October 1930

Wednesday, October 1, 1930

• The 1930 Imperial Conference, bringing together the representatives of eight nations in the British Empire, opened in London.
• End of Weihaiwei under British rule as it is returned to China.
• Benito Mussolini advocated the death penalty for speculators who brought on financial crises.
• Economist Benjamin Anderson told a life insurance convention at Chicago's Stevens Hotel that the economy was in a state of readjustment and that "forces are at work which will in time generate improvement." He explained that the current depression was caused by the Federal Reserve adopting a "cheap money policy" that tempted banks to borrow. "We must readjust to a situation where we rely on investment savings, business savings, and taxation for capital purposes", Anderson said.
• Born:
• *Richard Harris, Irish actor, singer, film director and writer, in Limerick
• *Philippe Noiret, French actor, in Lille
• *George F. Regas, American Episcopal priest, in Knoxville, Tennessee

  Thursday, October 2, 1930

• Twenty-eight nations signed a pact allowing the League of Nations to provide a financial loan to a country unanimously agreed upon to be a victim of aggression.
• Emperor Hirohito signed the London Naval Treaty, completing Japan's ratification.
• The Social Democratic Party won the Finnish parliamentary election.
• Fourteen English coal miners died in an explosion near Walsall, Staffordshire.
• President Herbert Hoover told the annual meeting of the American Bankers Association in Cleveland, "We have had a severe shock and there has been disorganization in our economic system which has temporarily checked the march of prosperity. But the fundamental assets of the nation, the education, intelligence, virility, and the spiritual strength of our 120 million people have been unimpaired." The economic situation was now being commonly referred to as a depression, as Hoover used that word seventeen times over the course of the speech.
• The film The Big Trail, starring John Wayne in his first leading role, premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
• Died: Gordon Stewart Nortchott, 23, Canadian-born American serial killer, was hanged

  Friday, October 3, 1930

• A revolution broke out in Brazil against the rule of President Washington Luís.

  Saturday, October 4, 1930

• The Cuban Congress granted the request of President Gerardo Machado to suspend constitutional rights in and around Havana until after general elections on November 1.
• In Germany, the Leipzig Supreme Court sentenced the three Reichswehr officers accused of high treason to eighteen months in prison.

  Sunday, October 5, 1930

• The British airship R101 crashed near Beauvais in France, partway through its flight from London to Karachi, killing 48 passengers and crew. Only six people survived the disaster.
• The comic strip Tobias Seicherl first appeared in Austria.
• Born:
• *Pavel Popovich, cosmonaut, in Uzyn, Kiev Oblast, Soviet Union
• *Reinhard Selten, economist, in Breslau, Lower Silesia
• Died:
• *Lord Thomson, 55, British Secretary of State for Air
• *Sir Sefton Brancker, 53, British Director of Civil Aviation. Thomson and Brancker were both killed in the crash of R101.

  Monday, October 6, 1930

• A Lufthansa M-20B plane flying from Berlin to Vienna ran into a strong wind and crashed into a hill near Dresden, killing all 8 passengers and crew.
• Born: Hafez al-Assad, President of Syria, in Qardaha ; Richie Benaud, cricketer, in Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

  Tuesday, October 7, 1930

• Beatrice Warde's essay on typography, "The Crystal Goblet", was delivered as a speech to the British Typographers' Guild at the St Bride Institute in London.
• Hollywood film acting couple Alan Roscoe and Barbara Bedford took a license to remarry after thirty months apart.
• Indian freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar, and Shivaram Rajguru were sentenced to death.

  Wednesday, October 8, 1930

• The Philadelphia Athletics won their second straight World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 7–1 in Game 6.
• Born: Toru Takemitsu, Japanese composer and writer, in Tokyo

  Thursday, October 9, 1930

• Laura Ingalls became the first woman to fly across the United States, completing a nine-stop journey from Long Island to Glendale, California, in 30 hours 27 minutes.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below the 200 point mark, closing at 192 points – little more than half its value from the high water mark of September 3, 1929.

