1920s Timeline

  • Teapot Dome Scandal

    Teapot Dome Scandal
    The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding from 1921 to 1923.
  • Sacco and Vanzetti arrested for armed robbery and murder

    Sacco and Vanzetti arrested for armed robbery and murder
    When four Italian men came for the car on the evening of May 5, 1920, the garage owner's wife called police and warned the four men not to drive the car as it lacked current license plates. Later that evening, police arrested two of the men, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, on a streetcar in Brockton.
  • KDKA goes on the air from Pittsburgh

    KDKA goes on the air from Pittsburgh
    Already they were known as broadcast pioneers. So began 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.
  • 1st Miss American Pageant

    1st Miss American Pageant
    What has become known as the first Miss America pageant was, at its start in 1921, an activity designed to attract tourists to extend their Labor Day holiday weekend and enjoy festivities in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
  • The Great Gatsby published by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    The Great Gatsby published by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.
  • Scopes Monkey Trial

    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
  • Charles Lindberg completes solo flight across the Atlantic

    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)

    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

    St. Valentine's Day Massacre
    The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang that occurred on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago garage on the morning of February 14, 1929.
  • Black Tuesday (Stock Market Crash)

    Black Tuesday (Stock Market Crash)
    The Stock Market Crash of 1929 occurred on October 29, 1929, when Wall Street investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors.