January 1934

[January 1], 1934 (Monday)

• A flood in Montrose, California killed at least 45 people.
• The International Telecommunication Union was established.
• The National Council for Civil Liberties was established in the UK by Ronald Kidd and Sylvia Crowther-Smith.
• The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring went into effect in Nazi Germany.
• Fiorello H. La Guardia took office as Mayor of New York City.
• In New Zealand, radio station 3YL Christchurch was launched.
• Born: George D. Behrakis, philanthropist, in Lowell, Massachusetts; Alan Berg, American attorney and talk show host, in Chicago, Illinois
• Died: Winston and Weston Doty, 20, twin child actors

  [January 2], 1934 (Tuesday)

• The Warka Vase was found at Uruk, as a collection of fragments, by German Assyriologists in their sixth excavation season.
• Cuban President Ramón Grau signed a decree setting April 22 as the date for the election of a constitutional assembly. Grau also said that he would not be continuing in the presidency beyond May 20.

  [January 3], 1934 (Wednesday)

• U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the 1934 State of the Union Address, the first time the address had been given in January. In the address he outlined the present state of the New Deal and his visions for its future.
• An explosion at a mine in Osek, Czechoslovakia, results in the collapse of a tower, starting a fire and burying 144 people underground.
• Died: Victor Spencer, 1st Viscount Churchill, 69, British peer and courtier

  [January 4], 1934 (Thursday)

• The Henschel Hs 121 aircraft made its maiden flight.
• A new station building was opened at Leigh-on-Sea railway station, UK.
• A bomb was thrown at the Yugoslavian consulate in Klagenfurt, Austria, damaging the building and blowing out windows of nearby buildings but not causing any injuries. Officials suspected Austrian Nazis were to blame due to recent articles in a government newspaper alleging that the Nazis promised to give Carinthia to Yugoslavia in the event of a German annexation of Austria.
• Born: Rudolf Schuster, President of Slovakia 1999–2004, in Košice

  [January 5], 1934 (Friday)

• A huge fire broke out at Fenway Park in Boston, doing $220,000 in damage.
• The British cargo ship Paris runs aground in the Tsugaru Strait near Omasake, Japan.
• The drama film Eight Girls in a Boat was released.
• Born: Eddy Pieters Graafland, footballer, in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Phil Ramone, recording engineer, record producer and musician, in South Africa

  [January 6], 1934 (Saturday)

• Reich Bishop of Germany Ludwig Müller issued a sweeping decree giving himself the power to dismiss pastors and church officials who opposed the government.
• Norwegian cargo ship SS Torlak sprung a leak and was abandoned in the Norwegian Sea. All crew were rescued by which was towing the ship to Rosyth, Fife, United Kingdom for scrapping. Torlak was towed into Bodø, Nordland by Norwegian ship SS Hadsel. where she was beached. She would be refloated on 29 January.
• Died: Herbert Chapman, 55, English footballer and manager

  [January 7], 1934 (Sunday)

• Pastors in hundreds of German churches disclaimed allegiance to Bishop Müller. A statement from Martin Niemöller on behalf of the opposition said that Müller's "contradictory attitude has made it impossible to retain confidence in him ... When bishops error we must not follow ... We must obey God before man."
• The Flash Gordon comic strip was first published, in the United States.
• The Curtiss XF13C-1, prototype of the monoplane version of the Curtiss XF13C, made its first flight.
• Born: Jean Corbeil, politician, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada ; Charles Jenkins Sr., athlete, in New York City; Joseph Naso, serial killer, in Rochester, New York; Tassos Papadopoulos, politician, in Nicosia, Cyprus

  [January 8], 1934 (Monday)

• The U.S. Supreme Court decided Home Building & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell.
• Born: Jacques Anquetil, French cyclist, five times Tour de France winner, in Mont-Saint-Aignan

  [January 9], 1934 (Tuesday)

• Three people died and 15 were injured in London traffic accidents due to thick fog.
• The gilded bronze sculpture of Prometheus by Paul Manship was dedicated at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
• SEPU was founded in Barcelona, Spain.
• The New York Artists Union picketed the Whitney Museum of American Art with placards targeting the director, Juliana Force.
• Born: Bart Starr, American football player and coach, in Montgomery, Alabama
• Died: Alexandre Stavisky, 47, French financier and embezzler

  [January 10], 1934 (Wednesday)

