May 21, 1927: Charles Lindbergh becomes first man to fly non-stop from New York to ParisMay 18, 1927: Murderer kills 38 schoolchildren, six adults in Michigan school bombingMay 9, 1927: Nungusser and Coli disappear while attempting trans-Atlantic flight
In the case of Buck v. Bell, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., delivered the 8-1 majority opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court, upholding a Virginia law permitting compulsory sterilization of mentally retarded women, writing, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their own imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind." Pierce Butler was the lone dissenter.[3]
The U.S. Department of Agriculture began the grading of beef sold at retail, on a one-year trial, with "choice" and "prime" grades being applied to those producers who requested the service.[4]
Dr. Quirino Majorana, Italian physicist, announced in Rome that he had invented a system for "wireless transmission of speech by means of ultra-violet rays", which had been tested over a distance of 10 miles (16 km).[5]
In the largest seizure in the U.S. up to that time of illegal drugs, the British trawler Gabriella was seized in New York Harbor with 2,000 drums of alcohol, valued at $1,200,000. The ship's captain had been free on bond after being arrested the year before for smuggling of 1,200 cases of whiskey.[6]
Aviator Ferdinand Scholtz set a record for longest time aloft in a glider, keeping the unpowered airplane up for 14 hours and 8 minutes.[7]
At its annual meeting at Columbia University, the Simplified Spelling Board of America announced partial success in getting dictionary recognition of its alternative spelling of twelve words, with "program" (programme) and "catalog" (catalogue) coming into popular use. Other words were "tho, altho, thru, thruout, thoro, thorofare, thoroly, decalog, pedagog and prolog".[10]
Died: General Rodolfo Gallegos, Mexican rebel leader who had led the April 19 train robbery and massacre, was shot while trying to flee federal authorities.
Germany's Nazi Party, the National Socialists, was banned by police from activities in Berlin's metropolitan area. Soon after, Joseph Goebbels was banned from speaking anywhere in Prussia.[17]
The first radio broadcasts in Turkey began, from a station in Istanbul. Television would be introduced on January 31, 1968.[18]
Dr. Richard Meissner, a German chemist, claimed that he had developed an insulin substitute, which he called "horment", from the islands of Langerhans, which could be taken in tablet form, and which would cure diabetes.[19]
Born:Mary Ellen Avery, American physician who discovered the cause of respiratory distress syndrome and contributed to its treatment and cure; in Camden, New Jersey (d. 2011)
Captain Charles Nungesser and his navigator, Captain François Coli, departed from Paris at 5:18 am (11:18 pm Saturday in New York) in L'Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird), a Levasseur biplane, in an attempt to make the first nonstop airplane flight from Paris to New York.[22] Expected to reach New York the next day, the plane never arrived, and was last seen approaching Cape Race, Newfoundland, at 10:00 am on Monday, with 1,000 miles (1,600 km) left of flying.[23] The two men were never seen again.[24][25]
Died: Col. A.E. Humphreys, Denver multimillionaire, accidentally shot himself while packing guns and fishing tackle for a hunting trip.[26]
The Parliament of Australia first convened in Canberra, following relocation of the capital from Melbourne. The Duke of York (and future King George VI) dedicated the new Parliament House and opened the joint session of Australian Senate and Australian House of Representatives, after being introduced by Prime Minister Stanley Bruce.[27] The opening would be described in later years as the Duke's "first real test" of public speaking after working with therapist Lionel Logue to overcome stammering.[28]
A jury in New York convicted Mrs. Ruth Snyder and her accomplice, Henry Judd Gray, of the murder of her husband, Albert Snyder. The two would be executed separately, by electric chair, in 1928.[30]
Charles Lindbergh landed in St. Louis, 14 hours after taking off from San Diego the afternoon before. Lindbergh was "the only entrant in the Raymond Orteig $25,000 flight [contest] who plans to make the transatlantic flight alone", and was nicknamed "The Foolish Flyer" as a result.[34]
Under the direction of Scotland Yard, London police raided Arcost, Ltd., the office of the Soviet trade delegation. At 4:00 pm, telephone lines were cut and the building was sealed, with the 600 employees detained during a search. Evidence of Russian espionage was found and a break of diplomatic relations followed.[35]
Philip F. Labre applied for a patent for the "grounding receptacle and plug", the three pronged plug still in use today. U.S. Patent No. 1,672,067, was granted on June 5, 1928.[36]
The equity market in Germany suffered a severe price drop after Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht had attempted to stop price speculation. Prices continued to decline following the "Black Friday".[37]
King George V issued a royal proclamation dropping the term "United Kingdom" from his title, referring to himself instead as "Georgius V, Dei Gratia Magnae Britanniae, Hiberniae et terrarum transmarinarum quae in ditione iunt Britannica Rex, Fidei Defensor, Indiae Imperator" ("George V, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India").[38][39][40]
The German luxury liner Cap Arcona was launched from the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. The ship was 676 feet (206 m) long and could carry 1,315 passengers and made its first voyage on November 19. The ship was sunk on May 3, 1945, by the RAF, with 5,000 concentration camp inmates on board.[43]
The civil war in Nicaragua came to an end, with President Adolfo Díaz requesting U.S. President Calvin Coolidge to supervise elections that would be "free, fair, and impartial and not open to fraud or intimidation". With U.S. envoy Henry L. Stimson as the intermediary, Díaz and rebel leader José María Moncada had agreed to terms at Tipitapa, with Díaz to arrange elections following Moncada's troops completing disarmament. The voting took place in October 1928, with Moncada winning the presidency.[44]
Admiral Richard E. Byrd, one of several aviators planning to fly from New York to Paris, told reporters that he would fly no earlier than the middle of the following week, after alerting his elderly mother in a phone conversation.[45]
