April 1923

April 1, 1923 (Sunday)

• The romantic comedy film Safety Last!, starring Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis, premiered at the Strand Theatre in New York City. This film features one of the most famous scenes of the silent movie era: Lloyd clutching the hands of a large clock while dangling from the outside of a skyscraper. A reviewer for The New York Times wrote, "Harold Lloyd's latest effort is filled with laughs and gasps... Although laughter follows quickly on the heels of each thrill, the thrill lasts long enough for a man to feel that dizzy feeling when looking down from a height of twelve stories."
• Great Britain began the numbering of the nation's highways and published a list of those for which signs would be placed.
• France reduced the length of compulsory military service from two years to 18 months.
• Four directors of the Krupp works were arrested by French authorities and charged with inciting their workers in the altercation of the previous day.
• A woman at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City broke the existing record for longest marathon dance, stopping at 9:57 in the evening after having danced continuously for 27 consecutive hours. Alma Stappenback Cummings, 32, of San Antonio, Texas, went through six different partners, each of whom quit from exhaustion. After breaking Victor Hindmarch's record of 25 hours set in March, Ms. Cummings went two hours more before quitting, and won the prize by the sponsors. The record would be surpassed two weeks later.
• Died: Prince Naruhisa Kitashirakawa of Japan, 35; killed in an auto accident while in France, as he drove through the Paris suburb of Perriers-la-Campagne

  April 2, 1923 (Monday)

• Paterson F.C. of Paterson, New Jersey won the U.S Football Association title, emblematic of the American national soccer football championship. The victory came, not on the field, but "at the office of Thomas Cahill, secretary of the U. S. F. A., 126 Nassau Street" in New York City the day after Paterson and the defending champions, St. Louis Scullin Steel F.C. had played to a 2 to 2 draw in the National Challenge Cup Final. "Late in the afternoon," The New York Times noted, "the announcement was made that the Scullins, champions for 1922, forfeited their right to the championship and yielded the title to the Paterson football club," following deliberations in person and by telegram between four members of a committee of officials. The day before, Paterson had overcome a 0 to 2 deficit with two goals in the final 25 minutes, the tying score coming in the 84th minute of play, "six minutes from full-time", when John "Rabbit" Hemingsley got the ball past St. Louis goalkeeper Harry "Dutch" Oellerman. After two extra periods, the game had been called because of darkness and a replay ordered for April 8 in Harrison. With four stars of St. Louis being professional baseball players as well, and three other players injured, Manager A. J. Brady announced that the team would surrender its title.
• The day after the arrest by the French Army of four directors of Germany's Krupp arms factory, 50,000 employees threatened to go on strike if the men were not released.
• Born:
• *Alice Haylett, American professional baseball pitcher for the Grand Rapids Chicks in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1948 league leader in earned run average leader and wins ; in Coldwater, Michigan, United States
• *Gloria Henry, American actress, best known for her role as Alice Mitchel in the sitcom Dennis the Menace; as Gloria Eileen McEniry, in New Orleans, United States
• *Yolanda Marculescu, Romanian opera soprano and diva of the Romanian National Opera; as Iolanda Mărculescu, in Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania
• *G. Spencer-Brown, English polymath; as George Spencer-Brown, in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England
• Died: Osman Agca, 39-40, Turkish politician and former adviser to Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk; killed along with 12 of his followers during an attempt to arrest him for the March 27 murder of parliamentary deputy Ali Chukri Bey

  April 3, 1923 (Tuesday)

• The Soviet Union announced that Konstantin Budkevich had been executed on March 31.
• Closing arguments were presented in the William Z. Foster trial.
• The Republic of Turkey lowered the legal voting age from 21 to 18 and removed the poll tax requirement in advance of the June 28 parliamentary election.

  April 4, 1923 (Wednesday)

• The Warner Bros. company, now a multi-billion dollar corporation, was incorporated by four brothers, Harry Warner, Albert Warner, Sam Warner and Jack L. Warner.
• The first Tanager Expedition began with the departure from Honolulu of the minesweeper USS Tanager to survey and catalog the animals, plants and archaeological sites of the northwestern Hawaiian Islands territory as part of a biological expedition in a partnership between the Bishop Museum, the Bureau of Biological Survey of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the United States Navy.
• Adolf Hitler told the Chicago Tribune that rumors he was planning a march on Berlin to overthrow the government were "fairy tales" and asserted that his only fight was against bolshevism.
• Born:
• *Peter Vaughan, English actor; as Peter Ewart Ohm, in Wem, Shropshire, England
• *Gene Reynolds, American screenwriter and producer, best known for the TV series M*A*S*H; as Eugene Reynolds Blumenthal, in Cleveland, United States
• Died: John Venn, 88, English logician and philosopher known for creating the Venn diagram

