Timeline 1928
Return to home
1928 Jan 2,
Vaughn Beals, later CEO of Harley Davidson motorcycle, was born in
Cambridge, Mass.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1928 Jan 5, Walter Mondale,
42nd Vice President (1977-1981) of the U.S., was born. He was the
Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Ronald Reagan in 1984,
and Ambassador to Japan.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1928 Jan 7, William Peter
Blatty, author and director (The Exorcist), was born in NYC.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1928 Jan 9, Judith Krantz,
author (Scruples, Princess Daisy, Dazzle), was born in NYC.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1928 Jan 9, Eugene O'Neill's
"Marco Millions," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1928 Jan 10, The Soviet Union
ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky. Stalin triumphed over Bolshevik
Party opposition led by Trotsky, Leo Kamenev, and Gregory Zinoviev.
(AP, 1/10/98)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.7)
1928 Jan 11, Leon Trotsky, a
leader of the Bolshevik revolution and early architect of the Soviet
state, was shipped out by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Alma-Ata in
remote Soviet Central Asia. Later he was banished from the USSR.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1928 Jan 11, Thomas Hardy (87),
English novelist, died near Dorchester. His books included “Far from
Maddening Crowd” (1874) and “Jude the Obscure” (1895). In 2006
Claire Tomalin authored “Thomas hardy: The Time-Torn Man.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy)(Econ,
11/11/06, p.96)
1928 Jan 12, Ruth Snyder
(b.1895) became the first woman to die in the electric chair. She
was electrocuted by “state electrician” Robert G. Elliott at Sing
Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, along with Judd Gray, her lover
and co-conspirator, for the murder of her husband, Albert on March
20, 1927. This was billed in the press as “The Dumb-Bell Murder.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Snyder)
1928 Jan 17, Vidal Sassoon,
hair stylist/CEO (Vidal Sassoon), was born in London.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1928 Jan 20, Martin Landau,
actor (Mission Impossible, Tucker, Space 1999), was born in
Brooklyn, NY.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1928 Jan 23, Jeanne Moreau,
actress (Going Places, Jules & Jim), was born in Paris, France.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1928 Jan 25, The Zamorano Club
was founded in Los Angeles, Ca., “to establish contact and encourage
exchange of thought among its members, who shall be men interested
in Fine Books.” The club was named after Agustin Vicente Zamorano,
the first printer in Alta California.
(www.zamoranoclubla.org/history/)(http://tinyurl.com/s3c77)
1928 Jan 25, Eduard
Shevardnadze, foreign minister of USSR, was born in Soviet Georgia.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1928 Jan 26, Eartha Kitt,
singer, actress (Catwoman-Batman), was born in SC.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1928 Jan 26, Roger Vadim,
director (And God Created Women, Barbarella), was born in France.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1928 Jan 31, Scotch tape was
1st marketed by 3-M Company.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1928 Feb 1, Tom Lantos, a
Jewish Holocaust survivor, was born in Budapest, Hungary. Lantos
later earned a doctorate in economics at UC Berkeley and served as a
US Congressman from California (1980-2008).
(SFC, 1/3/08, p.A10)
1928 Feb 7, The United States
signed an arbitration treaty with France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1928 Feb 7, Australian Bert
Hinkler took off from London in a two-seat Avro 581E Avian biplane
on the first leg of his solo flight from England to Australia. On
February 22, after flying 128 hours in less than 16 days, Hinkler's
11,250-mile adventure ended in Darwin, Australia.
(HNQ, 2/7/01)
1928 Feb 8, 1st transatlantic
TV image was received at Hartsdale, NY.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1928 Feb 8, Scottish inventor
J. Blaird demonstrated color TV.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1928 Feb 9, Frank Frazetta,
American fantasy and science fiction artist, was born in Brooklyn.
He became noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers,
paintings, posters, record-album covers, and other media. In 2003, a
feature film documenting the life and career of Frazetta was
released, entitled: “Frank Frazetta: Painting With Fire.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Frazetta)
1928 Feb 15, H.H. Asquith
(b.1852), former British prime minister (1908-1916), died.
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/39056/HH-Asquith-1st-earl-of-Oxford-and-Asquith)
1928 Feb 22, Australian Bert
Hinkler ended his 11,250-mile adventure in Darwin, Australia, after
flying 128 hours in less than 16 days. The unassuming Hinkler's
grueling flight was little noted by the press until he reached
India, then the world press got caught up in the drama of another
"Lone Eagle" performance so soon after Charles A. Lindbergh's
transatlantic flight. As he plotted a course across Asia and the
Timor Sea using a London Times atlas as his navigational chart, a
newspaper editor dubbed him "Hustling Hinkler," a nickname later
immortalized by the American Tin Pan Alley hit song, "Hustling
Hinkler Up in the Sky."
(HNPD, 2/7/99)
1928 Feb 24, In its first show
to feature a Black artist, the New Gallery of New York exhibited
works of Archibald Motley.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1928 Feb 25, Larry Gelbart,
writer, producer, actor (Oh God!, M*A*S*H), was born.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1928 Feb 25, Bell Labs
introduced a new device to end the fluttering of the television
image.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1928 Feb 26, Antonie "Fats"
Domino was born in New Orleans. He was an American Rock n' Roll
singer famous by his songs "Blueberry Hill" and "Ain't that a
Shame."
(HN, 2/26/99)(SC, 2/26/02)
1928 Feb 28, Smokey the Bear
was created.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1928 Mar 1, Paul Whiteman and
his orchestra recorded "Ol' Man River" for Victor Records.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1928 Mar 4, Alan Sillitoe,
novelist (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Loneliness of the
Long Distance Runner), was born.
(HN, 3/4/01)
1928 Mar 4, The
Transcontinental Footrace began and 55 men ran from Los Angeles to
New York in 81 days. Andrew Payne of Oklahoma won the "Bunyon
Derby."
(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M4)(PBS-TV, 11/24/02)
1928 Mar 5, Hitler’s National
Socialists won the majority vote in Bavaria.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1928 Mar 6, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, Columbian-born novelist and Nobel Prize winner (1982), was
born. In 2009 Gerald martin authored “Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A
Life.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez)(SSFC,
6/7/09, Books p.J1)
1928 Mar 6, A Communist attack
on Peking, China resulted in 3,000 dead and 50,000 fleeing to
Swatow.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1928 Mar 10, James Earl Ray,
alleged assassin of Martin Luther King Jr, was born.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1928 Mar 12, Edward Albee,
American dramatist who wrote "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf," was
born.
(HN, 3/12/00)
1928 Mar 12, In Santa Paula,
Ventura County, Ca., the 3-year-old St. Francis dam collapsed just
before midnight. By the next day some 450 people were killed.
(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A3)(PCh, 1992, p.791)
1928 Mar 13, Rudolph Friml's
musical "Three Musketeers," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1928 Mar 13, In California
hundreds of people died when the San Francisquito Valley was
inundated with water after the St. Francis Dam burst just before
midnight on March 12.
(AP, 3/13/08)
1928 Mar 14, Frank Borman,
astronaut (Gem 7, Ap 8), CEO (Eastern Airline), was born in Gary,
Ind.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1928 Mar 15, Nicolas Flagello,
composer, was born.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1928 Mar 15, Mussolini modified
the Italy electoral system. [see May 12]
(MC, 3/15/02)
1928 Mar 16, Christa Ludwig,
soprano (Vienna State Opera, Met Opera), was born in Berlin Germany.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1928 Mar 16 The U.S. planned to
send 1,000 more Marines to Nicaragua.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1928 Mar 19, Patrick McGoohan,
actor (#6-Prisoner, Secret Agent), was born in Astoria, NY.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1928 Mar 19, "Amos & Andy"
debuted on radio with the NBC Blue Network, WMAQ Chicago.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1928 Mar 20, Hans Kung, Swiss
religious theologian, was born.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1928 Mar 20, Fred Rogers,
television performer (Mr. Roger's Neighborhood), was born in
Latrobe, Pa.
