Jazz Age

The **Jazz Age** is a period in history, part of modern times, beginning in 1918 following the Great War and ending in 1929 with the start of the Great Depression.

## Timeline

### 1919

Doctor Caligari, warden of an asylum, is charged with keeping a homicidal somnabulist named Cesare in his cabinet.

Wolf Frankenstein, son of Henry Frankenstein, returns to his ancestral castle and is persuaded by Ygor to revivify his father's Monster--Frankenstein, Germany

**March:** Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, retired British officer, finding peace tedious, takes up a new career as a private detective.

**March 2:** Founding Congress of the Comintern--Moscow

**June:** Dorothy Parker and company begin meeting for lunch as the Algonquin Round Table--New York City

**August 25:** The Shunned House in Providence, R.I., is exorcised.

**October 16:** Robert Ripley (1890-1949) of *The New York Globe* begins daring readers to believe it--or not!

Charles Fort publishes *The Book of the Damned*.

**December:** Charles Ponzi launches his scheme--Boston, Massachusetts.

### 1920

**January 3:** The Boston Red Sox trade Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, bringing on a World Series drought that lasts for 84 years.

**January 16:** First meeting of the League of Nations, established by the Treaty of Versailles--Paris

**January 17:** Beginning of Prohibition in the United States, which lasts until 1933.

**May 19:** The Matewan Massecre--Matewan, West Virginia

**June 5:** Man o' War wins the Belmont Stakes by 20 lengths.

**October 9:** The White Sox, led by Shoeless Joe Jackson (1889-1951), take a dive to lose the World Series--Chicago.

**November 2:** Warren G. Harding elected President of the United States.

### 1921

The Lurking Fear is exposed on Tempest Mountain--Catskills, N.Y.

British archaeologists unwittingly resurrect the mummy of High Priest Imhotep--Karnak, Egypt

Captain Elliott Spencer, a British veteran, purchases the puzzle box known as the Lament Configuration--India

**April 21:** The abominable Dr. Anton Phibes dies--or does he?

### 1922

**April:** The Teapot Dome Scandal tarnishes the Warren Harding administration.

**June 28:** The Irish Civil War begins.

**November 4:** The tomb of Tutankhamen is discovered and opened by Egyptologist Howard Carter; the discovers are afflicted by the Curse of the Pharaoh--Valley of the Kings, Egypt.

Death of Jay Gatsby

Pretty Boy Floyd (1904-1934) begins a life of crime when a sheriff's deputy is rude to his young wife.

The Maltese Falcon spotted by a Greek antique dealer.

**October 28:** Benito Mussolini takes power in Italy after his Fascists march on Rome.

### 1923

**July 16:** Exham Priory reinhabited by a member of the De La Poer family, which soon leads to tragedy--Exham, England.

**August 2:** Calvin Coolidge becomes President of the United States upon the death of Warren Harding.

**September 1:** The Nazi Party holds its first Nuremberg Rally.

**October 29:** Kemal Attaturk becomes the first President of Turkey.

### 1924

**January 7:** George Gershwin finishes composing "Rhapsody in Blue."

**May 10:** J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) is the first director of the FBI, a post that he holds until his death.

**July:** First modern sighting of Bigfoot in Washington State.

Industrialist Oliver Warbucks takes on a foster child named Annie. Annie appears to be about 10 years old, but is actually 40; she has a unique physical and psychological condition that causes her to age--physically and mentally--at one-fourth the normal rate. (She attributes this to being born on February 29, around 1884.)

### 1925

**January:** Al Capone becomes head of the Chicago Outfit.

**February 14:** Fred C. Dobbs and his partners begin the hunt for the treasure of the Sierra Madre--Tampico, Mexico.

**March 23:** A resurgence of activity among Cthulhu cultists coincides with tectonic disturbances in the South Pacific.

**July 18:** Adolf Hitler publishes *Mein Kampf*--Munich, Germany.

Clara Bow becomes the "It Girl".

Charlie Chan working as a police detective in Honolulu.

### 1926

**March:** Werner Heisenberg realizes that it’s impossible to observe something without affecting it

**September:** Detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of Roger Ackroyd--King's Abbott, England.

**October 31:** Escape artist Harry Houdini (b. 1874) dies after being punched in the stomach by a fan--Detroit.

Disappearance of macabre artist Richard Upton Pickman--Boston.

**November 11:** Route 66 opens, connecting Chicago and Los Angeles.

**December 25:** Hirohito (1901-1989) becomes Emperor of Japan.

**December 31:** Tom Marvolo Riddle is born.

### 1927

**March 24:** After coming up with a plan to save his picture *The Dueling Cavalier* after a disastrous premiere, actor Don Lockwood sings in the rain--Los Angeles.

**April 15:** Young occult scholar Charles Dexter Ward revivifies his ancestor Joseph Curwen--Providence, R.I.

**May 20-21:** Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) makes the first solo flight across the Atlantic, flying from Long Island, N.Y., to Paris in *The Spirit of St. Louis*.

Frank Hardy (b. 1911) and Joe Hardy (b. 1912) begin solving crimes in Bayport, N.Y.

**August 1:** Beginning of the Chinese Civil War--Nanchang, China.

**October 6:** *The Jazz Singer*, first talking picture, premieres--New York City.

**October:** Joseph Stalin becomes supreme leader of Soviet Union

### 1928

**February:** Innsmouth, Mass. raided by federal agents; Esoteric Order of Dagon driven underground.

**August:** Wilbur Whately (b. 1913) killed while breaking into the library at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Mass. The subsequent horror in Whately's hometown of Dunwich, Mass. is confronted by Miskatonic librarian Henry Armitage. At the same time, Miskatonic literature professor Albert Wilmarth flees a whisperer in darkness at the home of Henry Akeley near Townshend, Vermont.

**October 7:** Randolph Carter goes through the Gate of the Silver Key--Arkham, Massachusetts.

**November 6:** Herbert Hoover elected president

**December 5:** Private detective Miles Archer is killed, drawing his partner, Sam Spade, into the hunt for the Maltese Falcon--San Francisco.