- January 23
- George Washington Birthplace National Monument in Virginia is established. [1]
- January 26
- Cleveland's Terminal Tower opens (52 stories). [1]
- January 31
- First US glider flight from a dirigible, Lakehurst, New Jersey. [1]
- February 3
- William Howard Taft resigns as chief justice for health reasons. [1]
- February 4
- First tieless, soundless, shockless streetcar tracks, New Orleans, Louisiana. [1]
- February 10
- Grain Stabilization Corporation authorized by US Congress. [1]
- February 26
- First red and green traffic lights installed (Manhattan, New York City). [1]
- March 2
- First US indoor glider flight, Saint Louis Terminal Building. [1]
- March 4
- Coolidge Dam in Arizona dedicated. [1]
- March 6
- Brooklyn's Clarence Birdseye develops a method for quick freezing food. [1]
- March 11
- US President and Chief Justice William Taft buried in Arlington cemetary. [1]
- March 15
- First seaplane glider flown, at Port Washington, New York. [1]
- First streamlined submarine of US navy, USS Nautilus, launched. [1]
- March 16
- USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) floated out to become a national shrine. [1]
- March 24
- First religious services telecast in US (W2XBS, New York City, New York). [1]
- March 26
- US Congress appropriates $50,000 for Inter-American highway. [1]
- March 27
- First US radio broadcast from a ship at sea. [1]
- April 2
- First New York-Bermuda airplane flight lands in Bermuda. [1]
- April 21
- Fire (set as part of an escape attempt) at Ohio State Penitentiary kills 320. [1]
- April 22
- US, Britain and Japan sign London Naval Treaty to reduce naval forces. [1]
- May 10
- First US planetarium opens (Adler-Chicago). [1]
- May 15
- Ellen Church becomes first airline stewardess, United Airlines (San Francisco to Cheyenne). [1]
- May 20
- University of California dedicates $1,500 to research on prevention and cure of athlete's foot. [1]
- May 26
- US Supreme Court rules buying liquor does not violate the Constitution. [1]
- May 27
- The Chrysler Building opens to the public in New York. At 1,046 feet tall, it is the tallest man-made structure in the world. [5]
- June 7
- New York Times agrees to capitalize the n in "Negro". [1]
- June 17
- US President Herbert Hoover signs the Hawley-Smoot Tariff bill into law, increasing some 900 American import duties. [341.125]
- June 30
- First round-the-world radio broadcast, Schenectady, New York. [1]
- July 7
- Construction of the Boulder Dam begins, in Boulder Canyon, Colorado. [1] [129]
- July 20
- 106 degrees F (41 degrees C), Washington, DC (district record high). [1]
- July 21
- US Veterans Administration established. [1]
- July 28
- 114 degrees F (46 degrees C), Greensburg, Kentucky (state record high). [1]
- August 9
- Betty Boop debuts in Max Fleischer's animated cartoon Dizzy Dishes. [1]
- August 15
- President Herbert Hoover presents congressional gold medal to Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh. [430.68]
- August 18
- Eastern Airlines begins passenger service. [1]
- August 20
- Dumont's first TV broadcast for home reception (New York City). [1]
- September 2
- First non-stop airplane flight from Europe to US (37 hours). [1]
- September 5
- The Mickey Mouse film The Chain Gang is released to theaters in the USA. This film debuts Pluto the dog, though he is not named. [6]
- September 8
- First appearance of the comic strip Blondie. [1]
- New York City public schools begin teaching Hebrew. [1]
- September 13
- A fireball plunges into the sea near Eureka, California. [521]
- October 25
- First scheduled transcontinental air service begins. [1]
- November 3
- First US vehicular tunnel to a foreign country (Detroit-to-Windsor, Canada) opens. [1]
- Bank of Italy becomes Bank of America. [1]
- November 9
- First nonstop airplane flight from New York to Panama. [1]
- December 7
- In Boston, Massachusetts, the CBS radio orchestra program is broadcast in video and included the first television commercial in the United States. [5]
- December 8
- Broadway Theater opens at 1681 Broadway, New York City, New York. [1]
- December 11
- Bank of the United States opens in New York City, New York. [1]
- December 19
- James Weldon Johnson resigns as executive secretary of NAACP. [1]
- December 23
- Police Bureau of Criminal Alien Investigation started in New York City, New York. [1]
- December 25
- First US bobsled run open to the public (Mount Van Hoevenberg bobsled run at Lake Placid, New York). [1]
- December 29
- Fred P Newton completes longest swim ever (1826 miles), when he swam in the Mississippi River from Ford Dam, Minnesota, to New Orleans, Louisiana. [1]
