1938
JM Barrie's Mary Rose broadcast. George VI gave out six peerages in the New Year Honours list. Gracie Fields and Harriet Cohen were both made CBEs. 'A Review Of The First-Half Of The Association Football Season In The North-East by Colin Veitch broadcast on 5NO Newcastle. Oscar Micheaux's God's Step Children - starring Jacqueline Lewis, Ethel Moses, Alice B Russell and Gloria Press - premiered.
David Royston Bailey born ion Leytonstone.
The BBC made its first non-English broadcast, in Arabic. Listeners throughout the Middle East tuned in to a one-hour broadcast mostly consisting of a news bulletin on regional events. The audience reportedly expressed disappointment that the broadcast was not interspersed with love songs like Italy's programming was.
Michael Hogan's adaptation of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart broadcast. Jim Norton born in Dublin.
The first episode of The Band Waggon - starring Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch - broadcast on The Regional Programme. Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick born in Sydney, Australia.
In Old Chicago - starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye and Don Ameche - premiered.
Sarah Branch born in London.
Tom Walls' Second Best Bed - starring Jane Baxter, Veronica Rose, Carl Jaffe and Greta Gynt - premiered.
Lewis Ernest Fiander born in Melbourne.
John Allen Jones born in Los Angeles. Allen Toussaint born in New Orleans.
Lupino Lane and Teddie St Dennis appeared in extracts from Me & My Girl.
John Webster's The Duchess Of Malfi - featuring the TV début of John Laurie - broadcast.
German bombers of the Condor Legion killed more than one hundred people in an air raid on Barcelona.
Alexander Derek Dougan born in Belfast.
Acting on a tip-off from MI5 agent Olga Gray, British police arrested two men performing a hand-over of documents in Charing Cross tube station. The documents had been stolen from Woolwich Arsenal. John Savident born in Witham, Essex.
The first episode of As The Commentator Saw It broadcast on The National Programme. Our Town by Thornton Wilder premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. Brook Richard Williams born in Chelsea.
The BBC broadcast the first televised opera, a production of Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde.
An intense display of the Aurora Borealis was witnessed across Europe, as far south as Gibralter.
Police made two more arrests in the Woolwich spy case. Both suspects worked in the Arsenal and had connections to the Communist Party. One of them was found to be in possession of a suitcase with a false bottom used for smuggling blueprints.
Herbert Brenon's Housemaster - starring Otto Kruger, Diana Churchill, Phillips Holmes, Joyce Barbour and Jimmy Hanley - premiered.
Benito Mussolini ordered Italian soldiers to adopt the goose step.
The comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made their radio debut on The Kate Smith Hour.
George Marshall's The Goldwyn Follies premiered. Penny Morrell born in London.
The third British Empire Games opened in Sydney, Australia.
An adaptation of Karel Capek's RUR broadcast - believed to be the first science-fiction drama ever presented on television. Of Human Hearts - starring Walter Huston and James Stewart - premiered. Robert George Pickett born in Somerville, Massachusetts.
The Honourable Lionel Tennyson made his four hundred and seventy seventh and final first class cricket match or his own touring side against an Indian XI in Bombay. In a career which began in 1913, Lionel, the grandson of the poet Lord Tennyson, scored over sixteen thousand runs and took fifty five wickets, mostly for Hampshire whom he captained between 1919 and 1935. He also played nine tests for England between 1913 and 1921. During World War I he served with The Rifle Brigade in France. He was Mentioned in Despatches twice and three times wounded. Married to the socialite Claire Tennant, he became the Third Baron Tennyson on his father's death in 1928. His talented Hampshire side often included, as wicket keeper, his butler, Walter Livsey.
Robert Oliver Reed born in Wimbledon.
Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby - starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant - premiered in San Francisco.
The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer - starring Tom Kelly, Jackie Moran and May Robson and Gunga Din - starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Joan Fontaine - premiered. John Logie Baird demonstrated a prototype colour television in London. Yvonne Adelaide Warren born in London.
Anthony Eden resigned as Foreign Secretary, telling Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: 'I have become increasingly conscious of differences between us.' Lord Halifax became the new Foreign Secretary.
By a vote of three hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty eight, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy was endorsed by the House of Commons when it defeated a Labour motion to censure Chamberlain for dismissing Anthony Eden. Winston Churchill was among about twenty Conservatives who abstained from voting. Barry Dennen born in Chicago.
The Labour Party issued a manifesto demanding that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain call a new general erection to assess whether the public supported his appeasement policy. 'This is not the time for concessions to dictators,' it read. 'The government holds no mandate from electors for the vital change it has made in foreign policy. We demand that a stand shall be taken with other peace loving nations against the violence and threats of Fascist powers.' Joe Louis knocked out Nathan Mann in the third round at Madison Square Garden to retain the world heavyweight boxing title. Alan Ford born in Camberwell.
Malcolm Tierney born in Failsworth, Lancashire.
Association Football: Newcastle United Versus Aston Villa, 'an eye-witness account of the match by Colin Veitch,' broadcast. But, only after Manchester & Sheffield Versus The North, 'an eye-witness account of the Bridge Match by Ewart Kempson.' Newcastle won their game two-nil with goals by Billy Cairns and John Park. As to who won the Bridge, perhaps we'll never care. Anthony Samuel Selby born in Lambeth.
Derek Arthur Ware born in manchester.
The first episode of Comedy Cabaret broadcast. Chekov's On The High Road broadcast featuring the TV début of Maurice Denham.
Roy William Neil's The Viper - starring Claude Hulbert, Betty Lynne and Hal Walters - premiered.
WS Gilbert's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern broadcast. The trial of Martin Niemöller ended in Germany. He was cleared of the most serious charge against him, that of treason against the state, but was convicted of 'endangering public security, exploiting the pulpit and incitement to resistance against the government.' Niemöller was freed on time-served but the Gestapo immediately took him back into 'protective custody.'
The Sixth Round of the FA Cup produced wins for Aston Villa (three-two in a thriller with Manchester City), Sunderland (who won at Tottenham) and Preston North End (who beat Brentford three-nil at Griffin Park). York City and Huddersfield Town drew in the fourth quarter final (Huddersfield won the replay two-one).
Pauline Boty born in Croydon.
George Innes born in London.
Richard Hearne, Lilli Palmer and George Nelson performed the Moving Furniture sketch on an episode of Starlight. Anthony Frederick Charles Adams born in Poplar.
Jezebel - starring Bette Davis and Henry Fonda - premiered. Joanna Venetia Invicta Stevenson born in London.
Germany mobilised along the Austrian border threatening to invade. Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg resigned over the radio and explained that the Austrian military had been 'instructed not to resist.' Schuschnigg signed off with: 'I say goodbye with the heartfelt wish that God will protect Austria.' He didn't.
The Anschluss occurred as the German army crossed the Austrian border at 8AM. The new Austrian Chancellor Arthur Seyss-Inquart proclaimed the Anschluss annexing the country. President Wilhelm Miklas refused to sign the document and resigned. Stanley Logan's Love, Honour & Behave - starring Prisilla Lane and Wayne Morris - premiered. Catherine Woodville born in London.
Voyage To The Sun featured the first radio appearance of Jon Pertwee. John Robert Milton born in Bristol.
Neville Chamberlain made a speech in the House of Commons on the Austrian situation, saying the government 'emphatically disapproved' of Germany's deed but that 'nothing could have prevented this action by Germany unless we and others with us had been prepared to use force to prevent it.' Eleanor Bron born in Stanmore.
WB Yeats's The Word On The Window Pane broadcast. Elizabeth Margaret Ross MacLennan born in Glasgow.
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev born in Irkutsk.
Evelyn Waugh's On Guard broadcast on The Regional Programme. Kenneth Lynch born in Stepney.
Oscar Micheaux's God's Step Children - starring Jacqueline Lewis and Ethel Moses - premiered.
Robert Johnson's 'Stop Breakin' Down Blues'/'Honeymoon Blues' released in the US.
Jenny Tomasin born in Leeds.
Neville Chamberlain made a foreign policy speech in the House of Commons, saying Britain would fight for France and Belgium if they were attacked but, significantly, making no such guarantee for Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain also called upon the Trades Union Congress and asked for their help in speeding up Britain's arms production. Plans included the introduction of day and night shifts in munitions factories and hiring an additional one hundred thousand semi-skilled workers.
Battleship won the Grand National.
Ernst Lubitsch's Bluebeard's Eighth Wife - starring Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper and David Niven - premiered.
Barry Jackson born in Birmingham. George Formby's 'Wunga Bunga Boo'/'Have You Ever Heard This One?' released.
Zoltan Korda's The Drum - starring Sabu, Raymond Massey, Desmond Tester, Roger Livesey and Valerie Hobson - premiered.
The first televised Boat Race - won by Oxford - broadcast, with commentary by John Stagge. Cambridge came second.
Clemence Dane's Will Shakespeare broadcast.
Christine Hahlo's Wren Of St Paul's broadcast.
American chemist Roy J Plunkett discovered polytetrafluoroethylene, better known as Teflon.
The first football match televised in its entirety by the BBC. Tommy Walker's goal gave Scotland victory over England at Wembley in the Home International championship. Micky Fenton of Middlesbrough and Leeds United's Eric Stephenson made their England debuts. Four of the victorious Scotland side were from Preston North End, Andy Beattie, Bill Shankly, Tommy Smith and George Mutch. Despite this, Preston defeated Derby County four-one in the First Division, remaining close behind leaders Arsenal (who won one-nil at Leeds United). Gordon Bremner's late winner (on his debut) gave Arsenal a crucial three-point lead at the top. Mock air-raids were performed in front of thousands of people at two locations in Leeds. One was during the afternoon and the other under floodlights at night. The first, at Woodhouse Moor, showed how to handle an attack of mustard gas, whilst in the second, at Holbeck Moor, a lifesize house had been built and set fire to, with firemen, air-raid wardens and ambulance emergency crews all rehearsing, and air-raid guns and searchlights in operation, together with planes flying overhead.
Fifty thousand leftists attended a 'Save Spain' rally in Hyde Park protesting the British government's policy on the Civil War. Arch Nazi apologist Unity Mitford was spotted at the event wearing a swastika badge and was attacked by an angry mob.
Victor Fleming's Test Pilot - starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy - premiered.
Britain and Italy concluded the Easter Accords, a pact to reduce tensions in the Mediterranean. Fifty Years Of League Football broadcast. The British recognised the Italian conquest of Ethiopia while Italy promised to withdraw its troops from Spain at the end of the Civil War and refrain from spreading propaganda in the Middle East. Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally discovered lysergic acid diethylamide.
Sonnie Hale's Sailing Along - starring Jessie Matthews, Barry MacKay, Jack Whiting, Roland Young, Noel Madison, Frank Pettingell and Alastair Sim - premiered.
The first published appearance of Superman in Action Comics issue one.
The Leni Riefenstahl-directed documentary Olympia premiered in Germany. Joseph Kane's Under Western Skies - starring Roy Rodgers - premiered. Peter John Snow born in Dublin.
