1933
An Announcement & Message concerning the universal week of prayer by H Martyn Gooch, the General Secretary of the World's Evangelical Alliance broadcast. John Kingsley Orton born in Leicester.
The Post Office by the Postmaster General, Sir Kingsley Wood, broadcast.
Barbara Couper and Howard Rose's adaptation of Jane Eyre - starring Lilian Harrison in the title role and Milton Rosmer as Rochester - broadcast.
The first episode of The Provincial Lady & Her Books broadcast.
Construction of The Golden Gate Bridge began, beginning with the anchorage for the tower at Marin, on the North side of the San Francisco Bay. The project was funded by a thirty five million dollar bond issue and by the Federal Works Progress Administration. Australia won the second Ashes test at Melbourne by one hundred and eleven runs. Having missed the first test,on his return Don Bradman was bowled first ball by Bill bowes. Jack Fingleton was left to hold Australia's first innings together. Nonetheless, an unbeaten century for Bradman in the second innings and ten wickets for Bill O'Reilly, gave Australia their only victory of the series.
Clyde Barrow extremely killed Malcolm Davis, a Deputy Sheriff for Tarrant County, in West Dallas, after which Clyde, Bonnie Parker and the rest of the Barrow Gang attracted the attention of the American press, which would follow their violent and naughty crimes until they pair were both killed. Clive John Frederick Hambley born in London.
The London Underground diagram designed by Harry Beck was introduced to the public. Striking from the puppet state of Manchukuo, Japan launched Operation Nekka, its takeover of China's Jehol Province, attacking the port town of Shanhaiguan (through a gap in The Great Wall), killing hundreds of Chinese soldiers and civilians.
Using for the first time his pen name, George Orwell, author Eric Blair published his novel, Down & Out In Paris & London. Ann Firbank born in Secunderabad, India.
Anthony Rodgers born in Ealing.
After anarchists had taken control of the town of Casas Viejas, the Spanish Army retaliated with the massacre of twenty two civilians. When the extent of the ad hoc carnage became public knowledge during the summer, Prime Minister Manuel Azaña Díaz was forced from office. General Francisco Franco later used the incident in gaining support for his forces during the Spanish Civil War. Michael Terence Aspel born in Battersea.
England defeated Australia by three hundred and thirty eight runs at Adelaide before a crowd of fifty thousand in the third Ashes test, with Harold Larwood using the bodyline technique and injuring Bill Woodfull with a blow to the chest. Larwood took seven wickets in the match, but England's principal wicket-taker was Gubby Allen, who took four in both Australian innings. Two days later, Larwood struck Bert Oldfield on the head fracturing his skull. The Australian Board of Control promptly whinged like girls to the MCC on 18 January. Maurice Leyland top-scored in England's first innings and Wally Hammond in the second.
Albert S Rogell's Air Hostess - starring Evalyn Knapp and James Murray and Hot Pepper - starring Edmund Lowe, Lupe Velez and Victor McLaglen - premiered. Francis Joseph Bough born in Stoke-On-Trent.
Murray Garsson, at that time a special investigator for the US Department of Labour, announced that he would seek the deportation of foreign film stars who had been staying in the United States illegally. Among the most prominent foreign stars at the time were Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, and Maureen O'Sullivan. Lady Mary Bailey who had disappeared while attempting a solo flight from England to South Africa, was located and rescued after four days in the Sahara Desert. She had been forced to land near Tahoua, Niger and was reported to be dehydrated and exhausted, but uninjured.
Lowell Sherman's She Done Him Wrong - starring Mae West and Cary Grant - premiered.
Should Blood Sports Be Abolished? 'a discussion between the Countess of Oxford and Asquith and Air Vice-Commodore LEO Charlton broadcast in the Should They Be Scrapped? strand. Kurt Von Schleicher resigned as Chancellor of Germany after President Hindenburg refused to grant him dictatorial powers to manage the nation's economic crisis and after being unable to form a coalition government. Hindenburg attempted to persuade Franz von Papen to succeed Schleicher, but Papen declined, leaving Adolf Hitler as Hindenburg's de facto choice.
The Lone Ranger made its debut, originally as a radio program on station WXYZ in Detroit. Writer Fran Striker and station owner George Trendle created the adventure of the masked man who brought justice to the American West.
Gus Meins' Fallen Arches - starring Charley Chase and Muriel Evans - premiered.
Leslie Douglas Sargent Crowther born in West Bridgford. Elizabeth Murdoch Wallace born in Dundee. George Formby's 'Why Don't Women Like Me?'/'Running Round The Fountains In Trafalgar Square' released.
Margaret Elizabeth Whiting born in Bristol.
The 'Oxford Pledge' was approved by a two hundred and seventy five votes to one hundred and fifty three, a resolution stating 'this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.' Coinciding with the ascendance of Adolf Hitler to the leadership of Germany, the pacifist resolution attracted worldwide publicity and outraged many Britons. Winston Churchill - someone never short of an opinion. On pretty much anything - described the resolution as 'an abject, squalid, shameless avowal.'
Patrick Lindesay Archibald Godfrey born in Finsbury.
In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate President-elect Franklin D Roosevelt, but instead fatally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, and wounded other people. Shortly after Roosevelt had completed a speech at Bayfront Park and was being driven to his train in an open convertible, Zangara pushed his way through the crowd, stood on a folding chair to get a better view and was within twenty five feet of Roosevelt when he began firing. The chair was wobbly and at least one bystander, Mrs Lillian Cross, reportedly grabbed his arm, followed by another bystander, James Galloway, before Zangara was wrestled to the ground. Wounded in addition to Mayor Cermak were two women, a man and Roosevelt's bodyguard, policeman William Sinnott. Cermak, who would die on 6 March, was reported to have told Roosevelt: 'I am glad it was me instead of you.' Zangara pleaded very guilty to Cermak's murder and was, subsequently, done to death in the electric chair. At Brisbane in the fourth test Eddie Paynter was taken to hospital suffering from tonsillitis, yet with England in difficulty at two hundred and sixteen for six in reply to Australia's three hundred and forty, he was rushed back to the ground and came out to bat. He made eighty three and helped his team to an unlikely first-innings lead. Though he only fielded for a couple of hours, he returned for the second innings and had the honour of hitting the winning runs – with a six off Stan McCabe. England won the test by four wickets and led the series three-one, thus regaining the Ashes. Tommy Mitchell made his test debut.
Nina Mae McKinney became the first black American to perform on television, appearing on a broadcast made by John Logie Baird in London.
Robert William Robson born in Sacriston, County Durham. Yoko Ono born in Tokyo. Eileen Mary Ure born in Glasgow.
Hermann Göring published a decree in the Nazi newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, ordering the Prussian police to shoot any 'enemies of the state' and providing for disciplinary action against any policeman who was 'inappropriately considerate.' After being expelled from the Prussian Academy of the Arts for his resistance to the Nazi regime, and fearing for his life, the novelist Heinrich Mann escaped to France. Eunice Kathleen Waymon born in Tryon, North Carolina.
Adolf Hitler authorised the formation of the first Nazi concentration camps, where opponents of the regime would be kept 'in protective custody' until they could 'reform.' Or, you know, die. Sheila Cameron Hancock vorn Blackgang, Isle Of White.
The Nazi regime issued a decree banning homosexuality and pornography throughout Germany.
Six days before the German national parliamentary elections, the Reichstag in Berlin, was set on fire and heavily damaged. Marinus Van der Lubbe, a Dutchman with a Communist background, was arrested at the scene and made a confession after being questioned by his Nazi captors. A former bodyguard for Sturmabteilung founder Ernst Röhm, alleged later that the Berlin SA leader, Karl Ernst, had led a group of his troopers into the building through a connecting passage, brought in incendiaries and then waited for Van der Lubbe to arrive. 'The whole truth about the Reichstag fire will probably never be known. Nearly all those who knew it are now dead, most of them slain by Hitler in the months that followed,' William Shirer would write in 1960. Van der Lubbe was executed in January 1934. The fire would be the pretext for the emergency orders the next day granting Hitler the power to rule by decree.
England won the fifth Ashes test at Sydney by eight wickets. Fine performances from both sides' middle orders (and some dropped catches) led to approximate parity after the first innings. Wally Hammond (one hundred and one) and Harold Larwood (ninety eight) in particular batted excellently. Don Bradman and Bill Woodfull shared a partnership of one hundred and fifteen in Australia's second innings before Hedley Verity induced a collapse and Bob Wyatt and Hammond experienced little difficulty in reaching a target of one hundred and sixty four. Victor Saville's adaptation of The Good Companions - starring Jessie Matthews, John Gielgud and Edmund Gwenn - premiered.
The fictional attorney Perry Mason was introduced - along with his secretary Della Street and detective Paul Drake - in Erle Stanley Gardner's novel, The Case Of The Velvet Claws, published by William Morrow and Company. John James Barrs born in Northampton.
The film King Kong, starring Fay Wray, premiered at Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy Theatre in New York.
Donald Douglas born in Falkirk. Sheila Rosemary Carey Grant born in Croydon.
Derby County and Sunderland drew four-all in a thrilling Sixth Round FA Cup tie at The Baseball Ground. Derby won the reply at Roker Park four days later. Elsewhere there were big wins for Everton (six-nil against Luton Town) and West Ham United (four-nil over Birmingham City).
The United States Congress began its first one hundred days of enacting New Deal legislation to fight the effects of the Great Depression, starting with passage of the Emergency Banking Act.
Martin King born in Auckland.
Caroline Georgiana Blakiston born in Chelsea.
Maurice Joseph Micklewhite born in Rotherhide. Quincy Delight Jones born in Chicago.
Some Political Ideas Of Today featured a discussion on fascism between Sir Oswald Mosley and Miss Megan Lloyd George, MP. Cary Grant sustained a facial injury and Fredric March and Jack Oakie escaped unscathed, after a bomb being used in the filming of the American war drama, The Eagle & The Hawk, exploded prematurely on the set. Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery born in Los Angeles.
