1920
January 1, 1920 - For the first time, the 1920 census indicates apopulation in the United States over 100 million people. The 15% increase since the last census now showed a count of 106,021,537. The geographic center of the United Statespopulation still remained in Indiana, eight miles south-southeast of Spencer, in Owen County.
January 10, 1920 - The League of Nations is established with theratification of the Treaty of Versailles, ending the hostilities of the first World War. In a final vote, the United States Senate again votes against joining the League.
February 3, 1920 - The first performance of the play, Beyond theHorizon, is held. The play by Eugene O'Neill would win the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes.
August 18, 1920 - Women are given the right to vote when the19th Amendment to the United States constitution grantsuniversal women's suffrage. Also known as the Susan B.Anthony amendment, in recognition of her important campaign towin the right to vote.
September 17, 1920 - The American Professional FootballLeague is formed in 1920 with Jim Thorpe as its president andeleven teams. It would change its name to the National FootballLeague in 1922.
November 2, 1920 - A landslide victory for Warren G. Harding inboth the Electoral College and popular vote returns theRepublican Party to the White House. Harding gained over 16million popular votes to Democratic candidate James M. Cox's 9million and won the Electoral contest with a 404 to 127 landslide. This was the first election in which women had the right to vote.
1921
May 19, 1921 - A national quota system on the amount ofincoming immigrants is established by the United StatesCongress in the Emergency Quota Act, curbing legalimmigration.
July 2, 1921 - A Congressional resolution by both houses issigned by President Warren G. Harding, declaring peace inWorld War I hostilities with Germany, Austria, and Hungary. Thetreaties would be executed one month later.
July 10, 1921 - The proposal for a trail along the AlleghenyMountain ridges is put forward by regional planner BentonMacKaye. The trail, completed in 1937 and designated officiallyas the Appalachian National Scenic Trail in 1968, stretches fromMaine to Georgia.
September 7-8, 1921 - The first Miss America pageant is held inAtlantic City, New Jersey. It is won by Margaret Gorman for thetitle of the Golden Mermaid trophy, later dubbed Miss America.
November 12, 1921 - The Limitation on Armaments Congressconvenes in Washington, D.C.
1922
February 5, 1922 - Reader's Digest is founded and the first issue published by Dewitt and Lila Wallace.
February 6, 1922 - The Armaments Congress ends. It would lead to three agreements, including the Five Power Disarmament Treaty, between the major world powers and the United States, to limit naval construction, outlaw poison gas, restrict submarine attacks on merchant fleets and respect China's sovereignty.
April 7, 1922 - The Teapot Dome scandal begins when the U.S.Secretary of the Interior leases the Teapot Oil Reserves inWyoming.
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May 5, 1922 - Construction begins on Yankee Stadium in NewYork City, often dubbed the House that Ruth Built.
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May 30, 1922 - The Lincoln Memorial, located on the oppositeend of the National Mall from the Capitol building, is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1923
January 23, 1923 - The 12th century Aztec Indian ruins in New Mexico are proclaimed as a National Monument by PresidentWarren G. Harding, following in the footsteps of all presidentssince Theodore Roosevelt. It is known as Aztec Ruins NationalMonument.
March 3, 1923 - Time Magazine is published for the first time, becoming one of the most dominant media companies of the Twentieth Century.
April 4, 1923 - Warner Brothers Pictures is incorporated.
April 15, 1923 - The first sound on film motion picture Phonofilm is show in the Rivoli Theatre in New York City by Lee de Forest.
August 2, 1923 - President Warren G. Harding dies in office after becoming ill following a trip to Alaska, and is succeeded by his Vice President, Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge would oppose the League of Nations, but approved of the World Court.
1924
January 25, 1924 - The first Winter Olympic Games are held in the French Alps in Chamonix, France with sixteen nationssending athletes to participate, including the United States, which won four medals. Norway, with four gold and eighteen medals total had the most in both categories. The Winter OlympicGames have been held since this year, except during World WarII.
February 14, 1924 - The IBM corporation is founded.
May 10, 1924 - J. Edgar Hoover is appointed to lead the FederalBureau of Investigation.
June 2, 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.
November 4, 1924 - Calvin Coolidge wins his first election asPresident, retaining the White House for the Republican Partyover his Democratic foe, John W. Davis, and Progressive Partycandidate Robert M. La Follette. The Electoral margin was 382 to136 (Davis) to 13 (La Follette).
1925
January 5, 1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross is inaugurated as the first woman governor of the United States in Wyoming. MiriamFerguson is installed two weeks later as the second during aceremony in Texas.