  Friday, October 10, 1930

• A memorial service was held in Westminster Hall for the victims of the R101 tragedy. Thousands of people filed past the 48 flag-draped coffins.
• The New York Yankees named Joe McCarthy as their new manager.
• Born:
• *Yves Chauvin, French chemist and Nobel Prize laureate, in Menen
• *Harold Pinter, English playwright, and Nobel Prize laureate, in Hackney, London
• Died: Adolf Engler, 86, German botanist

  Saturday, October 11, 1930

• Jawaharlal Nehru was released from Naini Central Prison.
• Born: Sam Johnson, Korean and Vietnam War fighter pilot, prisoner of war in Vietnam, and U.S. Congressman for Texas from 1991 to 2019; in San Antonio, Texas

  Sunday, October 12, 1930

• Gangster Legs Diamond was shot five times by gunmen at the Monticello Hotel in New York, but survived.
• In Berlin, 100,000 German socialists held an anti-Nazi rally called by Reichstag President Paul Löbe. Nazis stood on the street heckling the paraders and 38 arrests were made as isolated fistfights broke out.

  Monday, October 13, 1930

• About 300 Nazis dressed in civilian clothes stormed downtown Berlin, smashing windows of mainly Jewish shops and firing pistols into the air as the Reichstag opened its first new session since the September 14 elections. Nazi deputies caused an uproar by turning up in full party uniform, despite a rule against the wearing of such uniforms in the Reichstag.
• Born: Paul Kent, U.S. actor, in Brooklyn

  Tuesday, October 14, 1930

• The George and Ira Gershwin stage musical Girl Crazy opened at the Alvin Theatre on Broadway.
• Born:
• *Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire from 1965 to 1997; as Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; in Lisala, Belgian Congo
• *Schafik Handal, Palestinian-Salvadoran Communist politician and presidential candidate, in Usulután, El Salvador

  Wednesday, October 15, 1930

• Half a million unemployed Germans, including 126,000 striking metal workers, paraded in Berlin.
• Pope Pius XI granted King Boris III of Bulgaria permission to marry Princess Giovanna of Italy, on the written promise from Boris that any children born would be raised as Roman Catholics. The Bulgarian constitution said that the country's monarch must be of Greek Orthodox faith.
• Born:
• *Colin McDonald, English footballer, in Bury
• *FM-2030, Iranian-American transhumanist, futurist and Olympic athlete, as Fereidoon M. Esfandary in Brussels, Belgium
• Died: Herbert Henry Dow, 64, Canadian-born American chemical industrialist and founder of the Dow Chemical Company

  Thursday, October 16, 1930

• Prohibition leader Bishop James Cannon, Jr. launched a $5 million defamation lawsuit against William Randolph Hearst, accusing Hearst of using his newspapers to bring Cannon "into scandal and disrepute" by printing false statements about him.

  Friday, October 17, 1930

• President Hoover announced the appointment of a new committee tasked with formulating plans for "continuing and strengthening the organization of Federal activities for employment during the winter."
• The magazine L'Ere Nouvelle published a letter by German industrialist Arnold Rechberg, describing an alleged Soviet plot offered to Fascist Italy and the Nazis. According to the plan, Rechberg wrote, Germany and the Soviet Union would simultaneously attack Poland, dividing it between themselves, and would then join together in attacking France. As the French retreated, Italy would cut them off with a sudden flank attack. Rechberg claimed the plot was taken seriously by Hitler's followers and that a communist-fascist alliance would be a danger to peace.
• Born:
• *Robert Atkins, popular American nutritionist known for creating "The Atkins Diet"; in Columbus, Ohio

  Saturday, October 18, 1930

• The Reichstag granted amnesty for political crimes committed before September 1, 1924, that were not directed against members of the federal government.
• The Geoffrey Kerr comedy play London Calling opened at the Little Theatre in Rochester, New York.

  Sunday, October 19, 1930

• In an early morning vote capping a fourteen-hour session, Chancellor Heinrich Brüning passed a confidence motion, 318–236. The Reichstag then adjourned until December 3.
• Charles Kingsford Smith landed at Port Darwin, completing a flight from England to Australia in the new record time of ten-and-a-half days.
• Mohammed Nadir Shah was officially crowned King of Afghanistan in a simple ceremony.
• Born: Jody Lawrance, American actress, in Fort Worth, Texas

  Monday, October 20, 1930

• The Passfield white paper outlining British policy in Palestine was issued, laying out a plan to give more self-government to both Jews and Arabs in Palestine. The paper angered Zionists who said it backtracked on the 1917 Balfour Declaration which had pledged a national home for the Jews.
• Chaim Weizmann resigned as president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine in protest against Britain's policy on Palestine.
• The Labour Party won Norwegian parliamentary elections.
• Bugs Moran was arrested in an early morning police raid and arraigned in Chicago court in charges of vagrancy and carrying concealed weapons.
• Painted Dreams, the first daytime soap opera, premiered on WGN radio in Chicago.
• Died: General Valeriano Weyler, 1st Duke of Rubí, 92, Spanish Army officer