March 1926

March 1, 1926 (Monday)

• Washington Luís, Governor of São Paulo, won the Brazilian presidential election with 99.70% of the vote in a multi-candidate election.
• The first volume of the 24-volume Great Greek Encyclopedia was published, with two volumes released every year until its completion in 1934 under the oversight of editor-in-chief Iraklis Apostolidis.
• After a six day trial in Brockton Anthony Bimba, the last person in the U.S. to be charged with the crime of blasphemy, was acquitted of charges, though he was convicted on a charge of sedition. Prosecution had been based on a 1697 law still in force in the U.S. state of Massachusetts after a speech he had made on January 26. Bimba was fined $100 for his sedition conviction, a punishment that was dropped after an appeal.
• Born:
• *Pete Rozelle, American sports administrator and NFL commissioner from 1960 to 1989; in South Gate, California
• *Allen Stanley, Canadian ice hockey player and inductee in the Hockey Hall of Fame; in Timmins, Ontario
• Died: George W. Hotchkiss, 94, American journalist who founded the Lumberman's Gazette and the ''Journal of Forest History''

  March 2, 1926 (Tuesday)

• German Chancellor Hans Luther gave a nationally broadcast speech in which he stated that Germany's entry into the League of Nations was understood to be contingent on no other changes being made to the League's membership council. Luther also expressed Germany's opposition to granting a temporary council seat being granted to Poland, considered to be hostile by Germany.
• U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed the largest peacetime appropriation bill in American history, allocating almost one billion dollars for the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Department of the Post Office.
• In Atlanta, the North Carolina Tar Heels won the only postseason college basketball tournament in the U.S., the championship of the Southern Conference, with 16 of the conference's 22 teams competing. In the final, North Carolina defeated Mississippi A & M University Aggies, 37 to 23.
• An offer by a New York watchmaker to fund, design and install a wristwatch on the Statue of Liberty was formally rejected by the Assistant U.S. Secretary of War, Hanford MacNider. On February 24, watchmaker Oscar M. Lazarus had proposed "an illuminated clock to be attached to the wrist of the Statue of Liberty". MacNider responded that "While the spirit which prompted your offer is appreciated, this department feels constrained to decline it. Aside from any question as to the congruity of so modern an ornament as a wrist watch upon the classically robed figure of Liberty, or the propriety of making alterations in the designer's conception of a work of art presented to this country as a memorial of the traditional friendship between it and France, there is a statute which prohibits any officer of the Government accepting voluntary service for the Government, or employing personal service in excess of that authorized by law. It is believed this statute prevents favorable consideration of your very liberal offer."
• The Nicaraguan daily newspaper La Prensa was founded in Managua and would still be operational nearly 100 years later.
• Born:
• *Carlos Jaschek, German-born Argentine astrophysicist; in Brieg
• *Murray Rothbard, American Libertarian economist and theoretician of anarcho-capitalism;, in The Bronx, New York
• Died: Ying Lianzhi, 58, Chinese Roman Catholic publisher who founded the newspaper Ta Kung Pao in 1902, died of cancer

  March 3, 1926 (Wednesday)

• The Moody Bible Institute made the first radio broadcast in the U.S. of an evangelical program, as the Institute's president, James Gray, spoke in a two-hour program broadcast over WENR in Chicago, pending the allocation of a frequency to allow the Institute to broadcast from its own station, WMBI. Gray, who had initially opposed radio broadcasts as sinister, had experienced a change of heart and was surprised to find that his broadcast had been heard as far away Florida.
• Germany and Afghanistan concluded a treaty of friendship, but stopped short of a military alliance, allowing Afghanistan to remain neutral in war.
• Born:
• *Dick Randall, 70, American stage and film producer known for his low-budget exploitation movies, including Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers, The French Sex Murders', The Clones of Bruce Lee and Slaughter High
• *Ravi Shankar Sharma, Indian film score composer; in Delhi, British India
• *James Merrill, American poet and 1977 Pulitzer Prize winner for Divine Comedies; in New York City
• *Tom Reid, Irish rugby union player with 13 caps for the Ireland national team; in Limerick

  March 4, 1926 (Thursday)

