1920: What happened 100 years ago? Famous firsts, inventions, births, more

1920: What happened 100 years ago? Famous firsts, inventions, births, more

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Here's our seventh annual installment looking back 100 years. It's a view of 1920, from famous firsts, births, deaths, inventions, milestones and more.

COMING UP: Thursday, Jan. 2: 1920 in sports.

Associated Press

Life in the United States

• Women receive the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th amendment.

• Population is 106,021,537. (To compare: In 2010, it was 308,746,065.)

• Unemployment stands at 5.2%.

• The population's center is in Owen County, Indiana. (To compare: In 2010, it was in Texas County, Missouri.)

• The most popular boy's name of the decade is Robert; for girls, it is Mary.

• A first-class stamp costs 2 cents. (To compare: Today it is 55 cents.)

• A horse-drawn wagon bombing rocks Wall Street, killing more than three dozen people and wounding several hundred in New York's Financial District. It remains unsolved.

• 26 units - that is, national parks, monument, preserves, etc. - report 1,022,091 visitors.

• What became known as the Palm Sunday tornadoes sweeps through the Midwest and Southeast, killing more than 150 people.

• The Norbeck Wildlife Preserve in the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota is created.

John Raoux, Associated Press

Inventions / famous firsts

• Band-Aids hit the scene.

• Baby Ruth candy bars are out, named after Ruth Cleveland, daughter of President Grover Cleveland.

• Chicago attorney Sebastian Hinton applies for a patent for the jungle gym.

• Eddie Bauer's Sport Shop opens in Seattle.

• John Taliaferro Thompson patents the Tommy Gun. Its intended use was trench warfare. But it comes after World War I ended, and instead mobsters take to it in the streets of America.

•  German chemists Carl Mannich and Helene Lowenheim synthesize the pain reliever hydrocodone.

• The first transcontinental airmail route - New York City to San Francisco - is set, saving time compared to all-rail routes.

Stephen Chernin, Associated Press

Ohio and 1920

• Population in Cleveland is 796,841. (To compare: We're less than half that now, at 383,793 according to 2018 statistics.)

• Born in 1920: Actress LaWanda Page, who was born in Cleveland and who played Aunt Esther in "Sanford and Son," and accused war criminal John Demjanjuk, who lived in Seven Hills and who is buried in Parma.

• Cleveland Museum of Natural History is founded.

• The Good Humor Co. is started in Youngstown.

• Rubbermaid is founded in Wooster.

Associated Press

On the air

• WWJ goes on the air and "is believed to be the first station to broadcast news reports regularly as well as the first regularly scheduled religious broadcast and play-by-play sports broadcast."

• KDKA is credited with the first commercial broadcast on Nov. 2 - Election Day.

Associated Press

Space

Robert Goddard publishes "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes," what is deemed "a dry 79-page Smithsonian pamphlet." But Goddard's idea to explode flash powder on the moon's night side with a rocket takes off, and the rocket age is born. (Goddard is shown in 1938.)

Associated Press

Literature

Women become a key focus in the year's writing. Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence" comes out and is serialized; a year later, she would become the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street," about a woman struggling with small-town life and mentalities, is published. And D.H. Lawrence releases "Women in Love." (Shown: Lewis and his wife, political newspaper columnist Dorothy Thompson.)

Associated Press

Theater

Eugene O'Neill's "Beyond the Horizon," a play about two brothers' affection for the same woman, wins the Pulitzer Prize for drama. O'Neill is shown in 1927.

Associated Press

High-profile court case

The famed Sacco-Vanzetti case emerges. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are accused of killing two men in a robbery. They would be tried, convicted and executed and - more than 50 years later - exonerated. The case drew a lot of media attention as multiple protests were staged on their behalf in several countries and the American legal system fell under scrutiny. (Vanzetti is in the foreground, second from left, and Sacco is second on the right.)

Associated Press

American politics

• Two Ohioans battle it out for the U.S. presidency. Warren G. Harding (shown), a Republican U.S. Senator, defeats Ohio Gov. James M. Cox, a Democrat, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs. It is the first presidential election with women voting.

• John B. Payne serves as secretary of interior under Woodrow Wilson. He fought against commercialization of national parks and later became head of the American Red Cross.

