October 29, 1924: Conservative Stanley Baldwin returned to power in the UK as Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald's Labour Party defeated in elections for the House of Commons
The Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes received preliminary approval at the League of Nations. The agreement required formal approval to be given by all governments concerned, and was understood to have little meaning until the conclusion of the world disarmament conference was concluded the next year.[8] The Protocol included a very controversial piece of wording added at the insistence of Japan, which allowed for the restriction of immigration to become a matter of international jurisdiction if it endangered the peace.[9][10]
Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis said the World Series would go forward despite the bribery scandal. "Inside of four days after the attempted bribery of Sand of the Phillies had occurred, the guilty persons had been placed on baseball's ineligible list. Surely our speedy action in the matter must indicate that the game is being kept clean", he said.[12]
Died:William B. Ross, 50, Governor of Wyoming since 1923, died of complications from an appendectomy he had undergone one week earlier. He was temporarily succeeded by Secretary of State Frank Lucas pending a special election [13] Governor Ross's widow, Nellie Tayloe Ross, run in the election and win the governorship.
Britain's Evening Standard blasted the Geneva Protocol and called on Australia, Canada and New Zealand to quit the League of Nations over it, pointing out that if Australia refused to submit to Japan's demand that it alter its immigration policy, the British fleet might be called upon to impose a naval blockade in the name of the League.[14]
A conference in London between the United Kingdom and Egypt on the issue of Egyptian independence ended without success.[15]
A feud erupted between major league baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and American League president Ban Johnson. Johnson told the media that he would pursue an independent investigation of the circumstances under which the New York Giants won the pennant, and that they should be forbidden from playing in the World Series. Johnson called Landis a "wild-eyed, crazy nut" who was "protecting the crooks" by failing to investigate the scandal more thoroughly.[16]
Born:
Harvey Kurtzman, American cartoonist and writer known for being the original editor of Mad magazine; in Brooklyn (d. 1993)[17]
The First Division Monument was dedicated in Washington, D.C. During his dedication speech, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge briefly commenting on the Geneva Protocol, saying, "We do not propose to entrust to any other power or combination of powers any authority to make up our minds for us."[20]
A harsh ordinance was issued in British India aimed at suppressing "terrorists". Pro-independence nationalists such as Subhas Chandra Bose would be arrested under the new law.[22]
Seven people died and 48 were injured during rioting in Camagüey, Cuba, during a political rally for presidential candidate Mario Menocal ahead of the country's general election.[24]
Radio Marconi, the first radio station in Italy for the general public, began broadcasting from Rome as a service of Unione radiofonica italiana (URI). The station, with call sign 1-RO, transmitted at the 425 metre wavelength, equivalent to the 710 AM radio frequency.[25] At 9:00 in the evening, Maria Luisa Boncompagni read an announcement that the first program would be an "inaugural symphony concert", followed by an introduction by Ines Viviani Donarelli that she and three other members of a string quartet would perform Joseph Haydn's Opus 7.
The British Labour Party ruled out affiliation with the Communist Party by a card vote of 3,185,000 to 193,000 at Labour's national congress in London. "Communism is nothing practical. It is a product of czarism and war betrayal, and as such we will have nothing to do with it", Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald said.[29]
The Soviet Union's Council of People's Commissars, the Sovnarkom, declared an amnesty to all participants of the recent August Uprising against the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic on the condition that they surrender their weapons voluntarily.[30]
Lucy Bhreatnach (nee Maria de la Piedad Lucila Hellman), Basque-Spanish born Irish educator and language activist, co-founder of the very first Irish-language school (gaelscoil) in the Republic of Ireland, the Scoil Lorcáin (1949); in Algorta (d. 2007)[39]
In the UK, King George V dissolved parliament at the request of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, and scheduled new elections for the House of Commons for October 29.[42]
Soldier Field, a stadium with 60,000 seats, was dedicated in Chicago, as Grant Park Stadium.[43] The stadium, which would become home to the NFL's Chicago Bears, would be renamed Soldier Field on Veterans Day in 1925.
