August 1937

The following events occurred in August 1937:

August 1, 1937 (Sunday)

*The Meuse-Argonne American Memorial was dedicated in Montfaucon-d'Argonne was founded in the Soviet Union by Major General Semyon Chernetsky, conductor and music director of the Central Military Band of the Soviet defense ministry.
*SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl-Otto Koch arrived with his wife Ilse Koch at Nazi Germany's Buchenwald concentration camp to carry out the internment and execution of thousands of Jews and other political prisoners.
*American serial killer Anna Marie Hahn committed her fifth and final murder, after having poisoned five elderly men whom she had befriended and taken care of. Following the death of retired cobbler Georg Obendoerfer, Hahn was arrested. She would be executed in the electric chair at the Ohio Penitentiary on December 7, 1938.
*The popular radio program '' Good Will Hour'', sponsored by Macfadden Communications Group and hosted by John J. Anthony, premiered nationwide in the U.S. on stations of the Mutual Broadcasting System, and would run for more than 15 years until the end of 1952.
*Born:
**Oleg Vinogradov, Soviet Russian choreographer and ballet director for the Kirov Ballet; in Leningrad
**Al D'Amato, U.S. Senator for New York from 1981 to 1999; in Brooklyn

August 2, 1937 (Monday)

*The Marihuana Tax Act was signed into law by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and took effect on October 1.Though not specifically outlawing or permitting the cultivation or sale of marijuana, the federal law required any person who did so to register with the U.S. government prior to paying a tax, providing the basis for identification (to allow states to enforce their own laws) and federal prosecution by the U.S. government for previous failure to pay the tax. The law would be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1969 decision in ''Leary v. United States'' and replaced soon afterward in 1971 by the Controlled Substances Act.
*All six passengers and three crew of an Ala Littoria airliner were killed after the Savoia-Marchetti S.73 took off from Wadi Halfa on a flight to Asmara as part of its multi-stop flight from Rome to Addis Ababa.
*Born:
**Ghulam Mustafa Khar, Pakistani politician who served as Governor of Punjab province 1971-1973 and as its Chief Minister 1973-1974; in Sanawan, Punjab Province, British India
**Garth Hudson, Canadian rock keyboardist for ''The Band''; in Windsor, Ontario (d.2025)
**Billy Cannon, American college and pro football halfback, inductee to the College Football Hall of Fame; in Philadelphia, Mississippi (d.2018)

August 3, 1937 (Tuesday)

*All 14 people aboard a Pan American-Grace Airways seaplane were killed when the Sikorsky S-43 plunged into the ocean off of the coast of Panama.
*The 20th biennial World Zionist Congress opened in Zürich, Switzerland.
*Generalissimo Francisco Franco informed Italy that he had intelligence that the Soviets were shipping arms to the Republic. Franco urged Italian action to stop the transports.
*Born: Steven Berkoff (stage name for Leslie Steven Berks), English stage and film actor known for his roles as a villain in ''Beverly Hills Cop'', ''Octopussy'', ''Rambo: First Blood Part II'' and ''War and Remembrance''; in Stepney, London

August 4, 1937 (Wednesday)

*In British India, a team of climbers led by Frank Smythe became the first people to reach the top of the high Himalayan mountain Deoban.
*The Venezuelan National Guard was founded.
*In Little Rock, Arkansas, the newly formed Society for the Booing of Commercial Advertisements in Motion Picture Theatres made its debut, booing loudly when corporate advertising appeared on the movie screen. Similar "booing clubs" soon began springing up elsewhere. In the 1930s and '40s movie houses experimented with running ads for commercial products alongside movie trailers, but many theatregoers resented the practice because, unlike the radio where ads were recognized as necessary, movies were not free.
*Born:
**Paul Abels, American Methodist minister and the first the openly gay cleric of a church in a major Christian denomination (as pastor of New York's Washington Square Methodist Episcopal Church from 1973 to 1984; in Yellow Springs, Ohio (d.1992 from complications of AIDS)
**Angie Ferro, Filipino film, TV and stage actress; in Baleno, Masbate
**David Bedford, English composer and musician; in Hendon, London (d. 2011)
*Died:
** K.P. Jayaswal, 55, Indian historian and lawyer
**Hans Reck, 51, German volcanologist and paleontologist, died of a heart attack while on an expedition to Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique).

