1924
Aerials & Earths broadcast on 2LO London. John Hickson Warner born in South Africa.
GE Duveen's The Navy's Value In Peace broadcast
Howard Carter and his excavation team discovered the stone sarcophagus of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in his tomb near Luxor.
Professor Winifred Culles's Monkey Glands & Others broadcast.
Albert Geoffrey Bayldon born in Leeds.
Soviet newspaper Pravda reported that Leon Trotsky was seriously ill, a statement which the rank and file took as a sign of his imminent removal from the Politburo. Labour Party leader Ramsay MacDonald gave a speech at a packed Royal Albert Hall where he announced that Labour would accept office as soon as it was invited to do so, though it would be taking over 'a bankrupt estate.' MacDonald pledged to run the country along 'sound economic lines,' make efforts through the League of Nations to retain peace in Europe and end the 'pompous folly' of refusing to recognise the Soviet Union. Ronald Moodnick born in Tottenham.
Relations between Britain and France became strained when French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré refused to allow British officials into the occupied Rhineland to conduct their own investigation of the separatist movement there. Because they were British and he didn't like the look of them.
In the First Round of the FA Cup, there were victories for Aston Villa (five-one at Ashington), Burnley (three-two against South Shields), The Wednesday (four-one over Leicester City), Swindon Town (four-nil against Bradford Park Avenue), Fulham (two-nil over Llanelli), Charlton Athletic (one-nil in a replay against Accrington Stanley), Newcastle United (four-two at Portsmouth), West Ham United (five-nil against Aberdare Athletic), Oldham Athletic (two-one against Sunderland), Crystal Palace (two-nil over Tottenham Hotspur) and Corinthians (one-nil against Blackburn Rovers). The world's first original radio play - A Comedy Of Danger by Richard Hughes - broadcast.
Herbert Asquith of the Liberal Party made a surprising speech in the House of Commons pledging to support a minority government headed by Labour, making the fall of Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government almost certain.
Vladimir Lenin died at his estate in Gorki following a stroke. Soviet leaders were convening at the Eleventh All-Russia Congress of Soviets at the Bolshoi Theatre when news of Lenin's death was communicated by telephone; an eyewitness reported never seeing so many grown men in tears. Alfred Hawthorne Hill born in Southampton.
Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government with tacit support from the Liberals following Baldwin's resignation after the Conservatives lost a vote of no confidence.
Britain and the United States signed a treaty allowing American authorities to search British ships suspected of rum-running. Joyce Grant born in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Clarence G Badger's Painted People - starring Colleen Moore - premiered.
The Soviet Union announced that the city of Petrograd - formerly (and, latterly) Saint Petersburg - had been renamed Leningrad.
Clarence G Badger's Painted People - starring Colleen Moore, Ben Lyon and Charlotte Merriam - premiered.
Bernadette O'Farrell born in Birr, Ireland.
AJ Alan's My Adventure In Jermyn Street broadcast. (Alan was a pseudonym for Captain Leslie Harrison Lambert, a London civil servant.)
The first episode of John Kenmir's Association Football broadcast on 5NO Newcastle.
The probable date that John Logie Baird first publicly demonstrated his rudimentary analogue television system, transmitting an image of a moving silhouette.
The Greenwich Time Signal ('the pips') was first heard on BBC radio. The process was invented by the Astronomer Royal Sir Frank Watson Dyson in conjunction with John Reith. The six electronically generated 'pips' were designed to mark the precise start of every hour on BBC radio. The colonial government of India released Mahatma Gandhi from prison two years into his six-year sentence, citing 'reasons of health.'
George Gershwin's 'Rhapsody In Blue' premiered at the Aeolian Hall in New York City.
An assembly for British fascists was staged at the Hotel Cecil in London to meet and discuss common goals. About five hundred black-shirted Britons and Italian expatriates attended.
Arthur William Pentelow born in Rochdale.
The Wolverines, featuring trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, made their first recordings - 'Fidgety Feet' and 'Jazz Me Blues' - in Richmond, Virginia.
Lamont Waltman Marvin born in New York.
Henry George Selway born in London.
The Beer Hall Putsch treason trial of Adolf Hitler (who only had one), Erich Ludendorff and other Nazis began in Munich. Security was heavy and onlookers were thoroughly searched for weapons before being allowed into court.
John Comer born in Stretford, Lancashire.
John Edward Arthur Woodnutt born in London. England lost two-one to Wales in the Home International championship at Ewood Park, Blackburn. Tommy Roberts put England ahead but two quick strikes from Swansea Town's Willie Davies and Bolton's Ted Vizard gave the game to the visitors. Blackburn's Ron Sewell, Aston Villa's Tommy Mort (a late replacement for Sam Wadsworth who had 'flu), Bolton's David Jack and Huddersfield's Clem Stephenson all made inauspicious England debuts. The President of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, abolished the office of Caliphate that had ruled the Ottoman Empire for over four hundred years.
Inventor Nikola Tesla spoke publicly for the first time in several years, announcing he had perfected a system of transmitting power without wires.
Walter Jack Gotell born in Bonn, Germany.
England beat Scotland nineteen-nil to clinch a perfect four-nil record in rugby's Five Nations Championship and complete a Grand Slam.
Winston Churchill of the Constitutionalists lost the Westminster Abbey by-election by forty three votes to Unionist candidate Otho Nicholson.
A British soldier was killed and twenty one wounded at Queenstown, when four men in a motor car dressed as Irish army officers drove past the destroyer HMS Scythe and opened fire with a machine gun. London drivers of trams and public buses went on strike.
Benito Mussolini presided over a Fascist parade in Rome commemorating the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Fasci Italiani da Combattimento. Mussolini's commemorative speech doubled as a campaign speech for the upcoming general erection as he listed his government's accomplishments. So, obviously, it wasn't a long speech.
