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Born in 1926? Here's the world you arrived into

In 1926, "Valencia" topped the charts, What Price Glory? packed theaters, a stamp cost 2¢, the average home went for about $7,400.

What things cost in 1926

A $0.23 gallon of gas in 1926 has the buying power of roughly $4.35 today. A 2¢ stamp is about 38¢, and a 20¢ movie ticket about $3.80.

The biggest moments of 1926

• NBC, the nation's first coast-to-coast radio network, went on the air in November 1926.
• U.S. Route 66 was established, linking Chicago to Los Angeles and inviting Americans to hit the open road.
• Henry Ford announced the five-day, 40-hour workweek for his factory workers.

• Harry Houdini, the world's most famous escape artist, died on Halloween 1926, and rumor insisted no lock could have held him.
• About 8,000 students sat for a brand-new college entrance exam in June 1926 — the very first SAT.
• Golfer Bobby Jones became the first man to win the U.S. Open and British Open in the same year.

Toys, TV & trends of 1926

• Children met Winnie-the-Pooh for the first time when A. A. Milne's storybook was published in October.
• The Book-of-the-Month Club began delivering new novels straight to subscribers' mailboxes.
• Radio listeners in Chicago tuned in nightly to Sam 'n' Henry, the show that would evolve into Amos 'n' Andy.

• Red Grange, the "Galloping Ghost," barnstormed the country playing pro football and single-handedly made the fledgling NFL box-office news.
• Soda fountains were the after-school kingdom of cherry phosphates, egg creams, and nickel ice-cream sundaes.
• Anything wonderful was "the cat's whiskers," while doubters scoffed "horsefeathers!" and "applesauce!"

The music scene

In Chicago, Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers sessions of 1926 showed that jazz could be carefully composed and arranged without losing an ounce of heat — records still studied by musicians today. On dance floors, the Black Bottom stomped in from the Broadway revue scene to challenge the Charleston as the nation's favorite step. New electrically recorded discs, played on the latest Orthophonic phonographs, sounded so lifelike that families replaced their old machines in droves.

At the movies

On August 6, 1926, Warner Bros. premiered Don Juan with a Vitaphone synchronized orchestral score — no spoken dialogue yet, but the clock had begun ticking on the silent era. Rudolph Valentino died suddenly that same month at just 31, and some 100,000 grieving fans lined New York streets for his funeral. A quiet Swedish newcomer named Greta Garbo also made her American debut in 1926, and cameras adored her instantly.

Cartoons kids loved

• Felix the Cat at the peak of his popularity
• Walt Disney's Alice Comedies
• Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes sing-along shorts

Cartoon studios in 1926 were laboratories of personality: animators discovered that audiences returned for characters they loved, not just gags. Felix's pacing-and-thinking walk was so widely imitated that it became visual shorthand for scheming everywhere, and merchandising money was starting to rival theatrical rentals.

The world in 1926

• World population: about 2 billion
• U.S. President: Calvin Coolidge
• Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, beating the existing men's record.

• Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket from a Massachusetts farm field in March 1926.
• Britain endured a nine-day General Strike in May 1926 as some 1.7 million workers walked out.
• Twenty-five-year-old Hirohito became Emperor of Japan in December, beginning the Showa era.

1926 birthday questions

Want it on paper? The same 1926 front page prints as a greeting card, poster or framed keepsake.

Anyone born in 1926 turns 100 this year — see 100th birthday gift ideas.

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