THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BETWEEN THE WARS
1918 - 1941

1918	November 11	Armistice signed ending World War I - American casualties number 115,000 dead, 206,000 wounded and 4,500 taken prisoner
	December 4	President Wilson sails for France (first foreign visit by a President while in office)
	December 13	American troops cross the Rhine to begin occupation of Germany
1919	January 6	Former President Theodore Roosevelt, a leading contender for the 1920 Republican presidential nomination, dies at Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, New York.
	February 6	Seattle General Strike begins - 50,000 workers walk off their job in sympathy with 25,000 shipyard workers already on strike
	February 11	Seattle Central Labor Council declares an end to the General Strike
	February 25	Oregon becomes the first state to tax gasoline
	February 26	Grand Canyon and Acadia National Parks established by Act of Congress
	March 16	John Barrymore makes his Shakespearean debut as Richard III at New York's Plymouth Theater
	March 24	USS Idaho BB-42 commissioned at New York Shipbuilding Co. Camden, New Jersey.
	May 27	Albert Read and Walter Hinton complete the first transatlantic airplane flight from Naval Air Station Rockaway, New York to Lisbon via Newfoundland and the Azores in a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat
	June 2	Bombs explode in eight cities including Washington where the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer is destroyed - anarchist are blamed for the bombings
	June 7	New York becomes the first state to require automobile drivers to pass a written licensing examination.
	June 11	Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes becoming the first horse to win racing's Triple Crown (having previously won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes)
	July 9	President Wilson returns from the Paris Peace Conference - 500,000 New Yorkers greet the President who delivers a report on the Versailles Treaty at Carnegie Hall
	July 27	Stone throwing melee between Whites and Blacks on a Chicago beach escalates after a Black child drowns. 23 Blacks and 15 Whites die in the rioting that follows
	September 14	Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge fires striking Boston policemen. Coolidge tells labor leader Samuel Gompers, "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime."
	September 16	The American Legion chartered by Act of Congress
	September 25	Woodrow Wilson suffers a debilitating stroke while campaigning for ratification of the Versailles Treaty in Pueblo, Colorado.
	September 30	Rioting Whites kill at least 20 and as many as 200 Blacks in Elaine, Arkansas after a White sheriff's deputy is killed in the midst of an organizing campaign by Black sharecroppers - Federal troops called in to restore order
	November 19	United States Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles
		Zion National Park established by Act of Congress
	December 21	Federal agents acting on orders from Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer seize 249 resident aliens suspected of subversive activities including Communist Emma Goldman - The suspects are placed aboard the SS Buford and deported to Russia
		1919 Nobel Peace Prize President Thomas Woodrow Wilson "for his work in establishing the League of Nations..." Notable Books • Ten Days That Shook The World - John Reed • The Education of Henry Adams - Henry Adams • Winesburg,Ohio - Sherwood Anderson Notable Recordings • How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (after they've seen Paree) - Arthur Fields
1920	January 2	Federal agents launch the "Palmer Raids" 4000 suspected radicals in 33 cities are arrested on orders of the Attorney General
	January 16	18th Amendment to the United States Constitution takes effect. Henceforth, "the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or exportation from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."
	January 17	The Volstead Act regulating the enforcement of Prohibition takes effect.
	April 1	American troops withdrawn from Siberia ending U.S participation in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War
	June	Man O' War wins the Belmont Stakes by 20 lengths
	June 3	USS Tennessee BB-43, commissioned at New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York.
	April 1	Census Bureau reports total number of United States inhabitants at 105,273,049
	July 3	Bill Tilden becomes the first American to win a Wimbeldon tennis championship
	August 17	Cleveland Indians outfielder Ray Chapman dies of skull fractures suffered when struck by a submarine pitch delivered by Yankees pitcher Carl Mays, only fatality in major league baseball history
	August 26	19th Amendment to the United States Constitution takes effect. "The right of citizens of The United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
	September 16	Explosion kills 30 and injures 300 people in the Wall Street financial district of New York.
	September 28	The "Black Sox" scandal becomes public - eight members of the Chicago White Sox indicted for conspiring with professional gamblers to fix the outcome of the 1919 World Series.
	November 1	Broadway premier of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones
	November 2	Republican Warren G. Harding elected President with a record 63% of the popular vote defeating Democrat James M. Cox. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the losing candidate for Vice President.
		America's first scheduled commercial radio program, election results, broadcast by station KDKA Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
	November 12	Judge Keneshaw Mountain Landis elected first Commissioner of Baseball
		1920 Notable Books • Mainstreet - Sinclair Lewis • The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton • This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald Notable Films • Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - John Barrymore • The Mark of Zorro - Douglas Fairbanks, Noah Berry Notable Recordings • Swanee - Al Jolson • Whispering - Paul Whiteman
1921	April 11	Iowa becomes the first state to tax cigarettes
	May 3	West Virginia becomes the first state to impose a tax on retail sales
	May 19	The Emergency Quota Act limits immigration to 375,000 persons per year. Immigration from any individual nation not to exceed 3% of the number of residents of that nationality recorded in the 1910 census.
	May 31	Reported assault by a Black man on a White woman in a Tulsa, Oklahoma elevator touches off a two day riot that results in 300 deaths and the destruction of 35 blocks in the mostly Black Greenwood section of the city.
	June 30	David Sarnoff founds Radio Corporation of America
	July 2	Jack Dempsey knocks out Frenchman Georges Carpentier in the 4th round of a world's heavyweight boxing championship match before 90,000 at Boyle's Thirty Acres in Jersey City - The Radio broadcast of the fight is the first of a sporting event in the United States
		President Harding declares the state of war with Germany and Austria-Hungary ended.
	July 7	USS Maryland BB-46, launched at Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia.
	July 11	Former President William Howard Taft sworn in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
	July 14	Italian immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Venzetti convicted of murdering F. Parmenter, the paymaster of a Braintree, Massachusetts shoe factory.
	July 21	U.S. Army airplanes under command of General William Mitchell sink the German battleship Ostfriesland 60 miles off Hampton Roads
	August 10	USS California BB-44, launched at Mare Island Navy Yard; Vallejo, California.
	October 18	United States Senate ratifies the peace treaty with Germany.
	November 2	Margaret Sanger and Mary Denett found the American Birth Control League
	November 11	Unknown soldier of World War I laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetary. The memorial bearing the words, "Here rests an American Soldier known but to God" was not completed until 1929
		Washington Armaments Limitation Conference begins.
	November 14	Senate ratifies treaties ending the state of war with Austria-Hungary.
