1927 Newspaper Headlines Summary
Which 1927 newspaper headlines caught the attention of readers during this eventful year? Writing, art, and music changed forever as artists experimented with different ways of telling stories, creating art and making music.
The Jazz Singer movie becomes a huge hit in the U.S. as the first feature length-motion picture, ending the silent movie era of the 1920s. Stalin came into power, after exiling Trotsky after the death of Lenin. The first transatlantic telephone call was made from New York to London, a major technological breakthrough.
If you want to read about all this and more, check our our range of 1927 newspaper articles and take a trip back in time to some of the world’s biggest historical events.
January 7, 1927
The first transatlantic telephone call is made from New York City to London.
January 15, 1927
Teddy Wakelam gives the first sports commentary on BBC Radio.
February 23, 1927
The U.S. Federal Radio Commission begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies.
March 11, 1927
The Roxy Theater in New York City is opened by Samuel Roxy Rothafel.
April 12, 1927
The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act of 1927 renames the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’ as the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’. The change acknowledges that the Irish Free State is no longer part of the Kingdom.
April 22, 1927
The Great Mississippi Flood affects 700,000 people in the greatest national disaster in the history of the United States. The flooding continues until 5th May 1927.
May 2, 1927
Buck v. Bell is decided in the Supreme Court, permitting compulsory sterilization of people with intellectual disability.
May 11, 1927
The “Academy” in “Academy Awards”, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is founded.
May 18, 1927
The Bath School Disaster occurs, in which bombing results in the deaths of 45 people, mostly children, in Bath Township, Michigan.
May 20, 1927
Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight, from New York to Paris, in the single-seat, single-engine monoplane, ‘Spirit of St. Louis’
May 22, 1927
A devastating earthquake in Xining, China , measures 8.6 on the Richter scale of magnitude and kills 200,000 people.
July 24, 1927
The Menin Gate war memorial is unveiled at Ypres in Belgium.
August 2, 1927
President Calvin Coolidge announces “I do not choose to run for president in 1928.”
August 7, 1927
The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.
August 22, 1927
Two-hundred people demonstrate in Hyde Park against the sentence of Italian immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.
August 23, 1927
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed via electrocution for armed robbery and the associated murder of a pay-clerk and security guard in Braintree, Massachusetts. Questions remain regarding the guilty conviction and the fairness of their trial.
September 18, 1927
CBS is formed and goes on the air with 47 radio stations, originally known as the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System.
September 29, 1927
The East St. Louis Tornado is the 2nd costliest and at least 24th deadliest tornado in U.S. history, with 79 people killed and 550 injured.
October 6, 1927
The Jazz Singer movie opens in the United States as the first feature-length motion picture, becoming a huge success and ending the silent movie era in the United States.
October 14, 1927
Birth of Roger Moore, English actor.
November 3-4, 1927
Floods devastate Vermont, incurring the “worst natural disaster in the state’s history.”
November 12, 1927
Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
November 13, 1927
The Holland Tunnel opens to the public as the first Hudson River vehicular tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.
November 14, 1927
The Pittsburgh Gasometer Explosion occurs, with three Equitable Gas storage tanks in the North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania exploding and killing 26 people. The damage caused is estimated between contemporary totals of $4 million and $5 million.
December 2, 1927
After 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.
December 27, 1927
Kern and Hammerstein’s musical play Show Boat, based on the novel by Edna Ferber, opens on Broadway and goes on to become the first great classic of the American musical theater.
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