Richard E. Byrd started his expedition to the Antarctic and didn’t return until 1930. The first of Joseph Stalin's Five Year Plans imposes collectivization on agriculture in the Soviet Union. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.
Herbert Hoover was elected president, defeating Alfred E. Smith, governor of New York. Jumping ahead to 1931, there’s a legend of one of old-time radio’s most famous bloopers that involved long-time radio announcer Harry von Zell.
As often happens, the truth is not quite like the legend. The legend is that on a live broadcast in 1931 von Zell introduced Hoover by announcing: “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Hoobert Heever.” While it is true that von Zell called the President “Hoobert Heever”, the circumstances were quite different.
The occasion was not a live address, but a tribute offered on the anniversary of President Hoover’s birth. Announcer von Zell was reading a lengthy recounting of Hoover’s life, career, and accomplishments and at the very end he mispronounced the President’s name.
von Zell’s explanation was that he was young and very nervous and he had mentioned the name of Herbert Hoover at least twenty times before he made the slip up. So, how did the legend that it happened during a live inaugural broadcast with President Hoover actually present come about?
A fellow named Kermit Schafer fabricated the circumstances for his Pardon My Blooper record album and claimed it was a “genuine recording.” The result was generations were convinced that the apocryphal version was what really happened.
One of the biggest events in 1928 was when John Baird, a Scottish inventor, beamed a television image from England to the United States on January 26th. Baird’s invention, a pictorial-transmission machine he called a televisor, used mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses that was then transmitted by cable to a screen where it showed up as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark. Baird’s first television program showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience.
Also in 1928, GE introduced a television set with a 3 inch by 4 inch screen named the Daven and it sold for $75...quite a princely sum in those days. The same item would cost you over $1,100 today.
In 1928 W3XK, the first American TV station, began broadcasting from suburban Washington, D.C. The station was the outgrowth of the work done by Charles F. Jenkins in devising a way to transmit pictures over the airwaves in a process he called radiovision.
Jenkins sold several thousand receiving sets, mostly to hobbyists and after receiving permission to start an experimental TV transmitting station, aired programming five nights a week until shutting down in 1932.
His television was essentially the wrong technology. His receiving sets relied on a 48-line image projected onto a 6-inch-square mirror to create the picture, rather than using electronics. Jenkins was also the first to air a television commercial. He was fined by the government for doing so because advertising wasn't legal. Much to our dismay that was to change.
The chess world lost two prominent players. On October 19, Emanuel Lasker's brother, Dr. Berthold Lasker (1860-1928) died at the age of 67. Berthold is almost unknown, but he won the New York State Chess Association championship in 1902. On February 28, 1928, Oscar Chajes (1873-1928) died in New York City at the age of 54. Chajes held the championship of New York and Illinois and the Western Chess Association championships many times.
On August 26, 1928, John G. White (1845-1928) died in Jackson Lake, Wyoming at the age of 83. He was founder and donor of the world's largest chess library, the John G. White Collection, at the Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library.
In other happenings, the International Association for Correspondence Chess was formed and the National Chess Federation organized a Radio Chess League. Sultan Khan won the All-India chess championship and Frederick Yates won his 5th British championship, held at Tenby. Max Euwe won the 2nd (and last) world amateur championship.
The second Chess Olympiad was held at The Hague and the Hungarian team (Nagy, A. Steiner, Vajda, and Havasi) took 1st place. Only chess amateurs were allowed. The British and Yugoslavs suspected that the USA team (Isaac Kashdan, Herman Steiner, Samuel Factor, Erling Tholsen and Milton Hanauer) included chess professionals, so they withdrew in protest. The US team finished second.
Steiner ran a successful chess club and schmoozed with the Hollywood stars of the day. Tholfsen may have been a pro, but after the Depression ended in 1939 he gave up tournament play and worked as a Spanish teacher in the New York City public school system and was very active in the labor movement for many years. Milton Hanauer was a public school principal.
In July the Brooklyn YMCA banned chess and all the chess tables and pieces were removed. YMCA members couldn’t even play on a magnetic or pocket set. The reason for the ban was that the secretary concluded that chess attracted too many undesirable elements to the YMCA and some of the players and spectators were smoking which was forbidden inside the YMCA. Besides that it cost extra money for supervisory personnel to keep a room open for chess.
In August, the Western Chess Association (US Open) was held in South Bend, Indiana and was won by Detroit master Leon Stolzenberg. In September Abraham Kupchik won the National Chess Championship, held in Bradley Beach, New Jersey. Edward Lasker and I.A. Horowitz tied for 2nd-3rd.
With all this exciting stuff going on, the third cable match for the Insull Trophy that was played on Saturday, November 10th between a team from Washington, DC and a team from London was pretty much forgotten.
Under the terms of trophy's gift, should London win this year the trophy would become the property of the London Chess League.
Play began at 2pm and by 7pm the games were adjournment for a one hour dinner beak. Play resumed at 8pm and things went smoothly until there was a problem in the Goldstein vs. Walker game on board six. Walker’s move was incorrectly decoded in London. Goldstein made his move then retracted it when it was discovered that the Walker's move wasn't correct. It took half an hour to straighten things out.
Between 930pm and 1030pm draws were agreed to on boards 1, 3 and 4 while the other games were still in progress. By 11pm it had become apparent that Sergeant was going to defeat Byler on board 5.
Then at about 1130pm Washington offered to draw the remaining games (boards 2, 5 where Sergeant was winning and 6). At 1150pm London countered with the suggestion of draws on boards 2 and 6 and a win on board 5, but promised that the Cup should be put up for competition the next year. There was no response from Washington and the next week the secretary of the British team was preparing to send the games for adjudication to Max Euwe.
Before the games could be sent to Euwe a cable arrived from Washington agreeing that Sergeant was winning on board 5. However, Washington protested that because the teller in London had decoded one of the moves incorrectly and Goldstein made a reply which he then took back when the mistake was discovered, the US should get a forfeit win on board 6. The dispute was never resolved.
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