February 1937

February 1, 1937 (Monday)

• King George VI released the British Empire's New Year Honours list, one month late due to the abdication crisis. Queen Elizabeth was made Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order.
• Argentina defeated Brazil 2-0 at the Estadio Gasómetro in Buenos Aires to win the South American Championship of football. Six nations— Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay— had participated and both teams finished with W-D-L records of 4-0-1.
• The French aircraft manufacturer SNCASE was formed by the nationalization and merger of Lioré et Olivier, Potez, CAMS, Romano and SPCA.
• Born:
• *Don Everly, member of The Everly Brothers rock and roll duo; in Brownie, Kentucky
• *Garrett Morris, African-American comedian and actor and part of the original cast of Saturday Night Live; in New Orleans, Louisiana
• Died:
• *Tony Marino, 26, American bantamweight boxer, died two days after being knocked out in his bout against Carlos "Indian" Quintana in Brooklyn. Marino's death, which came after he had been knocked to the canvas five times, led to the New York State Athletic Commission's emergency meeting and the passage of the innovative "three knockdown" rule to stop a fight.
• *Leonid Serebryakov, 46, and Nikolay Muralov, 59, former Soviet Communist Party officials and supporters of Leon Trotsky, were executed after being convicted of treason as part of the Great Purge ordered by Premier Joseph Stalin.

  February 2, 1937 (Tuesday)

• Senjūrō Hayashi formed a government as the new Prime Minister of Japan, replacing Kōki Hirota.
• The Royal Navy battleship, patrolling the Mediterranean Sea to protect Britain's colony at Gibraltar, came under aerial attack from three aircraft operated by the Second Spanish Republic. Two of the three bombs exploded within of the ship but caused no damage.
• General Motors obtained an injunction against the strike of the United Auto Workers with an order signed by Judge Edward S. Black. The order was soon set aside when a UAW investigation found that Black owned over 3,000 shares of General Motors stock, and the UAW made plans to expand to the strike to another GM factory.
• The engagement ceremony for Crown Prince Pujie of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo took place at the Manchukuo "embassy" in Tokyo. The wedding of Japanese princess Hiro Saga to Pujie, brother of the Emperor Puyi, was scheduled for April 3.
• Born: Tom Smothers, American comedian and one-half of the Smothers Brothers musical comedy team; in New York City

  February 3, 1937 (Wednesday)

• The Battle of Málaga began as the Nationalist forces of Francisco Franco, supplemented by Fascists from Italy and Germany advanced on the city of Málaga and were met by 12,000 defenders fighting for the Second Spanish Republic. The rebel nationalists swept through the Republican defenses within five days.
• The 33rd International Eucharistic Congress opened in Manila, Philippines. It was the first eucharistic congress held in Asia.
• The "three knockdown rule", now universal in boxing competitions, was created by the New York State Athletic Commission, requiring a referee to stop a boxing bout after one of the boxers had been knocked down three times in a single round. Initially, the rule did not apply to fights for a championship, nor outside of the state of New York.
• Born:
• *Billy Meier, Swiss author and ufologist; in Bülach
• *Alex Young, Scottish footballer; in Loanhead, Midlothian
• Died: Monroe Tsatoke, 32, Native American painter and muralist who was one of the "Kiowa Six" group of artists from the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, died of tuberculosis.

  February 4, 1937 (Thursday)

• The first television broadcast of a British sporting event took place as the BBC showed bouts from an international boxing tournament between England and Ireland from Alexandra Palace.
• Antarctica's Prince Harald Coast was first discovered by humans as Norwegian explorer Viggo Widerøe, pilot Nils Romnaes and Ingrid Christensen flew over the site during the Lars Christensen Expedition.
• Willie Gallacher, the lone Communist Party of Great Britain M.P., caused an uproar in the House of Commons when he asserted that the Regency Bill under discussion was clearly "directed towards the occupant of the Throne at the present time" because he was "suspect." Conservative Member Earl Winterton jumped to his feet and declared that not even a Member "who represents so small an amount of opinion in the country" as Gallacher "should be permitted to get away with the monstrous assertion which he has just made", and said it "could only have come from someone who approaches the subject with a distorted brain."
• German ambassador to Britain Joachim von Ribbentrop committed a social gaffe when he gave the Nazi salute to George VI, nearly knocking over the king who was stepping forward to shake Ribbentrop's hand.
• Born:
• *Magnar Solberg, Norwegian biathlete and Olympic gold medalist in the 20 km race in 1968 and 1972; in Soknedal
• *George Argyros, U.S. Ambassador to Spain 2001 to 2004 and co-owner of baseball's Seattle Mariners from 1981 to 1989; in Detroit

