May 1928

May 1, 1928 (Tuesday)

Non-stop Flying Scotsman service between Edinburgh and London began.

The defendants in the Sir Arthur Currie libel trial were found guilty and ordered to pay $500 in damages.

Al Smith received more votes than his two Democratic rivals combined in the California presidential primaries.

Born: Desmond Titterington, racing driver, in Cultra, Northern Ireland

May 2, 1928 (Wednesday)

The crew of the Bremen arrived in Washington, D.C. via train and were received at the White House where President Calvin Coolidge presented them with Distinguished Flying Crosses.

A monument to the Wright Brothers was unveiled in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

May 3, 1928 (Thursday)

The town of Carnation, Washington, USA changed its name back to Tolt. This stayed the official name until 1951, when the name was changed to Carnation again.

The Jinan Incident happened in China when Chinese and Japanese soldiers clashed in Jinan, resulting in the death of 12 Japanese. Both sides blamed each other for the shooting, but Japanese officer Hikosuke Fukuda vowed to punish the Chinese for the incident after stockpiling food and ammunition.

Born: Dave Dudley, country music singer, in Spencer, Wisconsin (d. 2003)

Died: Cai Gongshi, 47, Chinese emissary (killed by Japanese soldiers in the Jinan Incident); Edgar Fahs Smith, 73, American scientist

May 4, 1928 (Friday)

The League of Nations hosted a conference of scientists in Copenhagen trying to find a cure for syphilis.

Born: Maynard Ferguson, jazz musician and bandleader, in Verdun, Quebec (d. 2006); Hosni Mubarak, 4th President of Egypt, in Kafr-El Meselha, Egypt; Joseph Tydings, U.S. Senator, in Asheville, North Carolina

May 5, 1928 (Saturday)

Charles Francis Jenkins publicly demonstrated his new radio moving picture receiver in Washington, D.C. Government engineers, scientists and Federal Radio Commissioners sat in a darkened lab as well as in several homes with receiving sets. With the push of a button on the cabinet, silhouetted images of children at play were activated on the tiny screens.

Swinton Lions defeated Featherstone Rovers 11-0 in the Northern Rugby League's Championship Final.

May 6, 1928 (Sunday)

Red Star Olympique downed CA Paris 3-1 in the Coupe de France Final.

May 7, 1928 (Monday)

General Hikosuke Fukuda issued a harsh ultimatum with a twelve-hour deadline to the Chinese which they would be sure to refuse.

London's Daily Express published a shocking story detailing a plot by Prince Carol of Romania to overthrow the government and seize the throne held by his six-year-old son Michael. Carol, who was in England at the time with his mistress Magda Lupescu, was "requested" by British authorities to leave the country.

The Equal Franchise Bill, or "Flapper Vote Bill", passed its third reading in the British House of Commons.

Herbert Hoover won the Republican presidential primary in Maryland.

May 8, 1928 (Tuesday)

Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor.

Hikosuke Fukuda ordered the resumption of hostilities when his ultimatum expired.

James Eli Watson won the Republican presidential primary in Indiana.

Born: Gregory Scarpa, mobster, in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1994); Ted Sorensen, lawyer and speechwriter, in Lincoln, Nebraska (d. 2010)

Died: Clara Williams, 40, American actress

May 9, 1928 (Wednesday)

The British scientist Sir Arthur Keith said in a lecture at the University of Manchester that no evidence had been found to support the belief that a spirit survives after the brain ceases to function.

Born: Pancho Gonzales, tennis player, in Los Angeles (d. 1995); Barbara Ann Scott, figure skater, in Ottawa, Canada (d. 2012); Jean Smith, baseball player, in Ann Arbor, Michigan (d. 2011)

May 10, 1928 (Thursday)

W2XB, an experimental television station based in Albany, New York, went on the air. Kolin Hager became the first television newscaster, appearing three times a week to deliver farm and weather reports.

Born: Mel Lewis, jazz drummer and band leader, in Buffalo, New York (d. 1990); Lothar Schmid, chess player, in Germany (d. 2013); Walt Yowarsky, American football player, in Cleveland, Ohio

May 11, 1928 (Friday)

The Chinese were pushed out of the Jinan region by the Japanese, taking thousands of casualties.

