January 1934

[January 1], 1934 (Monday)

• A flood in Montrose, California killed at least 45 people.
• The International Telecommunication Union was established.
• The National Council for Civil Liberties was established in the UK by Ronald Kidd and Sylvia Crowther-Smith.
• The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring went into effect in Nazi Germany.
• Fiorello H. La Guardia took office as Mayor of New York City.
• In New Zealand, radio station 3YL Christchurch was launched.
• Died: Winston and Weston Doty, 20, twin child actors, drowned in the Montrose flood.

  [January 2], 1934 (Tuesday)

• The Warka Vase was found at Uruk, as a collection of fragments, by German Assyriologists in their sixth excavation season.
• Cuban President Ramón Grau signed a decree setting April 22 as the date for the election of a constitutional assembly. Grau also said that he would not be continuing in the presidency beyond May 20.

  [January 3], 1934 (Wednesday)

• U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the 1934 State of the Union Address, the first time the address had been given in January. In the address he outlined the present state of the New Deal and his visions for its future.
• An explosion at a mine in Osek, Czechoslovakia, resulted in the collapse of a tower, starting a fire and burying 144 people underground.
• Died: Victor Spencer, 1st Viscount Churchill, 69, British peer and courtier

  [January 4], 1934 (Thursday)

• The Henschel Hs 121 aircraft made its maiden flight.
• A new station building was opened at Leigh-on-Sea railway station, UK.
• A bomb was thrown at the Yugoslavian consulate in Klagenfurt, Austria, damaging the building and blowing out windows of nearby buildings but not causing any injuries. Officials suspected Austrian Nazis were to blame due to recent articles in a government newspaper alleging that the Nazis promised to give Carinthia to Yugoslavia in the event of a German annexation of Austria.
• Born: Rudolf Schuster, President of Slovakia 1999–2004; in Košice

  [January 5], 1934 (Friday)

• A huge fire broke out at Fenway Park in Boston, doing $220,000 in damage.
• The British cargo ship Paris ran aground in the Tsugaru Strait in Japan near Omasake.
• Born:
• *Eddy Pieters Graafland, Dutch footballer; in Amsterdam
• *Phil Ramone, recording engineer, record producer and musician; in South Africa

  [January 6], 1934 (Saturday)

• Reich Bishop of Germany Ludwig Müller issued a sweeping decree giving himself the power to dismiss pastors and church officials who opposed the government.
• The Norwegian cargo ship SS Torlak sprung a leak and was abandoned in the Norwegian Sea. All crew were rescued by the Queen's Cross, which had been towing the ship to the United Kingdom for scrapping. Torlak was towed into Bodø, Nordland by another Norwegian ship SS Hadsel. where she was beached.
• Died: Herbert Chapman, 55, English footballer and manager

  [January 7], 1934 (Sunday)

• Pastors in hundreds of German churches disclaimed allegiance to Bishop Müller. A statement from Martin Niemöller on behalf of the opposition said that Müller's "contradictory attitude has made it impossible to retain confidence in him ... When bishops err we must not follow ... We must obey God before man."
• The Flash Gordon comic strip was first published, in the United States.
• The Curtiss XF13C-1, prototype of the monoplane version of the Curtiss XF13C, made its first flight.
• Born:
• *Jean Corbeil, Canadian politician; in Montreal
• *Tassos Papadopoulos, Cypriot politician; in Nicosia

  [January 8], 1934 (Monday)

• The U.S. Supreme Court decided Home Building & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell.
• Born: Jacques Anquetil, French cyclist who won the Tour de France five times; in Mont-Saint-Aignan, Seine-Maritime département

  [January 9], 1934 (Tuesday)

• Three people died and 15 were injured in London traffic accidents due to thick fog.
• The gilded bronze sculpture of Prometheus, created by Paul Manship, was dedicated at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
• SEPU was founded in Barcelona, Spain.
• The New York Artists Union picketed the Whitney Museum of American Art with placards targeting the director, Juliana Force.
• Born: Bart Starr, American football player and coach; in Montgomery, Alabama
• Died: Alexandre Stavisky, 47, French financier and embezzler, committed suicide.

  [January 10], 1934 (Wednesday)

• In France, the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans and Chemins de fer du Midi merged to form the Chemins de fer de Paris à Orléans et du Midi, operating lines from Paris towards the south-west, with some P-O lines in southern Brittany passing to the Chemins de fer de l'État.
• Carl Theodor, Count of Toerring-Jettenbach married Princess Elizabeth of Greece and Denmark in Upper Bavaria.
• Born: Leonid Kravchuk, the first President of Ukraine ; in Wołyń Voivodeship; Poland
• Died: Marinus van der Lubbe, 25, Dutch communist, was executed in Germany after being convicted of setting fire to the Reichstag building.