• In France, the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans and Chemins de fer du Midi merged to form the Chemins de fer de Paris à Orléans et du Midi, operating lines from Paris towards the south-west, with some P-O lines in southern Brittany passing to the Chemins de fer de l'État.
• Carl Theodor, Count of Toerring-Jettenbach married Princess Elizabeth of Greece and Denmark in Upper Bavaria.
• Born: Leonid Kravchuk, 1st President of Ukraine, in Wołyń Voivodeship, Poland
• Died: Marinus van der Lubbe, 25, Dutch communist

  [January 11], 1934 (Thursday)

• Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss delegated control of the national police to Vice Chancellor Emil Fey, essentially putting the Heimwehr in charge of law enforcement.
• A flight of six United States Navy Consolidated P2Y flying boats set a new distance record for formation flying of between San Francisco, California, and Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. They also set a new speed record for this crossing of 24 hours 35 minutes.
• Prussian secret police raided the homes of members of the Pfarrernotbund and confiscated membership lists.
• Born: Jean Chrétien, 20th Prime Minister of Canada, in Shawinigan, Quebec

  [January 12], 1934 (Friday)

• The British battleship ran aground near Portsmouth Harbour and remained embarrassingly stuck for 12 hours.
• The German-Swiss film William Tell, directed by Heinz Paul and starring Hans Marr, Conrad Veidt and Emmy Göring was released. It was made in Germany by Terra Film, with a separate English-language version supervised by Manning Haynes also being released. While working on the film, Veidt, who had recently given sympathetic performances of Jews in Jew Suss and The Wandering Jew, was detained by the authorities.
• Born: Mick Sullivan, rugby league footballer, in Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

  [January 13], 1934 (Saturday)

• Skating at Eisstadion Davos, Liselotte Landbeck broke the world record for the 500m speed skating women event.
• Greek Prime Minister Panagis Tsaldaris ordered the American fugitive businessman Samuel Insull to leave Greece by January 31.
• The 1933–34 season of the Football Association of Ireland Challenge Cup began.
• Born: Eva Olmerová, singer, in Prague, Czechoslovakia ; Rip Taylor, actor and comedian, in Washington, D.C.
• Died: Paul Ulrich Villard, 73, French chemist and physicist who discovered gamma rays

  [January 14], 1934 (Sunday)

• For the second straight Sunday, German pastors opposed to Bishop Müller denounced him from their pulpits.
• The De Havilland Express prototype flew for the first time; Qantas representative Lester Brain immediately rejected the single-pilot layout, anticipating pilot fatigue on long flights.
• Torquay Tramways replaced the tram from Torquay to Paignton with a bus service. The rest of the network was closed down at the end of the month.
• Born: Richard Briers, English actor, in Raynes Park, Surrey
• Died: Walker Hines, 63, American railroad executive

  [January 15], 1934 (Monday)

• On the final leg of a flight that began on 5 January in Saigon, French Indochina - with stops at Karachi, British India; Baghdad, Iraq; Marseilles, France; and Lyons, France - the Air France Dewoitine D.332 Emeraude struck a hill and crashed in a snowstorm at Corbigny, France, while flying from Lyons to Paris-Le Bourget Airport outside Paris, killing all ten people on board.
• The 8.0 Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes Nepal and Bihar with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI, killing an estimated 6,000–10,700 people.
• Ramón Grau resigned as President of Cuba and was replaced by Carlos Hevia. Soldiers fired on a crowd of Grau supporters gathered around the presidential palace, killing three.
• Radio Vitus, one of Paris's earliest radio stations, became Poste de l'Ile de France; the service would continue until 1940.
• Danish artist group Linien opened their first exhibition in Copenhagen, presenting 177 works of abstract-surrealist art.
• Died: Hermann Bahr, 70, Austrian writer, playwright, director and critic

  [January 16], 1934 (Tuesday)

• Clyde Barrow helped five prisoners, including the notorious Raymond Hamilton, escape from the Eastham Unit prison farm in Texas. One mounted guard was killed in the jailbreak.
• The German Supreme Court in Leipzig sentenced writer Ludwig Renn to two and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit high treason.
• Minister President of Prussia Hermann Göring ordered the three main Prussian Masonic Lodges to disband, explaining there was "no further need for the existence."
• Hurtig & Seamon's New Burlesque Theater in Harlem re-opened as a venue for black clientele under a new name, the Apollo Theater.
• Christina MacLennan gave birth to the second of twin babies, in Stornoway in the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland; the first was born on the island of Scarp in the county of Inverness-shire two days earlier.
• The dramatic play Wednesday's Child premiered at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway.
• Born: Marilyn Horne, mezzo-soprano opera singer, in Bradford, Pennsylvania
• Died: Tokihiko Okada, 30, Japanese film actor

