January 1937

The following events occurred in January 1937:

January 1, 1937 (Friday) In retaliation for the Palos incident of the previous week, the German cruiser Königsberg forced the Spanish steamer Soton aground near Santander while the Graf Spee stopped another steamer, the Aragon, and forced it to change course to a Nationalist-held port. The Spanish government called Germany's recent naval actions "acts of aggression and war." Germany sent a note offering to release the Aragon and cease attacks on Spanish shipping as soon as restitution was made for the loss of cargo of the Palos, a proposal which Spain rejected. The Public Order Act 1936 went into effect in the United Kingdom, banning the wearing of political uniforms and empowering the police to stop political marches when there is risk of disorder. The Act, given royal assent on December 18, was aimed at the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, whose black shirt uniforms had been modeled after those of the Fascist Party of Italy. General Anastasio Somoza García was inaugurated as the 21st President of Nicaragua in a colorful ceremony on the parade grounds at the foot of Loma Hill in Managua. beginning 19 years of rule that would last until his assassination in 1956, and control of Nicaragua by the Somoza family until 1979. Somoza, commander of the Nicaraguan National Guard, succeeded Carlos Alberto Brenes, whom he had installed after leading a military coup d'état on June 9, and winning a fraudulent election on December 8. Alan Turing's seminal 1936 paper on the principles of modern computing was published, titled On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, and presenting the concept of a Universal Turing Machine. In American college football, with the Associated Press having issued its final rankings on November 30, the #3 ranked Pittsburgh Panthers beat the #5 ranked Washington Huskies, 21 to 0, in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. The #2 ranked LSU Tigers lost to the Santa Clara Broncos, 21–14 in the Sugar Bowl. Because the Big Ten Conference did not allow its members to play in postseason bowl games, the #1 ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers (who had beaten the Washington Huskies in their season opener) remained idle. The first Cotton Bowl was played in Dallas as the highest ranked team in Texas, the TCU Horned Frogs beat the Marquette Golden Avalanche 16–6. Born: Sayed Amjad Hussain, Pakistani-born American cardiothoracic surgeon who developed the pleuroperitoneal shunt and a special endotracheal tube; in Peshawar, North West Frontier Province, British India (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan) Porter W. Anderson Jr., American microbiologist known for developing a vaccine against bacterial meningitis from the influenza virus H. influenzae B. Vinod Kumar Shukla, Indian Hindi novelist; in Rajnandgaon, princely state of Nangaon, British India (now in Chhattisgarh state of India) Chuck Davis, African-American choreographer and dancer who founded DanceAfrica, the Chuck Davis Dance Company, and the African American Dance Ensemble; in Raleigh, North Carolina (d. 2017) Matt Robinson, African-American TV actor known for portraying one of the human characters on the first seasons of Sesame Street; in Philadelphia (d. 2002) Lenita Airisto, Finnish business leader and TV journalist, former beauty pageant winner; in Helsinki Died: Lieutenant Colonel Frederick I. Eglin, U.S. Army officer and pilot for whom Eglin Air Force Base is named. Eglin and a co-pilot, Lieutenant Howard E. Shelton, were killed in the crash of a Northrop A-17 airplane into the side of Cheaha Mountain in the U.S. state of Alabama. Father William J. Stanton, Canadian Roman Catholic missionary and former Canadian football coach, was killed in a car accident when his automobile overturned in a ditch as he was driving from Cedar Springs, Ontario to Blenheim, Ontario. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, 62, Hindu Bengali Indian theologian of the Gaudiya Vaishnavi sect

January 2, 1937 (Saturday) Great Britain and Italy signed a "gentleman's agreement" pledging to mutually respect one another's rights and interests in the Mediterranean as well as Spain's independence and integrity. U.S. automobile manufacturer Nash Motors (known for the Nash Rambler) merged with the Kelvinator company, manufacturer of refrigerators, to create the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation. In 1954, Nash-Kelvinator would acquire Hudson Motor Car Company to create the American Motors Corporation (AMC), which would be acquired by the Chrysler Corporation in 1988. The detective film Smart Blonde, starring Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane in the first of seven movies teaming reporter Torchy Blane and her boyfriend, detective Steve McBride, was released by Warner Bros. studio.Smart Blonde, Turner Classic Movies Born: Marianne McDonald, American philanthropist; in Chicago"Professor Marianne McDonald, LFIB, IOM", in The World Who's who of Women (Melrose Press, 1995) p.486 Died: Ross Alexander (stage name for Alexander Ross Smith), 29, American stage and film actor known as the star of the 1936 movie Hot Money, shot himself with a .22 caliber revolver."Film Comedy Actor Ends Life with Gun; Ross Alexander Is Found in Barn on His Ranch", The New York Times, January 3, 1937, p.36