Tamara Hinchco born in London.
George Orwell's Homage To Catalonia published.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon introduced the biggest peacetime budget in the nation's history. Taxes on income, petrol and tea were increased to help pay for the national rearmament programme. Duane Eddy born in Corning, New York. George Formby's 'I Blew A Little Blast On My Whistle'/'In My Little Snapshot Album' released.
Alan Gibson born in London, Ontario.
Ann Forrest Bell born in Wallasey, Cheshire.
The FA Cup Final was televised for the first time. Preston North End beat Huddersfield Town after extra time. Commentator Tommy Woodrooffe recklessly stated 'if there's a goal scored now, I'll eat my hat' mere seconds before George Mutch netted the winner. Woodrooffe subsequently kept his promise, though reportedly the 'hat' he ate was made of sugar-coated cake. The animated short Porky's Hare Hunt was released, marking the first appearance of Bugs Bunny.
The Box Office Poison article appeared in the Independent Film Journal, naming a number of movie stars who, the article claimed, continued to draw high salaries despite making films which underperformed. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Mae West were among those given the label.
Stefan Gryff born in Warsaw. Robert Johnson's 'Me & The Devil Blues'/'Little Queen of Spades' released in the US.
Manchester City became the only team to have been relegated from the First Division in the season after winning the league title as well as the only team to ever be relegated from the top tier of English football having scored the most goals in that particular season. A final-day defeat at Huddersfield ensured City's fate with Grimsby Town, Portsmouth, Birmingham City and Stoke City all beating the drop by winning their final games. The points spread between the champions, Arsenal and the team that finished bottom, West Bromwich Albion, was a mere sixteen points. Arsenal won the title (the club's fifth in seven seasons) on the final day with fifty two points after beating Bolton Wanderers five-nil at Highbury, whilst the table leaders after the penultimate round of fixtures, Wolverhampton Wanderers, lost to ten-man Sunderland at Roker Park. Wolves would have to wait until 1954 to win their first title, although by that time they had already experienced the pain of being pipped to another potential championship on the final day of a season yet again - by Liverpool in 1947. Aston Villa and Manchester united were promoted from the Second Division. Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest both narrowly avoided relegation to Third Division, both finishing ahead of Barnsley on goal average. Newcastle's four-one defeat at Luton Town saw the league debut ofd Albert Stubbins, the first of two hundred and eight appearances for The Magpies and Liverpool in a career that lasted until 1953 (in wartime games, classified as not first-class, he scored two hundred and thirty one goals in just one hundred and eighty eight appearances). Everton's Tommy Lawton was the league's top scorer with twenty eight goals. Ambassadors from Britain and France opened a discussion in Prague on Sudeten Germans. They advised Czechoslovakia to make greater concessions to ethnic Germans within its borders.
Julia Yvonne Alexander born in Fulham.
George Stevens's Vivacious Lady - starring Ginger Rogers and James Stewart - premiered. Sarah Evershed Brackett born in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Anna Cropper born in Brierfield, Lancashire.
A tour to central Europe for England's football team opened with the visitors comprehensively beating Germany six-three in front of Herman Göring, Rudolph Hess and Joseph Goebbels in Berlin's Olympiastadion. Controversially, the England players were instructed to give the Nazi salute during the anthems before kick-off. Sir Neville Henderson, the British Ambassador to Germany, had advised the team, through the Football Association Secretary, Stanley Rous, to give the salute 'for the betterment of Anglo-German relations, as a mark of respect, not nationalism.' Contrary to common belief, Adolf Hitler did not attend the game (pre-publicity had suggested he would attend). Cliff Bastin, Jackie Robinson (who scored twice), debutant Frank Broome of Aston Villa, Stanley Matthews and Len Goulden were on-target for the visitors. Charlton's Don Welsh also made his Englanf debut. The German team included Johann Pesser who had been part of the great Austria national side pre-Anschluss. The annexation of Austria by Germany had meant that there was a vacant slot for the forthcoming World Cup Finals, which FIFA allegedly offered to the Football Association. They, once again, turned down the offer to appear in France and instead, embarked on a continental tour. Two convicted murderers were given reprieves from their death sentences by the Home Secretary. William Teasdale had strangled his wife, Ruby, in Clapham after she confronted him with his new fiancée at a cinema. Stanley Martin had beaten a police constable, John Potter, to death when he was disturbed after breaking into a cider factory at which he worked, at Whimple, near Exeter. Both were commuted to life sentences. Michael Curtiz's The Adventures Of Robin Hood - starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone and Claude Rains - premiered.
A boy of eleven who was punished by a schoolmaster for flicking pellets at him - 'Just like Will Hay' - gave evidence at Wandsworth County Court in cross-actions. All the boys, he added, were doing the same thing, but he was the only one to be found out. In one action Charles Richard King, schoolmaster, was awarded four guineas school fees claimed from John Nicholas Patrick Conlan, an architect and in the other Conlan was awarded four guineas damages with costs, against King for an assault on his son, Peter. Cross-examined by S Levine, for Conlan, King said that the boy was bright and intelligent and had made good progress, but was 'an awful liar.' King declared that most of the boy's allegations were 'purely imaginary.' He had been 'very lenient' in regard to caning, he claimed. Judge Haydon said King was 'obviously a most excitable man' and 'somewhat exceeded what was proper' in giving chastisement to a boy of such tender years.
The Charing Cross District Line tube crash occurred, killing six people.
Bryan Marshall born in Battersea. Madge Railton born in Blackburn. Terence Cain born in Orpington.
The French playwrights Henri Bernstein and Édouard Bourdet fought an épée duel after feuding with each other for many years. Jean-Joseph Renaud refereed the duel and declared Bernstein the winner after Bourdet was nicked in the arm. Honour was satisfied. Swiss Miss - starring Laurel and Hardy - premiered.
England lost two-one to Switzerland in a friendly international in Zürich. Cliff Bastin scored England's goal from a penalty kick but another penalty, by André Abegglen, gave the Swiss the win.
John Nolan born in Westminster. Investigations continued into the mysterious death of farmer William Murfitt, who had been poisoned by cyanide being added into his daily salts. His previous affair with another farmer's wife complicated the inquiries and no-one was ever charged with his murder, but the chief suspect was Mary Chandler, the housekeeper and lover of the farmer who lived closest to Murfitt, at Risby, near Bury St Edmunds. Chandler had a string of offences going back many years. Murfitt and his wife were due to give evidence against her in a trial over the theft of a fur coat and Chandler was said to be afraid that her conviction would end her relationship with her lover, who had changed his will in her favour and who also gave her the alibi that kept the police from prosecuting her for the murder.
England defeated France four-two in a friendly international in Paris. Frank Broome, Ted Drake (two) and a Cliff Bastin penalty settled the game in England's favour. The accused, Edward Chaplin, was cross-examined in the trial of the murder of Percy Casserley at his Wimbledon home. Chaplin had admitted that Mrs Ena Casserley was pregnant with his child and her husband had produced a gun. The pair struggled and Casserley was fatally injured by a gunshot wound. Chaplin was found not guilty of murder, but convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to twelve years in prison. He married Ena soon after his release in 1946.
Kidnapped - starring Warner Baxter Freddie Bartholoew and C Aubrey Smith - premiered.
South African tourist GE Taylor filmed something in Loch Ness for three minutes on sixteen millimetre colour film. The film was obtained by popular science writer Maurice Burton, who did not show it to other researchers. A single frame was published in his 1961 book, The Elusive Monster. His analysis concluded it was a floating object, not an animal.
BBC Television broadcast its first-ever game-show, Spelling Bee.
MP Duncan Sandys raised a question in the House of Commons about air-raid defences which relied on secret information. This began the 'Sandys Affair' when he was threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Bois Roussel won The Derby. This was the first year that the race was televised. The Bren light machine gun entered service in the British Army.
Three Comrades - starring Robert Taylor and Margaret Sullavan - premiered.
Nazi Germany passed a law allowing for the confiscation of so-called 'degenerate art.'
The third football World Cup began in Paris with Germany (including several Austrian players from the so-called Wunderteam) and Switzerland playing to a one-all draw. The French crowd jeered the German team when the players made the Nazi salute and threw bottles, eggs and tomatoes at them throughout the match. Becuase, nobody likes Nazis very much.
The psychoanalysist Sigmund Freud arrived in Paris on The Orient Express, having fled persecution by the Nazis in his homeland, Austria. After a few hours rest he continued on his way to London where he had been granted asylum.
Ann Beach born in Wolverhampton.
Glasgow Celtic defeated Everton one-nil to win the Empire Exhibition Trophy, the award for the winner of a football tournament held in conjunction with the Empire Exhibition. The Ashes series began at Trent Bridge. The first test ended in a high-scoring draw with both Eddie Paynter and Stan McCabe scoring double centuries. There were also centuries for Charlie Barnett, Len Hutton and Denis Compton for England and Bill Brown and Don Bradman for Australia. Bill Edrich, Reg Sinfield and Doug Wright all made their test debuts.
Angela Browne born in Walton-On-Thames.
George Cukor's Holiday - starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant - premiered.
Blockade - starring Henry Fonda and Madeleine Carroll - premiered. Michael Culver born in Hampstead.
Michael Lawson Perkins born in Aberdenn.
Italy defeated Hungary four-two in the World Cup Final in Paris to retain the trophy they won in 1934.
David Stanley Kernan born in London.
The Royal Air Force launched a new recruitment campaign and received one thousand inquiries on the first day alone. The second Ashes test began at Lord's. As with the first, this was also a high-scoring draw with Wally Hammond and Bill Brown scoring double hundred and Don Bradman hitting his second century in successive tests.
Shirley Broomfield born in Forest Gate.
Joachim Tillinger born ikn Tabriz, Iran.
The House of Commons agreed to refer the Sandys Affair to a special committee which would determine the applicability of the Official Secrets Act to Members of Parliament and, specifically, to parliamentary privileged. The committee's findings would eventually lead to the revised Official Secrets Act.
The London & North Eastern Railway's Mallard reached a speed of one hundred and twenty six miles per hour, the highest certified speed for a steam locomotive. Philip Charles Martin born in Liverpool.
William Harrison Withers born in Slab Fork, West Virginia.
American astronomer Seth Barnes Nicholson discovered Lysithea, the tenth moon of Jupiter to be identified. Anthony Robert Lewis born Swansea.
A bomb thrown into a crowd of Arabs in Jerusalem killed a man and wounded two others. The British sent two warships and an additional brigade to the region. An exhibition of art banned in Germany as 'degenerate' opened in London, with paintings by Max Beckmann, Wassily Kandinsky and others.
WS Van Dyke's Maire Antoinette - starring Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power and John Barrymore - premiered. Diane Olga Claire Georgine Dirsztay born in London.
Hitler opened the Great Exhibition of German Art in Munich with a speech attacking the London exhibition of banned German art, calling modern artists 'cultural Neanderthalers' and 'lamentable unfortunates who plainly suffer from defective sight.'