(HN, 3/20/01)
1928 Mar 21, Pres. Coolidge
gave the US Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh. The
Medal of Honor was not always awarded for "courage above and beyond"
the call of duty.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1928 Mar 21, VU, France’s first
illustrated magazine, was launched and continued to May 29, 1940
running over 600 issues. Hungarian-born photographer Andre Kertesz
worked there until he left for NYC in 1936.
(Econ, 11/27/10,
p.93)(www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500543832.html)
1928 Mar 22, Dmitri Antonovitch
Volkogonov, soldier, historian, was born.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1928 Mar 22, Noel Coward's
musical "This Year of Grace," premiered in London.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1928 Mar 22, Peasants in the
Soviet Union protested food shortages there.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1928 Mar 25, James A. Lovell
Jr, USN, astronaut (Gemini 7, 12, Apollo 8, 13), was born in
Cleveland, Oh.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1928 Mar 27, The U.S. accepted
the new oil-land laws enacted by Mexico, ending a long-standing
dispute between Mexico and the United States.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1928 Mar 28, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, US national security advisor (Carter), was born in
Warsaw.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1928 Mar 28, J.L. Rutledge,
Pacific Air Transport pilot, ran out of fuel and parachuted from his
plane near Orinda, Ca. The plane crashed nearby and he retrieved the
mail and delivered it to the Orinda post office.
(SFC, 3/28/03, p.E8)
1928 Mar 28, Giuseppe Ferrata
(63), composer, died.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1928 Mar 31, Gordie Howe, NHL
right wing (Detroit Redwings), was born in Floral, Sask., Canada.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1928 Apr 1, China's Chiang
Kai-shek began attacks on communists as his army crossed Yang-tse.
(HN, 4/1/98)(MC, 4/1/02)
1928 Apr 4, Maya Angelou,
American poet, was born.
(HN, 4/4/98)
1928 Apr 5, David Farquhar
Andress, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1928 Apr 6, James Watson,
[co-]discovered structure of DNA, was born.
(HN, 4/6/98)
1928 Apr 7, James Garner, actor
(Rockford Files, Bret Maverick), was born in Norman, Okla.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1928 Apr 7, Alan J. Pakula,
director (All the President's Men, Klute), was born.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1928 Apr 8, The 1st Karastan
rug, a machine-made product woven through the back, came off the
loom in Leaksville, NC.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.10)
1928 Apr 9, Mae West's NYC
debut in a daring new play "Diamond Lil."
(MC, 4/9/02)
1928 Apr 12, Hermann Koehl
attempted a 2nd nonstop flight Europe to North America in a Junkers
monoplane, the Bremen. Koehl along with a navigator and passenger
departed from Ireland and reached Greenly Island, Quebec, the next
day.
(ON, 9/02, p.5)
1928 Apr 17, Cynthia Ozick,
writer (The Cannibal Galaxy, The Messiah of Stockholm), was born.
(HN, 4/17/01)
1928 Apr 18, Jean-Francois
Pailliard, conductor, was born in Vitry-le-Francois, France.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1928 Apr 23, Shirley Temple
Black, child actress, was born in Santa Monica, Ca. She sang "On the
Good Ship Lollipop" in the 1934 film “Bright Eyes,” and later became
an American ambassador (Ghana 1974; Czechoslovakia 1989).
(HN, 4/23/99)(SFC, 1/26/06, p.E3)
1928 Apr 24, The fathometer,
used to measure underwater depth, was patented.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1928 Apr 26, Madame Tussaud's
waxwork exhibition opened in London.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1928 May 1, Lei Day, a Hawaiian
celebration, was begun.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1928 May 1, Pitcairn Airlines
(later Eastern) began service.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1928 May 2, In Emeryville, Ca.,
a raid on a brewery next door to the home of Police Chief Ed. J.
Carey uncovered 5,000 gallons of unbottled beer and 3,000 bottles of
beer. Jimmy Reese, star 2nd baseman of the Oakland Coast League and
son-ibn-law of Chief Carey, emerged from a cottage in front of the
warehouse and demanded to know what the raid was about. Alameda Ct.
DA Earl Warren filed a federal complaint against Carey.
(SFC, 5/2/03, p.E3)
1928 May 3, James Brown, "The
Godfather of Soul," was born in Augusta, Georgia. The singer is best
remembered for the song "I Feel Good." [see May 3, 1933]
(HN, 5/3/99)(MC, 5/3/02)
1928 May 4, Maynard Ferguson,
jazz trumpeter (Roulette), was born in Verdun, Quebec.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1928 May 4, Thomas Kinsella,
Irish poet, was born.
(HN, 5/4/01)
1928 May 4, Hosni Mubarak,
Egyptian president (1981-2011), was born in the village of Kafr
el-Moseilha in the Nile delta province of Menoufia.
(AP, 7/9/04)(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A4)
1928 May 4, Hennie Youngman,
comedian, married Sadie Cohen. They met in a Kresge’s 5 & 10
cent store in Brooklyn where they both worked. He later made famous
the line: "Take my wife... Please!"
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.66)
1928 May 7, A Pulitzer prize
was awarded to Thornton Wilder for Bridge of San Luis Rey.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1928 May 8, Theodore Sorenson,
presidential advisor to John F. Kennedy, was born. Many suspect that
he ghost-wrote Kennedy's book "Profiles in Courage."
(HN, 5/8/99)
1928 May 12, Brothers Joe and
Tom Longs opened their first store on Oakland’s Piedmont Ave. In
1993 Longs acquired Bill’s Drugs, a 20 store chain in northern
California. In 2008 Longs Drugs was acquired by CVS Caremark for
$2.9 billion.
(SFC, 8/14/08, p.C3)
1928 May 12, In Italy Mussolini
abolished women suffrage under a new law that restricted the
franchise to men 21 and over who pay syndicate rates or taxes or 100
lire.
(PCh, 1992, p.787)
1928 May 14, Ernesto “Che”
Guevara Serna (d.Oct 9, 1967) was born to an aristocratic family in
Misiones province, Argentina. A biography was written in 1997 by Jon
Lee Anderson: “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary of Life.” Ernesto “Che”
Guevara, chief lieutenant in the Cuban revolution and active in
other Latin American revolutionary movements, was born Ernesto
Guevara de la Serna in Rosario, Argentina. “Che” was a nickname
meaning “pal.” He played a leading role alongside Fidel Castro in
the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, wrote the
book Guerrilla Warfare in 1960 and, as Cuban Minister of Industries
from 1961-‘65, led the nationalization of industry and agriculture.
He left Cuba in 1965. In 1967 he was tracked down and executed by
the Bolivian army.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.D3)(HNQ, 12/2/98)(HNQ, 2/10/00)
1928 May 19, The 1st annual
"Frog Jumping Jubilee" at Angel's Camp, Ca., drew 51 frogs.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1928 May 19, "Firedamp"
exploded in Mather, Pa. coal mine killing 195 of 273 miners.
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1928 May 23, Rosemary Clooney
(d.2002), singer, was born in Maysville, Ky.
(HN, 5/23/01)(SSFC, 6/30/02, p.A20)
1928 May 23, Italian Gen.
Nobile reached the North Pole for a 2nd time with a 16-man crew
aboard the dirigible Italia.
