July 1924

July 1, 1924 (Tuesday)

• Full time airmail service began in the U.S. with a fleet of airplanes transporting the mail day and night. The time for sending mail between New York and San Francisco was decreased from 70 hours to a little less than 35 hours westward and around 32 hours eastward. Stops by the airplanes for mail transfer and relief of crew were made at established air stations along the fully-equipped Transcontinental Airway System at New York City; Bellefonte, Pennsylvania; Cleveland and Bryan, Ohio; Chicago; Iowa City; Omaha and North Platte, Nebraska; Cheyenne, Rawlins and Rock Springs, Wyoming; Salt Lake City; Elko and Reno; and San Francisco.
• Japan held a national day of protest of the United States' Immigration Act the day it went into effect. Mass prayer meetings were conducted at Shinto shrines all over the country and an unknown Japanese man cut down the American flag at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. The Japanese government gave the United States a formal note of regret over the flag theft. The flag was recovered the next day The perpetrator was arrested on July 3 in Osaka and explained that he wanted to do something "heroic" before he died for his country.
• At the Democratic National Convention, William Gibbs McAdoo lost ground in balloting as Al Smith and John W. Davis steadily gained.

  July 2, 1924 (Wednesday)

• Portugal's Prime Minister Álvaro de Castro fought a sword duel with Flight Captain Teófilo José Ribeiro da Fonseca over a political dispute. Captain Ribiero was wounded in the arm.
• Inventor Guglielmo Marconi addressed the Royal Society of Arts in London describing his new beam system of short-wave wireless transmission. Marconi said this system could transmit more words per day between distant countries than was possible before, and more economically as well, resulting in a general reduction in telegraphic rates.
• Italian border patrollers shot and killed two Serbian soldiers and wounded a civilian bystander at the Serbian boundary line.

  July 3, 1924 (Thursday)

• U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover submitted a paper before the World Power Conference in Wembley, London urging America's power plants to be linked together to save energy.
• Born:
• *S. R. Nathan, president of Singapore 1999 to 2011; in Singapore
• *Michael Barrington, English television actor known for the situation comedy Porridge; in Twickenham, London

  July 4, 1924 (Friday)

• The Caesar salad was created in Mexico by Italian-born restaurateur Caesar Cardini at his restaurant in Tijuana, Caesar's. According to the Cardini family, Caesar had been unprepared for the large number of Americans crossing the border to legally purchase liquor at his eatery during the long Fourth of July weekend, and conserved his available supply of food by putting together the large salad in the middle of the dining room.
• A new version of the Progressive Party, unrelated to the previous organization nicknamed the "Bull Moose" Party, opened a convention in Cleveland and nominated U.S. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin as a third-party candidate for U.S. president.
• British tennis player Kitty McKane Godfree defeated Helen Wills of the U.S. to win the women's singles championship at the Wimbledon.
• Glacier National Park concessions worker Donald T. Fly drowned in Saint Mary Lake.
• Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was reported to be seriously ill.
• Born: Eva Marie Saint, American actress; in Newark, New Jersey

  July 5, 1924 (Saturday)

• The official opening ceremonies for the Summer Olympics were conducted at Colombes Stadium in Paris, France. Germany was absent for the second consecutive Olympics, having not been invited by the Organizing Committee.
• Jean Borotra defeated fellow Frenchman René Lacoste in the Men's Singles Final at Wimbledon.
• Rebellion broke out in the Brazilian city of São Paulo as a group of lieutenants and other junior Brazilian Army officers— the "tenentes"— sought to overthrow President Artur Bernardes.
• Born:
• *Niels Jannasch, German-born Canadian historian; in Holzminden
• *Osman Lins, Brazilian fiction writer; in Vitória de Santo Antão
• *János Starker, Hungarian cellist; in Budapest

  July 6, 1924 (Sunday)

• A presidential election was held in Mexico. Plutarco Elías Calles of the Partido Laborista Mexicano won the presidential election with 84.1% of the vote, with 1,340,634 in his favor. Runner-up Angel Flores had 252,599 votes or 15.9%.
• Ville Ritola of Finland won gold in the 10,000m race at the Paris Olympics. Paavo Nurmi, the greatest long-distance runner at the time, had hoped to break a record in the event but Finnish officials refused to enter him in it because they feared for his health if he competed in too many events, a decision that angered Nurmi.
• Born:
• *Robert M. White, U.S. Air Force test pilot who was one of 12 Americans to pilot the North American X-15, and the first person to fly an aircraft at Mach 4, Mach 5 and Mach 6; in New York City
• *Wesley L. McDonald, U.S. Navy aviator who, in 1965, led the first U.S. air strike against North Vietnam, and in 1983, as an Admiral, was the commander the U.S. invasion of Grenada; in Washington D.C.
• *Ernest Graves Jr., U.S. Army officer and former Director of the Defense Security Assistance Agency; in New York City

