1929 in the United States

1929 in the United States
Years:	1926 1927 1928 – 1929 – 1930 1931 1932
Flag
48 stars (1912–59)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1918–45)

Events from the year 1929 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: Calvin Coolidge (R-Massachusetts) (until March 4), Herbert Hoover (R-California) (starting March 4)
• Vice President: Charles G. Dawes (R-Illinois) (until March 4), Charles Curtis (R-Kansas) (starting March 4)
• Chief Justice: William Howard Taft (Ohio)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nicholas Longworth (R-Ohio)
• Senate Majority Leader: Charles Curtis (R-Kansas) (until March 4), James Eli Watson (R-Indiana) (starting March 4)
• Congress: 70th (until March 4), 71st (starting March 4)

Events

January–March

February 26: Grand Teton National Park

March 4: Herbert Hoover becomes President

• January 1 – California loses to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the 27th Rose Bowl by a score of 8-7.
• January 9 – The Seeing Eye is established with the mission to train dogs to assist the blind, in Nashville, Tennessee.
• February 11 – Eugene O'Neill's Dynamo premieres in New York.
• February 14 – St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven gangsters, rivals of Al Capone, are murdered in Chicago.^[1]
• February 26 – The Grand Teton National Park is established by Congress.
• March 2 – The longest bridge in the world, the San Francisco Bay Toll-Bridge, opens.
• March 4 – Herbert Hoover is inaugurated as the 31st President of the United States, succeeding Calvin Coolidge.
• March 16 – A part-talkie film version of Show Boat, based on Edna Ferber's novel rather than the musical, premieres in Palm Beach (starring Laura La Plante and Joseph Schildkraut). It is critically panned and not successful at the box office.

April–June

• May 13 – The National Crime Syndicate is founded in Atlantic City.
• May 16 – The 1st Academy Awards are presented at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California, with Wings (1927 film) winning Academy Award for Best Picture. Joseph W. Farnham wins the only award ever given for Best Writing, Title Writing.
• May 17 – Al Capone and his bodyguard are arrested for concealing deadly weapons.^[2]
• May 20 – The Wickersham Commission begins its investigation of alcohol prohibition in the United States.
• June 16 – Otto E. Funk, 62, ends his marathon walk (New York City to San Francisco, 4,165 miles in 183 days).
• June 21 – An agreement brokered by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow ends the Cristero War in Mexico.
• June 27 – The first public demonstration of color television is held, by H. E. Ives and his colleagues at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City. The first images are a bouquet of roses and an American flag. A mechanical system is used to transmit 50-line color television images between New York and Washington, D.C.

July–September

• August 19 – The radio comedy show Amos and Andy makes its debut, starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.
• August 31 – The Young Plan, which set the total World War I reparations owed by Germany at US$26,350,000,000 to be paid over a period of 58½ years, is finalized.
• September 3 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) peaks at 381.17, a height it would not reach again until November 1954.

October–December

October 24: Wall Street Crash of 1929

• October 11 – JC Penney opens Store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 states.
• October 24–October 29 – Wall Street Crash of 1929: Three multi-digit percentage drops wipe out more than $30 billion from the New York Stock Exchange (10 times greater than the annual budget of the federal government).
• October 25 – Former U.S. Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall is convicted of bribery for his role in the Teapot Dome scandal, becoming the first Presidential cabinet member to go to prison for actions in office.
• November 7 – In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opens to the public.
• November 15 – The Ambassador Bridge, connecting Detroit, Michigan, to Windsor, Ontario, opens to traffic.
• November 29 – Bernt Balchen, U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd, Captain Ashley McKinley, and Harold June, become the first to fly over the South Pole.
• December 3 – Great Depression: U.S. President Herbert Hoover announces to the U.S. Congress that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash are behind the nation, and that the American people have regained faith in the economy.

Ongoing

Boy in doorway, Mesa Verde National Park. 1929 photo by George A. Grant.

• Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)
• U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934)
• Prohibition (1919–1933)
• Roaring Twenties (1920–1929)
• Great Depression (1929–1933)

Births

• January 5 – Wilbert Harrison, singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1994)
• January 15 – Martin Luther King Jr., leader in the equal rights movement (assassinated 1968)
• January 20 – Frank Kush, American football player and coach
• March 8 – Elaine Edwards, U.S. Senator from Louisiana in 1972
• March 13 – Peter Breck, actor (died 2012)
• March 15 – Cecil Taylor, composer and pianist
• May 4 – Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-born actress and humanitarian (died 1993 in Switzerland)
• July 28 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, née Bouvier, First Lady of the United States as spouse of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy (died 1994)
• September 10 – Arnold Palmer, golfer (died 2016)
• September 20 – Anne Meara, actress, spouse of Jerry Stiller and mother of actor/comedian Ben and actress Amy Stiller
• November 12 – Grace Kelly, actress (died 1982 in Monaco)
• November 14 – Jimmy Piersall, baseball player and sportscaster
• December 2
  • Dan Jenkins, journalist and author
  • Leon Litwack, historian and author
• December 9 – John Cassavetes, actor (died 1989)
• December 20 – David H. Gambrell, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1971 to 1972

Deaths

• March 6 – Moses E. Clapp, United States Senator from Minnesota from 1901 till 1917. (born 1851)

References

See also

• List of American films of 1929

External links

• Media related to 1929 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons
• "1929". Timeline. Digital Public Library of America.