August 5, 1937 (Thursday)

*Japanese Emperor Hirohito ratified a directive removing the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners of war, a decision that would be followed by the execution or death by illness of all but 56 Chinese POWs taken during the war by Japan against China, as well as brutal treatment of Allied prisoners during World War II.
*The Soviet Union's secret police, the NKVD, began carrying out the repression of Ingrian Finns and other speakers of the Finnish language within its borders as part of its campaign against ethnic Finnish residents. During the first month of the operation ordered by NKVD Order No. 00447, 728 people were arrested, and in 1938, there would be 5,340 placed in prison. Before the NKVD operation was terminated on August 10, 1938 , at least 8,000 Finns, and perhaps as many as 25,000 would die or simply disappear.
*Born: Herb Brooks, American Olympic ice hockey player and coach; in Saint Paul, Minnesota (d. 2003, automobile accident)
*Died: José Canals, 22, Spanish Olympic cross-country skier, was killed in action in the Spanish Civil War.

August 6, 1937 (Friday)

*The National Cancer Institute was established in the United States as a division of the United States Public Health Service agency by legislation signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt.
*The first recorded smoking-related airline accident occurred when all six people aboard when an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Prague crashed near Herina. The accident was traced to one of the three passengers lighting a cigarette in the toilet, igniting accumulated fumes from aviation fuel.
*The Soviet Union and the United States agreed to extend their trade pact for one additional year.
*Born: Barbara Windsor, English actress; in Shoreditch, London (d. 2020)

August 7, 1937 (Saturday)

*The Japanese began to evacuate their concession at Hankou, citing "the steadily growing tension and a desire to prevent an incident likely to aggravate the general situation."
*World War I veteran Harold Wobber, 47, became the first person definitively known to have committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge.
* Marcian Germanovich, Soviet corps commander, was arrested two months after being dismissed from the Red Army, apparently because of his association with General Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who had been executed on June 12. Germanovich would be shot in prison on September 20
*Born:
*Rosemary Smith, Irish rally car driver; in Dublin (d. 2023)
*Magic Slim (stage name for Morris Holt), blues singer and guitarist and inductee to the Blues Hall of Fame; in Torrance, Mississippi (d. 2013)
*Died:
**Eddie Gerard, 47, Canadian ice hockey player and manager, died of throat cancer. He would be one of the original inductee to the Hockey Hall of Fame on its founding in 1945.
**Henri Lebasque, 71, French post-Impressionist painter
** Howard E. Dorsey, 33, American hydraulic engineer who had been sworn into office five weeks earlier, was killed when he lost control of his automobile and ran over a cliff along with his passenger, secretary Marion Lonabaugh.
**Takeo Wakabayashi, 29, Japanese footballer who played for the Japan national team, died from lung disease.

August 8, 1937 (Sunday)

*A contingent of 3,000 Japanese soldiers conspicuously entered Beijing (at the time referred to in the Western press as "Peiping"), capital of the Republic of China without resistance. Japanese warplanes dropped propaganda leaflets on the populace proclaiming that the "Japanese army has driven out your wicked rulers and their wicked armies and will keep them out."
*The Butovo firing range began operations as an execution site for political prisoners who had been arrested by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, as the first 91 prisoners were transported there from Moscow and shot. According to records kept by the NKVD, there were 20,761 executions until the Butovo range closed on October 19, 1938.
*Born:
**Dustin Hoffman, American actor and director; in Los Angeles
**Jorge Cafrune, popular Argentine folk singer; in El Carmen, Jujuy Province (killed in pedestrian accident, 1978)
*Died:
**Jimmie Guthrie, 40, Scottish motorcycle racer, was killed competing in the German motorcycle Grand Prix.
**Edmund Pearson, 57, author of "true crime" nonfiction books, died from bronchial pneumonia.