(ON, 10/00, p.5)
1928 May 24, William Trevor,
Irish short story writer and novelist (The Old Boys, The Boarding
House), was born.
(HN, 5/24/01)
1928 May 24, The dirigible
Italia crashed while attempting to reach Spitzbergen. Nine men
survived the initial crash. In 2000 Wilbur Cross authored "Disaster
at the Pole," a revised edition of the 1960 version of the disaster
led by Italian aviator Umberto Nobile. The Russian film "Krasnaya
palatka" (1969), starring Sean Connery, detailed the Nobile
expedition and attempted rescue. This movie was released in North
America under the title "The Red Tent."
(ON, 10/00, p.6)(SSFC, 1/7/01, Par
p.14)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0067315/)
1928 May 25, Frigyes Hidas,
composer, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1928 May 25, Mary Tuck, social
researcher, civil servant, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1928 May 29, Fritz von Opel
reached 200 kph in an experimental rocket car [see Sep 30, 1929].
(SC, 5/29/02)
1928 May 31, The first flight
over the Pacific took off from Oakland. Charles Kingsford-Smith
& Charles Ulm departed from Oakland, Ca., and arrived in
Australia on June 9.
(HN, 5/31/98)(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1928 Jun 2, Nationalist Chiang
Kai-shek captured Peking, China, in a bloodless takeover.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1928 Jun 3, Commander Amelia
Earhart departed with pilot Bill Stultz from Boston Harbor to
Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then to Trepassey, Newfoundland. From
there on June 17 they embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from
Newfoundland to the British Isles.
(AP, 6/17/97)(HNQ, 3/8/02)(ON, 12/07, p.8)
1928 Jun 3, Manchurian warlord
Chian Tso-Lin died as a result of a bomb blast set off by the
Japanese, who were planning to invade and claim Manchuria.
(HN, 6/3/98)
1928 Jun 4, Ruth Westheimer,
sex therapist (WYNY-FM), was born in Germany.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1928 Jun 5, Robert Lansing,
actor (12 O'Clock High, Equalizer), was born in SD, Calif.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1928 Jun 9, Charles
Kingsford-Smith & Charles Ulm were the 1st to fly across the
Pacific when they ended their flight from California to Brisbane,
Australia.
(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1928 Jun 10, Maurice Sendak,
children's author and illustrator (Where the Wild Things Are), was
born.
(HN, 6/10/01)
1928 Jun 13, John Forbes Nash,
Jr. American mathematician, was born in West Virginia. He shared the
1994 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (also called the
Nobel Prize in Economics) with two other game theorists, Reinhard
Selten and John Harsanyi.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash)
1928 Jun 14, The Republican
National Convention in Kansas City nominated Herbert Hoover for
president on the first ballot. George Barr Baker was Hoover's
confidential advisor during the campaign.
(AP, 6/14/98)(SFC, 12/30/98, p.A18)
1928 Jun 14, British
suffragette Emily Pankhurst (b.1858) died.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/pankhurst_emmeline.shtml)
1928 Jun 15, Republicans,
convening in Kansas City, named Herbert Hoover their candidate for
President.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1928 Jun 16, In San Francisco
the new Hotel La Salle opened at 225 Hyde St. The 6-story hotel had
150 guest rooms, each with its own bathroom.
(SFC, 6/13/03, p.E5)
1928 Jun 17, Fox Movietone News
covered the first night of a NY dance marathon at the Manhattan
Casino and took a close-up of the feet of "Shorty" George Snowden.
When asked "What are you doing with your feet," Shorty replied, "The
Lindy." The Lindy Hop was born in black communities in Harlem, New
York in the United States from about 1927 into the early 1930s from
four possible sources: the breakaway, the Charleston, the Texas
Tommy, and the hop. Four couples remained when the dance marathon
was forced by the Health Commissioner to end after 16 days, on July
3. The eight finalists were awarded an equal portion of the $1000
prize at the Savoy Ballroom on Friday, July 6, 1928.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Hop)(http://tinyurl.com/y8dadpk)
1928 Jun 17, Amelia Earhart
embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales with
pilots Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon, becoming the first woman to
make the trip as a passenger.
(ON, 12/07, p.9)(AP, 6/17/08)
1928 Jun 18, Aviator Amelia
Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as
she completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours
as a passenger.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 3/8/02)
1928 Jun 18, Norwegian explorer
Roald Amundsen (b.1872) flew to the North Pole with a crew of
rescuers to search for the survivors of the dirigible Italia. They
were never seen again.
(ON, 10/00, p.8)(Ind, 4/27/02,
5A)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen)
1928 Jun 20, Jean-Marie Le-Pen,
leader of the National Front party in France, was born.
(HN, 6/20/98)
1928 Jun 21, Judith Raskin,
soprano, was born.
(HN, 6/21/01)
1928 Jun 22, Moses A. Gunst
(75), millionaire cigar retailer and former SF police commissioner,
died in Burlingame.
(Ind, 3/2/02, 5A)
1928 Jun 28, New York Gov.
Alfred E. Smith was nominated for president at the Democratic
national convention in Houston.
(AP, 6/28/98)
1928 Jun28-1928 Jun 29, Albert
Hegenberger and Lester Maitland accomplished the first nonstop
flight across the Pacific.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1928 Jul 1, Avery Hopwood
(b.1882), US playwright, died in France. He left a bequest to the
Univ. of Michigan that established the Avery and Julie Hopwood
Awards in Creative Writing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avery_Hopwood)(LSA,
Fall/02, p.3)
1928 Jul 2, Pavel Kohout, Czech
author (Poor Murderer), was born.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1928 Jul 2, Britain enacted
another Representation of the People Act granting women over 21 the
same rights as men. British women over age 30 had voted since 1918.
(Econ, 5/12/07,
p.57)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage)(ON, 10/2010,
p.9)
1928 Jul 4, Cathy Berberian, US
singer, was born in Armenia.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1928 Jul 4, Stephen Boyd,
[William Millar], actor (Fantastic Voyage, Ben-Hur), was born in
Ireland.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1928 Jul 4, Jean Lussier became
the first person to go over the Niagara Falls in a rubber ball. He
went over Horseshoe Falls in the padded ball, which he had built
complete with oxygen tanks and which weighed 750 pounds.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1928 Jul 6, A preview was held
in New York of the first all-talking movie feature, "The Lights of
New York."
(AP, 7/6/97)
1928 Jul 12, The Russian
icebreaker Krassin rescued the rest of the dirigible Italia crew
members. In 1969 Gary Hogg authored "Airship Over the Pole: The
Story of the Italia." In 2000 Wilbur Cross authored "Disaster at the
Pole."
(ON, 10/00, p.8)
1928 Jul 13, Robert N.C. Nix,
Jr., first African-American chief justice of a state supreme court,
was born.
(HN, 7/13/98)
1928 Jul 16, Anita Brookner,
writer (Hotel du Lac), was born.
(HN, 7/16/01)
1928 Jul 21, Dame Ellen Terry
(b.1847), British actress, died in England. In 2008 Michael Holroyd
authored “A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen
Terry, Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families.” Her relationship
with actor Henry Irving (d.1905) lasted over 2 decades.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.79)(WSJ, 3/6/09,
p.W6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Terry)
1928 Jul 26,
Stanley Kubrick (d.1999), American film director, was born in Bronx,
NY. His works included Spartacus and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
(HN, 7/26/98)(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A7)(MC, 7/26/02)
1928 Jul 26, Bernice Rubens,
Welsh novelist and filmmaker, was born.