		1921 Notable Books • Three Soldiers - John Dos Passos • Flappers and Philosophers - F. Scott Fitzgerald Notable Films • The Sheik - Rudolph Valentino, Adolph Menjou • Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Rudolph Valentino, Alan Hale, Wallace Beery Notable Recordings • Ain't We Got Fun
1922	February 6	Washington Naval Conference ends with agreement between the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy to maintain fleet tonnage at a ratio of 5 US - 5 GB - 3 Jp - 1.67 Fr - 1.67 It
	February 7	First issue of The Reader's Digest published
	May 23	Premier of Anne Nichols' play Abie's Irish Rose at New York's Fulton Theater
	May 22	United States Supreme Court exempts organized baseball from anti-trust laws
	May 30	Lincoln Memorial dedicated by former President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Howard Taft, in the presence of Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln and President Harding. The memorial was designed by Henry Bacon but is best know for its seated stature of Lincoln by Daniel Chester French
	August 4	Alexander Graham Bell buried in Canada, The American Telephone and Telegraph Company shutdowns all phone services in the United States for the day
	October 17	First carrier takeoff by an American aviator: an airplane piloted by Lt. V. C. Griffin departs from the deck of CV-1 USS Langley, a converted coal ship, anchored in the York River, Virginia.
		1922 Notable Books • Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis • Maria Conception - Katherine Anne Porter • The Beautiful and the Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald Notable Films • Robin Hood - Douglas Fairbanks, Wallace Beery • Nanook of the North - Robert J. Flaherty - director Notable Recordings • Tiger Rag - The New Orleans Rhythm Kings Pullitzer Price for Drama • Anna Christie - Eugene O'Neill
1923	March 3	Premier issue of Henry Luce's Time magazine published
	April 18	Opening day for New York's Yankee Stadium - 74,217 crowd the "the house that Ruth built" - the Babe's three run homer leads the Yanks to a 4 to 1 victory over the Boston Red Sox
	August 2	President Harding dies in San Francisco after taking ill on a vacation trip to Alaska.
	August 3	Calvin Coolidge sworn in as President by his father Justice of the Peace John Coolidge at his home in Plymouth, Vermont.
	August 23	Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Venzetti executed.
	August 30	USS Colorado commissioned at New York Shipbuilding Company; Camden, New Jersey.
	September 15	Governor John Walton places Oklahoma under martial law to curb Ku Klux Klan terrorism
	October 25	Senate investigating committee issues a report accusing the Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall, of accepting bribes to lease the Naval Petroleum Reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills, California to private concerns.
	December 1	USS West Virginia commissioned at Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia.
		1923 Nobel Prize for Physics Robert A. Millikan, California Institute of Technology, "for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photo-electric effect..." Notable Books • Spring and All - William Carlos Williams • A Lost Lady - Willa Cather Notable Films • The Ten Commandments - Cecil B. DeMille - director • The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Lon Chaney
1924		New Immigration Act reduces national quotas to 2% of residents of particular national origin as recorded in the 1890 census.
	January 7	George Gershwin completes composition of Rhapsody in Blue
	February 3	Former President Woodrow Wilson dies in Washington, DC.
	February 8	First execution with lethal gas carried out at the Nevada State Prison
	February 22	Calvin Coolidge delivers the first Presidential address broadcast from the White House
	March 18	Congress overrides President Coolidge's veto of the World War I Veterans Bonus Bill. The Act provides for a payment of $1.25 for each day of overseas service and $1 for each day of stateside service payable in 20 years.
	March 19	U.S. Marines sent to Honduras to restore order
	May 10	J. Edgar Hoover appointed Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
	June 2	Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act making all Indians born within the borders of the United States citizens
	June 26	U.S. Marines end an 8 year occupation of the Dominican Republic
	August 5	debut of the comic strip Little Orphan Annie in the New York Daily News
	September 2	Broadway opening of Rudolph Friml's operetta Rose Marie
	September 20	Walter Winchell writes the first of his Your Broadway and Mine columns for the New York Evening Graphic
	September 28	Two U.S. Army Douglas World Cruisers land in Seattle completing a five month round the world flight
	October 18	Notre Dame defeats Army 13 to 7 in a football game made famous by New York Herald Tribune reporter Grantland Rice who wrote, "Outlined against a blue, gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden."
	November 4	President Coolidge re-elected defeating the Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Party candidate Robert M. LaFollette.
		Nellie Taylor Ross of Wyoming and Miriam Fergusson of Texas become the first women to be elected governors of American states.
	December 1	Broadway premier of George and Ira Gershwin's Lady Be Good starring Fred and Adele Astaire
		1924 Notable Books • Desire Under the Elms - Eugene O'Neill • Old New York - Edith Wharton Notable Films • The Thief of Baghdad - Douglas Fairbanks, Raoul Walsh - director • The Age of Innocence • Greed - Zasu Pitts, Erich von Stroheim - director Notable Recordings • California Here I Come - Al Jolson • Rhapsody in Blue - George Gershwin • I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover - Jean Goldkette & His Orchestra
1925	January 8	Igor Stravinsky conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in his American debut
	January 20	John T. Scopes, a Dayton, Tennessee high school teacher, indicted for violating that state's Butler Act. The Act prohibits the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible" in public schools.
	February 21	First issue of The New Yorker published
	July	United States Marines withdrawn from the Dominican Republic.
	July 21	John Scopes found guilty of teaching evolution theory and fined $100. The conviction is overturned on a technicality before the Butler Act can be challenged in the Supreme Court.
	September 3	Naval airship USS Shenandoah destoyed in thunderstorm over Ohio killing 14 of 43 persons on board - General Mitchell releases a report attributing this latest of a series of air disasters to "...incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonous neglect of our national defence by the War and Navy departments."
	October 28	General Mitchell placed under arrest pending a court martial for insubordination resulting from his statements regarding the Shenandoah disaster
		1925 Nobel Peace Prize Vice President Charles G. Dawes "for his work in reforming reparations payments..." Notable Books • The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald • In Our Time - Ernest Hemingway • An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser • So Big - Edna Ferber • Manhattan Transfer - John Dos Passos Notable Films • The Gold Rush - Charlie Chaplin • The Phantom of the Opera - Lon Chaney • Dark Angel - Ronald Coleman • The Merry Widow - John Gilbert, Erich von Stroheim -director Notable Recordings • If You Knew Susie - Eddie Cantor
1926	February 1	Airpower advocate Billy Mitchell resigns his commission rather than accept the sentence of his court martial
	March 16	Robert H. Goddard of Clark College - Worcester, Massachusetts, launches the first liquid fueled rocket
	May 3	U.S. Marines sent to restore order in Nicaragua
	May 5	Sinclair Lewis refuses to accept Pultizer Prize for Arrowsmith
	May 9	Floyd Bennett and Richard E. Byrd claim to make the first airplane flight to the North Pole. Byrd's claim later disputed by Bernt Balchen who alledged that Bennett had privately admitted that he and Byrd never reached the Pole.
	May 12	A dirigible belonging to the Amundsen - Ellsworth - Nobile Expedition lands in Teller, Alaska after flying over the North Pole en route from Spitzbergen.
	May 20	Congress approves the Air Commerce Act regulating civil aviation
	July	Bill Tilden leads the United States to its seventh consecutive Davis Cup victory defeating France 4 to 1 at Philadelphia
	August 6	19 year old American Gertrude Ederle swims across the English Channel in 14 ½ hours - Ederle is the first woman to swim the Channel and bests the mens record by 2 hours
	September 23	A record crowd of 120,757 watches as Gene Tunney wins the heavyweight boxing championship by a decision of the judges in a 10 round fight in Philadelphia
		1926 Notable Books • The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway • The Weary Blues - Langston Hughes • The Bridge - Crane Hart Notable Films • The Scarlet Letter - Lillian Gish • What Price Glory? - Victor Mclaglen, Dolores del Rio, Edmund Lowe, Raoul Walsh - director Notable Recordings • Jelly Roll Blues - Jelly Roll Morton • Some of These Days - Sophie Tucker • The Black Bottom - Annette Hanshaw
1927	January 6	600 U.S. Marines sent to Nicaragua to protect United States interests.
	January 7	Transatlantic telephone service established between New York and London - 31 calls placed the first day
	February 3	President Coolidge signs legislation creating the Federal Radio Commission
	March 5	1200 U.S. Marines sent to join international peacekeeping force in Shanghai.
	April 7	First long distance television transmission, image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover sent from Washington to New York
	May 20	Charles A. Lindbergh, the "Lone Eagle" departs Roosevelt Field, New York in the Spirit of Saint Louis bound for Paris at 7:52 am.
	May 21	Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field (Paris) at 5:21 pm completing the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris (3610 miles) in 33 hours 31 minutes.
	May 26	Last of fifteen million Model-Ts produced over a twenty year span rolls off the assembly line at Ford Motor Company's Highland Park, Michigan plant
	July 7	Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers makes his 4,000th major league base hit
	August 2	President Coolidge announces "I choose not to run for President in 1928".
	September 6	Philo T. Farnsworth makes the first transmission of an image by purely electronic means
	September 22	102,000 gather in Chicago's Soldier Field to watch the rematch of the Tunney - Dempsey heavyweight boxing championship fight - Tunney wins again but the result is clouded by the referee's long count following Tunney's fall in the 7th round
	September 30	Babe Ruth hits his 60th Home Run of the baseball season - a regular season record that stands for the next 34 years.
	October 6	Premier of the first talking motion picture, The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson.
	November 13	The Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River between Manhattan and Jersey City opens to traffic after 7 years under construction
	December 2	The Model-A goes on sale at Ford dealers
	December 14	USS Lexington CV-2, first purpose built American aircraft carrier, launched at Fore River Shipbuilding Company; Quincy, Massachusetts.
	December 27	Broadway premier of Jerome Kern's Showboat starring Paul Robeson
		1927 Nobel Prize for Physics Arthur Holly Compton, University of Chicago, "for the discovery of the effect bearing his name..." Notable Books • Elmer Gantry - Sinclair Lewis Notable Films • The Jazz Singer - Al Jolson • The General - Buster Keaton • King of Kings - Cecil B. DeMille, director Notable Recordings • My Blue Heaven - Gene Austin • Some of These Days - Sophie Tucker • Ol' Man River - Paul Robeson • On the Sunny Side of the Street, Button Up Your Overcoat - Fred Waring • Stardust - Hoagie Carmicheal • Beale Street Blues - Jelly Roll Morton
1928	January 12	Vladimir Horowitz makes his solo debut with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall
	March 13	St. Francis Dam bursts killing 400 people in California's San Fernando Valley
	March 31	President Coolidge presents the Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh
	May 10	Station WGY - Schenectady, New York begins regularly scheduled television transmissions
	June 29	New York Governor Alfred E. Smith nominated for President by the Democratic National Convention. Smith is the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for President by a major American political party.
	July 10	George Eastman gives first demonstration of color motion pictures
	August 27	Kellogg-Briand Pact to outlaw war signed in Paris by 62 nations.
	September 15	Bryce Canyon National Park established by Act of Congress
	November 6	Republican Herbert Hoover elected President defeating the Democratic candidate, Alfred E. Smith. Democratic Party's grip on the "Solid South" broken. Hoover carries five states of the old Confederacy.
	November 18	Mickey Mouse debuts in Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie
	December 13	Premier of George Gershwin's An American in Paris at Carnegie Hall
	December 30	Contralto Marian Anderson debuts at Carnegie Hall
		1928 Notable Books • The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder Notable Films • Wings - Clara Bow, Charles Rodgers, William Wellman - director • The Last Command - Emil Jannings, William Powell, Josef von Sternberg - director • The Wedding March - Fay Wray, Zasu Pitts, Erich von Stroheim - director Notable Recordings • St.James Infirmary - Louis Armstrong • I Want to be Loved by You - Helen Kane Pulitzer Prize for Drama Strange Interlude - Eugene O'Neill
1929	February 26	Grand Teton National Park created by Act of Congress
	May 15	President Hoover declares Kellogg - Briand Treaty effective.
	August 19	radio premier of the Amos & Andy Show starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll
	October 24	Investors loose $4 Billion as a record 12,894,650 shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
	October 29	"Black Tuesday", Investors loose $14 Billion on 16,410,030 shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
	November 1	former Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall convicted of bribery charge arising from his role in the Teapot Dome scandal - Fined $100,000 and sentenced to a year in prison.
	November 15	Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit to Windsor, Canada opened - It was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time and was privately financed.
	November 27	Broadway opening of 50 Million Frenchmen (music by Cole Porter, directed by Monty Wooley, sets by Norman Bel Geddes) at the Lyric Theater
	November 29	Bernt Balchen and a three man crew including Admiral Richard E. Byrd complete the first airplane flight to the South Pole.
		1929 Nobel Peace Prize Frank B. Kellogg, former Secretary of State, "for his work in fostering the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war..." Notable Books • A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway • Flowering Judas - Katherine Anne Porter • The Sound and the Fury and Sartoris - William Faulkner Notable Films • The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Duncan Renaldo Notable Recordings • I'll Get By (as long as I have you) - Bing Crosby • Happy Days Are Here Again - Leo Reisman • Singin in the Rain - Gus Arnheim • You Do Something to Me - Cole Porter • Ten Cents a Dance - Ruth Etting
1930	February 24	Former New York Governor, Secretary of State and 1916 Republican Presidential nominee Charles Evans Hughes sworn in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
	March 8	Former President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Howard Taft dies in Washington
	April 1	Census Bureau reports total number of United States inhabitants at 122,288,177
	May 14	Carlsbad Caverns National Park established by Act of Congress
	May 27	The Chrysler Building opens in New York. Architect William Van Alen's 77 story (319m) Art-deco masterpiece holds the title of World's Tallest Building for less than a year.
