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1920
League of Nations holds first meeting at Geneva,
Switzerland. U.S. Dept. of Justice “red hunt” nets
thousands of radicals; aliens deported. Women's
suffrage (19th) amendment ratified. Treaty of
Sèvres dissolves Ottoman Empire. First Agatha
Christie mystery. Sinclair Lewis's Main Street.
1921
Reparations Commission fixes German liability at
132 billion gold marks. German inflation begins.
Major treaties signed at Washington Disarmament
Conference limit naval tonnage and pledge to
respect territorial integrity of China. In U.S.,
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born
anarchists, convicted of armed robbery murder;
case stirs worldwide protests; they are executed
in 1927.
1922
Mussolini marches on Rome; forms Fascist
government. Irish Free State, a self-governing
dominion of British Empire, officially proclaimed.
Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey,
overthrows last sultan. James Joyce's Ulysses.
1923
Adolf Hitler's “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich fails;
in 1924 he is sentenced to five years in prison
where he writes Mein Kampf; released after eight
months. Occupation of Ruhr by French and Belgian
troops to enforce reparations payments. Widespread
Ku Klux Klan violence in U.S. Earthquake destroys
third of Tokyo. George Gershwin's Rhapsody in
Blue. Bessie Smith, known as “the Empress of the
Blues,” makes her first record. Irish poet William
Butler Yeats wins Nobel Prize in Literature.
1924
Death of Lenin; Stalin wins power struggle, rules
as Soviet dictator until death in 1953. Italian
Fascists murder Socialist leader Giacomo
Matteotti. Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall and
oilmen Harry Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny are
charged with conspiracy and bribery in the Teapot
Dome scandal, involving fraudulent leases of naval
oil reserves. In 1931, Fall is sentenced to year
in prison; Doheny and Sinclair acquitted of
bribery. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb convicted
in “thrill killing” of Bobby Franks in Chicago;
defended by Clarence Darrow; sentenced to life
imprisonment. (Loeb killed by fellow convict in
1936; Leopold paroled in 1958, dies in 1971.)
Robert Frost wins first of four Pulitzers.
1925
Nellie Tayloe Ross elected governor of Wyoming;
first woman governor elected in U.S. Locarno
conferences seek to secure European peace by
mutual guarantees. John T. Scopes convicted and
fined for teaching evolution in a public school in
Tennessee “Monkey Trial”; sentence set aside. John
Logie Baird, Scottish inventor, transmits human
features by television. Hitler publishes Volume I
of Mein Kampf.
1926
General strike in Britain brings nation's
activities to standstill. U.S. marines dispatched
to Nicaragua during revolt; they remain until
1933. Gertrude Ederle of U.S. is first woman to
swim English Channel. Ernest Hemingway's The Sun
Also Rises.
1927
German economy collapses. Socialists riot in
Vienna; general strike follows acquittal of Nazis
for political murder. Trotsky expelled from
Russian Communist Party. Charles A. Lindbergh
flies first successful solo nonstop flight from
New York to Paris. Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray
convicted of murder of Albert Snyder; they are
executed at Sing Sing prison in 1928. Philo T.
Farnsworth demonstrates working television model.
Georges Lemaître proposes Big Bang Theory. Babe
Ruth hits 60 home runs in the season; record
stands for next 34 years. The Jazz Singer, with Al
Jolson, first part-talking motion picture.
1928
Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war, signed in
Paris by 65 nations. Alexander Fleming discovers
penicillin. Richard E. Byrd starts expedition to
Antarctic; returns in 1930. Anthropologist
Margaret Mead publishes Coming of Age in Samoa.
Oxford English Dictionary published after 44 years
of research.
1929
Trotsky expelled from USSR Lateran Treaty
establishes independent Vatican City. In U.S.,
stock market prices collapse, with U.S. securities
losing $26 billion—first phase of Depression and
world economic crisis. St. Valentine's Day
gangland massacre in Chicago. Edwin Powell Hubble
proposes theory of expanding universe.
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