July 1, 1924: U.S. Post Office Department begins day-and-night air mail serviceJuly 5–27, 1924: Summer Olympics held at ParisJuly 5–28, 1924: Brazilian Army bombards São Paulo after rebels seize the city
Japan held a national day of protest of the United States' Immigration Act the day it went into effect. Mass prayer meetings were conducted at Shinto shrines all over the country and an unknown Japanese man cut down the American flag at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo.[2] The Japanese government gave the United States a formal note of regret over the flag theft. The flag was recovered the next day[3] The perpetrator was arrested on July 3 in Osaka and explained that he wanted to do something "heroic" before he died for his country.[4]
Inventor Guglielmo Marconi addressed the Royal Society of Arts in London describing his new beam system of short-wave wireless transmission. Marconi said this system could transmit more words per day between distant countries than was possible before, and more economically as well, resulting in a general reduction in telegraphic rates.[7]
Italian border patrollers shot and killed two Serbian soldiers and wounded a civilian bystander at the Serbian boundary line.[8]
The Caesar salad was created in Mexico by Italian-born restaurateur Caesar Cardini at his restaurant in Tijuana, Caesar's. According to the Cardini family, Caesar had been unprepared for the large number of Americans crossing the border to legally purchase liquor at his eatery during the long Fourth of July weekend, and conserved his available supply of food by putting together the large salad in the middle of the dining room.[12]
A timepiece created in Sheung Wan Victoria Hong Kong on 5 July 1924The official opening ceremonies for the Summer Olympics were conducted at Colombes Stadium in Paris, France.[17] Germany was absent for the second consecutive Olympics, having not been invited by the Organizing Committee.[18]
Ville Ritola of Finland won gold in the 10,000m race at the Paris Olympics. Paavo Nurmi, the greatest long-distance runner at the time, had hoped to break a record in the event but Finnish officials refused to enter him in it because they feared for his health if he competed in too many events, a decision that angered Nurmi.[21]
Born:
Robert M. White, U.S. Air Force test pilot who was one of 12 Americans to pilot the North American X-15, and the first person to fly an aircraft at Mach 4, Mach 5 and Mach 6; in New York City (d. 2010)[22]
Wesley L. McDonald, U.S. Navy aviator who, in 1965, led the first U.S. air strike against North Vietnam, and in 1983, as an Admiral, was the commander the U.S. invasion of Grenada; in Washington D.C. (d. 2009)
Calvin Coolidge Jr., the 16-year-old son of the President of the United States, died at 10:30 in the morning from sepsis caused by an infection on his foot, developed from blisters after having played a game of tennis on the White House grounds a week earlier. The president and Mrs. Coolidge were at their son's bedside.[23]
The Philippine Scout Mutiny broke out at Fort William McKinley near Manila, as Filipino members of the U.S. Army, who received lesser pay than the American troops. The rebellion was quickly suppressed by the 23rd Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Army's Philippine Division, commanded by Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, and 200 of the mutineers were arrested. MacArthur's subsequent attempts to improve the pay and working conditions of Filipino soldiers and officers were unsuccessful.[24]
British track athlete Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who faced anti-Semitic prejudice, won the 100 meter sprint at the Summer OlympicsinParis.[25] His friend Eric Liddell, a Scottish Christian missionary, had not entered the 100m dash because he had refused to run on a Sunday, the day of the qualifying heats. Abrahams, whose story was profiled in the Academy Award winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire, finished in 10.6 seconds, one-tenth of a second ahead of the heavily-favored entrant from the U.S., Jackson Scholz.
New York Governor Alfred E. Smith passed former Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo on the 87th ballot at the Democratic National Convention, with 361½ to McAdoo's 333½ before the convention adjourned early out of respect for the President. Neither candidate had 729 votes, the two-thirds majority necessary to be nominated.[26]
Born:
Benedikt Gröndal, Prime Minister of Iceland, 1979 to 1980; in Önundarfjörður (d. 2010)
At the Democratic National Convention, delegates divided between Alfred E. Smith (who had moved into the front after the 86th ballot) and former frontrunner William G. McAdoo. After a recess following the 93rd ballot, Smith offered to take his name out of contention if McAdoo would do the same. Indiana U.S. Senator Samuel M. Ralston in third place, released his delegates, but McAdoo refused the Smith offer before it could be announced on the floor of the convention. On the 94th ballot, McAdoo took the lead again with 395 over 364.5 for Smith, with John W. Davis moving into third place.[28] Balloting continued past midnight until an adjournment at 4:00 a.m.
