September 1937

September 1, 1937 (Wednesday)

• The first deportation of ethnic Koreans from the Russian Republic in the Soviet Union was made as a group of 11,807 Koreans were placed on trains and removed to the Uzbek SSR.
• The Housing Act of 1937, also called the Wagner–Steagall, Act, was signed into law by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. The Act create the United States Housing Authority to provide financial assistance to the individual States "for the elimination of unsafe and insanitary housing conditions, for the eradication of slums, for the provision of decent, safe, and sanitary dwellings for families of low income, and for the reduction of unemployment and the stimulation of business activity."
• Trans-Canada Air Lines, which would be renamed Air Canada in 1965, made its first passenger flights, transporting two passengers from Vancouver in Canada to Seattle in the U.S. as part of a round trip that cost $14.20 per person (equivalent to $313 almost 90 years later.
• The foundering of the U.S. freighter SS Tarpon killed 24 of the 25 people on board, after running into a storm after departing from Pensacola, Florida toward Panama City. Only one sailor, Addley Baker, survived and swam to shore and said that only a few of the crew had time to put on life jackets before the ship sank.
• The Battle of Taiyuan began as Japanese troops besieged the capital of China's Shanxi Province. The city would surrender two months later on November 9.
• Spain's rebel Nationalists launched the Asturias Offensive against the Spanish Republic on the northern front. The Nationalists would capture the province by October 21.
• The musical film The Firefly starring Jeanette MacDonald and Allan Jones premiered at the Astor Theatre in New York City.

  September 2, 1937 (Thursday)

• The popular adventure film The Prisoner of Zenda, produced by David O. Selznick starring Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. premiered in New York before being released nationwide the next day.
• Hermann Göring warned in a speech in Stuttgart that if a new boycott of Nazi Germany was attempted, "any damages caused will be paid by Jews in Germany."
• Born: Len Carlson, Canadian voice actor; in Edmonton, Alberta
• Died:
• *Pierre de Coubertin, 74, French educator, historian and founder of the International Olympic Committee, known for organizing the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
• *Georgy Oppokov, 49, the first People's Commissar for Justice of Soviet Russia, was executed after being accused of having been an associate of Nikolai Bukharin.
• *Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, 56, Indian leftist revolutionary, known as "Chatto", who sought to overthrow British rule in India by armed force, was executed in the Soviet Union six weeks after his arrest.
• *Alexander Shliapnikov, 52, Russian Communist dissident, was executed in the Soviet Union.

  September 3, 1937 (Friday)

• The Great Hong Kong typhoon made landfall, made landfall at 7:00 in the morning , and killed at least 11,000 people in one of the deadliest disasters in Hong Kong's history.
• In the Mongolian People's Republic, Prime Minister Khorloogiin Choibalsan issued "Order 366" the day after the burial of the late chief of the nation's armed forces Marshal Gelegdorjiin Demid, who had died suddenly from poisoning on August 22. Under Order 366, Choibalsan declared that many of his political rivals had "fallen under the influence of Japanese spies and provocateurs," and used the accusation as a pretext for mass arrests and executions.
• Konstantin Päts, Prime Minister of Estonia since 1934, took office as Estonia's head of state with the title of "President-Regent" in preparation of a new constitution.
• Congress of Industrial Organizations leader John L. Lewis gave a radio address broadcast across the United States in which he attacked the Roosevelt Administration for professing impartiality in the country's labor disputes instead of supporting the workers. Lewis brought up the prospect of creating a farmer-labor third party movement.
• Another Soviet merchant ship, the Blagoev, was attacked near Greece and sunk in the Mediterranean.

  September 4, 1937 (Saturday)

• The "Elixir Sulfanilamide Tragedy" of 1937, which would fatally poison more than 100 people in the U.S., began when the S. E. Massengill pharmaceutical company began distribution of Prontosil, a liquid medicine made of sulfanilamide, diethylene glycol and raspberry flavoring, created by Massengill chemist Harold C. Watkins. While sulfanilamide, used properly, had been demonstrated as an effective antiseptic treatment against bacterial infections, the diethylene glycol was extremely toxic. Over the next two months, 107 people in 15 states had died from kidney and liver failure from ingestion of Prontosil, also sold as Prontylin, before the medicine was taken off the market. The disaster led to the passage of the first federal regulation of pharmaceuticals, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938.
• The Soviet press blamed the August 30 sinking of the Timiryazev on Italy. "The government will make the Fascist bandits pay dearly", declared Pravda.
• The Japanese puppet state known as the South Chahar Autonomous Government was established in Japanese-occupied China in Zhangjiakou.
• Olga Vasilievna Evdokimova, who would later be canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church, was arrested by the NKVD along with several other church officials after preventing the seizure of her church in the village of Novorozhdestvenka. She died five months later in a Gulag
• Born:
• *Dawn Fraser, Australian swimmer and politician, in Balmain, New South Wales
• *Mikk Mikiver, Estonian actor and theater director, in Tallinn
• Died: Ignace Reiss, 38, former Soviet Russian spy, was killed in Switzerland by agents of the NKVD less than two months after he had written a letter and a condemnation of Joseph Stalin to the Communist Party Central Committee. Reiss had been located by an old friend, German Socialist Gertrude Schildbach, who had been hired by the NKVD to lure him out of hiding. His body was found at Chamblandes, after he traveled to nearby Lausanne to meet with Schildbach.

