Howdy Buckaroos and Buckarettes, it’s time for our annual celebration of a year that is turning 100. Our birthday year 1926 doesn’t look a day older than 75. Botox does wonders for years as well as for movie stars and Mar-A-Lago groupies. 1926 was a wild and wacky year, holding up a thin wall of time between 1925 and 1927. Get on board Mr. Peabody’s Way Back Machine, we are heading back into the life and times of 1926. 
6 January: The year started with a bang as our old buddy Sheik Abdulaziz Ibn Saud became King of what turned out later to be Saudi Arabia, future home of 9-11 pilots.
26 January: John Baird made the first public demonstration of Television leading to that pinnacle of culture The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
27 January: Physicist Erwin Schrodinger, published his theory of wave mechanics and later went on to create his famous box containing a cat that was both alive and dead.
6 February: Heads Up!  Pancho Villa’s grave was robbed and his skull was stolen and never found.
8 February: Walt Disney Studios were opened creating a wonderland of money and talking rodents.
7 March:  The first transatlantic phone call was made from London to New York paving the way for today’s modern blessings of cell phones and social media.
10 March: The Book of the Month Club was announced which ultimately led to Clark Griswold receiving the Jelly of the Month Club instead of his expected Christmas bonus.
7 April: Italian dictator Mussolini escapes assassination attempt with only a bullet wound to the nose.
9 April: Birthday of Playboy Publisher Hugh Hefner,  leading to millions of red-blooded American boys discovering hiding his magazine under their mattress does not always fool Mom.
1 May: Philosopher and Baseball Hall of Fame Pitcher Satchel Paige played his first game in the Negro Leagues.  To quote Mr. Paige: “How old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you were?”
1 June: Birthday of Marilyn Monroe, America’s Sweet Heart (and possibly President Kennedy’s and his brother Robert F. Kennedy’s sweet heart as well). 
3 June: Birthday of Beat Poet and eternal optimist Allen Ginsberg who wrote: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked.” 
23 June:  The first college board exam the SAT is given in the United States, leading to the creation of many jobs in the SAT test preparation industry.
28 June:  The Mercedes-Benz corporation is formed after a merger of DMG and Benz & Cie corporations, creating  a relatively harmless outlet for many men’s midlife crises.  
8 July:  Birthday of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who invented the five stages of grief:  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.  These five stages are experienced annually by UNC Tar Heel football fans  every gridiron season. 
16 July: National Geographic magazine produces the  first color underwater photos.   Teenage boys are not as interested in these photos as in the pictures of native culture.
20 July:  The Methodist Church votes to allow women to become ministers.  Not every denomination agrees with this decision.
6 August:  Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Not every man can do this.
13 August:  Agrarian Reformer and Commie Rat Bastard Fidel Castro is born in Cuba.
23 August:  Movie Star Heart Throb Rudolph Valentino dies at age 31 causing major freak out among lady person fans of the female persuasion.
20 September:  Trouble in Gangland as gangster Bugs Moran attempts to kill Al Capone in a failed drive by shooting.  This would not be the last drive by shooting in America.
25 September:  Henry Ford announces the 40-hour work week at Ford Factories.
23 October:  Leon Trotsky is kicked out of Russian Politburo by Stalin.  Leon moves to Mexico to stay with Frida Kahlo where he meets his untimely end at the end of an ice pick to the brain.
31 October:  Harry Houdini dies after a series of punches to his stomach. Moral:  Don’t solicit stomach punches.
3 November:  Sharpshooter and Star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Annie Oakley dies of anemia.
6 December:  Overcome by grief at the death of Annie Oakley, French impressionist painter Claude Monet dies.
25 December:  Prince Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan leading to Pearl Harbor,  World War II, and countless Made In Japan jokes in post war 1950’s America.
Happy 100th birthday to 1926.  
Gentle Reader, you are now free to roam about the country, armed with your newly reinforced knowledge of our old pal 1926.  Happy New Year.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)