Dark Jazz Timeline: 1930 - 1949

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For a history of magic and the occult, see Gernsback-9 Timeline: Occult History.

1930

  • US Congress rejects the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act by a narrow margin.
  • The Vatican rejects an invitation to join the League of Nations, citing the League's mandate for "religious equality" and ""tolerance" as objectionable to Catholic values.
  • The Communist Party of Vietnam is established.
  • Tesla Industries releases a mechanical vote tabulator. With a grant from the government to cover production costs, the company provides the machines free to every state.
  • Warner Brothers releases their first Looney Tunes cartoon, Sinkin' in the Bathtub.
  • The dedication of George Washington's head is held at Mount Rushmore.
  • Hostess Twinkies are invented in Illinois.

1931

  • Mechanical voting becomes the minimum standard to which all states are required to comply in five years. Vice-president Hearst announces he will not be returning to office but will instead head the newly formed National Electoral Commission.
  • Peruvian revolutionaries hijack a Ford Trimotor aeroplane and demand that the pilot drop propaganda leaflets over Lima.
  • Tesla Industries releases the first in a long history of dielectric motors, which revolutionizes the automobile and aircraft industry.
  • Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, is released.
  • The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the United States National anthem.

1932

  • Roosevelt surprises everyone at the Democratic convention by choosing US Army General Douglas MacArthur (who is presumed to be a Republican) as his running mate. The Roosevelt-MacArthur ticket receives over 80% of the national vote, and the duo carries every state in the union.
  • League of Nations negotiates treaty between Japan and China.
  • Pope Pius XI meets Benito Mussolini in Vatican City. After the meeting, Benito Mussolini announces Italy will withdraw from the League of Nations.
  • Geothermal power plant designed by Tesla Industries begins producing electricity in Alaska.
  • Howard Scott writes The Fundamentals of Technocracy.
  • Citing a lack of funds, Miskatonic University announces it will be closing its doors in 1936, marking the demise of the last remaining occult and magical studies program in the world.

1933

  • The Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, changing Inauguration Day from March 4 to January 20 starting in 1937.
  • Germany admitted as full member of League of Nations.
  • A League of Nations oil blockade forces Japan to withdraw from China.
  • President Roosevelt creates the cabinet-level Department of Science and names Princeton University scientist Albert Einstein as the first Secretary of Science.
  • Austrian political agitator and reputed “black magician” Adolf Hitler is committed to an asylum for the criminally insane.

1934

  • Socialist author Upton Sinclair elected governor of California.
  • Charles Lindbergh's infant son is kidnapped. The kidnappers never contact the family for a ransom, and the child is never seen again.
  • League of Nations approves the US annexation of Haiti.
  • First ocean-thermal electric conversion power plant, designed and built by Tesla Industries, goes into operation on Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California. A second plant opens soon after in Havana, Cuba.

1935

  • Carl Weiss kills Huey Long, U.S. Senator from Louisiana, in the Louisiana Capitol Building in Baton Rouge. The investigation reveals Weiss was a member of the Louisiana Anarchist Party.
  • International pressure via the League of Nations dissuades Mussolini from invading Ethiopia. Vatican and Saudi Arabia condemn "international interventionism."
  • The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, a critical response to the Copenhagen Interpretation, is published.
  • In Los Angeles, psychologist Wilhelm Reich and inventor Ryan Keaton announce they have proven the existence of a new form of energy they refer to as orgone.
  • Griffith Observatory opens in Los Angeles.
  • Parker Brothers releases the board game Monopoly.
  • T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) dies in a motorcycle accident in Dorset, England.

August 8 - A flash flood of the Miskatonic River destroys the Massachussets town of Arkham, killing hundreds and sweeping many structures downriver and out to sea.