August 9, 1937 (Monday)

*The government of Germany ordered a correspondent for ''The Times'', Norman Ebbutt, to leave Germany. The move was made in retaliation for Britain expelling three German journalists on suspicion of espionage.
*Swiss-born American astronomer Fritz Zwicky became the first person on earth to observe a new supernova (SN 1937D) that had occurred in the galaxy designated NGC 1003 as much as 31 million years earlier
*The American alligator " Muja, estimated to be 12 years old, arrived at the Belgrade Zoo in Yugoslavia (now in Croatia and would still be alive in 2025 as the oldest living known alligator in captivity.
*The adventure film ''Souls at Sea'' starring Gary Cooper, George Raft and Frances Dee premiered at the Globe Theatre in New York City.
*Born:
**Nelson Villagra, Chilean film actor; in Chillán, Diguillín province
**Forouzan (stage name for Parvin Kheyrbakhsh), Iranian film actress who was a star from 1963 until being banned from acting during the 1979 Iranian Revolution; in Bandar-e Anzali (d.2016)

August 10, 1937 (Tuesday)

*American mathematician Claude Shannon, described later as "the father of information theory" submitted his masters' thesis ''A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits'' to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The paper, later described by Howard Gardner as "possibly the most important, and also the most famous, master's thesis of the century", demonstrated the electrical applications of Boolean algebra to establish the theoretical basis for digital circuits and digital computing.
*U.S. Patent No. 2,089,171 was awarded to musician George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker for the first electric guitar, three years after he had applied for the patent on June 2, 1934.
*The Republican tanker ''Campeador'' was sunk off Tunis by Italian destroyers. While 28 members of the crew were saved, 12 died.
*The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, arrested multiple people, identified as "counter-revolutionary" instigators, on the same day, including writer Aleksandr Voronsky, educator Boris Didkovsky and lawyer Evgen Gvaladze (all executed in 1937); Red Army corps commander Yepifan Kovtyukh (executed 1938); former NKVD official Boris Berman (shot 1939); and Mongolian folklorist Tsyben Zhamtsarano (who died in a labor camp, 1942).
* Émile Roblot took office as the Minister of State of the principality of Monaco, a post he would hold until 1944. Roblot was appointed by Prince Louis II to fill the vacancy caused by the death of
*Born: Anatoly Sobchak, Russian politician who co-authored the Constitution of the Russian Federation after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and served as the first democratically elected Mayor of Saint Petersburg; in Chita, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.

August 11, 1937 (Wednesday)

