Historical events from 1930 through 1939 — Great Depression era.
British military experts publicly acknowledged in May 1939 that Gibraltar, the legendary fortress controlling the Mediterranean entrance, could no longer withstand modern artillery attacks from Spanish territory.
Universal Life Insurance Company executives discovered their Shreveport district manager had orchestrated an elaborate scheme involving fake death claims. More than a dozen supposedly deceased policyholders were found alive and interviewed.
George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright who had long refused American producers and broadcasters, finally made his radio debut for American audiences in October 1930. The cultural milestone came as Shaw considered a $100,000 lecture tour offer.
Maryland health officials warned parents that babies develop scurvy like sailors without daily citrus vitamins. The state’s Chief of Child Hygiene emphasized that fruit juices were medical necessities, not luxuries.
Lieutenant Thomas Wood, 27, died when his mail-laden attack plane crashed in a blinding rainstorm near DeWitt, Iowa. He became the twelfth army pilot to perish since the military took over airmail delivery, intensifying calls to return the service to private operators.
Ten-week-old Haldon Fink was deliberately suffocated after being snatched from his cradle at his grandparents’ home. Sheriff H.L. Myers admitted having no solid leads in the cold-blooded killing that shocked rural Ohio.
Former Interior Secretary Albert Fall was released from New Mexico State Penitentiary after serving 10 months for his conviction in the Teapot Dome oil scandal. The release marked the end of the most dramatic criminal chapter in one of the greatest political scandals of the 1920s.
The Senate Naval Committee approved the Vinson-Trammell bill authorizing massive naval construction to bring the U.S. Navy to full treaty strength. Admiral William H. Standley estimated the program would cost approximately $475 million.