(HN, 7/26/01)
1928 Jul 28, The Olympics
opened at Amsterdam. Track and field events opened for women for the
1st time despite objections from Pope Pius IX. Germany was allowed
to participate for the 1st time since WWI.
(SC, 7/28/02)(NG, 8/04, Geographica)(WSJ,
4/12/08, p.R2)
1928 Jul 28, Mexico's
Pres.-elect Alvaro Obregon was murdered. His assassin Juan
Excapulario was captured.
(SFC, 7/18/03, p.E5)
1928 Jul 30, George Eastman
showed the 1st color motion pictures in the US. [see Jun 4, 1929]
(MC, 7/30/02)
1928 Jul 31, Horace Silver,
jazz pianist, composer and bandleader, was born.
(HN, 7/31/01)
1928 Aug 3, Ray Barbuti saved
the US team from defeat in Amsterdam Olympics track events by
winning 400 m (47.8 sec).
(SC, 8/3/02)
1928 Aug 7, Amazing Randi
(James Randi), skeptic magician (Nova), was born in Toronto,
Ontario.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1928 Aug 9, Bob Cousey, Hall of
Fame basketball player and coach of the Boston Celtics , was born.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1928 Aug 10, The Univ. of
California crew won the rowing championship at the Olympics in
Holland.
(SFC, 8/8/03, p.E6)
1928 Aug 10, Eddie Fisher
(d.1010), American singer, was born. His hits included "I'm Walking
Behind You" and "Oh, My Pa-Pa."
(SFC, 9/24/10, p.C6)
1928 Aug 12, The 9th Olympic
Games closed in Amsterdam. During the games several women collapsed
at the end of the 800-meter run. This led to a 32-year ban on women
running in Olympic races over 200 meters.
(SC, 8/12/02)(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.F1)
1928 Aug 12, Leos Janacek
(b.1854), Czech composer, conductor (Sly Little Fox), died. His work
included "The Diary of One Who Vanished" based on 22 poems by Josef
Kalda of a young farm boy seduced by a Gypsy girl.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-7)(WSJ, 6/12/01, p.A20)(MC,
8/12/02)
1928 Aug 13, Fernand de La
Tombelle (b.1854), French composer, died.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1928 Aug 14, Lina Wertmuller,
[Arcanguela von Elgg], actress (7 Beauties), was born in Rome.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1928 Aug 14, The play "Front
Page" by Ben Hecht (1894-1964) and Charles MacArthur (1895-1956)
premiered in NYC.
(http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1541419)
1928 Aug 16, The US Navy
selected the Oakland municipal airport as the site of a US Naval
Reserve aviation base.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.E9)
1928 Aug 25, An expedition led
by Richard E. Byrd set sail from Hoboken, N.J., on its journey to
Antarctica.
(AP, 8/25/08)
1928 Aug 27, Fifteen nations
signed the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, also known as the Pact of
Paris, outlawing war and calling for the settlement of disputes
through arbitration. Forty-seven other countries eventually sign the
pact. The pact was developed by French foreign minister
Aristide Briand and U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg. The
document did not stipulate any sanctions and allowed for so many
exceptions—including wars of ‘self-defense‘ and obligations under
the League Covenant and Monroe Doctrine—that the pact was quite
ineffective.
(AP, 8/27/97)(HN, 8/27/98)(HNQ, 10/20/00)
1928 Aug 27, 16 people died in
NYC’s 2nd worst subway accident.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1928 Aug 29, Thomas Stewart,
baritone (La Roche Capriccio), was born in San Saba, Texas.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1928 Aug 30, Ruth Westerheimer,
sex therapist (Dr Ruth), was born.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1928 Aug 30, Jawaharlal Nehru
requested the independence of India.
(MC, 8/30/01)
1928 Aug 31, James Coburn
(d.2002), actor (Our Man Flint, Magnificent Seven), was born in
Laurel, Nebraska.
(YN, 8/31/99)(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A2)
1928 Aug 31, Brecht and Kurt
Weill’s "The Threepenny Opera" opened in Berlin.
(HN, 8/31/00)(MC, 8/31/01)
1928 Aug, Amelia Earhart became
the 1st woman to make back-to-back solo transcontinental flights as
she flew across back forth across America.
(ON, 12/07, p.9)
1928 Aug, Buck Rogers first
appeared as Anthony Rogers in a short space opera, "Armageddon-2419
A.D." by Philip Francis Nowlan, published in the August 1928 issue
of Amazing Stories.
(www.buck-rogers.com/amazing_stories/)
1928 Sep 1, US Boy Scouts
planted 3,000 Lincoln Highway posts at one mile intervals across the
US. The 1st was at Times Square and the last in San Francisco at the
Legion of Honor.
(SFCM, 9/1/02, p.6)
1928 Sep 1, Albania became a
kingdom. Ahmed Zogu proclaimed Albania to be a monarchy and
established himself as "His Majesty King Zog I." Zogu pressured the
parliament to dissolve itself, and a new constituent assembly
declared Albania a kingdom with Zogu as Zog I, "King of the
Albanians." He obtained Italian aid for modernization and weakened
the constitution to arrange for his son to succeed him. The National
Assembly gave him a title that translates into "prince."
(CO, Grolier’s / Albania)(SFC, 6/27/97,
p.A16)(www, Albania, 1998)(SC, 9/1/02)
1928 Sep 3, Scottish
bacteriologist Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) discovered, by
accident, that the mold penicillin has an antibiotic effect.
(V.D.-H.K.p.354)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming)
1928 Sep 6, Robert Pirzig,
author, was born. His work included "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance."
(HN, 9/6/00)
1928 Sep 9, Julian E
"Cannonball" Adderley (d.1975), US, jazz musician (Black Messiah),
was born. Adderley was a member of the Miles Davis ensemble of the
1950s, and in the 1960s scored a hit of his own with 'Mercy, Mercy,
Mercy'.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1928 Sep 12, Actress Katharine
Hepburn (b.1907) made her stage debut in "The Czarina."
(MC, 9/12/01)
1928 Sep 17, Actor Roddy
McDowall (d.1998) was born in London. His films included "Lassie
Come Home," and "Cleopatra." His first movie at age 7 was "Murder in
the Family."
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.B10)
1928 Sep 17, A hurricane hit
Lake Okeechobee, Florida. A levee broke and some 1,800 people
drowned. In 2003 the number dead was revised to at least 2,500. In
2003 Eliot Kleinberg authored “Black Cloud: The Great Florida
Hurricane of 1928.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_Okeechobee_Hurricane)(http://tinyurl.com/9z8o6)
1928 Sep 20, Joyce Brothers,
pop psychiatrist ($64,000 question winner), was born in NYC.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1928 Sep 21, "My Weekly Reader"
magazine made its debut.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1928 Sep 27, The United States
said it was recognizing the Nationalist Chinese government.
(AP, 9/27/97)
1928 Sep 28, Prussia forbade a
speech by Adolf Hitler.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1928 Sep 30, Elie Wiesel,
Holocaust survivor, writer (Souls on Fire), best known for his first
book "Night" about his own experiences in concentration camps, was
born in Romania. He won the Nobel Prize in 1986.
(HN, 9/30/98)(MC, 9/30/01)
1928 Oct 1, American Tobacco
and US Rubber were removed as components of the Dow Jones. They were
replaced by American Tobacco Class B and North American
Co.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.R45)
1928 Oct 1, Zhu Rongji, named
Premier of China in 1998, was born.
(SFC, 3/18/98, p.A12)
1928 Oct 2, Clarence Barron
(b.1855), author and president of Dow Jones & Co., died.
