1924 was a fascinating year in history. The Roaring Twenties were fully underway, but countries were still recovering from the devastating effects of the First World War. This timeline shows you some of the biggest events of the year, taking you chronologically through the history of 1924.
1924 was the year that Adolf Hitler was sentenced to prison for his involvement in the failed coup d’état by the Nazi Party, and J. Edgar Hoover was appointed head of the FBI. It was also the year that the United States introduced immigration laws, and Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister of Britain for the second time after winning a landslide victory.
You can read about these events and discover even more for yourself in an original 1924 newspaper.
1924 Timeline
Turn the page to:
- January
- February
- March
- April
- May
- June
- July
- August
- September
- October
- November
- December
- Hitler’s time in and release from prison
- Immigration and Citizenship Acts in the U.S.
- The Statue of Liberty is declared a national monument
- The Death of Vladimir Lenin
January
January 6: Poulenc and Nijinska’s ballet Les Biches premiers in Monte Carlo.
January 11: In Greece, King George II is deposed and Eleutherios Venizelo is named Prime Minister of the Greek National Assembly as a republic is proclaimed.
January 16: Stanley’s Baldwin’s British government resigns.
January 21: One of the biggest 1924 events – Russian Revolutionary and Premier leader Vladimir Lenin dies of a stroke at the age of 53.
January 21: Vladimir Lenin’s Testament is handed over to the Communist Party. His testament calls for changes to the Soviet governing structure and criticizes Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky and other party members.
January 23: Following the resignation of Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald forms the first Labour government in Britain, climaxing 24 years of Labour Party struggle.
January 24: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini disallows the non-fascist work union.
January 24: St Petersburg, a city in Russia, is renamed Leningrad. This remained the name of the city until 1991 when it was changed back.
January 25: The first Winter Olympic Games open in Chamonix, France.
January 25: The French government signs a treaty of mutual aid with Czechoslovakia in light of the possibility of an unprovoked attack by a third country.
January 26: Charles Jewtraw, American skater, claims the first ever Winter Olympic gold medal. He wins the 500m speed skating event in 44.0 seconds at the Chamonix games in France.
January 27: The mausoleum of Lenin is placed in Red Square, Moscow. Millions of mourners from across the U.S.S.R had waited in line for hours to see his body, which was put on display at the House of Trade Unions. Lenin’s head and hands will still be visible to visitors.
January 31: The Congress of Soviets ratifies a treaty that embodies separate nations – Belorussian, Ukranian, Transcaucasian – into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Vladimir Lenin
Image: Wikipedia
February
February 1: Ramsay MacDonald’s incoming Labour government in Britain formally recognizes the Soviet Union.
February 2: In Turkey, the Turkish National Assembly abolishes the caliphate that had been claimed by sultans of the Ottoman Empire for more than four centuries. Ultimately, the Ottoman Empire comes to an end and the caliphate’s authority and property are transferred to Turkey’s Grand National Assembly.
February 3: 28th President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, dies in his home in Washington at the age of 67. He had battled a long illness and his former political opponent Calvin Coolidge and his wife attend his funeral.
February 7: Benito Mussolini’s Italian government exchanges diplomats with Soviet Union.
February 10: Bucky Harris, at the age of 27, becomes the youngest baseball manager, managing the Washington Senators.
February 17: Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer, sets the 100m world freestyle record at 57.4 seconds in Miami, Florida.
February 17: The American architect Henry Bacon, who famously created the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., dies at the age of 57.
February 18: Due to the Teapot Dome scandal, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby resigns.
February 21: Zimbabwean revolutionary and first black President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is born.
February 24: Mahatma Gandhi is released from jail. He served less than two years of a six year sentence and was released due to ill-health. Gandhi decides to write about improvements for India instead of taking part in political action.
February 26: The trial against Hitler for treason in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich begins.
February 28: U.S. begins intervention in Honduras.
March
March 1: Germany’s prohibition of Communist Party KPD is lifted.
March 5: The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Corp becomes IBM.
March 5: Frank Carauna becomes the first to bowl 2 successive perfect 300 games.
March 6: The British government cuts its military budget.
March 8: A coal mine explosion occurs near Castle Gate, Utah, killing all 171 miners. The explosion was so powerful that the steel gates of the mine were ripped from their concrete foundations.
March 15: Horacio Vásquez Lajara wins a presidential election, which ends the eight-year American occupation of the Dominican Republic.
March 16: The free port of Fiume is formally annexed by Mussolini’s fascist regime.
March 21: The first foreign language course is broadcast on U.S. radio.
