Events from the year 1929 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
President: Calvin Coolidge (R-Massachusetts) (until March 4), Herbert Hoover (R-California) (starting March 4) Vice President: Charles G. Dawes (R-Illinois) (until March 4), Charles Curtis (R-Kansas) (starting March 4) Chief Justice: William Howard Taft (Ohio) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nicholas Longworth (R-Ohio) Senate Majority Leader: Charles Curtis (R-Kansas) (until March 4), James Eli Watson (R-Indiana) (starting March 4) Congress: 70th (until March 4), 71st (starting March 4)
Events
January–March
January 1 – In college football, California loses to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the 27th Rose Bowl by a score of 8–7. January 29 – The Seeing Eye is established with the mission to train guide dogs to assist the blind, by Dorothy Harrison Eustis and Morris Frank in Nashville, Tennessee. February 11 – Eugene O'Neill's Dynamo premieres in New York. February 14 – St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven gangsters, rivals of Al Capone, are murdered in Chicago. February 26 – The Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming is established by Congress. March 2 – The longest bridge in the world, the San Francisco Bay Toll-Bridge, opens. March 4 – Herbert Hoover is sworn in as the 31st president of the United States, and Charles Curtis is sworn in as the 31st vice president. March 16 – A part-talkie film version of Show Boat, based on Edna Ferber's novel rather than the musical, premieres in Palm Beach (starring Laura La Plante and Joseph Schildkraut). It is critically panned and not successful at the box office.
April–June
April 2-6 – The Bombing of Naco by Irish pilot Patrick Murphy, the first aerial assault on the United States by a foreign combatant May 13 – The National Crime Syndicate is founded in Atlantic City. May 15 – Cleveland Clinic Fire of 1929 A leak and explosion of methyl chloride refrigerant in a Cleveland hospital kills one hundred and twenty-eight and becomes regarded as the catalyst for the development of chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants. May 16 – The 1st Academy Awards are presented at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California, with William A. Wellman's Wings winning Academy Award for Best Picture. Joseph W. Farnham wins the only award ever given for Best Writing, Title Writing. Frank Borzage's 7th Heaven received the most nominations with five, while both it and F. W. Murnau's Sunrise jointly received the most awards with three. May 17 – Al Capone and his bodyguard are arrested for concealing deadly weapons. May 20 – The Wickersham Commission begins its investigation of alcohol prohibition in the United States. May 27 – United States v. Schwimmer decided in the Supreme Court affirms that pacifism is sufficient ground to deny an applicant citizenship of the United States. June 12 – Lou Hoover has tea at the White House with Jessie De Priest, wife of Oscar De Priest, the first black congressman of the 20th century. June 16 – Otto E. Funk, 62, ends his marathon walk (New York City to San Francisco, 4,165 miles in 183 days). June 21 – An agreement brokered by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow ends the Cristero War in Mexico. June 27 – The first public demonstration of color television is held, by H. E. Ives and his colleagues at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City. The first images are a bouquet of roses and an American flag. A mechanical system is used to transmit 50-line color television images between New York and Washington, D.C.
July–September
August 11 – The first Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, the oldest and largest US African-American parade, is held in Chicago. August 19 – The radio comedy show Amos and Andy makes its debut, starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. August 31 – The Young Plan, which sets the total World War I reparations owed by Germany at US$26,350,000,000 to be paid over a period of 58½ years, is finalized. September 3 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) peaks at 381.17, a height it will not reach again until November 1954.