1936

  • Roosevelt is elected to his fourth term by a narrow margin.
  • Lyndon Johnson of Texas is elected to the House of Representatives.
  • An attempted military coup is brutally suppressed in Japan by mercenaries said to be in the employ of former Vice-president Hearst.
  • Spanish Civil War begins. Vatican declares the Second Republic of Spain to be an "unholy hegemon."
  • The League of Nations forms the World Science Council (WSC) to coordinate various national science councils.
  • Life magazine begins publication.
  • The first flight by the employee-owned Irish airline Aer Lingus takes place.
  • President Franklin D. Roosevelt attends the dedication of Thomas Jefferson's head at Mount Rushmore."
  • Jet Propulsion Laboratory is founded in Pasadena. Occultist and magician Jack Parsons is one of the three founders.

1937

  • Judicial Reform Bill passed by Congress enlarges the US Supreme Court to 12 voting members, with a non-voting Chief presiding.
  • Japanese Emperor Hirohito announces his nation will transition from millenia of imperial rule to a democracy.
  • League of Nations decree prohibits foreign nationals from joining Spanish Civil War. Journalists report American "private soldiers" fighting and Italian planes dropping bombs in the epic battle of Guernica.
  • Golden Gate Bridge opens in San Francisco.

1938

  • While visiting flood victims in Los Angeles, President Roosevelt is assassinated by anarchists. MacArthur becomes President and orders the Department of Justice to begin a “war on anarchy.”
  • Scientist Yoshio Nishina is elected Prime Minister of the newly created People’s Republic of Japan.
  • Led by the US and Great Britain, the League of Nations votes to approve an international military force to aid the Republic of Spain.
  • German physicist Otto Hahn splits the atom.
  • A brilliant aurora borealis described variously as "a curtain of fire" and a "huge blood-red beam of light" startles people across Europe and is visible as far south as Gibraltar.
  • Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast.

1939

  • FBI investigators uncover evidence that connects the anarchists who assassinated President Roosevelt to the private army reputed to be financed by Hearst. The reclusive billionaire denies any involvement and threatens legal action against any who suggest he would have anything to do with the murder of his old friend.
  • Spanish Civil War ends with the expulsion of fascist forces and the suicide of Franco. In retribution for Italy's illegal involvment in the civil war, the League requires Italy to pay reparations to the Spanish government and forces the annexation of Italian Somaliland to Ethiopia.
  • WSC forms the Atomic Energy Group (AEG) to oversee and foster international cooperation in the development of atomic power; an additional section of the act (known as the Hearst Accord) empowers the WSC to act in the absence of the League.
  • Scientists create the first self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction at the University of Chicago, announced publicly at the opening the World's Fair in Brooklyn. Union Station opens in Downtown Los Angeles.

1940

  • MacArthur is elected President in a landslide. He appoints his old friend James Forrestal to head the Department of Science and his protege Colonel Dwight Eisenhower to head the newly-created Department of Defense.
  • President MacArthur ignites controversy when he appoints William Randolph Hearst as US Ambassador to the League of Nations.
  • Television journalist Edward Murrow, who is investigating the anarchist connection to Hearst, is gunned down in the Bahamas.
  • FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is placed in charge of the “War on Anarchy."

1941

  • The Communist Party of Japan receives significant popular support and controls over 30% of the legislative seats.
  • Zhang Zhuolin, beloved “President for life” of Manchuria, is felled by an assassin's bullet. The killer is an immigrant linked to the Japanese Communist Party.
  • Ambassador Hearst delivers a rafter-shaking speech at the League assembly, declaring communists to be “international thugs and terrorists” and stating Communism itself to be “the enemy of law, order, and all that is right and good in the universe.”
  • Cartoon character Bugs Bunny makes his first title appearance in a Warner Brothers cartoon.