After four days of non-stop rain, the third Ashes test at Old Trafford was abandoned without a ball being bowled. Trevor Preston born in Erith, Kent.
Howard Hughes completed a round-the-world flight in a Lockheed Model Super Electra in just over ninety one hours.
Japan notified the International Olympic Committee that it was forfeiting the 1940 Summer Olympics since it could not prepare for them while fighting the Second Sino-Japanese War. Busby Berkeley's Men Are Such Fools - starring Wayne Morris, Priscilla Lane and Humphrey Bogart - premiered.
Douglas Corrigan took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York supposedly heading back to the West Coast after being denied permission to fly across the Atlantic. To the bewilderment of a few onlookers present, his plane turned one hundred and eighty degrees and vanished in a cloudbank. Corrigan landed in Dublin, twenty four hours later claiming to have 'gotten lost.' Authorities didn't buy his story and suspended his licence, but 'Wrong Way' Corrigan became a international celebrity.
On the second anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco was given the rank of Capitán General del Ejército y de la Armada.
Salvador Dalí met one of his biggest influences, Sigmund Freud, in London. The Surrealist showed Freud his painting Metamorphosis Of Narcissus and sketched Fredu's portrait. Freud wrote enthusiastically of how much Dalí had impressed him and caused him to reassess his previous opinion of the Surrealists as 'one hundred per cent fools.'
Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg born in Doncaster. Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko born in San Francisco. Roger Hunt born in Glazebury, Cheshire.
Terence Henry Stamp born in Stepney.
Richard Seaman won the German Grand Prix.
Australia won a low-scoring the fourth test at Headingley to retain The Ashes. Don Bradman scored his third century of the series whilst Bill O'Reilly took ten wickets in the match. England's top scorer was Wally Hammond with seventy six. Fred Price made his test debut.
David Weston born in London.
The fifth and final episode of television's first serial drama, Ann & Harold broadcast.
Seth Barnes Nicholson observed Carme, the eleventh moon of Jupiter to be discovered.
Herbert Mason's Strange Boarders - starring Tom Walls, Renée Saint-Cyr and Googie Withers - premiered.
Michael Terence Wogan born in Limerick.
Henry King's Alexander's Ragtime Band - starring Tyrone Power - and Algiers - starring Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr - premiered. Timothy Preece born in Shrewsbury.
Secretary of State for the Colonies Malcolm MacDonald made a one-day visit to Jerusalem to gain a firsthand understanding of the Arab revolt in Palestine.
Arsenal paid Wolverhampton Wanderers a British record transfer fee of fourteen thousand five hundred pounds to acquire Welsh international Bryn Jones. This beat a record which had stood since Arsenal's purchase of David Jack in 1928. The record would stand until 1947.
Coverage of the European Swimming Championships from the Empire Pool, Wembley began.
Michael Curtiz's Four Daughters - starring the Lane Sisters. Gale Page and John Garfield - premiered. The first episode of Telecrime broadcast.
George Nichols's Army Girl - starring Madge Evans and Karl Titter's Capriccio - starring Lilian Harvey, Anton Imkamp and Paul Dahlke - premiered.
Elmer Rice and Philip Barry's Who Killed Cock Robin? broadcast.
King Of The Congo - 'an Epic of the Jungle by Roger MacDougall and Allan MacKinnon with music by Roger MacDougall' - broadcast.
The RMS Queen Mary set a record for the Eastbound Atlantic crossing of three days twenty hours forty two minutes. Hilary Tindall born in Manchester.
William Fraser, the chief constable of Inverness-shire, wrote a letter to the Home Office claiming that the Loch Ness Monster existed 'beyond doubt' and expressed concern about a hunting party which had, alllegedly, arrived (with a custom-made harpoon gun) determined to catch the monster 'dead or alive.' He believed his power to protect the monster from the hunters was 'very doubtful.' The letter was released by the National Archives of Scotland in April 2010.
Blues musician Robert Johnson died, at the age of twenty seven, near Greenwood, Mississippi, of unknown causes. His death was not reported publicly, he merely disappeared from the historical record and it was not until almost thirty years later, when Gayle Dean Wardlow, a Mississippi-based musicologist researching Johnson's life, found his death certificate. No formal autopsy was done. It is likely he had congenital syphilis. However, years of oral tradition had, like the rest of his life story, built a legend. Several differing accounts have described the events preceding his death alleging that he was poisoned by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted. Secretary of War Leslie Hore-Belisha put thirteen generals on the retired list to inject younger blood into the High Command.
Roy Boyd born in Croydon.
The WB Yeats drama Purgatory premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. John G Blystone's Block-Heads - starring Laurel and Hardy premiered.
Sydney Wooderson ran a half-mile in a record one minutes forty nine seconds.
Edward Wooll's Libel broadcast.
Len Hutton broke Don Bradman's Ashes record innings, scoring three hundred and sixty four runs in England's - also record-breaking - total of nine hundred and three for seven at The Oval in the fifth test. Bradman himself broke his own ankle whilst bowling. Maurice Leyland scored one hundred and eighty seven, Joe Hardstaff one hundred and sixty nine and Arthur Wood - making his debut - fifty three. Chuck Fleetwood-Smith bowled eighty seven overs and ended conceding a world-record two hundred and ninety eight runs for the solitary wicket of Wally Hammond.
England won the final Ashes test by an innings and five hundred and seventy nine runs. Australia batted both innings with just nine batsmen as both Bradman and Jack Fingleton were injured. Ken Farnes took five wickets and Bill Bowes seven.
Spawn of The North - starring George Raft, Henry Fonda and Dorothy Lamour - premiered.
Germany sent notes to Britain and France asking them to compel Czechoslovakia to accept the demands of the Sudeten Germans, including giving them the right to autonomy. The British government announced the mobilisation of the Royal Navy in response to German military exercises.
Winston Churchill made a speech in Theydon Bois saying that war was not inevitable: 'But the danger to peace will not be removed until the vast German armies which have been called from their homes into the ranks have been dispersed. For a country which is itself not menaced by anyone, in no fear of anyone, to place over one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers upon a war footing is a very grave step.' Churchill said that Europe's fate lay in the hands of 'the extraordinary man at the summit of Germany. He has raised the country from defeat; he has brought it back again to the foremost ranks of power. It would indeed be a fatal act if he were to cast away all he has done for the German people by leading them into what would almost certainly become a world war.'
Elliott Goldstein born in Brooklyn. The first TV showing of the 1934 movie Jack Ahoy - starring Jack Hulbert.
The British cabinet held a meeting on the Sudeten crisis and then issued a vague statement to the public: 'At the conclusion of the meeting the ministers expressed their entire agreement with the action already taken and the policy to be pursued in the future.' In private, they actually agreed that Britain would not threaten war if Hitler went into Czechoslovakia.
Martin Bell born in Redisham, Suffolk.
Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You - starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore and James Stewart - premiered in New York.
Having already secured their twentieth cricket county championship title, Yorkshire won their final game of the season, beating Sussex by four wickets at Hove. Middlesex finished runners-up with Surrey third. Sussex's John Langridge was the championships leading run-scorer (two thousand three hundred and two) whilst Somerset's Arthur Wellard led the bowling with one hundred and sixty seven wickets. Yorkshire's Bill Bowes topped the bowling averages with one hundred and twenty one wickets at 15.23. Mark Sandrich's Carefree - starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers- premiered. Michael Gerald Hastings born in London.
Hitler conferred with Walther von Brauchitsch and Wilhelm Keitel on Fall Grün. Hitler brushed aside Brauchitsch's objections that the Wehrmacht lacked preparedness and ordered the troops to be ready to march at two days' notice. The 1933 movie Aunt Sally - starring Cicely Courtneidge - first shown on TV. Caryl Lesley Churchill born in Finsbury.
A Royal Air Force plane crashed into a residential area Edmonton in London, killing the pilot and twelve other people.
A famously controversial - and despicably cowardly - editorial appeared in The Times which recommended giving Hitler what he wanted because 'the advantages to Czechoslovakia of becoming a homogenous State might conceivably outweigh the obvious disadvantages of losing the Sudeten German districts of the borderland.' Frank Woolley played his nine hundred and seventy eighth and final first class cricket match for England Past and present against Sir PF Warner's XI at Folkestone. A genuine all-rounder, Woolley was a left-handed batsman and a left-arm bowler who varied his style between orthodox spin and medium pace. He was an outstanding fielder close to the wicket, generally at first slip and is the only player other than wicketkeepers to hold over one thousand catches in a first-class career. Having made his Kent debut in 1906, he represented England in sixty four Test matches from 1909 to 1934. His first-class career runs total - fifty eight thousand nine hundred and fifty nine - is the second highest of all time, after Jack Hobbs and he scored the seventh highest number of career centuries (one hundred and forty five). He took just over two thousand wickets. The same game was also the eight hundred and thirty third and final first class match or Patsy Hendren. Making his debut for Middlesex in 19o7, Hendren was one of the most prolific batsmen of the inter-war period, averaging 47.63 in his fifty one test matches and 50.80 in all his first-class matches. He has the third highest first-class run aggregate of fifty seven thousand six hundred and eleven runs and his total of one hundred and seventy centuries ranked second only to Jack Hobbs.
Louis Felix Danner Mahoney born in The Gambia.
Boys Town - starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney - premiered.
Hermann Göring made an inflammatory speech at the Nuremberg Rally, accusing the Czech government of 'oppressing a cultured people.' Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš made a radio address making no mention of the diatribe and appealing for peace. David Hamilton Pilditch born in Manchester.
Hitler made a bombastic speech in Nuremberg declaring that the oppression of Sudeten Germans must end. The speech was broadcast live to the United States by CBS Radio and was the first time that many Americans had ever heard Hitler speak. The British cabinet held a meeting almost as soon as Hitler was finished speaking. They were relieved that Hitler had only demanded 'justice' for Sudeten Germans and had not committed himself to war. BBC Television showed a film for the first time, Man Of The Moment. Patrick Archibald Shaw born in Oxford.
Neville Chamberlain boarded a plane for the first time in his life and flew to Berchtesgaden to meet with Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain had already decided not to go to war over Czechoslovakia, so all that was left to negotiate was the means of meeting Hitler's demands.
Neville Chamberlain reported to the Cabinet on his meeting with Hitler, informing its members of his belief that a settlement of the Sudeten question would 'satisfy Hitler's aims.' Or, you know, not.
French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier and his foreign minister Georges Bonnet came to London for a conference on Czechoslovakia. The German annexation of the Sudetenland was agreed upon.
Pauline Shepherd born in London.
The Czechoslovak government rejected the Anglo-French proposal in a note explaining that acceptance would mean that Czechoslovakia would be put 'sooner or later under the complete domination of Germany.' Hitler met with the Polish ambassador Józef Lipski and told him that Germany would support Poland in a conflict with Czechoslovakia over Teschen. Hitler also said he was considering shipping Europe's Jews to a colony and expressed hope that Poland would cooperate with such a plan. Lipski allegedly replied that if Hitler could solve the Jewish question, the Poles would build a monument to him in Warsaw.