Died:Walter R. Allman, 40, American comic strip artist who wrote and drew The Doings of the Duffs from its launch in 1914 until 1923, when he suffered a nervous breakdown.[30]
Colombia gave diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Panama, more than 20 years after Panama had seceded from Colombia on November 3, 1903, at the encouragement of the United States.[34]
The funeral for Calvin Coolidge, Jr. in Washington, D.C. Flags were lowered to half-mast and all nonessential government offices closed at 3:30 p.m.[36]
The World Energy Council was founded as the World Power Conference at a meeting of the same name in London, where more than 1,700 experts from 40 nations gathered to discuss energy issues. D. N. Dunlop of Scotland, who had organized the conference, was elected as the organization's first secretary-general.[39][40]
Harold Osborn of the U.S. won the men's decathlon at the Summer Olympics in Paris, finishing ahead of 35 other competitors. Osborn finish first in the 100m dash, the high jump, and the 110m hurdles, and in second place in the long jump and the pole vault.[42]
Paavo Nurmi won the 10,000m cross-country race at the Olympics and then helped to win another gold medal for Finland in the team event. The races were held in blistering heat of 45 degrees Celsius; cross-country races were never an event at the Olympics again because of the number of runners collapsing from heat exhaustion.[21]
Driving at 146.16 miles per hour (235.22 km/h) in his Fiat Mephistopheles, Ernest Eldridge of Great Britain broke the land speed record of 145.89 miles per hour (234.79 km/h) set earlier in the week (on Sunday, July 6) by Rene Thomas of France. Both records had been set on a public road at Arpajon, after which the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile announced that it would only recognize records set on closed racing circuits, bringing an end to attempts to set a land speed record on a roadway used by other motor vehicles.[citation needed]
The British and Italian governments signed an agreement on the Jubba River in Africa as the British ceded their territory on the northern side;[50] it became Italian Trans-Juba.
The United States Army suspended recruitment after reaching an enlistment strength of 123,793, in excess of the number authorized by Congress which was not to far exceed 120,000.[52]
The first major nationwide news story in the U.S. about a tall, hairy "apeman" that walked upright, in the Pacific Northwest was published in The Oregonian, the largest circulation newspaper in Portland, Oregon, and then picked up by the Associated Press.[55] In 1958, the mysterious creature would first be described as "Bigfoot" because of the large footprints observed after a sighting in northern California.[56]
The London Reparations Conference opened to arrange for the implementation of the Dawes Plan.[50]
U.S. Vice Consul to Iran Robert Imbrie was beaten to death by an angry mob in Tehran after he photographed a gathering at a sacred watering place where a miracle was said to have taken place. Police were slow to help because they were intimidated by the soldiers of the Cossack Brigade, the real authority in Iran, who were participating in the attack. American oilman Melvin Seymour was also badly beaten in the attack but survived.[60][61]
Pitcher Herman "Hi" Bell of the St. Louis Cardinals started and finished a doubleheader baseball game, pitching all 9 innings of a 6 to 1 win over the Boston Braves and all 9 innings of the second game of the day, a 2 to 1 win. Bell was the last Major League Baseball pitcher to pitch all 18 innings of two games on the same day.[65]
Died:Kingsley Fairbridge, 39, British educator and founder of the Society for the Furtherance of Child Emigration to the Colonies (later the Fairbridge Society) died of complications after minor surgery for removal of a lymphatic tumor [66]
Paris Olympics organizer Pierre de Coubertin lashed back at criticism of the games, calling the Paris press guilty of "magnifying the unpleasant incidents instead of fulfilling its duty and educating the people to a big sport ideal." He also said it was "idiotic" of the French government to build Colombes Stadium so far outside of Paris without the proper transportation facilities. Some of the unfortunate incidents referred to included the French booing of the American flag at a rugby match and complaints over accommodations in the tennis tournament.[75]
Japan passed an amendment to its Nationality Law so that Japanese children born in the United States and other jus soli countries would automatically lose their Japanese nationality unless it was expressly retained within 14 days of birth. The amendment also allowed dual citizens in those countries to easily renounce their Japanese citizenship.[76]
The judge in the Leopold and Loeb case fully explained to the defendants the consequences of pleading guilty and asked them to confirm their plea, which they did. The trial now became a question of whether or not the killers would receive the death penalty.[71]
The new issue of Workers' Weekly, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, included a provocative article entitled "An Open Letter to the Fighting Forces" which included passages such as, "Neither in a class war nor in a military war, will you turn your guns on your fellow workers", and, "Turn your weapons on your oppressors." The question of whether to charge editor J. R. Campbell with incitement to mutiny became a controversial issue known as the Campbell Case.[82][83]
Greece announced it was expelling 50,000 Armenians from the country.[51]
American League president Ban Johnson ordered umpires to speed up baseball games by cutting short trivial arguments about balls and strikes as well as preventing players from taking too much time inspecting balls on suspicion they had been tampered with.[84]
Died:Azem Galica, 34, Albanian nationalist and rebel who fought for the unification of Kosovo with Albania, died of wounds sustained in fighting soldiers of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, bringing about the collapse of the ethnic Albanian rebellion.[86]
Argentine pilot Pedro Zanni and mechanic Felipe Beltrame began their attempt to fly around the world, departing Amsterdam in a Fokker C-IV biplane named Ciudad de Buenos Aires. With stops in Baghdad and Hanoi, Hong Kong, Fuzhou and Shanghai, and a change of planes after the first one was destroyed the two would get as far as Tokyo before abandoning the trip on October 11, upon discovering that a British and American team had completed the first aerial circumnavigation on September 28.