• Edwin T. Meredith serves as secretary of agriculture. He also founded Meredith Corp., a media conglomerate that encompasses print, online and broadcast companies today.

Hans Pennink, Associated Press

Higher education

The following colleges are founded:

• College of St. Rose, Albany, New York. Famous alum: Jimmy Fallon. (Fallon eventually was granted an honorary doctor of humane letters in 2009.)

• Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, Indiana. Famous alum: University of Akron soccer coach Jared Embick.

• Mount St. Joseph University, Cincinnati. Famous alum: Basketball player Lauren Hill.

• Sul Ross State, Alpine, Texas. Famous alum: Dan Blocker (Hoss Cartwright, "Bonanza").

• University of New Haven, West Haven, Connecticut. Famous alum: Football coach Tony Sparano.

• University of St. Francis, Joliet, Illinois, Famous alum: MMA fighter Mike "The Juggernaut" Wessell.

Charles Kelly, Associated Press

Organizations founded in 1920

American Association of Community Colleges

American Civil Liberties Union

Federal Bar Association

League of Women Voters

National Health Council

Associated Press

1920 births

• Actors Walter Matthau, Tony Randall ("The Odd Couple"), Mickey Rooney

• "Star Trek" actors DeForest Kelley and James Doohan

• Scientist Isaac Asimov

• Writers Ray Bradbury, Mario Puzo ("The Godfather")

• Famed cancer patient Henrietta Lacks

• Musician Charlie Parker

• Actress Shelley Winters

• Newsman David Brinkley

• Newswoman Helen Thomas

• Violinist Isaac Stern

• Psychologist Timothy Leary

• Jazz musician Dave Brubeck

• Christopher Robin Milne, basis for Christopher Robin in his father A.A. Milne's book, "Winnie the Pooh."

• Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, who died in 2019 at age 99. He attended the famed 1932 "Called Shot" World Series game when Babe Ruth reportedly predicted a home run.

• Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz

• Doctor Henry Heimlich, of the famed method to save someone who is choking

• Politician and women's-rights advocate Bella Abzug

• Opera singer Eileen Farrell

Associated Press

Honors

• August Krogh wins the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine. As the Nobel Prize site describes his work: "One of the circulatory system's most important functions is carrying oxygen to muscles. August Krogh developed methods for precisely measuring blood oxygen levels and explained how oxygen supply to muscles is regulated based on workload. Previously, it was thought that it was the blood's rate of flow that increased during exertion. … Krogh showed that it was rather oxygen flow that was regulated by the opening of smaller blood vessels, capillaries. When resting, relatively few capillaries are open."

• Writer, editor and civil-rights activist W.E.B. Dubois wins the NAACP's Springarn Medal, which has been awarded annually since 1915.

Rafael Yaghobzadeh, Associated Press

World affairs

• The Afrique, a French passenger ship, slams into a reef after its generators fail. Only 34 of 609 people aboard survived.

• Droughts hit China and Cape Verde Islands, killing more than half a million people.

• Paul Deschanel serves a brief stint as president of France. He was by accounts eccentric, having once fought a sword duel and also fell out of a train. He is the first of only two men to serve as head of France who were not born there. Valery Giscard d'Estaing is the other.

Sergey Ponomarev, Associated Press

Died in 1920

• Arctic explorer Robert Peary, who led an expedition to the North Pole in 1909.

• Russian jeweler Peter Carl Faberge, of the famed Faberge eggs.

Doug McSchooler, Associated Press

200 years ago: 1820

• British actress and theater owner Louisa Lane Drew - known as Mrs. John Drew - is born. She is an early ancestor of the famed Barrymore acting family.

• The galvanometer, an instrument to detect and measure electric current, is invented.

• Indiana University in Bloomington is founded.

Marc Bona, cleveland.com

Sources

Sources for this story include "The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2020," brown.edu, Chicago Tribune, edithwharton.org, encyclopedia.com, history.com, millercenter.org, Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, usps.com, cleveland.com research.

Associated Press

Previous 100-year lookbacks

1919 sports

1919

1918 sports

1918

1917 sports

1917

1916 sports

1916

1915

1914