HISTORICAL DATA:1928









  • JANUARY

  • FEBRUARY

  • MARCH:    During one week this month financier Michael J. Meehan, using investment capital supplied by a variety of individuals in an early form of mutual fund, is able to drive up the price of Radio Corporation of America (RCA) stock from US$ 90.00 per share to US$ 109.00 per share before selling out and giving his clients a total profit of US$ 5 million (in 1928 dollars); for his efforts, Meehan earned himself a handler's fee of US$ 500,000.00.  (SOURCE:  THE GREAT DEPRESSION  AMERICA IN THE 1930s  by T. H. Watkins  Back Bay Books Little, Brown and Company  New York, Boston, London  ((paperback))  2009, pg. 39).  

  • APRIL                                                           

  • MAY:   In the German elections held on May 20 of this year, the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party) manages to win only 810,000 votes in the German national elections. A total of 31 million votes have been cast, so the Nazis, who have some 108,000 members at this time, have been given only about 2.63% of the total vote. They capture a dozen seats in the 491-seat Reichstag, and this is proportional to their share of the vote. In terms of votes, the largest party in Germany at this time is the Social Democratic Party, which has received some 9 million votes, or almost 1/3 of all the votes cast. This represents an increase of 1 1/4 million votes  for the Social Democrats over their results in the previous  elections.

         Most of the Social Democrats' gains come at the expense of the conservative Nationalist Party, which polls two million votes less than it had in 1924 (from six million down to four million). The Nationalist Party also gives up thirty seats in the Reichstag (from 103 to 73 seats).

  • JUNE:    At about this time the Nazi Party in Germany begins losing popular support and membership, following its weak showing in last month's elections.

  • JULY:    On July 6 of this year the first all-talking motion picture feature, "The Lights of New York" receives a preview showing in New York, its title city.  (SOURCE:  Feature, "Almanac", New York NewsDay, Monday, July 6, 1998, page Q  A2).   

  • JULY:    On July12 of this year Lieutenant Colonel Raymond S. Pratt, United States Army member of the Joint [Army and Navy] Planning Committee, sends a letter with the subject heading: Five Yr Programs of A AC and BuAer, in which he notes, among other things, that Pearl Harbor in Hawaii would be among the first targets to be attacked if Japan should decide to go to war with the United States of America.  (Source:  United States Army in World WarII TheWar Department Strategic Planning For Coalition Warfare, by Maurice Mattloff and Edwin M. Snell, pg. 18, note 19, example (1) ).

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  • AUGUST

  • SEPTEMBER

  • OCTOBER:    By some time during this month the volume of refinancing of the Boden-Credit Anstalt bank, the second-largest bank in Austria, has risen to be above the rediscount rate of 60 million shillings. The Austrian National Bank has been trying repeatedly, without success, to get the BCA to reduce its rediscount loans, and the National Bank moves closer to halting all such rediscount loans to BCA.  (SOURCE:  FINANCE AND MODERNIZATION A TRANSNATIONAL AND TRANSCONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE FOR THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES  Gerald D. Feldman and Peter Hertner, eds., Ashgate Publishing Limited, Surrey, England 2008, pg. 66).

  • NOVEMBER:    For this year's national elections in the United States of America, voter turnout rises to 56.9% of all registered potential voters; this is an improvement over 1924's rather dismal showing of just a 48.9%  participation rate.  (SOURCE:   THE GREAT DEPRESSION  AMERICA IN THE 1930s  by T. H. Watkins  Back Bay Books Little, Brown and Company  New York, Boston, London  ((paperback))  2009, pg. 27). 

  • \DECEMBER:    For this year as a whole in the United States of America, bank deposits total US$ 52.7 billion in then-current dollars. In 2008 US dollars, this amount would be: US$ 667,088,607,595.00 ($667+ billion).  At this time the interest rate earned by these deposits is  2% or 3%.(SOURCE:  THE GREAT DEPRESSION  AMERICA IN THE 1930s  by T. H. Watkins  Back Bay Books Little, Brown and Company  New York, Boston, London  ((paperback))  2009, pg. 35; inflation adjustment calculated with an inflation calculator devised by   Robert C. Sahr of the Political Science Department at Oregon State University).

  • DECEMBER:    At about this time, membership in the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) in Germany again  reaches some 100,000  persons, and this is due largely to the dedicated efforts of Gregor Strasser and of Josef Goebbels, whom Adolf Hitler has appointed as propaganda chief of the Party.  (SOURCE:  Adolf Hitler by John Toland  Ballantine Books ((paperback)) , 1977, pg. 233).

  • DECEMBER:    At some time during this month Samuel Insull of Chicago, Illinois sets up Insull Utilities Invesments as a holding company for his other utility holdings.  (SOURCE:  THE GREAT DEPRESSION  AMERICA IN THE 1930s  by T. H. Watkins  Back Bay Books Little, Brown and Company  New York, Boston, London  ((paperback))  2009, pg. 39). 

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At some unspecified time during this year Adolf Hitler brings his half-sister, Angela Raubal, to his mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria to be his housekeeper. She soon earns a good reputation in high Nazi circles for her delicious Viennese pastries and other deserts;  they are mainly made for Hitler, and he has a tremendous appetite for them.

  •  (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At some time during this year Germany establishes a secret flight-training school at Lipezk, in Russia for some of its regular army officers. This school trains them to be bomber, fighter and reconnaissance pilots, as well as observers and gunners in flight crews.  (SOURCE:  Royal Air Force history at:  http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-RAF-I/UK-RAF-I-Prologue.html  accessed 7/16/2014-GD).

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):     At some time during this year Sister Lucia, the last survivor of the three children to whom the Blessed Mother appeared in Fatima, Portugal in 1917, reveals the first of the "Fatima Secrets"-things that the Lady had revealed to the children at the time, but which she had told them to not reveal then.  This deals with prophecies of wars and of the rise of Communism throughout the twentieth century.  (SOURCE:  Hitler's Pope The Secret History of Pius XII by John Cornwell  Penguin Books ((paperback)), 2000, pp. 61-62).

  •   (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At some time during this year in the United States of America, according to one report, there are 151,000 improved lots and 335,000 vacant real estate lots in Cook County, Illinois, including the city of Chicago. This is indicative of the current real estate "bust" in the United States.  (SOURCE: See paper, LESSONS FROM THE GREAT AMERICAN REAL ESTATE BOOM AND B UST OF THE 1920S by Eugene N. White Working Paper 15573 here:)

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         At some time during this year recently-retired Major General Mason M. Patrick, former Chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps, writes that, "the Air Service, or rather the air effort, of the United States since we entered the World War has probably been the most investigated activity ever carried on by the United States."  (SOURCE:  The Army Air Forces in World War II Volume I Plans & Early Operations January 1939 to August 1942 Wesley F. Craven & James Lee Cate, Editors, page 22).

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At some time during this year a liquid oxygen system is developed in the United States of America to enable pilots to fly at high altitudes in unpressurized cockpits.  (Source:  FIELDS OF LITTLE AMERICA by Martin W. Bowman, Patrick Stephens publishers, Cambridge, 1983, preface).

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