Afireball was witnessed by thousands of spectators in Missouri and Kansas, streaking across the sky shortly before midnight and then exploding near the General Hospital on the south side of Kansas City, Missouri.[46]
Thirty-eight schoolchildren and six adults were killed by dynamite charges placed underneath the local school in Bath Township, Michigan. Andrew Kehoe, who had been treasurer of the township school board, had planted the bombs under the north wing, which housed 110 pupils and instructors, and the south wing, with 150 more. On the morning of the last day of classes, Kehoe set a two-minute timer and drove away, and at 9:43 a.m., the explosives under the north wing detonated. A short circuit in one of the wires prevented the destruction of the south wing. Kehoe, who had murdered his wife earlier and blew up his house and farm, killed himself and three other people half an hour later, detonating a car bomb while sitting in his Ford truck. With 41 deaths, the bombings remain the deadliest act of mass murder at a school in U.S. history.[49]
At the German city of Kassel, nine people were killed and 11 seriously injured after a 9-year-old boy released the emergency brake of a crowded streetcar.[50]
Died:Maurice Mouvet, 38, American dancer who attained fame in North America and Europe as "Maurice"
Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on New York's Long Island at 7:52 a.m. in his airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, bound for Paris. With the plane carrying a 5,150 pounds (2,340 kg) load, he barely cleared a string of telegraph wires. Lindbergh told a police chief, "When I enter that cockpit, it's like going into the death chamber. When I get to Paris, it will be like getting a pardon from the governor."[51]
The independence of the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz, with the Sultan Ibn Saud as monarch, was recognized by the United Kingdom in the Treaty of Jeddah signed by representatives of the kings of both nations. On September 23, 1932, the nation would be renamed Saudi Arabia by King Ibn Saud.[52]
J. Willard Marriott started his first business, a 9-stool A&W root beer franchise located at 3128 14th Street, NW in Washington, D.C. Marriott would eventually found the worldwide Marriott Hotel chain.[53]
The Boeing 40A, first passenger airliner built by the Boeing company, was flown for the first time.[54]
Charles Lindbergh became the first man to complete a non-stop trans-Atlantic airplane flight, from New York to Paris. He landed his monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, at Le Bourget airfield near Paris at 10:21 p.m. local time (5:21 pm in New York), 33 hours and 29 minutes after taking off from New York. Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize and a lifetime of fame and fortune.[55]
The Kingdom of Cambodia's Ministry of Religion issued a nationwide letter declaring the new monotheistic religion of Caodaism to be a heresy, thus designating it as an illegal cult whose members could be punished under Articles 213 and 215 of the Cambodian penal code.[60]Le Van Trung and 27 fellow believers had established the Cao Dai faith less than a year earlier.
British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin told the House of Commons that the United Kingdom intended to terminate relations with the Soviet Union because of espionage by Russian diplomats.[62] Commons approved the move three days later, by a 357–111 vote.[63]
U.S. Army Lieutenant James H. Doolittle became the first person to perform an "outside loop", a feat that aviators had been attempting since 1912, with at least two getting killed in the attempt. Doolittle, who would later become more famous as Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle for a daring raid on Tokyo, climbed to 8,000 feet (2,400 m) over Dayton, Ohio, then turned the nose of his plane downward, being upside down at 6,000 feet (1,800 m), before flying back upward to his original altitude and completing the circle.[64]
U.S. Secretary of the TreasuryAndrew W. Mellon announced that he had approved a change in the size of United States currency to save printing costs. The bills would be 11⁄3 inches shorter and 3⁄4 inches narrower, with the first new bills to appear in the spring of 1928. In addition, consistent images were selected for the one-dollar bill (George Washington) and the two-dollar bill (Thomas Jefferson). Mellon commented that, "in time, each denomination will be immediately recognized from the picture it bears".[65]
Al Jolson was signed to play the lead in The Jazz Singer, the first talkie, after George Jessel (who originated the role in the 1925 Broadwayplay of the same name) backed out over artistic differences in the screenplay adaptation, and after being denied a salary bonus after the movie's last-minute change from a silent to a talkie. Principal photography was scheduled to begin in July.[66]
The United Kingdom officially terminated diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. A note from Foreign Secretary Neville Chamberlain, delivered to the Soviet legation at Chesham House in London, directed the chargé d'affaires and his staff to leave the country within ten days.[67]
The sport of greyhound racing was introduced to Australia, with spectators there seeing for the first time the "mechanical rabbit" that raced ahead of the fleet canines.[68]
The 15,007,033rd and last Ford Model T, after a 19-year run that began in 1908. Henry Ford had announced the week before that production would halt at the end of the month, that 24 plants would close and 10,000 employees would be laid off. Ford car dealers across the United States all received a telegram on May 26, the day the 15,000,000th Model T was driven by Ford out of the factory in Highland Park, Michigan, that the factories were being retooled to make way for the new Model A, which would be introduced in December.[73] The Model T would hold the record for the most popular model of car in history until February 17, 1972, when the 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle was produced.[74]
Died:Francis Grierson, 79, American novelist and pianist, died while giving a concert for friends.[75]
^SanFranciscoAirportGuide.com; Mel Scott, The San Francisco Bay Area: a metropolis in perspective (University of California Press, 1986) pp219-220
^"PARIS FLIERS HOP OFF TO NEW YORK". Miami Daily News. May 8, 1927. p. 1.
