1926
GA Atkinson's Seen On The Screen, John Hastings Turber's Good Resolutions and Bluebell In Fairy-Land by Seymour Hicks and Wesley Slaughter from The Chelsea Police, broadcast. Zena Moyra Marshall born in Nairobi, Kenya. Chrissie Henryetta Edwards born in Chertsey, Surrey.
Radio Radiance Revue broadcast.
Bach's A Christmas Oratorio broadcast.
The first Widow's Pensions were paid at post offices.
Warren Misell born in London.
2LO London broadcast a twelve-minute report about an alleged 'murderous riot' in Central London, which turned out to be an elaborate spoof, masterminded by a Catholic priest and author of detective stories. Father Ronald Knox interrupted an apparently genuine BBC talk on Eighteenth Century literature with a report that Big Ben had been toppled by mortars, the Savoy Hotel burned to the ground and a Government Minister lynched in the streets by a mob running amok.
If only wishing made it so. Many listeners took Knox's satire seriously, besieging the BBC switchboard with worried calls. By coincidence, bad weather delayed delivery of the next day's papers, giving some rural listeners prolonged reason to assume that the capital really was in flames. Several announcements were made during the evening stating that the programme - Broadcasting The Barricades - had been 'a burlesque'. Questions were subsequently - and not for the last time - asked in the House of Commons. As though politicians didn't have anything more important to talk about.
Moira Shearer King born in Dunfirmline.
The first episode of Empire Phono-Flight - 'presenting phases in the lives of the Men of Empire' - broadcast on 5SC Glasgow.
Surgeon Sir Berkeley Moynihan claimed publicly that cancer of the tongue was partly caused by smoking. Dennis Wilfred Davies born in Dowlais, Glamorgan.
John Logie Baird demonstrated a mechanical television system for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times at his London laboratory.
Elizabeth Mary Helen Henson born in Pachmarhi, India.
Barry Langford born in London.
Hazel Court born in Sutton Coldfield.
The first Radio Times listing for The Shipping Forecast on the 5XX Daventry, although The Met Office had been issuing regional versions for broadcast since 1 January 1924. 'Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay, Lundy, Fastnet, Rockall.' Et cetera.
Kenneth Charles Williams born in Islington.
Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five recorded 'Heebie Jeebies', the song that was the first to popularise the technique of scat singing. Keith Wilfred Smith born in Liverpool.
Major Henry Segrave reached one hundred and fifty four miles-per-hour in a Sunbeam Tiger racing car on Ainsdale Beach at Southport. It was a test run in preparation for his attempt on the world land-speed record. He was to break the record at one hundred and fifty two mph over a recorded mile, two weeks later at the same venue.
In a St David's Day to remember, Wales beat England three-one in the Home International championship at Selhurst Park. Swansea Town's jack Fowler scored twice and Cardiff's Willie Davies added a third for the visitors with Billy Walker supplying England's late consolation goal. Leeds United's Willis Edwards made his England debut. Norman Bullock received a gash to his head after five minutes from accidental blow with the finger-ring of a Welsh player, needed attention off the pitch and, when he returned, had a huge plaster on his head for the rest of the game. Future Mayor of Wolverhampton, Tom Phillipson was in the midst of a run of fourteen goals in ten matches as he netted the winner in Wolves one-nil victory over Darlington in the Second Division.
The first issue of science fiction magazine Amazing Stories published, with a cover date of April 1926.
Oscar Morris Quitak born in London.
Derek Benfield born in Bradford.
Jeanne Mary Mockford born in Lewisham. Hobart Henley's An Exchange Of Wives - starring Eleanor Boardman, Lew Cody and Renée Adorée - premiered.
Main-asteroid belt 2732 Witt was discovered in Heidelberg by astronomer Max Wolf.
The Zhongshan Warship Incident took place; a suspected kidnapping plot against Chiang Kai-shek was foiled.
Alan Brown born in Sunderland.
Raymond McAnally born in Buncrana, County Donegal,
John Scott Martin born in Toxteth.
Robert Colin Holmes born in Tring.
Andrew Buggy born in Shotts, Lanarkshire. Timothy Dingwall Bateson born in London.
Lyndon Brook born in Los Angeles.
