January 1927

January 1, 1927 (Saturday)

• The tomb of Tutankhamun was opened for public viewing for the first time since the Egyptian pharaoh's death in 1327 BC.
• The British Broadcasting Corporation was created by royal charter as a publicly funded company, with 773 employees. The first BBC news bulletin would be delivered at on January 3.
• Imperial Chemical Industries was created in Great Britain by the merger of four companies.
• Massachusetts became the first state in the U.S. to require car owners to carry liability insurance.
• The 1927 Rose Bowl matched two of the nation's unbeaten and untied college football teams, with the Stanford Indians against the Alabama Crimson Tide. Stanford led, 7–0, until the final minute, when Alabama blocked a punt, recovered the ball on the 14, and nullified the victory with a 7–7 tie.
• Born:
• *Doak Walker, American football player ; in Dallas
• *Vernon L. Smith, American economist and 2002 Nobel Prize laureate; in Wichita, Kansas

  January 2, 1927 (Sunday)

• The Cristero War began in villages across Mexico in the Los Altos region of the state of Jalisco. The uprising began in protest against anti-clerical laws in Mexico and the rebels called themselves "Cristeros" as fighters for so named because they fought for Christ.

  January 3, 1927 (Monday)

• British concessions in China, located at Hankou and Jiujiang were invaded by crowds of protesters against British imperialism. A British soldier fired into the crowd at Hankou, killing one protester and wounding dozens of others. Within days, Britain relinquished control of both concessions to the Chinese government, but soon sent troops to protect its concession at Shanghai.
• A large annular solar eclipse covered 99.947% of the Sun, creating a dramatic spectacle for observers in only a tiny path, just 2.1 km wide; however, it was fleeting, lasting a very brief 2.62 seconds at the point of maximum eclipse. The path of the eclipse took it over New Zealand and Argentina.
• Born: William Boyett, American character actor known for portraying law enforcement officials, primarily as the co-star, with Martin Milner and Kent McCord as LAPD Sergeant "Mac" MacDonald on all episodes of Adam-12; in Akron, Ohio

  January 4, 1927 (Tuesday)

• Boris Rtcheouloff filed a patent application for "Means of recording and reproducing pictures, images and the like", the first means for magnetic recording of a television signal onto a moving strip. British patent no. 288,680 was granted in 1928, but the forerunner of videotape was never manufactured.
• Born: Dr. Thomas Noguchi, Japanese-born American pathologist and Los Angeles County Coroner and Chief Medical Examiner from 1967 to 1982, known for his autopsies on famous people who died in Los Angeles; as Tsunetomi Noguchi in Fukuoka Prefecture
• Died: Süleyman Nazif, Turkish poet and journalist

  January 5, 1927 (Wednesday)

• A force of 160 United States Marines was dispatched to Nicaragua for the purpose of protecting the American embassy in Managua. The Marines arrived the next day at Corinto on the USS Galveston.
• Born: Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, Hindu guru, author and publisher; as Robert Hansen in Oakland, California

  January 6, 1927 (Thursday)

• Robert G. Elliott, the state electrician for several states, carried out six executions in the electric chair in the same day. In the morning, he put to death Edward Hinlein, John Devereaux and John McGlaughlin in Boston for the 1925 murder of a night watchman. Elliott then caught a train to New York, had dinner, took his family to the movies, and then went up to Sing Sing, where he carried out the capital punishment for Charles Goldson, Edgar Humes and George Williams for the 1926 murder of another watchman.

  January 7, 1927 (Friday)

• At 8:44 am in New York City and in London, the first transatlantic telephone call was made between the two cities. Walter S. Gifford of AT&T was connected with Sir G. Evelyn V. Murray of the General Post Office. A half minute later, the two were talking.
• Philo T. Farnsworth, a 20-year-old American inventor, filed his first of many patent applications, for a method of electronically scanning images and transmitting them as a television signal. U.S. Patent No. 1,773,980 was granted on August 26, 1930.
• The Harlem Globetrotters played their very first road game, against a local team in Hinckley, Illinois. Founded by Abe Saperstein, the all African-American team was originally called "Saperstein's New York", before assuming its current name in the 1930s.
• Shadow Lawn, the West Long Branch, New Jersey, home that had served as the "Summer White House" for Woodrow Wilson from 1916 to 1920, was destroyed by a fire.

  January 8, 1927 (Saturday)

• The Kate Adams, last of the "side-wheeler" steamboats in the United States, was destroyed by fire while at its moorings in Memphis, Tennessee.

