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The Great Gatsby published by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald's view of American society in the 1920s stood the test of time for nearly a century. Mostly, this is due to its continued relevance to American culture. -
Sacco and Vanzetti arrested for armed robbery and murder
Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with the crime of murder on May 5, 1920, and indicted four months later on September 14. Following Sacco and Vanzetti's indictment for murder for the Braintree robbery, Galleanists and anarchists in the United States and abroad began a campaign of violent retaliation. -
KDKA goes on the air from Pittsburgh
first commercial radio station was KDKA in Pittsburgh, which went on the air in the evening of Nov. 2, 1920, with a broadcast of the returns of the Harding-Cox presidential election. -
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. -
1st Miss American Pageant
The 1921 Atlantic City Pageant was designed to encourage visitors to stay in the resort past Labor Day, the traditional end of the season. The first pageant was held September 7-8, 1921, and eight finalists from cities in the Northeast competed for the title, which would later be known as Miss America. -
Teapot Dome Scandal
Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison; no one was convicted of paying the bribes. Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics". -
Scopes Monkey Trial
The Scopes trial, formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it illegal for teachers -
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)
This day in 1927, Oct. 6, made TIME's list of “80 Days That Changed the World,” and with good reason: that evening marked the premiere of The Jazz Singer, the “talkie” that sits at the transition point between silent movies and a Hollywood where sound is as important as sight. -
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Valentine's Day Massacre, mass murder of a group of unarmed bootlegging gang members in Chicago on February 14, 1929. The bloody incident dramatized the intense rivalry for control of the illegal liquor traffic during the Prohibition era in the United States. -
Black Tuesday (Stock Market Crash)
On October 29, 1929, "Black Tuesday" hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Around $14 billion of stock value was lost, wiping out thousands of investors. The panic selling reached its peak with some stocks having no buyers at any price.