Erich Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler made their final addresses at their trial for treason in Munich. Hitler's included the much-quoted: 'You may pronounce us guilty a thousand times over, but the Goddess of the Eternal Court of History will smile and tear to tatters the brief of the State Prosecutor and the sentence of this court, for She acquits us.' But she didn't and he ended the day banged up doin' a little Richard III in Landsberg on a five-stretch.
The first broadcasts from 5PY Plymouth. Harold Lloyd's Girl Shy premiered. Robert James McAllister born in Paisley.
In the FA Cup Semi-Finals, Aston Villa defeated Burnley three-nil at Bramall Lane whilst Newcastle United beat Manchester City two-nil at St Andrews, Birmingham. The latter saw the seven hundred and fortieth - final game - of City's Billy Meredith, aged forty seven, in a career which had begun in 1892.
Marlon Brando born in Omaha, Nebraska. Peter John Hawkins born in Brixton.
BBC School Radio, aimed at primary schools, first broadcast, presented by Sir Henry Walford Davies.
Ramsay MacDonald's government suffered its first parliamentary defeat when it failed to pass a bill introduced by John Wheatley which would have protected unemployed people from being evicted by landlords over their inability to pay rent.
Doreen Sheila Elsie Keogh born in Dublin.
Jimmy Thomas, the Secretary of State for the Colonies addressed the workers at Wembley to thank them for agreeing to work overtime in the next eleven days to ensure that the Empire Exhibition would be 'a credit to the country' when it was opened by the King on St George's Day.
England drew one-all with Scotland in the Home International championship at Wembley. England keeper Eddie Taylor fumbled a speculative Bill Clunes shot into his own net, but Billy Walker equalised in the second-half. Bolton Wanderers' Billy Butler and Newcastle United's Charlie Spencer made their England debuts whilst two of Scotland's five debutants were Spencer's club team-mates Neil Harris and Willie Cowan. Wales had already won the championship, for only the third time, winning all three of their games. Despite being without Spencer, Harris and Cowan, Newcastle still managed to defeat Chelsea two-one at St James' Park. First Division leaders Sunderland (without Clunes and Charlie Buchan due to interantional call-ups) lost two-nil at Arsenal. Everton won five-two at Tottenham Hotspur with two goals from Jack Cock and further strikes by Wilf Chadwick, Sam Chedgzoy and Bobby Irvine.
Philip Stone born in Leeds.
Leslie Samuel Phillips born in Tottenham. Fred C Newmeyer and Sam Taylor's Girl Shy - starring Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston and Roy Del Ruth's The Hollywood Kid - starring Charles Murray, Louise Carver and Jackie Lucas - premiered.
Buster Keaton's Sherlock Junior premiered.
Coverage of the opening of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium broadcast.
Goals from Neil Harris and Stan Seymour gave Newcastle United victory over Aston Villa in the first FA Cup Final played at Wembley. Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrated his alleged 'death ray' in London but failed to convince officials from the War Office who also suspected trickery. When the Admiralty requested a further demonstration, Matthews refused.
An air service was inaugurated between Liverpool and Belfast.
Huddersfield Town won the first of three successive First Division league championships with a three-nil win over Nottingham Forest on the final day of the season with two goals from George Cook and a third from George Brown. Cardiff City finished second on goal average. A win for Cardiff over Birmingham City would have taken the title to Wales but they could only share a goalless draw with Len Davies missing a penalty. It was the first time the championship had been decided on goal average and remains the narrowest margin of victory ever recorded in the top tier of English football. Sunderland finished third. Everton's Wilf Chadwick was the division's top scorer with twenty eight goals. Chelsea and Middlesbrough were relegated, replaced by Leeds United and Bury. Nelson and Bristol City were relegated from the Second Division, with Third Division (North) champions Wolverhampton Wanderers and Third Division (South) winners Portsmouth promoted in their place.
A home rule bill for Scotland was introduced by George Buchanan in the Commons, but the debate degenerated into a shouting match and the Speaker adjourned the session for the day.
John Edward Thompson Milburn born in Ashington, Northumberland.
Douglas Blackwell born in Gloucester. England beat France three-one in a friendly international in Paris. Clapton's Vivian Gibbins, one of five debutants, scored twice with England's third coming from an own goal. Casuals' Freddie Ewer, Aston Villa's George Blackburn, Stan Earle of Clapton and Derby County's Harry Storer also made their first international appearances. Mabel Jones was cross-examined in the trial of her lover, Jean-Pierre Vaquier, accused of murdering her husband, Alfred by strychnine poisoning. Mabel had tried to save her husband's life by giving him salt-water to make him vomit. The French inventor had added the poison to a bottle of bromide powders, that Mister Jones added water to as a hangover cure. It was kept behind the bar of the hotel run by the Joneses in Byfleet and at which Vaquier was a guest. Vaquier was found guilty of the grisly deed and hanged three months later.
The first broadcast (at Midnight) of cellist Beatrice Harrison's Cello & The Nightingale to a reported audience of more than a million listeners. It has since been suggested that the nightingale's contribution was, actually, the work of a bird impressionist.
Colonel Philip Trevor (CBE) On Cricket broadcast.
Leonard Maguire born in Manchester.
The widely-reported Russell Case was decided on appeal by the House of Lords: Christabel Russell was cleared of adultery on the grounds of being a virgin. This legitimised her son, Geoffrey, as heir to her separated husband John Russell, Third Baron Ampthill, whom, she claimed had undertaken 'Hunnish scenes' and had attempted to rape her on the night in question.
Peter Halliday born in Cefn Mawr, Denbighshire.
Derek Godfrey born in London.
George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made an attempt to climb to the summit of Mount Everest from which, tragically, neither returned.
Anthony Edward Lowry Britton born in Birmingham.
England won the first of a five test series against South Africa at Edgbaston by an innings and eighteen runs. England scored four hundred and thirty eight with Jack Hobbs top-scoring (seventy six). George Parker, an expatriate fast bowler from Cape Town then playing for Eccleshill in the Bradford League, was called up to strengthen the South African bowling and responded with six wickets. South Africa's score of thirty is still the only completed innings in test match history where no batsman reached double figures. Bob Catterall scored a second innings century. Arthur Gilligan took eleven wickets in the match. Herbert Sutcliffe, Percy Chapman, Roy Kilner, Maurice Tate and George Wood all made their test debuts.