Scotland defeated England one-nil in the Home International championship at Old Trafford. Alex Jackson scored the winner from Andy Cunningham's cross. For England, Huddersfield's Roy Goodall, Eddie Harper of Blackburn Rovers and West Ham United's Jimmy Ruffell made their debuts. Huddersfield remained top of the First Division by eight points, despite losing three-one at Arsenal. Despite being without Hughie Gallacher, Newcastle beat West Bromwich Albion three-nil. Gordon Charles Rollings born in Batley. Twenty thousand women marched through London in protest against industrial strike actions and lockouts which were, they suggested (correctly), doomed to failure. The Trades Union Congress took no notice of them and continued to organise a General Strike in support of the intended reduction of miners' wages and increased hours, in the following month.
Huddersfield Town won the First Division Championship for the third season in succession. Now managed by Cecil Potter, they finished five points clear of former-manager Herbert Chapman's Arsenal. Sunderland finished third and Bury fourth. Ted Harper of Blackburn Rovers was the league's leading scorer with forty three goals. Manchester City and Notts County were relegated, replaced in the First Division by The Wednesday and Derby County. Jack Cock of Plymouth Argyle was the Third Division South's leading scorer with thirty two. Chesterfield's Jimmy Cookson scored forty four goals in the Third Division North.
Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary - the future Queen Elizabeth II - born in Mayfair.
Ivan Beavis born in Liverpool.
Bolton Wanderers beat Manchester City one-nil in the FA Cup final.
David Robert Coleman born in Alderley Edge.
Nelle Harper Lee born in Monroeville, Alabama.
As called for by the Trades Union Congress, an estimated 1.7 million people began a general strike in support of locked out miners, at one minute to midnight.
As the General Strike began, the BBC broadcast five news bulletins per day - instead of the usual three - as no newspapers were being published.
Stanley Baldwin addressed the British public about the ongoing general strike in an evening radio broadcast; such a broadcast in a time of emergency was the first of its kind in the country. David Frederick Attenborough born in Isleworth.
The Flying Scotsman, travelling between Edinburgh and King's Cross, was derailed in Northumberland by a group of striking miners who pulled up the tracks. This caused the Government to use increasingly hostile rhetoric against the strikers, using such terms as 'anarchists' and 'lunatics'. Norma Lilian Simpson born in Soutgate.
The TUC called off the general strike.
The Tenth Annual Meeting Of The National Savings Association relayed from the Albert Hall featured speakers including The Prince Of Wales and Winston Churchill. John Eric Bartholomew born in Morecambe. André Gaston Maillol born in Toulouse.
Walter Tenniel Evans born in Nairobi, Kenya. Timothy James Artro-Morris born in Liverpol.
Stanley Livingstone Baxter born in Glasgow. England beat Belgium five-three in a friendly international in Antwerp. Frank Osborne scored a hat-trick with further goals from debutants Joe Carter of West Brom and Tommy Johnson of Manchester City. They were two of six players winning their first caps in a make-shift England side, the others being Carter's club colleague George Ashmore, Millwall's Dick Hill, Manchester City's Sam Cowan and Manchester United' Joe Spence. The national strike had caused the postponement of the originally-planned gaet for the match, 8 May. The National Association of Head Teachers proposed that the school leaving age should be raised from fourteen to sixteen years, but it would be another twenty one years before it was raised to fifteen years and then it was finally raised to sixteen in 1972.
Peter George Derek Ling born in Croydon. Margaret Ann Barton born in Finsbury Park.
Caterina Irene Elena Maria Imperiali Dei Principi Di Francavilla born in Florence.
India, New Zealand and West Indies were elected as full members of the Imperial Cricket Conference, increasing the number of nations playing test cricket from three to six.
Norma Jean Mortenson born in Los Angeles. Aubrey Steinberg born in Portsmouth.
Milo Donal O'Shea born in Dublin.
The best-selling book The Diary Of A Young Lady Of Fashion In The Year 1764–1765 by Cleone Knox, supposedly an Eighteenth-Century diary unearthed and published for the first time in 1925, was exposed as a hoax. Magdalen King-Hall, the daughter of Admiral Sir George Fowler King-Hall, was revealed to be the real author.' I wrote the book in a few weeks, but if I had realised so many distinguished people would have taken it seriously, I should have spent much more time and pains on it,' King-Hall stated. Irwin Allen Ginsberg born in Newark, New Jersey. June Georgina Ellis born in Dover.
Philip Levene born in London.
Lionel Charles Jeffries born in Forest Hill.
Patrick Carl Cheeseman born in Cleethorpes.
The first Ashes test at Trent Bridge was drawn. Only seventeen overs play was possible across the three rained-sodden days. Fred Root made his test debut.
Freddie Spruell became the first Delta blues musician to be recorded when he cut 'Milk Cow Blues' in Chicago.
