The year 1929 brought with it the end of the Roaring Twenties, and saw the Wall Street Crash which started a worldwide Great Depression. Globally, the Influenza Epidemic reached a large number of people, killing a total of 200,000 in 1929. Other major events in 1929 included the inauguration of Herbert Hoover as President of the United States, the independence of Vatican City and the arrest of notorious gangster Al Capone.
If you want to learn more about what happened in 1929, this timeline will give a summary of the year, with details of events that took place in each month. To read about a specific date or event in particular, a 1929 newspaper has everything you need.
1929 Timeline
Turn the page to:
- January
- February
- March
- April
- May
- June
- July
- August
- September
- October
- November
- December
- The Wall Street Crash
January
January 3: By signing an arbitration treaty, Bolivia and Paraguay avert war over the Chaco region.
January 6: In Yugoslavia, King Alexander suspends the 1921 constitution and introduces a dictatorship.
January 10: Hergé’s Belgian comic book hero Tintin makes his first ever appearance.
January 13: Newspapers that criticise the new dictatorship in Yugoslavia are banned.
January 15: Martin Luther King Jr. is born, and goes on to be a civil rights leader and Nobel laureate.
January 17: Thimble Theatre shows the comic strip hero Popeye for the first time.
January 29: Erich Maria Remarque publishes ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ in book form.
January 31: Officially expelled from the Soviet Union, Leon Trotsky is sent into exile.
Leon Trotsky
February
February 2: Norway take ownership of Peter I Island located near Antarctica.
February 3: Valencia declare Martial law as Spanish army break down anti-government revolt.
February 6: The Kellogg-Briand Pact which aims to promote peace and reduce war is signed by Germany.
February 9: The Soviet Union, Poland, Estonia, Romania and Latvia sign ‘Litvinov’s Pact’ and agree not to use force to settle disputes between them.
February 14: Five gangsters and two civilians are killed in Chicago on what is known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
February 18: The United States create the Migratory Bird Conservation Act.
February 21: Federal Aviation Advisor at the U.S. Department of Commerce is appointed to Charles Lindbergh.
February 26: The United States Congress establish the Grand Teton National Park.
The Daily Mirror front page
March
March 2: The San Francisco Bay Toll-Bridge is opened and becomes the longest bridge in the world at the time.
March 2: To ward people off violating prohibition, the Increased Penalties Act begins in the United States.
March 3: Due to unusual and extreme cold weather, 2,390 are reported to die in France between February 21 and March 3.
March 4: The 31st President of the United States, Herbert Hoover is sworn in.
March 6: A treaty of friendship is signed between Turkey and Bulgaria.
March 10: Limited rights to divorce are granted to the women of Egypt.
March 28: Mickey Mouse is seen wearing gloves for the first time in the short cartoon ‘The Opry House’.
March 30: Flights between London and Karachi begin through newly operating Imperial Airways.
April
April 3: The ‘Litvinov Protocol’, an international peace treaty which aims to accelerate the Kellogg-Briand Pact, is signed by Persia.
April 4: When a train derails in Romania, 20 people are killed with a further 59 injured.
April 12: Utah’s Arches National Park is declared a National Monument.
April 14: William Grover-Williams wins the Monaco Grand Prix in a Bugatti.
April 14: For the first time, 15,000 letters are delivered from India to the United Kingdom via airmail.
April 22: Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, declares that crime is the country’s most serious problem, and warns that the country is ‘more unsafe than any other civilised country in the world’.
April 27: Portsmouth are defeated by Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.
April 30: For the second time, Thorvald Stauning is announced as Prime Minister of Denmark.
May
May 4: Birthdate of Audrey Hepburn, British actress and activist.
May 4: Laurel and Hardy release their first talking film ‘Unaccustomed As We Are’, which sees the use of their famous catchphrases for the first time.
May 7: In Sydney, Australia the ‘Battle of Blood Alley’ is fought by a razor gang.
May 7: Al Capone beats and shoots three gang members after accusing them of being traitors, whilst at a party he is holding for them. Their bodies are found on the side of a road in Indiana the next day.
May 16: In the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the first ever Academy Awards are held, with the ceremony lasting 15 minutes.
May 18: After being arrested for carrying concealed weapons, Al Capone is imprisoned at Holmesburg Jail – a key date in this 1929 timeline.
May 19: After a downpour of rain during a Yankees and Boston Red Sox baseball game, two people are killed when the crowd causes a stampede running for the stairs.
May 31: The general election in the United Kingdom brings a hung parliament and the Liberals decide which party will govern.
Audrey Hepburn
June
June 1: Buenos Aires hosts the first ever Conference of the Communist Parties of Latin America.
June 3: The disputes between Peru and Chile are settled with the Treaty of Lima.
June 4: The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Stanley Baldwin, resigns.
June 7: After the Lateran Treaty is agreed, Vatican City becomes an independent state.
June 8: In the United Kingdom, the second Labour government is formed by Ramsay MacDonald.
June 12: Birthdate of German-born holocaust victim Anne Frank.
June 21: Helping to end the Cristero War in Mexico, an agreement is brokered by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow.
June 27: Images of a bouquet of roses and an American flag are broadcast, making the first public demonstration of colour TV, one of the major events in 1929.
July
July 1: A pact is signed and leads Britain to agree to build up the Chinese navy.
July 5: Helen Wills defeats Helen Jacobs to gain her third straight Wimbledon title.
July 23: China and the Soviet Union agree to meet for peace talks.
