1926

From Metapedia

Years: 1923 1924 1925 - 1926 - 1927 1928 1929

Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s

Contents 1 Events 1.1 January 1.2 February 1.3 March 1.4 April 1.5 May 1.6 June 1.7 July 1.8 August 1.9 September 1.10 October 1.11 November 1.12 December 2 Births 3 Deaths

Events

January

• January 1
  • Flooding in the Rhine River strikes Cologne.
  • Ireland's first regular radio service, 2RN (later Radio Éireann), begins broadcasting.
  • Turkey switches to the Gregorian calendar after reforms set by Kemal Atatürk.
• January 3 – Theodoros Pangalos declares himself dictator in Greece.
• January 8 – Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud is crowned King of Hejaz.
• January 12 – Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll premiere their radio program Sam 'n' Henry, in which the two white performers portrayed two black characters from Harlem looking to strike it rich in the big city. It is a precursor to Gosden and Correll's more popular later program, Amos 'n' Andy.
• January 16 – A BBC radio play about a worker's revolution causes a panic in London.
• January 21 – The Belgian Parliament accepts the Locarno treaties.
• January 26 – John Logie Baird demonstrates a mechanical television system.
• January 29 – Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown opens at the Greenwich Theatre.
• January 31 – British and Belgian troops leave Cologne.

February

• February 1 – Land on Broadway and Wall Street in New York City is sold at a record $7 per sq inch.
• February 8 – Sean O'Casey's Plough and Stars opens at Abbey Theater in Dublin.
• February 9 – Flooding hits London suburbs.
• February 12 – The Irish minister for Justice, Kevin O'Higgins, appoints the Committee on Evil Literature.
• February 25 – Francisco Franco becomes General of Spain.

March

• March 6 – The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is destroyed by fire.
• March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
• March 23 – Eamon de Valera organizes Fianna Fáil in Ireland.

April

• April 4 – Greek dictator Theodoros Pangalos is elected president.
• April 7 – An assassination attempt against Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini fails.
• April 12 – By a vote of 45-41, the United States Senate unseats Iowa Senator Smith W. Brookhart and seats Daniel F. Steck, after Brookhart had already served for over one year.
• April 16 – A train crash in San José, Costa Rica kills 178 people.
• April 24 – Treaty of Berlin: Germany and the Soviet Union each pledge neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next 5 years.
• April 25 – Reza Khan is crowned Shah of Iran under the name "Pahlevi."
• April 30 – African-American pilot Bessie Coleman is killed after falling 2,000 feet from an airplane.

May

• May 1 – A coal miners' strike begins in Britain.
• May 3 – The British General Strike begins in support of the coal strike.
• May 9
  • Martial law is declared in Britain because of the general strike.
  • The French navy bombards Damascus because of the Druze riots.
  • Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claim to have flown over the North Pole (later discovery of his diary seems to indicate that this did not happen).
• May 10
  • Talks between the government and strikers begin in the U.K.
  • Planes piloted by Major Harold Geiger and Horace Meek Hickam, students at the Air Corps Tactical School, collide in mid-air at Langley Field, Virginia. Hickam parachutes to safety.
• May 12
  • Roald Amundsen flies over the North Pole.
  • UK General Strike 1926: In the United Kingdom, a general strike by trade unions ends (the strike began on May 3).
• May 12–May 14 – May Coup: Józef Piłsudski takes over in Poland.
• May 18 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears while visiting a Venice, California beach.
• May 20 – The United States Congress passes the Air Commerce Act, licensing pilots and planes.
• May 23 – The first Lebanese constitution is established.
• May 26 – The Rifkabyl rebels surrender in Morocco.
• May 28 – The 1926 coup d'état commanded by Manuel Gomes da Costa in Portugal installs the Ditadura Nacional (National Dictatorship), followed by António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo.

June

• June 4 – Ignacy Moscicki becomes president of Poland.
• June 19 – DeFord Bailey is the first African-American to perform on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry.
• June 29 – Arthur Meighen returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.

