Kelley Blue Book celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, and we’re not alone. 1926 was a momentous year, chock full of firsts, births, and launches beyond the automotive world. I’ve rounded up 12 landmark events, one for each month of 1926, to help illustrate the environment and vibes you might have experienced in that year.
Jan. 26: The Birth of Television
Was television the most impactful 20th-century invention? It certainly made its mark on the second half of the century as a vehicle for entertainment and information distribution. The first public demonstration of television by Scottish inventor John Logie Baird happened in London in 1926. His mechanical contraption could display grayscale moving images transmitted through a series of rotating discs – don’t ask me for a more detailed explanation. Baird’s demonstration predated American Philo T. Farnsworth’s demonstration of all-electronic television in 1928.
Feb. 7: The First Celebration of Negro History Week
Historian Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Dr. Woodson conceived Negro History Week, first celebrated Feb. 7–14, 1926, and planned to include the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass (Feb. 12 and 14, respectively). Negro History Week grew into Black History Month by 1976, and Congress passed Public Law 99-244 on Feb. 1, 1986, designating February as “National Black (Afro-American) History Month.”
March 16: The Birth of Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch in Newark, New Jersey) was one of the most popular comedians of the 1950s and ‘60s, expanding from his nightclub act with Dean Martin to a career as a writer, director, producer, and actor in such films as “The Bellboy” (1960) and “The Nutty Professor” (1963). He is perhaps best remembered for his annual Labor Day Weekend telethons for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which he hosted from 1966 to 2011, raising over $2 billion during his tenure.
April 16: The Book of the Month Club Sends Out Its First Selections
Remember books? Well, the Book of the Month Club does. Since 1926, they have selected new American fiction books each month and distributed copies to members and subscribers. The first selections were “Lolly Willowes” and “Loving Huntsman” by Sylvia Townsend Warner. I’ll have to add those to my TBR pile.
May 26: The Birth of Miles Davis
Any discussion of jazz is incomplete if it doesn’t include Miles Dewey Davis III. He was a trumpeter, bandleader, and composer with incredible range and influence. Not only did he release landmark recordings such as “Birth of the Cool,” “Kind of Blue,” and “Bitches Brew,” but he was also instrumental in the careers of prominent jazz artists like Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and many others. Over the course of his career, Davis earned eight Grammy awards and 32 nominations from the Recording Academy of the United States.
June 1: The Birth of Marilyn Monroe
Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in Los Angeles and became Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood. Her career as an actress was painfully short, spanning a Fox contract in 1951 through her tragic death in 1962. Her film highlights included “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “The Seven Year Itch,” “Bus Stop,” and “Some Like It Hot.” She was briefly married to baseball star Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. Her legend looms large to this day as a cultural icon and a cautionary tale of the trials of fame.
July 4: The United States Celebrates Its Sesquicentennial
Our country marks its birth from the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. In 1926, the United States celebrated its 150th anniversary, or Sesquicentennial. The country marked the date with events from coast to coast, including the Sesquicentennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia. In 2026, we’re celebrating the Semiquincentennial – 250 years of independence. How time flies when you’re having fun.
Aug. 6: Gertrude Ederle Swims the English Channel
After winning the gold medal as part of the U.S. women’s 400-meter freestyle relay team at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, swimmer Gertrude Ederle was a celebrity athlete. She decided to take on one of the significant athletic challenges previously thought achievable only by male athletes: to swim across the English Channel from Cap Gris-Nez, France, to Dover, England, a straight-line distance of about 21 miles. Ederle made a failed attempt in 1925 and then returned in 1926 for her successful crossing. The swim took 14 hours, 31 minutes, beating the previous record time by Argentinian male swimmer Enrique Tirabocchi by almost two hours. Not only was Ederle the first woman to successfully swim across the English Channel, but she also set a world record for a swimmer of any gender.
Sept. 25: The Chicago Blackhawks Are Franchised by the NHL
Though their owner founded the team on May 1, 1926, the National Hockey League voted to give the Chicago Blackhawks a franchise on Sept. 25 in that same year. Major Frederic McLaughlin, a World War I veteran and an early Blackhawks owner, named the team after his field battalion. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups (1934, 1938, 1961, 2020, 2013, and 2015), and are one of the NHL’s “Original Six” teams.
Oct. 14: “Winnie-the-Pooh” Published
Author A. A. Milne and illustrator E. H. Shepard, both English artists, collaborated on the first collection of stories about Winnie, an anthropomorphic bear who lived in the Hundred Acre Wood with his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, and Tigger. Milne based the characters on his son, Christopher Robin’s, collection of stuffed toys. Shepard based his drawing of Winnie on his own son’s stuffed bear. The London Evening News published the first Pooh story in 1925. Disney bought the rights to Milne’s stories in 1961, spawning a series of animated films and theme park attractions.
Nov. 15: NBC Broadcasts Its First Programs
Long before it joined the multimedia conglomerate NBCUniversal, the National Broadcasting Company was founder David Sarnoff’s dream. He led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), “the largest distributor of radio receiving sets in the world,” according to a 1926 ad. In 1926, Sarnoff engineered the purchase of radio station WEAF, and later that year, launched NBC as a national network of radio programming. NBC brought news, sports, and entertainment into American homes in real time, connecting the country with shared information and culture – a communications revolution that reverberates to this day.
Dec. 31: “The General” Premieres in Tokyo, Japan
Buster Keaton was one of the greatest silent-era film comedians. With his co-director, Clyde Bruckman, Keaton created his masterpiece with “The General.” Shot on location in Oregon in the summer of 1926, the film starred Keaton as Johnnie Gray, a Confederate Army recruit who gets involved in a complicated plan to steal a Union supply train with a steam locomotive engine named “The General.” The most famous scene from the film was a practical effect in which Johnnie sets fire to a train bridge spanning a river just behind The General’s path, cutting off Union pursuit and sending the pursuing train into the river below. In today’s CGI landscape, it’s a thrilling dose of reality, and hard to believe a silent film comedian was able to engineer (and finance) a stunt of this scale. The film is a landmark of cinema history and a fine coda to our exploration of the cultural beginnings in 1926.