Born:
Navvab Safavi (alias for Sayyid Mojtaba Mir-Lohi), Iranian Shia cleric and founder of the Fadayan-e Islam, known for ordering the assassinations of three Iranian Prime Ministers, two of them successfully; in Ghaniabad, Tehran (executed 1956)[44]
Melvyn R. Paisley, U.S. Department of the Navy assistant secretary from 1981 to 1987, later convicted of accepting bribes while in office; in Portland, Oregon (d. 2001)[46]
Died:Jake Daubert, 40, American baseball player, 1913 National League Most Valuable Player, died of surgical complications from an appendectomy after avoiding surgery in order to play in the Cincinnati Reds' final home game.[47]
Walter Johnson pitched four shutout innings of relief as the Washington Senators beat the New York Giants, 4 to 3, in 12 innings to win the World Series in a winner-take-all Game 7. This game is considered by some sports historians to be one of the greatest baseball games ever played and the conclusion of one of the most exciting World Series of all time.[48]
The Office of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the United Kingdom received the fabricated Zinoviev letter, purporting to be a directive from the Soviet Union's director of Comintern to order the Communist Party of Great Britain to undermine the British government.[50] The letter came two days after the vote of no confidence against Prime Minister MacDonald and was leaked by Conservative Party members within the Foreign Office to the local news media, including the Daily Mail newspaper, in advance of the elections set for October 29.
The H. J. Heinz Company celebrated its fifty-fifth birthday with banquets in different American cities. President Calvin Coolidge used the occasion to make a radio address from the White House about business that was carried in 70 cities.[51]
Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis made his first public response to Ban Johnson's criticisms of his handling of the recent bribery scandal, saying, "Answer Johnson? I don't have to... it has been done by the President of the United States." Calvin Coolidge, who attended three of the games played in Washington, said that "The contests which I witnessed maintained throughout a high degree of skill and every evidence of a high class of sportsmanship that will bring to every observer an increased respect for and confidence in our national game."[52]
Richard Morris, 62, American opera singer and stage and silent film actor[54]
Sydney E. Mudd, 39, U.S. Congressman for Maryland since 1915, died two days after being hospitalized for of an intestinal obstruction. Mudd had been campaigning for re-election when he became ill.[55][56]
The National Hockey League, which consisted solely of Canadian teams for its first seven seasons, became international for the first time with the addition of an American team. Charles Adams, a U.S. businessman and owner of a chain of grocery stores]] purchased one of the NHL's first two expansion franchises for $15,000 (equivalent to $269,000 in 2024 [63] and named his team the Boston Bruins.[64]
The Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which would later become the independent nation of Tajikistan, was created as a partially self-governing entity with the new Uzbek SSR in the Soviet Union.[68] It would become the Tadzhik Soviet Socialist Republic and one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union on December 5, 1929, and become independent upon the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
InGermany, Adolf Hitler, incarcerated for organizing the 1923 attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic government, had a statement printed admitting that he was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire rather than in Germany. Hitler, who was facing deportation back to Austria, argued that he had lost his Austrian citizenship after volunteering to serve in the German Army during World War I and said that "I never felt as an Austrian citizen but always as a German only... It was this mentality that made me draw the ultimate conclusion and do military service in the German Army.[76] Hitler would not renounce his Austrian citizenship until April 7, 1925, and would not become a citizen of Germany until 1932 upon his appointment as a state government official.[77]