*The Soviet Union began implementing NKVD Order No. 00485, the genocide of more than 111,000 members of the Polish minority confined to the Polish districts in the Byelorussian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR, and those still living with the Russian SFSR.
*On orders from Chiang Kai-shek, president of the Republic of China, several obsolete Chinese Navy ships were scuttled and allowed to sink in the Yangtze River to block Japanese ships from using the waterway. Among the former warships sunk were the cruisers ''Hai Yung'', '' Hai Chi'', '' Chao Ho'', ''Hai Chen'', ''Hai Chou'', and ''Tung Chi''; the gunboats ''Chu Chien'', ''Ta Tung'', and ''Tze Chiang''; and the torpedo boats ''Chen Tse'' and ''Su Tse''.
*In British India, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the Mootharignar Rajaji, premier of the Madras Presidency (now the state of Tamil Nadu), announced that he would introduce the mandatory teaching of the Hindi language in Madras schools, prompting the Anti-Hindi agitation by Tamil nationalists, led by Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy.
*The World Zionist Congress voted, 300–158, to oppose the Peel Commission plan to partition Palestine.
*The União Nacional dos Estudantes (UNE) student organization, which would have five million university students by 2025, was founded in Brazil.
*The biographical film ''The Life of Emile Zola'' starring Paul Muni premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. The film would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture along with an award to Joseph Schildkraut for Best Supporting Actor, and Norman Reilly Raine and two others for Best Screenplay.
*Born:
**Tan Joe Hok, Indonesian badminton player; in Bandung, Dutch East Indies (d.2025)
**Dr. Hasri Ainun Habibie, Indonesian physician and wife of Indonesian President B. J. Habibie, 1998 to 1999; in Semarang, Dutch East Indies (d.2021)
*Died:
**Edith Wharton, 75, American novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner known for ''The Age of Innocence''
**Royal Iraqi Army General Bakr Sidqi, 47, who had ordered the Simele massacre of 3,000 Assyrian civilians and separatists, was assassinated."Iraq Militarists Shot by Soldier at 'Plane Base
�� Defence Minister, Air Force Chief Assassinated at Sunset", ''Toronto Daily Star'', August 12, 1937, p.21 ("Jerusalem, Aug. 12— (UP)— Reports from Bagdad to-day said Bekr Sidki Pasha, Iraq minister defence, and Col. Mohamed Ali Jawad, chief of Iraq's air force, had been assassinated. The reports said a soldier shot the two men at the Mosul airport at sunset yesterday.")

August 12, 1937 (Thursday)

*U.S. Senator Hugo Black of Alabama was nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Willis Van Devanter.. A series of investigative reports by Ray Sprigle of the ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', began on September 13, 1937, revealing that Black had been a long-time member of the white supremacist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, starting in 1923.
*The Spanish destroyer ''Churruca'' was torpedoed and damaged near Cartagena. The ship was able to limp into port but 3 crew were killed and 9 were injured.
* Mel Walker of the U.S. (high jumper) broke the record for the high jump during a meet in Sweden at Malmö. Miller cleared , besting the previous mark of set in 1936 U.S. Olympic trials by Dave Albritton and Cornelius Johnson.
*Born:
**Thommy Berggren, Swedish film star known for '' Heja Roland!'' and ''Elvira Madigan'', winner of two Guldbagge Awards; in Mölndal
**Walter Dean Myers, American writer of children's books; known for ''Monster'' (1999)''Motown and Didi'' (1985); in Martinsburg, West Virginia (d.2014)
**Jimmy Norman, American songwriter and singer; in Nashville, Tennessee (d.2011)
**Roy Gaines, American blues guitarist; in Waskom, Texas (d.2021)

August 13, 1937 (Friday)

*The Battle of Shanghai began in China as a clash between Shanghai's Chinese Peace Preservation Corps and the Imperial Japanese Army in the Zhabei, Wusong, and Jiangwan districts of the city. Six hours later, at 3:00 in the afternoon, Japanese troops crossed the Bazi Bridge at Zhabei and the 88th Division of China's National Revolutionary Army retaliated with mortar attacks. An hour later, ships of Japan's Third Fleet, stationed in the Yangtze and Huangpu rivers began shelling Chinese positions.
*Paraguay's President Rafael Franco was overthrown by the army in a coup d'etat after withdrawing troops from the Chaco region in the aftermath of the Chaco War.
*The Spanish Republican freighter ''Conde de Absolo'' was sunk off Pantelleria by the Italian Navy destroyer ''Ostro''. The 23-member crew was rescued by the British steamer ''City of Wellington''.
*Died:
**Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman, 90, English shipping magnate
** Frank Aguilar, 34, convicted American axe murderer, was executed in the gas chamber of the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City at 8:10 in the evening. One of the witnesses, Ed Hamilton, 55, died of a heart attack while watching the execution.
** Boris Didkovsky, 54, Soviet professor at Ural State University, was executed by a gunshot wound to the head at the NKVD prison in Sverdlovsky as part of the Great Purge ordered by Soviet premier Joseph Stalin.