  January 9, 1927 (Sunday)

• For the first time in the 368-year history of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Roman Catholic Church's list of prohibited books, a newspaper was banned by papal decree. Pope Pius XI banned the French royalist daily Action Française for articles "written against the Holy See and the supreme pontiff himself".
• Seventy-eight children were killed in a panic that followed the outbreak of a fire at the Laurier Palace cinema in Montreal. Shortly after the 2:00 matinee began, flames were spotted. On three of the theatre's four fire exits, the evacuation was orderly, but on the stairway at the east side of the building, children were trampled five steps away from the door. The dead ranged in age from 4 to 16. Only one of the victims was older than 18.

  January 10, 1927 (Monday)

• Fritz Lang's silent science fiction film Metropolis had its world premiere at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin.
• In a special message to Congress, President Coolidge said that the 15 American warships and 5,000 members of the Navy and the Marines would be dispatched toward Nicaragua and Mexico to protect American interests. On the same day, the U.S. Department of the Navy announced that 800 U.S. Marines would be sent to China for the same purpose, to be transported from Guam by the cruiser USS Huron.
• Born:
• *Gisele MacKenzie, Canadian-born singer; in Winnipeg
• *Johnnie Ray, American singer; in Hopewell, Oregon
• *Otto Stich, Swiss Federal Council executive 1983–1995; President, 1988 and 1994

  January 11, 1927 (Tuesday)

• The American freighter John Tracy, with 27 men on board, foundered and sank off Cape Cod during a winter storm. Wreckage, including the vessel's nameplate, would be recovered ten days later.
• Thirty-six Hollywood celebrities gathered at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for the purpose of acknowledging cinematic excellence. The academy's awards for motion picture industry would later be nicknamed "The Oscars".
• Died: Houston Chamberlain, 71, British anti-Semite turned German Nazi. His book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century was an inspiration for the Nazi ideology.

  January 12, 1927 (Wednesday)

• Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis exonerated 21 members of the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox from accusations of were absolved and conspiring to bring about a Detroit loss in four-game series in 1917.

  January 13, 1927 (Thursday)

• At Tampico, Mexico, the British steamer Essex Isles exploded while its cargo of gasoline barrels was being unloaded. Thirty-seven men, mostly Mexican dockworkers, died in the accident.
• Belgium became the first European power to renounce any claims to use of territory in China, and ceded back a concession that had been granted to it at Tianjin.
• Born:
• *Brock Adams, U.S. Congressman for Washington 1965–77, and U.S. Senator 1987–93; in Atlanta, Georgia
• *Sydney Brenner, South African biologist, Nobel Prize winner 2002; in Germiston, Gauteng

  January 14, 1927 (Friday)

• With four days left in her term, Texas Governor Miriam A. Ferguson halted further grants of clemency to Texas convicts. The lame duck governor had pardoned or commuted the sentences of a record 3,595 persons convicted of crimes, including 1,350 full pardons.

  January 15, 1927 (Saturday)

• The English broadcaster and rugby player Teddy Wakelam gave the first ever running sports commentary on BBC Radio, a Rugby International match between England and Wales from the Twickenham stadium in Middlesex, which England won by 11 points to 9.
• In a split decision on the appeal of the verdict in the Scopes Trial, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Section 49-1922 of the Tennessee Code, which prohibited the teaching of evolution. The Court set aside the order for the fine levied against teacher John T. Scopes. Chief Justice Grafton Green said, "All of us agree that nothing is to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case."
• The Dumbarton Bridge linking the town of Newark, California to the city of Menlo Park opened to traffic, becoming the first auto bridge over San Francisco Bay.
• Born: Yaakov Heruti, Polish-born Israeli Zionist militant and political activist

  January 16, 1927 (Sunday)

• George Young, a 17-year-old from Toronto, became the first person to swim the between Catalina Island, California, and the mainland. At noon the previous day, 102 competitors dove into the waters for the prize offered by William Wrigley, Jr. Young was the only person to finish the task, arriving at the Point Vincente Lighthouse at

  January 17, 1927 (Monday)

• Movie comedian Charlie Chaplin was ordered to pay $4,000 a month alimony to his wife, Lita Grey Chaplin, by a Los Angeles court. The same day, the Internal Revenue Service filed a lien against Chaplin for seven years of back taxes and penalties, totalling $1,073,721.47 between 1918 and 1924.
• Born: Eartha Kitt, American actress and singer; in North, South Carolina
• Died: Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA