1928.info events in the year 1928

The World in 1928

In 1928 was the last boom year of the Roaring Twenties before the crash of 1929 for most of the world. In 1928, the American stock market grew due to extreme speculation, with many borrowing money to buy more stock.Germany, under the Weimar Republic was recovering from the hyperinflation of the early 1920s by issuing new currency.

Some of the most important events of 1928 were the discovery of penicillin, the first effective antibiotic which saved millions of lives, the Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland and the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, the assassinations of the Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin and president of Mexico Álvaro Obregón , the sale of the first television and the election of Herbert Hoover.

1928 New York

Berlin in 1928-9

The 1920s has been known by many name The Roaring Twenties reflecting the postwar boom and overheated stock market. The 1920s were also known as The Jazz Age as society was transformed after the World War I and focused more on youth with dancing such as the Charlston, Flappers ( young women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to what was then considered unconventional music jazz music and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered "decent" behavior). The term 'flapper' gained popularity with the 1920 The Flapper. The term was used before as a slang term for an impetuous teenage girl. The flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking hard liquor, treating sex in a more casual manner, smoking cigarettes, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting conventional social and sexual norms ) and technology such as cars and the telephone . Since the closing of the 20th Century, the 1920s has drawn close associations with the 1950s and 1990s, especially in the United States. The three decades are regarded as periods of economic prosperity .

In 1928 the Prohibition ( 1920-33) was in effect in Finland and the United States. Gangsters made millions

of through illegal alcohol sales The Prohibition was repelled in Australia in 1928.

Flapper Girls

Events of 1928

January 1928

The first television is sold -- a Daven for $75.

early tv image

The Origins of Television

Radio Magazine 1928 1920s For 1920s geeks, radio was the thing

Soviet Poster

Stalin's five Year plans

The first of Joseph Stalin's Five Year Plans imposes collectivization on agriculture in the Soviet Union. The First Five-Year Plan emphasized heavy industries to lay the foundations for future industrial growth. Despite the targets being unbelievably high, remarkable results were achieved. For instance, coal and iron production both doubled their output, electric power production almost tripled and 1500 new industrial plants were built.

Otto Gessle

German war minister Otto Gessler resigns under pressure in January over a financial scandal involving the German Army, which he has allowed to increase in size despite the limits imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

Richard E. Byrd

1928 Richard E. Byrd starts an expedition to Antarctic; returns in 1930.

Lev Trotsky

Trotsky's Speech about the Moscow Trials

January 17 - OGPU arrests Lev Trotsky in Moscow; he assumes a status of passive resistance and is exiled to Turkestan.

I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold by Charles Demuth 1928

February 1928

February 11 - II Olympic Winter Games open in St. Moritz, Switzerland

Prohibition

In America and Finland the Prohibition alcohol is still the law . Much of the impetus for the prohibition movement in the Nordic countries and North America came from Protestant wariness of alcohol, in Australia prohibition laws are repealed in 1928.

1928 ladies fashions

February 25 - Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, DC becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.

March 1928

Charles Lindbergh

March 21 - Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.

1928 radio

April 1928

April 10

The Pineapple Primary

The Pineapple Primary was the name given to a Republican primary election held in Chicago on April 10, 1928; more than 60 bombs were thrown during the campaign and at least two politicians were killed. The name derives from the slang use of "pineapple" to refer to a hand grenade.Republican Mayor Big Bill Thompson ruled 1920s aided by Governor the Chicago mob, including Al Capone. In 1928 Thompson was challenged by the Republican reformer Charles S. Deneen, who was backed by Mafia boss Diamond Joe Esposito who saw Deneen's anti-Capone crusade as a means for Esposito to seize Capone's mantle as Boss of Chicago.

On March 21, Giuseppe "Diamond Joe" Esposito, the 19th Ward committeeman, was shot and killed in front of his wife and daughter. The day after Esposito's funeral, Senator Charles S. Deneen's home was bombed. On the day of the primary, Octavius C. Grandy, a candidate for committeeman in the 20th ward, was chased in his car and killed.

April 22 - Earthquake destroys Corinth - 200.000 buildings destroyed

May 1928

May 10 - The first regular schedule of television programming begins in Schenectady, New York by the General Electric's television station

1928 Nazi rally in Nuremberg

May : Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party wins only 2.6 percent of the vote for seats in the Reichstag and is considered a fringe party after the May elections .Germany had lost economically important territory in Europe along with its colonies and in admitting to sole responsibility for the war had agreed to pay a huge reparations bill totaling 132 billion marks. Most Germans bitterly resented these terms, but early Nazi attempts to gain support by blaming these humiliations on "international Jewry" were not particularly successful with the electorate. The party learned quickly, and soon a more subtle propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it.