1942

  • WSC announces a program to place a satellite in orbit around Earth before 1945.
  • Congress holds hearings to consider the influence of anarchists in the entertainment industry. In one session, Senator Joseph McCarthy plays several Bugs Bunny cartoons and complains about the “disorder,” “irresponsibility” and “immorality” exemplified by the character. Interrogating writers and artists, the senator demands to know not only the political affiliations and sympathies of the creators, but also those of the animated characters. Animator Tex Avery insists that he always felt that Warner Brothers characters were good Republicans, though he conceded Daffy Duck might be a Democrat. Asked about the presence of anarchism and communism in the animation industry, Avery tells McCarthy, “You'd have to ask Walt Disney about that.”
  • "Battle of Los Angeles" (Feb 25).

1943

  • Nikola Tesla dies in New York City, bequeathing the bulk of his stock in Morgan Broadcasting and Morgan-Tesla Power to the WSC.
  • Headquarters of the WSC are moved to the former location of the World's Fair in Brooklyn.
  • Thule Base established in Greenland.

1944

  • With Secretary of Science James Forrestal as his running mate, MacArthur defeats Thomas Dewey in a narrow race.
  • Communists in the Japanese government form a coalition with other leftist leaders and take control of the Diet and install Japanese Communist Party Kenji Miyamoto leader as Prime Minister.
  • WSC launches first satellite from Majorca.

1945

  • The Japanese government denounces the program of the AEG and declares it will begin its own atomic energy program. Premiere Stalin of the USSR agrees to assist the Japanese government in their pursuit of atomic energy.
  • Atomic power plants constructed in Germany and the United States.
  • December 5 - Five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers equipped with a prototype jet engine disappear during a test flight off the coast of Florida.

1946

  • President MacArthur stuns the world when he announces, “I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for the office of the Presidency.”

1947

  • President MacArthur signs the National Security Act of 1947, creating the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). The Act also allows the President to declare a state of national emergency, during which he may suspend posse comitatus and use the military to enforce law and maintain order.
  • WSC opens it first universities in Germany and the US.
  • Maury Island incident (June).
  • Roswell incidient (July).
  • MJ-12 group formed (September).
  • USAF Project sign established (December).

1948

  • January 7 - Mantell incident.
  • January 30 - BSAA Star Tiger disappears without trace over the Atlantic Ocean while on a flight between Santa Maria in the Azores and Bermuda on 30 January 1948.
  • July 24 - Chiles-Whitted UFO incident.
  • October 1 - Gorman dogfight.
  • In the first Presidential race in decades not to have an incumbent running, over twenty individuals initially seek nomination. Republicans predictably nominate Thomas Dewey, who selects a young and obscure Congressman named Richard Nixon as his running mate. Warring factions of the progressive wing and a moribund conservative coalition leave the Democratic Party fragmented, with Henry Wallace heading the Progressive party ticket and Georgia Senator Richard Russell receiving the Democratic nomination. Dewey easily wins the White House with just 51% of the vote, the remaining votes split almost evenly between the warring Democratic party factions.
  • December - USAF Project Sign discontinued and replaced by Project Grudge.
  • December 28 - A Douglas DST airliner, registered NC16002, vanishes near the end of a scheduled flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida.

1949

  • President Dewey announces the “Big Brother” plan, a set of government programs designed to give people a “leg-up rather than a hand-out.” Small-business incentives and zero-interest educational loan programs are intended to invigorate the economy and provide an increase in vocational training. A key part of the program consists of “keeping a watchful eye on your neighbor” and informing the proper authorities if your neighbor is “having troubles.” Vice-president Nixon is placed in charge of the program, which quickly becomes overwhelmed as thousands of citizens telephone to report on their neighbors.
  • Secretary of Science James Forrestal disappears while on vacation in New Mexico. Despite a search involving US military, he is never found.
  • Vice-president Nixon enlists the aid of top scientists and engineers to design a mechanism which can process the phone calls, telegrams, and other bits of information received as a result of President Dewey's "Big Brother" program.
  • The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by anarchist Emmanuel Goldstein, is published in England.
  • In August the first known film footage of a UFO is photgraphed in what becomes known as the Mariana incident.
  • USAF Project Grudge formally ended (December).
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