The first media event in a U.S. presidential campaign took place 18 days before the November 4 election day as President Calvin Coolidge hosted a breakfast at the White House for an all-star cast of Broadway actors and actresses, including Al Jolson, Ed Wynn, John Drew Jr., Raymond Hitchcock, Charlotte Greenwood and Francine Larrimore.[80] The breakfast, the brainchild of public relations specialist Edward Bernays, marked a groundbreaking example of a staged attempt to improve a politician's image by having him associate with popular celebrities. Bernays would recall decades later that "In 1924 this was a startling idea," and that the "non-event" of celebrity entertainers counteracted Coolidge's sour personality.[81]
The first "round-the-world" wireless radio communication took place between locations in New Zealand and the United Kingdom as favorable atmospheric conditions permitted amateur ham radio operators to hear each other over a distance of more than 19,000 kilometres (12,000 mi). Amateurs in both countries heard signals the night before. Transmitting on the 80-metre short wave band from New Zealand, at Waiheua near Dunedin, New Zealand, telegraphed the message, in Morse code, "Z4AA calling. Pass the following to Radio Society of Great Britain. Greetings from New Zealand. Z4AA calling. Pass following to G2OD. Your signals strong last night." Mr. E. J. Simmonds of Gerrards Cross, BuckinghamshireinEngland, operator of G2OD, acknowledged the call from Z4AA and asked for confirmation by cable. A little more than five hours later, he was handed a message from Dell that said, "Congratulations on first trans-world message. Dell. Waiheua, Dunedin, New Zealand."[84] Later in the day, Cecil W. Goyder of Hendon, near London exchanged messages with Mr. Bell "for over an hour."[85]
In one of the most anticipated games of the 1924 college football season, played before 60,000 at the Polo Grounds stadium in New York City, Notre Dame defeated Army, 13 to 7.[86] That evening, nationally syndicated sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote his famous "Four Horsemen" column that was published in the next day's newspapers.
Police in Berlin put on a media display of all the evidence they had uncovered of a "false passport factory" that communist agents used to operate in the United States and other countries under false identities.[87]
U.S. President Coolidge had authorized the "President's Cup" to be awarded to the winner of the Army–Navy Game.[88]
German President Friedrich Ebert dissolved the Reichstag and called for new elections on December 7. The cabinet of Chancellor Wilhelm Marx fell apart after he granted three seats to nationalist parties in exchange for their voting to ratify the Dawes Plan, and the various factions were unable to cooperate afterward.[99]
An explosion of gunpowder killed 14 servicemen on the U.S. Navy light cruiser USS Trenton as it was conducting gunnery drills off the Virginia Capes.[100][101]
In central Africa, the former German colony of Ruanda-Urundi became League of Nations mandate territory under the administration of Belgium, which controlled the neighboring colony of the Belgian Congo.[102] With a capital at Usumbura (now Bujumbura in Burundi), the mandate would later be divided into the nations of Rwanda (speakers of the Kinyarwanda Bantu dialect) and Burundi (speakers of the Kirundi Bantu dialect).
William Joyce, a member of the British Fascists, was slashed with a razor by a communist hooligan while stewarding a meeting of Conservatives in North Lambeth, London.[108] William Joyce would later gain notoriety as Nazi propagandist "Lord Haw-Haw" and would be hanged for treason in 1946.
General Feng Yuxiang, leading the 11th Division of the Chinese Army, carried out the Beijing Coup, arriving in China's capital and taking the city unopposed and overthrowing PresidentCao Kun. Feng's troops halted all railway traffic and cut telephone and telegraph communications, then set up a temporary dictatorship. After issuing emergency decrees, Feng installed Huang Fu as the new Chinese president.[109]
Irish independence activist Éamon de Valera was arrested in Newry as he arrived at a meeting of the Sinn Féin party. He was charged with entering a prohibited area under the Civil Powers Act.[113]
Corneliu Codreanu, leader of Romania's fascist Iron Guard organization, assassinated Constantin Manciu, the police chief of the city of Iași, and shot several other policemen. Codreanu would be acquitted on the grounds that he had acted in self-defense, despite invading the meeting and shooting Manciu from behind.