  [January 17], 1934 (Wednesday)

• Carlos Hevia resigned as President of Cuba on just his third day in office.
• The Jonker diamond was found at the Elandsfontein mine in South Africa by Johannes Jacobus Jonker.
• The Prussian Economic and Labour Ministry ordered miners to accompany their traditional greeting of "Glück auf" with a raising of the right hand.
• Born: Cedar Walton, jazz pianist, in Dallas, Texas

  [January 18], 1934 (Thursday)

• Manuel Márquez Sterling became the new President of Cuba for a few hours and was then replaced by Carlos Mendieta.
• Engelbert Dollfuss made a speech implicitly warning Germany not to meddle in Austrian affairs, saying that "it is perhaps not an entirely safe game when a country, whose importance in central Europe and, indeed, all Europe is generally understood and recognized, continues to be constitutionally threatened in its independence and freedom by a great power – which unfortunately is also a country inhabited by brother folk."
• German cargo ship MV Leverkusen collided with Danish ship SS Frederiksborg at Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands, and was beached.
• British cargo ship SS Oakford ran aground off Vlieland, Friesland, Netherlands and was wrecked with the loss of nine crew.
• Australian airlines Qantas and Imperial Airways joined forces and establish "Qantas Empire Airways".
• Born: Raymond Briggs, illustrator and author, in Wimbledon, London, England

  [January 19], 1934 (Friday)

• The Daily Mail printed an article entitled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!", in praise of Fascism, written by the paper's proprietor, Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere.
• Nazi Germany closed the notorious Kemna concentration camp and redistributed its prisoners due to word spreading of the torture going on inside.
• Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis rejected Shoeless Joe Jackson's application for reinstatement, barring Jackson from accepting a managerial job for a minor league ballclub in Greenville, South Carolina.

  [January 20], 1934 (Saturday)

• Nazi Germany enacted the Law Regulating National Labour, depriving workers of the right to strike or negotiate with their employers.
• The Japanese company Fuji Photo Film was established.
• The Boeing XP-940, prototype of the Boeing P-29, made its first flight.
• The funeral of the veteran nationalist MP Joseph Devlin took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• The operatic musical comedy Giuditta by Franz Lehár premiered at the Vienna State Opera.
• Born: Tom Baker, actor, in Liverpool, England; Dave Hull, radio personality, in Alhambra, California; Camilo Pascual, baseball player, in Havana, Cuba

  [January 21], 1934 (Sunday)

• 10,000 people attended a British Union of Fascists rally in Birmingham, England, organised by Oswald Mosley. Mosley gave a speech calling for a "modern dictatorship" that would be "armed with powers to overcome the problems that people want overcome."
• Fog in London was so thick that it penetrated the Royal Albert Hall and obscured a performance by Amelita Galli-Curci.
• The Estádio Municipal 25 de Abril opened in Penafiel, Portugal.
• Born: Ann Wedgeworth, actress, in Abilene, Texas
• Died: Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, 78; Paul Troost, 55, German architect

  [January 22], 1934 (Monday)

• Sadao Araki resigned as Japan's Minister of War. He was replaced by Senjūrō Hayashi the following day.
• German Catholic theologian Karl Adam denounced the Nazis for attempting to capture the youth of the country for their own purposes.
• After extensive construction work, a new railway line through Greenisland was opened by the Northern Ireland rail authority.
• The opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Dmitri Shostakovich premiered at the Malyi Opera Theatre in Leningrad.
• Born: Vijay Anand, filmmaker, in Bangalore; British India ; Bill Bixby, actor, director and game show panelist, in San Francisco, California ; Graham Kerr, cook and television personality, in London, England; Nolan Strong, R&B and doo-wop singer, in Scottsboro, Alabama
• Died: Mark L. Hersey, 70, American general

  [January 23], 1934 (Tuesday)

• The United States formally recognized Cuba.
• Special courts were created in Germany to try newspaper journalists.
• Stanislav Kosior began his third term as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
• The comedic stage play No More Ladies opened at the Booth Theatre on Broadway.
• Born: Lou Antonio, actor and director, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

  [January 24], 1934 (Wednesday)

• The new Constitution of Estonia came into effect, giving head of state Konstantin Päts wide-ranging powers. It remained in place until 1940.
• Leader Maurice Thorez told the French Communist Party that they would not consider an alliance with the Socialist Party.
• War in Ningxia : The army of warlord and rogue National Revolutionary Army general Sun Dianying is stopped by the Ma clique's heavy resistance just 13 miles from Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia. This prevents Sun from conquering the province.