(www.newsbios.com/newslum/barron.htm)
1928 Oct 2, Spanish priest
Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer (1902-1975) founded Opus Dei, a
conservative Catholic organization, in Madrid. In 2002 Pope John
Paul II raised him to sainthood.
(WSJ, 5/19/06,
p.A1)(www.josemariaescriva.info/index.php?id_cat=40&id_scat=34)
1928 Oct 4, Alvin Toffler,
writer and futurist, was born. His work included "Future Shock"
(1970).
(HN, 10/4/00)(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
1928 Oct 6, Chiang Kai-shek was
elected the president of China.
(AP, 10/6/08)
1928 Oct 6, Josip Broz (Tito)
was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1928 Oct 9, Marcel Pagnol's
"Topaz," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1928 Oct 15, The German
dirigible Graf Zeppelin landed in Lakehurst, N.J., on its first
commercial flight across the Atlantic. It made 590 flights before it
was decommissioned in 1937.
(AP, 10/15/97)(SFC,12/24/97, Z1 p.6)
1928 Oct 16, Benjamin Strong
(b.1872), American economist and 14-year head of the US Federal
Reserve of New York, died in NYC.
(Econ, 1/10/09,
p.73)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Strong_Jr.)
1928 Oct 21, AT&T was
removed from the DJIA.
(WSJ, 4/2/04, p.C1)
1928 Oct 22, Republican
presidential nominee Herbert Hoover spoke of the "American system of
rugged individualism" in a speech at New York’s Madison Square
Garden.
(AP, 10/22/97)
1928 Oct 23, Francois V.
Alphonse Aulard (b.1849), French historian, died.
(www.fact-index.com/f/fr/francois_victor_alphonse_aulard.html)
1928 Oct 25, An American group,
led by James A. Talbot of Richfield Oil, acquired control of the
American airplane business of Anthony H.G. Fokker.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1928 Oct 25, Tony Franciosa
(d.2006), later actor and film star, was born in NYC as Anthony
Papaleo.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.C2)
1928 Oct 26, The Pickwick Stage
System filed documents to form a passenger airplane service
connecting SF, San Diego and Chicago. It planned to use a fleet of
tri-motored, 12 passenger Bach monoplanes.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1928 Oct, In Rome Mussolini
organized the draining of Lake Nemi to get to the remains of
Caligula’s sunken pleasure ships.
(AM, 5/01, p.29)
1928 Nov 1, The Graf Zeppelin
set an airship distance record of 6384 km.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1928 Nov 2, L. Stokovski
conducted the premiere of Dmitri Shostakovitch's 1st Symphony, in
Phila.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1928 Nov 3, Turkey switched
from Arabic to Roman alphabet.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1928 Nov 4, Arnold Rothstein
(46), US mobster, was shot to death at the Grand Hotel in NYC. In
2005 Nick Tosches authored “King of the Jews,” a biography of
Rothstein.
(SSFC, 6/12/05, p.B6)
1928 Nov 6, In a first,
presidential election results were flashed on an electronic sign
outside the New York Times building; Herbert Hoover beat Alfred E.
Smith. Norman Thomas was the presidential candidate for the
Socialist Party. Hoover won just over 83% of the electoral vote.
(AP, 11/6/97)(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A21)(HNQ, 11/7/00)
1928 Nov 7, Norton David
Zinder, biologist, was born.
(HN, 11/7/00)
1928 Nov 8, George and Ira
Gershwin's musical "Treasure Girl," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1928 Nov 9, Anne Sexton
(d.1974), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born. "In a dream you are
never eighty."
(AP, 6/5/00)(HN, 11/9/00)
1928 Nov 10, Japanese Emperor
Hirohito was enthroned, almost two years after his ascension.
(AP, 11/10/07)
1928 Nov 11, Carlos Fuentes,
Mexican novelist, was born.
(HN, 11/11/00)
1928 Nov 12, The ocean liner
Vestris sank off the Virginia Cape with 328 aboard, killing 111.
(HN, 11/12/98)
1928 Nov 14, Leonie Rysanek,
dramatic soprano (Vienna Munich State Opera, Met Opera), was born.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1928 Nov 17, The Boston Garden
officially opened.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1928 Nov 17, Notre Dame finally
lost a football game after nearly 25 years.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1928 Nov 18, Walt Disney’s
"Steamboat Willie," starring Mickey Mouse, premiered at the Colony
Theater in NYC. It was the first successful sound-synchronized
animated cartoon.
(TMC, 1994, p.1928)(AP, 11/18/97)
1928 Nov 19, The 1st issue of
Time magazine featured Japanese Emperor Hirohito on cover.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1928 Nov 20, Mrs. Glen Hyde
became the first woman to dare the Grand Canyon rapids in a scow.
Her flat bottomed boat used sweep oars for maneuvering.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1928 Nov 22, "Bolero" by
Maurice Ravel made its debut in Paris.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1928 Nov 22, British King
George was confined to bed with congested lung; the queen was to
take over duties.
(HN, 11/22/98)
1928 Nov 23, Jerry Bock,
Broadway composer (Fiddler on the Roof), was born in New Haven, Ct.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1928 Nov 26, Philip Barry's
"Holiday," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1928 Nov 26, US Justice Byron
S. Waite ruled in Brancusi v. United States that Brancusi’s abstract
sculpture, “Bird in Space,” qualified as part of a new school of art
and that Edward Steichen should receive a refund for a tariff he had
paid when customs officials classified it under the heading “Table,
household, kitchen utensils and hospital supplies.” Brancusi
(1876-1957) ended up producing 16 different versions of Bird in
Space, one of which was donated the New York’s Museum of Modern Art
in 1934. In 2005 an early marble version of Bird in Space sold for
$27,456,000 in a Christie’s auction to an anonymous bidder.
(ON, 8/09, p.6)
1928 Nov 29, Paul Simon
(d.2003), later Senator of Illinois, was born in Eugene, Or.
(SFC, 12/10/03, p.A2)
1928 Dec 5, Paraguay initiated
a series of clashes, which led to full-scale war with Bolivia in
spite of inter-American arbitration efforts. Both belligerents moved
more troops into the Chaco Boreal, a wilderness region north of the
Pilcomayo River and west of the Paraguay River that forms part of
the Gran Chaco. By 1932 war was definitely under way.
(www.onwar.com/aced/data/charlie/chaco1932.htm)
1928 Dec 7, Noam Chomsky,
writer, linguist and political activist, was born.
(HN, 12/7/00)
1928 Dec 10, Charles Rennie
Mackintosh (b.1868), Scottish architect and designer, died. He
designed the walls of Kate Cranston’s first tea rooms in Glasgow
(1903). His watercolors included "The Rock" (1927).
(WSJ, 1/29/97,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rennie_Mackintosh)(WSJ,
4/7/07, p.P14)
1928 Dec 11, Police in Buenos
Aires thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert
Hoover.
(AP, 12/11/97)
1928 Dec 12, Helen
Frankenthaler, abstract painter, was born.
(HN, 12/12/00)
1928 Dec 13, George Gershwin's
musical work "An American in Paris" had its premiere, at Carnegie
Hall in New York. The debut was performed by the New York
Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Walter Damrosch.
(AP, 12/13/98)(MC, 12/13/01)
1928 Dec 13, The clip-on tie
was designed.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1928 Dec 18, Lucien Capet (55),
composer, died.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1928 Dec 19, The 1st autogiro
flight was made in the US. It was a predecessor of the helicopter.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1928 Dec 20, 1st international
dogsled mail left Minot, Maine, for Montreal.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1928 Dec 21, President Coolidge
signed the Boulder Dam bill.