The British and French ambassadors informed Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš that his country would have to accept their plan or face Germany alone. The comedy Room Service starring the Marx Brothers, Lucille Ball and Ann Miller - premiered in New York.
Neville Chamberlain returned to Germany and met with Hitler again for two days at Bad Godesberg. Hitler - seemingly having realised the Chamberlain had a backbone made of jelly - was much more bellicose than previously and demanded to occupy the Sudetenland by 1 October with all of the region's military equipment left intact.
In the Berlin Sportpalast, Hitler made a speech threatening Czechoslovakia with war. 'My patience is exhausted,' Hitler declared. 'If Beneš does not want peace we will have to take matters into our own hands.'
The French government announced that France would not enter a war purely over Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain gave a radio address saying, 'However much we may sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbour, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that.'
Benjamin Earl King born in Henderson, North Carolina.
Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini met in Munich to settle the Sudetenland crisis. Czechoslovakia was, pointedly, not invited.
Prime Minister and well-known appeaser of fascists, Neville Chamberlain, returned to the UK from Munich, at Heston Aerodrome memorably waving the resolution signed the day earlier with Herr Hitler. Later, in Downing Street, he made his infamous 'Peace for our time' speech. Wrong. John Brahm's Girls' School - starring Anne Shirley, Ralph Bellamy and Nan Grey and George Fitzmaurice's Vacation From Love - starring Dennis O'Keefe, Florence Rice and Reginald Owen - premiered. Ian Trigger born in Plymouth. Laurence Harrington born in London.
German troops began to occupy the Sudetenland.
Bruce Purchase born in Thames, New Zealand.
Duff Cooper made a speech to the House of Commons explaining his reason for resigning as First Lord of the Admiralty. Cooper opposed Chamberlain's appeasement policy and said that Britain should have fought 'in order that one great Power should not be allowed, in disregard of treaty obligations, of the laws of nations and the decrees of morality to dominate by brutal force the Continent of Europe. For that principle we fought against Napoleon Buonaparte and against Louis XIV of France and Philip II of Spain. For that principle we must ever be prepared to fight, for on the day when we are not prepared to fight for it we forfeit our Empire, our liberties and our independence.' Ray Edward Cochran born in Albert Lea, Minnesota.
Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade To Music was premièred at the Royal Albert Hall to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Henry Wood's first concert. Winston Churchill made a famous speech to the House of Commons calling the Munich Agreement 'a total and unmitigated defeat.'
Pygmalion - starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller - premiered.
Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes - starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave - premiered in London. Edward Ludwig's That Certain Age - starring Deanna Durbin- premiered.
The Soviet newspaper Pravda picked up on a recent Claud Cockburn article about Charles Lindberg - who had allegedly claimed the Luftwaffe could defeat the British, French, Soviet and Czechoslovak air forces combined - and published an article of its own, in which leading Russian airmen accused Lindbergh of 'spreading lies' about Soviet air strength to encourage Neville Chamberlain to concede part of Czechoslovakia. Lady Astor, who gave the dinner party where the alleged remarks were allegedly made, called the accusations 'a complete lie' and said that Lindbergh did talk about Russia but did not say anything about its air force. 'You can safely attribute these reports to Communist propaganda coming from Claud Cockburn, who started the completely unfounded rumours about the Cliveden set,' she said.
Production began on the movie The Wizard of Oz.
Christa Päffgen born in Köln.
Buddy Ebsen became ill on the set of The Wizard of Oz and was hospitalised after the aluminium dust make-up from his Tin Man costume rendered him barely able to breathe. Ebsen would be replaced by Jack Haley. Derek George Jacobi born in Leytonstone. Wales beat England four-two in the Home International championships at Ninian Park. Derby County's Dai Astley scroed twice for the home side with further goals from Arsenal's Bryn Jones and Brentford's Dai Hopkins. Teenage debutant Tommy Lawton of Everton and Stanley Matthews replied for the visitors. In the First Division, even without Astley, Derby still thrashed Manchester United five-one. League leaders Everton defeated Leeds United four-nil with three goals from Lawton's replacement Bunny Bell. There was a nasty incident at Fratton Park where Charlton Athletic beat Portsmouth two-nil. During the match the pitch was invaded by several stroppy and discombobulated spectators and Stan Bartram was hit on the head with a brick. The nets were also set on fire. In the Second Division, Tottenham's three-one defeat at Blackburn Rovers saw the league debut of Bill Nicholson, the first of three hundred and fifteen games for Spurs and England in a career that lasted until 1955. He would, subsequently manage the club for a further two decades. Japanese troops captured the Chinese port of Guangzhou thus isolating Hong Kong.
An ice hockey game was televised for the first time, between the Harringay Racers and Harringay Greyhounds at Harringay Arena. Excitement outside the Greater Harringay area was, perhaps singly, minimal. The Seventh Fifth anniversary of the Football Association was celebrated with a match at Highbury between England and a Rest Of Europe side. The hosts won three-nil with goals from Willie Hall, Tommy Lawton and Len Goulden. The Europe sides featured five of Italy's world cup winning side, two Germans and players from France, Blegium, Hungary and Norway. Leslie Clements murdered his wife, Evelyn, in bed in Shepherd's Bush, the morning after she informed him that their marriage was over. When she accidentally called him by her lover's name, Felix, he lost his temper and beat her to death. Two months later, he was convicted and sentenced to death, but because of his extreme provocation, he was reprieved and his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
Quinton Hogg won the Oxford by-election following a hard-fought campaign that focused almost exclusively on foreign affairs. Hogg was a supporter of Chamberlain's appeasement policy and the by-election result was seen as an endorsement of the Munich Agreement by the public.
David Dimbleby born in Surrey. Joseph Santley's Always In Trouble - starring Jane Withers, Jean Rogers, Arthur Treacher and Robert Kellard - premiered.
An adaptation of HG Wells's The War Of The Worlds was broadcast in the US as part of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre On The Air on the CBS network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode became famous for allegedly causing mass panic on the East Coast of America amongst people who believed that The Martians really were invading Earth, although the scale of the public panic has been subsequently disputed as the programme had relatively few listeners.
Aged twenty three, Sister Rosetta Tharpe recorded for the first time - four sides for Decca Records backed by Lucky Millinder's jazz orchestra. The songs ' 'Rock Me', 'That's All', 'My Man & I' and 'The Lonesome Road' - were instant hits, establishing Tharpe as one of the first commercially successful gospel recording artists.
Frances White born in Leeds.
Darts Championship Of The Air, featuring Fred Wallis - broadcast live from The Alexandra Arms, Eastbourne, on the London Regional Network. King Vidor's The Citadel - starring Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell - and The Young In Heart - starring Janet Gaynor, Doulas Fairbans Jnr and Paulette Goddard - premiered.
The Great Waltz premiered.
W Somerset Maugham's The Breadwinner broadcast.
The probable day that, due to freak weather conditions, RCA in New York was able to film ghostly images of a BBC broadcast, one of the world's earliest surviving telerecordings.
Denis Johnson's adaptation of The Last Voyage Of Captain Grant broadcast. A wave of violence targeting Jews occurred throughout Germany and Austria in retaliation for the assassination of diplomat Ernst Vom Rath. Nazi authorities did not interfere as Jewish shops and synagogues were burned and looted in a sick outbreak of anti-semitic carnage. The vast amounts of broken glass littering the streets outside the Jewish shops gave the night its name, Kristallnacht. England defeated Norway four-nil in a friendly international at St James' Park. Millwall's Reg Smith scored twice on his debut, whilst another debutant, Ronnie Dix of Derby County added a third. Tommy Lawton also netted. Newcastle's Douggie Wright made his England debut.
Virginia and Frank Vernon's adaptation of Villa For Sale - starring Rex Harrison - broadcast.
Reginald Berkeley's adaptation of The White Château broadcast. Frank Lloyd's If I Were King - staring Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone - premiered.
The Halifax Slasher scare began in West Yorkshire, England when two young women reported being attacked by an unseen assailant with a mallet or hatchet. It subsequently turned out to be an example of mass hysteria (or, in other words, a right load of old effing toot). England beat ireland seven-nil in the home International championship at Old Trafford. Willie Hall scored five including a hat-trick inside four minutes with Stanley Matthews and Tommy Lawton also on target. Evertoin's Joe Mercer and Wolves' Bill Morris made their England debuts. For the first time, the entire Irish side was made up of players from English-based clubs. The British government - showing their usual backbone consisting of jelly - formally recognised the territories occupied in East Africa, including Ethiopia, as a part of the Italian Empire, in the hope that the pact might stop Benito Mussolini from forming an alliance with Adolf Hitler. It proved fruitless, as just six months later, the leaders of Germany and Italy signed the 'Pact of Steel.' So, that went well, didn't it?
The Cowboy & The Lady - starring Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon - premiered. George Formby's 'Tan-Tan-Tivvy Tally Ho!'/'I Wonder Who's Under Her Balcony Now?' released.
Nicholas Pennell born in Brixham, Devon.
Sheila Mary Delaney born in Salford.
Michael Curtiz's Angels With Dirty Faces - starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart and The Dead End Kids - premiered. And, if you're wondering, no, Rocky never went yella to The Chair.
Frank Sinatra was arrested by the Bergen County Sheriff's Office for 'carrying on with a married woman,' a criminal offence at the time.
Susan Burnet born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.
One of the Halifax Slasher's alleged 'victims', Percy Waddington, confessed to faking the attack on himself. Two days later, two more 'victims' also confessed to faking the attacks on themselves. The panic soon subsided as doubts arose as to whether the slasher had ever really existed.
Caned fifteen times by eight different masters at Avondale Park Boys' School, Notting Dale, a thirteen-year-old schoolboy became tired of it and at West London summoned one of the masters for beating him. Stanley Hooper in the witness-box admitted that on the third stroke he said to the master - George Victor Barrett - 'Hurry up and finish it.' The magistrate dismissed the summons, remarking: 'Obviously this boy deserved reasonable chastisement and I am sorry to hear it does not seem to have done him any good.'
The first two hundred Jewish children of the Kindertransport programme arrived in England.
Nazi Germany had a nationwide 'day of solidarity' collecting street donations for the Winterhilfswerk fund. Jews were ordered to stay off the streets between noon and 8PM because, according to the order issued by Heinrich Himmler, they had 'no share in the solidarity of the German nation.'
The first episode of Those You Have Loved - featuring the BBC's first female DJ, Doris Arnold - broadcast. Jacqueline Anne Stallybrass born in Westcliff-On-Sea.
Waris Habibullah born in Lucknow, India.
'The Joint Is Jumping' by Fats Waller, Andy Razaf & The Leith Stevens Orchestra released.
The Daily Express reported that Lloyd's of London was quoting odds of thirty two-to-one against Britain being involved in a war before 31 December 1939. Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero born in Newark, New Jersey. Leslie Schofield born in Oldham.