	June	Gallant Fox wins the Belmont Stakes to complete a sweep of horse racing's Triple Crown
	June 17	President Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act raising barriers to foreign trade.
	August 9	Debut of Max Fleischer's cartoon character Betty Boop in Dizzy Dishes
	September 7	Debut of Chic Young's comic strip Blondie
	September 29	Lowell Thomas makes his debut as newscaster for CBS
	September 30	Death Valley Days premiers on NBC radio
	October	Bobby Jones wins his 4th U.S. Open to complete the Grand Slam of golf having previously won the year's U.S. Amateur Championship (his 5th), British Open (his 3rd) and British Amateur contest - Jones retires from competitive golf at age 28
	October 14	Ginger Rodgers debuts singing Embraceable You in Gershwin's Girl Crazy
	October 20	Premier of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on NBC radio
	November 1	President Hoover opens the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel beneath the St. Clair River.
		1930 Nobel Prize for Literature Sinclair Lewis, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description..." Notable Books • The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett • Cimarron - Edna Ferber Notable Films • All Quiet on the Western Front - Lewis Milestone - director • Disraeli - George Arliss Notable Recordings • Georgia on My Mind - Hoagie Carmicheal
1931	March 3	Francis Scott Key's Star Spangled Banner officially made the national anthem of the United States by Act of Congress
	March 19	State of Nevada legalizes casino gambling
	March 31	University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne killed in a Kansas airplane crash, Rockne compiled a 105 win, 12 loss, 5 tie record in 12 seasons
	April 30	George Washington Bridge opens linking New York City with New Jersey
	May 1	President Hoover turns on the lights of the Empire State Building. The New York skyscraper holds the title of world's tallest building for the next 44 years. The 102 story (448m) structure was completed in 14 months by 3,400 workers at a cost of $40,948,900.
	June 26	Kraft Music Hall premiers on NBC radio
	October 4	Chester Gould's Dick Tracy comic strip debuts in the Detroit Daily Mirror
	October 5	Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon land in Wenatchee, Washington completing a 41 hour non-stop flight from Japan
	October 18	Thomas Alva Edison dies in West Orange, New Jersey at age 84
		1931 Nobel Peace Prize Jane Addams, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia University for promoting the Kellogg- Briand Pact Notable Books • The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck Notable Films • The Front Page - Adolphe Menjou, Pat O'Brien, Lewis Milestone - director • Cimarron - Irene Dunne • City Lights - Charlie Chaplin • Trader Horn - Duncan Renaldo Notable Recordings • Minnie the Moocher - Cab Calloway • You Rascal You - Henry Allen & the Luis Russell Band
1932	February 4	New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt presides over the opening of the 3rd Winter Olympiad at Lake Placid
	February 22	Debut of George Burns and Gracie Allen's radio program
	March 1	22 month old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh kidnapped and murdered
	March 29	Jack Benny makes his radio debut
	April 7	New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt begins his campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination citing the need to work for the improvement of, "the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid."
	May 4	Al Capone enters Atlanta Federal Penitentiary to begin serving an 11 year sentence for income tax evasion
	May 20	American aviatrix Amelia Earhart completes the first solo transatlantic flight by a woman, flying from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland to Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
	May 30	20,000 members of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, unemployed World War I veterans demanding early payment of bonuses due in 1945, converge on Washington
	June 18	U.S. Senate defeats a bill requiring early payment of veterans bonuses on a 62 to 18 vote
	July 2	Franklin D. Roosevelt accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for the Presidency. "I pledge to you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people."
	July 29	Troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and Majors Eisenhower and Patton destroy encampments of unemployed veterans in Washington
	July 30	Vice President Charles Curtis presides over the opening ceremonies of the 10th Summer Olympic Games at the Los Angeles Coliseum - American Mildred "Babe" Didrikson wins 3 gold medals and sets 3 world records in track and field events
	September 1	New York City mayor James J. Walker tenders his resignation to Governor Roosevelt in advance of the release of the Seabury Commission's report on corruption in the city administration
	October 13	Cornerstone laid for the United States Supreme Court Building. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes presiding, "The Republic endures and this is the symbol of its faith."
	November 7	Premier of Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century on CBS radio
	November 8	Roosevelt elected President defeating the incumbent, Herbert Hoover, with 27,476,673 popular and 523 electoral votes to Hoover's 15,761,841 popular and 59 electoral votes.
		1932 Nobel Prize for Chemistry Irving Langmuir, General Electric Company, "for his discovery and investigations in surface chemistry..." Notable Books • Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell Notable Films • Grand Hotel - Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford • Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Frederic March, Miriam Hopkins • The Champ - Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, King Vidor - director • Trouble in Paradise - Miriam Hopkins, Herbert Marshall, Ernst Lubitsch - director Notable Recordings • It Don't Mean a Thing (If it ain't got swing) - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra Pullitzer Price for Drama Of Thee I Sing; George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Ira Gershwin
1933	January 5	Former President Calvin Coolidge dies at his home in Northampton, Massachusetts.
	January 30	Radio premier of The Lone Ranger show
	February 6	20th Amendment to the United States Constitution take effect. Henceforth Presidential and Congressional terms of office begin in January rather than March.
	February 15	President Elect Roosevelt survives an assassination attempt by anarchist Guiseppi Zangara. A bystander deflects the would be assassin's arm but Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak who was riding in Roosevelt's car is mortally wounded by a stray shot.
	March 4	Franklin Delano Roosevelt sworn in as the 33rd President of the United States. "This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is itself ..."
	March 4	Francis Perkins sworn in as Secretary of Labor, 1st woman cabinet secretary
	March 6	Roosevelt declares a nationwide Bank Holiday to stem panic withdrawals by depositors who fear the new administration is about devalue the dollar and to allow auditors time to assess the solvency of country's banking institutions. Banks began reopening a week later but 4000 are declared insolvent and remained closed.
	March 31	Civilian Conservation Corps established to provide employment for men between the ages of 17 and 33 on projects to preserve the nation's forests, parks and range land.
	April 7	The Volstead Act is amended to allow sale of beer with less than 3.2% alcohol and wine.
	May 18	Tennessee Valley Authority established to build and market power from hydro-electric projects and spur economic growth in impoverished areas of seven southeastern states.
	May 20	Charlie Chan premiers on NBC radio
	May 27	The Century of Progress Exposition opens in Chicago. The fair draws 39 million visitors and turns a small profit.
	June 6	First drive-in movie theater opens in Camden, New Jersey
	July 7	First All Star baseball game between the American and National Leagues held in connection with the Chicago World's Fair - American League stars win 4 to 2
	October 4	First issue of Esquire Magazine published
	November 7	Republican congressman Fiorello H. LaGuardia elected mayor of New York City on a reform platform
		Pennsylvania votes to exempt sporting contests from Sunday closing laws
	November 16	Roosevelt administration extends diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union
	December 5	21st Amendment to the United States Constitution repeals the 18th Amendment - Prohibition ends.