Raoul Walsh's Sailor's Luck - starring James Dunn and Sally Eilers - premiered.
Susan Mary Schlesinger born in Hampstead.
Christopher Leonard Trace born in Hambledon.
Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, received its first prisoners, as police trucks brought in two hundred inmates from the Stadelheim Prison and Landsberg Prison. The camp, built around a former munitions factory, was initially intended for the 'protective custody' of officials of banned political parties. The following month, control of the camp was transferred from the police to the SS. John Richard Easton born in Montreal.
The first of a two test series between New Zealand and England at Christchurch was drawn. England's five hundred and sixty for eight included a double century for Wally Hammond and a century by Les Ames.
Soctland defeated England two-one in the Home International championship at Hampden Park in front of a new world record crowd of one hundred and thirty six thousand two hundred and fifty nine. Jimmy McGrory scored both of Scotland's goals with debutant George Hunt of Tottenham Hotspur replying for the visitors. Sheffield Wednesday's Ronnie Starling, Jack Pickering of Sheffield United and Fulham's Johnny Arnold made their England debuts. First Division leaders Arsenal thumped Aston Villa five-nil. Newcastle United won two-one at Manchester City and Birmingham beat Sheffield United four-one. The newly-ensconced Chancellor Hitler formalised the sustained persecution of Jews in Germany by introducing a boycott of all Jewish businesses throughout the country, enforced by his army of paramilitary stormtroopers.
Wally Hammond scored a record three hundred and thirty six runs in the second test between England and New Zealand at Eden Park, Auckland. Bill Bowes took six for thirty four but the match ended in a draw.
In the Soviet city of Kherson Doctor Yuri Voronoy performed the first human kidney transplant, taking the kidney from a sixty-year-old man who had died from a skull fracture and implanting it into a twenty six-year-old woman. The donor had Type B blood, while the recipient was Type O, and she died two days later. The first flight over Mount Everest was made by two aeroplanes, piloted by Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Clydesdale and Flight Lieutenant DF McIntyre.
Dudley Sutton born in Kingston-Upon-Thames.
It became legal to offer beer for sale across nineteen American states for the first time since 1920. A full repeal of Prohibition would take place on later in the year.
Derek William Rapp born in Bow.
In Philadelphia, Harvey Fletcher of Bell Laboratories demonstrated stereo sound.
Mr and Mrs John Mackay, of Drumnadrochit, were driving near a lake called Loch Ness, when they spotted what they described to a reporter for the Inverness Courier as 'an enormous animal rolling and plunging' in the lake's waters. The newspaper described the creature as 'a monster.' Howard Hawks's Today We Live - starring Joan Crawford and Gary Cooper - premiered. Shani Wallis born in Tottenham.
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery born in Los Angeles.
Joan Dawson Rowlands born in Stockport.
Harold Sidney Innocent born in Coventry.
The first television revue, Looking In, broadcast. Four minutes of this programme survive on a Silvatone record, an early method of telerecording. On The National Programme, The Day Of Peace, a ceremony from the Menim Memorial Gate in Ypres, Mister Cecil Lewis Talking On Pictures and a production of Edgar Wallace's The Ringer broadcast.
For the second time in three seasons, Arsenal were crowned First Division champions, building on a start of just one defeat in the first fourteen games. They clinched the title with a three-one win at Chelsea. Aston Villa finished second ahead of Sheffield Wedesday, West Bromiwhc Alion and Newcastle United.
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany began with the seizure of the Bible Students' office in Magdeburg. Claire Bernice Davenport born in Sale, Cheshire.
The Gestapo was created by Hermann Göring to control political dissent within the German state of Prussia. It would, subsequently, become the secret police force for all Germany. Carol Creighton Burnett born in San Antonio.
Karl Guthe Jansky delivered a lecture at a meeting of the International Scientific Radio Union in Washington, DC, entitled Electrical Disturbances of Extra-terrestrial Origin. Jansky, an engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, had been investigating interference with radio transmissions and discovered radio waves that varied in intensity depending on the time of day and year, but maintained the same frequency, leading to the conclusion that the waves were coming from beyond the Earth, apparently from the centre of the Milky Way. Subsequent reporting of the lecture introduced the world to the new science of radio astronomy.
Everton defeated Manchester City three-nil in the FA Cup Final at Wembley. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later British Petroleum), a company with a monopoly on the oil fields of Iran, signed a sixty-year agreement with the Iranian government. The agreement contained a provision that Iran would not attempt to nationalise the company or unilaterally change the terms. In 1951 an attempt to nationalise the company led to the CIA-sponsored overthrow of the Iranian government and a revised agreement favourable to the West. In 1979 the Islamic Republic of Iran cancelled the deal entirely, well before its 1993 expiration date. Keith Stanley Baxter-Wright born in Newport, Monmouthsire.
Richard John Davies born in Wallasey.
The legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when the Inverness Courier published a story entitled Strange Spectacle On Loch Ness". As the Courier began reporting more sightings, other newspapers picked up the story.
James Joseph Brown born in Barnwell, South Carolina.
Hal Roach's The Devil's Brother - starring Laurel and Hardy - premiered.
In a prelude to mass book burnings in Germany, a gang of 'morally outraged' students destroyed the work of Magnus Hirschfeld, burning the contents of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin. Stoke City ended their nine-year wait for top-flight promotion winning the Second Division with fifty six points. Tottenham were also promoted whilst Boltn Wanderers and Blackpool were relegated. Elsewhere, Hull City and Brentford were the champions of the Third Division North and South respectively.
Academic AE Housman gave what Yale professor William Lyon Phelps called 'the most famous lecture delivered in the twentieth century.' The Name & Nature Of Poetry was delivered at the University of Cambridge.
William Patrick Gorman born in Finsbury.
England and Italy drew one-one in a friendly international played at the Stadio Nazionale del Partito Nazionale Fascista in Roma. Giovanni Ferrari of Juventus scored for the hosts about five minutes and Cliff Bastin equalised. His Arsenal team-mate Eddie Hapgood, Everton duo Tom White and Bert Geldard, Wilf Copping and Bill Furness of Leeds United and Newcastle United's Jimmy Richardson made their England debuts. 'The game was followed with the keenest excitement by the fifty thousand or more spectators who packed the stadium, among whom were the Princess Maria, Signor Mussolini and Sir Ronald and Lady Sybil Graham.' The waxwork of Adolf Hitler at Madame Tussaud's in London was covered in red paint and a placard placed around the neck with the words, 'Hitler The Mass Murderer' on it. The four culprits, including a married couple, were kept in custody for a week, before being released. The ringleader was fined ten shillings and ordered to pay five pounds in damages. It would have been more but the court couldn't find any fault in the factual accuracy of the statement.
Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips born in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck met with Adolf Hitler in an unsuccessful attempt to keep Planck's Jewish colleagues from being dismissed from their jobs. Planck later stated that Hitler informed him: 'Jews are all Communists and they are the enemy I am fighting against.'
Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort formed The Nasjonal Samling of Norway. Quisling, whose name would become a synonym for a traitor, would pave the way for Germany's occupation of Norway during World War II.
Edward Charles Francis Publius De Bono born in Malta.
England defeated Switzerland four-nil in a friendly international in Berne. Cliff Bastin and Jimmy Richardson both scored twice. A wild civet escaped from a miniature zoo at the Kursaal Pleasure Ground which was also the home of Southend United Football Club. The cat-like animal knocked over an oil lamp and started a huge fire which killed all of the monkeys, snakes and reptiles in the zoo. Though the area was not yet open to the public for the summer, the flames were fifty feet high and attracted thousands of people, including stallholders trying to save their goods. Firefighters even had to turn their hoses on the crowd to drive them back. Chaos ensued when stored ammunition for the attached rifle range began exploding and there was a stampede, with several people being injured. The civet was found and recaptured, twelve days later, after returning and trying to get into the lion enclosure, looking for food.
Joan Henrietta Collins born in Paddington.
Clarence G Badger's When Strangers Marry - starring Jack Holt and Lilian Bond - premiered.
Ann Sears born in Stepney.
In the House of Commons Godfrey Nicholson asked the Home Secretary if his attention had been drawn to recent cases where punishments of birching had been inflicted on boys before the expiration of the statutory period during which the decisions might be appealed against; if he was aware that two boys, aged twelve years old, were ordered at the Southport Children's Court, on 13 April, to receive six strokes of the birch and that the same boys were, on 19 April, again ordered six further strokes for an offence committed before the former one; and whether, in view of these and similar cases, he would introduce a Bill to abolish birching as a punishment for young persons on the lines of the original draft of the Children's Bill in 1932. Sir John Gilmour replied: 'I am not aware of any requirement in law to delay the carrying out of an order of a court of summary jurisdiction for the whipping of a boy, as suggested in the first part of the question. On the contrary, the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, provides that the whipping shall be administered as soon as practicable. My attention has been called to the Southport case and I am informed by the Justices that they only resort to whipping on the rarest occasions and with the utmost reluctance.'
Radio Luxembourg began broadcasting as an English-language station aimed at listeners in Britain.
Derek John Newark born in Great Yarmouth.
William A Seiter's Professional Sweetheart - starring Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster - premiered.
Jerome Silberman born in Milwaukee.
In a gun battle at the Union Station in Kansas City, Pretty Boy Floyd and two of his men, Adam Richetti and Vern Miller, attempted to rescue bank robber Frank Nash, who was being transported by a team of federal agents and local policemen to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth. During the battle, Floyd and his men fired sub-machine guns, killing FBI agent Raymond Caffrey, Police Chief Ott Reed, detectives William Grooms and Frank Hermanson and, inadvertently, Frank Nash himself.
