The following events occurred in April 1927:
April 1, 1927 (Friday) The Bureau of Prohibition was founded as part of the United States Department of the Treasury."Another Reorganization", New York Times, April 1, 1927, p22 Born: Ferenc Puskás, Hungarian footballer with 85 caps for the Hungary national team and 4 caps for the Spain national team; as Ferenc Purczeld in Budapest (d.2006)
April 2, 1927 (Saturday) The United Kingdom announced that it was increasing its troop strength in China, from 17,000 to 22,000 men."Another 5,000 British Troops Going East", Montreal Gazette, April 4, 1927, p1 A "fire following a storm of great intensity" destroyed the town of Körösmezö, Czechoslovakia (now Yasinia, Ukraine)"Balkan Town Burning", Montreal Gazette April 4, 1927, p1 Born: Ferenc Puskás, soccer football star who played in Hungary 1943–1956 and for Real Madrid 1958–1966, and scored 84 goals in international matches; in Budapest (d. 2006) Kenneth Tynan, English theatre critic; in Birmingham (d. 1980)
April 3, 1927 (Sunday) Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, champion of the Dalit or "untouchable caste", founded the weekly newspaper Bahiskrit Bharat.Mamta Rajawat, Encyclopaedia of Dalits in India (Anmol Publications, 2004) Born: Wesley A. Brown, who in 1949 would become the first African-American to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy; in Baltimore (d. 2012)
April 4, 1927 (Monday) Colonial Air Transport inaugurated the first regularly scheduled airline service in America, carrying six passengers on a flight that departed Boston at 6:15 pm and landed near New York City (at Hadley Field, New Jersey), at 9:00 pm. The first ticket was sold to Mrs. Gardiner Fiske for 25 dollars.Crocker Snow, Log Book: A Pilot's Life (Brassey's, 1997) pp47-49 The Urdu language daily newspaper, Inqilab, described as a periodical that "changed the course of Muslim politics... of the entire Indo-Pakistan subcontinent" M.H. Syed, Encyclopaedia of Modern Journalism and Mass Media (Anmol Publications, 2005) p277 was founded by Ghulam Rasul Mehr and Abdul Majid Salik. The paper, which lasted until 1949, two years after Pakistan attained independence. The Victor Talking Machine Company introduced "the automatic orthophonic Victrola", the first phonograph that could be loaded with multiple (up to 12) records and then play them in sequence.Miami Daily News, April 4, 1927, p2 Born: Joe Orlando, Italian-born American comic book artist; in Bari (d. 1998) Died: Vincent Drucci, 27, American gangster nicknamed "the Schemer", and leader of the North Side Gang. Drucci was shot while trying to wrest a gun from Chicago police detective Dan Healy. His funeral was attended by 1,000 mourners.
April 5, 1927 (Tuesday) The Columbia Phonograph Company merged with United Independent Broadcasters to form Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System (CPBS). The merger gave UIB $163,000 in working capital from which it was able to survive and to build a nationwide radio network (and later a television network) now known as CBS.Jim Cox, American Radio Networks: A History (McFarland, 2009) p47 The Royal Dutch Shell Company began a department for the research and development of chemical products.Donald E. Davis, Southern United States: An Environmental History (ABC-CLIO, 2006) p237 Benito Mussolini and Count Istavan Bethlen, on behalf of Italy and Hungary respectively, signed a Pact of Amity, Conciliation and Arbitration."Italy-Hungary Treaty to be Signed Today", Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1927, p6
April 6, 1927 (Wednesday) On the tenth anniversary of America's entry into World War I, a proposal for an international treaty "to outlaw war" was made by Aristide Briand, the Foreign Minister of France. The Kellogg–Briand Pact would be signed on August 27, 1928, by Briand and U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg.Frederic L. Kirgis, The American Society of International Law's First Century: 1906-2006 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006) U.S. President Calvin Coolidge vetoed a resolution, passed by the Philippine territorial legislature, calling for a plebiscite on whether the Philippines should become independent of the United States."Coolidge Vetoes Filipino Plebiscite on Independence", New York Times, April 7, 1927, p1 An explosion at the refinery of Producers & Refiners Oil Company killed 13 employees and broke almost all of the windows in the company town of Parco, Wyoming."Thirteen Killed by Blast in Oil Refining Plant" Miami Daily News, April 6, 1927, p1 Webber College (now Webber International University) was founded by Roger and Grace Babson (who also founded Babson College) in Babson Park, Florida. One of the nation's first schools of business for women, it was the first private, not-for-profit college chartered under Florida's then new educational and charitable laws. Born: Gerry Mulligan, American jazz musician, baritone sax player; in Queens, New York City (d. 1996)
April 7, 1927 (Thursday) At 3:25 in the afternoon, the Bell Telephone Company made the first successful demonstration of long distance mechanical television transmission, transmitting a 30 line image at the rate of 10 images per second with the aid of a system using the rotating Nipkow disc. Herbert Hoover (at that time the U.S. Secretary of Commerce) appeared before a camera in Washington, and as he spoke over a loudspeaker by telephone to AT & T President Walter S. Gifford, Hoover could be observed on a 2 by television screen by an audience in New York. Hoover told the group, "Human genius has now destroyed the impediment of distance, in a new respect, and in a manner hitherto unknown." The breakthrough in the invention of a completely electronic television system would take place five months later on September 7.Gary R. Edgerton, The Columbia History of American Television (Columbia University Press, 2009) p32; "Hoover Speaks at Public Bow of Television", St. Petersburg (FL) Times, April 8, 1927, p1 Hoover's speech was followed by the first American television entertainment, a performance (from a studio in Whippany, New Jersey) by vaudeville comedian "A. Dolan", who appeared as an Irishman and then donned blackface for a minstrel show act.Ed McMahon, with David Fisher, When Television Was Young: The Inside Story with Memories by Legends of the Small Screen (Thomas Nelson Inc, 2007) pp13-14; "Far-Off Speakers Seen As Well As Heard Here in First Test of Television", New York Times April 8, 1927, p1 The epic French film Napoléon directed by Abel Gance and starring Albert Dieudonné premiered at the Palais Garnier in Paris.