(HN, 12/21/98)
1928 Dec 23, The National
Broadcasting Co. set up a permanent, coast-to-coast network.
(AP, 12/23/98)
1928 Dec 28, The last recording
of Ma Rainey, "Mother of the Blues," was made.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1928 Dec 28, Louis Armstrong
made 78 rpm recording of "West End blues."
(MC, 12/28/01)
1928 Dec 30, Bo Didley, blues
composer and singer famous for his Mockingbird song, was born in
McComb, Mississippi. His music included "Pretty Thing," "Diddy Wah
Diddy," "Who Do You Love," "Hey Bo Didley," and "Hush Your Mouth."
The Bo came from boxing.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, DB p.71)(HN, 12/30/98)
1928 Sol LeWitt, pioneer of the
Conceptual Art Movement, was born.
(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.A38)
1928 Ariel Sharon, Israeli
defense minister 1981-1984, was born in Kfar Mallal, a part of
British-ruled Palestine.
(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A8)
1928 Andy Warhol (d.1987) was
born in Pittsburgh, Pa. He went to school there and graduated from
the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T11)
1928 John Steuart Curry,
American artist, painted "Baptism in Kansas."
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.E1)
1928 Raoul Dufy, fauve artist,
painted "Open Window at Nice."
(WSJ, 5/4/99, p.A20)
1928 Georgia O’Keeffe painted
"Calla Lilies with Red Anemone." It sold for $6.166 million in 2001.
(WSJ, 6/15/01, p.W12)
1928 Grant Wood, American
artist, encountered the German art movement Neue Sachlichkeit (New
Objectivity), while supervising the production of a stained-glass
window he had designed for the Cedar Rapids Veterans Memorial
Building.
(Sm, 3/06, p.39)
1928 Sophie Treadwell wrote her
play "Machinal." It was expressionist play about a woman who murders
to free herself from a suffocating marriage. It was based on the
1927 trial and 1928 execution of Ruth Snyder, the first woman to die
in the electric chair in the US. A photographer sneaked a photo of
her death at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, N.Y.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, DB p.33)(SFEC, 9/14/97, Par p.14)
1928 The Mae West play "Diamond
Lil" cemented her bawdy image.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, DB p.35)
1928 Herbert Asbury authored
"The Gangs of New York." In 2002 it was made into a film.
(SFC, 12/30/02, p.D1)
1928 Edward Bernays authored
“Propaganda” a seminal work in public relations. He held that a
handful of trend-setters and corporate communicators were charged
with the responsibility of shaping public opinion.
(WSJ, 11/25/06, p.P10)
1928 Radclyffe Hall
(b.1880-1943) published "The Well of Loneliness," a novel intended
as a cry about the plight of "congenital inverts," her term for
lesbians. It caused a big stir in England and a trial for obscenity.
In 1999 Diana Souhami published "The Trials of Radclyffe Hall."
(SFEC, 8/8/99, BR
p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hall)
1928 F.L. Hawks, British
author, published his "Short History of Shanghai."
(Hem. 1/95, p. 84)
1928 Janusz Korczak (d.1942),
pediatrician and writer, authored “King Matt the First,” the story
of an orphan boy who becomes king and enacts laws favorable to
children.
(SSFC, 10/10/04, Par p.17)
1928 "Coming of Age in Samoa"
by Margaret Mead was published. Franz Boas had sent Mead to study
the lives of adolescent girls. Boas held that the surrounding
culture determines all human action and that thus human nature lacks
a biological component. In 1983 Derek Freeman published "Margaret
Mead in Samoa," in which he laid waste Mead's portrayal of 1920s
Samoan society. Other books on the Mead controversy followed and in
1999 Freeman published "The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A
Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research."
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.7)(WSJ, 3/3/99, p.A17)
1928 "A House at Pooh Corner"
by A.A. Milne was published.
(Hem., 8/96, p.96)
1928 The Oxford English
Dictionary (O.E.D.) was first published with over 414,000 entries.
It was begun in 1879 and edited by Prof. James Murray (d.1915) with
assistance from William Minor, an American ex-army surgeon. In 1998
Simon Winchester authored "The Professor and the Madman," the story
behind the creation of the dictionary.
(WSJ, 9/14/98, p.A30)(SFEC, 10/18/98, BR
p.7)(WSJ, 10/12/05, p.D13)
1928 Virginia Woolf wrote
"Orlando," a novelistic letter to Vita Sackville-West.
(WSJ, 8/22/96, p.A12)
1928 The Philip Barry play
"Holiday" was staged in New York. It was later made into a film with
Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
(WSJ, 12/6/95, p.A-18)(SFC, 3/13/00, p.B2)(SFC,
3/13/00, p.B2)
1928 Eugene O'Neill wrote his
play "Strange Interlude."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.37)
1928 In the US the "Amos ‘n’
Andy Show" began on the radio featuring two white vaudeville actors
in black voice.
(TMC, 1994, p.1928)
1928 Charlie Chaplin said:
"Moving pictures need sound as much as Beethoven symphonies need
lyrics.". He didn‘t make an all-sound feature until The Great
Dictator (1940).
(HNQ, 8/29/00)
1928 The album "Vol. 4, Louis
Armstrong and Earl Hines" was recorded on Columbia Legacy. Also this
year Armstrong dropped his word sheet during a vocal of "Heebie
Jeebies" and improvised. This was later claimed to mark the
beginning of scat singing.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.D9)(SFC, 7/4/98, p.E3)
1928 Gene Autry recorded "That
Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine" written with Jimmy Long in NYC. The
success of the record won Autry a contract with Columbia Records and
a role in the weekly "National Barn Dance" radio show.
(SFC, 10/3/98, p.A14)
1928 Russian guitarist Savelli
Walevitch recorded "The Many Wonders of the Steppes" in Camden, New
Jersey. A. Dobrohotov displayed an amazing balalaika workout on the
recording of "Kamarinskaya." Both are part of the assembled music of
the 4-part CD series "The Secret Museum of Mankind - Ethnic Music
Classics: 1925-1948," by Pat Conte on the Yazoo label.
(NH, 6/97, p.66)
1928 The US Library of Congress
began to record folk music under the direction of Carl Engle: "This
centralized collection should comprise all the poems and melodies
that have sprung from our soil or have been transplanted here, and
have been handed down, often with manifold changes, from generation
to generation, as a precious possession of our folk.
(WSJ, 11/20/97, p.A20)
1928 The Los Angeles City Hall
at First and Spring streets was built. It was the city’s tallest
building until the late 1950s. It was Renaissance tower atop a Greek
temple supported by a classical base.
(USAT, 10/8/97, p.4D)
1928 The 30-foot cast-iron
Point Montara Lighthouse, shipped in from Cape Cod, was rebuilt at
Point Montara in San Mateo Ct.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T3)(Ind, 3/31/01, 5A)(SFC,
6/14/08, p.B2)
1928 The Avenue Sweet Shop and
Fountain Shop opened on San Bruno Avenue in the Portola District of
southeast SF.
(SFEC, 1/4/04, p.5)
1928 John Ringling, circus
entrepreneur, purchased some 2,300 artifacts of the Cesnola
collection from the NYC Metropolitan Museum at an auction.
(AM, 7/97, p.70)
1928 Newspapers across the US
published "Visiting the World Children," a geography aid for
American kids with pictures that were to be colored and clipped.
Book No.34 was titled "Some Children in Estonia, the Potato
Republic."
(BN, V.15, No.55, p.1)
1928 Hugo Gernsbach began a
magazine called "All About Television." The cover featured a family
gathered around a TV set watching football.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, Z1 p.2)
1928 RKO Pictures was founded.
They released such classics as King Kong, the early Astaire-Rogers
musicals and Citizen Kane.