		1933 Nobel Prize for Medicine Thomas Hunt Morgan, California Institute of Technology, "for his discoveries concerning the role played by the chromosome in heredity..." Notable Books • The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas - Gertrude Stein • God's Little Acre - Erskine Caldwell Notable Films • A Farewell to Arms - Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper • 42nd Street - Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rodgers • King Kong - Fay Wray Pullitzer Price for Drama Both Your Houses - Maxwell Anderson
1934	January 1	Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation created to insure bank accounts up to $2500.
		Federal prison opened on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay
	January 26	The Apollo Theater opens in New York City's Harlem district
	March 22	Congress passes an act granting independence to the Philippine Islands on July 4, 1944.
	March 26	First Masters Golf Tournament won by Horton Smith
	June 6	Securities and Exchange Commission created by act of Congress to police the stock exchanges and financial brokerage houses. Joseph P. Kennedy appointed commissioner.
	June 15	Great Smoky Mountains National Park established by Act of Congress
	July 22	FBI agents kill gangster John Dillenger outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago
	September 9	SS Morro Castle en route to New York from Havana catches fire 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey - 134 passengers and crew killed - the fire erupted at 2 a.m.
	September 30	Babe Ruth plays his last game in a New York Yankees uniform
	November 5	Broadway premier of Anything Goes (music by Cole Porter, starring Ethel Merman and Vivian Vance) at the Alvin Theater
	November 20	Broadway premier of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour
		1934 Nobel Prize for Chemistry Harold C. Urey "for his discovery of heavy hydrogen..." Nobel Prize for Medicine George H. Whipple, University of Rochester; George R. Minot and William P. Murphy, Harvard University "for their discoveries concerning liver therapy in cases of anemia..." Notable Films • It Happened One Night - Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Frank Capra - director • The Thin Man - William Powell, Myrna Loy • Cleopatra - Claudette Colbert, Cecil B. DeMille - director Notable Recordings • Love in Bloom - Bing Crosby
1935	February 13	Jury in Flemington, New Jersey convicts Bruno Richard Hauptman of the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby
	March 20	premier of the radio program Your Hit Parade
	April 1	Albert Einstein delivers an address on the dangers of Nazism at a Carnegie Hall benefit for Jewish refugees from Germany
	April 8	Congress passes legislation creating the Works Progress Administration
	May 24	Major league baseball game played at night for the first time at Crosley Field, Cincinnati, Ohio between the Reds and the Philadelphia Phillies
	May 27	The United States Supreme Court declares the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional
	June	Omaha wins the Belmont Stakes to complete a sweep of horse racing's Triple Crown
	July	National Labor Relations Act authored by Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York enacted. The Act guarantees the right of workers to form unions and bargain collectively.
	August 14	Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act providing pensions for workers at age 65.
	August 15	Humorist Will Rodgers and aviator Wiley Post killed in a plane crash at Barrow, Alaska
	September 2	Hurricane makes landfall in the Florida Keys killing 423 people
	September 8	Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana assassinated by Carl Weiss. Long had planned to challenge Roosevelt for the presidency in 1936. Long's "Share the Wealth" platform called for a guaranteed income and limits on accumulation of wealth.
	September 20	President Roosevelt dedicates Boulder Dam (later renamed Hoover Dam) on the Colorado River. The 726 foot high structure cost $48,890,995. Ninety-Six workers died constructing it.
	September 30	radio premier of the Adventures of Dick Tracy on Mutual Broadcasting
	October	United States Supreme Court Building designed by Cass Gilbert completed
	October 10	Broadway premier of George and Ira Gershwin's Porgy and Bess
	November 5	Parker Brothers introduces the board game Monopoly
	November 22	First flight of Pan American Airways China Clipper from San Francisco to Manila via Honolulu, Midway Island, Wake Island and Guam completed in 59 hrs 48 min
		1935 Notable Books • Winterset - Maxwell Anderson • Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck Notable Films • Mutiny on the Bounty - Charles Laughton, Clark Gable • The Informer - Victor McLaghlen, John Ford - director • The Lives of the Bengal Lancers - Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone • Top Hat - Fred Astaire, Ginger Rodgers Notable Recordings • I'm Getting Sentimental Over You - Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra
1936	January 31	Radio premier of The Green Hornet show
	March 20	Broadway premier of T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral
	April 29	Arturo Toscanini conducts his farwell concert at Carnegie Hall
	June 19	German boxer Max Schmeling hands Joe Louis, aka "the Brown Bomber", his first professional defeat scoring a technical knock out in the 12th round
	June 27	Roosevelt nominated for a 2nd term as President.
	August	Ohio State University runner, Jesse Owens, wins gold medals in the 100 meter dash, 200 meter dash, broadjump and 400 meter relays at the Berlin Olympics
	November 3	Roosevelt re-elected in landslide victory over Kansas Governor Alfred M. Landon. Roosevelt wins a record 523 electoral votes and carries every state save Maine and Vermont.
	November 23	First issue of Life magazine published - Margaret Bourke-White's photo of Fort Peck Dam on the Missouri River featured on the premier cover
	December 14	George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's You Can't Take It With You opens at New York's Booth Theater
		1936 Nobel Prize for Physics Carl D. Anderson, California Institute of Technology, "for his discovery of the positron..." Nobel Prize for Literature Eugene O'Neill, "for the power, honesty and deep felt emotions of his dramatic works..." Notable Books • It Can't Happen Here - Sinclair Lewis • Drums Along the Mohawk - Walter D. Edmonds • The Shadow over Innsmouth - H.P. Lovecraft Notable Films • The Great Ziegfeld - Luise Rainer • San Francisco - Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracy • My Man Godfrey - William Powell, Carole Lombard • Modern Times - Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard Notable Recordings • Back in the Saddle Again - Gene Autry • Indian Love Call - Nelson Eddy & Jeanette MacDonald Pullitzer Price for Drama Idiot's Delight - Robert Sherwood
1937	January 19	Howard Hughes set the transcontinental speed record by flying from Los Angeles to New York in 7 hours 28 minutes 25 seconds
	February 5	President Roosevelt proposes increasing the number of Supreme Court justices from 9 to 15 the "Court Packing" scheme is eventually defeated
	February 11	Sitdown strike by automobile workers ends after a 44 day occupation of General Motors assembly plants in Flint, Michigan. The company agrees to a recognize the United Automobile Workers Union.
	March 2	United States Steel signs a contract with the Steelworker's Organizing Committee, recognizes the union as bargaining agent, grants a wage increase and a 40 hour work week.