March 31: The London public transport strike ends.
Fiume in 1909
Image: Wikimedia
April
April 1: Adolf Hitler is sentenced to 5 years of labor for Beer Hall Putsch, but General Ludendorff is acquitted.
April 1: The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed.
April 3: American actor Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska (d. 2004).
April 6: Four planes leave Seattle on the first successful around-the-world flight.
April 11: The first US Men’s College Swimming Championship takes place.
April 11: Socialists win the election in Denmark.
April 14: Louis Sullivan, American architect and father of skyscrapers that became iconic architecture of the 1920s, dies at the age of 67.
April 15: One person dies in riots in Belgium.
April 17: Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures & Louis B Mayer Co merged to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM).
April 18: The first crossword puzzle is published by Simon & Schuster.
April 21: The 28th Boston Marathon is won by Clarence DeMar for the third year in a row, with a time of 2:29:40:2.
April 22: The Hague Chamber of Commerce is formed.
April 27: A group of Alawites kill many nuns in Syria, and French troops retaliate and kill Alawites.
April 28: 119 people die in a coal mine disaster in Benwood, West Virginia. The majority of miners killed were recent immigrants from Europe.
Adolf Hitler
Image: Wikimedia
May
May 1: Paul Koudouriotis becomes President of Greece.
May 2: The Netherlands refuse to recognize the USSR.
May 4: The Summer Olympic Games begin in France.
May 4: Communists and fascists win the election in Germany.
May 10: J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the FBI.
May 11: Cartel des Gauches wins the election in France.
May 11: The Pulitzer Prize is awarded to Robert Frost.
May 11: Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie begin their first joint venture, later merging into Mercedes Benz.
May 12: English comedian and actor Tony Hancock is born in Birmingham, England (d. 1968).
May 21: Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnap and kill Bobby Franks to demonstrate their supposed intellectual superiority by committing a “perfect crime”.
May 26: U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs an immigration law to restrict immigration to the United States. The law includes the Asian Exclusion Act banning the entry of Asian peoples to the United States from a variety of countries. This was one of the most famous events in 1924.
May 29: AEK Athens F.C. is established on the anniversary of the siege of Constantinople by the Turks.
May 30: Lora L. Corum and Joe Boyer win the Indianapolis 500.
May 31: China formally recognizes the USSR.
June
June 2: U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act, which declares all Native Americans to be American citizens.
June 6: Cyril Walker wins the US Men’s Golf Open.
June 7: Mountain climber George Mallory disappears 245m from Everest’s summit.
June 10: The first political convention is broadcast on radio-Republicans in Cleveland.
June 12: George H. W. Bush, 42st President of the United States is born in Milton, Massachusetts (d. 2018).
June 12: Ho Chi Minh leaves Paris to visit Moscow and attends the Fifth Comintern Congress, urging Communists from West European countries to agitate more against the evils of colonialism.
June 13: Gaston Doumergue is elected as the first protestant French president.
June 15: Ford Motor Company manufactures its 10 millionth automobile.
June 15: J. Edgar Hoover assumes leadership of the FBI.
June 18: George Milkan, American Basketball Hall of Fame centre and 4-time NBA All Star 1951-54 is born in Joliet, Illinois (d. 2005).
June 19: Paavo Nurmi runs the world record 1500m in 3.52.6.
June 23: US troops leave the Dominican Republic.
June 26: Following 8 years of occupation, U.S. troops leave the Dominican Republic.
June 27: At the British Golf Open, American Walter Hagen wins his second Open Championships, one stroke ahead of runner-up Ernest Whitcombe.
June 28: The test cricket umpire debut for Frank Chester occurs versus South Africa at Lords.
June 28: A tornado strikes Sandusky and Lorain in Ohio, killing 93 people.
June 30: J. B. M. Hertzog becomes Prime Minister, head of a coalition government between the National and Labor Parties in South Africa.
George Mallory, mountaineer who disappeared from Everest’s summit in 1924
Image: Wikipedia
July
July 1: Direct, regular transcontinental airmail service forms between New York and San Francisco.
July 4: Kitty McKane wins her first Wimbledon title.
July 5: A military revolt begins in Brazil.
July 5: Jean Borota wins at Wimbledon.
July 7: American Robert LeGendre sets the-then long-jump world record at 25’ 5 ½” in Paris, France.
July 10: Denmark claims Greenland.
July 10: A strike of railroad workers ends in Amsterdam.
July 11: A Hindu-Muslim rebellion takes place in Delhi, India.
July 16: A conference over German recovery payments begins in London.