Plane Crazy

Release of the animated short Plane Crazy, featuring the first appearances of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

May 25, Italia Airship crash in the artic

Crash of the airship Italia

Airship Italia crashes on the North Pole; one of the occupants is Italian general Umberto Nobile. The third flight the Italia exploring the North Pole started on May 23, 1928, and reached the North Pole at 12:24 am on May 24, 1928 with the assistance of strong tailwinds. Nobile had prepared a winch, inflatable raft, and survival packs (very providentially as it turns out) with the intention of lowering some of the scientists onto the ice, but the worsening weather made this impossible. Instead the Italian and Milanese colours, and a wooden cross presented by the Pope were dropped onto the ice.

At 2.20 am on May 24, the Italia started back to base. The weather was horrendous and the airship struggled to gain ground and break through to the zone of calmer winds which expedition meteorologist Finn Malmgren predicted was just ahead. At 9.25am on May 25 the first critical incident occurred when the elevator control jammed in the downward position. All engines were stopped and importantly, the airship was allowed to rise to 3000 feet and above the cloud layer into bright sunlight for 30 minutes. After the engines were re-started the ship descended to 1000 feet with no apparent ill effect, but at 10.25 am the ship was noticed to be tail-heavy and falling at a rate of 2 feet per second (0.6 m/s). Despite applying maximum elevators and jettisoning weight, a crash was unavoidable and shortly afterwards the airship's control cabin hit the jagged ice and smashed open.

Nine survivors and one fatality were left on the ice, and six more crew trapped in the still drifting airship envelope. Chief Engineer Ettore Arduino, with remarkable presence of mind, started throwing anything he could lay his hands on down to the men on the ice as he drifted slowly away with the envelope. These supplies, and the packs intended for the descent to the ice were to help keep the survivors alive for their long ordeal on the ice. The envelope and the crew members aboard it have never been found.

An international rescue effort followed, but was bedeviled by apathy and political interference on the part of the Italians. The bravery on the part of Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, and Finnish pilots searching for the lost men – as well as that of the survivors themselves – contrasted sharply with the woeful response of the Italian Fascist government. The lack of co-ordination meant that it took more than 49 days before all the crash survivors (and stranded would-be rescuers) were retrieved. Roald Amundsen was lost, presumed dead, flying to Spitsbergen in a French Latham sea plane to take part in the operation.On July 12 ,The Russian icebreaker Krasin rescues remaining Italia survivors, as well as survivors Mariano and Zappi. Russian pilot Chuckhnovsky also rescued.

May 31

Union of South Africa adopts new flag

A version of this flag was used as the flag of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape . The South African addition to the design was three smaller flags centred in the white stripe. The smaller flags were the Union Flag towards the hoist, the Orange Free State Vierkleur hanging vertically and the Transvaal Vierkleur

June 1928

Zhang Zuolin

June 4 - Zhang Zuolin , President of the Republic of China and warlord, is killed by Japanese agents during the Huanggutun Incident in Shenyang. Also known as the "Mukden Tiger", he was was one of the major warlords of China in the early 20th century.As Zhang Zuolin passed underneath the Japanese operated South Manchuria Railroad while riding a train , an officer of the Japanese Guandong Army, Colonel Komoto Daisaku, had planted a bomb, which exploded when Zhang's train passed under the viaduct, killing him .In 1928 he proclaimed himself Grand Marshal of the Republic of China. The reason for the murder was a mystery till the War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo after WWII. It was revealed by admiral Okada Keisuke that the Japanese were infuriated by Zhang's failure to stop the rise of Chiang Kai-shek.

Xiang Jingyu

June : The Chinese Republican Army under Chiang Kai-shek seizes Beijing and rename it Beiping.Nationalist Chinese forces arrest communist agitator and speaker for the women's liberation movement Xiang Jingyu (Hsiang Kianyu) and execute her in May, gagging her to prevent her from making a final speech. She was 33.

Amelia Earhart

June 17 Aviator Amelia Earhart starts her attempt to become the first woman to successfully pilot an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean

July 1928

Álvaro Obregón

July 17 - José de León Toral assassinates Álvaro Obregón, president of Mexico. Toral was a Roman Catholic opposed to the Government's policies on religious matters.

US Navy in China

July 25 - U.S.A. recalls its troops from China

August 1928

King Zog

August 25 - Ahmet Zogu proclaims himself King Zog I of Albania; he is crowned September 1

August 27 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in Paris - it was the first treaty which outlawed aggressive war.

