March 1924

March 1, 1924 (Saturday)

• The Nixon Nitration Works disaster, an explosion of ammonium nitrate, killed at least 18 people, destroyed several miles of New Jersey factories, and demolished the "tiny industrial town of Nixon, New Jersey."
• Public vehicles such as taxicabs were allowed into London's Hyde Park for the first time since 1636, after the House of Commons had repealed the ban on motion by M.P. Ben Smith. The 1636 law had made Hyde Park "reserved for people who kept their own carriages." Smith himself had been a taxicab driver prior to becoming an official in the Transport and General Workers' Union.
• The Communist Party of Germany was legally reinstated. It had been banned in November 1923 after it tried to launch a general strike.
• Alice's Day at Sea, the first of 57 films in Walt Disney's Alice Comedies series, was introduced to American cinemas as a short movie to be shown prior to a feature film. The silent film featured 5-year-old Virginia Davis in a combination of live action and animation. An earlier Alice comedy, Alice's Wonderland, had been shown to theater owners but never released to the public.
• Born: Deke Slayton, U.S. astronaut who was one of the original Mercury 7 and who later served on the Apollo–Soyuz mission in 1975; in Sparta, Wisconsin
• Died:
• *Billy Armstrong, 33, British-born American comedian and silent film actor, known for starring in 1919's Hop, the Bellhop with Oliver Hardy, died from tuberculosis.
• *Gopinath Saha, 18, Bengali activist for independence in British India, was hanged at the Alipore Central Jail in Calcutta for the murder of a bystander during his attempt to assassinate Calcutta Police Commissioner Charles Tegart.

  March 2, 1924 (Sunday)

• Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier of Belgium issued a pastoral letter calling on Belgians to help their government restore the country's finances.
• Born:
• *Michael Sela, Israeli immunologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, co-developer of the drug copaxone for the treatment of multiple sclerosis; as Mieczysław Salomonowicz in Tomaszów in Poland
• *June Norma Olley, English-born Australian microbiologist; in Croydon, London
• *Marty Baum, American talent agent for multiple film stars; in New York City

  March 3, 1924 (Monday)

• Shefqet Vërlaci became the new Prime Minister of Albania after Ahmet Zogu's serious injury in the assassination attempt of February 23.
• The Turkish National Assembly formally ended the Ottoman Caliphate, a remnant of the Ottoman monarchy, voting "almost unanimously" to abolish the office, and ordered that Abdulmejid II and his harem were to be deported by March 15. Abdulmejid, first cousin of the last Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI, who had become caliph on November 19, 1922 was formally deposed at 2:00 the next morning.
• Seán O'Casey's drama Juno and the Paycock opened at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
• Born:
• *Tomiichi Murayama, Prime Minister of Japan, 1994 to 1996; in Ōita
• *General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigerian Army general who ruled Nigeria for six months until his assassination in 1966; in Umuahia, British Nigeria
• *Lys Assia, Swiss singer and first winner of the Eurovision Song Contest; in Aargau
• *Lilian Velez, Philippine film actress; in Cebu City
• *John Woodnutt, British TV actor; in London
• *Hadi Rohani, Iranian ayatollah of the Shi'ite Muslim faith; in Kalehbast
• Died: Pell Trenton, 40, American film actor, star of The Blue Moon and other silent movies, died of pulmonary tuberculosis

  March 4, 1924 (Tuesday)

• A 7.1 magnitude earthquake, with an epicenter at Orotina in Costa Rica, struck at 5:23 in the morning local time and killed 70 people. Damage was caused in the capital at San Jose, away.
• Aidan de Brune became the first person to walk all the way around Australia, returning to Sydney from whence he had departed on September 20, 1921.
• The University of North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team completed a perfect season of 26 wins and no losses, as one of the major unbeaten team in the nation, by winning the 16-team Southern Intercollegiate Conference postseason tournament, defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide, 26 to 18, in Atlanta. The University of Texas Longhorns also went unbeaten, finishing the Southwest Conference regular season with a 23-0 record and being 20-0 in SWC games, but did not play against North Carolina.
• Born:
• *Kenneth O'Donnell, aide to U.S. President John F. Kennedy; in Worcester, Massachusetts
• *Donald R. Yennie, American theoretical physicist known for devising the Yennie gauge mathematical procedure; in Paterson, New Jersey

  March 5, 1924 (Wednesday)

• Just two days after Turkey abolished the caliphate, Hussein bin Ali, King of the Hejaz and Sharif of Mecca, was proclaimed the Caliph of all Muslims by Muslim leaders in Mesopotamia and Transjordania. The response throughout the Muslim world was mostly negative.
• Born: Harvey Bernhard, American film producer known for horror films The Omen and The Lost Boys; in Seattle
• Died: Viktor von Tschusi zu Schmidhoffen, Austrian ornithologist, 76. Among the birds named in his honor are the European goldfinch Carduelis tschusii common reed bunting Emberiza schoeniclus tschusii and the Eurasian wryneck ''Jynx torquilla tschusii''