(NT, 8/15/98)
1928 Uwajimaya, a family-owned
Japanese grocery store, opened in Seattle.
(WSJ, 10/31/96, p.A21)
1928 In Chicago the Int'l Early
Birds organization for early aviators was founded. Members included
solo fliers prior to Dec 17, 1916. The last member, George D. Grundy
Jr., died in 1998 at age 99.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.B2)
1928 "The expression "false
friends" (for similar words in two languages that have different
meanings) originally comes from the French "faux amis", a term used
for the first time in 1928 by Koessler and Derocquigny in their book
"Les faux amis ou les trahisons du vocabulaire anglais"
(Vuibert)..."
(http://www.santesson.com/engfalsk.htm)
1928 James Morgan remarked:
"God must have loved the common people - He made so many of them."
(SFEC, 5/31/98, Z1 p.8)
1928 The ice cream and oatmeal
cookie sandwich called "It’s-It" was invented at
Playland-at-the-Beach in SF.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)
1928 Charles Roman (d.1999 at
92) met bodybuilder Charles Atlas (d.1972 at 78) and founded Charles
Atlas Ltd. to promote bodybuilding.
(SFC, 7/21/99, p.C3)
1928 Herbert Hoover won the
presidency over the Catholic, Al Smith.
(TMC, 1994, p.1928)
1928 Supreme Court Justice
Louis Brandeis gave a dissenting opinion in the Olmstead vs. US case
in which the court upheld the use of wiretaps in an investigation of
bootlegging. "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher.
For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example...
If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the
law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites
anarchy... To declare that in the administration of criminal law the
end justifies the means—to declare that the government may commit
crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal—would
bring terrible retribution." This was quoted by Timothy McVeigh
during his formal sentence to death in 1997 for the bombing of the
federal building in Oklahoma.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A3)
1928 The Seven Member Rule was
enacted and specified that government agencies must turn over
information if it is requested by 7 members of the House Government
Reform Committee or 5 members of the Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee.
(SFC, 1/26/02, p.A4)
1928 Louisiana ended its state
revenue producing forced labor program.
(WSJ, 7/16/01, p.A1)
1928 On Wall Street stock
prices climbed in wild speculation.
(TMC, 1994, p.1928)
1928 The Dow Jones was expanded
to 30 stocks.
(WSJ, 6/3/96, p.C1)
1928 The Alexander's department
store chain was founded by George S. Farkas (d.1980).
(SFC, 7/29/99, p.C4)
1928 A.P. Giannini of SF bought
the small Bank of America in NYC. He then wrapped his East Coast
Banks under the corporate parent Transamerica Corp. with New York
banker Elisha Walker as CEO.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.B1)
1928 Coca-Cola began sales in
Africa. By 2008 Coca Cola claimed to be the largest private sector
employee in Africa.
(Econ, 7/5/08, p.58)
1928 Cadillac developed
synchronous mesh transmission and modern safety glass.
(F, 10/7/96, p.68)
1928 Chrysler bought the Dodge
brothers’ engine business and introduced the Plymouth brand.
Chrysler also introduced hydraulic brakes and the Chrysler Series 72
finished 3rd and 4th at Le Mans.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(WSJ, 6/1/00, p.A20)
1928 DuPont enlisted a team of
engineers to conduct pure research under Wallace Carothers, who
began to synthesize polymers. He invented nylon (1930) and led the
way to new fabrics such as Orlon, Dacron, Kevlar, and Lycra.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R46)
1928 The John H. Daniel Co. was
founded in Knoxville, Tennessee, for producing men’s suits. By 2004
global competition led the company to import tailors from Turkey.
(WSJ, 4/12/05, p.A1)
1928 "Levi's" became a
trademark. Walter Haas Sr. succeeded Sigmund Stern, the nephew of
Levi Strauss, as president.
(SFC, 4/29/03, B1)
1928 The Hearst Corp. acquired
the first of many radio stations.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1928 The Motorola Corp. began
as the Galvin Manufacturing Co. founded by Paul Galvin.
(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A3)
1928 Transcontinental Air
Transport, the forerunner of Trans World Airlines (TWA), was
incorporated. Thomas B. Eastland acquired enough shares to become
the West Coast Director. Clement M. Keys was president and hired
Charles Lindbergh as chairman of the technical committee.
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1928 The first diesel powered
aircraft, a modified Stinson, took to the air.
(Econ, 9/6/08, TQ p.8)
1928 Paul Dirac developed the
mathematics that predicts the existence of antimatter. His theory
explained mathematically why the electron had spin ½, that is
why it didn’t look the same if you turned it through one complete
revolution but did if you turned it through two revolutions.
(NG, May 1985, J. Boslough, p. 654)(BHT, Hawking,
p.68)
1928 John von Neumann,
mathematician, conceived the strategies of game theory. In 2000
Robert Wright authored "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny." In the
40’s and 50’s Neumann and John Nash developed game theory as a
branch of mathematics.
(WSJ, 1/23/97, p.A12)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.75)
1928 Rutherford published a
paper describing an experiment in which he bombarded a uranium
target with very fast alpha particles emitted by polonium-214.
(SCTS, p.124)
1928 Waldo Lonsbury Semon
(d.1999 at 100), a chemist for B.F. Goodrich, invented polyvinyl
chloride. He received a patent for PVC in 1933. In 1940 he invented
the synthetic rubber named Ameripol.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A23)
1928 Walter E. Diemer (23), an
accountant for Fleer Chewing Gum in Philadelphia, began testing
recipes for a gum base. He invented the first batch of bubble gum,
making it pink because that was the only shade of food coloring on
hand. It was sold under the Dubble Bubble name for a penny.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A19)(SFC, 8/2/99, p.A22)
1928 The Rocky Mountain
Biological Laboratory (RMBL) was founded as an independent,
nonprofit research station. It was headquartered in a former mining
camp called Gothic in Colorado’s High Elk Corridor.
(LP, Spring 2006, p.13)
1928 The Bear River Migratory
Bird Refuge, a 74,000 acre National Wildlife Refuge in Utah, was
established.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_River_Migratory_Bird_Refuge)
1928 Frank Lloyd Wright
announced that he would establish his own school of architecture. He
took in 60 students for $300 in tuition plus voluntary labor at his
Taliesin homestead in Spring Green, Wisconsin. In 2006 Roger
Friedland authored “The Fellowship,” an account of Wright and his
students.
(WSJ, 8/25/06, p.W5)
1928 California voters approved
a $6 million state park bond act.
(www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=940)
1928 Nearly 2,000 people died
on California highways.
(SFC, 8/13/04, p.F4)
1928 William "Big Bill" Hopson,
pioneer US airmail pilot, died in a plane crash.
(WSJ, 12/4/97, p.A22)
1928 Medardo Rosso (b.1858),
Italian sculptor, died. His work included "Aetas aurea" (Golden age,
1886/87). Rosso is described as an "Impressionist sculptor" because
he was interested in capturing the fleeting appearance of things.
(WSJ, 10/16/03, p.D8)
1928 Ruth Snider was
electrocuted. [photo]
(SFEM,10/26/97, p.4)
1928 Benjamin Strong, president
of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, died. He pushed a policy of
easy money until he died.
(WSJ, 2/1/00, p.B1)
1928 UCB, a Belgian drug firm,
was founded by Emmanuel Janssen.
(Econ, 9/30/06, p.71)
1928 Ivan Merz (32), Bosnian
Croat intellectual and theologian, died of meningitis. He was
beatified in 2003 by Pope John Paul II.