	April 14	Rodgers and Hart's Babes in Arms opens at New York's Schubert Theater
	May 1	President Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act
	May 6	German airship LZ-129 Hindenburg bursts into flames during a landing attempt at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey killing 48 of 97 passengers and crew.
	May 23	John D. Rockefeller dies in Florida at age 98
	May 28	Golden Gate Bridge spanning the entrance to San Francisco Bay opens to traffic. The 1280 m suspension span designed by Joseph Strauss cost $35 million.
	May 30	Chicago police kill 10 demonstrators attempting to march on a Republic Steel Company plant. The company was one of several small steel producers that refused to follow the lead of U.S. Steel in recognizing the Steel Worker's Organizing Committee.
	June	War Admiral wins the Belmont Stakes to complete a sweep of horse racing's Triple Crown
	June 22	Joe Louis knocks out James Braddock in the 8th round of their Heavyweight championship bout in Chicago - Louis becomes the first African American boxing champion since Jack Johnson lost the title in 1915
	July 1	Composer George Gershwin dies of a brain tumor at age 38
	July 2	Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear between Lae, New Guinea and Howland Island after completing 22,000 miles of planned round the world flight that began in Oakland, California.
	July 22	U.S. Senate rejects Roosevelt's proposal to enlarge the Supreme Court
	July 24	The State of Alabama drops charges against 5 of the 9 Scottsboro Boys (black men accused of raping 2 white girls six years earlier) after losing two appeals in the U.S. Supreme Court
	September 28	President Roosevelt dedicates Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. The 150 foot high dam took five years to construct, produces 526 mw of electricity and improved navigation. The Works Progress Administration financed the project's $88 million cost.
	December 12	Japanese dive bombers sink the USS Panay in the Yangtze River near Nanking, China killing 2 and wounding 48 crewmembers
		1937 Nobel Prize for Physics Clinton J. Davisson, Bell Laboratories, "for his experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals..." Notable Books • Northwest Passage - Kenneth Roberts • To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemingway Notable Films • The Life of Emile Zola - Paul Muni • Lost Horizon - Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, John Howard, Frank Capra - director • Captain's Courageous - Spencer Tracy, Freddie Bartholomew, Lionel Barrymore Notable Theatrical Drama • One O'clock Jump - Count Basie • The Lady is a Tramp, I Wish I Were in Love Again, My Funny Valentine - Richard Rodgers • Sing Sing Sing - Benny Goodman & His Orchestra Notable Recordings • Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck • I'd Rather Be Right - Rodgers & Hart
1938	January 3	President Roosevelt establishes the March of Dimes to raise funds for polio research
	January 28	First mechanized ski lift (a rope tow powered by a Model-T engine) installed on Clinton Gilbert's Woodstock, Vermont farm
	February 4	Broadway opening of Thorton Wilder's Our Town gets poor reviews from the critics but later wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
	May 13	Seabiscuit beats 4 to 1 favorite and 1937 Triple Crown Champion War Admiral by 4 lengths in the second running of the Pimlico Special
	June 14	The Fair Labor Standards Act establishes a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour for industrial workers.
	June 22	70,043 patrons crowd into Yankee Stadium for the Schmeling - Louis heavyweight rematch, Louis knocks out the German 2 minutes 24 seconds into the 1st round
	June 29	Olympic National Park established by Act of Congress
	July 17	Douglas Corrigan is denied permission to make a transatlantic crossing in the 1929 Curtiss Robin he bought off a scrap heap for $310. Corrigan takes off from Floyd Bennett Field; Brooklyn, New York after telling authorities he intends to return to Long Beach, CA.
	July 18	"Wrong Way" Corrigan lands in Dublin, Ireland after a 28 hour 13 minute flight. "I just got in from New York. Where am I?"
	September 21	Hurricane makes landfall on New York and New England killing 600 people
	September 24	Tennis star Don Budge wins the U.S. Open at Forest Hills completing a sweep of the Year's U.S., British, French and Australian open tournaments
	October 30	Broadcast of Orson Wells' production of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds terrifies thousands who believe the report of a Martian invasion in New Jersey
	December 31	First flight of a pressurized airliner - Boeing 307
		1938 Notable Films • The Adventures of Robin Hood - Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone • Jezebel - Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, William Wyler - director • Boys Town - Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney • Angels with Dirty Faces - James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart • Algiers - Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr Notable Recordings • Begin the Bequine - Artie Shaw & His Orchestra • Thanks for the Memory - Bob Hope • A Tisket A Tasket - Ella Fitzgerald • When the Saints Go Marching In - Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra • Ain't Misbehavin' - Fats Waller
1939	February 15	Broadway premier of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes starring Tahlluah Bankhead
	February 18	Golden Gate International Exposition marking the completion of the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay Bridges opens on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay.
	March 28	- Broadway premier of The Philadelphia Story starring Katherine Hepburn
	April 9	Marian Anderson gives a concert for 75,000 people gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial - The Daughters of the American Revolution had refused the African-American contralto the use of Constitution Hall
	April 30	New York World's Fair, The World of Tomorrow, opens. General Motors Futurama (a look at the city of 1960) designed by Norman Bel Geddes becomes the fair's most popular exhibit.
	May 2	New York Yankees 1st baseman Lou Gehrig removes himself from the lineup after playing 2,130 consecutive games over 14 seasons - Gehrig is diagnosed with amytropic lateral sclerosis a fatal disease that forces him into retirement
	May 20	Pan American World Airways' Yankee Clipper begins regular flights between New York and Europe
	June 7	King George VI and Queen Elizabeth begin a five day visit to the United States.
	June 30	Frank Sinatra debuts as lead singer with the Harry James Band
	July 4	Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium - Gehrig tells the sellout crowd that "That I might have gotten a bad break... today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
	August 2	Albert Einstein writes President Roosevelt urging him to investigate recent discoveries relating to atomic energy
		President Roosevelt signs the Hatch Act barring the participation of civil servants in political campaigns
	August 6	- radio debut of the Dinah Shore Show on NBC
	September 8	President Roosevelt declares limited state of national emergency.
	September 30	Captain Midnight premiers on Mutual Broadcasting System
	October 16	Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner starring Monty Wooley opens at the Music Box in New York
	October 25	William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Saroyan refuses to accept and denounces the award as "wealth patronizing art"
	November 1	The last of 14 skyscrapers in Rockefeller Center, the largest pre-World War II business and entertainment complex built in America, completed. It was the largest privately financed construction project of the 1930s, employed 75,000 workers and took 8 years to complete.