An Evening Of Army Reminiscences broadcast.
Joan Smith born in Keighly, West Yorkshire.
John Neil born in Brussels.
Children's Corner featured Peeps Into History - 'Alexander The Great and Darius, King Of Persia' by The Right Honourable Winston S Churchill, MP.
England won the second test at Lord's by an innings and eighteen runs. Bob Catterall scored a second consecutive century for the tourists but Dick Tyldesley, making his test debut, took six wickets in the match. The England score of five hundred and thirty one for two is the highest test innings in which all who batted scored at least a half-century - Jack Hobbs (two hundred and eleven), Herbert Sutcliffe (one hundred and twenty two), Frank Woolley (one hundred and thirty four) and Patsy Hendren (an undefeated fifty).
Michael Barrington born in Twickenham.
Kitty McKane Godfree defeated the American Helen Wills in the Wimbledon Women's Singles Final.
Harold Abrahams won the one hundred metres gold medal at the Paris Olympics. The story of his exploits and those of Eric Liddell who won four hundred metres gold four days hence, would provide the basis for the Oscar-winning movie Chariots Of Fire fifty seven years later.
Irene Sutcliffe born in Burnley.
England won the third test at Headingley by nine wickets. Highlights included Patsy Hendren's century and Maurice Tate's six for forty two in South Africa's first innings. Angus Newton Mackay born in Birmingham.
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. Turn your weapons on your oppressors.' The question of whether to charge the editor, John Ross Campbell, with incitement to mutiny became a controversial issue known as The Campbell Case.
The fourth test at Old Trafford began but rain washed out three quarters of the match which ended in a predictable draw. Jack MacBryan, George Geary and George Duckworth all made their test debuts. Sheila June Tafler born in London.
Kenneth Kendall born in India. Frank Dudley Foster born in Brighouse, West Yorkshire.
In the first boxing match staged at Wembley Stadium, Tommy Gibbons knocked out Jack Bloomfield in the third round of a bout staged as part of the British Empire Exhibition.
Ex-boxing champion Kid McCoy came home drunk to his Los Angeles apartment and violently murdered his girlfriend, Teresa Mors, after she told him what her friends thought of him.
The mutiny charge against John Ross Campbell was dropped when crown barrister Travers Humphreys appeared before the court and explained: 'Since process has been issued in this case it has been represented that the object and intention of the article in question was not to endeavour to seduce men in the fighting forces from their duty and allegiance, or to induce them to disobey lawful orders, but that it was comment upon armed military force being used by the State for the suppression of industrial disputes.' He also said that he had been instructed not to offer any evidence upon the charge and so Campbell was freed. Attorney General Sir Patrick Hastings had, reportedly, gotten cold feet after learning that Campbell was an injured war veteran and that a trial before a jury was likely to fail; prosecution was also opposed by many Labour backbenchers.
Haydn Morse Jones born in Wandsworth.
Robert Carmichael Mitchell born in Glasgow.
The fifth test at The Oval was, for the second match running, ruined by rain and ended in a draw. Patsy Hendren scored his second century of the series which England won three-nil.
Edward Charles James Gardner born in Newmarket.
The Montreal Star published an interview with Henry Ford in which he was quoted as saying that the Ku Klux Klan was 'a victim of lying propaganda' and 'if the truth were known about it, it would be looked up to as a body of patriots.'
George Sewell born in Hoxton. Herbert Weisz born in Vienna.
Yorkshire won the cricket county championships for the third year in succession ahead of Middlesex and Surrey. Nottinghamshire's Dodger Whysall was the leading run scorer in championship matches with seventeen hundred and eighty six. Surrey's Andy Sandham topped the first class batting averages with two thousand and eighty two runs at 59.48. Gloucester's Charlie Parker was the championship's leading wicket-taker (one hundred and eighty four). Yorkshire's George Macauley headed the first class bowling averages with one hundred and ninety wickets at 13.23.
Ramsay MacDonald made a frank speech to the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva saying that history had demonstrated military alliances were 'no guarantor of security' and, to provide security Germany and Russia should be admitted to the League. He also said that the ability to assign responsibility for aggression belonged to historians fifty years after a war, not to contemporary politicians and only through arbitration could such responsibility be assigned. 'If we cannot devise proper arbitration let us go back to competitive armaments and military pacts and prepare for the inevitable next war,' MacDonald stated. To small nations he added: 'Pact or no pact, you will be invaded, devastated and crushed. You are certain to be the victims of the military age.'
John Freeman Turner born in Bexley.
Dermot Walsh born in Dublin.
Huddersfield Town's goalless draw at West Ham United kept them at the top of the First Division, ahead of Arsenal (who drew two-two at Newcastle) and Tottenham Hotspur (who also shared the points in their game at home to Everton). Elsewhere, Leeds United beat bottom-placed Preston North End four-nil and Johnny McIntyre scored a hat-trick at Blackburn Rovers won five-three at Burnley. Liverpool got their first points of the season, beating Manchester City five-three at Anfield. Thirty seven goals were scored in eleven matches in the top flight. Derby County were top of the Second Divsion with a five-one win over Fulham (Bert Fairclough scored four). Second placed Blackpool dropped a point drawing one-all with Portsmouth. Manchester United defeated Coventry City whilst South Shields and Wolverhampton Wanderers shared six goals at Horsley Hill. In the Third Division North, Ashington were at the top following a five-two win against Barrow. Hartlepools United and Bradford Park Avenue drew two-two at Victoria Park. Bradford's equaliser was a penalty scored by their goalkepper, Ernald Scattergood, the last of eight goals (all of them penalties) that Ernie scored during a seventeen year, four hundred and seventy game career with Derby, Bradford and England.
