1924
Lenin dies, Stalin maneuvers
After a series of strokes left him unable to speak, Vladimir Lenin died at fifty-three in his country dacha. His final testament warned that Stalin was too rude and should be removed as general secretary. The testament was suppressed. Within five years Stalin had outflanked Trotsky and made himself master of the Soviet state.
Gershwin premieres Rhapsody in Blue
At Aeolian Hall in New York, a young George Gershwin sat down at a Steinway and improvised parts of a jazz-inflected concerto he had barely finished. The opening clarinet glissando, wailing upward like a siren on a hot night, announced that something new had happened: the concert hall and Harlem had begun to talk.
Britain recognizes Soviet Union
Ramsay MacDonald's first Labour government extended diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union, the first major Western power to do so after the Russian Civil War. Trade and loan talks began. A year later a Conservative government reversed course. Normal relations between capitalist and communist states would remain awkward for seventy years.
First Winter Olympics at Chamonix
In a French Alpine town beneath the shadow of Mont Blanc, the first dedicated Winter Olympic Games brought sixteen nations to compete in skiing, skating, bobsled, and ice hockey. The Norwegians dominated the medal table. The Winter Games would grow into their own global spectacle, separating from and eventually rivaling the summer version in commercial appeal and national prestige.