England won the first of a three test series against the West Indies at Lord's by an innings and twenty seven runs. West Indies lost six first-innings wickets for fifty five before the end of the second day and the other four in isxty five minutes on the final morning. Walter Robins took six wickets for thirty two. Following on one hundred and ninety nine behind, West Indies did better, with George Headley making fifty out of sixty four and Teddy Hoad and Jackie Grant adding fifty two for the fourth wicket. But George Macaulay and Hedley Verity each took four wickets. Cyril Walters made his test debut.
Modern interest in the Loch Ness Monster was sparked by a sighting when George Spicer and his wife allegedly saw 'a most extraordinary form of animal' cross the road in front of their car. They described the creature as having 'a large body' and 'a long, wavy, narrow neck, slightly thicker than an elephant's trunk.' Whether they had been drinking before this, we don't know.
Martial law was proclaimed in Bulgaria by King Boris III after discovery of a plot by Communists and Macedonian separatists to overthrow the government.
George Formby recorded 'With My Little Ukulele In My Hand' for Decca Records.
Sinclair Hill's Britannia Of Billinsgate - starring Violet Loraine, Gordon Harker, Kay Hammond and John Mills - premiered.
Terence Cooper born in Carnmoney, County Antrim.
Brian Cant born in Ipswich. Barry Warren born in London. George Formby's 'With My Little Ukulele In My Hand'/'As The Hours & The Days & The Weeks & The Months & The Years Roll By' released.
An explosion at the HH Cross Oil refinery at Smackover, Arkansas, killed seven people and injured three. Patricia Anne Thirza Byrne born in Bexhill On Sea.
Inigo Jackson born in Kidderminster.
The film The Stranger's Return starring Miriam Hopkins, Lionel Barrymore and Franchot Tone was released.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow escaped a gun battle with police in Dexter, Iowa, along with fellow gang member WD Jones. Clyde's brother, Buck Barrow and Buck's wife, Blanche, were captured.
The second test at Old Trafford was drawn. Ivanhoe Barrow and George Headley made the first centuries for West Indies in tests in England and put on two hundred for the second wicket before Barrow was out for one hundred and five. Headley went on to an unbeaten one hundred and sixty nine but of the other batsmen only Learie Constantine - released from his club contract at Nelson for this match - made much impact, his thirty one coming out of thirty six. Manny Martindale and Constantine used the bodyline 'leg-theory' style of bowling fast and short to a packed leg-side field, and England lost four wickets for one hundred and thirty four, including Wally Hammond, who returned to bat after having his chin split open. Douglas Jardine led the resistance, putting on eighty three with Les Ames and one hundred and forty with Walter Robins. Jardine's one hundred and twenty seven was his first test century. Martindale took five wickets for seventy three. When West Indies batted a second time, England fast bowler Eddie Clark also bowled leg-theory, but with little success. James Langridge, in his first test, took seven for fifty six, but Cliff Roach and Constantine both hit fifties. West Indies left-arm wrist spinner Ellis Achong won a place in cricketing folklore by inspiring the term 'Chinaman' to describe that particular type of bowling. Robins was stumped by Barrow and, as Ellis, recalled: 'On his way back from the wicket, Robins turned to Learie and said: "Fancy being out to a bloody Chinaman!"'
Battersea Power Station first generated electricity for the London area.
The World Economic Conference ended in London after more than six unsuccessful weeks, with the British Commonwealth Declaration being made by the member nations to remain off of the gold standard and to keep exchange rates stable within the Commonwealth.
After months of uncertainty over whether he would continue as Director of the American FBI in the new Democrat administration of President Roosevelt, J Edgar Hoover was reappointed, on recommendation of Attorney General Homer Cummings.
Thomas George Bell born in Liverpool.
For the first time in thirty years, the Great White Spot appeared on Saturn. Amateur astronomer and actor Will Hay became the first person to see the event, which lasted for four weeks and allowed an accurate measure of Saturn's rotational period of ten hours and thirteen minutes.
Jeffry Wickham born in Bishops Lydeard, Somerset.
Albert Frank Mills born in London.
Winston Churchill made his first public speech warning of the dangers of German rearmament. And, he was right an'all (he was wrong about lots of other stuff, but he was right about that).
Josh White's version of 'Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed' recorded. England won the third test at The Oval by an innings and seventeen runs. An experimental England side under the captaincy of Bob Wyatt was reliant on one hundred and seven from Fred Bakewell, made out of one hundred and ninety four. Charlie Barnett, with fifty two in his first test, then put on ninety five in eighty five minutes for the eighth wicket with Stan Nichols, who made forty nine. When West Indies batted, only debutant Ben Sealey, with twenty nine, made much of the bowling of Nobby Clark, Nichols and another debutant, Charles Marriott. The latter followed his five for thirty seven with six for fifty nine in the second innings.
The Power & The Glory starring Spencer Tracy and Colleen Moore was released.
The GIRD Nine, first Soviet rocket to be propelled by a rocket engine with a liquid propellant, was successfully launched after two previous failures. It was designed by Sergei Korolev and sponsored by the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion.
Roman Polanski born in Paris.
Wally Hardinge played his six hundred and twenty third and final first class cricket match for Kent against Yorkshire. In a career which began in 1902, he scored thirty three thousand five hundred runs and took three hundred and seventy one wickets. His solee appearance in test cricket came against Warwick Armstrong's touring Australians in 1921 at Headingley in a match where Jack Hobbs had to withdraw because of appendicitis. Hardinge scored twenty five and five and was not picked again, although he did play twice in war-time matches for an England side against the Dominions in 1918. He was refused leave of absence to tour Australia in 1928–29 by his employer and had been unable to tour with England whilst he was playing professional football. One of a handful of double internationals, he was a fine inside-forward for Newcastle United, Sheffield United and Woolwich Arsenal and won one England cap in 1910 against Scotland at Hampden Park in the Home Championship.
Mrs Giles Borrett became the first female newscaster, broadcasting the Six O'Clock Evening News bulletin on the BBC radio network. After two months, BBC took her off of the air, for 'technical reasons.' Barry Leslie Norman born in Lambeth.
Henry Hathaway's Man Of The Forest - starring Randolph Scott, Buster Crabbe and Verne Hillie - premiered.
Jack McGurn, hunted by police as a public enemy, was arrested at the Western Open Golf Championship, where he had been playing under the alias of Vincent Gebhard.
Louisiana Senator Huey Long was involved in a physical altercation at the Sands Point Bath Club inNew York. At three in the morning in the club's lavatories, Long became involved in 'some kind of scuffle' and received a black eye. Long later claimed in a written statement that he had been 'jumped' by 'three or four complete strangers.' However, it was widely rumoured that the real story was that a drunk Long was punched after he had relieved himself on the man in the next urinal. The incident made news around the world and Collier's magazine even offered a medal and a cash prize to the assailant if he would come forward. The reward was never claimed.
Troops from France invaded and occupied the Principality of Andorra. Presumably, with the battle-cry 'today Andorra, tomorrow ... Liechtenstein'? Elizabeth Anne Seal born in Genoa, Italy.
Kenneth Clifford Earl born in Romney Marsh.
The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, written by Gertrude Stein, was published, after parts of it had been serialised in Atlantic Monthly.
The Hotspur, a weekly 'story paper' - and later a comic - published by DC Thomson & Co, the first of eleven hundred and ninety seven issues, lasting until October 1959.
HG Wells's The Shape Of Things To Come published.
Sussex's draw with Essex at Leyton meant that Yorkshire won their third consecutive cricket county championship title. Sussex were,again, runners-up. Wally Hammond was the season's leading run-scorer (two thousand five hundred and seventy eight) and Kent's Tich Freeman was, yet again, the leading wicket-taker (two hundred and fifty two). Hedley Verity topped the bowling averageswith one hundred and ninety first class wickets at 13.42.
Bernard Vorhaus's The Ghost Camera - starring Henry Kendall, Ida Lupino, John Mills and George Merritt - premiered.
Pamela Ann Davy born in Hobart, Tasmania.
Michael Frayn born in mill Hill, Middlesex.
Albert Einstein arrived in London, after fleeing Belgium, where he had been under police protection following word that Nazi Germany was offering a bounty for his murder. In October, he would move to the United States, settling in New Jersey, where he would work at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University. Roy Mack's musical short, Rufus Jones For President was released, featuring seven year old child star Sammy Davis Junior performing 'You Rascal, You'.
Ernest Rutherford, the 'father of nuclear physics', said in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science that his experiments in the splitting of the atom showed that there was 'no future' for what was later called nuclear energy. 'The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing,' he said. 'Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of those atoms is talking moonshine.' Energy from uranium fission was discovered five years later, after Rutherford's death and the first uranium reactor would be operating by 1942. Paul Whiteman's recording of 'It's Only A Paper Moon' featuring Bunny Berigan on trumpet and Peggy Healy on vocals released on RCA Victor Records. Former government minister Sir Leo Money was travelling on the Southern Railway between Dorking and Ewell when, as AJP Taylor later wrote in the relevant volume of the Oxford History of England, he 'again conversed with a young lady.' He was summonsed a'fore the beak for taking hold of a shop girl, Ivy Buxton, and kissing her face and neck against her will. When Money appeared before Epsom magistrates, he was fined two knicker for his behaviour and a further ten shillings for 'interfering with the comfort of other passengers.'
Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row at Russell Square in Bloomsbury, conceived the idea of the nuclear chain reaction. Szilárd had read an account of Ernest Rutherford's comments. 'As the light changed to green and I crossed the street, it suddenly occurred to me that if we could find an element which is split by neutrons and which would emit two neutrons when it absorbs one neutron, such an element, if assembled in sufficiently large mass, could sustain a nuclear chain reaction.'
Berkeley Square starring Leslie Howard and Heather Angel premiered.
The British High Commissioner for the African protectorate of Bechuanaland, Vice Admiral ERGR Evans, sent troops into the city of Serowe, to depose the King of the Bamangwato tribe, Chief Tshekedi. The King had violated a law prohibiting trial of any European national in native courts, after permitting a British citizen, Phineas McIntosh, to be flogged as punishment for adultery.
