One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson. Very readable and entertaining tale of the summer of 1927, starting with the rush to fly the Atlantic (Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly nonstop solo from NY to Paris) and going through the events of the year.
Bryson discusses the characters and events in cheerful detail, and also tells what happened to them in later years. For example, Herbert Hoover was Calvin Coolidge's Secretary of Commerce, and was quite busy arranging relief for the people made homeless by the devastating Mississippi floods of that year (which no one remembers now because the newspapers were focused on Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees going for the home run record.)
Calvin Coolidge hated Washington, DC, so he was spending the summer in South Dakota. He had press conferences in a high school auditorium there. Strangely enough, the government ran just fine.
The author tells us not only what was happening then, but also what happened to the people later on, and the significance of the events as seen through the lens of ninety years of history. For example, the Mississippi floods accelerated the great migration of American blacks to northern cities. Herbert Hoover lived to be ninety. Charles Lindbergh made a tour of America that really sparked R&D into aviation, helping prepare America for WWII. Etc, etc, etc. A very fun read.