Reginald Cecil Robinson born in Derby.
The radio debut of Charlie Clapham and Billy Dwyer ('patter comedians') on 2LO London's Stars Of Variety.
The second Ashes test at Lord's was drawn. Warren Bardsley and Charlie Macartney and Jack Hobbs and Patsy Hendren scored centuries for the visitors and the hosts respectively. Harold Larwood made his test debut.
Alan Cobham took off from the River Medway to begin a round-trip survey flight from England to Australia in his de Haviland seaplane.
Willoughby Wittenham Rees Goddard born in Bicester, Oxfordshire.
Fighting broke out in the House of Lords as it passed the Eight Hours Act, which permitted an extra hour of work per day in coal mines.
The Rudolph Valentino film The Son Of The Sheik premiered in Los Angeles.
The archaeologist, writer and administrator Gertrude Bell - known as 'the Uncrowned Queen of Iraq' - died in Baghdad of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills.
The third Ashes test at Headingley was drawn. Bill Woodfull, Arthur Richardson and Charlie Macartney all scored centuries in Australia's first innings but, although England were forced to follow-on despite George Macauley's defiant seventy six (in a ninth wicket partnership over one hundred and two with George Geary) England ultimately saved the game. Herbert Sutcliffe scored ninety four in the second innings.
Audrey Gwendolene Clark born in London.
An anonymous editorial titled Pink Powder Puffs was published in the Chicago Daily Tribune which blamed the actor Rudolph Valentino for 'the installation of a face-powder dispenser in a new men's public washroom' and implied that he was also responsible for 'the feminisation of American men.' Valentino responded the following day with an essay of his own published in the Tribune's rival the Chicago Herald-Examiner, challenging the writer to come forward and face Valentino in a boxing or wrestling match. The author, needless to say, did not come forward. Richard Edward Pasco born in Barnes.
Diane Lavinia Hart born in Bedford.
William Desmond Anthony Pertwee born in Amersham.
John Theobald Clarke born in Stretford.
Edna Winifred Mitchell born in Ipswich.
Harold Kasket born in London.
The fourth Ashes test at Old Trafford. Only ten balls were possible on the first day making a result virtually impossible. The match highlight was a century for Australia's Bill Woodfull.
Hannah Hauxwell born in Baldersdale.
Rona Anderson born in Edinburgh.
Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel. Francis Finlay born in Farnworth, Lancashire. George Harrison Marks born in Tottenham. Patrick Connor born in Margate.
The first British Grand Prix was held at Brooklands near Weybridge. The French drivers Robert Sénéchal and Louis Wagner beat Malcolm Campbell in his Bugatti.
Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders' recording of 'Black Bottom' released.
Alan George Heywood Melly born in Liverpool.
With Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe in outstanding form, England regained The Ashes, winning the final test at The Oval by two hundred and eighty nine runs. Australia had a narrow first innings lead of twenty two. Heavy rain fell overnight and the next day the pitch developed into a sticky wicket. England seemed certain to be bowled out cheaply and to lose the match. In spite of the difficult batting conditions, however, Hobbs and Sutcliffe took their partnership to one hundred and seventy two. Harold Larwood and Wilfred Rhodes (recalled to the test side for the first time since 1921 at the age of forty eight) bowled out Australia for one hundred and twenty five. Carmel Evelyn McSharry born in Dublin.
Lancashire won the cricket county championship for the third time (the most recent being in 1904). Their ten wicket victory over Nottinghamshire at Old Trafford prevented Yorkshire from taking the title for the fifth season in a row. Kent finished third. Lancashire's star performers were Harry Makepeace, Charlie Hallows and Ernest Tyldesley with the bat and Ted McDonald with the ball. Tyldesley was the season's leading run-maker with two thousand three hundred and sixty five runs/. For the second year running Jack Hobbs topped the batting averages and Wilfred Rhodes the bowling average. From the third season, Gloucester's Charlie Parker was the leading championship wicket-taker with one hundred and ninety eight.
The Northern Line extension opened on the London Underground; the seventeen miles from Morden to East Finchley tube station made it the world's longest rail tunnel.
Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers recorded 'Black Bottom Stomp' in Chicago. The Rudyard Kipling collection Debits & Credits was published. One poem, The Vineyard, drew controversy as it was interpreted by many as a criticism of the United States' late entry into World War I. One stanza read: 'At the eleventh hour he came/But his wages were the same/As ours who all day long had trod/The winepress of the wrath of God.'
Reginald Albert Saltmarsh born in London.
Buster Keaton's Battling Butler premiered.