The Zinoviev letter, a forgery received by the British Foreign Secretary and leaked by the British intelligence agency MI6, was published on the front page of the Daily Mail tabloid in London, four days before the general election, and would become a major influence in the defeat of the Labour and Liberal parties in October 29 voting. The Daily Mail article commented that "The 'very secret' letter of instruction from Moscow discloses a great Bolshevist plot to paralyse the British Army and Navy and to plunge the country into civil war. The letter is addressed by the Bolshevists in Moscow to the Soviet Government's servants in Great Britain, the Communist Party, who in turn are the masters of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's Government, which has signed a treaty with Moscow whereby the Soviet is to be guaranteed a 'loan' of millions of British money," and added, "A Copy of the document came into possession of 'The Daily Mail' and we felt it our duty to make it public, and we prented and sent copies to other London morning newspapers yesterday afternoon."[118] The letter became the leading story in every British newspaper. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald sent out instructions to all Labour Party candidates to drop their support for the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement,[119] and the Communist Party of Great Britain issued a statement in which it denied ever receiving the letter and declared it a forgery, but the damage done by the letter returned the Conservative Party to power.
Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose was arrested on trumped-up charges of plotting to overthrow the government.[120]
"Trunko", a cryptozoological unknown sea creature (a "cryptid"), was reportedly sighted at Margate, South Africa. Based on photographs of its globster it is now believed to have been a whale carcass.[121] The Daily Mail of London would break the story on December 27, 1924, with the headline "Fish Like A Polar Bear".
Sherlock Holmes makes a discovery in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs"
Poor ventilation in a chemical processing plant caused a mass accident in Elizabeth, New Jersey that injured 40 employees of the Bayway Refinery of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, where leaded gasoline (called "ethyl" by the Standard Oil dealers) was produced using the additive tetraethyllead (TEL).[125] Ernest Oelgart became the first fatality after becoming paranoid following inhalation of fumes, and died later in the day. By the end of the week, 10 more workers were dead at Standard Oil plants.[126]
The Soviet Union denied the authenticity of the Zinoviev letter (which purported to be a directive to British Communists to overthrow the government) and demanded an apology from Britain.[127]
Percy Haughton, 48, American college football coach for Columbia University since 1923, and previously for Harvard University (1908-1916), died of acute indigestion after becoming ill while on the Columbia football field. His death came two days after Columbia's 27 to 3 win over Williams College.[130] Coach Haughton, who had guided Harvard to four unbeaten football seasons, would later be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Clifford Holland, 41, American civil engineer who oversaw the construction of numerous subway and automobile tunnels in New York City, died of a heart attack one day before the scheduled ceremony to connect the two sides of the Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel and Canal Street Tunnel between New Jersey and New York.[131] The underwater corridor was renamed the Holland Tunnel in his honor on November 12.
Albert Henry Loeb, 56, Chicago attorney, business executive and father of Richard Loeb of the Leopold and Loeb murder duo, died of a heart attack two months after his son's conviction and life sentence.[133]
France and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations for the first time since the Communist government had replaced the Russian Empire in 1917.[134]Leonid Krasin would become the Soviet Ambassador to France on November 14, and Jean Herbette became France's envoy to Moscow.
The British African protectorate of Sierra Leone held its first elections for the native population. Voters were allowed to select three of the 22 members of the new Legislative Council of Sierra Leone. The right to vote was limited to literate Africans who were at least 21 years old and had at least 10 pounds sterling of property. Out of 25,000 people, only 1,866 registered. Ernest Beoku-Betts, Herbert Bankole-Bright and Albert Tuboku-Metzger were elected. The other 19 Assembly members were made up of five appointed Africans and 14 British government officials.[136]
Died:Édouard de Max (stage name for Eduard-Alexandru Max Romalo), 55, Romanian-born French stage actor, died after a long illness one month after his final performance.[138]
Chemical engineer Thomas Midgley Jr. of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later Exxon) participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of the gasoline additive tetraethyllead (TEL). Midgley poured the TEL over his hands, placed a bottle of it under his nose, and inhaled its vapor for 60 seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems.[144][145][146] Despite the demonstration, the U.S. state of New Jersey closed the Bayway Refinery, where five workers had died and 35 others were seriously injured from lead poisoning by TEL fumes.
