1924 History, Trivia and Fun Facts

• Politics: J. Edgar Hoover was appointed head of the (Federal) Bureau of Investigation. He remained head of the FBI until 1972.
• Influential Songs include: Rhapsody in Blue by Paul Whiteman/ George Gershwin and California Here I Come by Al Jolson.
• The 'Bible Belt' consisting of the east coast, Florida through Virginia and west to Texas and Oklahoma was first used in the Chicago Tribune newspaper in 1924.
• The Big Movies included The Thief of Bagdad, Sherlock Jr and Greed
• Price of a dozen eggs in 1924: 32 cents
  Price of a movie ticket: 25 cents
• Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly sat on a flagpole for just over 13 hours, creating one of the first Pop Culture Fads - flagpole sitting.
• The Toastmasters (International) Club was founded in Santa Ana, California.
• The World Population was ~ 2,018,000,000
• The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) renamed itself International Business Machines (IBM).
• And... 1924 brought us the invention of the Caesar Salad by Caesar Cardini in Tijuana, Mexico.

German shoemaker Adolf Dassler let his brother, Rudolf, join his sports shoemaking company. During WWII, they grew to hate each other and in 1948, Rudolf started his own company across town. Adolf, aka Adi, changed his company's name to Adidas; Rudolf started Puma.

'Uncle Sam' is the nickname of the largest diamond (40.23 carats) ever found in the US. It was discovered in 1924 in the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. The park is the only public diamond mine in the world. Over 75,000 diamonds have been found since the opening of the park in 1906.

Ace Hardware stores opened in Illinois.

Max Fleischer, the producer of cartoons such as Betty Boop, the original Superman cartoons and Popeye also invented Rotoscope animation and the "Follow the bouncing ball" sing-a-long.

Harry's New York Bar in Paris, France holds a strawpoll for American tourists during the presidential elections each election, since 1924. The results have only been wrong twice: in 1976, 2004 and 2016.

A variation of 1913's tasty treat, the Pep-O-Mint Life Saver, new flavors were added - Lime, Lemon and Orange to the disc-shaped treats. The hole was added in 1927. Pineapple and cherry were added in 1935.

Chicago was the first city in the US to have a recognized Gay Rights organization - the Society for Human Rights, established this year.

American Indians weren't considered citizens of the US until this year.

A Labrador named Pep was sentenced to Life without Parole for killing the cat of the Pennsylvania Governor and was admitted to Eastern State Penitentiary

Kleenex disposable tissues were introduced. The pop-up box was released in 1928. They started making the handy pocket pack of tissues in 1932.

There are a series of 70-foot-long concrete arrows that bisects the country longitudinally all the way from SF to NYC, all designed to direct Postal Service aerial traffic.

In 1924 there were periods of radio silence in an attempt to listen to radio signals from Mars.

This year's introduction of iodized salt to areas in America previously without it resulted in an increase of 15 IQ points in those places.

US President Calvin Coolidge (1924-28) enjoyed "buzzing for his bodyguards and then hiding under his desk as they frantically searched for him"

Jimmy Carter, born in 1924, was the first US President to be born in a hospital.

Master Lock introduced the laminated padlock in 1924. Company founder Harry Soref supposedly advised fellow Harry (Houdini) to hide lock keys under his toungue when the key couldn't have been sleight-of-handed between his fingers.

The US won the last ever Olympic gold medal for rugby in 1924 and are technically still reigning World Champions.

Major D. G. Astley was the only person who won both the gold and silver medal in the same Olympic event when he played both on GB's and Sweden's curling team in 1924.

US ski jumper Anders Haugen finished 4th at the 1924 Olympics, when 50 years later a Norwegian historian discovered a scoring error was made and Haugen should have gotten the bronze medal, which was handed to him in Norway in 1974 by the daughter of the original bronze medal winner.

Dr. Benjamin Spock (the famous baby book author) won a gold metal in rowing at the 1924 Olympics.

Monaco has competed in 28 Olympic Games without winning a single medal, more than any other country. They did, however, win a bronze medal in 1924 for architecture, which doesn't count in the totals.

Until 1994 the Winter and Summer Olympics took place on the same year.

he Caesar Salad was not named for Julius Caesar but rather for it’s inventor, an Italian restaurateur named Cesare Cardini who created the salad in his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico.

Count Dracula was first depicted wearing a Bela Lugosi-style cape/tuxedo combo when the book was adapted for London stage. It was the best way to make it obvious that the Count was charming and sophisticated from a distance.

Miriam A Ferguson was the first female Governor of Texas. She was elected in 1924 and told voters that she would follow the advice of her husband and Texas thus would get "two governors for the price of one. Her campaign slogan was, "Me for Ma, and I Ain't Got a Durned Thing Against Pa."

Philip Morris launched the Marlboro brand of cigarettes in 1924 as a woman's cigarette with the slogan "Mild As May".

Reading So Big by Edna Ferber
Reading A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Reading Parade's End by Ford Maddox Ford

Flagpole Sitting: The original 20th century flagploe sitta was Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly (NOT the Kentucky footballer) and he sat on his first flagpole for 13 hours and thirteen minutes in Hollywood, California. BUT, the original Flagpole Sitter may have been St. Simeon Stylites. He spent over 3 decades sitting on an elevated deck to 'escape the pressures of daily living.' The latest records we have seen was for Poland's Dan Baraniuk, who sat on a pole for 196 days in 2002 and H. David Werder who spent more than 439 days in on top of pole in 1984