• On Feb. 14 – Valentine’s Day – seven gangsters rivaling Al Capone are gunned down in Chicago.

• On Sept. 17, the Dow hits a peak of 381.17 – the calm before the storm.

• The stock market crashes in late October, triggering the start of The Great Depression in the United States and a worldwide economic crisis that would last until the mid-1930s.

• Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.

• Anne Frank is born on July 12.

• The comic strip character Popeye makes his debut.

• The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are started.

• The Museum of Modern Art opens in New York City.

• “The Broadway Melody” becomes the first major musical film of the sound era.

• Herbert Hoover is sworn in as president; Charles Curtis of Kansas is sworn in as the nation’s first Native American vice president.

• The first telephone is installed in the White House.

• Construction of Beth El Synagogue on Cooke St. in Waterbury begins. The first Byzantine-style synagogue in Connecticut, in 1995 it is placed on the National Register of Historic Places.