|
| 1 9 2 2 |
After an all-day chase from the city, Prohibition Director E. Forrest Mitchell arrests George Spratt, a U.S. division deputy Internal Revenue Collector, in Fresno for his leading role in "a great San Francisco to Fresno booze running business." — Jan. 14
Deadlocked at 10-2 in favor of conviction, the jury in the second murder trial of film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle ends in a mistrial. Jurors had deadlocked 11-1 for acquittal in the first trial, but prosecutors announce the third time will be the charm. — Feb. 4
As The Examiner's new radio station prepares to broadcast from the Hearst Building at Third and Market streets, a radio expert responds to a fellow who wants "all these wise-acres who live on a steady diet of volts and amperes ... to drop a rope to the technical lowbrows" by describing the complicated setup of a "radiophone." — March 22
At hearings in San Jose, a 13-year-old boy and his parents testify that children at the Perfect Divine Way compound in the Santa Cruz mountains are cruelly tortured, especially by one Otto Roddin, a former German soldier who was put in charge of the cult's children. Kids, they testify, were made to work to exhaustion, then beaten, stretched between trees with ropes and fed with the hogs. — April 6
In his third trial, Fatty Arbuckle is acquitted of the murder of actress Virginia Rappe in just three minutes — the time it took to elect a foreman and take a ballot. Arbuckle had been vilified in the press and would soon be banned by the motion picture industry. Writes the jury in a statement: "Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him." — April 13
Partly shorn of his clothing and covered with a heavy coat of tar and feathers, Phillip Reilly, an Oakland politician and publisher of the Free Press, is found at McKinley Street and Allston Way in Berkeley early in the morning. He says he was dumped there by three masked men who had kidnapped and abused him because of his newspaper's attacks on public officials. — April 18
A "terrific bolt of forked lightening" hits a 55,000-barrel tank of oil behind the Union Oil Company refinery at Oleum, setting off an explosion that shakes Vallejo, Crockett and the countryside for miles around. The ensuing fire spreads to a second tank and can be seen from Oakland, Berkeley and the city. Sunday evening drivers stuck in a traffic jam on the highway 100 yards from the blaze sit in terror. — Oct. 2
A full-page spread on the sold-out screening at the giant Curran Theater of "When Knighthood Was in Flower," starring Marion Davies, hails "one of the most magnificent, most interesting and commanding film plays in the history of the screen," and claims the public's positive response is unprecedented. — Nov. 14