April 1937

April 1, 1937 (Thursday)

• The Government of India Act 1935 came into effect, reorganizing the colonial structure of British India. Burma was made a Crown colony of the United Kingdom, separate from the rest of British India, with Ba Maw as the first Premier and Sir Archibald Cochrane continuing as Governor.
• The Act provided for six of British India's 11 provinces to have their own legislative bodies. Bicameral parliaments and a local prime minister began operation in the Bombay State ; the Province of Madras ; the Province of Bengal ; Bihar Province ; and the United Provinces.
• The Act also established Aden, formerly a part of British India located on the Arabian Peninsula and now part of the Republic of Yemen, as a Crown colony, with Sir Bernard Reilly as the first Governor.
• The Royal New Zealand Air Force became an independent branch of New Zealand's military forces, after having existed initially as a command within the New Zealand Army.
• Six German bombers of the Condor Legion carried out the bombing of Jaén, a Spanish city with no legitimate military value or anti-aircraft defenses, and killed 159 civilians. In retaliation, the city administrators of the Spanish Republic government executed 128 Nationalist prisoners.
• The 36-story tall Time-Life Building, now called "1 Rockefeller Plaza", opened in Manhattan.
• Born: Mohammad Hamid Ansari, Vice President of India from 2007 to 2017, formerly India's Ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1995; in Calcutta, Province of Bengal, British India

  April 2, 1937 (Friday)

• The Kingdom of Albania, ruled by King Zog I, established a policy of official recognition of its Jewish minority, which at the time consisted of 300 Albanians, living primarily in Vlorë, and of becoming the only European nation to welcome Jewish refugees.
• A sitdown strike began at the Hershey Chocolate factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It would only last for six days.
• A rebellion by 1,500 Uighur Muslims began in the Xinjiang province of China with the support of the Republic of China's New 36th Division.
• The collision of two trains killed 10 people and injured 80 others, mostly commuters in London, because of an error by a signalman on Britain's Southern Railway. All but one of the dead had been in the rear car of a train traveling from London Bridge station to London Victoria station and which was stopped in the Battersea Park station when another train from Coulsdon was cleared to enter at 8:02 in the morning.

  April 3, 1937 (Saturday)

• Manchukuan Prince Pujie and Japanese princess Hiro Saga were married in a simple Shinto ceremony in Tokyo.
• The operetta Polnische Hochzeit, by Joseph Beer, was given its first performance, premiering at the Zürich Opera House in Switzerland.
• Born:
• *Joseph Albright, American journalist and investigative reporter; in New Orleans
• *Ivone Dias Lourenço, Portuguese Communist and dissident whose imprisonment indirectly led to the 1961 founding of Amnesty International; in Vila Franca de Xira
• *John Arrillaga, American real estate magnate and billionaire philanthropist known for developing Silicon Valley in northern California; in Inglewood, California
• *Samuel Ginn, American engineer known for launching the early cellular phone company AirTouch Communications, and philanthropist who created the Ginn Family Foundation; in Anniston, Alabama

  April 4, 1937 (Sunday)

• Byron Nelson won the fourth annual Masters Tournament with a score of 283 strokes in 72 holes; Ralph Guldahl finished second with 285.
• The first slalom skiing championship in Sweden was held at Frösön island at Östersund after being organized by Olle Rimfors and Ivar Holmquist. Rimfors co-founded the Swedish Ski Association two months later on June 27, 1937.
• Born: Teresa Trujillo, Uruguayan choreographer; in Montevideo
• Died:
• *Abd al-Hafid, 62, Sultan of Morocco from 1908 to 1912, known for signing the Treaty of Fez on March 30, 1912, making Morocco a French protectorate. After signing the treaty, al-Hafid abdicated and was granted a pension, living for the rest of his life in France.
• *Charles Henry Smyth, Jr., 71, American geologist
• *Henry Goldman, 79, American philanthropist and businessman who built the Goldman Sachs financial conglomerate

  April 5, 1937 (Monday)

• The first postage stamps bearing the face of Adolf Hitler went on sale in Germany to commemorate the Führer's 48th birthday.
• The first elections in British India for the new Punjab Provincial Assembly were held for 175 seats, of which 42 were for any candidate, 84 were limited to Muslims, 31 for Sikhs, and 18 others for representatives of different groups
• *General Guido Vildoso, President of Bolivia for four months in 1982 and the last military ruler prior to the restoration of democracy in the South American nation; in La Paz
• *Maryanne Trump Barry, U.S. federal appellate judge from 1983 to 2019, older sister of former U.S. President Donald Trump; in New York City
• *Juan Lezcano, Paraguayan footballer with 26 caps for the Paraguay national team; in Asunción