August 14, 1937 (Saturday)

*In the Battle of Shanghai, over 1,200 Chinese civilians were killed and 1,400 injured when a bomber from China missed its target while attempting to attack Japanese ships in Shanghai harbor, and dropped a bomb on the Great World amusement arcade.
*At the Battle of Jianqiao in China, Chinese pilots flying Model 68 Hawk III airplanes successfully defended Hangzhou from a Japanese attack, intercepting and shooting down four Japanese Mitsubishi G3M warplanes, without losing any of its own aircraft. August 14 would continue to be celebrated as Air Force Day in Taiwan more than 85 years later.
*The Battle of Santander began in Spain as Nationalist rebels, assisted by Italian and German officers, attacked the stronghold of the "Army of the North" of the Republic. The Santander fell after 12 days and after three weeks, the Republican forces of the 14th and 15th Army Corps lost 60,000 of their men.
*Born:
**Winston Lord, U.S. government official who served as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1977 to 1985, and as the U.S. Ambassador to China from 1985 to 1989; in New York City.
**Joe Horlen, U.S. baseball pitcher who had the best earned run average in the American League in 1967, and the only baseball player to win the Pony League World Series (1952), the College World Series (1959 for Oklahoma State) and the 1972 World Series (for the Oakland A's); in San Antonio, Texas.
*Died:
** H. C. McNeile, MC, 48, British popular author who went by the pen name "Sapper" and was known for creating the series of mystery stories and the character "Bulldog Drummond", died from cancer at his home in West Chiltington, West Sussex.
**Karl Pauker, 44, Soviet NKVD officer and former chief of Joseph Stalin's bodyguard team, was executed without a trial as part of the Great Purge.
** Ivan Zaporzhets, 42, former Soviet NKVD officer accused of the assassination of Sergei Kirov, was executed after a confession under torture of having been part of a right-wing conspiracy against the government.
** Semyon Firin, 39, Soviet Gulag forced labor camp director at the the Dmitrovsky Correctional Labor Camp (Dmitlag), was executed by shooting on charges of "participating in an Operational-Chekist coup to prepare a palace revolution".
**Leopold Averbakh, 34, Soviet literary critic, was executed along with Semyon Firin.

August 15, 1937 (Sunday)

*A military coup d'etat overthrew Paraguay's President Rafael Franco. Former President Félix Paiva was sworn into office as the new President of Paraguay.
*The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service launched its campaign of bombing Nanjing in China, attacking the Jurong Airbase with it fast moving G3M warplanes and blitz techniques developed by Giulio Douhet. The Japanese eventually lost 50% of its planes in fighting at Jurong with the unexpected response by the Chinese Air Force.
*The Shanghai Expeditionary Army was raised a second time.

August 16, 1937 (Monday)

*A general mobilization of the military was ordered in Japan.
*The Polish peasant strike began.
*France protested to the Chinese government over the air raid that killed more than 1,000 people in the French concession and international settlement of Shanghai.
*Born:
** David Anderson, Canadian politician; in Victoria, British Columbia
**Uncle Elmer, American professional wrestler; in Philadelphia, Mississippi (d. 1992)

August 17, 1937 (Tuesday)

*The U.S. Senate confirmed Hugo Black for the United States Supreme Court by a 63–16 vote despite his controversial past involvement with the Ku Klux Klan.
*Born: Diego Seguí, Cuban baseball player; in Holguín

August 18, 1937 (Wednesday)

*The Blackwater fire began in Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming.
*The U.S. government ordered all 12,600 American citizens in China to evacuate.
*The musical film ''Broadway Melody of 1938'', starring Eleanor Powell, Robert Taylor, and Judy Garland in a star-making role, premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
*Born:
**Jean Alingué Bawoyeu, Prime Minister of Chad from 1991 to 1992, in Fort-Lamy, French Equatorial Africa
**Willie Rushton, English cartoonist and comedian; in Chelsea, London (d. 1996)
*Died: Luigi Pernier over a broken armaments contract. Czechoslovakia broke the contract because it suspected Portugal of funneling the arms to the Nationalists in Spain.
*Nazi Germany restricted Jewish booksellers to only selling books by Jewish authors to Jewish customers.
*Died: Ikki Kita, 54, Japanese author and philosopher

