerprint information begins. Information is exchanged between U.S., Scotland Yard, Paris, and Rome.

Zuider Zee reclamation dike in Holland completed.

Pontine marshes in Italy reclaimed.

Lausanne conference puts virtual end to German reparation payments.

January 29

Japanese invade Shanghai.

March 2

Charles Lindbergh, Jr. is kidnapped.

May 13

Lindbergh baby's body discovered. This horror inspires both the law making kidnapping crime punishable by death, and the travesty trial of Richard Bruno Hauptmann in which the German immigrant was railroaded in the gas chamber. Even now, the trial is being reviewed and the evidence is being re-examined by court order in the wrongful death suite by Hauptmann's widow.

May 15

Japanese Premier Tsuyoshi Inukai assassinated by Japanese Fascists.

May 20

Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

July 2

Franklin Roosevelt is nominated as the Democratic candidate for president.

July 29

The Bonus Expeditionary force is driven from Washington, D.C. The BEF is made up of vets from WWI who want to cash in a service bonus that is supposed to come due in 1945 because of financial hardship. Troops drive them from Washington.

November 9

Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected the 32^nd president of the U.S.

1933

World Economic Conference at London meets; disbands without results.

Lindberghs fly 30,000 miles visiting 21 countries.

New Deal -- NRA, AAA, TVA established.

Blood typing, first discovered in 1900, is used to identify blood found on murderer's clothing and leads to conviction.

January 30

Hitler made Chancellor of Germany by Reichstag.

February 16

An assassin takes shots at FDR. Blamed on anarchist plot.

March 5

All banks close for 10 days; deposit insurance established.

March 6

FDR takes U.S. off gold standard, allowing for more money to be minted to finance social programs.

An election in Germany is won by the National Socialist Party, led by an Iron Cross winner named Adolf Hitler.

April 4

Airship Akron falls into the sea off New Jersey; Rear Admiral William A. Moffett and 72 crewman lost.

October 15

Germany pulls out of the League of Nations.

October 17

Dr. Albert Einstein, refugee from Germany, arrives in the U.S.

December 5

Prohibition repeal amendment ratified. Prohibition ends.

December 24

Assassins stab to death Armenian Archbishop in New York church.

December 30

Premier Ion Duca of Rumania is assassinated in Bucharest.

1934

Security exchange regulation begins.

First reciprocal trade agreement with Cuba.

The film It Happened One Night sweeps the Academy Awards, taking Best Picture, Best Actor (Clark Gable), and Best Actress (Claudette Colbert).

Dionne quintuplets born.

January 31

Dollar revalued at 59 cents (gold value).