July 16: George Kelly of the New York Giants is the first player to hit home runs in six consecutive games.
July 20: Tehran, Persia comes under martial law after the American vice consul, Robert Imbrie, is killed by a religious mob enraged by rumors he had poisoned a fountain and killed several people.
July 20: The Federation Internationale des Echecs is formed in Paris.
July 20: Ottavio Bottecchia wins the 18th Tour de France.
July 29: Paul Runyan wins the PGA Golf Championship.
August
August 2: American novelist and playwright James Baldwin is born in Harlem, New York (d. 1987).
August 5: The Little Orphan Annie comic strip by Harold Gray is first published in the New York Daily News.
August 8: A British-Russian trade agreement is signed.
August 11: The first newsreel pictures of U.S. presidential candidates are taken.
August 16: A peace treaty is signed between the Netherlands and Turkey.
August 16: Helen Wills Moody wins the US Women’s National Tennis Championship.
August 17: A trade agreement is signed by France and Germany.
August 18: France begins withdrawing troops from the Ruhr.
August 23: Mars’ closest approach to Earth since the 10th century occurs.
August 28: Georgian opposition stages the August Uprising against the Soviet Union.
August 29: Germany’s Reichstag approves the Dawes Plan, which sought to solve the problems of WWI reparations. The plan provides for France ending its occupation of Germany’s Ruhr region and created a payment plan for Germany. Many French citizens believe their government is being too lenient on Germany.
August 31: Paavo Nurmi runs the world record 10,000m in 30:06:02.
James Baldwin, American novelist and playwright
Image: Wikimedia
September
September 2: Bill Tilden wins the US Men’s National Tennis Championship.
September 3: Civil War breaks out in China.
September 6: An assassination attempt on Benito Mussolini fails.
September 9: Filipino agricultural workers go on strike, demanding a $2 wage increase per day and the reduction of their working day to eight hours in the Hawaiian Islands.
September 11: American NFL player and legendary coach Tom Landry is born in Mission, Texas (d. 2000).
September 12: Bill Johnston and Bill Tilden win the International Lawn Tennis Challenge.
September 13: The US team wins the 19th Davis Cup.
September 14: Walter Johnson is selected as the American League MVP.
September 17: The Treaty of Rapallo is signed in Italy.
September 24: The airport in Boston opens.
September 28: Two U.S. Army planes end an around-the-world flight, from Seattle to Seattle with 57 stops.
September 28: Plutarco Calles becomes President of Mexico.
September 30: Monitoring of the German navy by the Allies stops.
September 30: American author Truman Capote is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
October
October 1: 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, is born in Plains, Georgia.
October 2: The Geneva Protocols are approved by the League of Nations.
October 4: The New York Giants become the first team to play in 4 consecutive World Series.
October 8: The British Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald falls to the Conservative Party.
October 10: The Washington Senators win the World Series for the first time.
October 11: The Bureau of Surrealist Research opens in Paris.
October 13: Mecca falls without struggle to Saudi forces, led by Abdulaziz Ibn Saud. He then declares himself the protector of the holy places in Mecca.
October 15: U.S. President Calvin Coolidge declares the Statue of Liberty a national monument.
October 15: André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto is published.
October 19: An eight hour work day is demanded by the General Christian Workers Union in Belgium.
October 20: The first Negro League World Series takes place.
October 24: The Nobel prize for physiology or medicine is awarded to Dutchman Willem Einthoven “for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram”.
October 27: The Uzbek SSR is founded.
October 28: A trade agreement is signed by France and Russia.
October 28: The fossil Taung child is discovered by M. de Bruin.
October 29: The British Labour party loses the British parliamentary election.
The Statue of Liberty, 1920
Image: Flickr
November
November 2: The Sunday Express publishes its first British crossword puzzle.
November 4: California legalizes professional boxing. It had been illegal since 1914.
November 4: Nellie Tayloe Ross is elected as the first U.S. female governor. She becomes the governor of Wyoming.
November 4: Calvin Coolidge is elected to a full term as President of the United States, defeating Democrat candidate John W. Davis. Coolidge wins in a landslide, running similarly to Davis on a platform of limited government, reduced taxes, and less regulation.
November 4: Stanley Baldwin becomes Britain’s Prime Minister for a second time after a landslide victory over Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Party.
November 8: Ignaz Seipal, Austria chancellor, resigns after an assassination attempt.
November 10: Dion O’Banion, the leader of the North Side Gang, is assassinated in his flower shop by members of Johnny Torrio’s gang, sparking the bloody gang war of the 1920s in Chicago.
November 11: The Palace of Legion of Honor is dedicated in San Francisco.