Thomas Edison declared radio a commercial failure, saying: 'There isn't ten percent of the interest in radio that there was last year. It's a highly complicated machine in the hands of people who know nothing about it. No dealers have made any money out of it. It isn't a commercial machine, because it is complicated ... The phonograph is coming back into its own, because the people want good music.'
Foreign Affairs Secretary Austen Chamberlain met Benito Mussolini at the Tuscan port of Livorno. It was reported that the discussions were 'cordial' and topics included the possibility of restoring the monarchy in Greece, Franco-German economic relations and the administration of Tangier.
AP Herbert's An Imaginary After-Dinner Speech broadcast on 2LO London.
Alan Cobham landed his de Haviland on the River Thames to complete a twenty eight thousand-mile flight from England to Australia and back.
The first recordings by Blind Blake - 'Early Morning Blues' and 'West Coast Blues' - released on Paramount Records.
James Allen born Miles Platting, Manchester.
Jean Margaret Hodgkinson born in Liverpool.
Comments from Labour MP Alfred Salter were published in the Daily Express in which he claimed that drunkenness was 'a frequent sight' in the House of Commons.
Herbert Asquith resigned as leader of the Liberal Party. He was replaced by David Lloyd George. Winnie-The-Pooh by AA Milne published.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry born in St Louis. Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski born in Danzig.
England and Ireland drew three-all in the Home International championships at Anfield. Joe Spence, Norman Bullock and debutant Huddersfield's George Brown were on-target for the hosts. Billy Gillespie, Reading's Hugh Davey and Everton's Bobby Irvine replied for the visitors. It was Gillespie's thirteenth goal in twenty one internationals. Albert mcInroy of Sunderland made his England debut. The bodies of three members of a family were found at a small country mansion in the Yorkshire Dales near Aysgarth. The inquest, held on the following day, determined that Colonel Edmund Wray formerly of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who had suffered a nervous breakdown during the war, had shot his wife and twenty one-year-old son and then tried to burn down the house before turning the gun on himself whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed.
Leonard Rossiter born in Liverpool.
In a dressing room of the Princess Theatre in Montreal, the illusionist Harry Houdini was forcefully punched several times in the stomach by a McGill University student (accounts differ as to whether Houdini explicitly granted his permission or not). Houdini suffered from severe stomach pains as a result, though it is not clear whether this incident was the cause of his death from appendicitis nine days later as legend would have it. The novel The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway was published.
Bing Crosby cut his first single, a recording of 'I've Got The Girl'.
Hugh Leonard born in Dublin.
George Spenton-Foster born in London.
Miners' leaders and the government reached an agreement on the ending of the seventh months coal miners' dispute.
A short story appeared in the New Zealand newspaper the Christchurch Sun about a nanny's day out, titled Mary Poppins & The Match Man. The author, PL Travers, would later write a series of books about the character which was subsequently adapted into a musical film by Walt Disney in 1964. The former German Crown Prince Wilhelm and his son were attacked by an angry mob at the Friedrichstraße in Berlin when they got out of a car flying the Hohenzollern flag.
Jacqueline Mary Lacey born in Dublin.
It was revealed that the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw had refused the seven thousand pounds in prize money awarded to him a year previously for his Nobel Prize in Literature and the Swedish Academy had been begging him to take it ever since. Shaw declared: 'I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize!'
The probable radio debut of Will Hay in The Schoolmaster Comedian, broadcast on 6BM Bournemouth.
Bernard Kops born in London.
Victoria Spivey & Her Chicago Four released 'It's Evil Hearted Me'/'Santa Fe Blues' for Okeh Records. Keith Joseph Michell birn in Adelaide, South Australia.
Mystery writer Agatha Christie disappeared from her home in Shere. Her car was found abandoned several miles away, but there were no signs of foul play.
Melville W Brown's Her Big Night - starring Laura La Plante - premiered.
Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller both made their recording debuts as members of Ben Pollack's Orchestra, when they recorded the jazz-dance numbers 'When I First Met Mary' and 'Deed I Do' for the Victor label. Genine Graham born in London.
Henry James Fowler born in Lambeth.
Agatha Christie, missing for eleven days, was found at a spa in Harrogate. Her husband Archie issued a statement claiming she had been suffering from amnesia. Alan Rowe born in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Margaret John born in Swansea.
Oswald Mosley of the Labour Party won the Smethwick by-election.
A Pickwick Party: A Dickens Dream Phantasy broadcast.
My Adventures In Norfolk by AJ Alan broadcast.