July

• July 1 – The Kuomingtang begins a military unification campaign in northern China.
• July 3 – A Caudron C-61 aircraft operated by Compagnie Internationale de Navigation Aérienne crashes in Czechoslovakia.
• July 9 – General Antonio Carmona takes power in a military coup in Portugal.
• July 12 – A lightning strike destroys an ammunition depot in Dover, New Jersey.
• July 15 – BEST buses make their début in Bombay.
• July 23 – Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.
• July 26 – The National Bar Association incorporates in the United States.

August

• August 6
  • Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel from France to England.
  • In New York, the Warner Brothers' Vitaphone system premieres with the movie Don Juan starring John Barrymore.
• August 18
  • The British miners' union begins negotiations with the government
  • A weather map is televised for the first time, sent from NAA Arlington to the Weather Bureau Office in Washington, D.C.
• August 22 – In Greece, Georgios Kondylis ousts Theodoros Pangalos.
• August 25 – Pavlos Kountouriotis announces that dictatorship is finished in Greece and becomes the president.

September

• September 1 – Lebanon under the French Mandate gets its first constitution, thereby becoming a republic. Charles Debbas is elected president.
• September 8 – Weimar Republic joins the League of Nations.
• September 11
  • Spain leaves the League of Nations.
  • Aloha Tower is officially dedicated at Honolulu Harbor in the Territory of Hawai'i.
• September 16 – Philip Dunning and George Abbott's play Broadway premieres in New York City.
• September 18 – Great Miami Hurricane: A strong hurricane devastates Miami, Florida, leaving over 100 dead and causing several hundred million dollars in damage (equal to nearly $100 billion dollars today).
• September 20 – Twelve cars full of gangsters open fire at the Hawthorne Inn, Al Capone's Chicago headquarters. Only one of Capone's men is wounded.
• September 25
  • The League of Nations Slavery Convention abolishes all types of slavery.
  • William Lyon Mackenzie King returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.
• September 26 – Gene Tunney defeats Jack Dempsey and becomes heavyweight champion of the world.

October

• October 2 – Józef Piłsudski becomes prime minister of Poland.
• October 12 – British miners agree to end their strike.
• October 14 – Alan Alexander Milne's book Winnie-the-Pooh is released.
• October 19 – The 1926 Imperial Conference opens in London, the United Kingdom.
• October 20 – A hurricane kills 650 in Cuba.
• October 23
  • A decree in Italy bans women from holding public office.
  • The Fazal Mosque (one of the first in London) is completed.
• October 31 – Magician Harry Houdini dies of gangrene and peritonitis that developed after his appendix ruptured.

November

• November 10
  • In San Francisco, California, a necrophiliac serial killer named Earle Nelson (dubbed "Gorilla Man") kills and then rapes his 9th victim, a boardinghouse landlady named Mrs. William Edmonds.
• November 11 – U.S. Route 66 is established.
• November 15
  • The NBC radio network opens with 24 stations (formed by Westinghouse, General Electric and RCA).
  • The Balfour Declaration is approved by the 1926 Imperial Conference, making the Commonwealth dominions equal and independent.
• November 24
  • The village of Rocquebillier in the French Riviera is almost destroyed in a massive hailstorm.
  • Sri Aurobindo retires, leaving The Mother to run the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India.
• November 25 – The death penalty is re-established in Italy.
• November 26 – All Italian Communist deputies are arrested.
• November 27
  • Mount Vesuvius erupts.
  • In Williamsburg, Virginia, the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg begins.

December

• December 2 – British prime minister Stanley Baldwin ends the martial law that had been declared due to general strike.
• December 8 – Agatha Christie disappears from her home in Surrey; on December 14 she is found at the Harrogate Hotel.
• December 17 – A democratically elected government is overthrown during the 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état‎; Antanas Smetona assumes power in Lithuania.
• December 18 – Turkey converts to the Gregorian calendar, making 'tomorrow' January 1 1926
• December 26 – In Japanese History, the Shōwa era begins from this day due to the demise of Emperor Taishō on the day before.

Births

• May 23 - Joe Slovo, South African communist politician (d. 1995)

Deaths