  [January 11], 1934 (Thursday)

• Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss delegated control of the national police to Vice Chancellor Emil Fey, essentially putting the Heimwehr in charge of law enforcement.
• A flight of six United States Navy Consolidated P2Y flying boats set a new distance record for formation flying of between San Francisco, California, and Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. They also set a new speed record for this crossing of 24 hours 35 minutes.
• Prussian secret police raided the homes of members of the Pfarrernotbund and confiscated membership lists.
• Born: Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003; in Shawinigan, Quebec

  [January 12], 1934 (Friday)

• The British battleship ran aground near Portsmouth Harbour and remained embarrassingly stuck for 12 hours.
• The German-Swiss film William Tell, directed by Heinz Paul and starring Hans Marr, Conrad Veidt and Emmy Göring was released. It was made in Germany by Terra Film, with a separate English-language version supervised by Manning Haynes also being released. While working on the film, Veidt, who had recently given sympathetic performances of Jews in Jew Suss and The Wandering Jew, was detained by the authorities.
• Born: Mick Sullivan, English rugby league footballer; in Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire

  [January 13], 1934 (Saturday)

• Skating at Eisstadion Davos, Liselotte Landbeck broke the world record for the 500m speed skating women event.
• Greek Prime Minister Panagis Tsaldaris ordered the American fugitive businessman Samuel Insull to leave Greece by January 31.
• Born:
• *Eva Olmerová, Czech singer; in Prague, Czechoslovakia
• *Rip Taylor, American actor and comedian; in Washington, D.C.
• Died: Paul Ulrich Villard, 73, French chemist and physicist who discovered gamma rays

  [January 14], 1934 (Sunday)

• For the second straight Sunday, German pastors opposed to Bishop Müller denounced him from their pulpits.
• The De Havilland Express prototype flew for the first time; Qantas representative Lester Brain immediately rejected the single-pilot layout, anticipating pilot fatigue on long flights.
• Torquay Tramways replaced the tram from Torquay to Paignton with a bus service. The rest of the network was closed down at the end of the month.
• Born: Richard Briers, English actor; in Raynes Park, Surrey
• Died: Walker Hines, 63, American railroad executive

  [January 15], 1934 (Monday)

• An 8.0 magnitude earthquake killed at least 6,000 people when it struck Nepal, and Bihar in British India. The quake was rated on the Mercalli intensity scale as XI. Some estimates placed the death toll at 10,700.
• All 10 passengers and crew were killed in the crash of the Air France airplane Emeraude, when the Dewoitine D.332 struck a hillside in France near Corbigny. The plane was on the final scheduled part of a flight that at started on January 5 from Saigon in French Indochina, and was flying from Lyon to Paris-Le Bourget Airport, when it encountered a snowstorm.
• Ramón Grau was forced to resign as President of Cuba and was replaced by Carlos Hevia. Soldiers fired on a crowd of Grau supporters gathered around the presidential palace, killing three. Hevia would serve for only three days before the military officials demanded his resignation.
• The Danish artist group Linien opened their first exhibition in Copenhagen, presenting 177 works of abstract-surrealist art.
• The Daily Mail printed the editorial "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!", in praise of Fascism. The piece was written by the newspaper's owner, Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere.
• Died: Hermann Bahr, 70, Austrian writer, playwright, director and critic

  [January 16], 1934 (Tuesday)

• Clyde Barrow helped five prisoners, including the notorious Raymond Hamilton, escape from the Eastham Unit prison farm in Texas. One mounted guard was killed in the jailbreak.
• The German Supreme Court in Leipzig sentenced writer Ludwig Renn to two and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit high treason.
• Minister President of Prussia Hermann Göring ordered the three main Prussian Masonic Lodges to disband, explaining there was "no further need for the existence."
• Hurtig & Seamon's New Burlesque Theater in Harlem re-opened as a venue for black clientele under a new name, the Apollo Theater.
• Christina MacLennan gave birth to the second of twin babies, in Stornoway in the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland; the first was born on the island of Scarp in the county of Inverness-shire two days earlier.
• The dramatic play Wednesday's Child premiered at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway.
• Born: Marilyn Horne, American mezzo-soprano opera singer; in Bradford, Pennsylvania
• Died: Tokihiko Okada, 30, Japanese film actor