Portrait of William B. Bankhead

Birthday profile

William B. Bankhead

William B. Bankhead, American lawyer and politician, 47th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (died 1940)

Born
April 12, 1874
Died
September 15, 1940
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1874

About William B. Bankhead

William Brockman Bankhead was an American politician who served as the 42nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1936 to 1940, representing Alabama's 10th and later 7th congressional districts as a Democrat from 1917 to 1940. Bankhead was a strong liberal and a prominent supporter of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal of pro-labor union legislation, thus clashing with most other Southern Democrats in Congress at the time. Bankhead described himself as proud to be a politician, by which he meant that he did not neglect matters that concerned his district or reelection. He was the father of actress Tallulah Bankhead. William Bankhead attended the University of Alabama, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and played on the university's first football team, organized in 1892.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when William B. Bankhead was born

William B. Bankhead was born in 1874. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineFirst zoo in US opens in Philadelphia
  • Technology milestoneBarbed wire patented
  • Notable inventionBarbed wire fencing
  • World population~1.54B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderUlysses S. Grant
  • U.S. population41.8M

1874 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in William B. Bankhead's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18742026
Population41.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.