American Walter Hagen won the Open Championship golf tournament in England.

The Edgar Wallace play The Squeaker premiered at London's Apollo Theatre.

May 12, 1928 (Saturday)

Fascist Italy passed a new electoral bill. The all-appointed Senate was unchanged, but the Chamber of Deputies was now to be elected in the form of a plebiscite in which voters would simply vote "yes" or "no" to a single list of candidates approved by the Grand Council of Fascism. The bill also took the vote away from women. "Universal suffrage is a purely conventional fiction", Benito Mussolini explained. "It says nothing, means nothing, and gives the most divergent results."

The Buster Keaton silent comedy film Steamboat Bill Jr. was released.

Born: Burt Bacharach, composer, in Kansas City, Missouri

May 13, 1928 (Sunday)

The Battle of La Flor began in Nicaragua.

The John Ford-directed silent drama film Hangman's House was released.

Born: Jim Shoulders, rodeo cowboy and rancher, in Henryetta, Oklahoma (d. 2007); Édouard Molinaro, film director and screenwriter, in Bordeaux, France (d. 2013)

Died: Ida Boy-Ed, 76, German writer

May 14, 1928 (Monday)

The Battle of La Flor ended in a Sandanista victory.

A powerful earthquake hit Chachapoyas, Peru, killing 25.

May 15, 1928 (Tuesday)

The Flood Control Act was passed in the United States, authorizing the Army Corps of Engineers to design and construct projects to control flooding.

Al Smith and Herbert Hoover won the New Jersey presidential primaries of their respective parties.

A test screening was held for the animated short film Plane Crazy, featuring the first appearance of the character Mickey Mouse. It was shelved after failing to find a distributor but was released in 1929.

May 16, 1928 (Wednesday)

A panic on Wall Street caused stocks to plunge by as many as 40 points, as a record 4,820,840 shares changed hands. The fall was triggered by mass selling of shares in aircraft companies.

The House of Lords debated the matter of whether a husband should be allowed to disinherit wives and children in favour of mistresses.

Prince Carol of Romania and Magda Lupescu left England and went to Belgium.

Born: Billy Martin, baseball player and manager, in Berkeley, California (d. 1989)

May 17, 1928 (Thursday)

The Summer Olympics unofficially began in Amsterdam, Netherlands with a ceremony before a crowd of 4,000. The official opening ceremony would not be held until July 28.

May 18, 1928 (Friday)

Japan warned China that it may have to establish a protectorate in Manchuria to guard its interests if peace could not be maintained in the region.

A bomb exploded at 1:10 a.m. at the residence of Robert G. Elliott, the executioner of New York State. The list of those he had electrocuted included Sacco and Vanzetti and Ruth Snyder.

Born: Pernell Roberts, actor and singer, in Malibu, California (d. 2010)

Died: Bill Haywood, 59, American labor leader

May 19, 1928 (Saturday)

The Mather Mine disaster claimed 195 lives in a coal mine explosion in Mather, Pennsylvania.

Reigh Count won the Kentucky Derby.

Nazis in Berlin attacked a procession of communists demonstrating on the eve of elections. Twenty were wounded and a child was killed, marring the election campaign which had been remarkably uneventful up to this point.

Born: Colin Chapman, automobile designer and founder of Lotus Cars, in Richmond, London, England (d. 1982); Gil McDougald, baseball player, in San Francisco, California (d. 2010)

Died: Max Scheler, 53, German philosopher

May 20, 1928 (Sunday)

The German Federal elections were held. The Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Reichstag. The Nazi Party only received 2.6% of the vote.

The Bremen crashed and was badly damaged trying to take off from Greenly Island, Canada, but no one was injured.

May 21, 1928 (Monday)

A phosgene leak in Hamburg, Germany killed 11 people.

The part-silent, part-sound drama film The Lion and the Mouse was released, marking the first time Lionel Barrymore spoke from the screen.

Born: Alice Drummond, actress, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island

May 22, 1928 (Tuesday)

The Capper-Ketcham Act was enacted in the United States.

A mine explosion in Yukon, West Virginia killed 17.

Another mine explosion in Kenvir, Kentucky killed 8.