November 21: The contract between Britain and the USSR is cancelled by Stanley Baldwin.
November 22: Britain orders Egyptians out of Sudan.
November 24: Peking is seized by General Feng Yu-Hsiang in China.
November 26: Mongolia becomes a Republic.
November 27: The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held in New York City.
November 30: The first photo facsimile is transmitted across the Atlantic by radio from London to New York City.
November 30: The Cleveland Bulldogs win the National Football League Championship.
November 30: French and Belgium troops are withdrawn from their occupation of the Ruhr.
Palace of Legion of Honor, San Francisco
Image: Flickr
December
December 1: A coup attempt in Estonia staged by communists fails. Most of them are from the U.S.S.R. and 125 out 279 participating are killed. 500 people will be arrested later on.
December 1: The first issue of La Révolution Surréaliste is published in Paris.
December 7: The Social Democrats win the election in Germany.
December 9: A trade treaty is signed by Hungary and the Netherlands.
December 9: Michael Hainisch is reelected as President of Austria.
December 11: Chiang Kai-shek occupies Hankou.
December 12: Spanish troops leave Morocco.
December 15: Winston Churchill writes a letter to Prime Minister Baldwin, considering the chance of war with Japan. Churchill claims “I do not believe there is the slightest chance of it in our lifetime.”
December 16: Noël Coward‘s Vortex premieres in London.
December 16: Hiram Bingham resigns as Governor of Connecticut after being elected to serve in the Senate.
December 17: The first diesel electric locomotive enters service in the Bronx, New York City.
December 19: The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.
December 20: Adolf Hitler is freed from jail early, having only served a 9 months of a 5 year sentence for Beer Hall Putsch. His earlier failed coup brought attention to his name, and he spent his time in prison writing Mein Kampf (My Struggle).
December 24: A school in Babb’s Switch, Oklahoma, catches fire killing 36 people.
December 26: Actress Judy Garland makes her show business debut at 2 and a half years old.
December 27: The U.S. signs a treaty with the Dominican Republic, superseding that of 1907.
December 27: A dictatorship is declared in Albania.
December 30: Astronomer Edwin Hubble formally announces the existence of other galactic systems at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
December 31: Italian fascist Benito Mussolini orders the suppression of opposition newspapers.
Hitler’s Time in and Release From Prison
In Germany, Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in Beer Hall Putsch. This was the Nazi Party’s attempt to seize the government by force, and Hitler had hoped that his nationalist revolution would spread to the German army, then bring down the government in Berlin. This was after the German government resumed making payments to Britain and France following their defeat in the First World War.
Hitler spent nine months in Lansberg jail, where he spent his time writing his autobiography Mein Kampf. He was released early due to political pressure from Nazi Party supporters. Some people believe Hitler’s time in prison was crucial character building for him, and the main way he prepared himself to become Germany’s dictator. His autobiography helped him build his cult of personality and express his views, and he was able to assure himself of his character.
Immigration and Citizenship Acts in the U.S.
This is a very important event in our 1924 timeline, since it changed the lives of so many people! 1924 was a crucial year for immigration and citizenship acts in the U.S., introduced by President Calvin Coolidge. On May 26, President Coolidge signed an immigration law that restricted immigration to the United States from other countries, due to the huge influx of immigrants following the end of the First World War. The prosperity experienced by the United States and the devastated European countries made America a very tempting place to travel to and start a new life.
One aspect of the immigration laws was the Asian Exclusion Act, in which immigrants from particular Asian countries were banned from entering the country entirely. With European immigrants, a quota was set, in which only a certain number of immigrants could enter the country each year. A literary test had already been introduced in 1917, meaning immigrants had to demonstrate basic reading skills to be allowed in the United States.
On June 2, President Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, which declared all Native Americans to be American citizens. This meant Native Americans would be considered proper citizens of the country, but this unfortunately didn’t mean they would no longer be subject to discrimination.
The Statue of Liberty is Declared a National Monument
Ever since the Statue of Liberty was given as a gift to the United States, it has become a symbol of democracy, liberty and freedom – ideals that the American nation embodies and projects to the rest of the world. It was also given to America to commemorate the centennial of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, as well as the friendship between the United States and France. The statue became so symbolic of these values that in 1924 it was officially declared a national monument.
The Death of Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin was a key figure in the Bolshevik Revolution, and was the first leader of the USSR. His untimely death at the age of 53 was recorded as being a result of an incurable blood vessel disease. In his honor, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. His embalmed body remains in a mausoleum near the Kremlin to this day, where people from around the world come to pay their respects.