Neville Chamberlain spoke to six hundred journalists and diplomats at the Foreign Press Association jubilee dinner in London, saying there would be 'no let-up' in British rearmament even though he was convinced that the wish of the British and German people remained 'still what it was recorded to me in the Munich Agreement - namely, never to go to war with one another again, and to settle any difference that might arise between us by the method of consultation.' There were a number of empty seats at the function because the German press boycotted after seeing an advance copy of the speech, which included a passage criticising German media for its 'tone' and for rarely showing 'any sign of a desire to understand our point of view.' Clark Gable announced he was seeking a divorce from his estranged second wife Rhea. Friends of the actor disclosed that he planned to marry Carole Lombard when the divorce was finalised.
Thora Janette Scott born in Morecambe.
Neil Niren Connery born in Edinburgh. Lesley Selander's The Frontiersman premiered.
Bryan James Chandler born in Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
Sir John Anderson outlined a government plan in the House of Commons to construct steel air-raid shelters around Britain. The cost was set at twenty million pounds for twenty million persons. John Quayle born in Lincoln.
Ws Van Dyke's Sweethearts - starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald - premiered.
The first overseas cricket broadcast to the UK. Jim Swanton commentated on the Johannesburg test between South Africa and England. On Boxing Day, Tom Goddard took a hat-trick whilst Swanton was on-air. The film The Dawn Patrol - starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven - premiered.
Dorothy L Sayers' He That Should Come broadcast.
American opera singer Grace Moore gave the Duchess of Windsor a deep curtsy during a concert in France and started a new controversy over whether or not the duchess counted as royalty and was entitled to receive such an honour.
Crooner's Corner broadcast. The first of a five test series between South Africa and England at Johannesburg was drawn. Match highlights included a century in each innings for Eddie Paytner. Paul Gibbs, making his debut, almost match the feat, scoring ninety three and one hundred and six. Norman Yardley and Len Wilkinson almost made their test debuts.
Sandy MacPherson At The BBC Theatre Organ broadcast.
David Butler's Kentucky - starring Loreta Young, Richard Greene and Walter Brennan - premiered.
'You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby' by Bing Crosby topped the American music charts. Going Places - starring Dick Powell - premiered.
JM Barrie's Mary Rose broadcast. George VI gave out six peerages in the New Year Honours list. Gracie Fields and Harriet Cohen were both made CBEs. 'A Review Of The First-Half Of The Association Football Season In The North-East by Colin Veitch broadcast on 5NO Newcastle. Oscar Micheaux's God's Step Children - starring Jacqueline Lewis, Ethel Moses, Alice B Russell and Gloria Press - premiered.
David Royston Bailey born ion Leytonstone.
The BBC made its first non-English broadcast, in Arabic. Listeners throughout the Middle East tuned in to a one-hour broadcast mostly consisting of a news bulletin on regional events. The audience reportedly expressed disappointment that the broadcast was not interspersed with love songs like Italy's programming was.
Michael Hogan's adaptation of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart broadcast. Jim Norton born in Dublin.
The first episode of The Band Waggon - starring Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch - broadcast on The Regional Programme. Colleen Anne Fitzpatrick born in Sydney, Australia.
In Old Chicago - starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye and Don Ameche - premiered.
Sarah Branch born in London.
Tom Walls' Second Best Bed - starring Jane Baxter, Veronica Rose, Carl Jaffe and Greta Gynt - premiered.
Lewis Ernest Fiander born in Melbourne.
John Allen Jones born in Los Angeles. Allen Toussaint born in New Orleans.
Lupino Lane and Teddie St Dennis appeared in extracts from Me & My Girl.
John Webster's The Duchess Of Malfi - featuring the TV début of John Laurie - broadcast.
German bombers of the Condor Legion killed more than one hundred people in an air raid on Barcelona.
Alexander Derek Dougan born in Belfast.
The first episode of As The Commentator Saw It broadcast on The National Programme. Our Town by Thornton Wilder premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. Brook Richard Williams born in Chelsea.
The BBC broadcast the first televised opera, a production of Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde.
An intense display of the Aurora Borealis was witnessed across Europe, as far south as Gibralter.
Police made two more arrests in the Woolwich spy case. Both suspects worked in the Arsenal and had connections to the Communist Party. One of them was found to be in possession of a suitcase with a false bottom used for smuggling blueprints.
Herbert Brenon's Housemaster - starring Otto Kruger, Diana Churchill, Phillips Holmes, Joyce Barbour and Jimmy Hanley - premiered.
Benito Mussolini ordered Italian soldiers to adopt the goose step.
The comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made their radio debut on The Kate Smith Hour.
George Marshall's The Goldwyn Follies premiered. Penny Morrell born in London.
The third British Empire Games opened in Sydney, Australia.
An adaptation of Karel Capek's RUR broadcast - believed to be the first science-fiction drama ever presented on television. Of Human Hearts - starring Walter Huston and James Stewart - premiered. Robert George Pickett born in Somerville, Massachusetts.
The Honourable Lionel Tennyson made his four hundred and seventy seventh and final first class cricket match or his own touring side against an Indian XI in Bombay. In a career which began in 1913, Lionel, the grandson of the poet Lord Tennyson, scored over sixteen thousand runs and took fifty five wickets, mostly for Hampshire whom he captained between 1919 and 1935. He also played nine tests for England between 1913 and 1921. During World War I he served with The Rifle Brigade in France. He was Mentioned in Despatches twice and three times wounded. Married to the socialite Claire Tennant, he became the Third Baron Tennyson on his father's death in 1928. His talented Hampshire side often included, as wicket keeper, his butler, Walter Livsey.
Robert Oliver Reed born in Wimbledon.
Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby - starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant - premiered in San Francisco.
The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer - starring Tom Kelly, Jackie Moran and May Robson and Gunga Din - starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Joan Fontaine - premiered. John Logie Baird demonstrated a prototype colour television in London. Yvonne Adelaide Warren born in London.
Anthony Eden resigned as Foreign Secretary, telling Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: 'I have become increasingly conscious of differences between us.' Lord Halifax became the new Foreign Secretary.
By a vote of three hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty eight, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy was endorsed by the House of Commons when it defeated a Labour motion to censure Chamberlain for dismissing Anthony Eden. Winston Churchill was among about twenty Conservatives who abstained from voting. Barry Dennen born in Chicago.
The Labour Party issued a manifesto demanding that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain call a new general erection to assess whether the public supported his appeasement policy. 'This is not the time for concessions to dictators,' it read. 'The government holds no mandate from electors for the vital change it has made in foreign policy. We demand that a stand shall be taken with other peace loving nations against the violence and threats of Fascist powers.' Joe Louis knocked out Nathan Mann in the third round at Madison Square Garden to retain the world heavyweight boxing title. Alan Ford born in Camberwell.
Malcolm Tierney born in Failsworth, Lancashire.
Association Football: Newcastle United Versus Aston Villa, 'an eye-witness account of the match by Colin Veitch,' broadcast. But, only after Manchester & Sheffield Versus The North, 'an eye-witness account of the Bridge Match by Ewart Kempson.' Newcastle won their game two-nil with goals by Billy Cairns and John Park. As to who won the Bridge, perhaps we'll never care. Anthony Samuel Selby born in Lambeth.
Derek Arthur Ware born in manchester.
The first episode of Comedy Cabaret broadcast. Chekov's On The High Road broadcast featuring the TV début of Maurice Denham.
Roy William Neil's The Viper - starring Claude Hulbert, Betty Lynne and Hal Walters - premiered.
WS Gilbert's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern broadcast. The trial of Martin Niemöller ended in Germany. He was cleared of the most serious charge against him, that of treason against the state, but was convicted of 'endangering public security, exploiting the pulpit and incitement to resistance against the government.' Niemöller was freed on time-served but the Gestapo immediately took him back into 'protective custody.'
The Sixth Round of the FA Cup produced wins for Aston Villa (three-two in a thriller with Manchester City), Sunderland (who won at Tottenham) and Preston North End (who beat Brentford three-nil at Griffin Park). York City and Huddersfield Town drew in the fourth quarter final (Huddersfield won the replay two-one).
Pauline Boty born in Croydon.
George Innes born in London.
Richard Hearne, Lilli Palmer and George Nelson performed the Moving Furniture sketch on an episode of Starlight. Anthony Frederick Charles Adams born in Poplar. Jezebel - starring Bette Davis and Henry Fonda - premiered. Joanna Venetia Invicta Stevenson born in London.
Germany mobilised along the Austrian border threatening to invade. Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg resigned over the radio and explained that the Austrian military had been 'instructed not to resist.' Schuschnigg signed off with: 'I say goodbye with the heartfelt wish that God will protect Austria.' He didn't.
The Anschluss occurred as the German army crossed the Austrian border at 8AM. The new Austrian Chancellor Arthur Seyss-Inquart proclaimed the Anschluss annexing the country. President Wilhelm Miklas refused to sign the document and resigned. Stanley Logan's Love, Honour & Behave - starring Prisilla Lane and Wayne Morris - premiered. Catherine Woodville born in London.
Voyage To The Sun featured the first radio appearance of Jon Pertwee. John Robert Milton born in Bristol.
Neville Chamberlain made a speech in the House of Commons on the Austrian situation, saying the government 'emphatically disapproved' of Germany's deed but that 'nothing could have prevented this action by Germany unless we and others with us had been prepared to use force to prevent it.' Eleanor Bron born in Stanmore.
WB Yeats's The Word On The Window Pane broadcast. Elizabeth Margaret Ross MacLennan born in Glasgow.
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev born in Irkutsk.
Evelyn Waugh's On Guard broadcast on The Regional Programme. Kenneth Lynch born in Stepney.
Oscar Micheaux's God's Step Children - starring Jacqueline Lewis and Ethel Moses - premiered.
Robert Johnson's 'Stop Breakin' Down Blues'/'Honeymoon Blues' released in the US.
Jenny Tomasin born in Leeds.
Neville Chamberlain made a foreign policy speech in the House of Commons, saying Britain would fight for France and Belgium if they were attacked but, significantly, making no such guarantee for Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain also called upon the Trades Union Congress and asked for their help in speeding up Britain's arms production. Plans included the introduction of day and night shifts in munitions factories and hiring an additional one hundred thousand semi-skilled workers.
Battleship won the Grand National.
Ernst Lubitsch's Bluebeard's Eighth Wife - starring Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper and David Niven - premiered.
Barry Jackson born in Birmingham. George Formby's 'Wunga Bunga Boo'/'Have You Ever Heard This One?' released.
Zoltan Korda's The Drum - starring Sabu, Raymond Massey, Desmond Tester, Roger Livesey and Valerie Hobson - premiered.
The first televised Boat Race - won by Oxford - broadcast, with commentary by John Stagge. Cambridge came second.
Christine Hahlo's Wren Of St Paul's broadcast.
