April 1933

April 1, 1933 (Saturday)

• The Nazi government organized a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany, with the assistance of Julius Streicher, publisher of the anti-Semitic daily newspaper Der Sturmer. The boycott failed to attract public support. Days later, laws were proclaimed to remove German Jews from various occupations.
• The first squadron of the Indian Air Force was organized.
• After a motion, for a vote for no confidence against the government of Prime Minister Manopakorn Nititada, was introduced in the Siamese Parliament, King Prajadhipok dissolved the session and gave Manopakorn the power to rule by decree.
• In an effort to attract more passengers to travel by train, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and four smaller railroad companies in the southeastern United States slashed fares by one-third and eliminated surcharges on Pullman car travel. Further cuts were made on December 1, with the increased sale of tickets offsetting the revenue per ticket.
• As a member of the English cricket team touring New Zealand, batsman Wally Hammond scored a record 336 runs in a test match at Eden Park in Auckland.
• Born: Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, French physicist, and 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate; in Constantine, French Algeria.

  April 2, 1933 (Sunday)

• The Anti-Communist Act of Siam was enacted, drafted by former U.S. Congressman Raymond B. Stevens.
• Born:
• *György Konrád, Hungarian novelist and philosopher; in Berettyóújfalu
• *Takashi Negishi, Japanese economist; in Tokyo.

  April 3, 1933 (Monday)

• In the Soviet city of Kherson, Dr Yuri Voronoy performed the first human kidney transplant, taking the kidney from a 60-year-old man who had died from a skull fracture, and implanting it into a 26-year-old woman who had attempted suicide. The donor had "Type B" blood, while the recipient was "Type O", and she died two days later.
• The first flight over Mount Everest was made by two airplanes, piloted by Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Clydesdale and Flight Lieutenant D. F. McIntyre.
• Michigan became the first state to ratify the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition, when the 100 delegates to its constitutional convention voted 99-1 for ratification. The 36th state, Utah, would ratify on December 5.
• First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the first American President's wife to hold her own press conferences, told reporters, mostly women, that beer would be served at the White House as soon as Prohibition ended. Mrs. Roosevelt emphasized that she did not drink alcohol, but that it would be available to guests of the President.
• Died: Wilson Mizner, 56, American playwright and co-owner of the famous Los Angeles restaurant chain, The Brown Derby.

  April 4, 1933 (Tuesday)

• At 12:33 a.m., the American airship was torn apart by a violent storm, and crashed in the ocean, 20 miles east of Barnegat, New Jersey, killing 73 of the 76 people on board. The three survivors— Lt. Comm. Herbert V. Wiley, boatswain's mate Richard E. Deal, and metalsmith Moody E. Irwin— were brought home on a Navy destroyer. Wiley reported that the Akron proceeded northeast to avoid a thunderstorm, and that at 12:30 a.m., fell from a height of 1,600 feet into the ocean, and broke apart on impact.
• The Berufsbeamtengesetz, officially the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" was promulgated in Germany, requiring that all "non-Aryan" Germans be expelled from government jobs, including academic positions at public universities. After a direct appeal by the Reich Union of Jewish Veterans, German President Hindenburg intervened to have Chancellor Hitler make exceptions for Jewish employees who had fought for Germany in World War I, or whose father or son had died in the war, or who had been employed by the government prior to the war; dismissed employees were to receive three months' salary, and those who had ten or more years of service were to receive a pension. The exemptions would be removed with the enactment of the Nuremberg Code on September 15, 1935. Among the scientists who would leave the country were 14 who had won, or would later win, the Nobel Prize.
• Died:
• *Libbie Custer, 90, widow of General George Custer. She had campaigned to have him remembered as a national hero
• *William A. Moffett, 63, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, Medal of Honor recipient, and Director of the U.S. Bureau of Aeronautics and pioneer in naval aviation, was killed in the crash of the Akron.

  April 5, 1933 (Wednesday)

• The International Court in The Hague decided that East Greenland belonged to Denmark and rejected Norway's historical claim to the landmass.
• U.S. President Roosevelt declared a national emergency and issued Executive Order 6102, making it illegal for American citizens to own gold. Hoarding was prohibited, and citizens were ordered to redeem the gold for the official price of $20.67 per ounce.
• President Roosevelt's Executive Order 6129 established the Civilian Conservation Corps, following legislation signed on March 31. The first camp was created 12 days later.
• Dr Evarts Graham performed the first pneumonectomy as a treatment for lung cancer. By the time of his death on March 4, 1957 — also of lung cancer — the surgery had become the preferred treatment for stopping the progress of the disease.
• Born:
• *Frank Gorshin, American impressionist and comedian, also known as "The Riddler" in the Batman TV series; in Pittsburgh
• *Barbara Holland, American essayist and hedonist; in Washington, D.C..