  February 5, 1937 (Friday)

• The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill was recommended by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a surprise message to Congress, recommending a drastic revision of the Supreme Court. The plan would increase the number of judges from 9 to as many as 15, and provided that each time one of the justices reached the age of 70 and did not retire, another seat would be added to the Court. Given that six of the nine Supreme Court justices were already at least 70 years old, the idea failed and was derided as "court packing" as an attempt by President Roosevelt to gain more control over the Court with his own appointees.
• The first television broadcast of a work of William Shakespeare took place as the British Broadcasting Corporation telecast Act 3, Scene 2 of As You Like It, followed by a portion of Henry V.
• The constitution of the Republic of Turkey was amended to incorporate "The Six Arrows".
• Born: Larry Hillman, Canadian ice hockey defenceman who played on 15 different teams in 22 seasons and helped Detroit, Toronto and Montreal win the Stanley Cup and Winnipeg to win the WHA Avco World Trophy; in Kirkland Lake, Ontario
• Died: Lou Andreas-Salomé, 75, Russian-born psychoanalyst and author

  February 6, 1937 (Saturday)

• The Battle of Jarama began as the Spanish Nationalists and their allies crossed the Jarama River, the last line of defense on the eastern side of the Spanish capital of Madrid. The Nationalists moved toward controlling the road between Madrid and Valencia, Spain's port on the Mediterranean Sea. The battle lasted for three weeks.
• Benito Mussolini's 20-year-old son Vittorio married Orsola Buvoli in Rome. About 1,000 people stood in the rain outside the church to view the comings and goings.

  February 7, 1937 (Sunday)

• A crowd of 40,000 leftists marched in Paris in observance of the third anniversary of the 6 February 1934 counter-demonstrations. Prime Minister Léon Blum stood in the rain to review them.
• Born:
• *Jacques Saadé, Lebanese-born French businessman who founded the Compagnie maritime d’affrètement shipping container company, fourth largest in the road; in Beirut
• *Fred Gillett, American astronomer; in Minot, North Dakota
• Died:
• *Elihu Root, 91, U.S. Secretary of War from 1899 to 1904 during the Philippine War, later the U.S. Secretary of State from 1905 to 1909, 1912 Nobel Peace Prize laureate
• *Swami Akhandananda, 72, Indian monk of the Ramakrishna Mission of Hinduism

  February 8, 1937 (Monday)

• As the Spanish Nationalists captured the city of Málaga, at least 15,000 civilians fled toward the Republican held city of Almeria on the N-340 highway. In retaliation for the citizens' resistance to Generalissimo Franco's invasion, the Nationalist battleships Canarias, Almirante Cerveras and Baleares fired artillery shells from the Mediterranean Sea and killed at least 3,000 civilians, mostly elderly people, children, women and persons already injured.
• Born: Manfred Krug, East German film star and West German TV actor and singer; in Duisburg

  February 9, 1937 (Tuesday)

• All 11 people on United Air Lines Flight 33 were killed when the Douglas DC-3 crashed into San Francisco Bay. With eight passengers and three crew, the airliner was approaching the Mills Field Airport in San Francisco at the end of a two-hour flight from Los Angeles and was cleared for landing at 8:44 pm. The crash was the first to involve a DC-3.
• Born:
• *William Lawvere, American mathematician known for Lawvere's fixed-point theorem and for the category of Lawvere theory sets; in Muncie, Indiana
• *Clete Boyer, American baseball player with 16 Major League Baseball seasons and three in the Japan League; in Cassville, Missouri

  February 10, 1937 (Wednesday)

• The first issue of Detective Comics, which would introduce Batman the following year and would give DC Comics its name, was put on newsstands by the National Allied Publications Company, owned by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, and had a cover date of March 1937.
• The Leningrad suburb of Detskoye Selo, formerly Tsarskoye Selo, was formally renamed Pushkin in ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the 1837 death of Russian poet, playwright and novelist Alexander Pushkin.
• A German appeals court ruled that children who failed to live up to the mental and physical standards of Nazi education could be taken away from their families and placed in state-run homes.
• Born:
• *Roberta Flack, American singer and winner of two consecutive Grammy Awards for Record of the Year; in Black Mountain, North Carolina
• *Anne Anderson, Scottish reproductive physiologist; in Forres, County of Moray
• Died: Ali-Akbar Davar, 51, Iranian jurist who reformed Iran's judicial system, committed suicide with an overdose of opium, after being reprimanded by Reza Shah, the Iranian monarch.