An adaptation of Thackeray's The Rose & The Ring broadcast.
A Christmas Carol read by Robert Loraine broadcast.
The first episode of Clapham & Dwyer In A Spot Of Bother broadcast.
The Sea Rose & The Girl From China broadcast.
Reaching Out - 'an experimental transmission which is wrapt [sic] in mystery' - and Symphony Concert broadcast.
Thirty-Third Annual Banquet To Little Londoners & Distribution Of Hampers To Crippled Children broadcast from The Guildhall.
A Dream Fantasy Of 1926 broadcast. Buster Keaton's The General - premiered.
GA Atkinson's Seen On The Screen, John Hastings Turber's Good Resolutions and Bluebell In Fairy-Land by Seymour Hicks and Wesley Slaughter from The Chelsea Police, broadcast. Zena Moyra Marshall born in Nairobi, Kenya. Chrissie Henryetta Edwards born in Chertsey, Surrey.
Radio Radiance Revue broadcast.
Bach's A Christmas Oratorio broadcast.
The first Widow's Pensions were paid at post offices.
Warren Misell born in London.
2LO London broadcast a twelve-minute report about an alleged 'murderous riot' in Central London, which turned out to be an elaborate spoof, masterminded by a Catholic priest and author of detective stories. Father Ronald Knox interrupted an apparently genuine BBC talk on Eighteenth Century literature with a report that Big Ben had been toppled by mortars, the Savoy Hotel burned to the ground and a Government Minister lynched in the streets by a mob running amok.
If only wishing made it so. Many listeners took Knox's satire seriously, besieging the BBC switchboard with worried calls. By coincidence, bad weather delayed delivery of the next day's papers, giving some rural listeners prolonged reason to assume that the capital really was in flames. Several announcements were made during the evening stating that the programme - Broadcasting The Barricades - had been 'a burlesque'. Questions were subsequently - and not for the last time - asked in the House of Commons. As though politicians didn't have anything more important to talk about. Moira Shearer King born in Dunfirmline.
The first episode of Empire Phono-Flight - 'presenting phases in the lives of the Men of Empire' - broadcast on 5SC Glasgow.
Surgeon Sir Berkeley Moynihan claimed publicly that cancer of the tongue was partly caused by smoking. Dennis Wilfred Davies born in Dowlais, Glamorgan.
John Logie Baird demonstrated a mechanical television system for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times at his London laboratory.
Elizabeth Mary Helen Henson born in Pachmarhi, India.
Barry Langford born in London.
Hazel Court born in Sutton Coldfield.
The first Radio Times listing for The Shipping Forecast on the 5XX Daventry, although The Met Office had been issuing regional versions for broadcast since 1 January 1924. 'Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay, Lundy, Fastnet, Rockall.' Et cetera.
Kenneth Charles Williams born in Islington.
Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five recorded 'Heebie Jeebies', the song that was the first to popularise the technique of scat singing. Keith Wilfred Smith born in Liverpool.
Major Henry Segrave reached one hundred and fifty four miles-per-hour in a Sunbeam Tiger racing car on Ainsdale Beach at Southport. It was a test run in preparation for his attempt on the world land-speed record. He was to break the record at one hundred and fifty two mph over a recorded mile, two weeks later at the same venue.
In a St David's Day to remember, Wales beat England three-one in the Home International championship at Selhurst Park. Swansea Town's jack Fowler scored twice and Cardiff's Willie Davies added a third for the visitors with Billy Walker supplying England's late consolation goal. Leeds United's Willis Edwards made his England debut. Norman Bullock received a gash to his head after five minutes from accidental blow with the finger-ring of a Welsh player, needed attention off the pitch and, when he returned, had a huge plaster on his head for the rest of the game. Future Mayor of Wolverhampton, Tom Phillipson was in the midst of a run of fourteen goals in ten matches as he netted the winner in Wolves one-nil victory over Darlington in the Second Division.
The first issue of science fiction magazine Amazing Stories published, with a cover date of April 1926.
Oscar Morris Quitak born in London.
Derek Benfield born in Bradford.
Jeanne Mary Mockford born in Lewisham. Hobart Henley's An Exchange Of Wives - starring Eleanor Boardman, Lew Cody and Renée Adorée - premiered.
Main-asteroid belt 2732 Witt was discovered in Heidelberg by astronomer Max Wolf.
The Zhongshan Warship Incident took place; a suspected kidnapping plot against Chiang Kai-shek was foiled.
Alan Brown born in Sunderland.