- Year
- US tobacco industry cigarette production during the year: 123 billion. [1]
1931
- January 2
- South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. [429]
- February 3
- Arkansas legislature passes motion to pray for soul of H L Mencken after he calls the state the "apex of moronia". [1]
- February 13
- Phil Tobin introduces Assembly Bill 98 in Nevada legislature to allow licensed gambling on a variety of games. [187.354]
- February 20
- California gets the go-ahead by the U.S. Congress to build the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge. [1] [429]
- March 1
- The USS Arizona is placed back in full commission after a refit. [429]
- March 3
- US President Herbert Hoover signs a resolution of Congress officially designating the "Star-Spangled Banner" as the National Anthem of the United States. [1] [429] [488.78]
- March 14
- First theater built for rear movie projection (New York City, New York). [1]
- March 18
- First electric shavers go on sale in US (Schick). [1]
- March 19
- Nevada legalizes casino gaming and most other forms of gambling. Nevada Governor Fred Balzar signs into law Assembly Bill 98, allowing faro, monte, roulette, keno, fan-tan, twenty-one, blackjack, seven-and-a-half, big injun, klondike, craps, stud poker, draw poker, or any card, dice, machine, at licensed establishments. Licensing fees for social games is set at US$25 per table per month, $50 for each mercantile game, $10 for each slot machine. Legal gambling age set at 21. [1] [5] [39] [80.303] [86.6] [187.355] (March 17 [429])
- April 15
- The Castellemmarese War ends with the assassination of Joe "The Boss" Masseria, briefly leaving Salvatore Maranzano as capo di tutti i capi ("boss of all bosses") and undisputed ruler of the American Mafia. [429]
- April 22
- Austria, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the USA recognize the Spanish Republic. [429]
- April 27
- 100 degrees F (38 degrees C), Pahala, Hawaii (record high). [1]
- May 1
- U.S. President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City's Empire State Building. At 102 stories and 1,250 feet high it is the world's tallest skyscraper (a record held until 1972). [1] [5] [129] [429]
- May 10
- Golf ball size hail falls in Burlington, New Jersey, USA. [1]
- May 22
- Canned rattlesnake meat first goes on sale in Florida. [1]
- May 24
- First air-conditioned train installed - B&O Railroad. [1]
- May 27
- First full-scale wind tunnel for testing airplanes, in Langley Field, Virginia, USA. [1]
- June 19
- First photoelectric cell installed commercially, in West Haven, Connecticut, USA. [1]
- In an attempt to stop the banking crisis in Central Europe from causing a worldwide financial meltdown, President Herbert Hoover issues the Hoover Moratorium. [429]
- June 23
- Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to accomplish the first round-the-world flight in a single-engine plane. [1] [429]
- June 29
- 109 degrees F (43 degrees C), Monticello, Florida (state record high). [1]
- July 1
- Ice vending machines introduced in Los Angeles; 25 pounds for 15 cents. [1]
- Boeing Air Transport begin service (later called United Airlines). [5]
- July 10
- In Malinta, Ohio, USA an overhead cometary fragment explosion occurs, producing a crater, a smell of sulfur, windows broken in a farmhouse, and four telephone poles snapped. [521]
- July 26
- The millennialist Bible Student movement adopts the name Jehovah's Witnesses at a meeting in Columbus, Ohio. [429]
- July 31
- USS Constitution is recommissioned as an active vessel in the US Navy. [450.150]
- September 8
- In Hagerstown, Maryland, USA a meteorite crashes through a roof. [521]
- October 4
- Dick Tracy, a comic strip detective character created by cartoonist Chester Gould, makes its debut appearance in the Detroit Mirror newspaper. [1] [429]
- October 5
- First nonstop transpacific flight, Japan to Washington (Herndon and Pangborn). [1]
- October 7
- First infra-red photograph, Rochester, New York. [1]
- October 17
- American gangster Al Capone is convicted of US tax evasion in Chicago, Illinois, and sentenced to 11 years in prison and fined US$80,000. [1] [5] [129] [429]
- October 24
- The George Washington Bridge connecting New York to New Jersey is dedicated. (It opens to traffic the following day.) [1] [429]
- November 8
- The Panama Canal is closed for a couple of weeks due to damage caused by a number of earthquakes. [429]
- November 11
- Cornerstones laid for Opera House and Veterans Building. [1]
- December 10
- American Jane Addams named co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize. [1] [429]
