Significant Books and Music of the Century, Year by Year
1930 was the year that the planet Pluto was discovered; a yellow-fever vaccine was developed; Constantinople became Istanbul; and flash powder was replaced by safer photo flashbulbs.
The quintessential hard-boiled detective novel, starring Sam Spade as the loner detective, along with a beautiful but treacherous girl, a fat man, and a mysterious statue of a black bird, a treasure worth killing for.
Significant Music of 1930: Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo
Duke Ellington records one of his signature tunes, "Mood Indigo," a composition he wrote with his clarinetist Barney Bigard.