German astronomer Friedrich Simon Archenhold claimed that he had seen what he believed to be an attempt by inhabitants of Mars to contact Earth. 'I cannot disclose everything I saw,' Archenhold stated. 'I am a scientist and I am not seeking newspaper sensations, but this much I will say - I was thunderstruck by what I saw. I could not believe my eyes. I thought perhaps my sons had climbed on the observatory roof and had planted something in the telescope, but it was not so. I am now going to Jungfrau, Milan and other observatories to discuss my findings with other scientists seeking an answer to the question of whether there is life on Mars.'
Malcolm Campbell set a new land speed record at Pendine Sands in Wales with a speed of one hundred and forty six miles per hour in a Sunbeam 350HP.
Arthur Corbett-Smith's comedy Sportsmen All! broadcast. Peter Randolph Michael Albrecht born in Kuala Lumpa.
Truman Streckfus Persons born in New Orleans.
In Boys Scouts & Girl Guides' Bulletins on 5NO Newcastle, Major March (DSO, MC) gave a talk on 'the importance of visual signalling in The Battle Of The Somme.'
Truman Streckfus Persons born in New Orleans.
The Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes received preliminary approval at the League of Nations.
Ciarán Ó hAnnracháin born in Skibbereen, County Cork.
Having lost a Commons censure vote, Ramsay MacDonald advised King George V to dissolve parliament.
Buster Keaton's The Navigator premiered.
Nigel McGown Green born in Pretoria, South Africa.
The blues standard 'See See Rider' was first recorded, by Ma Rainey.
Anna Maria Manahan born in County Waterford.
John David Blake Butler born in Barrow-In-Furness. England defeated ireland three-one in the Home International championship at Goddison Park. Bob Kelly, Harry Bedford and Billy Walker scored for the hosts with Sheffield United's Billy Gillespie replying for Ireland. Manchester City's Fred Mitchell and Henry Healless of Blackburn Rovers made their Englandl debuts. A fifty-thousand-year old mammoth tusk was sold for a mere nine quid at a London auction. It was one of a number of tusks found in Siberia being sold by the Russian government, but they were shocked (and stunned) discovered that fresh ivory was more valuable.
The Daily Scum Mail published The Zinoviev Letter four days before the General Erection. It purported to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International in Moscow, to the Communist Party of Great Britain, ordering it to engage in seditious activities. It said that the resumption of diplomatic relations (by a Labour government) would hasten the radicalisation of the British working class. The letter appeared authentic at the time, but historians now agree it was a blatant forgery.
The Conservatives won the General Erection.
John George Norman Bird born in Coalville, Leicestershire.
Nadia Evadne Cattouse born in Belize City, British Honduras.
Austin Churton Fairman born in London.
Hollywood producer Thomas H Ince died at his estate in California, two days after leaving a gathering attended by many celebrities aboard William Randolph Hearst's private yacht, the Oneida. The cause of death was officially given as a heart attack, but rumours circulated that he had been shot (inspiring the 2001 film The Cat's Meow). William Russell Enoch born in Sunderland.
Malcolm Ainsworth Hulke born in Hampstead.
The editor of the Sunday People Hannen Swaffer recounted a séance he had attended along with Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Robert McAlpine and others. Swaffer said that the medium contacted Lord Northcliffe, who admitted that Doyle was 'right' about life beyond the grave. 'I distrusted your judgement, but I see now how wrong I was,' the spirit voice of Northcliffe was quoted as saying.
Desmond Alexander Cullum-Jones born in Seattle, Washington.
Robert Keegan born in Liverpool.
The Erich von Stroheim-directed Greed premiered at the Cosmopolitan Theatre in New York City. England beat Belgium four-nil in a friendly International at The Hawthorns. Billy Walker and Joe Bradford both scored twice with Walker also missing a penalty. Stockport County's Harry Hardy, Arsenal's John Butler, Manchester City's Frank Roberts and Arthur Dorrell of Aston Villa made their first England appearances. A last-minute reprieve for William Smith was denied on the day before his execution for murder, despite a deputation of local people, including the Lady Mayoress of Hull, plus three MPs, appealing directly to the Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, for clemency. It was claimed that the crime was committed in 'a momentary fit of jealous rage' and was similar to another recent trial in the city where a verdict of manslaughter was reached. Smith had cut the throat of Elizabeth Bousfield with a razor at the home they shared with two other men.
Rosemarie Tomlinson born in Leuchars, Fife.
John Peregrine Franklyn-Robbins born in Cheltenham.
In a letter to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Winston Churchill opined that Singapore's defences did not need to be completed for another fifteen to twenty years, writing, 'I do not believe there is the slightest chance of war with Japan in our lifetime. Japan is at the other end of the world. She cannot menace our vital security in any way.'
Adolf Hitler was released from Landsberg Prison after nine months in the joint as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners. Errol John born in Port Of Spain, Trinidad.
Books To Read - featuring Ann Spice - broadcast.
Le Breton Martin's A Christmas Adventure In 1724 broadcast. George Innes Llewelyn Lloyd born in Penmaenmawr, Wales.
A Dream Of Christmas Day broadcast.
The BBC's tradition of their Christmas schedule including something supernatural began with AJ Alan telling A Christmas Ghost Story. Australia won the first Ashes test at Sydney by one hundred and ninety three runs despite Jack Hobbs and Frank Woolley scoring centuries and Maurice Tate taking eleven wickets in the match. For Australia, Herbie Collins, Bill Ponsford and Johnny Taylor also scored hundreds. Tich Freeman made his test debut.
Henry Coward conducted The Wireless Orchestra performing Handel's The Messiah 'with additional accompaniments by Mozart' broadcast.
Humorous Sidelights On The Canadian Domestic Problem by Elizabeth Keith Morris broadcast.
MJ Morris's Marriage Customs Among Many People and A Mixed Grill - featuring Dan Jones and Marthe Hugentobler ('Swiss Yodeller') - broadcast.