American chemist Roy J Plunkett discovered polytetrafluoroethylene, better known as Teflon.
The first football match televised in its entirety by the BBC. Tommy Walker's goal gave Scotland victory over England at Wembley in the Home International championship. Micky Fenton of Middlesbrough and Leeds United's Eric Stephenson made their England debuts. Four of the victorious Scotland side were from Preston North End, Andy Beattie, Bill Shankly, Tommy Smith and George Mutch. Despite this, Preston defeated Derby County four-one in the First Division, remaining close behind leaders Arsenal (who won one-nil at Leeds United). Gordon Bremner's late winner (on his debut) gave Arsenal a crucial three-point lead at the top. Mock air-raids were performed in front of thousands of people at two locations in Leeds. One was during the afternoon and the other under floodlights at night. The first, at Woodhouse Moor, showed how to handle an attack of mustard gas, whilst in the second, at Holbeck Moor, a lifesize house had been built and set fire to, with firemen, air-raid wardens and ambulance emergency crews all rehearsing, and air-raid guns and searchlights in operation, together with planes flying overhead.
Fifty thousand leftists attended a 'Save Spain' rally in Hyde Park protesting the British government's policy on the Civil War. Arch Nazi apologist Unity Mitford was spotted at the event wearing a swastika badge and was attacked by an angry mob.
Victor Fleming's Test Pilot - starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy - premiered.
Britain and Italy concluded the Easter Accords, a pact to reduce tensions in the Mediterranean. Fifty Years Of League Football broadcast. The British recognised the Italian conquest of Ethiopia while Italy promised to withdraw its troops from Spain at the end of the Civil War and refrain from spreading propaganda in the Middle East. Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally discovered lysergic acid diethylamide.
Sonnie Hale's Sailing Along - starring Jessie Matthews, Barry MacKay, Jack Whiting, Roland Young, Noel Madison, Frank Pettingell and Alastair Sim - premiered.
The first published appearance of Superman in Action Comics issue one.
The Leni Riefenstahl-directed documentary Olympia premiered in Germany. Joseph Kane's Under Western Skies - starring Roy Rodgers - premiered. Peter John Snow born in Dublin.
Tamara Hinchco born in London.
George Orwell's Homage To Catalonia published.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon introduced the biggest peacetime budget in the nation's history. Taxes on income, petrol and tea were increased to help pay for the national rearmament programme. Duane Eddy born in Corning, New York. George Formby's 'I Blew A Little Blast On My Whistle'/'In My Little Snapshot Album' released.
Alan Gibson born in London, Ontario.
Ann Forrest Bell born in Wallasey, Cheshire.
The FA Cup Final was televised for the first time. Preston North End beat Huddersfield Town after extra time. Commentator Tommy Woodrooffe recklessly stated 'if there's a goal scored now, I'll eat my hat' mere seconds before George Mutch netted the winner. Woodrooffe subsequently kept his promise, though reportedly the 'hat' he ate was made of sugar-coated cake. The animated short Porky's Hare Hunt was released, marking the first appearance of Bugs Bunny.
Stefan Gryff born in Warsaw. Robert Johnson's 'Me & The Devil Blues'/'Little Queen of Spades' released in the US.
Manchester City became the only team to have been relegated from the First Division in the season after winning the league title as well as the only team to ever be relegated from the top tier of English football having scored the most goals in that particular season. A final-day defeat at Huddersfield ensured City's fate with Grimsby Town, Portsmouth, Birmingham City and Stoke City all beating the drop by winning their final games. The points spread between the champions, Arsenal and the team that finished bottom, West Bromwich Albion, was a mere sixteen points. Arsenal won the title (the club's fifth in seven seasons) on the final day with fifty two points after beating Bolton Wanderers five-nil at Highbury, whilst the table leaders after the penultimate round of fixtures, Wolverhampton Wanderers, lost to ten-man Sunderland at Roker Park. Wolves would have to wait until 1954 to win their first title, although by that time they had already experienced the pain of being pipped to another potential championship on the final day of a season yet again - by Liverpool in 1947. Aston Villa and Manchester united were promoted from the Second Division. Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest both narrowly avoided relegation to Third Division, both finishing ahead of Barnsley on goal average. Newcastle's four-one defeat at Luton Town saw the league debut ofd Albert Stubbins, the first of two hundred and eight appearances for The Magpies and Liverpool in a career that lasted until 1953 (in wartime games, classified as not first-class, he scored two hundred and thirty one goals in just one hundred and eighty eight appearances). Everton's Tommy Lawton was the league's top scorer with twenty eight goals. Ambassadors from Britain and France opened a discussion in Prague on Sudeten Germans. They advised Czechoslovakia to make greater concessions to ethnic Germans within its borders.
Julia Yvonne Alexander born in Fulham.
George Stevens's Vivacious Lady - starring Ginger Rogers and James Stewart - premiered. Sarah Evershed Brackett born in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Anna Cropper born in Brierfield, Lancashire.
A tour to central Europe for England's football team opened with the visitors comprehensively beating Germany six-three in front of Herman Göring, Rudolph Hess and Joseph Goebbels in Berlin's Olympiastadion. Controversially, the England players were instructed to give the Nazi salute during the anthems before kick-off. Sir Neville Henderson, the British Ambassador to Germany, had advised the team, through the Football Association Secretary, Stanley Rous, to give the salute 'for the betterment of Anglo-German relations, as a mark of respect, not nationalism.' Contrary to common belief, Adolf Hitler did not attend the game (pre-publicity had suggested he would attend). Cliff Bastin, Jackie Robinson (who scored twice), debutant Frank Broome of Aston Villa, Stanley Matthews and Len Goulden were on-target for the visitors. Charlton's Don Welsh also made his Englanf debut. The German team included Johann Pesser who had been part of the great Austria national side pre-Anschluss. The annexation of Austria by Germany had meant that there was a vacant slot for the forthcoming World Cup Finals, which FIFA allegedly offered to the Football Association. They, once again, turned down the offer to appear in France and instead, embarked on a continental tour. Two convicted murderers were given reprieves from their death sentences by the Home Secretary. William Teasdale had strangled his wife, Ruby, in Clapham after she confronted him with his new fiancée at a cinema. Stanley Martin had beaten a police constable, John Potter, to death when he was disturbed after breaking into a cider factory at which he worked, at Whimple, near Exeter. Both were commuted to life sentences. Michael Curtiz's The Adventures Of Robin Hood - starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone and Claude Rains - premiered.
The Charing Cross District Line tube crash occurred, killing six people.
Bryan Marshall born in Battersea. Madge Railton born in Blackburn. Terence Cain born in Orpington.
The French playwrights Henri Bernstein and Édouard Bourdet fought an épée duel after feuding with each other for many years. Jean-Joseph Renaud refereed the duel and declared Bernstein the winner after Bourdet was nicked in the arm. Honour was satisfied. Swiss Miss - starring Laurel and Hardy - premiered.
England lost two-one to Switzerland in a friendly international in Zürich. Cliff Bastin scored England's goal from a penalty kick but another penalty, by André Abegglen, gave the Swiss the win.
John Nolan born in Westminster. Investigations continued into the mysterious death of farmer William Murfitt, who had been poisoned by cyanide being added into his daily salts. His previous affair with another farmer's wife complicated the inquiries and no-one was ever charged with his murder, but the chief suspect was Mary Chandler, the housekeeper and lover of the farmer who lived closest to Murfitt, at Risby, near Bury St Edmunds. Chandler had a string of offences going back many years. Murfitt and his wife were due to give evidence against her in a trial over the theft of a fur coat and Chandler was said to be afraid that her conviction would end her relationship with her lover, who had changed his will in her favour and who also gave her the alibi that kept the police from prosecuting her for the murder.
England defeated France four-two in a friendly international in Paris. Frank Broome, Ted Drake (two) and a Cliff Bastin penalty settled the game in England's favour. The accused, Edward Chaplin, was cross-examined in the trial of the murder of Percy Casserley at his Wimbledon home. Chaplin had admitted that Mrs Ena Casserley was pregnant with his child and her husband had produced a gun. The pair struggled and Casserley was fatally injured by a gunshot wound. Chaplin was found not guilty of murder, but convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to twelve years in prison. He married Ena soon after his release in 1946.
Kidnapped - starring Warner Baxter Freddie Bartholoew and C Aubrey Smith - premiered.
South African tourist GE Taylor filmed something in Loch Ness for three minutes on sixteen millimetre colour film. The film was obtained by popular science writer Maurice Burton, who did not show it to other researchers. A single frame was published in his 1961 book, The Elusive Monster. His analysis concluded it was a floating object, not an animal.
BBC Television broadcast its first-ever game-show, Spelling Bee.
MP Duncan Sandys raised a question in the House of Commons about air-raid defences which relied on secret information. This began the 'Sandys Affair' when he was threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Bois Roussel won The Derby. This was the first year that the race was televised. The Bren light machine gun entered service in the British Army.
Three Comrades - starring Robert Taylor and Margaret Sullavan - premiered.
Nazi Germany passed a law allowing for the confiscation of so-called 'degenerate art.'
The third football World Cup began in Paris with Germany (including several Austrian players from the so-called Wunderteam) and Switzerland playing to a one-all draw. The French crowd jeered the German team when the players made the Nazi salute and threw bottles, eggs and tomatoes at them throughout the match. Becuase, nobody likes Nazis very much.
The psychoanalysist Sigmund Freud arrived in Paris on The Orient Express, having fled persecution by the Nazis in his homeland, Austria. After a few hours rest he continued on his way to London where he had been granted asylum.
Ann Beach born in Wolverhampton.
Angela Browne born in Walton-On-Thames.
George Cukor's Holiday - starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant - premiered.
Blockade - starring Henry Fonda and Madeleine Carroll - premiered. Michael Culver born in Hampstead.
Michael Lawson Perkins born in Aberdenn.
Italy defeated Hungary four-two in the World Cup Final in Paris to retain the trophy they won in 1934.
David Stanley Kernan born in London.
The Royal Air Force launched a new recruitment campaign and received one thousand inquiries on the first day alone. The second Ashes test began at Lord's. As with the first, this was also a high-scoring draw with Wally Hammond and Bill Brown scoring double hundred and Don Bradman hitting his second century in successive tests.
Shirley Broomfield born in Forest Gate.
Joachim Tillinger born ikn Tabriz, Iran.
The House of Commons agreed to refer the Sandys Affair to a special committee which would determine the applicability of the Official Secrets Act to Members of Parliament and, specifically, to parliamentary privileged. The committee's findings would eventually lead to the revised Official Secrets Act.
The London & North Eastern Railway's Mallard reached a speed of one hundred and twenty six miles per hour, the highest certified speed for a steam locomotive. Philip Charles Martin born in Liverpool.
William Harrison Withers born in Slab Fork, West Virginia.
American astronomer Seth Barnes Nicholson discovered Lysithea, the tenth moon of Jupiter to be identified. Anthony Robert Lewis born Swansea.
