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KDKA goes on the air from Pittsburgh
The first broadcast by a commercially-licensed radio station. KDKA went on the air in Pittsburgh as the world's first commercially licensed station on November 2, 1920. -
Sacco and Vanzetti arrested for armed robbery and murder
Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with committing robbery and murder at the Slater and Morrill shoe factory in South Braintree. On the afternoon of April 15, 1920, payroll clerk Frederick Parmenter and security guard Alessandro Berardelli were shot to death and robbed of over $15,000 in cash. -
1st Miss American Pageant
Atlantic City was home to the first Miss America Pageant in 1921 which included representatives from 7 cities and Atlantic City. Sixteen year-old Margaret Gorman from Washington, DC won the first competition. -
Teapot Dome Scandal
On the previous day, the Wall Street Journal had reported an unprecedented secret arrangement in which the secretary of the Interior, without competitive bidding, had leased the U.S. naval petroleum reserve at Wyoming's Teapot Dome to a private oil company. -
1st Winter Olympics Held
In 1921, the International Olympic Committee gave its patronage to a Winter Sports Week to take place in 1924 in Chamonix, France. This event was a great success, attracting 10,004 paying spectators, and was retrospectively named the First Olympic Winter Games. -
The Great Gatsby published by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald was inspired to write The Great Gatsby to show the American Dream and its attainability. He lived through the Jazz Age and struggled to gain wealth and success of his own. Fitzgerald depicted his own struggles with love, wealth, and success through the character of Jay Gatsby -
Scopes Monkey Trial
The Scopes “monkey trial” was the moniker journalist H. L. Mencken applied to the 1925 prosecution of a criminal action brought by the state of Tennessee against high school teacher John T. Scopes for violating the state's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. -
Charles Lindberg completes solo flight across the Atlantic
On May 21, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight in history, flying his Spirit of St. Louis from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France. -
The Jazz Singer debuts (1st movie with sound)
On December 30, 1927, The Jazz Singer, the first commercially successful full-length feature film with sound, debuts at the Blue Mouse Theater at 1421 5th Avenue in Seattle. The movie uses Warner Brothers' Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology to reproduce the musical score and sporadic episodes of synchronized speech. -
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Four men dressed as police officers enter gangster Bugs Moran's headquarters on North Clark Street in Chicago, line seven of Moran's henchmen against a wall, and shoot them to death. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, as it is now called, was the culmination of a gang war between arch rivals Al Capone and Bugs Moran. -
Black Tuesday (Stock Market Crash)
Black Tuesday was Oct. 29, 1929, and it was marked by a sharp fall in the stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) especially hard hit in high trading volume. The DJIA fell 12%, one of the largest one-day drops in stock market history.