  March 6, 1924 (Thursday)

• In an elaborate nighttime ceremony at Luxor under floodlights, Egypt's Prime Minister Saad Zaghloul formally opened the site of Tutankamun's tomb to the Egyptian public, which reportedly attracted the largest crowd seen in Luxor. The reopening turned into an anti-British demonstration when the British High Commissioner, Field Marshal Allenby, arrived when the crowd was demanding immediate British withdrawal from Egypt.
• Turkey's second government was organized as Prime Minister Ismet Pasha formed a new council of ministers at the request of President Mustapha Kemal Pasha. Ismet replaced four members of his Cabinet and eliminated the Ministry of Sharia and Foundations, and the Ministry of the General Staff while splitting the Ministry of the Economy into the new Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Agriculture.
• Born:
• *William H. Webster, U.S. federal judge and the only person to serve as the Director of the FBI and Director of the CIA ; in St. Louis
• *Obi James Anyasi II, African tribal monarch who ruled the Esan people of Idumuje-Unor in southeast Nigeria from 1946 to 2013

  March 7, 1924 (Friday)

• The Delahueristas, rebel supporters of former Mexican President Adolfo de la Huerta, surrendered across Mexico as President Álvaro Obregón offered an amnesty, bringing an end to the De la Huerta rebellion after three months.
• A representative of the Irish Republican Army Organisation handed an ultimatum to Ireland's President W. T. Cosgrave, from Major-General Liam Tobin and Colonel Charles Dalton, demanding an end to Defence Minister Richard Mulcahy's demobilization of Irish Army troops. Mulcahy ordered the arrest of both officers on charges of mutiny.
• Born: Kōbō Abe, Japanese novelist; in Kita, Tokyo
• Died: Pat Moran, 48, American baseball player from 1901 to 1914, manager of the Cincinnati Reds in 1922 and 1923, died of kidney disease during spring training in Florida while preparing for the 1924 National League season.

  March 8, 1924 (Saturday)

• All 171 miners were killed in two explosions at the Castle Gate mine at Castle Gate, Utah, near the town of Helper.
• The Governor-General of British India, Lord Reading transferred full power of administration of the princely state of Bahawalpur to the 19-year-old Nawab of Bahawalpur, Sadeq Mohammad Khan V who had been the nominal ruler since ascending the throne at the age of two on February 15, 1907.
• Inventor Nikola Tesla spoke out for the first time in years, announcing he had perfected a system of transmitting power without wires.
• Georgios Kafantaris was forced by the Greek Army to resign as Prime Minister of Greece, along with his cabinet, less than a month after succeeding Eleftherios Venizelos, after refusing to endorse the Army's call for the abolition of the monarchy in favor of a republic. Kafantaris had proposed a referendum on the future of the monarchy while the Army requested an immediate change.
• The Kingdom of Greece established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, a policy that continued even after the kingdom was abolished less than one month later.
• Born:
• *Walter Chiari, Italian stage and film actor; in Verona
• *Louie Nunn, American politician and the only Republican governor of the U.S. state of Kentucky during the second half of the 20th century; in Park, Kentucky
• *Sean McClory, Irish-born U.S. television and film actor; in Dublin
• Died: Alfred Holland Smith, 60, President of the New York Central Railroad, was killed when he fell from a horse while riding through New York City's Central Park.

  March 9, 1924 (Sunday)

• The French Cabinet held an emergency meeting to consider extraordinary measures to stabilize the collapsing franc, which dropped to 117.60 francs against the British pound sterling.
• Died: General Panagiotis Danglis, 70, former Greek Army leader and Minister of Military Affairs during World War One, co-inventor of the Schneider-Danglis mountain gun

  March 10, 1924 (Monday)

• U.S. Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby resigned over the Teapot Dome scandal. He said that by quitting before he could be asked to resign, he was "dying with my face toward the enemy."
• France obtained a $50 million credit from American banks and a £5 million credit from London to stabilize the franc.
• In the case of Radice v. New York, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a New York state statute banning late-night working for women on grounds of health.
• Born:
• *Angela Morley, British transsexual composer and conductor who won three Emmy Awards after her transition in 1972; as Walter Stott, in Leeds, Yorkshire
• *Horace Busby, U.S. presidential adviser and speechwriter for president Lyndon Johnson; in Fort Worth, Texas
• Died: Rafael López Gutiérrez, 68, President of Honduras since 1920