A bomb thrown into a crowd of Arabs in Jerusalem killed a man and wounded two others. The British sent two warships and an additional brigade to the region. An exhibition of art banned in Germany as 'degenerate' opened in London, with paintings by Max Beckmann, Wassily Kandinsky and others.
WS Van Dyke's Maire Antoinette - starring Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power and John Barrymore - premiered. Diane Olga Claire Georgine Dirsztay born in London.
Hitler opened the Great Exhibition of German Art in Munich with a speech attacking the London exhibition of banned German art, calling modern artists 'cultural Neanderthalers' and 'lamentable unfortunates who plainly suffer from defective sight.'
After four days of non-stop rain, the third Ashes test at Old Trafford was abandoned without a ball being bowled. Trevor Preston born in Erith, Kent.
Howard Hughes completed a round-the-world flight in a Lockheed Model Super Electra in just over ninety one hours.
Douglas Corrigan took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York supposedly heading back to the West Coast after being denied permission to fly across the Atlantic. To the bewilderment of a few onlookers present, his plane turned one hundred and eighty degrees and vanished in a cloudbank. Corrigan landed in Dublin, twenty four hours later claiming to have 'gotten lost.' Authorities didn't buy his story and suspended his licence, but 'Wrong Way' Corrigan became a international celebrity.
On the second anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco was given the rank of Capitán General del Ejército y de la Armada.
Salvador Dalí met one of his biggest influences, Sigmund Freud, in London. The Surrealist showed Freud his painting Metamorphosis Of Narcissus and sketched Fredu's portrait. Freud wrote enthusiastically of how much Dalí had impressed him and caused him to reassess his previous opinion of the Surrealists as 'one hundred per cent fools.'
Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg born in Doncaster. Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko born in San Francisco. Roger Hunt born in Glazebury, Cheshire.
Terence Henry Stamp born in Stepney.
Richard Seaman won the German Grand Prix.
Australia won a low-scoring the fourth test at Headingley to retain The Ashes. Don Bradman scored his third century of the series whilst Bill O'Reilly took ten wickets in the match. England's top scorer was Wally Hammond with seventy six. Fred Price made his test debut.
David Weston born in London.
The fifth and final episode of television's first serial drama, Ann & Harold broadcast.
Seth Barnes Nicholson observed Carme, the eleventh moon of Jupiter to be discovered.
Herbert Mason's Strange Boarders - starring Tom Walls, Renée Saint-Cyr and Googie Withers - premiered.
Michael Terence Wogan born in Limerick.
Henry King's Alexander's Ragtime Band - starring Tyrone Power - and Algiers - starring Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr - premiered. Timothy Preece born in Shrewsbury.
Secretary of State for the Colonies Malcolm MacDonald made a one-day visit to Jerusalem to gain a firsthand understanding of the Arab revolt in Palestine.
Arsenal paid Wolverhampton Wanderers a British record transfer fee of fourteen thousand five hundred pounds to acquire Welsh international Bryn Jones. This beat a record which had stood since Arsenal's purchase of David Jack in 1928. The record would stand until 1947.
Coverage of the European Swimming Championships from the Empire Pool, Wembley began.
Michael Curtiz's Four Daughters - starring the Lane Sisters. Gale Page and John Garfield - premiered. The first episode of Telecrime broadcast.
George Nichols's Army Girl - starring Madge Evans and Karl Titter's Capriccio - starring Lilian Harvey, Anton Imkamp and Paul Dahlke - premiered.
Elmer Rice and Philip Barry's Who Killed Cock Robin? broadcast.
King Of The Congo - 'an Epic of the Jungle by Roger MacDougall and Allan MacKinnon with music by Roger MacDougall' - broadcast.
The RMS Queen Mary set a record for the Eastbound Atlantic crossing of three days twenty hours forty two minutes. Hilary Tindall born in Manchester.
Blues musician Robert Johnson died, at the age of twenty seven, near Greenwood, Mississippi, of unknown causes. His death was not reported publicly, he merely disappeared from the historical record and it was not until almost thirty years later, when Gayle Dean Wardlow, a Mississippi-based musicologist researching Johnson's life, found his death certificate. No formal autopsy was done. It is likely he had congenital syphilis. However, years of oral tradition had, like the rest of his life story, built a legend. Several differing accounts have described the events preceding his death alleging that he was poisoned by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted. Secretary of War Leslie Hore-Belisha put thirteen generals on the retired list to inject younger blood into the High Command.
Roy Boyd born in Croydon.
The WB Yeats drama Purgatory premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. John G Blystone's Block-Heads - starring Laurel and Hardy premiered.
Sydney Wooderson ran a half-mile in a record one minutes forty nine seconds.
Edward Wooll's Libel broadcast.
Len Hutton broke Don Bradman's Ashes record innings, scoring three hundred and sixty four runs in England's - also record-breaking - total of nine hundred and three for seven at The Oval in the fifth test. Bradman himself broke his own ankle whilst bowling. Maurice Leyland scored one hundred and eighty seven, Joe Hardstaff one hundred and sixty nine and Arthur Wood - making his debut - fifty three. Chuck Fleetwood-Smith bowled eighty seven overs and ended conceding a world-record two hundred and ninety eight runs for the solitary wicket of Wally Hammond.
Spawn of The North - starring George Raft, Henry Fonda and Dorothy Lamour - premiered.
Germany sent notes to Britain and France asking them to compel Czechoslovakia to accept the demands of the Sudeten Germans, including giving them the right to autonomy. The British government announced the mobilisation of the Royal Navy in response to German military exercises.
Winston Churchill made a speech in Theydon Bois saying that war was not inevitable: 'But the danger to peace will not be removed until the vast German armies which have been called from their homes into the ranks have been dispersed. For a country which is itself not menaced by anyone, in no fear of anyone, to place over one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers upon a war footing is a very grave step.' Churchill said that Europe's fate lay in the hands of 'the extraordinary man at the summit of Germany. He has raised the country from defeat; he has brought it back again to the foremost ranks of power. It would indeed be a fatal act if he were to cast away all he has done for the German people by leading them into what would almost certainly become a world war.'
Elliott Goldstein born in Brooklyn. The first TV showing of the 1934 movie Jack Ahoy - starring Jack Hulbert.
The British cabinet held a meeting on the Sudeten crisis and then issued a vague statement to the public: 'At the conclusion of the meeting the ministers expressed their entire agreement with the action already taken and the policy to be pursued in the future.' In private, they actually agreed that Britain would not threaten war if Hitler went into Czechoslovakia.
Martin Bell born in Redisham, Suffolk.
Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You - starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore and James Stewart - premiered in New York.
Having already secured their twentieth cricket county championship title, Yorkshire won their final game of the season, beating Sussex by four wickets at Hove. Middlesex finished runners-up with Surrey third. Sussex's John Langridge was the championships leading run-scorer (two thousand three hundred and two) whilst Somerset's Arthur Wellard led the bowling with one hundred and sixty seven wickets. Yorkshire's Bill Bowes topped the bowling averages with one hundred and twenty one wickets at 15.23. Mark Sandrich's Carefree - starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers- premiered. Michael Gerald Hastings born in London.
Hitler conferred with Walther von Brauchitsch and Wilhelm Keitel on Fall Grün. Hitler brushed aside Brauchitsch's objections that the Wehrmacht lacked preparedness and ordered the troops to be ready to march at two days' notice. The 1933 movie Aunt Sally - starring Cicely Courtneidge - first shown on TV. Caryl Lesley Churchill born in Finsbury.
A famously controversial - and despicably cowardly - editorial appeared in The Times which recommended giving Hitler what he wanted because 'the advantages to Czechoslovakia of becoming a homogenous State might conceivably outweigh the obvious disadvantages of losing the Sudeten German districts of the borderland.' Frank Woolley played his nine hundred and seventy eighth and final first class cricket match for England Past and present against Sir PF Warner's XI at Folkestone. A genuine all-rounder, Woolley was a left-handed batsman and a left-arm bowler who varied his style between orthodox spin and medium pace. He was an outstanding fielder close to the wicket, generally at first slip and is the only player other than wicketkeepers to hold over one thousand catches in a first-class career. Having made his Kent debut in 1906, he represented England in sixty four Test matches from 1909 to 1934. His first-class career runs total - fifty eight thousand nine hundred and fifty nine - is the second highest of all time, after Jack Hobbs and he scored the seventh highest number of career centuries (one hundred and forty five). He took just over two thousand wickets. The same game was also the eight hundred and thirty third and final first class match or Patsy Hendren. Making his debut for Middlesex in 19o7, Hendren was one of the most prolific batsmen of the inter-war period, averaging 47.63 in his fifty one test matches and 50.80 in all his first-class matches. He has the third highest first-class run aggregate of fifty seven thousand six hundred and eleven runs and his total of one hundred and seventy centuries ranked second only to Jack Hobbs.
Louis Felix Danner Mahoney born in The Gambia.
Boys Town - starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney - premiered.
Hermann Göring made an inflammatory speech at the Nuremberg Rally, accusing the Czech government of 'oppressing a cultured people.' Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš made a radio address making no mention of the diatribe and appealing for peace. David Hamilton Pilditch born in Manchester.
Hitler made a bombastic speech in Nuremberg declaring that the oppression of Sudeten Germans must end. The speech was broadcast live to the United States by CBS Radio and was the first time that many Americans had ever heard Hitler speak. The British cabinet held a meeting almost as soon as Hitler was finished speaking. They were relieved that Hitler had only demanded 'justice' for Sudeten Germans and had not committed himself to war. BBC Television showed a film for the first time, Man Of The Moment. Patrick Archibald Shaw born in Oxford.
Neville Chamberlain reported to the Cabinet on his meeting with Hitler, informing its members of his belief that a settlement of the Sudeten question would 'satisfy Hitler's aims.' Or, you know, not.
French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier and his foreign minister Georges Bonnet came to London for a conference on Czechoslovakia. The German annexation of the Sudetenland was agreed upon.
Pauline Shepherd born in London.
The Czechoslovak government rejected the Anglo-French proposal in a note explaining that acceptance would mean that Czechoslovakia would be put 'sooner or later under the complete domination of Germany.' Hitler met with the Polish ambassador Józef Lipski and told him that Germany would support Poland in a conflict with Czechoslovakia over Teschen. Hitler also said he was considering shipping Europe's Jews to a colony and expressed hope that Poland would cooperate with such a plan. Lipski allegedly replied that if Hitler could solve the Jewish question, the Poles would build a monument to him in Warsaw.
The British and French ambassadors informed Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš that his country would have to accept their plan or face Germany alone. The comedy Room Service starring the Marx Brothers, Lucille Ball and Ann Miller - premiered in New York.
Neville Chamberlain returned to Germany and met with Hitler again for two days at Bad Godesberg. Hitler - seemingly having realised the Chamberlain had a backbone made of jelly - was much more bellicose than previously and demanded to occupy the Sudetenland by 1 October with all of the region's military equipment left intact.