Italian police were ordered to search the houses of prominent opposition leaders over allegations that enemies of the government had stockpiled vast stores of arms. Issues of opposition newspapers in several Italian cities were seized, with Florence becoming especially violent as thousands of Blackshirts converged on the city and ransacked several buildings, including the printing plant of an opposition newspaper which was set on fire. Allan Joseph Surtees born in Liverpool.
Aerials & Earths broadcast on 2LO London. John Hickson Warner born in South Africa.
GE Duveen's The Navy's Value In Peace broadcast
Howard Carter and his excavation team discovered the stone sarcophagus of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in his tomb near Luxor.
Professor Winifred Culles's Monkey Glands & Others broadcast.
Albert Geoffrey Bayldon born in Leeds.
Soviet newspaper Pravda reported that Leon Trotsky was seriously ill, a statement which the rank and file took as a sign of his imminent removal from the Politburo. Labour Party leader Ramsay MacDonald gave a speech at a packed Royal Albert Hall where he announced that Labour would accept office as soon as it was invited to do so, though it would be taking over 'a bankrupt estate.' MacDonald pledged to run the country along 'sound economic lines,' make efforts through the League of Nations to retain peace in Europe and end the 'pompous folly' of refusing to recognise the Soviet Union. Ronald Moodnick born in Tottenham. Relations between Britain and France became strained when French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré refused to allow British officials into the occupied Rhineland to conduct their own investigation of the separatist movement there. Because they were British and he didn't like the look of them.
In the First Round of the FA Cup, there were victories for Aston Villa (five-one at Ashington), Burnley (three-two against South Shields), The Wednesday (four-one over Leicester City), Swindon Town (four-nil against Bradford Park Avenue), Fulham (two-nil over Llanelli), Charlton Athletic (one-nil in a replay against Accrington Stanley), Newcastle United (four-two at Portsmouth), West Ham United (five-nil against Aberdare Athletic), Oldham Athletic (two-one against Sunderland), Crystal Palace (two-nil over Tottenham Hotspur) and Corinthians (one-nil against Blackburn Rovers). The world's first original radio play - A Comedy Of Danger by Richard Hughes - broadcast.
Herbert Asquith of the Liberal Party made a surprising speech in the House of Commons pledging to support a minority government headed by Labour, making the fall of Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government almost certain.
Vladimir Lenin died at his estate in Gorki following a stroke. Soviet leaders were convening at the Eleventh All-Russia Congress of Soviets at the Bolshoi Theatre when news of Lenin's death was communicated by telephone; an eyewitness reported never seeing so many grown men in tears. Alfred Hawthorne Hill born in Southampton.
Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government with tacit support from the Liberals following Baldwin's resignation after the Conservatives lost a vote of no confidence.
Britain and the United States signed a treaty allowing American authorities to search British ships suspected of rum-running. Joyce Grant born in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Clarence G Badger's Painted People - starring Colleen Moore - premiered.
The Soviet Union announced that the city of Petrograd - formerly (and, latterly) Saint Petersburg - had been renamed Leningrad.
Clarence G Badger's Painted People - starring Colleen Moore, Ben Lyon and Charlotte Merriam - premiered.
Bernadette O'Farrell born in Birr, Ireland.
AJ Alan's My Adventure In Jermyn Street broadcast. (Alan was a pseudonym for Captain Leslie Harrison Lambert, a London civil servant.)
The first episode of John Kenmir's Association Football broadcast on 5NO Newcastle.
The probable date that John Logie Baird first publicly demonstrated his rudimentary analogue television system, transmitting an image of a moving silhouette.
The Greenwich Time Signal ('the pips') was first heard on BBC radio. The process was invented by the Astronomer Royal Sir Frank Watson Dyson in conjunction with John Reith. The six electronically generated 'pips' were designed to mark the precise start of every hour on BBC radio. The colonial government of India released Mahatma Gandhi from prison two years into his six-year sentence, citing 'reasons of health.'
George Gershwin's 'Rhapsody In Blue' premiered at the Aeolian Hall in New York City.
An assembly for British fascists was staged at the Hotel Cecil in London to meet and discuss common goals. About five hundred black-shirted Britons and Italian expatriates attended.
Arthur William Pentelow born in Rochdale.
The Wolverines, featuring trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, made their first recordings - 'Fidgety Feet' and 'Jazz Me Blues' - in Richmond, Virginia.
Lamont Waltman Marvin born in New York.
Henry George Selway born in London.
The Beer Hall Putsch treason trial of Adolf Hitler (who only had one), Erich Ludendorff and other Nazis began in Munich. Security was heavy and onlookers were thoroughly searched for weapons before being allowed into court.
John Comer born in Stretford, Lancashire.
John Edward Arthur Woodnutt born in London. England lost two-one to Wales in the Home International championship at Ewood Park, Blackburn. Tommy Roberts put England ahead but two quick strikes from Swansea Town's Willie Davies and Bolton's Ted Vizard gave the game to the visitors. Blackburn's Ron Sewell, Aston Villa's Tommy Mort (a late replacement for Sam Wadsworth who had 'flu), Bolton's David Jack and Huddersfield's Clem Stephenson all made inauspicious England debuts. The President of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, abolished the office of Caliphate that had ruled the Ottoman Empire for over four hundred years.
Inventor Nikola Tesla spoke publicly for the first time in several years, announcing he had perfected a system of transmitting power without wires.
Walter Jack Gotell born in Bonn, Germany.
England beat Scotland nineteen-nil to clinch a perfect four-nil record in rugby's Five Nations Championship and complete a Grand Slam.
Winston Churchill of the Constitutionalists lost the Westminster Abbey by-election by forty three votes to Unionist candidate Otho Nicholson.
A British soldier was killed and twenty one wounded at Queenstown, when four men in a motor car dressed as Irish army officers drove past the destroyer HMS Scythe and opened fire with a machine gun. London drivers of trams and public buses went on strike.
Benito Mussolini presided over a Fascist parade in Rome commemorating the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Fasci Italiani da Combattimento. Mussolini's commemorative speech doubled as a campaign speech for the upcoming general erection as he listed his government's accomplishments. So, obviously, it wasn't a long speech.
