March 1937

1937

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March 20, 1937: Amelia Earhart escapes injury in Honolulu plane crash

The following events occurred in March 1937:

March 1, 1937 (Monday)

• Former Prime Minister Kyösti Kallio was sworn into office as the fourth President of Finland after being selected by the
• The Camp of National Unity was founded in Poland.
• The government of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied puppet state formed from the three northeastern provinces of the Republic of China, passed a law on royal succession making Puyi's brother Pujie the next in line for the throne. Puyi, the last Emperor of China, had been married for 14 years but had no children.
• The French steamer Marie-Thérèse le Borgne hit a naval mine in the same area where the British ship Llandovery Castle was damaged a week previously. The ship was able to make port at Palamós.
• Born:
  • Eugen Doga, Moldovan composer; in Mocra, Moldavian ASSR, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
  • Jimmy Little, Australian aboriginal musician; at the Cummeragunja Reserve in New South Wales (d. 2012)
  • Anis Ud Dowla, Bangladeshi businessman and chairman of the conglomerate ACI Limited; in Faridpur, Bengal Province, British India
• Died:
  • DeWitt Jennings, 65, American actor
  • Major General John Antill, 71, Australian Army officer whose command decisions during the Battle of the Nek in the Gallipoli campaign of World War I helped contribute to the casualty rate of 372 killed or wounded of 600 members of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade.

March 2, 1937 (Tuesday)

• The British House of Commons voted, 243 to 134, to endorse the government's rearmament program by a vote of . Italy replied by ordering every male in the country between 18 and 55 to be fit for "integral militarization".
• Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas announced that the government would take over control of the country's oil resources.
• The Frank Capra-directed drama-fantasy film Lost Horizon starring Ronald Colman was released.
• Cecilia Colledge of the United Kingdom won the ladies' competition of the World Figure Skating Championships in London.
• Born: Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria from 1999 to 2019; in Oujda, French Morocco (d. 2021)

March 3, 1937 (Wednesday)

• The Holmes Foundry Riot occurred in Sarnia, Ontario, in Canada. Workers engaging in a sitdown strike were attacked by non-striking employees who wanted to go back to work. Fifty people were injured, including 9 who were hospitalized.
• Lieutenant-Colonel Germán Busch, Chief of the General Staff of Bolivia, announced his resignation to President David Toro as a test of Busch's support within the military. Toro refused the resignation and would be forced out of office on July 13, with Busch becoming the new president.
• New York City's Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia made a speech to a Jewish women's group proposing that the 1939 World's Fair include a "Hall of Horrors" with a figure of "that brown-shirted fanatic who is now menacing the peace of the world." The next day, the German newspaper Der Angriff dedicated its entire front page to attacking Mayor La Guardia, calling him a "scoundrel" and an "impudent Jew" who governed New York with "the terror of the revolvers and clubs of his gangster friends." The German government directed its Ambassador to Washington Hans Luther to make a formal protest against La Guardia's remarks.
• Born:
  • Bobby Driscoll, child actor; in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (d. 1968)
  • Tsukasa Hosaka, Japanese footballer with 19 caps for the Japan national team; in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture (d. 2018)

March 4, 1937 (Thursday)

• The 9th Academy Awards were held in Los Angeles. The Great Ziegfeld won for Best Picture; Frank Capra won Best Director for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town; Paul Muni and Luise Rainer for Best Actor and Best Actress; Walter Brennan and Gale Sondergaard for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, respectively.
• The Greek freighter Loukia sank after hitting a mine floating in the sea off the coast of Cape San Sebastian in Spain, killing all but one of the 24 men aboard.
• Born:
  • Graham Dowling, New Zealand cricketer; in Christchurch
  • Leslie H. Gelb, American political scientist and newspaper columnist; in New Rochelle, New York (d. 2019)
  • Yuri Senkevich, Mongolian-born Soviet doctor and scientist; in Choibalsan (d. 2003)
  • Barney Wilen, jazz saxophonist; in Nice, France (d. 1996)
• Died:
  • Alice Cooper, 62, American sculptor best known for her statue Sacajawea and Jean-Baptiste
  • John A. Gilruth FRSE, 66, controversial Australian Administrator of the Northern Territory and former veterinarian, died of a respiratory infection.

