Today -100: March 1, 1925: Of eberts, earthquakes, and Harlem

German President Friedrich Ebert dies of peritonitis several days after an appendectomy. He was 54 and is survived by wife Louise Rump (!) and some kids, including Freddie Jr., who will be mayor of East Berlin for nearly 20 years.

An earthquake is felt in New York City and a bunch of eastern states. We don’t know what it is on the Richter scale because Charlie Richter hasn’t invented it yet, and we don’t know where the epicenter was because the recording pin fell off the seismograph at Fordham. New York cops advise people to stay in their homes to prevent opportunistic burglaries.

Headline of the Day -100: 

The NYT finally notices the Harlem Renaissance (as it was not yet called), although it mostly focuses on jazz. It also points out (warns?) that some among the “swarthy races” practice a thing called “passing.”

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