general election, 1924: Fascists win the elections in Italy with a two-thirds majority. April 13 – The Greek republic referendum favors formation of the Second Hellenic Republic. April 16 – American media company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) is founded in Los Angeles. April 23 – The British Empire Exhibition opens in London; it is the largest colonial exhibition, with 58 countries of the empire dramatically represented. April 27 – A group of Alawites kill several nuns in Syria; French troops march against them. April 28 – An explosion in a mine at the Wheeling Steel Corporation in Benwood, West Virginia kills 119 men. May May 3 – The Aleph Zadik Aleph, the oldest Jewish youth fraternity, is founded in Omaha, Nebraska. May 4 – The 1924 Summer Olympics opening ceremonies are held in Paris, France. May 8 – Lithuania signs the Klaipėda Convention with the nations of the Conference of Ambassadors, taking the Klaipėda Region from East Prussia and making it into an autonomous region. May 10 – In the United States, J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. May 11 – Mercedes-Benz is formed by the merging of companies owned by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz. May 21 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a thrill killing. The event will inspire the 1929 play Rope. May 24 – The Immigration Act of 1924 is signed into law in the United States, including the Asian Exclusion Act. May 26 – Harry Grindell Matthews attempts to demonstrate his "death ray" to the War Office in the United Kingdom. May 30 – Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti speaks out against Fascism. A few days later he is kidnapped and murdered in Rome. June June 2 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States. June 5 – Ernst Alexanderson sends the first facsimile across the Atlantic Ocean, which goes to his father in Sweden. June 7–16 – Rudolf Steiner delivers his Agriculture Course at Koberwitz beginning of the organic agriculture movement. June 8 – George Mallory and Andrew Irvine are last seen "going strong for the top" of Mount Everest by teammate Noel Odell at 12:50 P.M. The two mountaineers are never seen alive again. June 12 – Rondout Heist: Six