July 24: Due to ill health Raymond Poincaré resigns as French Prime Minister.
July 25: In a procession witnessed by 250,000 people, Pope Pius XI enters St Peter’s Square and ends 60 years of self-imposed status by the papacy as Prisoner in the Vatican.
July 27: Covering the treatment of prisoners of war, the Geneva Convention is signed in Switzerland.
July 29: Aristide Briand replaces Raymond Poincaré, and becomes the French Prime Minister for the sixth time.
July 30: With a total of 17 days in the air, the world flight endurance record is extended a week by Curtiss Robin.
Helen Wills is victorious yet again at Wimbledon
August
August 6: Allowing British troops along the Suez Canal, a treaty is signed which ends British occupation of Egypt, replacing it with a military alliance.
August 8: Leaving from New Jersey for Europe, the Graf Zeppelin begins an attempt to fly around the world.
August 16: A total of 133 Jews and 116 Palestinians are killed during the 1929 Palestine riots in Mandatory Palestine.
August 17: A coal mine in Poland explodes and 16 people are killed.
August 23: 65-68 Jews are killed by Palestinians and the remaining Jews are forced to leave Hebron during the Hebron massacre.
August 29: 18-20 Jews are killed during the Safed massacre by Palestinian Arabs.
August 29: The Graf Zeppelin returns after 21 days (12 of those in the air) following the worldwide trip.
August 31: To settle the WW1 reparations owed by Germany ($26,350,000,000), the Young Plan is finalised.
The Graf Zeppelin
September
September 3: To investigate the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine, Great Britain appoints a four-person investigation committee.
September 3: The first of two typhoons in the space of a month strike the Philippines causing over 100 deaths and 20 million pesos worth of damage.
September 5: A plan for the ‘United States of Europe’ is put forward by Aristide Briand.
September 13: Following a gas explosion in Italy, 12 people are killed and 15 injured.
September 16: A coal mine explosion in France kills 23 people and injures a further 21.
September 17: Antanas Smetona becomes President of Lithuania after a coup ousts Augustinas Voldemaras.
September 27: A Farewell to Arms, the novel written by Ernest Hemingway, is published.
September 28: One of the landmark 1929 events for India: no man below the age of 18 or woman below the age of 16 can marry after the Child Marriage Restraint Act is passed in India.
October
October 1: The Soviet Union and Britain restore diplomatic relations.
October 2: A committee is formed to discuss the possibility of creating national parks in Britain.
October 12: For the first time in Australian history, the sitting Prime Minister loses his own seat in parliament; Prime Minister Stanley Bruce faces defeat by The Labour Party’s James Scullin.
October 22: Aristide Briand’s French government falls.
October 22: Becoming the 9th Prime Minister of Australia, James Scullin is elected.
October 26: In support of the anti-Young Plan referendum rally in Munich, Adolf Hitler and Alfred Hugenberg attend together.
October 26: After a trial with yellow and red buses is unpopular, it is decided that all London buses would be red going forward.
October 29: After three high percentage drops wipe out over $30 billion of the New York Stock exchange, the great Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurs which leads to the Great Depression.
November
November 1: Over the Atlantic Ocean and in Africa an annular solar eclipse is seen.
November 1: Australian conscription ends.
November 2: André Tardieu becomes the 97th French Prime Minister and the third person within one week to attempt to form the next French government.
November 5: In India, running from Bombay to Pune, the largest electrified railway in the British Empire opens and begins running.
November 12: Grace Kelly is born, goes on to be an American actress and later Princess of Monaco.
November 17: In Berlin town council elections, the Nazis win 13 out of 225 seats.
November 18: The Grand Banks earthquake occurs in the Atlantic Ocean killing at least 27 people.
November 20: Salvador Dalí, Spanish surrealist painter, has his first one-man Paris show.
December
December 4: In a vote to decide whether diplomatic relations should be resumed with the Soviet Union, the House of Lords votes 43 to 21 against resuming.
December 6: Turkey gives women the right to vote.
December 10: Frank Billings Kellogg from the United States receives the 1929 Nobel Peace prize.
December 16: A $160 million income tax reduction bill is signed by President Hoover.
December 24: After a serious fire in the West Wing of the White House President Hoover leaves a Christmas reception for children to retrieve important documents. It is the most severe fire at the White House since 1814.
December 25: As a Christmas present the government of Saxony grant 179 prisoners amnesty.
December 28: ‘Black Saturday’ sees New Zealand colonial police kill 11 unarmed demonstrators in Samoa, leading to the Mau movement for independence of Samoa.
December 31: Before the Indian National Congress, Mahatma Gandhi makes a speech in support of Indian Independence, and the resolution is passed unanimously.
Providing a summary of what happened in 1929, this timeline offers a window into the past. With worldwide changes being made by multiple governments in an attempt to achieve world peace and increasing laws giving rights to women and children, 1929 was a year of transformation. Best known for the Wall Street Crash that led to a time of Great Depression; the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialised world, 1929 was the turning point of an era.
The Wall Street Crash
While the 1920s had been a decade of glitz and glamour for many, characterised by prosperity and growth, 1929 would bring this vibrant decade to a sudden end with the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. The stock market crash of 1929 was the worst economic disaster in history to date, causing mass homelessness and job loss across the nation.
Learn all about the event that plunged the world into a Great Depression by reading our Wall Street Crash newspaper analysis, showing how this catastrophic event was reported in the press at the time.