Events from the year 1926 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
President: Calvin Coolidge (R-Massachusetts) Vice President: Charles G. Dawes (R-Illinois) Chief Justice: William Howard Taft (Ohio) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Nicholas Longworth (R-Ohio) Senate Majority Leader: Charles Curtis (R-Kansas) Congress: 69th
Events
January–March
February 1 – Land on Broadway and Wall Street in New York City is sold at a record $7 per sq inch. March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
April–June
April 12 – By a vote of 45–41, the United States Senate unseats Iowa Senator Smith W. Brookhart and seats Daniel F. Steck, after Brookhart has served for over one year. April 30 – African-American pilot Bessie Coleman is killed after falling from an airplane. May 10 – Planes piloted by Major Harold Geiger and Horace Meek Hickam, students at the Air Corps Tactical School, collide in mid-air over Langley Field, Virginia. Hickam parachutes to safety. May 18 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears while visiting a beach at Venice, California; on June 23 she is found stumbling in the desert of Agua Prieta, Mexico just south of Douglas, Arizona, claiming she has been kidnapped, drugged, tortured and held for ransom, but has escaped. May 12 – The United States Congress passes the Air Commerce Act, licensing pilots and planes. June 19 – DeFord Bailey is the first African-American to perform on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. June 23 – The College Board administers the first SAT, a major standardized test for university and college admission in the U.S.
July–September
July 1 – Benjamin Franklin Bridge opens. July 12 – A lightning strike destroys an ammunition depot in Dover, New Jersey. July 26 – The National Bar Association incorporates in the United States. August 6 – In New York City, the Warner Brothers' Vitaphone system premieres with the movie Don Juan starring John Barrymore. August 18 – A weather map is televised for the first time, sent from NAA Arlington to the Weather Bureau Office in Washington, D.C. September 11 – Aloha Tower is officially dedicated at Honolulu Harbor in the Territory of Hawai'i. September 16 – Philip Dunning and George Abbott's play Broadway premieres in New York City. September 18 – Great Miami Hurricane: A strong hurricane devastates Miami, Florida, leaving over 100 dead and causing several hundred million dollars in damage (equal to nearly $100 billion today). September 20 – Twelve cars full of gangsters open fire at the Hawthorne Inn, Al Capone's Chicago headquarters. Only one of Capone's men is wounded. September 25 – The Detroit Cougars, a professional ice hockey club (National Hockey League) and predecessor of the Detroit Red Wings, is founded.
October–December
October 10 – The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the New York Yankees, 4 games to 3, to win their first World Series Title. This World Series ended when Babe Ruth attempted to steal second base and is the only World Series to end this way. October 14 – Poland presents President Calvin Coolidge with a 111 volume gift called a "Polish Declaration of Admiration and Friendship for the United States of America" comprising some 15,000 bound sheets with the signatures of an estimated 5,500,000 Polish citizens on the occasion of America's 150th anniversary of independence. November 10 – In San Francisco, California, a necrophiliac serial killer named Earle Nelson (dubbed "Gorilla Man") kills and then rapes his 9th victim, a boardinghouse landlady named Mrs. William Edmonds. November 11 – The plan for a United States Numbered Highway System is approved by the American Association of State Highway Officials, so establishing U.S. Route 66. November 15 – The NBC radio network opens with 24 stations (formed by Westinghouse, General Electric and RCA). November 27 – In Williamsburg, Virginia, the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg begins. December 23 – Conservative Nicaraguan President Adolfo Díaz requests U.S. military assistance in the Nicaraguan civil war (1926–27). U.S. Marines immediately set up neutral zones in Puerto Cabezas and at the mouth of the Rio Grande to protect American and foreign lives and property.
Undated
Microbiologist Selman Waksman publishes Enzymes. The Pike School in Andover, Massachusetts, is founded. Lundy's Restaurant is founded at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
Ongoing
Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937) U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934) Prohibition (1920–1933) Roaring Twenties (1920–1929)