The government of Miguel Primo de Rivera had Spain's highest general, Dámaso Berenguer, sentenced to six months' imprisonment for insubordination. All others present at the meeting of October 28 were condemned to solitary confinement for an indefinite period without trial.[149]
^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. 103. ISBN978-1848762-398.
^Steele, John (October 2, 1924). "Liberals Issue Ultimatum to English Labor". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 11.
^"Plains Methodist Hold Conference", Americus (GA) Times-Recorder, October 14, 1924, p.2 ("Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Carter announce the birth of a son, Sep. 30 [sic]. Who has been named James Earl Jr.")
^Aycock, Colleen (2011). The First Black Boxing Champions: Essays on Fighters of the 1800s to The 1920s. McFarland. p. 83. ISBN978-0786449910.
^Sheean, Vincent (October 3, 1924). "League Adopts Arbitration by Japanese Rule". Chicago Daily Tribune. pp. 1–2.
^Bennett, James O'Donnell (October 5, 1924). "Hands Off U.S.! – Coolidge". Chicago Daily Tribune: 1–2.
^Burkman, Thomas W. (2008). Japan and the League of Nations: Empire and World Order, 1914–1938. University of Hawai'i Press. pp. 119–122. ISBN978-0-8248-2982-7.
^"Capt. Skeel Killed in Dayton Air Race; 50,000 See Plunge; Plane Crumples as Army Officer Dives for Start in Pulitzer Prize Contest". The New York Times. October 5, 1924. p. 1.
^Sengupta, Nitish K. (2011). Land of Two Rivers: A History of Bengal from the Mahabharata to Mujib. London: Penguin Books. p. 343. ISBN9780143416784.
^Myron E. Weiner and Ergun Özbudun, Competitive Elections in Developing Countries (Duke University Press, 1987) p.337
^Karpat, Kemal H. (2015-12-08). Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Party System. Princeton University Press. pp. 47–48. ISBN978-1-4008-7942-7.
^Franks, Norman; et al. (1997). Above the War Fronts: The British Two-seater Bomber Pilot and Observer Aces, the British Two-seater Fighter Observer Aces, and the Belgian, Italian, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Fighter Aces, 1914–1918. Grub Street. p. 130.
^[1924 10 19 Boston Globe (Boston MA) Pg 22 Col 1-2 Four Horsemen|"Notre Dame Again Trims West Point— South Bend Cyclone Sweeps to 13-7 Victory, With Wonder Backs Dazzling Rivals"], by Grantland Rice, The Boston Globe, October 19, 1924, p.22
^Weinstein, Warren; Robert Schrere (1976). Political Conflict and Ethnic Strategies: A Case Study of Burundi. Syracuse University: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. p. 5. ISBN0-915984-20-2.
^Los Angeles Times, Nov. 16, 1924, "Organize National Music Association", retrieved from ProQuest Historical Newspapers Los Angeles Times (1881-1986), pg. C39
^"Why the Foreign Office Acted. Knew That the Moscow Document Was To Be Published". Staffordshire Evening Sentinel. London. 25 October 1924. p. 2.
^Steele, John (October 26, 1924). "Expose of Soviet Plot in Britain Dooms Russ Pact". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 21.
^Jog, N.G. (1996). "An Indian Pilgrim". In Werth, Alexander (ed.). Beacon Across Asia: Biography of Subhas Chandra Bose. Hyderabad: Orient Longman Limited. p. 17.
^"Odd Gas Kills One, Makes Four Insane; Stricken at Work in Standard's Experiment Laboratory in Elizabeth, N.J.". The New York Times. October 27, 1924. p. 1.
^Aronson, Michael (June 15, 1999). "The Digger Clifford Holland". Daily News. New York, New York. p. 27. Archived from the original on July 5, 2017. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
^A contemporary press accounts said only that "To prove that the substance was not dangerous in small quantities he rubbed some of the tetra-ethyl lead on his hands."Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, October 31, 1924, p.5
^"Ford Tells It: Why He's All For Coolidge". Chicago Daily Tribune. October 31, 1924. p. 1.