  April 6, 1933 (Thursday)

• By a 53–30 vote, the U.S. Senate passed the Black-Connery bill, providing for a 30-hour work week with no cut in pay. The measure went to the House on April 17. By then, the National Association of Manufacturers had organized opposition to the bill, and President Roosevelt withdrew his support. The Rules Committee of the House of Representatives never voted on the bill, and the 6-hour workday never came to pass.
• The Screen Writers Guild was formed by screenwriters who were dissatisfied with the Writers Guild of America.

  April 7, 1933 (Friday)

• At 12:01 a.m. in each time zone, it became legal to offer beer for sale across 19 of the 48 United States and in Washington, D.C., for the first time since 1920. A full repeal of Prohibition would take place on December 5. Legally-brewed beer came with a hefty tax on each barrel. Beer went on sale in Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and D.C. first, followed one hour later at midnight Central Time in Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. Colorado and Montana were an hour afterward, and at midnight Pacific Time, in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
• Died: Raymond Paley, 26, English mathematician who discovered the Paley construction for Hadamard matrices, the Paley graphs in graph theory, the Paley–Wiener theorem in harmonic analysis, the Paley–Zygmund inequality and the Littlewood–Paley theory. Paley was killed in an avalanche during a skiing trip in the Canadian Rockies.

  April 8, 1933 (Saturday)

• In a referendum in the state of Western Australia, voters overwhelmingly favored seceding from the rest of Australia. The British House of Commons would conclude that the request could not be honored because the Statute of Westminster 1931 required approval also by the Australian federal government.
• Austrian musician Herbert von Karajan, who aspired to become a musical conductor, joined the Nazi Party in Austria the day after Germany began removing Jews from occupations. Reasoning that the removal of Jews from existing musical jobs would make more jobs available to him, Karajan concluded that party membership would allow him to advance his career more quickly. Five years to the day later, he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra for his first time.

  April 9, 1933 (Sunday)

• The first of the series of retrials of the Scottsboro Boys ended. Haywood Patterson was again found guilty of rape and sentenced to execution.
• Born: Gian Maria Volonté a/k/a "Johnny Weis", Italian actor who played the villain against Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More; in Milan.

  April 10, 1933 (Monday)

• Pope Pius XI met Nazi German politicians Hermann Göring and Franz von Papen in Rome.
• Japanese troops, already occupying China's Rehe Province, began marching south toward the Chinese capital of Beijing.
• The American film King Kong, about a giant ape who terrorized Manhattan, opened nationwide after its successful debut in New York City.
• The Field Act passed in California to provide for construction of "earthquake-proof" schools.

  April 11, 1933 (Tuesday)

• British aviator William M. Lancaster left England attempting to break the record for flying from England to South Africa.
• Four days after the first laws were enacted against employment of Jews in Germany, an amendment was added to clarify who would be excluded. "It is enough for one parent or grandparent to be non-Aryan", a memorandum from Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick explained, adding, "This is to be assumed, especially if one parent or one grandparent was of the Jewish faith."

  April 12, 1933 (Wednesday)

• Nazi Germany announced a census of all Germans. Reich Statistical Office Director Friedrich Bürgdorfer, who was also the director of the Nazi Party's "Race Political Office" set out to use the census to identify every Jew and non-Aryan in the nation. IBM and its German subsidiary, Dehomag, contracted with the government to supply IBM computers and to train employees to use them in tabulating the data—within a few months rather than three or more years.
• In Philadelphia, Harvey Fletcher of Bell Laboratories demonstrated stereo sound to an astonished audience of 300 investors and reporters who had been invited to witness the demonstration of high fidelity.
• William Lancaster vanished departing Reggane, in French Algeria and flying over the Sahara Desert in his airplane, the Southern Cross Minor. When the plane's engine failed an hour later, Lancaster landed in the desert and survived for eight days until running out of water.
• Born: Montserrat Caballé, Spanish Catalan operatic soprano; in Barcelona.
• Died:
• *Adelbert Ames, 97, Governor of Mississippi and U.S. Senator during Reconstruction, and the last surviving General to have served in the American Civil War. A native of Maine, he had fought on the Union side.
• *Zelia Nuttall, 75, Mexican archaeologist and anthropologist.