-
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota -
As a member of the Princeton Class of 1917, Fitzgerald neglected his studies for his literary apprenticeship
-
Fitzgerald joined the army in 1917 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry. -
Anti-alcohol sentiment in Congress led to legislation known as the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917, which regulated food, fuel, and other commodities that might be needed for the war effort.
-
Germany had formally surrendered on November 11, 1918, and all nations had agreed to stop fighting while the terms of peace were negotiated. -
The war ended just before he was to be sent overseas; after his discharge in 1919 he went to New York City to make a life for himself after his wife, Zelda, broke off their previous engagement. -
Prohibition was the attempt to outlaw the production and consumption of alcohol in the United States. -
The publication of This Side of Paradise on March 26, 1920 made the 24-year-old Fitzgerald famous almost overnight, and a week later he married Zelda Sayre in New York. -
Women were newly empowered by gaining the right to vote -
March 9 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched the New Deal with the Emergency Banking Act. It closed all U.S. banks to stop devastating failures. -
The Fitzgeralds spent the winter of 1924-1925 in Rome, where he revised The Great Gatsby; they were en route to Paris when the novel was published in April. -
John Baird was the first person to televise pictures of objects in motion. -
After a short, unsuccessful stint of screenwriting in Hollywood, Fitzgerald rented “Ellerslie,” a mansion near Wilmington, Delaware, in the spring of 1927. -
Fitzgerald went to Hollywood alone in the summer of 1937 with a six-month Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer screenwriting contract at $1,000 a week. -
Charles Lindbergh flew the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight -
organized crime groups controlled the liquor industry, which led to turf wars and gang murders, the worst of which was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929 in Chicago. -
October 29,1929, the stock market crashed. This day is known as Black Tuesday and it signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. -
Roosevelt elected president -
Fitzgerald rented “La Paix,” a house outside Baltimore, where he completed his fourth novel, Tender Is the Night. Published in 1934, his most ambitious novel was a commercial failure, and its merits were matters of critical dispute. -
By 1960 he had achieved a secure place among America’s enduring writers. -
The first non-leaking ballpoint pen was invented in 1935 by the Hungarian brothers Lazlo and Georg Biro.
