November 1929

Friday, November 1, 1929

• Germany and Poland signed an agreement settling frontier questions of an economic nature.
• Australia ended compulsory military service.
• André Tardieu became the third person within a week to try to form the next French government.
• The New York Stock Exchange stayed closed until Monday so a "clean up day" could be held to fix bookkeeping errors that had been made during the avalanche of transactions over the past few days.

  Saturday, November 2, 1929

• André Tardieu became 97th Prime Minister of France. The previous prime minister, Aristide Briand, was retained as foreign minister.
• Official returns showed that the anti-Young Plan referendum narrowly surpassed the threshold to make it binding on the Reichstag. 10% of Germany's eligible voters had to subscribe to the referendum, and it passed that mark by less than 1 percent. The prospects of the referendum actually succeeding were still very low, since a turnout of 50% would be required to make it pass.
• Born:
• *Richard E. Taylor, Canadian physicist and 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate; in Medicine Hat, Alberta
• *Rachel Ames, American soap opera actress; in Portland, Oregon

  Sunday, November 3, 1929

• The former Emir of Afghanistan, Habibullāh Kalakāni, who had surrendered to the new Emir, Nadir Shah on condition of having his life spared, was executed by a firing squad.
• German National People's Party members in Berlin publicly celebrated their success in obtaining enough signatures to trigger the anti-Young Plan referendum. Fighting then broke out in Berlin between Der Stahlhelm and German Communists.
• During ceremonies marking the eleventh anniversary of the Italian armistice, Benito Mussolini told wounded veterans that pacifist movement discussions could not be trusted. "There is a lot of peace talk going on in the world these days, I dare say too much! We must not be deluded by all these sort of things. The truth is that nobody is frankly and effectively disarming," he said.

  Monday, November 4, 1929

• Connecticut U.S. Senator Hiram Bingham III was censured by his colleagues by a 54–22 vote for allowing a paid lobbyist to accompany him during closed-session meetings of the Smoot-Hawley tariff subcommittee.
• Stock market trading returned to a manageable volume of 6.1 million shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 5.79%, snuffing the brief rally that followed the crash, as an expected buying frenzy failed to materialize.
• The Civic Opera Building opened in Chicago.
• Died: Mary Solari, 80, Italian-American artist

  Tuesday, November 5, 1929

• The British House of Commons voted 324–199 to recognize the Soviet Union.
• The largest electrified railway in the British Empire opened in India, running 116 miles between Bombay and Pune.
• Jimmy Walker was easily re-elected Mayor of New York City over Fiorello H. La Guardia by a record plurality of 497,165 votes.

  Wednesday, November 6, 1929

• The stock market plummeted another 9.92%.
• At Dessau, the large German transport plane Junkers G.38 made its first flight. In an aviation first, space for passengers was included inside the plane's wings.
• Born: June Squibb, actress, in Vandalia, Illinois
• Died: Prince Maximilian of Baden, 62, German prince and politician

  Thursday, November 7, 1929

• The Museum of Modern Art opened inside the Herckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue near West 57th Street in Manhattan. In 1939, a larger building would be constructed at 11 West 53rd Street near Sixth Avenue.
• The musical comedy film Paris, based on the Cole Porter stage production of the same name, was released. Four of the original ten reels were originally in Technicolor.
• Born:
• *Dr. Eric Kandel, Austrian-born U.S. neuropsychiatrist and 2000 Nobel Prize laureate; in Vienna;
• *Lila Kaye, English stage and TV actress; in Middlesbrough
• Died: Prince Eugen of Schaumburg-Lippe, 30, died one day after being fatally injured in a plane crash that killed 6 other people.

  Friday, November 8, 1929

• Albert Einstein received an honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris.
• James J. Riordan, president of the County Trust Company and a friend of former presidential candidate Al Smith, took a pistol from the teller's cage at his bank, went to his home in Manhattan and committed suicide. Though he left no note, those who knew him said he had been distraught after the Wall Street Crash. The news was suppressed until after the bank closed on Saturday to prevent a run by depositors. Riordan's suicide made front-page news in the Sunday papers and may have contributed to the popular but exaggerated image of mass waves of investors killing themselves after the crash.
• The Sam Wood-directed comedy film So This Is College was released.
• Born: Bobby Bowden, American college football coach who transformed the Florida State University program into a national champion, including NCAA championships in 1993 and 1999; in Birmingham, Alabama

  Saturday, November 9, 1929

• A Chinese report stated that Soviet troops had crossed the Amur River near Blagoveshchensk.
• Severe fighting with heavy losses on both sides was reported from Hunan Province in the Chinese Civil War.
• Born: Imre Kertész, Hungarian author and 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate; in Budapest

  Sunday, November 10, 1929

• The cabinet council of Portugal pardoned 86 officers who had been exiled to the Azores for plotting against the government in 1927.
• The Harvard Economic Society said in a statement that "a serious depression like that of 1920–21 is outside the range of probability."

  Monday, November 11, 1929

• The Ambassador Bridge connecting the U.S. city of Detroit with the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario, was opened.
• Julius Curtius was formally appointed the new German Foreign Minister, filling the vacancy left by the death of Gustav Stresemann.
• Seattle's three largest banks merged to form the "First Seattle Dexter Horton National Bank". In the 1930s, the bank would be renamed the First National Bank of Seattle, then Seattle-First National Bank, then Firstbank. It is now Seafirst Bank.

  Tuesday, November 12, 1929

• Students at Trinity College Dublin threw stink bombs when government officers arrived to sign up volunteers for the newly created Irish Free State reserve force, which Irish republicans opposed.
• Noted bearish trader Jesse Lauriston Livermore declared that stocks had been driven too low. "People throughout the country have become panic stricken and have thrown their sound securities over without regard to values. To my mind this situation should go no further", he explained. "There is nothing wrong with the country or the business of the country, and just because trade has slumped moderately after an extremely active summer is no reason why first class securities should be ruthlessly thrown into the market in such fashion as we have seen in the last few trading days."
• Born:
• *Grace Kelly, American actress and then Princess Grace of Monaco, in Philadelphia
• *Michael Ende, German fantasy and children's author, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

  Wednesday, November 13, 1929

• The Wall Street Crash finally bottomed out when the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 198.69 points, only 52% of its value on September 3.
• A charter for the Bank for International Settlements was signed in Switzerland. Germany was to make its Young Plan payments through this bank.
• Born: Fred Phelps, American pastor and civil rights activist; in Meridian, Mississippi
• Died:
• *Abd al-Muhsin as-Sa'dun, 50, Prime Minister of Iraq, unpopular with both the Iraqi public and with British authorities and the international community, committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He left a suicide note that stated, "I have suffered with forbearance all possible insults and contempt.
• *Richard Henry, 84, New Zealand conservationist and reserve manager
• *Princess Viktoria of Prussia, 63, daughter of Emperor Frederick III of Germany, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

  Thursday, November 14, 1929

• The Italian Fascist government seized two large estates in the provinces of Arezzo and Taranto because their owners had failed to cultivate the land. "Property is not an end in itself. Those who own it have special duties with regard to the collectivity of the people, represented by the state", read the government decree.
• In Paris, actress Constance Bennett divorced her second husband, the millionaire socialite Philip Morgan Plant.
• Born: Jimmy Piersall, baseball player known for the book and film Fear Strikes Out; in Waterbury, Connecticut
• Died: Joe McGinnity, 58, American baseball pitcher elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, from complications of surgery

  Friday, November 15, 1929

• The front page of all newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst ran "An Open Letter to President Hoover" written by Hearst himself, in which he proposed various methods to restore economic confidence. Hearst's primary solution was for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.
• President Hoover announced he was calling a conference of the nation's business leaders to meet with government departmental heads to discuss the economy.
• German Interior Minister Carl Severing announced December 22 as the date of the anti-Young Plan referendum.
• Born: Ed Asner, TV and film actor, later president of the Screen Actors Guild; as Eddie Asner in Kansas City, Missouri

  Saturday, November 16, 1929

• In Berlin, 10 were wounded and 20 arrested in fighting between political extremist factions on the eve of town council elections.
• International Chamber of Commerce President Dr. Albert Pirelli said in a speech in Rome that the Wall Street Crash posed a threat to European business, as diminished American purchasing power meant that auto manufacturers may attempt to dump their cars on the European market at cheap prices.