In the Berlin Sportpalast, Hitler made a speech threatening Czechoslovakia with war. 'My patience is exhausted,' Hitler declared. 'If Beneš does not want peace we will have to take matters into our own hands.'
The French government announced that France would not enter a war purely over Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain gave a radio address saying, 'However much we may sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbour, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that.'
Benjamin Earl King born in Henderson, North Carolina.
Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini met in Munich to settle the Sudetenland crisis. Czechoslovakia was, pointedly, not invited.
German troops began to occupy the Sudetenland.
Bruce Purchase born in Thames, New Zealand.
Duff Cooper made a speech to the House of Commons explaining his reason for resigning as First Lord of the Admiralty. Cooper opposed Chamberlain's appeasement policy and said that Britain should have fought 'in order that one great Power should not be allowed, in disregard of treaty obligations, of the laws of nations and the decrees of morality to dominate by brutal force the Continent of Europe. For that principle we fought against Napoleon Buonaparte and against Louis XIV of France and Philip II of Spain. For that principle we must ever be prepared to fight, for on the day when we are not prepared to fight for it we forfeit our Empire, our liberties and our independence.' Ray Edward Cochran born in Albert Lea, Minnesota.
Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade To Music was premièred at the Royal Albert Hall to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Henry Wood's first concert. Winston Churchill made a famous speech to the House of Commons calling the Munich Agreement 'a total and unmitigated defeat.'
Pygmalion - starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller - premiered.
Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes - starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave - premiered in London. Edward Ludwig's That Certain Age - starring Deanna Durbin- premiered.
The Soviet newspaper Pravda picked up on a recent Claud Cockburn article about Charles Lindberg - who had allegedly claimed the Luftwaffe could defeat the British, French, Soviet and Czechoslovak air forces combined - and published an article of its own, in which leading Russian airmen accused Lindbergh of 'spreading lies' about Soviet air strength to encourage Neville Chamberlain to concede part of Czechoslovakia. Lady Astor, who gave the dinner party where the alleged remarks were allegedly made, called the accusations 'a complete lie' and said that Lindbergh did talk about Russia but did not say anything about its air force. 'You can safely attribute these reports to Communist propaganda coming from Claud Cockburn, who started the completely unfounded rumours about the Cliveden set,' she said.
Christa Päffgen born in Köln.
Buddy Ebsen became ill on the set of The Wizard of Oz and was hospitalised after the aluminium dust make-up from his Tin Man costume rendered him barely able to breathe. Ebsen would be replaced by Jack Haley. Derek George Jacobi born in Leytonstone. Wales beat England four-two in the Home International championships at Ninian Park. Derby County's Dai Astley scroed twice for the home side with further goals from Arsenal's Bryn Jones and Brentford's Dai Hopkins. Teenage debutant Tommy Lawton of Everton and Stanley Matthews replied for the visitors. In the First Division, even without Astley, Derby still thrashed Manchester United five-one. League leaders Everton defeated Leeds United four-nil with three goals from Lawton's replacement Bunny Bell. There was a nasty incident at Fratton Park where Charlton Athletic beat Portsmouth two-nil. During the match the pitch was invaded by several stroppy and discombobulated spectators and Stan Bartram was hit on the head with a brick. The nets were also set on fire. In the Second Division, Tottenham's three-one defeat at Blackburn Rovers saw the league debut of Bill Nicholson, the first of three hundred and fifteen games for Spurs and England in a career that lasted until 1955. He would, subsequently manage the club for a further two decades. Japanese troops captured the Chinese port of Guangzhou thus isolating Hong Kong.
An ice hockey game was televised for the first time, between the Harringay Racers and Harringay Greyhounds at Harringay Arena. Excitement outside the Greater Harringay area was, perhaps singly, minimal. The Seventh Fifth anniversary of the Football Association was celebrated with a match at Highbury between England and a Rest Of Europe side. The hosts won three-nil with goals from Willie Hall, Tommy Lawton and Len Goulden. The Europe sides featured five of Italy's world cup winning side, two Germans and players from France, Blegium, Hungary and Norway. Leslie Clements murdered his wife, Evelyn, in bed in Shepherd's Bush, the morning after she informed him that their marriage was over. When she accidentally called him by her lover's name, Felix, he lost his temper and beat her to death. Two months later, he was convicted and sentenced to death, but because of his extreme provocation, he was reprieved and his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
Quinton Hogg won the Oxford by-election following a hard-fought campaign that focused almost exclusively on foreign affairs. Hogg was a supporter of Chamberlain's appeasement policy and the by-election result was seen as an endorsement of the Munich Agreement by the public.
David Dimbleby born in Surrey. Joseph Santley's Always In Trouble - starring Jane Withers, Jean Rogers, Arthur Treacher and Robert Kellard - premiered.
An adaptation of HG Wells's The War Of The Worlds was broadcast in the US as part of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre On The Air on the CBS network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode became famous for allegedly causing mass panic on the East Coast of America amongst people who believed that The Martians really were invading Earth, although the scale of the public panic has been subsequently disputed as the programme had relatively few listeners.
Aged twenty three, Sister Rosetta Tharpe recorded for the first time - four sides for Decca Records backed by Lucky Millinder's jazz orchestra. The songs ' 'Rock Me', 'That's All', 'My Man & I' and 'The Lonesome Road' - were instant hits, establishing Tharpe as one of the first commercially successful gospel recording artists.
Frances White born in Leeds.
Darts Championship Of The Air, featuring Fred Wallis - broadcast live from The Alexandra Arms, Eastbourne, on the London Regional Network. King Vidor's The Citadel - starring Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell - and The Young In Heart - starring Janet Gaynor, Doulas Fairbans Jnr and Paulette Goddard - premiered.The Great Waltz premiered.
W Somerset Maugham's The Breadwinner broadcast.
The probable day that, due to freak weather conditions, RCA in New York was able to film ghostly images of a BBC broadcast, one of the world's earliest surviving telerecordings.
Denis Johnson's adaptation of The Last Voyage Of Captain Grant broadcast. A wave of violence targeting Jews occurred throughout Germany and Austria in retaliation for the assassination of diplomat Ernst Vom Rath. Nazi authorities did not interfere as Jewish shops and synagogues were burned and looted in a sick outbreak of anti-semitic carnage. The vast amounts of broken glass littering the streets outside the Jewish shops gave the night its name, Kristallnacht. England defeated Norway four-nil in a friendly international at St James' Park. Millwall's Reg Smith scored twice on his debut, whilst another debutant, Ronnie Dix of Derby County added a third. Tommy Lawton also netted. Newcastle's Douggie Wright made his England debut.
Virginia and Frank Vernon's adaptation of Villa For Sale - starring Rex Harrison - broadcast.
Reginald Berkeley's adaptation of The White Château broadcast. Frank Lloyd's If I Were King - staring Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone - premiered.
The Halifax Slasher scare began in West Yorkshire, England when two young women reported being attacked by an unseen assailant with a mallet or hatchet. It subsequently turned out to be an example of mass hysteria (or, in other words, a right load of old effing toot). England beat ireland seven-nil in the home International championship at Old Trafford. Willie Hall scored five including a hat-trick inside four minutes with Stanley Matthews and Tommy Lawton also on target. Evertoin's Joe Mercer and Wolves' Bill Morris made their England debuts. For the first time, the entire Irish side was made up of players from English-based clubs. The British government - showing their usual backbone consisting of jelly - formally recognised the territories occupied in East Africa, including Ethiopia, as a part of the Italian Empire, in the hope that the pact might stop Benito Mussolini from forming an alliance with Adolf Hitler. It proved fruitless, as just six months later, the leaders of Germany and Italy signed the 'Pact of Steel.' So, that went well, didn't it?
Nicholas Pennell born in Brixham, Devon.
Sheila Mary Delaney born in Salford.
Michael Curtiz's Angels With Dirty Faces - starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart and The Dead End Kids - premiered. And, if you're wondering, no, Rocky never went yella to The Chair.
Frank Sinatra was arrested by the Bergen County Sheriff's Office for 'carrying on with a married woman,' a criminal offence at the time.
Susan Burnet born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.
One of the Halifax Slasher's alleged 'victims', Percy Waddington, confessed to faking the attack on himself. Two days later, two more 'victims' also confessed to faking the attacks on themselves. The panic soon subsided as doubts arose as to whether the slasher had ever really existed.
Caned fifteen times by eight different masters at Avondale Park Boys' School, Notting Dale, a thirteen-year-old schoolboy became tired of it and at West London summoned one of the masters for beating him. Stanley Hooper in the witness-box admitted that on the third stroke he said to the master - George Victor Barrett - 'Hurry up and finish it.' The magistrate dismissed the summons, remarking: 'Obviously this boy deserved reasonable chastisement and I am sorry to hear it does not seem to have done him any good.'
The first two hundred Jewish children of the Kindertransport programme arrived in England.
Nazi Germany had a nationwide 'day of solidarity' collecting street donations for the Winterhilfswerk fund. Jews were ordered to stay off the streets between noon and 8PM because, according to the order issued by Heinrich Himmler, they had 'no share in the solidarity of the German nation.'
The first episode of Those You Have Loved - featuring the BBC's first female DJ, Doris Arnold - broadcast. Jacqueline Anne Stallybrass born in Westcliff-On-Sea.
Waris Habibullah born in Lucknow, India.
'The Joint Is Jumping' by Fats Waller, Andy Razaf & The Leith Stevens Orchestra released.
The Daily Express reported that Lloyd's of London was quoting odds of thirty two-to-one against Britain being involved in a war before 31 December 1939. Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero born in Newark, New Jersey. Leslie Schofield born in Oldham.
Thora Janette Scott born in Morecambe.
Neil Niren Connery born in Edinburgh. Lesley Selander's The Frontiersman premiered.
Bryan James Chandler born in Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
Sir John Anderson outlined a government plan in the House of Commons to construct steel air-raid shelters around Britain. The cost was set at twenty million pounds for twenty million persons. John Quayle born in Lincoln.
The first overseas cricket broadcast to the UK. Jim Swanton commentated on the Johannesburg test between South Africa and England. On Boxing Day, Tom Goddard took a hat-trick whilst Swanton was on-air. The film The Dawn Patrol - starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven - premiered.
Dorothy L Sayers' He That Should Come broadcast.
American opera singer Grace Moore gave the Duchess of Windsor a deep curtsy during a concert in France and started a new controversy over whether or not the duchess counted as royalty and was entitled to receive such an honour.
Crooner's Corner broadcast. The first of a five test series between South Africa and England at Johannesburg was drawn. Match highlights included a century in each innings for Eddie Paytner. Paul Gibbs, making his debut, almost match the feat, scoring ninety three and one hundred and six. Norman Yardley and Len Wilkinson almost made their test debuts.
Sandy MacPherson At The BBC Theatre Organ broadcast.
David Butler's Kentucky - starring Loreta Young, Richard Greene and Walter Brennan - premiered.
'You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby' by Bing Crosby topped the American music charts. Going Places - starring Dick Powell - premiered.