The first broadcasts from 5PY Plymouth. Harold Lloyd's Girl Shy premiered. Robert James McAllister born in Paisley.
In the FA Cup Semi-Finals, Aston Villa defeated Burnley three-nil at Bramall Lane whilst Newcastle United beat Manchester City two-nil at St Andrews, Birmingham. The latter saw the seven hundred and fortieth - final game - of City's Billy Meredith, aged forty seven, in a career which had begun in 1892.
Marlon Brando born in Omaha, Nebraska. Peter John Hawkins born in Brixton.
BBC School Radio, aimed at primary schools, first broadcast, presented by Sir Henry Walford Davies.
Ramsay MacDonald's government suffered its first parliamentary defeat when it failed to pass a bill introduced by John Wheatley which would have protected unemployed people from being evicted by landlords over their inability to pay rent.
Doreen Sheila Elsie Keogh born in Dublin.
Jimmy Thomas, the Secretary of State for the Colonies addressed the workers at Wembley to thank them for agreeing to work overtime in the next eleven days to ensure that the Empire Exhibition would be 'a credit to the country' when it was opened by the King on St George's Day.
England drew one-all with Scotland in the Home International championship at Wembley. England keeper Eddie Taylor fumbled a speculative Bill Clunes shot into his own net, but Billy Walker equalised in the second-half. Bolton Wanderers' Billy Butler and Newcastle United's Charlie Spencer made their England debuts whilst two of Scotland's five debutants were Spencer's club team-mates Neil Harris and Willie Cowan. Wales had already won the championship, for only the third time, winning all three of their games. Despite being without Spencer, Harris and Cowan, Newcastle still managed to defeat Chelsea two-one at St James' Park. First Division leaders Sunderland (without Clunes and Charlie Buchan due to interantional call-ups) lost two-nil at Arsenal. Everton won five-two at Tottenham Hotspur with two goals from Jack Cock and further strikes by Wilf Chadwick, Sam Chedgzoy and Bobby Irvine.
Philip Stone born in Leeds.
Leslie Samuel Phillips born in Tottenham. Fred C Newmeyer and Sam Taylor's Girl Shy - starring Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston and Roy Del Ruth's The Hollywood Kid - starring Charles Murray, Louise Carver and Jackie Lucas - premiered.
Buster Keaton's Sherlock Junior premiered.
Coverage of the opening of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium broadcast.
Goals from Neil Harris and Stan Seymour gave Newcastle United victory over Aston Villa in the first FA Cup Final played at Wembley. Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrated his alleged 'death ray' in London but failed to convince officials from the War Office who also suspected trickery. When the Admiralty requested a further demonstration, Matthews refused.
An air service was inaugurated between Liverpool and Belfast.
Huddersfield Town won the first of three successive First Division league championships with a three-nil win over Nottingham Forest on the final day of the season with two goals from George Cook and a third from George Brown. Cardiff City finished second on goal average. A win for Cardiff over Birmingham City would have taken the title to Wales but they could only share a goalless draw with Len Davies missing a penalty. It was the first time the championship had been decided on goal average and remains the narrowest margin of victory ever recorded in the top tier of English football. Sunderland finished third. Everton's Wilf Chadwick was the division's top scorer with twenty eight goals. Chelsea and Middlesbrough were relegated, replaced by Leeds United and Bury. Nelson and Bristol City were relegated from the Second Division, with Third Division (North) champions Wolverhampton Wanderers and Third Division (South) winners Portsmouth promoted in their place.
John Edward Thompson Milburn born in Ashington, Northumberland.
Douglas Blackwell born in Gloucester. England beat France three-one in a friendly international in Paris. Clapton's Vivian Gibbins, one of five debutants, scored twice with England's third coming from an own goal. Casuals' Freddie Ewer, Aston Villa's George Blackburn, Stan Earle of Clapton and Derby County's Harry Storer also made their first international appearances. Mabel Jones was cross-examined in the trial of her lover, Jean-Pierre Vaquier, accused of murdering her husband, Alfred by strychnine poisoning. Mabel had tried to save her husband's life by giving him salt-water to make him vomit. The French inventor had added the poison to a bottle of bromide powders, that Mister Jones added water to as a hangover cure. It was kept behind the bar of the hotel run by the Joneses in Byfleet and at which Vaquier was a guest. Vaquier was found guilty of the grisly deed and hanged three months later.
The first broadcast (at Midnight) of cellist Beatrice Harrison's Cello & The Nightingale to a reported audience of more than a million listeners. It has since been suggested that the nightingale's contribution was, actually, the work of a bird impressionist.
Colonel Philip Trevor (CBE) On Cricket broadcast.
Leonard Maguire born in Manchester.
The widely-reported Russell Case was decided on appeal by the House of Lords: Christabel Russell was cleared of adultery on the grounds of being a virgin. This legitimised her son, Geoffrey, as heir to her separated husband John Russell, Third Baron Ampthill, whom, she claimed had undertaken 'Hunnish scenes' and had attempted to rape her on the night in question.
Peter Halliday born in Cefn Mawr, Denbighshire.
Derek Godfrey born in London.
George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made an attempt to climb to the summit of Mount Everest from which, tragically, neither returned.
Anthony Edward Lowry Britton born in Birmingham.
England won the first of a five test series against South Africa at Edgbaston by an innings and eighteen runs. England scored four hundred and thirty eight with Jack Hobbs top-scoring (seventy six). George Parker, an expatriate fast bowler from Cape Town then playing for Eccleshill in the Bradford League, was called up to strengthen the South African bowling and responded with six wickets. South Africa's score of thirty is still the only completed innings in test match history where no batsman reached double figures. Bob Catterall scored a second innings century. Arthur Gilligan took eleven wickets in the match. Herbert Sutcliffe, Percy Chapman, Roy Kilner, Maurice Tate and George Wood all made their test debuts.
An Evening Of Army Reminiscences broadcast.