March 5, 1937 (Friday)

• The Battle of Cape Machichaco was fought off the coast of Spain, when the Spanish Nationalist cruiser Canarias intercepted the transport ship Galdames and its 173 passengers, engaging the escort of four Basque Auxiliary Navy trawlers in battle. The Basque ships Bizcaya, Gipuzkoa, Donostia and Nabarra had set sail with Galdames from Bayonne in France toward Bilbao. The trawler Nabarra was sunk, with the loss of 29 men, while 20 others were treated and then imprisoned. Four passengers on Galdames were killed and one, Catalan legislator Manuel Carrasco Formiguera, was imprisoned and would be executed in 1938.
• The Communist Party of Spain demanded that POUM be eliminated.
• The Hungarian government revealed a plot by the National Socialist Party and arrested its leader Ferenc Szálasi.
• The U.S. Department of State officially apologized to the German government for Fiorello La Guardia's remarks.
• Born: Olusegun Obasanjo, President of Nigeria from 1976 to 1979 and 1999 to 2007; in Ibogun-Olaogun, Colonial Nigeria
• Died:
  • Sir Frederic Lang, 85, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1913 to 1922
  • Jujiro Wada, 65, Japanese adventurer and entrepreneur in Alaska, co-creator of the Iditarod Trail
  • Charles "Blondy" Wallace, 37, early American pro football player for the Canton Bulldogs in 1905 and 1906, college football All-American, later convicted of tax evasion.
  • Hong Taechawanit (Zheng Ziyong), 69, Chinese and Thai philanthropist

March 6, 1937 (Saturday)

• The Battle of Pozoblanco began in Spain.
• A two-question referendum was held in Australia. Neither proposal to alter the Australian Constitution was carried.
• The Belgian student association "Academicus Sancti Michaëlis Ordo" was founded.
• Born: Valentina Tereshkova, Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in space; in Bolshoye Maslennikovo, Yaroslavl Oblast, USSR

March 7, 1937 (Sunday)

• Parliamentary elections were held in Chile. The Liberal Party won a slim plurality in the Senate and tied with the Conservative Party in the Chamber of Deputies.
• The Percy Grainger composition Lincolnshire Posy was first performed, premiering in the U.S. in Milwaukee.

March 8, 1937 (Monday)

• The Battle of Guadalajara began in Spain.
• The steamship Mar Cantabrico, carrying war materiel from the United States to the Spanish Republic, was intercepted in the Bay of Biscay by the Nationalists who shot 26 members of the crew.
• The title of Duke of Windsor was created for the former King Edward VIII.
• Born: Juvénal Habyarimana, President of Rwanda; in Ruanda-Urundi (d. 1994)
• Died: Howie Morenz, 34, Canadian ice hockey player, died of a coronary embolism.

March 9, 1937 (Tuesday)

• Germany's Interior Minister Heinrich Himmler ordered the arrest of "professional criminals" who had committed two or more crimes but were now free after serving their sentences. Over the next few days some 2,000 people were arrested without charges and sent to concentration camps.
• U.S. President Roosevelt gave a fireside chat on his judicial reform bill.
• Born: Harry Neale, Canadian ice hockey coach and commentator; in Sarnia, Ontario
• Died: Paul Elmer More, 72, American journalist, essayist and Christian apologist

March 10, 1937 (Wednesday)

• Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, condemning breaches of the Reichskonkordat by the Nazi regime in Germany.
• German and Italian POWs who fought for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War were interviewed in Valencia by a correspondent of the British newspaper The Times. The captured fighters confirmed they were regular soldiers of their country's army and not civilian volunteers.
• Italy's Premier Benito Mussolini sailed for Libya to conduct an inspection tour and review the Italian fleet.
• Jersey Airport opened in the Channel Islands.