• The cabinet crisis in the Netherlands that had existed for almost four months ended as Queen Wilhelmina accepted the multi-party cabinet of ministers formed by former finance minister Dirk Jan de Geer, replacing the government of Hendrikus Colijn, who had resigned on November 14. Prime Minister De Geer, who retained the office of Finance Minister, had a Labor and Commerce Minister from his own Christelijk-Historische Unie, along with three from the Liberal Party, two from the Anti-Revolutionaire Partij members, an Education Minister from the Roomsch-Katholieke Staatspartij and an independent Colonial Affairs Minister.
• United States Daily, an attempt by conservative journalist David Lawrence to launch a national newspaper, published its first issue. It would continue until ceasing publication on May 13, 1933 after which Lawrence launching a weekly magazine, The United States News, later combined with another Lawrence magazine, World Report, to create U.S. News & World Report in 1948.
• Zizi Lambrino filed a lawsuit in Paris against Prince Carol of Romania for 10 million francs, asserting that she was still legally Carol's wife and entitled to money to support herself and their son Carol Lambrino.
• A strange story, sometimes thought to be an urban legend, was reported in the Hungarian newspaper Az Est, concerning a waiter in Budapest who committed suicide and left behind a note containing a complex crossword puzzle as some kind of clue. It does not appear that the mystery was ever solved.
• Born:
• *Richard DeVos, U.S. businessman and billionaire, co-founder of the Amway Corporation and later owner of the NBA Orlando Magic team; in Grand Rapids, Michigan
• *Daniel Kastler, French theoretical physicist known for the Kadison–Kastler metric and the Haag–Kastler axioms; in Colmar, Haut-Rhin département
• *Fran Warren, American popular singer and stage musical performer; in The Bronx, New York City
• *Roy Padilla Sr., Filipino politician and Governor of the Province of Camarines Norte who was assassinated the day before the national elections; in Plaridel, Bulacan province
• Died:
• *William S. Hackett, 57, Mayor of Albany, New York since 1922, died two weeks after being fatally injured in an automobile accident while visiting Cuba
• *Marie Burroughs, 59, American stage actress on Broadway, died a week after being stricken with apoplexy.

  March 5, 1926 (Friday)

• Ivar Lykke was appointed as the Prime Minister of Norway by King Haakon VII after the resignation of Johan Ludwig Mowinckel, and would serve until 1928.
• In Beijing, Jia Deyao as Foreign Minister.
• Pope Pius XI published the encyclical Rerum Ecclesiae, written on February 26, calling on an increase in the number of native Catholic clergymen and missionaries, particularly in Africa, and admonishing white missionaries to avoid prejudice against native missionaries.""It would certainly be wrong to consider these natives an inferior race, dull intellect," the Pope wrote, "Indeed, long experience shows that the peoples of the far eastern and southern regions sometimes rival ours and can easily compete with them in mental acuity." He also his opinion that "If in the heart of barbarous lands one finds men extremely slow to learn, this is due to their condition of life, which, with its very limited demands, does not force them to make great use of their intelligence."
• The Italian-language version of the Gabriele D'Annunzio opera Il martirio di San Sebastiano, an Italian language version of the 1911 French language Le Martyre de saint Sébastien. Translated from the French by Ettore Janni, the opera premiered at La Scala in Milan, and received "a cold reception".
• Born: Anthony Rawlinson, British civil servant who was secretary of the UK Department of Trade, and mountaineer who served as president of the Alpine Club in 1986 until his death two months later;

  March 6, 1926 (Saturday)

• In the early hours of the morning in Paris, the government of France's Prime Minister Aristide Briand fell after failing to pass a financial bill, by a vote of 221 for and 274 against.
• The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon was destroyed by fire.
• Born:
• *Alan Greenspan, American economist who served as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1987 to 2006; in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City
• *Andrzej Wajda, Polish filmmaker and director; in Suwałki, Poland
• *André Fontaine, Canadian painter, in Saint-Gédéon, Quebec
• Died: U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Richard Wainwright, 76, Spanish–American War hero

  March 7, 1926 (Sunday)

• On the 50th anniversary of the patenting of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell, the first wireless trans-Atlantic telephone call was made from New York to London, in a four hour demonstration between the AT&T headquarters in New York City to the British Post Office in London, starting at 8:00 in the morning with dozens of journalists from both sides. The quality of the audio was superior to telephone conversations that had been carried out by trans-Atlantic cable.
• A meeting in Geneva among the signatories of the Locarno Treaties agreed that Germany's entry into the League of Nations would be delayed pending the formation of a new French government and a decision regarding permanent council seats for Poland, Spain and Brazil.
• Elections were held in Argentina for 83 of the 158 seats in the Cámara de Diputados de la Nación. The Unión Cívica Radical and its leader, former President Hipólito Yrigoyen, lost 10 seats, decreasing its plurality from 70 to 60 seats, while Conservative parties gained 3 seats to reach 43.
• Born:
• *Igor Zotikov, Russian glaciologist and polar explorer who predicted that there were fresh water lakes underneath the Antarctic ice sheet, for whom the Zotikov Glacier is named; in Moscow
• *Margaret Weston, Welsh British museum curator who directed the Science Museum, London and oversaw its development into the Science Museum Group; in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales
• *Petro Rozumnyi, Ukrainian Soviet dissident; in Chaplynka, Ukrainian SSR
• *Chemmanam Chacko, Indian satirical poet; in Mulakulam, Kingdom of Travancore, British India
• Died: J. Herbert Frank, 40, American stage and silent film actor and suspect in the 1923 death of Wallace Reid, committed suicide with chloroform and gas the day before he was to tried of charges connected to narcotics charges