- December 25
- New York's Metropolitan Opera broadcasts an entire opera over radio. [1]
1932
- January 2
- Young gang shoots dead six police in Springfield, Missouri. [1]
- January 10
- The first Mickey Mouse color comic page is published in Sunday editions of newspapers. [1] [6]
- The first Silly Symphonies color comic page is published in Sunday editions of newspapers. The edition is titled "Bucky Bug". [1] [6]
- January 28
- First US state unemployment insurance act enacted, in Wisconsin. [1]
- January 31
- US railway unions accept 10 percent wage reduction. [1]
- February 2
- Reconstruction Finance Corporation is organized in the USA. [1]
- February 9
- US airship Columbia crashes during storm (Flushing, New York). [1]
- February 12
- US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon steps down. [419.78]
- February 13
- Ogden L. Mills becomes Treasury Secretary. [589.56]
- February 22
- Purple Heart award re-instituted. [1]
- February 27
- Explosion in coal mine in Boissevain, Virginia, USA (38 dead). [1]
- March 1
- Charles Lindbergh III, the 20-month-old son of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, is kidnapped from the family's new mansion in Hopewell, New Jersey. A ransom note demanding US$50,000 is left in their son's empty room. (The boy is found dead May 12.) [1] [129]
- March 7
- Riots at Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan, kills 4. [1]
- March 24
- First US radio broadcast from a moving train (Belle Baker, WABC from Maryland). [1]
- March 31
- Ford publicly unveils its V-8 engine. [1]
- April 2
- Charles Lindbergh turns over $50,000 as ransom for kidnapped son. [1]
- April 4
- Vitamin C first isolated, by C C King, at University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. [1]
- April 7
- Erv A Kelley, US policeman, shot to death by Pretty Boy Floyd. [1]
- April 19
- US President Herbert Hoover suggests five-day work week. [1]
- May 12
- Dead body of kidnapped son of Charles Lindbergh is found in Hopewell, New Jersey. [1]
- The Mickey Mouse film Mickey's Revue is released to theaters in the USA. Pluto and Horace Horsecollar also appear. Goofy appears for the first time, with the name "Dippy Dawg". [1] [6]
- May 17
- US Congress changes the name "Porto Rico" to "Puerto Rico". [1]
- June 6
- US Federal gas tax enacted. [1]
- June 10
- First demonstration of artificial lightning, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA. [1]
- June 16
- President Herbert Hoover and Vice President Charles Curtis renominated by Republican Convention. [1]
- July 1
- New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt nominated for president at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Illinois. [1]
- July 2
- Franklin Roosevelt makes first presidential nominating conventional acceptance speech. [1]
- July 8
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average hits a low point of 41.22, 90 percent of its pre-crash peak. [1] [227]
- July 18
- US and Canada sign a treaty to develop Saint Lawrence Seaway. [1]
- July 28
- President Herbert Hoover evicts bonus marchers from their encampment. [1]
- July 30
- Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood premieres the Silly Symphony film Flowers and Trees. This is the first full color cartoon. [6]
- July 31
- The US Mint releases the Washington quarter dollar to circulation. [459.64]
- August 2
- Carl Anderson of CalTech discovers the anti-electron, the positron. [423.191]
- August 8
- Congress creates Silver Star medal for gallantry. [427.67]
- August 10
- In Archie, Missouri, USA a falling meteoroid strikes a homestead; no injuries. [521]
- September 1
- New York City Mayor James J "Gentleman Jimmy" Walker resigns (graft charges). [1]
- October 11
- First political telecast (Democratic National Committee) at CBS, New York City. [1]
- November 8
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat) elected President of US. [1]
- November 18
- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards an Honorable Mention Oscar award to Walt Disney Productions for "Distinctive Achievement", the creation of Mickey Mouse. [6]
- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards an Oscar (Short Subjects, Cartoons) to Walt Disney for the film Flowers and Trees. This is the first Academy Award for a cartoon. [1] [6]
- December 2
- Adventures of Charlie Chan first heard on NBC-Blue radio network. [1]
- December 7
- First gyro-stabilized vessel to cross the Atlantic arrives in New York, USA. [1]
- December 27
- Radio City Music Hall theater opens in New York City, New York. [1] [129]
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