  September 5, 1937 (Sunday)

• Roberto M. Ortiz of the Partido Demócrata defeated former president Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear to win the Argentine presidential election. Ortiz won almost 58% of the popular vote and 248 of the 376 electoral votes, and would be inaugurated on February 20.
• Japan established a naval blockade spanning the entire Chinese coastline with the exception of ports where foreign powers had treaty rights.
• In northern Spain, Llanes in the province of Asturias, fell to the Nationalist rebels, while the outnumbered brigades of the Spanish Republic Army fell back to defend a strategic mountain pass, El Mazucu.
• In a final with few goals scored, Tipperary GAA defeated Kilkenny GAA 3–11 to 0–3 to win the hurling championship of Ireland. The game was held at Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney rather than the usual site at Croke Park in Dublin because of renovations at Croke.
• Born: William Devane, American actor; in Albany, New York

  September 6, 1937 (Monday)

• In Spain, the Battle of El Mazucu began in Asturias the day after the fall of Llanes, as Spanish Republican Army defense force of less than 5,000 soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Galán, tried to defend a critical mountain pass against a force of 33,000 Nationalists led by Colonel José Solchaga Zala and accompanied by a force of German soldiers, the Condor Legion. The battle would become noteworthy for the first use of "carpet bombing" in battle, as carried out experimentally by the Germans.
• The Spanish Republic finished the bombardment of the city of Belchite in Zaragoza after 2,800 residents had been killed and the town left in ruins. Belchite would be rebuilt by Republican Army prisoners of war, while the ruins of the old town remain intact after having been designated as a monument by Francisco Franco.
• The Bungakuza, the oldest of the three major Shingeki theater in Japan, was incorporated by Kunio Kishida, Mantarō Kubota and Bunroku Shishi.
• Italy denied responsibility for the sinking of the Timiryazev and Blagoev.
• Born:
• *Sergio Aragonés, Spanish-born American cartoonist known for his work in MAD magazine; in Sant Mateu, Province of Castellón
• *Jo Anne Worley, American actress and comedian known for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In; in Lowell, Indiana
• *General Shankar Roychowdhury, Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army from 1994 to 1997; in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
• *Kirtanananda Swami, American Hare Krishna guru, in Peekskill, New York
• Died: Henry Kimball Hadley, 65, American composer known for the Broadway musical Nancy Brown and the operas Azora, the Daughter of Montezuma and ''A Night in Old Paris''

  September 7, 1937 (Tuesday)

• After Adolf Hitler decreed that he would not allow German citizens to accept a Nobel Prize, the first winners of the new German National Prize Nobel Prize, were announced. National Prizes were awarded to architect Paul Troost, Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, explorer Wilhelm Filchner and surgeons August Bier and Ferdinand Sauerbruch.
• In Spain, the Spanish Republican army won the Battle of Belchite by destroying and then capturing the Nationalist-held village, bringing an end to the Zaragoza Offensive with a small victory but failing to capture the city of Zaragoza from the rebels. Concentration on the offensive had allowed the Nationalists to fall back, regroup, and continue their takeover of northern Spain.
• The Battle of Cape Cherchell was fought in the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of French Algeria between the Spanish Nationalists heavy cruiser, Baleares, and two of the Spanish Republican Navy's light cruisers, Libertad and. While the Baleares was damaged, it had disrupted merchant shipping to the Spanish Republic.
• A manifesto written by Hitler was read by Adolf Wagner at the 1937 Nuremberg Rally on the second day of the 9th Nazi Party Congress, offering to stand beside Italy and Japan in a "defensive fight" against communism. The name given for the seven day Congress, which ended on September 13, was the "Rally of Work" to celebrate the reduction of unemployment under Nazi rule.
• Born:
• *Cüneyt Arkın, Turkish film actor known for winning best actor awards for İnsanlar Yaşadıkça , Yaralı Kurt and Mağlup Edilemeyenler ; in Odunpazarı, Eskişehir Province
• *Clive Everton, English snooker player and commentator; in Worcester
• Died: Annie Lorrain Smith, 82, British lichenologist and mycologist