1929 Fun Facts, Trivia and History

Quick Facts from 1929:

• World Changing Event: The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, or the Stock Market Crash of 1929, began on October 24 and peaked on October 29, 1929.
• Influential Songs include: Pop Standards Singin in the Rain and When You’re Smiling
• The Movies to Watch include The Cocoanuts, Pandora’s Box, Blackmail, Hallelujah and The Hollywood Revue of 1929
• The Most Famous Person in America was probably Al Jolson
• From 1928-1933, at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the giant balloons were released into the air. In 1929, they were postmarked with a return address, and you won a prize if you found one and sent it back.
• Notable books include: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
• Price of  Jell-O in 1929: 20 cents/3 packs
• The Funny Duo were: George Burns and Gracie Allen
• The Galactic Observation: Astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble proposed theory of the expanding universe.

Unlike today’s sprawling ceremonies, the initial event was a 15-minute affair attended by fewer than 300 guests. The term “Oscar” hadn’t even been coined yet, and the awards were officially known as “Academy Awards of Merit.” Interestingly, the awards had more nuanced categories in their early days; for example, there were two types of Best Picture awards—Outstanding Picture and Unique and Artistic Production. While Wings swooped the Outstanding Picture, Sunrise captured the Unique and Artistic category. So, the Academy Awards, initially a small, private affair, have evolved into a global spectacle, continuing to captivate audiences nearly a century later.

Firsts, Inventions, and Wonders:
When first created in 1929, 7-Up (7 ounces of “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda”.) contained the mood-enhancing drug lithium citrate and did so until it was removed from the formula in 1950.

Mickey Mouse was the first-ever cartoon character to speak. In The Karnival Kid, Mickey’s first words were “Hot dogs!”

Times New Roman is a modified version of Times Roman, a font created in 1929 for the British newspaper The Times. It was designed by Monotype to be used by rivals at Linotype on their typesetting machines.

Popeye first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre, on January 17, 1929.

Pine-Sol cleaner was invented.

On November 9, in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened to the public.

Tarzan and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D. comic strips debuted.

Vatican City was founded in 1929.

Alfred Hitchcock made the first recorded “That’s what she said” (as the girl said to the soldier) joke during filming his movie, Blackmail.

Scandalous News:
On March 31, at New York City’s Easter Parade, a small group of young women who proudly smoked cigarettes as they marched. Since smoking was considered a male-dominated activity at the time, these cigarettes were marketed as “Torches of Freedom” to help break the taboo and convince women to buy them. Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, who was nicknamed “the father of public relations” created the #marketingploy

Women were not legally considered ‘Persons’ in Canada until 1929.

The US supreme court voted 8 -1 in favor of a Eugenics program requiring forced sterilization of citizens deemed not intelligent enough to reproduce.

Pop Culture News:
John F Kennedy’s father, Joe Kennedy sold his entire stock portfolio before the 1929 crash because “a shoeshine boy gave him some stock tips. And He figured that when the shoeshine boys have tips, the market is too popular for its own good.”

From 1928-1933, at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the giant balloons were released into the air. In 1929, they were postmarked with a return address, and you won a prize if you found one and sent it back.

THE SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE – Al Capone’s men allegedly killed 7 other alleged gangsters in an alleged shooting on February 14th. This would have given Mr. Capone control of Chicago’s mob underworld, if such a thing, in fact, actually existed.

The United States Congress established the Grand Teton National Park.

Vladimir Zworykin invented the cathode-ray tube called the kinescope, which is the basis for 20th-century television screens.

The Zildjian musical instrument company, which started in 1623 in Turkey and moved to the US in 1929, is widely recognized as the oldest family-owned business in America.

An estimated 50% of all American films made before 1950 and over 90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever.

The practice of identifying baseball players by number was started by the Yankees in 1929.  (originally corresponding to a player’s position in the batting order).

Music and the Spoken Word is the longest-running continuous network program in the world. It debuted in 1929 and has made over 4,400 weekly broadcasts.

When the Levee Breaks is a country blues song written and first recorded by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929, inspired by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Led Zeppelin covered it on their Led Zeppelin IV album.

‘Zombie’ was introduced to the western world in the book, The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook in 1929.

Rumor has it that Louis B. Mayer pretty much “fixed” the first Academy Awards presentation.

The first public demonstration of color TV was held at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. The first images were a bouquet of roses and an American flag.

Coco the Clown debuted at Bertram Mills Circus in Manchester, England.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues) by Erich Maria Remarque, was published in book form.

The term “Blue Chip” refers to high-value poker chips at the turn of the 20th century. It was first applied to stocks in 1929, shortly before the great stock market crash.

The Countdown we use today was first seen in Fritz Lang’s Woman on the Moon.

Strange, But True:
General Motors and Chevrolet were founded by the same man, William Durant, who later lost all his money in the stock market crash in 1929 and died nearly bankrupt while managing a bowling alley.

Roger Babson correctly predicted the Wall Street Crash of 1929 using the unorthodox notion that gravity and Sir Isaac Newton’s law of action and reaction can be used to explain movement in the stock markets.

Princeton researchers successfully turned a live cat into a functioning telephone.