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President Warren G. Harding dies of stroke in a San Francisco hotel room. Vice President Calvin Coolidge ascends to presidency.
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The market capitalization of Ford Motor Company exceeds $1 billion.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby.
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Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution, in violation of new state law banning the teaching of Darwin. The ensuing "Scopes Monkey Trial," pitting defense attorney Clarence Darrow against three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan in a proxy debate of modernity versus fundamentalism, captivates the nation. Scopes is eventually found guilty.
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Forty thousand Ku Klux Klansmen march on Washington, their white-hooded procession filling Pennsylvania Avenue.
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Charlie Chaplin's Gold Ruch popular silent comedy.
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Ernest Hemingway publishes The Sun Also Rises.
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Buster Keaton's comedy classic The General, considered by many to be the greatest silent film ever made, premieres.
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Risqué entertainer Mae West is found guilty of obscenity by a New York court and sentenced to ten days in jail.
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With all possible avenues of appeal now exhausted, Italian immigrant radicals Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed by electric chair.