March 11, 1937 (Thursday)

Funeral of Howie Morenz

• The funeral of Howie Morenz was held in the Montreal Forum.
• Died:
  • Joseph S. Cullinan, 76, American oil industrialist and founder of Texaco
  • Paul Scheinpflug, 61, German composer and conductor for the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, died of pneumonia.

March 12, 1937 (Friday)

• Aimo Cajander became Prime Minister of Finland for the third time.
• The U.S. Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, protested to German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath about recent attacks on the United States in the German press. Von Neurath said he regretted the violent tone of the articles but did not give a formal reply.
• The critically acclaimed Indian Tamil language film Chintamani, directed by Y. V. Rao and starring M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, premiered.
• Died: Charles-Marie Widor, 93, French organist, composer and teacher

March 13, 1937 (Saturday)

• The National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling in the Remington Rand strike, finding that Remington Rand had committed acts of deceit, economic warfare and union breaking. The company was ordered to reinstate all strikers with back pay and recognize the union, but owner James Rand, Jr. refused and the strike continued.
• With labor leader Philip Murray negotiating on its behalf, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) signed a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel. The agreement provided for a standard pay scale, an 8-hour work day, and time and a half for overtime.
• American motorcyclist Joe Petrali set a motorcycling land speed record of 136.183 miles per hour (219.165 km/h), which would remain unbroken until September 13, 1948.
• One of the few tank-vs.-tank engagements of the Spanish Civil War was fought near Trijueque when some Republican T-26s destroyed five Italian-made CV 3/35 tankettes and severely damaged two more.
• Born:
  • Virginia Holsinger, American nutrition researcher; in Washington, D.C. (d. 2009)
  • Ian Clough, British mountaineer; in Baildon, Yorkshire (killed in climbing accident, 1970)
• Died:
  • Elihu Thomson, 83, English engineer and inventor
  • Nikolai Glebov-Avilov, 49, Soviet Communist revolutionary and the former People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs, was executed during the Great Purge by Joseph Stalin after being found guilty of "being in a revolutionary terrorist organization," and being shot to death in prison.

March 14, 1937 (Sunday)

• Beginning at midnight the naval powers of France, Great Britain, Italy and Germany began patrolling the seas off the coast of Spain to keep foreign arms and volunteers out of the Spanish Civil War.
• Born:
  • Galina Samsova, Soviet Russian ballet dancer who later emigrated to Canada; in Stalingrad (now Volgograd) (d.2021)
  • Baltasar Porcel, Spanish Catalan literary critic and authority on Catalan literature; in Andratx, Majorca (d.2009)

March 15, 1937 (Monday)

• The first "blood bank" in the United States was opened, as Dr. Bernard Fantus and Dr. Elizabeth Schermer of the Cook County Hospital, in Chicago, Illinois, implemented an idea that had originated in the Soviet Union in 1930 for short-term preservation of blood from donors for the benefit of recipients.
• An anti-Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City attracted 20,000 people. Banners hanging from the rafters called for a boycott of Nazi goods. Hugh S. Johnson, the former director of the National Recovery Administration, was a featured speaker at the event, declaring that "Hitler and his immediate staff of Nazipathics have become a sort of monster, threatening the peace of the world."
• The 102-foot (31 m) tall Arco dei Fileni, known in Libya as "El Gaus", was dedicated on the border of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. Italian architect Florestano Di Fausto had designed the arch at the request of General Italo Balbo, the Governor-General of Italian Libya, in advance of a visit by Italy's Premier Benito Mussolini.
• Died:
  • H. P. Lovecraft, 46, American weird fiction author, died of intestinal cancer.
  • Scipione Riva-Rocci, 73, Italian pediatrician and internal medicine specialist known for his invention (in 1896) of the blood pressure cuff for ease of operation of the mercury sphygmomanometer.
  • Catherine Edith Macauley Martin, 89, Australian novelist who wrote An Australian Girl in 1890 under the pen name Mrs. Alick MacLeod

March 16, 1937 (Tuesday)