  [January 25], 1934 (Thursday)

• John Dillinger and his companion Billie Frechette were arrested at a house in North Avenue, Tucson, Arizona.

  [January 26], 1934 (Friday)

• A 10-year German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact was signed by Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic.
• Samuel Goldwyn purchased the film rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the L. Frank Baum estate for $40,000.
• The Cecil B. DeMille-directed film Four Frightened People was released.
• Born: Bob Uecker, baseball player, sportscaster and actor, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  [January 27], 1934 (Saturday)

• Camille Chautemps resigned as Prime Minister of France over the Stavisky Affair.
• Celebrated scientist Albert Einstein visited the White House.
• Nikola Uzunović became Prime Minister of Yugoslavia for the second time.
• Panamanian acting president Harmodio Arias Madrid survived an attempt on his life as he drove through a remote spot on the way to his country residence. The assassination attempt was kept a secret from the public for five days because relatives of the president were said to have been implicated.

  [January 28], 1934 (Sunday)

• 5,000 Cuban rail workers went on strike for more pay.
• Born: Bill White, baseball player and sportscaster, in Lakewood, Florida
• Died: Armand Rassenfosse, 71, Belgian graphic artist

  [January 29], 1934 (Monday)

• Chinese cargo liner SS Chungshing was crushed by ice and sank in the Bohai Sea. All passengers and crew were rescued.
• Austria was in a state of alarm over fears that Nazis would attempt a coup on the first anniversary of Hitler's chancellorship. Engelbert Dollfuss warned, "Trouble will brew on the Nazi front on or about January 30. I am asking you to risk life and limb in the defense of Austria."
• Died: Fritz Haber, 65, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• Gerald Peck Anderson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  [January 30], 1934 (Tuesday)

• On the first anniversary of Hitler's appointment as chancellor, the Reichstag passed the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich", transferring sovereignty rights of the states to the federal government. Hitler appeared before the Reichstag and gave a lengthy speech listing his government's accomplishments.
• Soviet pilots Pavel Fedosenko, Andrey Vasenko, and Ilya Usyskin took the hydrogen-filled high-altitude balloon Osoaviakhim-1 on its maiden flight to a record-setting altitude of, where it remained for twelve minutes. The 7-hour 14-minute flight—during which the balloon traveled from its launch site—ended in tragedy when the crew loses control of the balloon during its descent and the gondola disintegrates and crashes near the village of Potizh-Ostrog in Insarsky District of Mordovian Autonomous Oblast in the Soviet Union, killing the crew.
• Over 6,000 dances and parties were held across the United States on the occasion of President Roosevelt's 52nd birthday as a fundraiser for the Warm Springs Foundation and polio rehabilitation. Over $1 million was raised.
• President Roosevelt signed the Gold Reserve Act into law in the United States: All gold held in the Federal Reserve was surrendered to the United States Department of the Treasury; immediately following, Roosevelt raised the statutory gold price from US$20.67 per troy ounce to $35.
• Artist Salvador Dalí and his muse Gala were married in a simple civil ceremony in Paris.
• Born: Tammy Grimes, US actress and singer, in Lynn, Massachusetts

  [January 31], 1934 (Wednesday)

• Édouard Daladier became Prime Minister of France for the second time.
• Police in Chicago apprehended bank robber and kidnapper Verne Sankey in a barber shop.
• Italy announced its support for negotiations that would allow rearmament for Germany, expressing confidence that Germany was not thinking of "war-like moves outside her borders" and that guarantees would be provided that the increased armaments would not be used to infringe upon the security of other nations.
• Sir Philip Whistler Street completed his term of office as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, to be replaced by Sir Frederick Richard Jordan.
• Born: Bob Turner, ice hockey player, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Grahame Woods, cinematographer, television playwright and novelist