David Keith McCallum born in Glasgow.
Vladimír Slavínský's Madla Z Cihelny - starring Lída Baarová, Antonie Nedosinská and Hugo Haas - premiered.
The groundbreaking for Germany's Autobahn took place at Frankfurt, where Adolf Hitler turned the first shovelful of earth. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was on a boat trip on the Black Sea, at Sukhumi, when the craft came under gunfire from the coast. What had first appeared to be an assassination attempt turned out to be a mistake made by guards from the local NKVD, who thought the unfamiliar boat was 'bringing foreign spies.' The guards' grovelling pleas for mercy were accepted by Stalin at the time; four years later, during the Great Purge, however he changed mind and the men's convictions would be reviewed and they would be executed. Colin Edwin Thompson born in Manchester.
German nuclear physics student Klaus Fuchs arrived in England, after having escaped arrest in Nazi Germany during a round-up of German Communist Party members. Despite his Communist background, Fuchs was subsequently cleared for work on the top secret American atomic bomb programme and would share the information so that the Soviet Union could develop its own nuclear weapons.
Eric George Chappell born in Grantham.
Gangster, kidnapper and general all-round hoodlum George Machine Gun Kelly and his wife, Kathryn, were captured by FBI agents in Memphis. Reportedly Kelly squealed 'don't shoot, G-men!' as he was arrested. The pair were later jailed for life for their naughty crimes.
James Michael Hyde Villiers born in London.
Clinton Stuart Greyn Thomas born in Swansea.
Barbara Brothwood born in Oldham.
Victor Zaccarini born in Aberdeen.
Raoul Walsh's The Bowery - starring Wallace Beery, George Raft, Jackie Cooper, Fay Wray and Pert Kelton - premiered.
Wesley Ruggles's I'm No Angel - starring Mae West and Cary Grant - premiered.
Daniel Raymond Massey born in Westminster.
The National Lecture featured Lord Rutherford's The Transmutation Of The Atom.
England beat Ireland three-nil in the Home International championship at Windsor Park. Eric Brooks and debutants Tom Grosvenor of Birmingham and Derby County's Jack Bowers scored the goals. Jimmy Allen of Portsmouth also made his debut. In the First Division, Everton defeated Blackburn Rovers seven-one and Huddersfield Town enjoyed a five-one victory over Leicester City. Germany informed the Geneva Disarmament Conference that they were withdrawing from the League of Nations after Hitler's request to increase its military capability was refused by the other members.
David Keith Rodney Buck born in London.
Lilian Claire Klot born in Whitechapel. Patricia Margaret Keen born in Willesden.
Peter John Dennis born in Dorking.
Edwin L Marin's Girl Of My Dreams - starring Mary Carlisle, Buster Crabbe, Charles Starrett, Sally Starr and Mary Blackford - premiered.
Home rule in Malta, at the time a British colony, was suspended after The Nationalist Party continued to advocate Italian as an official language to be used in schools and court proceedings, in order to strengthen ties to Fascist Italy. Authority over the islands was returned to the British Governor, General David Campbell.
Peter Jeremy William Huggins born in Berkswell, Warwickshire. John Barry Prendergast born in York.
German Otto Fischer became the first person to be launched in a manned rocket, lifting off from the island of Rügen in a liquid oxygen and gasoline-fuelled missile, rapidly ascending to an altitude of six mile, and then returning to earth by parachute ten minutes later.
Elizabeth Ann Lynn born in Fulham.
Robert James Gillespie born in Lille.
We Shall Remember Them broadcast. 'Compiled by Val Gielgud from the prose of Winston Churchill, Stephen McKenna, John Masefield, TE Lawrence, Guy Chapman and Lord Dunsany and from the poems of Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Wilson Gibson, Alan Seeger, Edward Shanks, Laurence Binyon, Lord Dunsany and Wilfred Owen with music selected by Leslie Woodgate from the works of Hoist, Sibelius and Sir Edward Elgar for Armistice Day.' The first dust storm in a long series of such wind storms swept through South Dakota and stripped away almost all of the loose topsoil by the end of the first day and making the skies black by the second day. The storms would continue throughout the 1930s.
The first purported photograph of the alleged Loch Ness Monster was taken by Hugh Gray, who was able only to snap a picture of Nessie's torso, as its head was underwater at the time. Gray had taken his Labrador for a walk that day and it is suspected that the photograph depicts his dog fetching a stick from the loch. Others have suggested that the photograph depicts an otter or a swan. The original negative was lost. However, in 1963, Maurice Burton 'came into possession of two lantern slides, contact positives from th[e] original negative' and when projected onto a screen they revealed an 'otter rolling at the surface in characteristic fashion.' Roger Thomas Booth born in East Stonehouse, Devon.
James Whale's The Invisible Man - starring Claude Rains - premiered.
Donald Ellis Pickering born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Wales defeated England two-one in the Home International championship at St James' Park. Clapton Orient's Tommy Mills and Aston Villa's Dai Astley scored for the visitors, with Eric Brook netting for England. The murder trial of Stanley Hobday continued into its second day. He had broken into the house of Charles Fox in West Bromwich, three months earlier and stabbed him seven times, before breaking into another house nearby to clean himself up, even having a shave and sewing a hole in his coat from the struggle, with cotton found in the house. Hobday then stole a car which he crashed and overturned into a field in Cheshire. He was eventually caught by the law in Scotland. The evidence against him was overwhelming and he was found very guilty on the third day of the trial. Because he was only five feet, three inches tall and weighing just nine stones, the executioner had to allow for a longer drop than usual when he was hanged, six weeks later.
Little Women - starring Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett and Frances Dee and Victor Saville's friday The Thirteenth - starring Jessie Matthews, Ralph Richardson, Sonnie Hale, Max Miller and Robertson Hare - premiered.
Duck Soup - the last Marx Brothers' movie featuring Zeppo - premiered.
The first episode of In Town Tonight broadcast on The Home Service. By a majority verdict, Ealing magistrates dismissed a summons against a headmaster who was accused of brutality in the caning of a nine-year-old boy. The headmaster, S De Moyse Bucknall, principal of Harrow View House Preparatory School, was summoned by Mona Alice Goodwin, wife of a City solicitor, for assaulting her son, Barry, formerly a pupil there. Linton Thorpe for the defence described the prosecution as one of 'vindictive exaggeration' and said Bucknall had 'adopted the only proper method to suppress bullying.' Opening the case, JP Eddy, prosecuting, said that what was complained about was 'not ordinary chastisement, but a piece of gross brutality affording no justification whatever.' On 2 November the boy was walking in file when a boy behind him punched him in the back. Goodwin swung his hand round and hit the boy. 'The defendant took him to a dormitory, told him to touch his toes and began to strike him violently with a cane. He went on flogging him time after time. Hours afterwards the boy was in a state of delirium.' The boy, in evidence, said Bucknall told him to bend down and touch his toes after taking down his trousers. 'He then lifted the cane above his head and smacked me. I got up yelling and he shouted. "Get down." I was in the dormitory for at least ten minutes and then I went back to my class. I could only sit down on the edge of the chair.' Cross-examined by Linton Thorpe, the boy said he had been caned once previously 'for horse-play.' Pointing to Bucknall, Eddy said. 'I suggest that this gentleman threatened to give you a good hiding?' Mrs Goodwin said that the bruises on her boy were very obvious 'as if a red hot poker had been used.' Edward John Brayshaw born in New South Wales, Australia.
Charles Lamont's What's To Do? - starring Shirley Temple and Frank Coghlan Junior - premiered.
A break in the Lindbergh kidnapping case was achieved when a teller at a New York bank came across one of the gold certificates which had been part of the ransom money delivered to the kidnapper. The bill was part of the cash in the night deposit box at the Corn Exchange Bank and Trust, in Greenwich Village, from the Sheridan movie theatre, two blocks away. The cashier recalled the man who had bought a ticket to Broadway Through A Keyhole the night before, because he had paid with a five dollar gold note rather than a regular bill, had folded the bill four times and thrown it through the opening of the booth. The cashier, Cecile Barr, would later be a witness against Bruno Hauptmann when he was put on trial for the Lindbergh baby's kidnapping and murder.
The largest Van de Graaff generator built, with two fifteen foot diameter aluminium spheres, on twenty five foot tall columns, was demonstrated at the MIT's Round Hill facility at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor Robert J Van de Graaff impressed the crowd by sending seven million volts of electricity between the two spheres.
John Mayall born in Macclesfield.
Rosalind Marie Knight born in Marylebone. James Cossins born in Beckenham.
James Cossins born in Beckenham.
US District Judge John M Woolsey ruled that the James Joyce novel Ulysses was not obscene, ending a twelve-year-long ban against importation of the book into the United States and clearing the way for Random House to publish a US imprint of it. England defeated France four-one in a friendly international at White Hart Lane. George Camsell scored twice with further goals from Eric Brook and Tom Grosvenor. Newcastle's Davey Fairhurst and Arthur Rowe and Bill Hall of Spurs made their England debuts. The Twenty First Amendment to the United States Constitution ended almost fourteen years of alcohol prohibition meaning everyone could go out and get, legally, pissed.
Goodbye, Mister Chips by James Hilton was first published as a novella in the Christmas issue of The British Weekly.
Jocelyn Britton born in Eton.
John Ronane born in Kensington.
David John Lee Maloney born in Alvechurch.
India hosted a test cricket match for the first time. Over a period of four days in Bombay India lost to England by nine wickets. Bryan Valentine, making his test debut scored one hundred and thirty six whilst Lala Armanath scored India's the first test century. Stan Nichols took eight wickets in the match. Arthur Mitchell made his test debut.
Oliver Baldwin's Films Worth Seeing broadcast.
