September 1927

September 1, 1927 (Thursday)

• National Air Transport, a predecessor of United Airlines, began the first air express delivery service, flying from Chicago to New York with "newsreels, machinery parts, advertising copy, trade journals, candy and Paris garters", Hadley Field near New Brunswick, NJ, to Chicago.
• Born: Lloyd Bucher, captain of the spy ship that was captured by North Korea in 1968; in Pocatello, Idaho
• Died:
• *Charles Coghlan, 64, Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia since 1923; he was succeeded by Howard Unwin Moffat.
• *Amelia Bingham, 58, American stage actress

  September 2, 1927 (Friday)

• At least eleven people were killed in the explosion of a fireworks factory in San Martín, Buenos Aires.
• Augusto César Sandino, Nicaraguan rebel leader, assembled his soldiers outside his remote fortress at El Chipote, and gathered villagers from the surrounding area to present the new charter for his Army for the Defense of National Sovereignty. Hundreds of people signed a statement of commitment to the Sandinista manifesto. Many who were illiterate signed with their thumbprints.
• Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees hit the 400th home run of his career, becoming the first player to do so.
• The drama film The Garden of Allah starring Alice Terry and Iván Petrovich was released.

  September 3, 1927 (Saturday)

• In Youngstown, Ohio, 43-year-old Tony De Capua came home from work, picked up a.32-caliber semi-automatic pistol, and went on a shooting spree, killing his wife, his four daughters and his two grandchildren at his home at 443 Marion Avenue, then killed a neighbor. DeCapua shot and wounded his daughter-in-law, a passerby, and a city policeman, who returned fire and then overpowered the killer. DeCapua was later ruled incompetent to stand trial and sent to the Ohio Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Lima.
• Hale Woodruff departed from New York for two years of study in France. After his return, he became one of the foremost African-American painters.
• Born: John Hamman, American magician; in St. Louis

  September 4, 1927 (Sunday)

• Twenty-two people were killed and more than one hundred injured in the 1927 Nagpur riots.
• Born:
• *John McCarthy, American computer scientist and 1971 Turing award winner for work in artificial intelligence; in Boston
• *Ferenc Sánta, Hungarian novelist; in Braşov, Romania

  September 5, 1927 (Monday)

• Universal Studios introduced the first completely animated Walt Disney film short, with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit appearing in Trolley Troubles. Oswald was later superseded by the more popular Mickey Mouse.
• Bob Hope, 24, made his first appearance on Broadway, in The Sidewalks of New York, as a chorus boy, cast with his vaudeville partner George Byrne.
• Born: Paul Volcker, American economist, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board 1979–1987; in Cape May, New Jersey
• Died:
• *Marcus Loew, 57, founder of the Loews Theatres chain of cinemas
• *Wayne Wheeler, 57, American temperance movement leader for the Anti-Saloon League

  September 6, 1927 (Tuesday)

• The capsizing of a ferryboat drowned 280 people in the Yellow Sea near Kaishu, Kokaido province.
• U.S. Army Major General George Owen Squier was granted for his invention of "wired radio", a forerunner of Muzak and cable television that sent clear radio signals to home subscribers without the interference that plagued wireless radio broadcasts. Squier had applied for his patent on June 24, 1922, shortly after it had been publicized in the American press.

  September 7, 1927 (Wednesday)

• At his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco, Philo T. Farnsworth demonstrated the first completely electronic television system. Although mechanical television, using a rotating disk, had been created earlier by John Logie Baird, the hardware limited the picture to 10 frames per second and a 30-line image. Farnsworth's system used his invention of an image dissector, a scanning electronic tube, to convert an image into electromagnetic waves that were then transmitted from one room of his lab to a receiver in another, where the image was displayed. The first transmission was of a white line against a dark background. As the pane with line was moved in front of the scanner, the image on the screen moved as well. In a brief telegram to his fellow investors, George Everson wrote "The damned thing works!"
• The University of Minas Gerais was founded in Brazil.
• Attempting a transatlantic crossing, the airplane Old Glory sent an S.O.S. before crashing into the ocean with aviators Lloyd W. Bertaud, James D. Hill and Philip Payne on board. The liner Transylvania picked up the signal and a search of the general area began. The wreckage of the Old Glory was found on September 12, northeast of Newfoundland, but the three fliers were never located.

  September 8, 1927 (Thursday)

• The Cessna-Roos Aircraft Company was incorporated by partners Clyde Cessna and Victor Roos. The corporation, credited with making well-manufactured, small airplanes affordable, would be renamed Cessna Aircraft Company on December 22.
• Japanese troops began their withdrawal from China's Shandong province, more than three months after troops began the occupation of Jinan.
• Sir Thomas Lipton retired as Chairman of Lipton's, Ltd., the tea company that he had founded.