  April 5, 1923 (Thursday)

• The trial of William Z. Foster, leader of the Communist Party of the United States, ended in a hung jury. The 12 members were deadlocked 6 to 6 after 31 hours of deliberation, and Judge Charles E. White declared a mistrial. "The verdict is for the best", Foster told the media. "It is a victory for the jury, I think, in that they had the courage to stand that way. There must have been a mountain of prejudice against these ideas." Judge White announced that the trial of C. E. Ruthenberg, another of the 32 persons arrested along with Foster in August, would begin on April 16.
• Hjalmar Branting, the Prime Minister of Sweden, lost a vote of confidence in parliament, 76 to 60, prompting him and his cabinet to resign. Crown Prince Gustaf, acting as regent during the absence of his father on a vacation in France, asked Branting to continue until King Gustaf V could return to appoint a successor.
• Born:
• *Nguyen Van Thieu, Vietnamese military officer and politician, served as the President of South Vietnam from 1967 to 1975; in Phan Rang–Tháp Chàm, Annam, French Indochina
• *Michael V. Gazzo, American playwright and actor, Academy Award nominee for his supporting role in The Godfather Part II; in Hillside, New Jersey, United States
• Died: George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, 56, English aristocrat who had financed the expedition to find the tomb of Tutankamun; died of blood poisoning arising from an infected mosquito bite a few days before March 19 at Aswan, and a razor blade cut. His death, two months after the opening of the tomb, gave rise to the legend of the "curse of the pharaohs". Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the Sherlock Holmes mystery series, suggested to reporters that an evil spirit, or "elemental," might have induced the death of Lord Carnarvon. "The Egyptians had powers we know nothing of," he explained. "They easily may have used these powers, occult and otherwise, to defend their graves. They always opposed digging up the mummies."

  April 6, 1923 (Friday)

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a lecture at Carnegie Hall in New York City in which he displayed a series of "spirit photographs", including a pair taken at the Cenotaph in London at the time of the two-minute silence to England's war dead. One picture showed a faint luminous patch which Doyle described as "ectoplasm", and another showed what appeared to be ghostly faces floating above the crowd.
• The second Herrin Massacre trial ended in Marion, Illinois as the jury acquitted six defendants after almost seven hours of deliberation.
• Former Supreme Court Justice John Hessin Clarke said that only American entry into the League of Nations could keep Britain and France from going to war against each other in the future. "France and Britain have been enemies oftener than friends during the last 200 years", he explained. "It is plain truth to say that there has not been a time in modern history when two nations controlling the destiny of the world stood so much in need of an impartial counselor, guide, and friend to compose inevitable differences as they arise as Britain and France stand in need of each a one today."
• Louis Armstrong made his recording debut, with King Oliver's Creole Band on "Chimes Blues".
• Born:
• *Jimmy Roberts, American singer, known for The Lawrence Welk Show; as James Robert Heltsley, in Madisonville, Kentucky, United States
• *Dr. Rina Moore, New Zealander medical doctor, first female Maori physician; as Rina Ropiha, in Auckland, New Zealand
• *Merna Barry, American singer, member of the jazz duo The Barry Sisters popular for singing Yiddish songs; as Minnie Bagelman, in the Bronx, New York City, United States
• Died:
• *Chwa II Kabalega, 69, Omukama of Bunyoro who led resistance against the British Empire in what is now Uganda; died while on his way home after 24 years of exile
• *Harry Knapp, 66, Vice Admiral of the U.S. Navy and served as the U.S. Military Governor of Santo Domingo from 1917 to 1918 during the U.S. administration of the island republic; died of heart disease

  April 7, 1923 (Saturday)

• Nine Irish Republicans were reported killed when government troops surrounded a house where they were meeting in Glencar, County Kerry.
• Land mines blew up a bridge in Dublin; two bridges over the River Fane were also blown up.
• The Soviet Union issued a statement distancing itself from the William Z. Foster affair, saying it took "no responsibility" for the actions of American communists because "the Russian government does not direct the affairs, plans or theories of the international communist contingent."
• Born: Mumtaz Begum, Indian character actress in Bollywood films; in Bombay, British India