Not even much survives as memory. Many of the most notable names of the summer — Richard Byrd, Sacco and Vanzetti, Gene Tunney, even Charles Lindberg… - Bill Bryson

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Not even much survives as memory. Many of the most notable names of the summer — Richard Byrd, Sacco and Vanzetti, Gene Tunney, even Charles Lindbergh — are rarely encountered now, and most of the others are never heard at all. So it is perhaps worth pausing for a moment to remember just some of the things that happened that summer: Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs. The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash. Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singer was filmed. Television was created. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flooded as it never had before. A madman in Michigan blew up a school and killed forty-four people in the worst slaughter of children in American history. Henry Ford stopped making the Model T and promised to stop insulting Jews. And a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before. Whatever else it was, it was one hell of a summer.