Died: Francisco López Merino, 23, Argentine poet (suicide by gunshot)

May 23, 1928 (Wednesday)

The airship Italia, crewed by sixteen men led by Umberto Nobile, departed from Svalbard in a bid to fly over the North Pole just as the Norge had done in 1926. The crew hoped this time to actually land at the North Pole.

A bomb exploded at the Italian consulate in Buenos Aires, killing 8 and injuring 37. The Italian consul general blamed anti-fascist extremists.

Born: Jeannie Carson, comedian and actress, in Pudsey, Yorkshire, England; Rosemary Clooney, cabaret singer and actress, in Maysville, Kentucky (d. 2002)

May 24, 1928 (Thursday)

The airship Italia passed over the North Pole at midnight. The Italian tricolor and an oaken cross gifted to Umberto Nobile by the pope were dropped onto the Pole, but Nobile deemed it too risky to attempt a landing because the airship was weighed down with ice and the radio had broken down, so the Italia turned back.

In the U.S. Senate, opponents of the Muscle Shoals Bill conducted a filibuster that continued into the next day.

Protestors in Innsbruck, Austria tore down the flag over the Italian consulate that was flying in commemoration of the thirteenth anniversary of the Italian declaration of war on Austria-Hungary.

Born: Adrian Frutiger, typeface designer, in Unterseen, Switzerland

May 25, 1928 (Friday)

The crew of the Italia became disoriented as the ship battled strong winds and fog. Nobile ordered the airship to descend to get a better view of the ice, but it tilted downward and became destabilized until it crashed, 180 miles from Svalbard. One member of the crew was killed and Nobile suffered a fractured arm, leg and rib as well as head injuries. The ship lurched back into the air with six men still trapped inside the cabin and drifted away, never to be seen again.

The Muscle Shoals Bill and the Boulder Dam Bill were passed in American Congress.

The U.S. Senate tried to override President Coolidge's veto of the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill, but failed to get the two-thirds majority necessary.

May 26, 1928 (Saturday)

As the survivors of the Italia crash huddled on the ice, the signals operator of the Italia was able to repair the ship's damaged radio and send out an SOS.

The first-ever Palestine Cup was awarded to Hapoel Allenby Tel Aviv when they defeated Maccabi Hasmonean Jerusalem 2-0.

Angry mobs in Dalmatia and Slovenia attacked Italian consulates in protest of the Nettuno Convention which was nearing ratification.

Jantzen Beach Amusement Park opened on Hayden Island in Portland, Oregon.

Andy Payne won the 3,400 mile coast-to-coast "Bunion Derby" footrace after eighty-four days.

Born: Jack Kevorkian, pathologist and euthanasia activist, in Pontiac, Michigan (d. 2011)

May 27, 1928 (Sunday)

Roald Amundsen volunteered to head an expedition to search for the Italia, despite being at odds with Umberto Nobile over the credit for the 1926 Norge expedition.

The silent film Tempest starring John Barrymore was released.

May 28, 1928 (Monday)

Anti-Italian demonstrators in Belgrade burned Mussolini's portrait as protests of the Nettuno Convention became increasingly violent. Dispatches from Zadar reported that Italians attacked Yugoslav residents and burned a picture of King Alexander.

The Boulder Dam Bill was filibustered in the U.S. Senate into the next day.

May 29, 1928 (Tuesday)

Automobile manufacturers Dodge and Chrysler announced a merger worth $235 million.

The U.S. Senate adjourned after the session on the Boulder Dam Bill lasted more than 31 hours due to filibustering.

May 30, 1928 (Wednesday)

A civilian was killed and many wounded in Belgrade after police opened fire to put down anti-Italian rioting.

Kuomintang forces captured Baoding, less than 100 miles from Beijing.

Louis Meyer won the Indianapolis 500.

May 31, 1928 (Thursday)

A four-man crew of two Australians and two Americans took off in the Fokker F.VII Southern Cross from Oakland, California attempting to make the first ever trans-Pacific flight to Australia.

The Yugoslav National Assembly was adjourned for a week after opposition members tore the tops off of desks, pounded fists and shouted against the methods of police suppressing anti-Italian demonstrations.