	November 8	Life with Father begins an 8 year run at New York's Empire Theater
		1939 Nobel Prize for Physics Ernest Orlando Wilson, University of California "for his discovery and development of the cyclotron..." Nobel Prize for Literature Pearl S. Buck, "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China..." Notable Books • The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck • The Yearling - Majorie K. Rawlings • All This and Heaven Too - Rachel Field Notable Films • Gone With the Wind - Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - James Stewart, Jean Arthur Claude Raines, Frank Capra - director • Stagecoach - John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine, John Ford - director • The Wizard of Oz - Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bet Lahr, Jack Haley Notable Recordings • God Bless America - Kate Smith • Moonlight Serenade - Glenn Miller & His Orchestra • All or Nothing at All - Frank Sinatra & the Harry James Band • Over the Rainbow - Judy Garland • Jeepers Creepers - Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra • Beer Barrel Polka - The Andrews Sisters • Cherokee - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra • That Old Gang of Mine, I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now - Perry Como
1940	January 7	Premier of Gene Autry's Melody Ranch radio show
	January 31	U.S. Government issues the first monthly Social Security check for $22.54 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont
	February 1	Frank Sinatra replaces Jack Leonard as lead signer of the Tommy Dorsey Band
	February 7	Premier of Walt Disney's Pinocchio at New York's Center Theater
	February 12	Radio premier of The Adventures of Superman
	February 29	Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African-American to win an Academy Award (Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind).
	March	Kings Canyon National Park established by Act of Congress
	April 1	Census Bureau reports total number of United States inhabitants at 130,962,661
	April 3	Isle Royale National Park established by Act of Congress
	June 29	President Roosevelt signs bill requiring registration and fingerprinting of all aliens.
	July 3	Abbot & Costello debut on NBC radio
	July 27	Bugs Bunny debuts in the Warner Bros. cartoon A Wild Hare
	August 19	The Civil Aeronautics Board awards honorary pilot's license #1 to Orville Wright
	September 16	President Roosevelt signs the Selective Service Act - first peacetime conscription in United States history.
	October 1	America's first superhighway, a 160 mile section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, opened to traffic. Driving time between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg reduced by 3 hours. Planners predict that 1.3 million vehicles a year will use the road but 2.4 million vehicles pay the toll in the highway's first and only pre-war year of operation.
	October 29	Secretary of War Henry Stimson draws numbers for America's first peacetime draft.
	November 5	Roosevelt elected to an unprecedented third term. The President receives 27,243,466 popular and 449 electoral votes vs Republican challenger Wendell Wilkie's 22,304,755 popular and 82 electoral votes.
	November 7	- A 42 mph wind sends the 2800 foot main span of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge crashing into Puget Sound. Aerodynamic testing of suspension bridge designs becomes standard procedure after the collapse of "Galloping Gertie".
	November 12	First general purpose vehicle "Jeep" built by Willys-Overland Motors of Toledo
	December	Arsenic and Old Lace starring Boris Karloff begins road rehersals in Baltimore
	December 5	Broadway premier of Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey starring Gene Kelly and Van Johnson
	December 21	SS Charles Pratt an American oil tanker sunk by a German U-boat off the west coast of Africa.
		1940 Notable Books • You Can't Go Home Again - Thomas Wolfe • The Time of Your Life - William Saroyan Notable Films • The Grapes of Wrath - Henry Fonda, John Carradine, John Ford - director • Rebecca - Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Alfred Hitchcock -director • The Philadelphia Story - Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, James Stewart • The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplin Notable Recordings • Tuxedo Junction, Pennsylvania 6-5000 - Glenn Miller & His Orchestra • When You Wish Upon A Star - Frances Langford • Stardust - Hoagie Carmicheal • Moonlight & Roses - Lanny Ross
1941	January 23	Charles Lindbergh testifies again the Lend Lease Bill in a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
	February 6	Lindbergh reiterates his opposition to Lend Lease in testimony before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, "I'm against appeasement, but I am more opposed to an unnecessary war. I'm opposed to buying time by spending British blood. I oppose aid to England that would weaken us or carry us into war. I don't believe the United States can or should police the world. ... I don't believe the Germans think they can come over here, but if they tried, I believe in war to the uttermost."
	February 11	Wendell Wilkie testifies in behalf of the Lend Lease Bill in an appearance before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Wilkie tells the senators that the United States should send all its bombers save those needed for training and five to ten destroyers a month to Britain.
	March 6	The State Department orders closure of Italian consulates in Newark and Detroit.
	March 7	The Lend Lease Bill passes the United States Senate by a vote of 60 to 31.
	March 11	House of Representatives passes the Lend Lease bill by a vote of 317 to 71. President Roosevelt signs the measure into law.
		The American freighter Cold Harbor arrives in Marseilles with 1500 tons of relief supplies for French children in the unoccupied zone.
	March 17	President Roosevelt presides over the opening of the National Gallery of Art
	March 22	First generator at Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River becomes operational.
	March 30	The Coast Guard seizes 28 Italian, 2 German and 35 Danish ships in anchored in American ports following reports that crews are sabotaging the ship's engines.
	April 9	USS North Carolina launched at New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York.
	April 10	The Danish Minister to the United States, Hendrik Kauffman signs an agreement granting the United States rights to maintain and operate landing fields, seaplane facilities, radio and meteorology stations in Greenland. King Christian renounces the agreement and the Minister is recalled.
	April 17	Successful helicopter flight demonstration by Igor Sikorsky at Stratford, Connecticut
		Office of Price Administration established to administer rationing programs
	April 23	Charles Lindbergh addresses a crowd of 30,000 gathered in New York City for an America First Committee rally. "The British Government has one last desperate play remaining; they hope that they may be able to persuade us to send another American Expeditionary Force to Europe and share with England militarily, as well as financially, the fiasco of this war. We in this country have a right to think of the welfare of America first, just as the people in England thought first of their own country when they encouraged the smaller nations of Europe to fight against hopeless odds."
	April 25	Roosevelt tells a press conference that Lindbergh is a defeatist and an appeaser.
	April 28	Lindbergh resigns his commission as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve.
	May 2	The Federal Communications Commission announces agreement to allow start of regularly scheduled programming by commercial television stations effective July 1st
	May 6	Bob Hope gives his first USO performance at March Field, California
	May 21	Roosevelt declares unlimited state of national emergency.
		SS Robin Moor an American freighter is torpedoed by German submarine 950 miles off the coast of Brazil
	June	Whirlaway wins the Belmont Stakes to complete a sweep of horse racing's Triple Crown
	June 2	Lou Gehrig, former New York Yankee 1st baseman, dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
	June 9	U.S. Army takes control of strikebound North American Aviation Company
	June 14	United States freezes assets of Germany, Italy and all occupied countries.
	June 15	Italy freezes American assets in that country
	June 16	State Department orders closure of all German consulates, tourist and news agencies in the United States by July 10.
	June 19	Germany and Italy order closure of United States Consulates those countries
	June 20	Roosevelt issues executive order banning export of petroleum products from east coast ports except to the British Empire, western hemisphere countries, Iceland or Greenland.
		Ford Motor Company agrees to contract with the United Auto Workers Union covering all its plants in the United States.
	June 21	State Department orders closure of Italian consulates in the United States
	June 23	United States bans departure of Italian nationals
	June 24	Roosevelt pledges to extend American aid to the Soviet Union
		Treasury Department releases $39 million in frozen Soviet assets
		Italy requires exit visas for United States citizens
	July 1	United States air base on Bermuda commissioned
		Mammoth Cave National Park established by Act of Congress
	July 3	Harlan Fiske Stone of New York sworn in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
	July 7	Roosevelt informs Congress that United States troops have occupied Iceland at the request of the Icelandic Government.
	July 11	Robert H. Jackson, future Nuremburg Trial judge, sworn in as associate justice of the Supreme Court
	July 17	New York Yankee Joe Dimaggio's record consecutive game hitting streak ends at 56
		Presidential proclamation bars trade with 1800 Latin American firms deemed to be agents of Germany or Italy.
		SS Sessa an American owned ship registered in Panama sunk by a German submarine between New York and Iceland.
	July 21	American troops stationed at 2 bases in British Guiana.
		Transit through the Panama Canal restricted for repair work.
	July 25	Roosevelt orders Japanese assets in the United States frozen.
	July 26	Japan freezes American assets in that country.
		Roosevelt places the Philippine armed forces under American command.
		General MacArthur recalled to serve as commander of American and Philippine forces in the Far East.
	July 30	United States extends recognition to the Czech Government in Exile headed by Eduard Benes in London.
	August 4	Japanese shipping to the United States suspended.
	September 4	German submarine fires torpedoes on American destroyer USS Greer. The Greer, en route to Iceland, responds with depth charges.
	September 5	American freighter Steel Seafarer sunk in the Red Sea at entrance to Gulf of Suez by Axis bombers.
	September 6	German news reports claim that the USS Greer fired first.
	September 11	Roosevelt broadcasts a warning to the Axis, "But let this warning be clear. From now on If German or Italian vessels of war enter the waters, the protection of which is necessary for American defense, they do so at their own peril."
		Lindbergh speaking to an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa proclaims that, "The three most important groups which have been pressing this country towards war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration." He professed understanding of Jewish desires to defeat Hitler but went on to say, "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government."
		U.S. Army Corps of Engineers begins construction of the Pentagon Building in Arlington, Virginia
	September 12	SS Montara en route from Wilmington, North Carolina to Iceland with a cargo of lumber sunk off Greenland.
	September 13	U.S. Navy begins minesweeping operations in New York harbor.
	September 15	Navy Secretary Frank Knox tells the American Legion convention in Milwaukee, "Beginning tomorrow the American Navy will provide protection as adequate as we can make it for ships of every flag carrying Lend Lease supplies between the American continent and the waters adjacent to Iceland. These ships are ordered to capture or destroy by every means at their disposal Axis controlled submarines or surface raiders encountered in these waters. That is our answer to Mr. Hitler's declaration that he will try to sink every ship his vessels encounter on the routes leading from the United States to British ports."
	September 19	The Pink Star a freighter owned by the U.S. Maritime Commission and registered in Panama sunk by German submarine off Greenland.
	September 22	American owned ship flying the Panamanian flag torpedoed and sunk off Iceland.
	September 27	American owned tanker I. C. White registered in Panama sunk in the South Atlantic between Curacao and Capetown, South Africa
	September 28	Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox finishes the baseball season with a .406 batting average a percentage of success not since matched
	October	Mount Rushmore Memorial (60 foot high busts of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt carved by Gutzon Borglum into the South Dakota granite mountain) completed after 14 years work.
	October 1	The United States extends $100 million in Lend Lease credits to Brazil.
	October 3	Lindbergh speaking Fort Wayne, Indiana expresses fears that Roosevelt intends to suspend the 1942 Congressional elections.
	October 11	U.S. Navy seizes and destroys German weather report transmitter in Greenland.
	October 16	American freighter SS Bold Venture sunk in the Atlantic 500 miles south of Iceland
	October 17	American destroyer USS Kearny depth charges submarine attacking convoy 350 miles south of Iceland. Three torpedoes strike the destroyer killing 11 crewmen.
	October 30	Lindbergh and Montana Senator Burton Wheeler address 20,000 at an America First Rally held in New York City's Madison Square Garden.
	October 31	American destroyer USS Reuben James torpedoed and sunk by German submarine west of Iceland 100 of 145 officers and men killed.
	November 4	American tanker USS Salinas torpedoed off Iceland
		British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, attacked by egg and tomato throwing demonstrators as he enters the chancery of Detroit Archbishop Edward Mooney.
	November 6	President Roosevelt pledges $1 Billion in Lend Lease aid to the Soviet Union
	November 7	U. S. Senate votes 50 to 37 to amend Neutrality Act to permit American merchant ships to arm and cross combat zones to deliver supplies to belligerents.
	November 13	U. S. House of Representatives approves changes to Neutrality Act by a vote of 312 to 194.
	November 24	United States and Brazilian troops stationed in Dutch Guiana (Surinam).
	December 7	Japanese aircraft launched from six carriers attack American naval and airbases on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. American loses including 2,403 military and civilian dead, 1,178 military and civilian wounded, 21 ships sunk or damaged (including 8 battleships) and 188 aircraft destroyed. USS Arizona sinks with 1,177 crewmembers trapped on board (worst single loss in the history of the United States Navy).
	December 8	President Roosevelt addresses a joint session of Congress and requests a declaration of war. "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan... I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."
		Congress passes a joint resolution declaring war on Japan - Representative Jeanette Rankin (Republican - Montana) casts the lone dissenting vote.
		Japan attacks American bases on Guam, Midway Island, Wake Island and the Philippines.
	December 10	Guam surrendered to the Japanese - Japan renames the island Omiya Jima and occupies it for the next 31 months
	December 11	Germany and Italy declare war on the United States of America
	December 12	- Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia declare war on the United States of America
	December 14	Croatia declares war on the United States of America
	December 17	Admiral Husband Kimmel relieved as Commander in Chief U.S. Pacific Fleet
	December 23	Wake Island surrenders to the Japanese - 167 American military and civilian casualities - 1500 American Marines, Sailors and civilian construction workers taken prisoner
	December 31	Admiral Chester W. Nimitz takes command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet
		1941 Notable Books • Berlin Diary - William L. Shirer • Saratoga Trunk - Edna Ferber • Let Us Now Praise Famous Men - James Agee & Walker Evans Notable Films • The Maltese Falcon - Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, John Huston - director • Citizen Kane - Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten • Sergeant York - Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan • How Green Was My Valley - Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Roddy MacDowell, John Ford - director • Fantasia - Walt Disney Notable Recordings • Take the A Train - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra • Chattanooga Choo Choo - Glenn Miller & His Orchestra • St. Louis Blues - Lena Horne

by Richard Doody