^"OCEAN FLIERS NOT YET IN SIGHT". May 9, 1927. p. 1.
^"Two Hemispheres Join in Hunt for Aviators", May 10, 1927, Miami News p1; "Hopes That Two Missing Fliers Survive Shrink", May 11, 1927, Miami News p1; "Giant Dirigible May Go North to Hunt Fliers", Miami News, May 13, 1927, p2; Miami News, "Hopes for Airmen's Safety Slip Away", May 15, 1927, p2
^Hamilton, Sue (2007). Air & Sea Mysteries. ABDO. pp. 17–21.
^"Philanthropist Dies of Wound". Miami Daily News. May 9, 1927. p. 2.
^Carroll, Brian (2004). Australia's Prime Ministers: From Barton to Howard. Rosenberg Publishing. pp. 110–111.
^"1,550-mile Hop From San Diego Made by Flier", Miami Daily News, May 11, 1927, p1
^Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives (Yale University Press, 1999) p29; "London Raids Soviet Office", Milwaukee Sentinel, May 13, 1927, p1; "Reds Betrayed by Raided Files", May 15, 1927, p1
^Henry L. Stimson, American Policy in Nicaragua (Charles S. Scribner's Sons, 1927, reprinted by Markus Wiener Publishers, 1991) p208 : The Lasting Legacy
^"Byrd Won't Start Across Atlantic for While Yet", Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 16, 1927, p1
^"Sputtering 'Ball of Fire' From Sky Shocks Kansas City", Miami Daily News, May 17, 1927, p1
^"AMERICANS PLAN OCEAN DASH", Miami Daily News, May 11, 1927, p1; "Row Menaces Bellanca Hop Over Atlantic", May 17, 1927, p1; "Bertaud Out of Race, Levin Announces", May 19, 1927, p1
^"TOWN DESTROYED AS LEVEE BREAKS". Miami Daily News. May 17, 1927. p. 1.
^"SCORE, AT LEAST, KILLED BY BLAST", Miami Daily News, May 18, 1927, p1; "Whole Village in Gloom over Madman's Act", Miami Daily News, May 19, 1927, p2H. Thomas Milhorn, Crime: Computer Viruses to Twin Towers (Universal-Publishers, 2004) p180
^
"9 Lives Taken by Boy's Prank", Miami Daily News, May 19, 1927, p1
^"LINDBERGH SIGHTED AT NOVA SCOTIA, BOUND FOR PARIS, WITH WEATHER FINE". Miami Daily News. May 20, 1927. p. 1.
^Blaustein, Albert P.; et al. (1977). Independence documents of the world. Vol. 2. Brill Archive. p. 600.
^"Red Staff Must Leave England Within 10 Days- Britain Ends 6-Year Experiment in Soviet Relations". Montreal Gazette. May 28, 1927. p. 1.
^Wray Vamplew, The Oxford Companion to Australian Sport (Oxford University Press, 1992) p164
^Simon Martin, Football and Fascism: The National Game under Mussolini (Berg Publishers, 2004) p132
^Postman, Andrew; Stone, Larry (2003). The Ultimate Book of Sports Lists. Black Dog Publishing.
^"Unassisted Triple Play Among Rarest Feats in Baseball". Baseball Digest. February 1993. p. 76.
^"Former Purdue Student Wins Speedway Classic". Miami Daily News. May 31, 1927. p. 11.
^Rudi Volti, Cars and Culture: The Life Story of a Technology (JHU Press, 2006) p49; Peter Winnewisser,The Legendary Model A Ford: The Ultimate History of One of America's Great Automobiles (Krause Publications, 2006)
^"Volkswagen overtake Model T record", Glasgow Herald, February 17, 1972, p2
^"Francis Grierson, Author, Dies in Poverty at 79", Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 2, 1927, p1