The Daily Scum Mail which had hired the South African actor, film director and big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell to track down The Loch Ness Monster published a report that Weatherall had found 'fresh footprints' of a large, four-toed animal. He estimated it to be twenty feet long. Wetherell made plaster casts of the footprints and sent them off to the Natural History Museum for analysis. While the world waited for the museum zoologists to return from Christmas holidays, legions of monster hunters descended on Loch Ness, filling the local hotels. Inverness was floodlit for the occasion. The bubble burst in early January 1934, when zoologists announced that the footprints found were those of a hippopotamus. They had been made with a stuffed hippo foot - probably the base of an umbrella stand. It wasn't clear whether Wetherell himself was the perpetrator of the hoax or its gullible victim but, either way, his reputation greatly suffered.
Scientific Research & Social Needs' by Julian Huxley, Honorary Lecturer in Zoology and Animal Biology in the University of London, broadcast.
Sports Talk - by Reginald Arkell - concerned 'Tea Trays and Toboggans.'
The transatlantic co-production The Bells Of Bethlehem broadcast. Noëlle Adam born in La Rochelle.
The first episode of Divertissement broadcast. Kid Chocolate lost his title as the world junior lightweight champion, after being knocked out in the seventh round by Frankie Klick in Philadelphia.
Edwin H Armstrong was granted four United States patents for his invention of frequency modulation devices for what would become FM radio. Highlights of the Boxing Day First Division programme included Newcastle United's seven-three victory at Everton, Wolves winning a seven-goal thriller against Aston Villa at Molineux and Birmingham City's four-two defeat of Sheffield United. In the Second Division, leaders Grimsby Town thrashed struggling Manchester United seven-three. The Third Division North's highest scoring game was Barnsley's five-four victory over Hartlepools United at Oakwell.
Blank Hotel broadcast. The Codex Sinaiticus, dating from circa 360AD and containing the oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament, was acquired by the British Museum. The manuscript, which had been owned by the National Library of Russia since 1859, was purchased from the Soviet Union for one hundred thousand smackers, half of which came from private donations.
A Talk On Talks By The Director Of Talks broadcast.
The Streets Of London, 'a drama of high and low life in the middle eighties' broadcast. Thornton Freeland's Flying Down To Rio - starring Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond and marking the first pairing of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and William Seiter's Sons of The Desert - starring Laurel and Hardy - premiered.
Felix Aylmer's reading of Edgar Allen Poe's The Bells broadcast.
Paul Robeson and Records & Impressions broadcast.
An Announcement & Message concerning the universal week of prayer by H Martyn Gooch, the General Secretary of the World's Evangelical Alliance broadcast. John Kingsley Orton born in Leicester.
The Post Office by the Postmaster General, Sir Kingsley Wood, broadcast.
The first episode of The Provincial Lady & Her Books broadcast.
Construction of The Golden Gate Bridge began, beginning with the anchorage for the tower at Marin, on the North side of the San Francisco Bay. The project was funded by a thirty five million dollar bond issue and by the Federal Works Progress Administration. Australia won the second Ashes test at Melbourne by one hundred and eleven runs. Having missed the first test,on his return Don Bradman was bowled first ball by Bill bowes. Jack Fingleton was left to hold Australia's first innings together. Nonetheless, an unbeaten century for Bradman in the second innings and ten wickets for Bill O'Reilly, gave Australia their only victory of the series.
Clyde Barrow extremely killed Malcolm Davis, a Deputy Sheriff for Tarrant County, in West Dallas, after which Clyde, Bonnie Parker and the rest of the Barrow Gang attracted the attention of the American press, which would follow their violent and naughty crimes until they pair were both killed. Clive John Frederick Hambley born in London.
The London Underground diagram designed by Harry Beck was introduced to the public. Striking from the puppet state of Manchukuo, Japan launched Operation Nekka, its takeover of China's Jehol Province, attacking the port town of Shanhaiguan (through a gap in The Great Wall), killing hundreds of Chinese soldiers and civilians.
Using for the first time his pen name, George Orwell, author Eric Blair published his novel, Down & Out In Paris & London. Ann Firbank born in Secunderabad, India.
Anthony Rodgers born in Ealing.
England defeated Australia by three hundred and thirty eight runs at Adelaide before a crowd of fifty thousand in the third Ashes test, with Harold Larwood using the bodyline technique and injuring Bill Woodfull with a blow to the chest. Larwood took seven wickets in the match, but England's principal wicket-taker was Gubby Allen, who took four in both Australian innings. Two days later, Larwood struck Bert Oldfield on the head fracturing his skull. The Australian Board of Control promptly whinged like girls to the MCC on 18 January. Maurice Leyland top-scored in England's first innings and Wally Hammond in the second.
Albert S Rogell's Air Hostess - starring Evalyn Knapp and James Murray and Hot Pepper - starring Edmund Lowe, Lupe Velez and Victor McLaglen - premiered. Francis Joseph Bough born in Stoke-On-Trent.
Murray Garsson, at that time a special investigator for the US Department of Labour, announced that he would seek the deportation of foreign film stars who had been staying in the United States illegally. Among the most prominent foreign stars at the time were Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, and Maureen O'Sullivan. Lady Mary Bailey who had disappeared while attempting a solo flight from England to South Africa, was located and rescued after four days in the Sahara Desert. She had been forced to land near Tahoua, Niger and was reported to be dehydrated and exhausted, but uninjured.
Lowell Sherman's She Done Him Wrong - starring Mae West and Cary Grant - premiered.
Should Blood Sports Be Abolished? 'a discussion between the Countess of Oxford and Asquith and Air Vice-Commodore LEO Charlton broadcast in the Should They Be Scrapped? strand. Kurt Von Schleicher resigned as Chancellor of Germany after President Hindenburg refused to grant him dictatorial powers to manage the nation's economic crisis and after being unable to form a coalition government. Hindenburg attempted to persuade Franz von Papen to succeed Schleicher, but Papen declined, leaving Adolf Hitler as Hindenburg's de facto choice.
The Lone Ranger made its debut, originally as a radio program on station WXYZ in Detroit. Writer Fran Striker and station owner George Trendle created the adventure of the masked man who brought justice to the American West.
Gus Meins' Fallen Arches - starring Charley Chase and Muriel Evans - premiered.
Leslie Douglas Sargent Crowther born in West Bridgford. Elizabeth Murdoch Wallace born in Dundee. George Formby's 'Why Don't Women Like Me?'/'Running Round The Fountains In Trafalgar Square' released.
Margaret Elizabeth Whiting born in Bristol.
The 'Oxford Pledge' was approved by a two hundred and seventy five votes to one hundred and fifty three, a resolution stating 'this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.' Coinciding with the ascendance of Adolf Hitler to the leadership of Germany, the pacifist resolution attracted worldwide publicity and outraged many Britons. Winston Churchill - someone never short of an opinion. On pretty much anything - described the resolution as 'an abject, squalid, shameless avowal.'
Patrick Lindesay Archibald Godfrey born in Finsbury.
In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate President-elect Franklin D Roosevelt, but instead fatally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, and wounded other people. Shortly after Roosevelt had completed a speech at Bayfront Park and was being driven to his train in an open convertible, Zangara pushed his way through the crowd, stood on a folding chair to get a better view and was within twenty five feet of Roosevelt when he began firing. The chair was wobbly and at least one bystander, Mrs Lillian Cross, reportedly grabbed his arm, followed by another bystander, James Galloway, before Zangara was wrestled to the ground. Wounded in addition to Mayor Cermak were two women, a man and Roosevelt's bodyguard, policeman William Sinnott. Cermak, who would die on 6 March, was reported to have told Roosevelt: 'I am glad it was me instead of you.' Zangara pleaded very guilty to Cermak's murder and was, subsequently, done to death in the electric chair. At Brisbane in the fourth test Eddie Paynter was taken to hospital suffering from tonsillitis, yet with England in difficulty at two hundred and sixteen for six in reply to Australia's three hundred and forty, he was rushed back to the ground and came out to bat. He made eighty three and helped his team to an unlikely first-innings lead. Though he only fielded for a couple of hours, he returned for the second innings and had the honour of hitting the winning runs – with a six off Stan McCabe. England won the test by four wickets and led the series three-one, thus regaining the Ashes. Tommy Mitchell made his test debut.
Robert William Robson born in Sacriston, County Durham. Yoko Ono born in Tokyo. Eileen Mary Ure born in Glasgow.
Hermann Göring published a decree in the Nazi newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, ordering the Prussian police to shoot any 'enemies of the state' and providing for disciplinary action against any policeman who was 'inappropriately considerate.' After being expelled from the Prussian Academy of the Arts for his resistance to the Nazi regime, and fearing for his life, the novelist Heinrich Mann escaped to France. Eunice Kathleen Waymon born in Tryon, North Carolina.
Adolf Hitler authorised the formation of the first Nazi concentration camps, where opponents of the regime would be kept 'in protective custody' until they could 'reform.' Or, you know, die. Sheila Cameron Hancock vorn Blackgang, Isle Of White.
The Nazi regime issued a decree banning homosexuality and pornography throughout Germany.
Six days before the German national parliamentary elections, the Reichstag in Berlin, was set on fire and heavily damaged. Marinus Van der Lubbe, a Dutchman with a Communist background, was arrested at the scene and made a confession after being questioned by his Nazi captors. A former bodyguard for Sturmabteilung founder Ernst Röhm, alleged later that the Berlin SA leader, Karl Ernst, had led a group of his troopers into the building through a connecting passage, brought in incendiaries and then waited for Van der Lubbe to arrive. 'The whole truth about the Reichstag fire will probably never be known. Nearly all those who knew it are now dead, most of them slain by Hitler in the months that followed,' William Shirer would write in 1960. Van der Lubbe was executed in January 1934. The fire would be the pretext for the emergency orders the next day granting Hitler the power to rule by decree.