(AP, 6/22/03)
1928 In Denmark Palle Huld
(d.2010) won a competition organized by Danish newspaper that wanted
to send a teenager would-be-reporter around the globe. For 44 days
the 15-year-old traveled to North America, Japan, Siberia and
Germany, and was greeted by 20,000 people upon his return to
Copenhagen. Herge, the pen name of Belgian author Georges Remi,
heard of Huld's journey which reportedly inspired him to create
Tintin, the globe-trotting reporter.
(AP, 12/5/10)
1928 Maria Feodorovna (b.1847),
the daughter of Denmark's King Christian IX and Queen Louise, died
in Denmark. Princess Dagmar had married Russia’s Czar Alexander II
and their six children included Nicholas II, who became czar in
1894. She fled St. Petersburg in 1917. Her casket rested alongside
Danish kings and queens until 2006 when it was sent to Russia.
(AP, 9/23/06)
1928 The Muslim Brotherhood was
founded in Egypt by Hasan al-Banna (d.1949), a young school teacher
and scouting enthusiast. His plan was to re-Islamicize society by
teaching the fundamentals of Islam in everyday language. He set up
welfare organizations and was famous for his commitment to social
justice. In 1946 a branch opened in Syria and branches began
spreading across the globe.
(WSJ, 9/7/04, p.A20)(Econ, 6/4/05, p.44)(WSJ,
7/12/05, p.A12)(Econ, 6/18/11, p.54)
1928 In Egypt Pierre Montet, a
French archeologist, began excavations at Tanis. He was convinced
that the ruins there were of Pi-Rameses, capital of Rameses the
Great. However it was later determined that many of the artifacts
had been brought there from Qantir by the kings of Dynasties 21 and
22, as they built their new Delta capital. In the late 1930s and
1940s an entire complex of tombs was found intact at Tanis.
(Arch, 5/05, p.18)
1928 In Germany Artur Axmann
(1913-1996) joined the Hitler Youth. He later was appointed by
Hitler to lead the Hitler Youth. In 1949 war trials he was sentenced
to 39 months imprisonment, which the court ruled as already served
from pre-trial detention.
(SFC, 11/7/96, p.B4)
1928 In Dublin, Ireland, the
Gate Theater playhouse was founded by Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton
Edwards.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)
1928 In India British colonial
authorities began to print money.
(WSJ, 8/29/96, B1)
1928 In Iraq Mohammed Mahdi
al-Jawahri, classical Arab poet, published "Between Passion and
Feeling."
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)
1928 The city of Taxco, famous
for its silver shops, was declared a national monument. The highway
from Mexico City reached Taxco.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T6)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T7)
1928 The city of Valladolid,
Mexico, was renamed to Morelia, after the local priest Jose Maria
Morelos, a hero of the war of independence from Spain. It is the
capital of the state of Michoacan. It is near here at Angangueo that
the Monarch butterfly comes from Nov. to Feb.
(Hem, Nov.’95, p.146)
1928 In Rarotonga, Cook
Islands, Robert Dean Frisbie, American expatriate South Seas writer,
stated "I have hunted long for this sanctuary."
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T7)
1928 In Russia Galina Ulanova
(1910-1988), ballerina, made her debut in Leningrad’s Maryinsky
Ballet.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.C5)
1928 Stalin introduced the 1st
Soviet Five-Year Plan. Stalin pushed his farm collectivization
program killing and displacing millions of peasants.
(TMC, 1994, p.1928)(WSJ, 2/24/04, p.D8)
1928 Stalin reversed his view
on rapid industrialization and Bukharin's power diminished. Although
Bukharin participated in writing the 1936 Soviet constitution, he
was ultimately expelled from the Communist Party in 1937 for being a
Trotskyite, was falsely accused and found guilty of
counterrevolutionary activities and espionage. Bukharin was executed
in 1938.
(HNQ, 8/31/99)
1928 In the USSR a show trial
of the North Caucasus Shakhty engineers paved the way for Stalin’s
consolidation of power in 1929. They were accused of sabotaging coal
production in Shakhty on orders from the Germans. The trial
initiated a period of terror against technicians and engineers. The
trial resulted in five of the 53 accused engineers being sentenced
to death and another 44 sent to prison.
(Econ, 4/4/09,
p.53)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakhty_Trial)
1928 Stalin began his plan for
the resettlement of Jews to Birobidzhan, an area of land the size of
Belgium on the Russian-Chinese border. It was officially declared
the Jewish Autonomous Region and by 1930 some 230,000 people lived
in colonies there. Yiddish language and culture was fostered but
worship was forbidden.
(SFEM, 5/24/98, p.4)
1928 The Soviets began planning
the Jewish Autonomous Region in Siberia. By 1931 there were 40,000
people living there in an area larger than Switzerland.
(SFC, 7/18/96, p.E6)
1928 Bertram and Ella Goldberg
Wolfe, American activists in the Comintern, went to Moscow as guests
of the Communist Party. The Comintern was Communism's international
governing body. Bertram clashed with Stalin over the idea of
"American Exceptionalism," where the US model could be different
from the Marxist-Leninist model. The Wolfe's were put under house
arrest for 6 months until the intervention of Dr. Julius Hammer.
(SFC, 1/17/00, p.C2)
1928 The Winter Olympic were
held at St. Moritz, Switz.
(SSFC, 1/23/05, p.E14)
1928 Switzerland’s 1st ski
school was introduced at St. Moritz.
(SSFC, 1/23/05, p.E14)
1928 Jean-Leon Reutter, a Swiss
engineer, developed the Atmos clock, which was powered by changes in
the atmosphere. LeCoultre & Cie bought the patent in 1935 and
began making the clock a year later. In 1937 the Swiss company
became Jaeger-LeCoultre.
(SFC, 11/19/08, p.G6)
1928 In Venezuela a student
movement shook, but failed to dislodge the dictatorship of General
Juan Vicente Gomez.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.45)
1928-1929 Tommy Johnson, bluesman, was popular in
the Mississippi Delta. His music is on "Tommy Johnson Complete
Recordings."
(NH, 9/96, p.62)
1928-1931 Fats Waller wrote "Honeysuckle Rose,"
"Ain’t Misbehavin," "Crazy ‘Bout My Baby," "Handful of Keys," "Sweet
Savannah Sue," "I’ve Got A Feeling I’m Falling," and "Minor Drag."
(SFEM, 10/6/96, p.16)
1928-1933 In Germany the Munich Illustrated Press
was edited by Hungarian-born Stefan Lorant (d.1997 at 96). He later
wrote "Sieg Heil!: An Illustrated History of Germany from Bismarck
to Hitler" in 1974.
(SFC,11/19/97, p.C5)
1928-1938 The Trans-Iranian Railway is
constructed. 865 miles long it extends from the Caspian Sea to the
Persian Gulf.
(NG, Sept. 1939, Baroness Ravensdale, p.337)
1928-1948 The candidate of the Socialist Party,
Norman Thomas, ran for the office of President of the U.S. in every
election over this period. His largest popular vote tally was
881,951 in 1932.
(HNQ, 8/18/98)
1928-1972 The Alberta Sterilization Act caused
over 2,000 Albertans to be sterilized in order to prevent the
mentally handicapped from passing on potentially defective genes. In
1998 the government agreed to compensate nearly 500 people who were
sterilized without their consent.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A11)
1928-1997 Eugene Shoemaker, astronomer, became
known as the father of planetary impact geology. He discovered the
Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that slammed into Jupiter in 1994.
(NH, 9/97, p.88)
Go to 1929