Saville Sax, American drifter who assisted the espionage activities of his friend, Theodore Hall by delivering classified nuclear secrets to Soviet spies; in New York City (d. 1980). Although their access to materials was blocked, the two were never charged or prosecuted out of concern that the Soviets would learn that U.S. cryptanalysts were decoding Soviet cables.[90]
Lieutnant Doxakis, a Greek Army officer in charge of enforcing martial law in the Kato Nevrokopi region on the border of Bulgaria, carried out the massacre of 17 Bulgarian peasants arrested in the village of Tarlis (now Vathytopos), near the Greco-Bulgarian border. Lieutenant Doxakis told his commander that their 10-soldier unit had come under attack from Bulgarian guerrillas and that they were forced to kill the prisoners who were attempting to escape.[93]
The first Stånga Games, were held on the Swedish island of Gotland as an annual competition of traditional Swedish Gothic sports, including paerk, a team game similar to a cross between baseball and football; varpa, similar to horseshoe pitching; Herre på stång (a fight between two men on a pole) and three variations of tug of war.[94]
The revolt by Brazilian Army officersinSão Paulo ended after the rebels quietly withdrew to Campinas.[97] By the time that the government realized that the rebels had quit, the last rebels had been gone from the city for five hours. The city was recaptured by the government, at a cost of more than 500 deaths and almost 5,000 injuries. Sao Paulo state governor Carlos de Campos, who had fled the city on July 8, returned to his office later in the day.
The practicality of airmail was demonstrated for the public when the U.S. Army air service carried a cargo of mail from Nashville, TennesseetoChicago in 2 hours and 29 minutes.[98]
Germany and the Soviet Union signed a trade agreement which ended the two-month standoff over the Berlin police raid.[99]
Richard P. Keirn, American fighter pilot and the first U.S. airman to have his plane shot by a surface-to-air missile in the Vietnam War, and one of only two Americans to be a prisoner of war in both World War II and in Vietnam; in Akron, Ohio (d. 2000)
The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1924, requiring compulsory voting in Australian national elections, was given royal assentbyGeorge V in his capacity as King of Australia. The law, in effect 100 years later, provides for a requirement that enrolled voters explain their absence if they fail to vote, and a fine of up to A$170 if no adequate excuse is given. The Act was sponsored after fewer than 60% of voters cast ballots in the 1922 federal election; participation increased to 91% in 1925 election.[101]
The Allied Reparations Commission released a report estimating that Germany had only paid about half the amounts that the French, Belgians and English demanded for occupying the Rhineland and Ruhr.[102]
^Clayton, John (July 13, 1924). "Yankee Airmen in Bucharest". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 4.
^"Kleenex". Trademarkia. Retrieved January 16, 2015.
^Gmür, Leonhard (2013). Rex Ingram: Hollywood's Rebel of the Silver Screen. Berlin: epubli GmbH. p. 45. ISBN978-3-8442-4601-8.
^Hover, John C. (1919). Memoirs of the Miami valley. Robert O. Law company. p. 44. Retrieved 12 August 2017. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^Pesterev, V.I. (1993), Исторические миниатюры о Якутии [Historical miniatures about Yakutia] (in Russian), p. 105
^"Giant U.S. Submarine Launched at Navy Yard— V-1, Twice as Large as Previous Craft, Capable of Following Fleet On Any Voyage", The Evening Star (Washington DC), July 17, 1924, p.1
^Bob Mullan and Gary Marvin, Zoo Culture (University of Illinois Press, 1998) p.87
^Forbes, Genevieve (July 22, 1924). "Young Killers Plead Guilty; Ask for Mercy". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 1.
^ abcHannon, Michael (May 2010). "Leopold and Loeb Case (1924)"(PDF). University of Minnesota Law Library. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 23, 2014. Retrieved January 16, 2015.
^Jorge Basadre, Historia de la República del Perú. 7.º periodo: El Oncenio (1919-1930) (Empresa Editora El Comercio S. A., 2005)
^de Visé, Daniel (2015). Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 3–7. ISBN978-1-4767-4773-6.
^James A. Chisman, Johnny Tom Gleeson (The Three Spires Press, 1994)
^Skene, Don (July 23, 1924). "France Enraged Over Slurs on Olympics". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 13.
^Newman, Harry (July 25, 1924). "Tunney Stops Carpentier Amid Riot in 15th Round". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 19.
^Klugmann, James (1968). History of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Vol. One: Formation and Early Years, 1919–1924. London: Lawrence and Wishart. pp. 366–367.
^Dobson, Jeremy (2009). Why Do the People Hate Me So?: The Strange Interlude Between the Two Great Wars in the Britain of Stanley Baldwin. Leicester: Troubador Publishing Ltd. p. 102. ISBN978-1-84876-239-8.
^"Ban Orders A.L. Umps to Speed Up Ball Games". Chicago Daily Tribune. July 26, 1924. p. 8.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
