Howdy Buckaroos and Buckarettes, it’s time to climb into Mr. Peabody’s Way Back Machine for the annual January celebration of a year that is just turning 100.
Today’s birthday boy is 1925. Stick around to learn about the wild and wacky things that made 1925 the lovable special kind of year it was.
Unfortunately, 1925 was also a big year for emerging dictators with both Mussolini and Hitler becoming upwardly mobile. Let the show begin.

January 3: Benito Mussolini dissolved the Italian Parliament declaring himself the dictator of Italy. He remained in that position until he found himself hanging around upside down near the end of World War II.

January 6: Leon Trotsky got booted out of the Russian government by Stalin after losing the contest to replace Lenin. Leon was later axed a question he could not answer by Stalin’s assassins at Frida Kahlo’s house in Mexico.

February 2: The origin of the Iditarod Dog race was born when relay teams of dog sleds took a vaccine from Anchorage to Nome to fight a diphtheria outbreak. If RFK, Jr. takes over Health and Human Services, smuggling vaccines by dog sleds may come back into style. Buy Kibbles.

February 21: The first issue of New Yorker magazine appears setting the stage for countless cartoons that may or may not be funny.

March 4: Silent Calvin Coolidge is inaugurated as President. His most famous Zen quote was: “The chief business of the American people is business.” People are still puzzled by what this koan means.

March 13: Tennessee passes a law making it illegal to teach evolution. This resulted in the famous Monkey Trial which convicted John Scopes in July of teaching evolution.
This also allowed Spencer Tracy and Fredric March to star in the very sweaty movie “Inherit the Wind” about the trial.

April 10: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is published, making it one of the most famous novels people have heard about but seldom, if ever, read.

April 25: Paul von Hindenburg is elected President of Germany, thus becoming the first President anywhere to be named for a blimp. It also led to Blimpy in the Popeye cartoons to invent credit purchases by promising “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

June 1: NY Yankee player Lou Gehrig gets his first hit in his streak of playing in 2,130 games in a row until 30 April 1939.

July 10: Avatar Meher Baba begins 44 years of not speaking which lasts until he died in 1969. Many husbands secretly wish their wives would follow Mr. Baba’s example.

October 1: The idea of carving Mount Rushmore is announced leading to the establishment of 4 giant Presidential Heads and a lovely gift shoppe in the Black Hills of South Dakota
October 16: Not to be outdone by Tennessee, the Texas State School Board bans the teaching of evolution in schools.

October 27: Water skis are patented by Fred Waller making possible 1978’s sequel movie “Jaws 2” in which a beautiful lady person water skier is chased and eaten by an angry shark.

November 9: In keeping with 1925’s Festival of Bad Dictators, Hitler’s Nazi Party forms its SS paramilitary wing. No one seems to notice the ugly pattern that is forming.

November 9: Meanwhile in Madison, Wisconsin, Robert Millikan speaks to the National Academy of Sciences announcing that cosmic rays from outer space bombard the Earth. This allows for the creation of multiple Sci-Fi horror movies.
The worst movie ever made- “Plan 9 From Outer Space” features aliens using Cosmic Rays to re-animate corpses to take over the world.

November 28: The Grand Ole Opry’s first live broadcast on radio is heard as the WSM Barn Dance. Goo Goo Clusters candy bar (a chocolate treat consisting of marshmallow nougat, caramel, and peanuts) was a proud sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry from 1966 until 2006.

December 12: Arthur Heineman creates the term “Motel” by combining the words Motor and Hotel when he opens the Motel Inn in San Luis Obispo.
This leads to Frank Zappa’s immortal movie “200 Motels” about the lives of rock stars in 1971.
Now you know all about the Year of Our Lord 1925. You are now free to roam about the country. If you still write checks, remember to use 2025 from now on. Happy New Year.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)