  July 7, 1924 (Monday)

• Calvin Coolidge Jr., the 16-year-old son of the President of the United States, died at 10:30 in the morning from sepsis caused by an infection on his foot, developed from blisters after having played a game of tennis on the White House grounds a week earlier. The president and Mrs. Coolidge were at their son's bedside.
• The Philippine Scout Mutiny broke out at Fort William McKinley near Manila, as Filipino members of the U.S. Army, who received lesser pay than the American troops. The rebellion was quickly suppressed by the 23rd Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Army's Philippine Division, commanded by Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur, and 200 of the mutineers were arrested. MacArthur's subsequent attempts to improve the pay and working conditions of Filipino soldiers and officers were unsuccessful.
• British track athlete Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who faced anti-Semitic prejudice, won the 100 meter sprint at the Summer Olympics in Paris. His friend Eric Liddell, a Scottish Christian missionary, had not entered the 100m dash because he had refused to run on a Sunday, the day of the qualifying heats. Abrahams, whose story was profiled in the Academy Award winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire, finished in 10.6 seconds, one-tenth of a second ahead of the heavily-favored entrant from the U.S., Jackson Scholz.
• New York Governor Alfred E. Smith passed former Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo on the 87th ballot at the Democratic National Convention, with 361½ to McAdoo's 333½ before the convention adjourned early out of respect for the President. Neither candidate had 729 votes, the two-thirds majority necessary to be nominated.
• Born:
• *Benedikt Gröndal, Prime Minister of Iceland, 1979 to 1980; in Önundarfjörður
• *Eddie Romero, Philippine film director; in Dumaguete
• *Rudolf Pleil, West German serial killer convicted of murdering at least 10 people; in Bärenstein

  July 8, 1924 (Tuesday)

• At the Democratic National Convention, delegates divided between Alfred E. Smith and former frontrunner William G. McAdoo. After a recess following the 93rd ballot, Smith offered to take his name out of contention if McAdoo would do the same. Indiana U.S. Senator Samuel M. Ralston in third place, released his delegates, but McAdoo refused the Smith offer before it could be announced on the floor of the convention. On the 94th ballot, McAdoo took the lead again with 395 over 364.5 for Smith, with John W. Davis moving into third place. Balloting continued past midnight until an adjournment at 4:00 a.m.
• The Communist International in Moscow condemned the U.S. Immigration Act and passed a resolution advocating unrestricted worldwide immigration.
• Died: Walter R. Allman, 40, American comic strip artist who wrote and drew The Doings of the Duffs from its launch in 1914 until 1923, when he suffered a nervous breakdown.

  July 9, 1924 (Wednesday)

• Little-known former congressman John W. Davis of West Virginia became the surprise winner at the Democratic National Convention, securing the presidential nomination on the 103rd ballot as something of a compromise candidate. Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska earned the nomination for vice president. William Gibbs McAdoo withdrew reluctantly and ungraciously, leaving the Democrats bitterly divided heading into the general campaign.
• Colombia gave diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Panama, more than 20 years after Panama had seceded from Colombia on November 3, 1903, at the encouragement of the United States.
• In voting of members of the Grossdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft, the right-wing organization formed after the outlawing of the Nazi Party, founder Alfred Rosenberg was ousted and by the more aggressive Julius Streicher as Chairman of the GVD. The GVD, founded on January 1, 1924, would be disbanded by Streicher on March 12, 1925, after the Nazi Party was re-established by Adolf Hitler. Hermann Esser was selected as the Deputy Chairman.
• The funeral for Calvin Coolidge, Jr. in Washington, D.C. Flags were lowered to half-mast and all nonessential government offices closed at 3:30 p.m.
• The aviators trying to circumnavigate the globe flew from Baghdad to Aleppo.
• Born:
• *Mashiur Rahman, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, 1978 to 1979; in Rangpur, Bengal Province, British India
• *Pierre Cochereau, French organist for the Notre-Dame de Paris, and musical composer; in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne ''département''