England won the fifth Ashes test at Sydney by eight wickets. Fine performances from both sides' middle orders (and some dropped catches) led to approximate parity after the first innings. Wally Hammond (one hundred and one) and Harold Larwood (ninety eight) in particular batted excellently. Don Bradman and Bill Woodfull shared a partnership of one hundred and fifteen in Australia's second innings before Hedley Verity induced a collapse and Bob Wyatt and Hammond experienced little difficulty in reaching a target of one hundred and sixty four. Victor Saville's adaptation of The Good Companions - starring Jessie Matthews, John Gielgud and Edmund Gwenn - premiered.
The fictional attorney Perry Mason was introduced - along with his secretary Della Street and detective Paul Drake - in Erle Stanley Gardner's novel, The Case Of The Velvet Claws, published by William Morrow and Company. John James Barrs born in Northampton.
The film King Kong, starring Fay Wray, premiered at Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy Theatre in New York.
Donald Douglas born in Falkirk. Sheila Rosemary Carey Grant born in Croydon.
Derby County and Sunderland drew four-all in a thrilling Sixth Round FA Cup tie at The Baseball Ground. Derby won the reply at Roker Park four days later. Elsewhere there were big wins for Everton (six-nil against Luton Town) and West Ham United (four-nil over Birmingham City).
The United States Congress began its first one hundred days of enacting New Deal legislation to fight the effects of the Great Depression, starting with passage of the Emergency Banking Act.
Martin King born in Auckland.
Caroline Georgiana Blakiston born in Chelsea.
Maurice Joseph Micklewhite born in Rotherhide. Quincy Delight Jones born in Chicago.
Some Political Ideas Of Today featured a discussion on fascism between Sir Oswald Mosley and Miss Megan Lloyd George, MP. Cary Grant sustained a facial injury and Fredric March and Jack Oakie escaped unscathed, after a bomb being used in the filming of the American war drama, The Eagle & The Hawk, exploded prematurely on the set. Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery born in Los Angeles.
Raoul Walsh's Sailor's Luck - starring James Dunn and Sally Eilers - premiered.
Susan Mary Schlesinger born in Hampstead.
Christopher Leonard Trace born in Hambledon.
The first of a two test series between New Zealand and England at Christchurch was drawn. England's five hundred and sixty for eight included a double century for Wally Hammond and a century by Les Ames.
Soctland defeated England two-one in the Home International championship at Hampden Park in front of a new world record crowd of one hundred and thirty six thousand two hundred and fifty nine. Jimmy McGrory scored both of Scotland's goals with debutant George Hunt of Tottenham Hotspur replying for the visitors. Sheffield Wednesday's Ronnie Starling, Jack Pickering of Sheffield United and Fulham's Johnny Arnold made their England debuts. First Division leaders Arsenal thumped Aston Villa five-nil. Newcastle United won two-one at Manchester City and Birmingham beat Sheffield United four-one. The newly-ensconced Chancellor Hitler formalised the sustained persecution of Jews in Germany by introducing a boycott of all Jewish businesses throughout the country, enforced by his army of paramilitary stormtroopers.
Wally Hammond scored a record three hundred and thirty six runs in the second test between England and New Zealand at Eden Park, Auckland. Bill Bowes took six for thirty four but the match ended in a draw.
In the Soviet city of Kherson Doctor Yuri Voronoy performed the first human kidney transplant, taking the kidney from a sixty-year-old man who had died from a skull fracture and implanting it into a twenty six-year-old woman. The donor had Type B blood, while the recipient was Type O, and she died two days later. The first flight over Mount Everest was made by two aeroplanes, piloted by Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Clydesdale and Flight Lieutenant DF McIntyre.
Dudley Sutton born in Kingston-Upon-Thames.
It became legal to offer beer for sale across nineteen American states for the first time since 1920. A full repeal of Prohibition would take place on later in the year.
Derek William Rapp born in Bow.
In Philadelphia, Harvey Fletcher of Bell Laboratories demonstrated stereo sound.
Mr and Mrs John Mackay, of Drumnadrochit, were driving near a lake called Loch Ness, when they spotted what they described to a reporter for the Inverness Courier as 'an enormous animal rolling and plunging' in the lake's waters. The newspaper described the creature as 'a monster.' Howard Hawks's Today We Live - starring Joan Crawford and Gary Cooper - premiered. Shani Wallis born in Tottenham.
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery born in Los Angeles.
Joan Dawson Rowlands born in Stockport.
The first television revue, Looking In, broadcast. Four minutes of this programme survive on a Silvatone record, an early method of telerecording. On The National Programme, The Day Of Peace, a ceremony from the Menim Memorial Gate in Ypres, Mister Cecil Lewis Talking On Pictures and a production of Edgar Wallace's The Ringer broadcast.
For the second time in three seasons, Arsenal were crowned First Division champions, building on a start of just one defeat in the first fourteen games. They clinched the title with a three-one win at Chelsea. Aston Villa finished second ahead of Sheffield Wedesday, West Bromiwhc Alion and Newcastle United.
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany began with the seizure of the Bible Students' office in Magdeburg. Claire Bernice Davenport born in Sale, Cheshire.
The Gestapo was created by Hermann Göring to control political dissent within the German state of Prussia. It would, subsequently, become the secret police force for all Germany. Carol Creighton Burnett born in San Antonio.
Karl Guthe Jansky delivered a lecture at a meeting of the International Scientific Radio Union in Washington, DC, entitled Electrical Disturbances of Extra-terrestrial Origin. Jansky, an engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, had been investigating interference with radio transmissions and discovered radio waves that varied in intensity depending on the time of day and year, but maintained the same frequency, leading to the conclusion that the waves were coming from beyond the Earth, apparently from the centre of the Milky Way. Subsequent reporting of the lecture introduced the world to the new science of radio astronomy.
Everton defeated Manchester City three-nil in the FA Cup Final at Wembley. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later British Petroleum), a company with a monopoly on the oil fields of Iran, signed a sixty-year agreement with the Iranian government. The agreement contained a provision that Iran would not attempt to nationalise the company or unilaterally change the terms. In 1951 an attempt to nationalise the company led to the CIA-sponsored overthrow of the Iranian government and a revised agreement favourable to the West. In 1979 the Islamic Republic of Iran cancelled the deal entirely, well before its 1993 expiration date. Keith Stanley Baxter-Wright born in Newport, Monmouthsire.
Richard John Davies born in Wallasey.
James Joseph Brown born in Barnwell, South Carolina.
Hal Roach's The Devil's Brother - starring Laurel and Hardy - premiered.
In a prelude to mass book burnings in Germany, a gang of 'morally outraged' students destroyed the work of Magnus Hirschfeld, burning the contents of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin. Stoke City ended their nine-year wait for top-flight promotion winning the Second Division with fifty six points. Tottenham were also promoted whilst Boltn Wanderers and Blackpool were relegated. Elsewhere, Hull City and Brentford were the champions of the Third Division North and South respectively.
Academic AE Housman gave what Yale professor William Lyon Phelps called 'the most famous lecture delivered in the twentieth century.' The Name & Nature Of Poetry was delivered at the University of Cambridge.
William Patrick Gorman born in Finsbury.
England and Italy drew one-one in a friendly international played at the Stadio Nazionale del Partito Nazionale Fascista in Roma. Giovanni Ferrari of Juventus scored for the hosts about five minutes and Cliff Bastin equalised. His Arsenal team-mate Eddie Hapgood, Everton duo Tom White and Bert Geldard, Wilf Copping and Bill Furness of Leeds United and Newcastle United's Jimmy Richardson made their England debuts. 'The game was followed with the keenest excitement by the fifty thousand or more spectators who packed the stadium, among whom were the Princess Maria, Signor Mussolini and Sir Ronald and Lady Sybil Graham.' The waxwork of Adolf Hitler at Madame Tussaud's in London was covered in red paint and a placard placed around the neck with the words, 'Hitler The Mass Murderer' on it. The four culprits, including a married couple, were kept in custody for a week, before being released. The ringleader was fined ten shillings and ordered to pay five pounds in damages. It would have been more but the court couldn't find any fault in the factual accuracy of the statement.
Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips born in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck met with Adolf Hitler in an unsuccessful attempt to keep Planck's Jewish colleagues from being dismissed from their jobs. Planck later stated that Hitler informed him: 'Jews are all Communists and they are the enemy I am fighting against.'
Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort formed The Nasjonal Samling of Norway. Quisling, whose name would become a synonym for a traitor, would pave the way for Germany's occupation of Norway during World War II.
Edward Charles Francis Publius De Bono born in Malta.
England defeated Switzerland four-nil in a friendly international in Berne. Cliff Bastin and Jimmy Richardson both scored twice. A wild civet escaped from a miniature zoo at the Kursaal Pleasure Ground which was also the home of Southend United Football Club. The cat-like animal knocked over an oil lamp and started a huge fire which killed all of the monkeys, snakes and reptiles in the zoo. Though the area was not yet open to the public for the summer, the flames were fifty feet high and attracted thousands of people, including stallholders trying to save their goods. Firefighters even had to turn their hoses on the crowd to drive them back. Chaos ensued when stored ammunition for the attached rifle range began exploding and there was a stampede, with several people being injured. The civet was found and recaptured, twelve days later, after returning and trying to get into the lion enclosure, looking for food.
Joan Henrietta Collins born in Paddington.
Clarence G Badger's When Strangers Marry - starring Jack Holt and Lilian Bond - premiered.
Ann Sears born in Stepney.
In the House of Commons Godfrey Nicholson asked the Home Secretary if his attention had been drawn to recent cases where punishments of birching had been inflicted on boys before the expiration of the statutory period during which the decisions might be appealed against; if he was aware that two boys, aged twelve years old, were ordered at the Southport Children's Court, on 13 April, to receive six strokes of the birch and that the same boys were, on 19 April, again ordered six further strokes for an offence committed before the former one; and whether, in view of these and similar cases, he would introduce a Bill to abolish birching as a punishment for young persons on the lines of the original draft of the Children's Bill in 1932. Sir John Gilmour replied: 'I am not aware of any requirement in law to delay the carrying out of an order of a court of summary jurisdiction for the whipping of a boy, as suggested in the first part of the question. On the contrary, the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, provides that the whipping shall be administered as soon as practicable. My attention has been called to the Southport case and I am informed by the Justices that they only resort to whipping on the rarest occasions and with the utmost reluctance.'