  April 6, 1937 (Tuesday)

• Four U.S. Navy flyers were killed in a collision of two bomber planes during maneuvers off the coast of California.
• Born:
• *Merle Haggard, American country musician; in Oildale, California
• *Billy Dee Williams, African-American singer and actor; in New York City
• *Peter Maivia, Samoan-American professional wrestler and grandfather of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson'; in American Samoa

  April 7, 1937 (Wednesday)

• The Pennsylvania chocolate workers' sitdown strike ended abruptly when at least 3,000 people— other Hershey employees, workers at neighboring dairies affected by the strike, and local residents—arrived at the factory and gave the strikers until 1:00 to leave the factory or to be forcibly evicted. When the deadline arrived with no exit, the strikebreaking group entered the factory with bats, clubs and hammers and beat several people, with the worst assault on three union organizers. As of milk daily was destroyed as a result of the strike, farmers armed with sticks and clubs assaulted the strikers, many of whom were taken to hospitals.
• In British India, the bicameral Assam Legislative Assembly, the first parliament of native Indians in the Assam Province, was opened by the British governor, Sir Robert Reid in Shillong with a 108-member House of Representatives and a 21-member Legislative Council. Babu Basanta Kumar Das was sworn in as the first Speaker of the House of the new Assembly on the same day.
• Born:
• *Graeme Davies, New Zealand engineer and academic known for establishing the Higher Education Funding Council for England; in Auckland
• *Mircea Dridea, Romanian footballer for the Romania national football team from 1959 to 1967; in Ploiești

  April 8, 1937 (Thursday)

• Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg retracted his announcement of February 14 and said that the Habsburg monarchy could not be restored in the foreseeable future due to the tense international situation.
• Englishman John Loder, 2nd Baron Wakehurst took office as the new Governor of New South Wales in Australia, fillig a vacancy that had existed for more than five months after the death of Sir Murray Anderson on October 30. Baron Wakehurst was the last non-Australian governor of the New South Wales state.
• The Oshawa Strike began in Canada when 4,000 General Motors workers walked off the job at the GM factory in Oshawa, Ontario.
• Born: Seymour Hersh, American investigative journalist and author; in Chicago
• Died: Billy Bassett, 68, English footballer who represented England in international play from 1888 to 1896

  April 9, 1937 (Friday)

• In Nazi Germany, the Gestapo carried out a nationwide raid all on all chapters of B'nai B'rith, the international Jewish social service organization. All property of the B'nai B'rith was confiscated by the German government and the German corporation was dissolved.
• Mark R. Rein, a Russian-born German journalist, was kidnapped in Barcelona while in Spain, and taken to the Soviet Union by agents of the Soviet secret police, the OGPU. He was never seen in public again, and presumed to have been executed as part of an operation to round up opponents of the regime of Joseph Stalin.
• The Kamikaze became the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly from Japan to Europe, as pilot Masaaki Iinuma and navigator Kenji Tsukagoshi arrived in London 51 hours and 17 minutes after departing from Tokyo.
• Born:
• *Valerie Singleton, English television and radio presenter, known for the series Blue Peter and The Money Programme; in Hitchin, Hertfordshire
• *Mahshid Amirshahi, Iranian novelist
• *Rollan Kadyev, Soviet Crimean Tatar physicist and activist for the rights of the Crimean Tatar people in the USSR; in Azek, Crimean ASSR, RSFSR
• Died: Albert Paine, 75, American author and biographer

  April 10, 1937 (Saturday)

• British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin announced that he would soon be retiring.
• Born:
• *Bella Akhmadulina, Soviet Russian poet; in Moscow
• *Gennady Fadeyev, Russian Minister of Railways from 1992 to 1996 and 2002 to 2003, and the first president of the Russian Railways corporation; in Shimanovsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
• *Mark Petrokovets, Soviet and Belarusan scientist known for his research on tribology, the study of friction phenomena; in Gomel, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union
• *Mohamed Hashim Mohd Ali, Malaysian Chief of Defence Forces from 1987 to 1992; in Kuala Lumpur, Sultanate of Selangor, Federated Malay States
• *Faramarz Pilaram, Iranian painter and calligrapher; in Tehran
• Died:
• *Ralph Ince, 50, American actor, director and screenwriter, was killed in an auto accident when his wife crashed the car in which he was riding into an iron pole in London's Kensington district.
• *Kenelm Lee Guinness, 49, Irish racing driver and inventor, known for creating the KLG spark plug, and for setting the last land speed records measured on a racetrack rather than a beach or salt flat, committed suicide at his home. Guinness had suffered head trauma on September 27, 1924, at the San Sebastian Grand Prix and became increasingly despondent in the years that followed.