January 3, 1937 (Sunday) In China, 128 drug addicts were taken to a village near Tianjin and executed by firing squad. Evacuation of British citizens from Gibraltar continued as the Royal Navy destroyer took on 252 civilians, 116 of whom were women and children. During the Second Battle of the Corunna Road in the Spanish Civil War, the Nationalists captured Villafranca del Castillo west of Madrid in the "Battle of the Fog". The first science fiction convention in Britain, and perhaps the world, took place in Leeds at the Theosophical Hall with 20 fans, including Arthur C. Clarke and Eric Frank Russell, attending. The meeting was organized by the Leeds chapter of Britain's Science Fiction League. The finals of Germany's Tschammerpokal were played at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, bringing an end to a tournament that had started with 5,291 soccer football teams competing for the 64 spots in the knockout competition. VfB Leipzig defeated Schalke 04, 2 to 1, before a crowd of 70,000. Born: General Asif Nawaz Janjua, Chief of Staff of the Pakistani Army from 1991 until his death; in Chakri Rajgan, Punjab province, British India (d. 1993 from arsenic poisoning) Stanley John Smith, Australian organized crime hitman known as "The Enforcer"; in Balmain, New South Wales (d. 2010) Died: Richard Weiner, 52, Czech writer, died of stomach cancer.Hans Dieter Zimmermann, "Ein tschechischer Kafka? Zur Prosa Richard Weiners". Vortrag auf der Konferenz Kafka und Prag zum 80. Geburtstag von Kurt Krolop im Goethe-Institut Prag am 29. Mai 2010. (19 July 2011)

January 4, 1937 (Monday) France restored the Constitution of Lebanon after it had been suspended for a number of years. The winners of the 2nd New York Film Critics Circle Awards were announced. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was named Best Film of 1936. The U.S. Supreme Court decided De Jonge v. Oregon, unanimously holding that a law against criminal syndicalism could not be applied against someone merely for speaking at a meeting of an organization deemed to be a criminal syndicate (in the case at hand, the Communist Party of Oregon). Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes commented, "The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press, and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government." Born: Grace Bumbry, African-American mezzo-soprano opera singer; in St. Louis (d. 2023) Dyan Cannon (stage name for Samille Diane Friesen), American actress; in Tacoma, Washington Died: Paul Behncke, 67, German admiral during the First World War, known for the 1916 Battle of Jutland against the British Royal Navy Max Wenner, 49, English ornithologist and sportsman, was killed when he fell, jumped or was pushed out of a Sabena Airlines plane from an altitude of . Wenner had boarded the Savoia-Marchetti S.73 airplane at Köln in Germany on a flight to Brussels in Belgium. His body was found four days later in a forest near the Belgian town of Genk.

January 5, 1937 (Tuesday) The first issue of Look magazine, created by publisher Gardner Cowles Jr. and John Cowles Sr. as a rival to Life magazine launched two months earlier by Time Inc., went on sale in the United States. The initial magazine, dated "February 1937", had Nazi official Hermann Goering on its cover. As with Life, Look was filled with photos to supplement its new stories. Originally a monthly magazine for its first five issues, it became a biweekly magazine on May 11 and continue without interruption until its October 19, 1971 issue, 14 months before Life published its final issue. Khayreddin al-Ahdab formed a government as the new Prime Minister of Lebanon, at the time a French Mandate of the League of Nations, becoming the first Muslim to hold the post. The government of Nazi Germany recommended German artists depict at least four children in illustrations of German families. U.S. Representative William B. Bankhead of Alabama, a Democrat, won re-election as the Speaker of the United States House of representatives, receiving 324 of 421 votes cast (76.78%). Republican nominee Bertrand Snell of New York received 83 votes. The successful German film Panzerkreuzer Sebastopol: Weisse Sklaven (Battleship Sebastopol: White Slaves), directed by Karl Anton, premiered after being approved by Nazi censors. The film was described by a later historian as "a clumsy anti-communist Nazi replica" ("einer plump antikommunistischen NS-Replik") of Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 Soviet film Battleship Potemkin. Born: Irwin Schiff, American mob associate nicknamed "The Fat Man"; in The Bronx, New York (murdered, 1987) Abdul Monem, Bangladeshi entrepreneur, founder of the conglomerate AML (Abdul Monem Ltd) that owns Igloo Ice Cream company and Coca-Cola of Bangladesh, as well as AM Sugar Refinery Ltd., AM Rice Bran Oil, ServicEngine BPO, and AM Securities and Financial Services Ltd; in Brahmanbaria, Bengal Province, British India (d. 2020) Died: Aurora Picornell, Spanish Communist labor activist and seamstress, was executed along with four other women, after the Nationalists led by Francisco Franco captured the island of Menorca during the Spanish Civil War.

January 6, 1937 (Wednesday)