June 13, 1925 - Radiovision is born. The precursor to televisionis demonstrated by Charles Francis Jenkins when he transmits a10 minute film of synchronized pictures and sound for five milesfrom Anacostia to Washington, D.C. to representatives of theUnited States government.
July 10, 1924 - The Scopes Trial or Monkey Trial begins andwould later convict John T. Scopes of teaching Charles Darwin'sevolutionary theory at a Dayton, Tennessee high school, whichviolated Tennessee law. He is fined $100 for the charge.
November 21, 1925 - Lava Beds National Monument in Californiais designated by President Calvin Coolidge. It was the site of avolcanic rock, natural fortress used by the Modoc Indians duringthe Modoc War of 1872-3.
November 28, 1925 - The Grand Ole Opry transmits its first radiobroadcast.
1926
March 16, 1926 - Robert H. Goddard demonstrates 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 occurswhen pilot Floyd Bennett, with Richard Evelyn Byrd as hisnavigator, guided a three-engine monoplane. They were awardedthe Medal of Honor for their achievement.
May 20, 1926 - Air Commerce Act is passed, providing aid andassistance to the airline industry, plus federal oversight under the Department of Commerce for civil air safety.
May 31, 1926 - The Sesqui-Centennial Exposition opens inPhiladelphia to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth birthday of the United States. With nineteen nations and four coloniesparticipating, the event failed to live up to the wonder andexpectation of the former Centennial Exposition, and is oftenregarded as a failure in world expo circles. Due in part toinadequate preparation and a very wet summer, it closed onNovember 30 a disappointment with 6 million visitors in totalattendance.
November 15, 1926 - The NBC Radio Network is formed byWestinghouse, General Electric, and RCA, opening withtwenty-four stations.
1927
March 5, 1927 - The civil war in China prompts one thousandUnited States marines to land in order to protect property ofUnited States interests.
April 22 to May 5, 1927 - The Great Mississippi Flood occurs,affecting over 700,000.
May 20, 1927 - Charles Lindbergh leaves Roosevelt Field, NewYork 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.
October 4, 1927 - Work on the gigantic sculpture at MountRushmore begins. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum would complete thetask of chiseling the busts of four presidents; GeorgeWashington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and TheodoreRoosevelt, fourteen years later.
October 6, 1927 - The advent of talking pictures emerges. AlJolson in the Jazz Singer debuts in New York City.
September 7, 1927 - First success in the invention of televisionoccurs by American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Thecomplete electronic television system would be patented threeyears later on August 26, 1930.
1928
March 26, 1928 - The Tennessee national military park known as Fort Donelson National Battlefield, site of the first major Union victory in the Civil War and known for the unconditional surrender of Confederate troops to Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, is created by legislation signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge.
May 15, 1928 - The first appearance of Mickey and MinnieMouse on film occurs with the release of the animated short film, Plane Crazy.
June 17, 1928 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to flyover the Atlantic Ocean.
November 6, 1928 - Herbert Hoover wins election as President ofthe United States with an Electoral College victory, 444 to 87over Democratic candidate Alfred E. Smith, the Catholic governorof New York.
December 21, 1928 - The United States Congress approves theconstruction 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 and citizens in the act known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
October 11, 1929 - JC Penney opens its Store #1252 in Milford,Delaware, the last state in the Union to have one of their stores. The growth of the nationwide chain indicated the prosperity of the decade only two weeks before the stock market crash of 1929 would ensue.
October 25, 1929 - The Teapot Dome scandal comes to a closewhen Albert B. Fall, the former Secretary of the Interior, isconvicted 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.
October 29, 1929 - Postwar prosperity ends in the 1929 StockMarket crash. The plummeting stock prices led to lossesbetween 1929 and 1931 of an estimated $50 billion and startedthe worst American depression in the nation's history.
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History Photo Bomb
Future Hall of Fame player Babe Ruth. Courtesy Library of Congress.
Baseball History
For the history of baseball, check out our friends at StatGeek Baseball and Baseballevaluation where they put the stats from 1871 to today in context.
Out of work workers during the Great Depression. Courtesy National Archives.
Timeline Book
The Appalachian Trail, first proposed in 1921 and completed seventeen years later. Scene from trail in the Shenandoah Mountains. Courtesy Library of Congress.
ABH Travel Tip
Be your own history detective. Across the United States,national, state, and local historical socieites have placed roadside markers telling their historical stories. While some of these markers are in out of the way places, their import to the fabric of the U.S. tale are no less important.
