Senator Charles
("Call Me Charlie") Curtis of Kansas, the Republican
vice-presidential nominee … had been by raised by his grandmother, a
full-blooded Kaw Indian princess, on a reservation outside of Topeka until he
was eight years old, was the first American of Indian ancestry to obtain such
an exalted political office.
In one of the more
bizarre fads to sweep across the city in recent years, Berliners in early 1929
had begun to collect baby alligators, which sold for 25 marks (about $6), and
meat-eating snakes, particularly coral snakes from southern United States.
The foundation of
the empire that brought Capone $100 million worth of profits annually (in 1928,
this syndicate reportedly grossed $105 million) was always booze.
In his final weeks
in office, [President] Coolridge was swamped with so many requests for
autographed photos that he had to omit his usual midday nap for nearly a week
to sign them all.
Although it has been
statistically proved that, contrary to popular legend, there was no sudden leap
in the suicide rate in America in the autumn of 1929, there is no question that
a number of men and women did kill themselves because they had lost heavily in
the stock market.