Alexander Fleming

September 1928

Wineville Chicken Coop Murders

A series of kidnappings and murders of young boys occurring in Los Angeles and Riverside County, California in 1928 by Gordon Stewart Northcott. The 2008 film Changeling is based upon these murders.It was believed Northcott may have had as many as 20 victims. Wineville changed its name to “Mira Loma” on November 1, 1930, due in large part to the negative publicity surrounding the murders. Northcott was hanged on October 2, 1930

September 3 - Alexander Fleming discovers Penicillin.

Palm Beach , Florida 1928

September 16 - The 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane kills at least 2,500 people in Florida. 69 white victims were placed in a mass grave in Woodlawn cemetery and approximately 674 black victims were buried in this mass grave in the City's pauper's burial field

October 1928

Haile Selassie

October 7 - Haile Selassie crowned king (not yet emperor) of Abyssinia

November 6

Swedes start a tradition of eating Gustavus Adolphus pastries to commemorate the old warrior king.

November 1928

Herbert Hoover

1928 with economy booming, U.S. voters elect another Republican president, Herbert Hoover (Nov. 6) in a landslide victory over over Alfred E. Smith, governor of New York .Hoover deeply believed in the Efficiency Movement arguing that there were technical solutions to all social and economic problems. That position was challenged by the Great Depression, which began in 1929, the first year of his presidency .

November 10 - Hirohito was enthroned as Emperor of Japan.

Maurice Ravel

November 22 - Maurice Ravel's Bolero is premiered in Paris

December 1928

Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the 14 Bis

December 3 - In Rio de Janeiro, a seaplane sent to greet aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont crashed near Cap Arcona, killing all on board.

Turkey switches from the Arabic to the Latin-based modern Turkish alphabet.

Eliot Ness

Eliot Ness begins to lead the prohibition unit in Chicago.

Sigrid Undset

Sigrid Undset was a Norwegian novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928.Her best-known work is Kristin Lavransdatter, a modernist trilogy about life in Scandinavia in the Middle Ages

Willans Richardson

Sir Owen Willans Richardson (April 26, 1879 - February 15, 1959) was a British physicist, a professor at Princeton University from 1906 to 1913, and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928 "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him

1928 Olympics Amsterdam

We are here to represent the greatest country on earth. We did not come here to lose gracefully. We came here to win?and win decisively.? So ordered American Olympic Committee president Gen. Douglas MacArthur before the start of the 1928 Games.Games marked Germany's return to the Olympic fold after serving a 10-year probation after World War I. It was also the first Olympics that women were allowed to participate in track and field. For the first time, the Olympic Flame was lit during the Olympics. Johnny Weissmuller, who later appeared in several Tarzan movies, won two gold medals in swimming.

1928 World Series

Babe Ruth

In the 1928 World Series, the New York Yankees swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four games.Babe Ruth hit .625 (10 for 16) as the Yankees defeated their opponents by a combined score of 27 to 10.

Top Films of 1928

In 1928 the Academy Awards are handed out for the first time.

Wings wins Best Picture

Clara Bow

Top Movies of 1928

1. The Singing Fool , a musical drama Part-Talkie motion picture which was released in 1928 by Warner Brothers. The film starred Al Jolson and was a follow-up to his previous film, The Jazz Singer.Jolson plays a singing waiter who becomes a Broadway star .

2. The Lights of New York : the first all-talking feature film . The plot of the film centers around Eddie (Cullen Landis), a young kid from Upstate New York who is conned into fronting for a speakeasy on Broadway.

3. In one of his last silent films, Lon Chaney plays a magician who went into a kind of exile in the Belgian Congo after a fight with a man who stole his wife left him a cripple

Other Films

Lillan Gish in The Wind

watch The Wind

A classic with stark realism, Gish plays Letty who goes out west to a cousin's ranch.She kills a man who tries to rape her and goes insane as the wind keeps uncovering the killers body .The movie, unlike the book upon which it was based , has an upbeat ending as her new husband helps her recover .

A Man With a Movie

watch A man with a movie camera

A Woman of Affairs, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert

A movie about fast living, 20s style

watch a Woman of Affairs

Lilac Time Gary Cooper and Colleen Moore a WWI love story

There was a resurgence in WWI films in the late 20s .

Beggars of Life Wallace Berry, Richard Allen, Louise Brooks

An offbeat film about pre Depression hobos. Richard Allen is a gentleman hobo, who comes upon a crime scene.Brooks has killed her adoptive father, who tried to rape her .They travel together with her dressed as a boy

Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box

Myma Loy and Dolores Costello in Noah's Ark

One of Warner Brother's most expensive movies .

Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou (English: An Andalusian Dog) is a 16-minute surrealist film made in France in 1928 by Spanish writer/directors Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí .It is one of the best-known surrealist films of the French avant-garde film movement of the 1920s. You can watch it here .

The Last Command

watch The Last Command

The Last Command : A decorated, aristocratic Czarist General is reduced to penury after the collapse of Imperial Russia. An old adversary, now a successful director hires the general to re-enact the revolution which deposed him.

Chicago with Phyllis Haver and Victor Varconi

Best Sellers of 1928

1. The Bridge of San Luis Rey : On July 20, 1714, "the finest bridge in all Peru" collapses and five people die. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan missionary, happens to witness the tragedy, and as a result, he asks the central question of the novel: "Why did this happen to those five?" He sets out to explore the lives of the five victims, and to understand why they died. Ironically, his quest will lead to his own death.

2. Swan Song John Galsworthy : The nine novels which make up The Forsyte Chronicles -- one of the most popular and enduring works of 20th century literature -- chronicle the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle class Forsyte family between 1886 and 1920.

Pulp magazine from 1928 . Amazing Stories magazine Was the world's first science fiction magazine

Hit songs in 1928

Vaughn De Leath

My Blue Heaven (listen ) Vaughn De Leath Vaughn De Leath was a famous female radio jazz singer who gained popularity in the 1920s and became known as "The Original Radio Girl" and "First Lady of RadioOne of her songs was "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", recorded in 1927 and later recorded by Elvis Presley in 1960. Although popular in the 1920s, De Leath is little known today.

Sophie tucker The man I love

Irving Mills & His Hotsy Totsy Gang - Diga Diga Doo

Abe Lyman's Sharps and Flats

Bascom Lamar Lunsford-I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground

Sam Lanin as Radiolites,Thats My Mammy

Sid Roy , I Can't Give you anything but Love

"Basin Street Blues" Louis Armstrong Dixieland recording

"She's Funny That Way"
"Tight Like That"
"How Long Blues" Leroy Carr
"West End Blues"Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)" Cole Porter

West End Blues 1928

Popular Radio Programs of 1928

Two Black Crows Comedy

Radio program for WAAM, Newark, New Jersey 1928

Amos and Andy

Amos 'n' Andy was a situation comedy popular in the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s. The show began as one of the first radio comedy serials, written and voiced by Freeman Gosden(Amos) and Charles Correll(Andy) and originating from station WMAQ in Chicago, Illinois. After the series was first broadcast in 1928, it grew in popularity and became a huge influence on the radio serials that followed

The Guy Lombardo Show

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians

The Voice of Firestone

1928 Kinogram Newsreal

Featuring Jack Dempsey, a balloon race, women dancing in chilly breezes, a juggler, and opium being confiscated and burned in Shanghai.

click to watch

World Learders in 1928

The American President in 1928

President: Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge

He is often referred to as "Silent Cal". He gained a reputation as a small-government conservative.He restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity . Coolidge's best-known initiative was the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, named for Coolidge's Secretary of State, Frank B. Kellogg, and French foreign minister Aristide Briand. The treaty, ratified in 1929, committed signatories including the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan to "renounce war, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another . Coolidge had been lukewarm on the choice of Hoover as his successor; on one occasion he remarked that "for six years that man has given me unsolicited advice?all of it bad .

Vice President

Charles G. Dawes

Charles G. Dawes was an American banker and politician who was the thirtieth Vice President of the United States. For his work on the Dawes Plan for World War I reparations he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize .Dawes' Vice Presidency was one of the most disastrous on record. Soon after his election he sent an insulting letter to President Coolidge informing him that he would not be attending cabinet meetings. This is believed to be the beginning of a feud between the two which brought the Vice Presidency to its nadir for the 20th centuryHaving insulted the President, he then proceeded to publicly insult the entire US Senate. The inauguration of the Vice President was held in the Senate Chamber in those days, and the VP would give an inaugural address before everyone headed on to the outside platform where the President would take the oath. Dawes made a fiery, half-hour address denouncing the rules of the Senate, the seniority system and many other things that Senators held dear.Everyone was so shocked at the speech that President Coolidge's own inaugural address was completely overshadowed, leaving him even angrier at Dawes than ever before.

Prime Minister of Australia

Stanley Bruce

President of Germany

Paul von Hindenburg

Hindenburg first came to national attention, at the age of sixty-six, as the victor at Tannenberg in 1914. In 1925 to be elected as the second President of Germany.

Emperor of Japan