• The Corpo Truppe Volontarie from Italy was routed during the Battle of Guadalajara in the Spanish Civil War.
• The Civil List of George VI was presented in the House of Commons. Edward, Duke of Windsor, was absent from the list, ending the speculation over whether he would receive a government pension. Whatever income Edward was to receive would be a matter purely within the family.
• Died: Sir Austen Chamberlain KG, 73, British statesman and Nobel laureate

March 17, 1937 (Wednesday)

• The former French ambassador to Italy, Charles de Chambrun, was shot in the thigh by a woman who blamed him for breaking up her friendship with Mussolini.
• Born: Frank Calabrese, Sr., American mobster; in Chicago (d. 2012)

March 18, 1937 (Thursday)

• A natural gas explosion destroyed a school and killed 295 people in New London, Texas. The explosion remains the worst school disaster in American history.
• Arabs in Tripoli presented Benito Mussolini with the "Sword of Islam" to symbolize his leadership and present him as a protector of the Muslim faith. A famous propaganda photo depicted Mussolini on horseback raising this sword above his head.
• In Spain, the Second Republican of Spain's Army took Brihuega.

March 19, 1937 (Friday)

• Pope Pius XI promulgated the anti-communist encyclical Divini Redemptoris.
• Royal Mail won the Grand National horse race.

March 20, 1937 (Saturday)

• Lou Gehrig signed a new contract with the New York Yankees for $36,000 plus a $750 signing bonus, making him the highest-paid player in baseball.
• Amelia Earhart's plane crashed and burst into flames as she attempted to take off in Honolulu. Earhart and her two passengers escaped injury.
• Born: Jerry Reed, country musician and actor; in Atlanta (d. 2008)
• Died: Harry Vardon, 66, English golfer

March 21, 1937 (Sunday)

• The Ponce massacre occurred in Ponce, Puerto Rico, when police opened fire on a peaceful civilian march, killing 21 people and wounding more than 200 wounded.
• Mit brennender Sorge, the encyclical issued by Pope Pius XI, was read out from the pulpits of German Catholic churches. Copies of the encyclical had to be secretly smuggled into the country.
• Died:
  • Sayed Jaffar, 25, Pakistani field hockey player for the British India team, drowned in the Ravi River near Lahore.
  • Levan Gogoberidze, Soviet Georgian Communist who served in 1930 as the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, was executed by gunshot three months after he had been arrested as part of the Great Purge by Soviet Communist Party First Secretary Joseph Stalin.

March 22, 1937 (Monday)

• The only acknowledgement of the papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge in the German press appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter, where an editorial said that "even an agreement with the Holy See has not sacrosanct, untouchable and eternal value."
• Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, 71, an ornithologist as well as a private pilot, disappeared after departing from Woburn Abbey in England for a short flight in a de Havilland DH.60 Moth airplane. Wreckage of the Moth airplane was found in the North Sea off the coast of Great Yarmouth. The body of Russell was never found.
• Born:
  • Armin Hary, German Olympic sprinter who won a gold medal for the 100 meter dash in the 1960 Olympics; in Quierschied
  • Angelo Badalamenti, American composer of film scores; in Brooklyn, New York (d. 2022)
  • Foo Foo Lammar (stage name for Francis Joseph Pearson), British nightclub owner and female impersonator; in Ancoats, Lancashire (d. 2003)
• Died: Alfred Dyke Acland, 78, British Army officer

March 23, 1937 (Tuesday)

• The Spanish Republic won the Battle of Guadalajara over the Nationalists.
• Born: Craig Breedlove, American race car driver known for his record-setting land speed records, as the first person in history to reach 500 miles per hour (800 km/h) (10/13/1964) and the first to reach 600 miles per hour (970 km/h) (11/15/1965); in Los Angeles (d. 2023)
• Died:
  • Mikas Petrauskas, 63, Soviet Lithuanian opera composer known for the first Lithuanian language opera, Birutė
  • William Harrison, 61, English first-class cricketer

March 24, 1937 (Wednesday)