Derek John Newark born in Great Yarmouth.
William A Seiter's Professional Sweetheart - starring Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster - premiered.
Jerome Silberman born in Milwaukee.
In a gun battle at the Union Station in Kansas City, Pretty Boy Floyd and two of his men, Adam Richetti and Vern Miller, attempted to rescue bank robber Frank Nash, who was being transported by a team of federal agents and local policemen to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth. During the battle, Floyd and his men fired sub-machine guns, killing FBI agent Raymond Caffrey, Police Chief Ott Reed, detectives William Grooms and Frank Hermanson and, inadvertently, Frank Nash himself.
England won the first of a three test series against the West Indies at Lord's by an innings and twenty seven runs. West Indies lost six first-innings wickets for fifty five before the end of the second day and the other four in isxty five minutes on the final morning. Walter Robins took six wickets for thirty two. Following on one hundred and ninety nine behind, West Indies did better, with George Headley making fifty out of sixty four and Teddy Hoad and Jackie Grant adding fifty two for the fourth wicket. But George Macaulay and Hedley Verity each took four wickets. Cyril Walters made his test debut.
Modern interest in the Loch Ness Monster was sparked by a sighting when George Spicer and his wife allegedly saw 'a most extraordinary form of animal' cross the road in front of their car. They described the creature as having 'a large body' and 'a long, wavy, narrow neck, slightly thicker than an elephant's trunk.' Whether they had been drinking before this, we don't know.
Martial law was proclaimed in Bulgaria by King Boris III after discovery of a plot by Communists and Macedonian separatists to overthrow the government.
George Formby recorded 'With My Little Ukulele In My Hand' for Decca Records.
Sinclair Hill's Britannia Of Billinsgate - starring Violet Loraine, Gordon Harker, Kay Hammond and John Mills - premiered.
Terence Cooper born in Carnmoney, County Antrim.
Brian Cant born in Ipswich. Barry Warren born in London. George Formby's 'With My Little Ukulele In My Hand'/'As The Hours & The Days & The Weeks & The Months & The Years Roll By' released.
An explosion at the HH Cross Oil refinery at Smackover, Arkansas, killed seven people and injured three. Patricia Anne Thirza Byrne born in Bexhill On Sea.
Inigo Jackson born in Kidderminster.
The film The Stranger's Return starring Miriam Hopkins, Lionel Barrymore and Franchot Tone was released.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow escaped a gun battle with police in Dexter, Iowa, along with fellow gang member WD Jones. Clyde's brother, Buck Barrow and Buck's wife, Blanche, were captured.
Battersea Power Station first generated electricity for the London area.
The World Economic Conference ended in London after more than six unsuccessful weeks, with the British Commonwealth Declaration being made by the member nations to remain off of the gold standard and to keep exchange rates stable within the Commonwealth.
After months of uncertainty over whether he would continue as Director of the American FBI in the new Democrat administration of President Roosevelt, J Edgar Hoover was reappointed, on recommendation of Attorney General Homer Cummings.
Thomas George Bell born in Liverpool.
For the first time in thirty years, the Great White Spot appeared on Saturn. Amateur astronomer and actor Will Hay became the first person to see the event, which lasted for four weeks and allowed an accurate measure of Saturn's rotational period of ten hours and thirteen minutes.
Jeffry Wickham born in Bishops Lydeard, Somerset.
Albert Frank Mills born in London.
Winston Churchill made his first public speech warning of the dangers of German rearmament. And, he was right an'all (he was wrong about lots of other stuff, but he was right about that).
Josh White's version of 'Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed' recorded. England won the third test at The Oval by an innings and seventeen runs. An experimental England side under the captaincy of Bob Wyatt was reliant on one hundred and seven from Fred Bakewell, made out of one hundred and ninety four. Charlie Barnett, with fifty two in his first test, then put on ninety five in eighty five minutes for the eighth wicket with Stan Nichols, who made forty nine. When West Indies batted, only debutant Ben Sealey, with twenty nine, made much of the bowling of Nobby Clark, Nichols and another debutant, Charles Marriott. The latter followed his five for thirty seven with six for fifty nine in the second innings.
The Power & The Glory starring Spencer Tracy and Colleen Moore was released.
Roman Polanski born in Paris.
Wally Hardinge played his six hundred and twenty third and final first class cricket match for Kent against Yorkshire. In a career which began in 1902, he scored thirty three thousand five hundred runs and took three hundred and seventy one wickets. His solee appearance in test cricket came against Warwick Armstrong's touring Australians in 1921 at Headingley in a match where Jack Hobbs had to withdraw because of appendicitis. Hardinge scored twenty five and five and was not picked again, although he did play twice in war-time matches for an England side against the Dominions in 1918. He was refused leave of absence to tour Australia in 1928–29 by his employer and had been unable to tour with England whilst he was playing professional football. One of a handful of double internationals, he was a fine inside-forward for Newcastle United, Sheffield United and Woolwich Arsenal and won one England cap in 1910 against Scotland at Hampden Park in the Home Championship.
Mrs Giles Borrett became the first female newscaster, broadcasting the Six O'Clock Evening News bulletin on the BBC radio network. After two months, BBC took her off of the air, for 'technical reasons.' Barry Leslie Norman born in Lambeth.
Henry Hathaway's Man Of The Forest - starring Randolph Scott, Buster Crabbe and Verne Hillie - premiered.
Jack McGurn, hunted by police as a public enemy, was arrested at the Western Open Golf Championship, where he had been playing under the alias of Vincent Gebhard.
Louisiana Senator Huey Long was involved in a physical altercation at the Sands Point Bath Club inNew York. At three in the morning in the club's lavatories, Long became involved in 'some kind of scuffle' and received a black eye. Long later claimed in a written statement that he had been 'jumped' by 'three or four complete strangers.' However, it was widely rumoured that the real story was that a drunk Long was punched after he had relieved himself on the man in the next urinal. The incident made news around the world and Collier's magazine even offered a medal and a cash prize to the assailant if he would come forward. The reward was never claimed.
Troops from France invaded and occupied the Principality of Andorra. Presumably, with the battle-cry 'today Andorra, tomorrow ... Liechtenstein'? Elizabeth Anne Seal born in Genoa, Italy.
Kenneth Clifford Earl born in Romney Marsh.
The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, written by Gertrude Stein, was published, after parts of it had been serialised in Atlantic Monthly.
The Hotspur, a weekly 'story paper' - and later a comic - published by DC Thomson & Co, the first of eleven hundred and ninety seven issues, lasting until October 1959.
Sussex's draw with Essex at Leyton meant that Yorkshire won their third consecutive cricket county championship title. Sussex were,again, runners-up. Wally Hammond was the season's leading run-scorer (two thousand five hundred and seventy eight) and Kent's Tich Freeman was, yet again, the leading wicket-taker (two hundred and fifty two). Hedley Verity topped the bowling averageswith one hundred and ninety first class wickets at 13.42.
Bernard Vorhaus's The Ghost Camera - starring Henry Kendall, Ida Lupino, John Mills and George Merritt - premiered.
Pamela Ann Davy born in Hobart, Tasmania.
Michael Frayn born in mill Hill, Middlesex.
Albert Einstein arrived in London, after fleeing Belgium, where he had been under police protection following word that Nazi Germany was offering a bounty for his murder. In October, he would move to the United States, settling in New Jersey, where he would work at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University. Roy Mack's musical short, Rufus Jones For President was released, featuring seven year old child star Sammy Davis Junior performing 'You Rascal, You'.
Ernest Rutherford, the 'father of nuclear physics', said in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science that his experiments in the splitting of the atom showed that there was 'no future' for what was later called nuclear energy. 'The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing,' he said. 'Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of those atoms is talking moonshine.' Energy from uranium fission was discovered five years later, after Rutherford's death and the first uranium reactor would be operating by 1942. Paul Whiteman's recording of 'It's Only A Paper Moon' featuring Bunny Berigan on trumpet and Peggy Healy on vocals released on RCA Victor Records. Former government minister Sir Leo Money was travelling on the Southern Railway between Dorking and Ewell when, as AJP Taylor later wrote in the relevant volume of the Oxford History of England, he 'again conversed with a young lady.' He was summonsed a'fore the beak for taking hold of a shop girl, Ivy Buxton, and kissing her face and neck against her will. When Money appeared before Epsom magistrates, he was fined two knicker for his behaviour and a further ten shillings for 'interfering with the comfort of other passengers.'
Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row at Russell Square in Bloomsbury, conceived the idea of the nuclear chain reaction. Szilárd had read an account of Ernest Rutherford's comments. 'As the light changed to green and I crossed the street, it suddenly occurred to me that if we could find an element which is split by neutrons and which would emit two neutrons when it absorbs one neutron, such an element, if assembled in sufficiently large mass, could sustain a nuclear chain reaction.'
Berkeley Square starring Leslie Howard and Heather Angel premiered.
The British High Commissioner for the African protectorate of Bechuanaland, Vice Admiral ERGR Evans, sent troops into the city of Serowe, to depose the King of the Bamangwato tribe, Chief Tshekedi. The King had violated a law prohibiting trial of any European national in native courts, after permitting a British citizen, Phineas McIntosh, to be flogged as punishment for adultery.
David Keith McCallum born in Glasgow.
Vladimír Slavínský's Madla Z Cihelny - starring Lída Baarová, Antonie Nedosinská and Hugo Haas - premiered.