Raymond McAnally born in Buncrana, County Donegal,
John Scott Martin born in Toxteth.
Robert Colin Holmes born in Tring.
Andrew Buggy born in Shotts, Lanarkshire. Timothy Dingwall Bateson born in London.
Lyndon Brook born in Los Angeles.
Scotland defeated England one-nil in the Home International championship at Old Trafford. Alex Jackson scored the winner from Andy Cunningham's cross. For England, Huddersfield's Roy Goodall, Eddie Harper of Blackburn Rovers and West Ham United's Jimmy Ruffell made their debuts. Huddersfield remained top of the First Division by eight points, despite losing three-one at Arsenal. Despite being without Hughie Gallacher, Newcastle beat West Bromwich Albion three-nil. Gordon Charles Rollings born in Batley. Twenty thousand women marched through London in protest against industrial strike actions and lockouts which were, they suggested (correctly), doomed to failure. The Trades Union Congress took no notice of them and continued to organise a General Strike in support of the intended reduction of miners' wages and increased hours, in the following month.
Huddersfield Town won the First Division Championship for the third season in succession. Now managed by Cecil Potter, they finished five points clear of former-manager Herbert Chapman's Arsenal. Sunderland finished third and Bury fourth. Ted Harper of Blackburn Rovers was the league's leading scorer with forty three goals. Manchester City and Notts County were relegated, replaced in the First Division by The Wednesday and Derby County. Jack Cock of Plymouth Argyle was the Third Division South's leading scorer with thirty two. Chesterfield's Jimmy Cookson scored forty four goals in the Third Division North.
Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary - the future Queen Elizabeth II - born in Mayfair.
Ivan Beavis born in Liverpool.
Bolton Wanderers beat Manchester City one-nil in the FA Cup final.
David Robert Coleman born in Alderley Edge.
Nelle Harper Lee born in Monroeville, Alabama.
As called for by the Trades Union Congress, an estimated 1.7 million people began a general strike in support of locked out miners, at one minute to midnight.
As the General Strike began, the BBC broadcast five news bulletins per day - instead of the usual three - as no newspapers were being published.
Stanley Baldwin addressed the British public about the ongoing general strike in an evening radio broadcast; such a broadcast in a time of emergency was the first of its kind in the country. David Frederick Attenborough born in Isleworth.
The TUC called off the general strike.
The Tenth Annual Meeting Of The National Savings Association relayed from the Albert Hall featured speakers including The Prince Of Wales and Winston Churchill. John Eric Bartholomew born in Morecambe. André Gaston Maillol born in Toulouse.
Walter Tenniel Evans born in Nairobi, Kenya. Timothy James Artro-Morris born in Liverpol.
Stanley Livingstone Baxter born in Glasgow. England beat Belgium five-three in a friendly international in Antwerp. Frank Osborne scored a hat-trick with further goals from debutants Joe Carter of West Brom and Tommy Johnson of Manchester City. They were two of six players winning their first caps in a make-shift England side, the others being Carter's club colleague George Ashmore, Millwall's Dick Hill, Manchester City's Sam Cowan and Manchester United' Joe Spence. The national strike had caused the postponement of the originally-planned gaet for the match, 8 May. The National Association of Head Teachers proposed that the school leaving age should be raised from fourteen to sixteen years, but it would be another twenty one years before it was raised to fifteen years and then it was finally raised to sixteen in 1972.
Peter George Derek Ling born in Croydon. Margaret Ann Barton born in Finsbury Park.
Caterina Irene Elena Maria Imperiali Dei Principi Di Francavilla born in Florence.
India, New Zealand and West Indies were elected as full members of the Imperial Cricket Conference, increasing the number of nations playing test cricket from three to six.
Norma Jean Mortenson born in Los Angeles. Aubrey Steinberg born in Portsmouth.
Milo Donal O'Shea born in Dublin.
The best-selling book The Diary Of A Young Lady Of Fashion In The Year 1764–1765 by Cleone Knox, supposedly an Eighteenth-Century diary unearthed and published for the first time in 1925, was exposed as a hoax. Magdalen King-Hall, the daughter of Admiral Sir George Fowler King-Hall, was revealed to be the real author.' I wrote the book in a few weeks, but if I had realised so many distinguished people would have taken it seriously, I should have spent much more time and pains on it,' King-Hall stated. Irwin Allen Ginsberg born in Newark, New Jersey. June Georgina Ellis born in Dover.
Philip Levene born in London.
Lionel Charles Jeffries born in Forest Hill.
Patrick Carl Cheeseman born in Cleethorpes.
The first Ashes test at Trent Bridge was drawn. Only seventeen overs play was possible across the three rained-sodden days. Fred Root made his test debut.
Freddie Spruell became the first Delta blues musician to be recorded when he cut 'Milk Cow Blues' in Chicago.
Reginald Cecil Robinson born in Derby.
The radio debut of Charlie Clapham and Billy Dwyer ('patter comedians') on 2LO London's Stars Of Variety.
Alan Cobham took off from the River Medway to begin a round-trip survey flight from England to Australia in his de Haviland seaplane.
Willoughby Wittenham Rees Goddard born in Bicester, Oxfordshire.
Fighting broke out in the House of Lords as it passed the Eight Hours Act, which permitted an extra hour of work per day in coal mines.
The Rudolph Valentino film The Son Of The Sheik premiered in Los Angeles.
The archaeologist, writer and administrator Gertrude Bell - known as 'the Uncrowned Queen of Iraq' - died in Baghdad of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills.
The third Ashes test at Headingley was drawn. Bill Woodfull, Arthur Richardson and Charlie Macartney all scored centuries in Australia's first innings but, although England were forced to follow-on despite George Macauley's defiant seventy six (in a ninth wicket partnership over one hundred and two with George Geary) England ultimately saved the game. Herbert Sutcliffe scored ninety four in the second innings.
Audrey Gwendolene Clark born in London.
An anonymous editorial titled Pink Powder Puffs was published in the Chicago Daily Tribune which blamed the actor Rudolph Valentino for 'the installation of a face-powder dispenser in a new men's public washroom' and implied that he was also responsible for 'the feminisation of American men.' Valentino responded the following day with an essay of his own published in the Tribune's rival the Chicago Herald-Examiner, challenging the writer to come forward and face Valentino in a boxing or wrestling match. The author, needless to say, did not come forward. Richard Edward Pasco born in Barnes.
Diane Lavinia Hart born in Bedford.
William Desmond Anthony Pertwee born in Amersham.
John Theobald Clarke born in Stretford.
Edna Winifred Mitchell born in Ipswich.
Harold Kasket born in London.
The fourth Ashes test at Old Trafford. Only ten balls were possible on the first day making a result virtually impossible. The match highlight was a century for Australia's Bill Woodfull.
Hannah Hauxwell born in Baldersdale.
Rona Anderson born in Edinburgh.
Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel. Francis Finlay born in Farnworth, Lancashire. George Harrison Marks born in Tottenham. Patrick Connor born in Margate.
The first British Grand Prix was held at Brooklands near Weybridge. The French drivers Robert Sénéchal and Louis Wagner beat Malcolm Campbell in his Bugatti.
Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders' recording of 'Black Bottom' released.
Alan George Heywood Melly born in Liverpool.
Lancashire won the cricket county championship for the third time (the most recent being in 1904). Their ten wicket victory over Nottinghamshire at Old Trafford prevented Yorkshire from taking the title for the fifth season in a row. Kent finished third. Lancashire's star performers were Harry Makepeace, Charlie Hallows and Ernest Tyldesley with the bat and Ted McDonald with the ball. Tyldesley was the season's leading run-maker with two thousand three hundred and sixty five runs/. For the second year running Jack Hobbs topped the batting averages and Wilfred Rhodes the bowling average. From the third season, Gloucester's Charlie Parker was the leading championship wicket-taker with one hundred and ninety eight.
The Northern Line extension opened on the London Underground; the seventeen miles from Morden to East Finchley tube station made it the world's longest rail tunnel.
Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers recorded 'Black Bottom Stomp' in Chicago. The Rudyard Kipling collection Debits & Credits was published. One poem, The Vineyard, drew controversy as it was interpreted by many as a criticism of the United States' late entry into World War I. One stanza read: 'At the eleventh hour he came/But his wages were the same/As ours who all day long had trod/The winepress of the wrath of God.'
Reginald Albert Saltmarsh born in London.
Buster Keaton's Battling Butler premiered.
Thomas Edison declared radio a commercial failure, saying: 'There isn't ten percent of the interest in radio that there was last year. It's a highly complicated machine in the hands of people who know nothing about it. No dealers have made any money out of it. It isn't a commercial machine, because it is complicated ... The phonograph is coming back into its own, because the people want good music.'
Foreign Affairs Secretary Austen Chamberlain met Benito Mussolini at the Tuscan port of Livorno. It was reported that the discussions were 'cordial' and topics included the possibility of restoring the monarchy in Greece, Franco-German economic relations and the administration of Tangier.