• A strike of 60,000 auto workers against Chrysler ended after 17 days when a tentative settlement was reached.
• The Social Credit backbenchers' revolt took place in the Canadian province of Alberta. By a vote of 27 to 25, a motion was carried in the legislature to adjourn the debate on his government's budget, despite the protest of Premier William Aberhart.
• A fiery bus crash near Salem, Illinois, in the U.S. killed 20 members of a touring group of roller derby skaters who were traveling from St. Louis to Cincinnati as part of the Transcontinental Roller Derby Association circuit operated by Leo Seltzer. Only five people, including the bus driver, survived when the bus suffered a tire blowout while on U.S. Highway 50, sideswiped a bridge rail and overturned, trapping the victims on the bridge.
• Oxford won the 89th Boat Race, ending Cambridge's streak of 13 consecutive wins.
• The romantic drama film Seventh Heaven, starring Simone Simon and James Stewart, premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
• Born: Elaine McKenna, Australian singer and actor, 1961 Logie Award winner for Best Singer; in Melbourne (d. 1992)

March 25, 1937 (Thursday)

• Italy and Yugoslavia signed a five-year non-aggression and neutrality pact. Yugoslavia recognized Ethiopia as Italian territory while Italy made trade concessions and granted language and school rights for its Yugoslav minority.
• TWA Flight 15A, operated by what was then called Trans Continental & Western Air, crashed in the U.S. at Clifton, Pennsylvania, killing all 15 people aboard. The Douglas DC-2 airliner was approaching Pittsburgh after departing Camden, New Jersey when icing on the wings froze the controls.
• The Lewiston–Auburn shoe strike began in Maine.
• Born: Vadim G. Vizing, Soviet Ukrainian mathematician known for Vizing's theorem
• Died: Georges Valmier, 51, French abstract and impressionist painter

March 26, 1937 (Friday)

• William H. Hastie became the first African-American federal magistrate in U.S. history when he was confirmed as judge of the Federal District Court for the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• Born: Wayne Embry, American basketball player; in Springfield, Ohio

March 27, 1937 (Saturday)

• A decree by Hermann Göring was published declaring that anyone who owned land suitable for agriculture was obligated to cultivate it. Landowners who did not comply would be forced to lease part or all of their property to an approved expert.
• Born: Johnny Copeland, American blues musician; in Haynesville, Louisiana (d. 1997)
• Died: Henry Kitchener, 2nd Earl Kitchener, 90, British soldier and peer

March 28, 1937 (Sunday)

• Pope Pius XI published the encyclical Nos es muy conocida about the religious situation in Mexico.

March 29, 1937 (Monday)

• The U.S. Supreme Court decided West Coast Hotel v. Parrish. Justice Owen Roberts made the jurisprudential shift known as "the switch in time that saved nine", preventing further attempts to add justices to the Court.
• The mysterious murder of model Veronica Gedeon in New York City made front-page headlines in the United States.
• Born: Billy Carter, American businessman, politician and younger brother of Jimmy Carter; in Plains, Georgia (d. 1988)
• Died:
  • Karol Szymanowski, 54, Polish composer and pianist
  • Kim You-jeong, 29, Korean novelist, died of pulmonary tuberculosis.

March 30, 1937 (Tuesday)

• A Nationalist offensive at Almadén was repulsed in Spain.
• German fuehrer Adolf Hitler was reported to have reconciled his feud with Erich Ludendorff going back to the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
• Born: Warren Beatty, American actor and filmmaker; in Richmond, Virginia

March 31, 1937 (Wednesday)

• The bombing of Durango by Spanish Nationalist forces resulted in the city's destruction and the deaths of almost 250 residents.
• The Spanish Civil War campaigns known as the War in the North and Biscay Campaign began.
• At the behest of Japanese army and navy leaders, an Imperial ordinance was passed which dissolved the Diet and set a new general election for its 466 seats to be held on April 30.
• Died: Ahmed Izzet Pasha, 72, former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire and its last Foreign Minister prior to the creation of the Turkish Republic