360The 1920s: insulin, penicillin and the first television
The 1920s brought insulin to treat diabetes and, in 1928, the discovery of penicillin. John Logie Baird demonstrated television, Charles Lindbergh flew alone across the Atlantic, and films learned to talk. King Abdulaziz's realm grew into the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd. The decade ended with the Wall Street Crash.
In 1921 and 1922, scientists in Toronto, led by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, isolated insulin and used it to treat a diabetic patient for the first time. A disease that had been a death sentence became manageable.
In 1928, Alexander Fleming noticed that a mould growing in a London laboratory dish was killing bacteria. He named the substance penicillin. Developed into a medicine in the 1940s, it became the first widely used antibiotic.
In 1926, the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated a working television system in London. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew alone, nonstop, from New York to Paris in 33 and a half hours, and The Jazz Singer became the first feature film with synchronised speech.
In Arabia, King Abdulaziz continued to unify the land. In 1926 he became King of the Hejaz, and in 1927 his realm became the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd, which he later united as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
In 1922, the archaeologist Howard Carter found the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt. The League of Nations began work in 1920. In October 1929, share prices crashed on Wall Street, starting the Great Depression.
- 1922
- Insulin first used; Tutankhamun's tomb found
- 1926
- Baird demonstrates television
- 1927
- Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd; Lindbergh's flight
- 1928
- Fleming discovers penicillin
- 1929
- Wall Street Crash
Sources: Britannica · Saudipedia · Nobel Prize.