April 8, 1927 (Friday) The beam wireless service was inaugurated between Sydney and London by Amalgamated Wireless Company, allowing messages to be sent at the speed of light at the unprecedented distance of more than . Using shortwave radio, messages could be sent by telegraph between the two locations.Bernard Harte, When Radio Was the Cat's Whiskers (Rosenberg, 2002) p193; "Beam Wireless to Open", Montreal Gazette, April 6, 1927, p18; "England-Australia Wireless Beam Service Now Sends 200 Words a Minute Both Ways", New York Times, April 8, 1927, p3
April 9, 1927 (Saturday) Li Dazhao, co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party, was arrested in Beijing after Chinese troops invaded the embassy of the Soviet Union. Li was charged with espionage and convicted and executed less than three weeks later.Branko M. Lazić and Milorad M. Drachkov, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern (Hoover Press, 1986) p264 Sacco and Vanzetti case: Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were sentenced to death by Judge Webster Thayer after a controversial conviction for murder."Sacco-Vanzetti Doomed to Die", Pittsburgh Press, April 9, 1927, p1 The two men were executed on August 23.Bruce Watson, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind (Viking Press, 2007), p178 Led by Nat Holman, the Brooklyn Celtics won the U.S. professional basketball championship, defeating the Cleveland Rosenblums, 35–32, for a three-game sweep of the American Basketball League series.APBR.org; "Brooklyn Celtics Win World Cage Title", San Antonio Light, April 10, 1927, p32 The SS Carl D. Bradley was launched onto Lake Erie at Lorain, Ohio. At , she was the largest vessel to sail on the U.S. Great Lakes at that time in history. The ship would sink in Lake Michigan on November 18, 1958. All but two of her crew of 35, most of whom were from the tiny northern Michigan town of Rogers City, would perish.Andrew Kantar, Black November: The Carl D. Bradley Tragedy (MSU Press, 2006) p16
April 10, 1927 (Sunday) Ballet Mécanique, composed by George Antheil, was given its American premiere at Carnegie Hall, and booed and hissed by the crowd. Combining classical music with the sounds of machinery (including factory whistles, elevated trains, canning machinery, and airplanes), but no dancers, the ballet had debuted in Paris on June 19, 1926, and would not be performed again for more than sixty years.Gilbert Chase, America's Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present (University of Illinois Press, 1992) p452; Townsend Ludington, A Modern Mosaic: Art and Modernism in the United States (UNC Press, 2000) p176-178 Born: Marshall Warren Nirenberg, American geneticist and 1968 Nobel Prize laureate; in New York City (d. 2010)
April 11, 1927 (Monday) The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland officially ceased to exist at the end of the day, as the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 took effect at midnight. In an acknowledgment of the separate Irish Free State, the nation was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.Peter Berresford Ellis, Eyewitness to Irish History (John Wiley and Sons, 2007) p260
April 12, 1927 (Tuesday) The Shanghai Massacre that would ultimately claim the lives of 4,000 leftists, began a few weeks after Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang Army had taken control of Shanghai with the aid of Communist workers in the city. Chiang turned against his allies and gave the order for the massacre of members of the party and its sympathizers. At 3:00 in the morning, gangleader Du Yuesheng began attacks at the Zhabei District.Parks M. Coble, Jr., The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927-1937 (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 1986) p30 More than 4,000 leftists were killed in Shanghai, and hundreds more elsewhere.Frederic E. Wakeman, Policing Shanghai, 1927-1937 (University of California Press, 1996) pp123 Communist leader Zhou Enlai, who would later become the Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China when Chiang's forces were driven out in 1949, was able to escape from the city.Wenqian Gao (translated by Peter Rand and Lawrence R. Sullivan), Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary (PublicAffairs, 2007) p55-57 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland came into being with the renaming of the Kingdom. At 8:30 in the evening, a tornado destroyed the town of Rocksprings, Texas.Mike Cox, Texas Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival (Globe Pequot Press, 2006) pp 99-108; "More than 125 Lives Taken in Texas Tornado", Montreal Gazette, April 13, 1927, p1 "62 Known Dead After Tornado Destroys Town" Gettysburg Times, April 13, 1927, p1
April 13, 1927 (Wednesday) The Ottawa Senators beat the Boston Bruins, 3–1, to win ice hockey's Stanley Cup.
April 14, 1927 (Thursday) The first Volvo automobile, the 4-cylinder Volvo ÖV 4 "Jakob", was produced at a factory in Gothenburg in Sweden. A 7.4 magnitude earthquake at Argentina's Mendoza Province killed more than 25 people. Born: Alan MacDiarmid, New Zealand chemist and 2000 Nobel Prize laureate; in Masterton (d. 2007)
April 15, 1927 (Friday)