AP Herbert's An Imaginary After-Dinner Speech broadcast on 2LO London.
Alan Cobham landed his de Haviland on the River Thames to complete a twenty eight thousand-mile flight from England to Australia and back.
The first recordings by Blind Blake - 'Early Morning Blues' and 'West Coast Blues' - released on Paramount Records.
James Allen born Miles Platting, Manchester.
Jean Margaret Hodgkinson born in Liverpool.
Comments from Labour MP Alfred Salter were published in the Daily Express in which he claimed that drunkenness was 'a frequent sight' in the House of Commons.
Herbert Asquith resigned as leader of the Liberal Party. He was replaced by David Lloyd George. Winnie-The-Pooh by AA Milne published.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry born in St Louis. Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski born in Danzig.
England and Ireland drew three-all in the Home International championships at Anfield. Joe Spence, Norman Bullock and debutant Huddersfield's George Brown were on-target for the hosts. Billy Gillespie, Reading's Hugh Davey and Everton's Bobby Irvine replied for the visitors. It was Gillespie's thirteenth goal in twenty one internationals. Albert mcInroy of Sunderland made his England debut. The bodies of three members of a family were found at a small country mansion in the Yorkshire Dales near Aysgarth. The inquest, held on the following day, determined that Colonel Edmund Wray formerly of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who had suffered a nervous breakdown during the war, had shot his wife and twenty one-year-old son and then tried to burn down the house before turning the gun on himself whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed.
Leonard Rossiter born in Liverpool.
In a dressing room of the Princess Theatre in Montreal, the illusionist Harry Houdini was forcefully punched several times in the stomach by a McGill University student (accounts differ as to whether Houdini explicitly granted his permission or not). Houdini suffered from severe stomach pains as a result, though it is not clear whether this incident was the cause of his death from appendicitis nine days later as legend would have it. The novel The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway was published.
Bing Crosby cut his first single, a recording of 'I've Got The Girl'.
Hugh Leonard born in Dublin.
George Spenton-Foster born in London.
Miners' leaders and the government reached an agreement on the ending of the seventh months coal miners' dispute.
A short story appeared in the New Zealand newspaper the Christchurch Sun about a nanny's day out, titled Mary Poppins & The Match Man. The author, PL Travers, would later write a series of books about the character which was subsequently adapted into a musical film by Walt Disney in 1964. The former German Crown Prince Wilhelm and his son were attacked by an angry mob at the Friedrichstraße in Berlin when they got out of a car flying the Hohenzollern flag. Jacqueline Mary Lacey born in Dublin.
It was revealed that the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw had refused the seven thousand pounds in prize money awarded to him a year previously for his Nobel Prize in Literature and the Swedish Academy had been begging him to take it ever since. Shaw declared: 'I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize!'
The probable radio debut of Will Hay in The Schoolmaster Comedian, broadcast on 6BM Bournemouth.
Bernard Kops born in London.
Victoria Spivey & Her Chicago Four released 'It's Evil Hearted Me'/'Santa Fe Blues' for Okeh Records. Keith Joseph Michell birn in Adelaide, South Australia.
Mystery writer Agatha Christie disappeared from her home in Shere. Her car was found abandoned several miles away, but there were no signs of foul play.
Melville W Brown's Her Big Night - starring Laura La Plante - premiered.
Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller both made their recording debuts as members of Ben Pollack's Orchestra, when they recorded the jazz-dance numbers 'When I First Met Mary' and 'Deed I Do' for the Victor label. Genine Graham born in London.
Henry James Fowler born in Lambeth.
Agatha Christie, missing for eleven days, was found at a spa in Harrogate. Her husband Archie issued a statement claiming she had been suffering from amnesia. Alan Rowe born in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Margaret John born in Swansea.
A Pickwick Party: A Dickens Dream Phantasy broadcast.
My Adventures In Norfolk by AJ Alan broadcast.
An adaptation of Thackeray's The Rose & The Ring broadcast.
A Christmas Carol read by Robert Loraine broadcast.
The first episode of Clapham & Dwyer In A Spot Of Bother broadcast.
The Sea Rose & The Girl From China broadcast.
Reaching Out - 'an experimental transmission which is wrapt [sic] in mystery' - and Symphony Concert broadcast.
Thirty-Third Annual Banquet To Little Londoners & Distribution Of Hampers To Crippled Children broadcast from The Guildhall.
A Dream Fantasy Of 1926 broadcast. Buster Keaton's The General - premiered.