The groundbreaking for Germany's Autobahn took place at Frankfurt, where Adolf Hitler turned the first shovelful of earth. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was on a boat trip on the Black Sea, at Sukhumi, when the craft came under gunfire from the coast. What had first appeared to be an assassination attempt turned out to be a mistake made by guards from the local NKVD, who thought the unfamiliar boat was 'bringing foreign spies.' The guards' grovelling pleas for mercy were accepted by Stalin at the time; four years later, during the Great Purge, however he changed mind and the men's convictions would be reviewed and they would be executed. Colin Edwin Thompson born in Manchester.
German nuclear physics student Klaus Fuchs arrived in England, after having escaped arrest in Nazi Germany during a round-up of German Communist Party members. Despite his Communist background, Fuchs was subsequently cleared for work on the top secret American atomic bomb programme and would share the information so that the Soviet Union could develop its own nuclear weapons.
Eric George Chappell born in Grantham.
Gangster, kidnapper and general all-round hoodlum George Machine Gun Kelly and his wife, Kathryn, were captured by FBI agents in Memphis. Reportedly Kelly squealed 'don't shoot, G-men!' as he was arrested. The pair were later jailed for life for their naughty crimes.
James Michael Hyde Villiers born in London.
Clinton Stuart Greyn Thomas born in Swansea.
Barbara Brothwood born in Oldham.
Raoul Walsh's The Bowery - starring Wallace Beery, George Raft, Jackie Cooper, Fay Wray and Pert Kelton - premiered.
Wesley Ruggles's I'm No Angel - starring Mae West and Cary Grant - premiered.
Daniel Raymond Massey born in Westminster.
The National Lecture featured Lord Rutherford's The Transmutation Of The Atom.
England beat Ireland three-nil in the Home International championship at Windsor Park. Eric Brooks and debutants Tom Grosvenor of Birmingham and Derby County's Jack Bowers scored the goals. Jimmy Allen of Portsmouth also made his debut. In the First Division, Everton defeated Blackburn Rovers seven-one and Huddersfield Town enjoyed a five-one victory over Leicester City. Germany informed the Geneva Disarmament Conference that they were withdrawing from the League of Nations after Hitler's request to increase its military capability was refused by the other members.
David Keith Rodney Buck born in London.
Lilian Claire Klot born in Whitechapel. Patricia Margaret Keen born in Willesden.
Peter John Dennis born in Dorking.
Edwin L Marin's Girl Of My Dreams - starring Mary Carlisle, Buster Crabbe, Charles Starrett, Sally Starr and Mary Blackford - premiered.
Home rule in Malta, at the time a British colony, was suspended after The Nationalist Party continued to advocate Italian as an official language to be used in schools and court proceedings, in order to strengthen ties to Fascist Italy. Authority over the islands was returned to the British Governor, General David Campbell.
Peter Jeremy William Huggins born in Berkswell, Warwickshire. John Barry Prendergast born in York.
German Otto Fischer became the first person to be launched in a manned rocket, lifting off from the island of Rügen in a liquid oxygen and gasoline-fuelled missile, rapidly ascending to an altitude of six mile, and then returning to earth by parachute ten minutes later.
Elizabeth Ann Lynn born in Fulham.
Robert James Gillespie born in Lille.
We Shall Remember Them broadcast. 'Compiled by Val Gielgud from the prose of Winston Churchill, Stephen McKenna, John Masefield, TE Lawrence, Guy Chapman and Lord Dunsany and from the poems of Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Wilson Gibson, Alan Seeger, Edward Shanks, Laurence Binyon, Lord Dunsany and Wilfred Owen with music selected by Leslie Woodgate from the works of Hoist, Sibelius and Sir Edward Elgar for Armistice Day.' The first dust storm in a long series of such wind storms swept through South Dakota and stripped away almost all of the loose topsoil by the end of the first day and making the skies black by the second day. The storms would continue throughout the 1930s.
The first purported photograph of the alleged Loch Ness Monster was taken by Hugh Gray, who was able only to snap a picture of Nessie's torso, as its head was underwater at the time. Gray had taken his Labrador for a walk that day and it is suspected that the photograph depicts his dog fetching a stick from the loch. Others have suggested that the photograph depicts an otter or a swan. The original negative was lost. However, in 1963, Maurice Burton 'came into possession of two lantern slides, contact positives from th[e] original negative' and when projected onto a screen they revealed an 'otter rolling at the surface in characteristic fashion.' Roger Thomas Booth born in East Stonehouse, Devon.
James Whale's The Invisible Man - starring Claude Rains - premiered.
Donald Ellis Pickering born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Wales defeated England two-one in the Home International championship at St James' Park. Clapton Orient's Tommy Mills and Aston Villa's Dai Astley scored for the visitors, with Eric Brook netting for England. The murder trial of Stanley Hobday continued into its second day. He had broken into the house of Charles Fox in West Bromwich, three months earlier and stabbed him seven times, before breaking into another house nearby to clean himself up, even having a shave and sewing a hole in his coat from the struggle, with cotton found in the house. Hobday then stole a car which he crashed and overturned into a field in Cheshire. He was eventually caught by the law in Scotland. The evidence against him was overwhelming and he was found very guilty on the third day of the trial. Because he was only five feet, three inches tall and weighing just nine stones, the executioner had to allow for a longer drop than usual when he was hanged, six weeks later.
Little Women - starring Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett and Frances Dee and Victor Saville's friday The Thirteenth - starring Jessie Matthews, Ralph Richardson, Sonnie Hale, Max Miller and Robertson Hare - premiered.
Duck Soup - the last Marx Brothers' movie featuring Zeppo - premiered.
Charles Lamont's What's To Do? - starring Shirley Temple and Frank Coghlan Junior - premiered.
A break in the Lindbergh kidnapping case was achieved when a teller at a New York bank came across one of the gold certificates which had been part of the ransom money delivered to the kidnapper. The bill was part of the cash in the night deposit box at the Corn Exchange Bank and Trust, in Greenwich Village, from the Sheridan movie theatre, two blocks away. The cashier recalled the man who had bought a ticket to Broadway Through A Keyhole the night before, because he had paid with a five dollar gold note rather than a regular bill, had folded the bill four times and thrown it through the opening of the booth. The cashier, Cecile Barr, would later be a witness against Bruno Hauptmann when he was put on trial for the Lindbergh baby's kidnapping and murder.
The largest Van de Graaff generator built, with two fifteen foot diameter aluminium spheres, on twenty five foot tall columns, was demonstrated at the MIT's Round Hill facility at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor Robert J Van de Graaff impressed the crowd by sending seven million volts of electricity between the two spheres.
John Mayall born in Macclesfield.
Rosalind Marie Knight born in Marylebone. James Cossins born in Beckenham.
James Cossins born in Beckenham.
US District Judge John M Woolsey ruled that the James Joyce novel Ulysses was not obscene, ending a twelve-year-long ban against importation of the book into the United States and clearing the way for Random House to publish a US imprint of it. England defeated France four-one in a friendly international at White Hart Lane. George Camsell scored twice with further goals from Eric Brook and Tom Grosvenor. Newcastle's Davey Fairhurst and Arthur Rowe and Bill Hall of Spurs made their England debuts. The Twenty First Amendment to the United States Constitution ended almost fourteen years of alcohol prohibition meaning everyone could go out and get, legally, pissed.
Goodbye, Mister Chips by James Hilton was first published as a novella in the Christmas issue of The British Weekly.
Jocelyn Britton born in Eton.
John Ronane born in Kensington.
David John Lee Maloney born in Alvechurch.
India hosted a test cricket match for the first time. Over a period of four days in Bombay India lost to England by nine wickets. Bryan Valentine, making his test debut scored one hundred and thirty six whilst Lala Armanath scored India's the first test century. Stan Nichols took eight wickets in the match. Arthur Mitchell made his test debut.
Oliver Baldwin's Films Worth Seeing broadcast.
The Daily Scum Mail which had hired the South African actor, film director and big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell to track down The Loch Ness Monster published a report that Weatherall had found 'fresh footprints' of a large, four-toed animal. He estimated it to be twenty feet long. Wetherell made plaster casts of the footprints and sent them off to the Natural History Museum for analysis. While the world waited for the museum zoologists to return from Christmas holidays, legions of monster hunters descended on Loch Ness, filling the local hotels. Inverness was floodlit for the occasion. The bubble burst in early January 1934, when zoologists announced that the footprints found were those of a hippopotamus. They had been made with a stuffed hippo foot - probably the base of an umbrella stand. It wasn't clear whether Wetherell himself was the perpetrator of the hoax or its gullible victim but, either way, his reputation greatly suffered.
Scientific Research & Social Needs' by Julian Huxley, Honorary Lecturer in Zoology and Animal Biology in the University of London, broadcast.
Sports Talk - by Reginald Arkell - concerned 'Tea Trays and Toboggans.'
The transatlantic co-production The Bells Of Bethlehem broadcast. Noëlle Adam born in La Rochelle.
Edwin H Armstrong was granted four United States patents for his invention of frequency modulation devices for what would become FM radio. Highlights of the Boxing Day First Division programme included Newcastle United's seven-three victory at Everton, Wolves winning a seven-goal thriller against Aston Villa at Molineux and Birmingham City's four-two defeat of Sheffield United. In the Second Division, leaders Grimsby Town thrashed struggling Manchester United seven-three. The Third Division North's highest scoring game was Barnsley's five-four victory over Hartlepools United at Oakwell.
Blank Hotel broadcast. The Codex Sinaiticus, dating from circa 360AD and containing the oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament, was acquired by the British Museum. The manuscript, which had been owned by the National Library of Russia since 1859, was purchased from the Soviet Union for one hundred thousand smackers, half of which came from private donations.
A Talk On Talks By The Director Of Talks broadcast.
The Streets Of London, 'a drama of high and low life in the middle eighties' broadcast. Thornton Freeland's Flying Down To Rio - starring Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond and marking the first pairing of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and William Seiter's Sons of The Desert - starring Laurel and Hardy - premiered.
Felix Aylmer's reading of Edgar Allen Poe's The Bells broadcast.
Paul Robeson and Records & Impressions broadcast.