Joan Smith born in Keighly, West Yorkshire.
John Neil born in Brussels.
Children's Corner featured Peeps Into History - 'Alexander The Great and Darius, King Of Persia' by The Right Honourable Winston S Churchill, MP.
England won the second test at Lord's by an innings and eighteen runs. Bob Catterall scored a second consecutive century for the tourists but Dick Tyldesley, making his test debut, took six wickets in the match. The England score of five hundred and thirty one for two is the highest test innings in which all who batted scored at least a half-century - Jack Hobbs (two hundred and eleven), Herbert Sutcliffe (one hundred and twenty two), Frank Woolley (one hundred and thirty four) and Patsy Hendren (an undefeated fifty).
Michael Barrington born in Twickenham.
Kitty McKane Godfree defeated the American Helen Wills in the Wimbledon Women's Singles Final.
Harold Abrahams won the one hundred metres gold medal at the Paris Olympics. The story of his exploits and those of Eric Liddell who won four hundred metres gold four days hence, would provide the basis for the Oscar-winning movie Chariots Of Fire fifty seven years later.
Irene Sutcliffe born in Burnley.
England won the third test at Headingley by nine wickets. Highlights included Patsy Hendren's century and Maurice Tate's six for forty two in South Africa's first innings. Angus Newton Mackay born in Birmingham.
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. Turn your weapons on your oppressors.' The question of whether to charge the editor, John Ross Campbell, with incitement to mutiny became a controversial issue known as The Campbell Case.
The fourth test at Old Trafford began but rain washed out three quarters of the match which ended in a predictable draw. Jack MacBryan, George Geary and George Duckworth all made their test debuts. Sheila June Tafler born in London.
Kenneth Kendall born in India. Frank Dudley Foster born in Brighouse, West Yorkshire.
In the first boxing match staged at Wembley Stadium, Tommy Gibbons knocked out Jack Bloomfield in the third round of a bout staged as part of the British Empire Exhibition.
Ex-boxing champion Kid McCoy came home drunk to his Los Angeles apartment and violently murdered his girlfriend, Teresa Mors, after she told him what her friends thought of him.
The mutiny charge against John Ross Campbell was dropped when crown barrister Travers Humphreys appeared before the court and explained: 'Since process has been issued in this case it has been represented that the object and intention of the article in question was not to endeavour to seduce men in the fighting forces from their duty and allegiance, or to induce them to disobey lawful orders, but that it was comment upon armed military force being used by the State for the suppression of industrial disputes.' He also said that he had been instructed not to offer any evidence upon the charge and so Campbell was freed. Attorney General Sir Patrick Hastings had, reportedly, gotten cold feet after learning that Campbell was an injured war veteran and that a trial before a jury was likely to fail; prosecution was also opposed by many Labour backbenchers.
Haydn Morse Jones born in Wandsworth.
Robert Carmichael Mitchell born in Glasgow.
The fifth test at The Oval was, for the second match running, ruined by rain and ended in a draw. Patsy Hendren scored his second century of the series which England won three-nil.
Edward Charles James Gardner born in Newmarket.
The Montreal Star published an interview with Henry Ford in which he was quoted as saying that the Ku Klux Klan was 'a victim of lying propaganda' and 'if the truth were known about it, it would be looked up to as a body of patriots.'
George Sewell born in Hoxton. Herbert Weisz born in Vienna.
Yorkshire won the cricket county championships for the third year in succession ahead of Middlesex and Surrey. Nottinghamshire's Dodger Whysall was the leading run scorer in championship matches with seventeen hundred and eighty six. Surrey's Andy Sandham topped the first class batting averages with two thousand and eighty two runs at 59.48. Gloucester's Charlie Parker was the championship's leading wicket-taker (one hundred and eighty four). Yorkshire's George Macauley headed the first class bowling averages with one hundred and ninety wickets at 13.23.
Ramsay MacDonald made a frank speech to the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva saying that history had demonstrated military alliances were 'no guarantor of security' and, to provide security Germany and Russia should be admitted to the League. He also said that the ability to assign responsibility for aggression belonged to historians fifty years after a war, not to contemporary politicians and only through arbitration could such responsibility be assigned. 'If we cannot devise proper arbitration let us go back to competitive armaments and military pacts and prepare for the inevitable next war,' MacDonald stated. To small nations he added: 'Pact or no pact, you will be invaded, devastated and crushed. You are certain to be the victims of the military age.'
John Freeman Turner born in Bexley.
Dermot Walsh born in Dublin.
Huddersfield Town's goalless draw at West Ham United kept them at the top of the First Division, ahead of Arsenal (who drew two-two at Newcastle) and Tottenham Hotspur (who also shared the points in their game at home to Everton). Elsewhere, Leeds United beat bottom-placed Preston North End four-nil and Johnny McIntyre scored a hat-trick at Blackburn Rovers won five-three at Burnley. Liverpool got their first points of the season, beating Manchester City five-three at Anfield. Thirty seven goals were scored in eleven matches in the top flight. Derby County were top of the Second Divsion with a five-one win over Fulham (Bert Fairclough scored four). Second placed Blackpool dropped a point drawing one-all with Portsmouth. Manchester United defeated Coventry City whilst South Shields and Wolverhampton Wanderers shared six goals at Horsley Hill. In the Third Division North, Ashington were at the top following a five-two win against Barrow. Hartlepools United and Bradford Park Avenue drew two-two at Victoria Park. Bradford's equaliser was a penalty scored by their goalkepper, Ernald Scattergood, the last of eight goals (all of them penalties) that Ernie scored during a seventeen year, four hundred and seventy game career with Derby, Bradford and England.