  September 9, 1927 (Friday)

• Indiana Governor Edward L. Jackson and Indianapolis Mayor John L. Duvall, both members of the Ku Klux Klan, were indicted, along with Indiana Klan leader George V. Coffin, Klan counsel Robert I. Marsh and several other members. Governor Jackson and the others were accused of conspiracy to commit a felony and attempting to bribe, arising out of the alleged intimidation of former Governor Warren T. McCray, who had recently completed a term in a federal penitentiary.
• The last federal delivery of air mail took place, as the Postmaster General completed transition of the service from government-owned airplanes to private contractors.
• Nicaraguan rebels, after regrouping under the command of Augusto Sandino, ambushed a group of U.S. Marines who were marching near the U.S. base at Las Flores.
• Gustav Stresemann, the Foreign Minister of Germany, pledged his nation's support for the outlawing of war at a meeting of the League of Nations in Geneva.
• The comedy horror film The Cat and the Canary directed by Paul Leni and starring Laura La Plante, Forrest Stanley and Creighton Hale was released.

  September 10, 1927 (Saturday)

• Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association and Secretary of the AMA, spoke out against recent American obsession with losing weight, saying that the "diet craze" had been "the menace of an anemic nation". Dr. Fishbein proclaimed that "If the false gospel of unscientific dieting continued to prevail for a few generations, the United States would become a nation of undersized weaklings and anemics, lacking in both physical and mental force."

  September 11, 1927 (Sunday)

• U.S. President Coolidge ended his three-month vacation, returning to Washington, D.C., after having been in South Dakota since June 15. The Coolidge family moved back into the newly remodeled White House for the first time since March 2.
• Born:
• *Vernon Corea, Sri Lankan broadcaster; in Kurana
• *G. David Schine, American businessman and central figure in the Army-McCarthy Hearings; in Gloversville, New York

  September 12, 1927 (Monday)

• U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg warned the League of Nations that the United States would not abide by any ruling of the World Court over ownership of the Canal Zone. "American sovereignty over the Panama Canal is complete," said Kellogg. Panama, a member of the League, had asked that the question of American ownership of the Zone be decided by that body.
• Born: Pham Xuan An, South Vietnamese reporter for TIME Magazine who transmitted hundreds of classified documents to North Vietnam from 1952 to 1975; in Bien Hoa

  September 13, 1927 (Tuesday)

• Triggered by an undersea earthquake, a high tsunami killed over 1,000 people in the coastal town of Nakamura, and 270 on the island of Kōjima. On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the quake sent waves that killed hundreds of people in Salina Cruz and Manzanillo. The tremors and waves in Japan coincided with a typhoon that had killed hundreds of people in the Kumamoto Prefecture and the Nagasaki Prefecture.
• Heinrich Himmler issued SS Order Number One, setting out the culture for the elite Nazi unit, the Schutzstaffel. Drawn from the Sturmabteilung , the 200-member SS group was given its own distinctive uniform and paraded for a full inspection between Party meetings. The SS members also reported to Himmler on any indiscretions by other members of the SA.
• The New York Yankees clinched the American League pennant by defeating the Cleveland Indians in both games of a doubleheader by identical scores of 5–3 at Yankee Stadium.
• Gene Austin recorded My Blue Heaven, which would become the best-selling record in 1928.

  September 14, 1927 (Wednesday)

• A Kiss From Mary Pickford, directed by Sergei Komarov, premiered in Moscow. Soviet comedian Igor Ilyinsky appeared in the film with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who had visited the USSR in 1926 and were unaware that they were being filmed.
• In Nice, France, American celebrity Isadora Duncan was killed in a freak accident while being chauffeured in a car that she intended to purchase. The dancer was in a car on the Promenade Des Anglais, wearing a long scarf around her neck. As Benoit Falchetto began driving down the street, the cloth became entangled in one of the wheels, strangling Duncan, breaking her neck, and then hurling her out of the car. She was 50 years old.
• Bob Jones University opened with a revival service, then began its first classes. Founded by evangelist Bob Jones, Sr., the two-year college began in College Point, Florida, with 88 students and 9 faculty. In 1933, it moved to Cleveland, Tennessee, and in 1947, to Greenville, South Carolina.
• The town of Tustin, California, narrowly approved incorporation as a city by a vote of 138 to 100. By 2011, the city had a population of more than 75,000.
• Died:
• *Hugo Ball, 41, German poet
• *Countess Sophie of Merenberg, 59