August 20, 1937 (Friday)

*In Shanghai, an anti-aircraft shell landed on the deck of the heavy cruiser and exploded, killing 1 American sailor and wounding 18.
*Born:
**Jim Bowen, English comedian and television personality; in Heswall (d. 2018)
** Jean-Louis Petit, French composer, conductor and organist

August 21, 1937 (Saturday)

*The Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was signed.
* Villacarriedo fell to the Nationalists.
*Born:
**Gustavo Noboa, President of Ecuador from 2000 to 2003 (d. 2021)
**Donald Dewar, Scottish politician; in Glasgow (d. 2000)
**Joe Morrison, American football player and coach; in Lima, Ohio (d. 1989)
** Robert Stone, American novelist; in Brooklyn, New York (d. 2015)
**Chuck Traynor, American pornographer; in Westchester County, New York (d. 2002)
*Died: George Wright, 90, American baseball player

August 22, 1937 (Sunday)

*Manfred von Brauchitsch of Germany won the Monaco Grand Prix.
*Rudolf Caracciola of Germany won the Swiss Grand Prix.
*Voters in Liechtenstein approved a referendum on banning department stores.

August 23, 1937 (Monday)

*The new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio opened its doors.
*Died: Albert Roussel, 68, French composer

August 24, 1937 (Tuesday)

*The Republicans launched the Zaragoza Offensive.
*The Battle of Belchite began.

August 25, 1937 (Wednesday)

*The Nationalists entered Santander.
*The Polish peasant strike ended.

August 26, 1937 (Thursday)

*British ambassador to China Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen was wounded when a Japanese plane strafed and attacked his limousine.
*Turkey warned that any submarines that entered the Turkish Straits without identifying themselves would be attacked.
*Mysterious attacks began on neutral shipping bound for Republican ports.
*Born:
**Kenji Utsumi, Japanese actor and voice actor; in Kitakyushu (d. 2013)
**Gennady Yanayev, Soviet politician; in Perevoz, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, USSR (d. 2010)
*Died: Andrew Mellon, 82, American businessman, ambassador and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury

August 27, 1937 (Friday)

*The Kwantung Army occupied Zhangjiakou.
*Born: Alice Coltrane, American jazz musician; in Detroit, Michigan (d. 2007)

August 28, 1937 (Saturday)

* H. S. Wong took the famous '' Bloody Saturday'' photograph, showing a baby crying in the bombed-out ruins of a Shanghai railway station.
*The Vatican recognized Francoist Spain and sent an apostolic delegate.
*English athlete Sydney Wooderson set a new world record at Motspur Park by running a mile in 4 minutes 6.4 seconds.
*''Toyota Motor Corporation'' was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in Japan.

August 29, 1937 (Sunday)

*Britain sent a sharp note of protest to the Japanese government demanding a formal apology for the wounding of their ambassador.
*Born: James Florio, 49th Governor of New Jersey; in Brooklyn, New York (d. 2022)

August 30, 1937 (Monday)

*Joe Louis retained boxing's World Heavyweight Championship with a 15-round decision over Tommy Farr at Yankee Stadium.
*The Russian freighter ''Timiryazev'' was torpedoed and sunk near Dellys. All 30 crew were rescued by a fishing boat.
*Eberhard von Stohrer was appointed the new German ambassador to the Spanish Nationalist government.
*Born: Bruce McLaren, New Zealand race car driver; in Auckland (d. 1970, test crash)
*Died: Adele Sandrock, 74, German-Dutch actress

August 31, 1937 (Tuesday)

*Actors Tallulah Bankhead and John Emery were married in Jasper, Alabama.
*Born: Bobby Parker, American blues-rock musician; in Lafayette, Louisiana (d. 2013)

References

{{Events by month links

*1937-06