German astronomer Friedrich Simon Archenhold claimed that he had seen what he believed to be an attempt by inhabitants of Mars to contact Earth. 'I cannot disclose everything I saw,' Archenhold stated. 'I am a scientist and I am not seeking newspaper sensations, but this much I will say - I was thunderstruck by what I saw. I could not believe my eyes. I thought perhaps my sons had climbed on the observatory roof and had planted something in the telescope, but it was not so. I am now going to Jungfrau, Milan and other observatories to discuss my findings with other scientists seeking an answer to the question of whether there is life on Mars.' Malcolm Campbell set a new land speed record at Pendine Sands in Wales with a speed of one hundred and forty six miles per hour in a Sunbeam 350HP.
Arthur Corbett-Smith's comedy Sportsmen All! broadcast. Peter Randolph Michael Albrecht born in Kuala Lumpa.
Truman Streckfus Persons born in New Orleans.
In Boys Scouts & Girl Guides' Bulletins on 5NO Newcastle, Major March (DSO, MC) gave a talk on 'the importance of visual signalling in The Battle Of The Somme.'
Truman Streckfus Persons born in New Orleans.
The Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes received preliminary approval at the League of Nations.
Ciarán Ó hAnnracháin born in Skibbereen, County Cork.
Having lost a Commons censure vote, Ramsay MacDonald advised King George V to dissolve parliament.
Buster Keaton's The Navigator premiered.
Nigel McGown Green born in Pretoria, South Africa.
The blues standard 'See See Rider' was first recorded, by Ma Rainey.
Anna Maria Manahan born in County Waterford.
John David Blake Butler born in Barrow-In-Furness. England defeated ireland three-one in the Home International championship at Goddison Park. Bob Kelly, Harry Bedford and Billy Walker scored for the hosts with Sheffield United's Billy Gillespie replying for Ireland. Manchester City's Fred Mitchell and Henry Healless of Blackburn Rovers made their Englandl debuts. A fifty-thousand-year old mammoth tusk was sold for a mere nine quid at a London auction. It was one of a number of tusks found in Siberia being sold by the Russian government, but they were shocked (and stunned) discovered that fresh ivory was more valuable.
The Daily Scum Mail published The Zinoviev Letter four days before the General Erection. It purported to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International in Moscow, to the Communist Party of Great Britain, ordering it to engage in seditious activities. It said that the resumption of diplomatic relations (by a Labour government) would hasten the radicalisation of the British working class. The letter appeared authentic at the time, but historians now agree it was a blatant forgery.
The Conservatives won the General Erection.
John George Norman Bird born in Coalville, Leicestershire.
Nadia Evadne Cattouse born in Belize City, British Honduras.
Austin Churton Fairman born in London.
Hollywood producer Thomas H Ince died at his estate in California, two days after leaving a gathering attended by many celebrities aboard William Randolph Hearst's private yacht, the Oneida. The cause of death was officially given as a heart attack, but rumours circulated that he had been shot (inspiring the 2001 film The Cat's Meow). William Russell Enoch born in Sunderland.
Malcolm Ainsworth Hulke born in Hampstead.
The editor of the Sunday People Hannen Swaffer recounted a séance he had attended along with Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Robert McAlpine and others. Swaffer said that the medium contacted Lord Northcliffe, who admitted that Doyle was 'right' about life beyond the grave. 'I distrusted your judgement, but I see now how wrong I was,' the spirit voice of Northcliffe was quoted as saying.
Desmond Alexander Cullum-Jones born in Seattle, Washington.
Robert Keegan born in Liverpool.
The Erich von Stroheim-directed Greed premiered at the Cosmopolitan Theatre in New York City. England beat Belgium four-nil in a friendly International at The Hawthorns. Billy Walker and Joe Bradford both scored twice with Walker also missing a penalty. Stockport County's Harry Hardy, Arsenal's John Butler, Manchester City's Frank Roberts and Arthur Dorrell of Aston Villa made their first England appearances. A last-minute reprieve for William Smith was denied on the day before his execution for murder, despite a deputation of local people, including the Lady Mayoress of Hull, plus three MPs, appealing directly to the Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, for clemency. It was claimed that the crime was committed in 'a momentary fit of jealous rage' and was similar to another recent trial in the city where a verdict of manslaughter was reached. Smith had cut the throat of Elizabeth Bousfield with a razor at the home they shared with two other men.
Rosemarie Tomlinson born in Leuchars, Fife.
John Peregrine Franklyn-Robbins born in Cheltenham.
In a letter to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Winston Churchill opined that Singapore's defences did not need to be completed for another fifteen to twenty years, writing, 'I do not believe there is the slightest chance of war with Japan in our lifetime. Japan is at the other end of the world. She cannot menace our vital security in any way.' Adolf Hitler was released from Landsberg Prison after nine months in the joint as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners. Errol John born in Port Of Spain, Trinidad.
Books To Read - featuring Ann Spice - broadcast.
Le Breton Martin's A Christmas Adventure In 1724 broadcast. George Innes Llewelyn Lloyd born in Penmaenmawr, Wales.
A Dream Of Christmas Day broadcast.
The BBC's tradition of their Christmas schedule including something supernatural began with AJ Alan telling A Christmas Ghost Story. Australia won the first Ashes test at Sydney by one hundred and ninety three runs despite Jack Hobbs and Frank Woolley scoring centuries and Maurice Tate taking eleven wickets in the match. For Australia, Herbie Collins, Bill Ponsford and Johnny Taylor also scored hundreds. Tich Freeman made his test debut.
Henry Coward conducted The Wireless Orchestra performing Handel's The Messiah 'with additional accompaniments by Mozart' broadcast.
Humorous Sidelights On The Canadian Domestic Problem by Elizabeth Keith Morris broadcast.
MJ Morris's Marriage Customs Among Many People and A Mixed Grill - featuring Dan Jones and Marthe Hugentobler ('Swiss Yodeller') - broadcast.
Italian police were ordered to search the houses of prominent opposition leaders over allegations that enemies of the government had stockpiled vast stores of arms. Issues of opposition newspapers in several Italian cities were seized, with Florence becoming especially violent as thousands of Blackshirts converged on the city and ransacked several buildings, including the printing plant of an opposition newspaper which was set on fire. Allan Joseph Surtees born in Liverpool.
