The following events occurred in April 1926:
April 1, 1926 (Thursday)
The U.S. House of Representatives voted, 306 to 60, to impeach U.S. District Judge George W. English on five articles of impeachment, including abuse of his powers and three arising from suspected violations of the bankruptcy laws. After the U.S. Senate began the impeachment trial, Judge English would resign on November 4, 1926, as a prerequisite for dismissal of the charges against him. The Transjordan Frontier Force (TJFF) was formed at Sarafand as a paramilitary border guard for the Emirate of Transjordan (now the Kingdom of Jordan), which had been created from the British Mandate for Palestine. Born: Charles Bressler, American tenor; in Kingston, Pennsylvania (d. 1996) Anne McCaffrey, American science fiction and fantasy novelist; in Cambridge, Massachusetts (d. 2011) Died: Jacob Pavlovich Adler, 71, Russian actor
April 2, 1926 (Friday) In British India, rioting between Hindus and Muslims broke out in Calcutta."Hindus and Moslems Battle in Calcutta; 20 Dead and 150 Injured Are Reported After Fight When Parade Nears a Mosque", The New York Times, April 3, 1926, p.5"DEATH LIST GROWS IN CALCUTTA RIOTS; Machine Gins Used To Halt Mobs Looting Stores in Indian City", The Montreal Daily Star, April 3, 1926, p.1 As many as 50 people were killed"Fifty Deaths in Calcutta Riots; Three Days of Terror", The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), April 6, 1926, p.9 before the rioting subsided after six days."Calcutta Riots; City Now Nrmal", The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), April 6, 1926, p.1 The Australian steamer SS Dorrigo sank off the coast of Queensland near Fraser's Island (now K'gari), along with 22 of its 24 crew, while traveling from Brisbane to Thursday Island. Former Irish Prime Minister Éamon de Valera, who had recently split with the Sinn Féin party and led fellow members of parliament to form a new organization, proposed the name "Fianna Fáil" for the organization scheduled to organize on May 16. The name was representative of "Fianna" (soldiers) and the Lia Fáil, the coronation stone for the ancient kings of Ireland. Residents of the municipality of Watts, California, voted 1,338 to 535 to become part of the city of Los Angeles"Watts Votes to Enter City," Los Angeles Times, April 3, 1926, p. I-1 with the consolidation taking effect on June 1, 1926. The proposal had been endorsed by Mayor L. A. Edwards. In the 1940s, Watts would become a predominantly African-American section of Los Angeles and would gain fame as the cite of the Watts riots in 1965 and the Rodney King riots in 1992. The White House announced that U.S. President Calvin Coolidge had declined an invitation to send American delegates to a League of Nations conference in Geneva to discuss America's reservations about joining the World Court. Born: Jack Brabham, Australian Formula One racing driver, and a three-time World Drivers' Champion in 1959, 1960 and 1966; in Hurstville, New South Wales (d. 2014) Sylvia Thorpe (pen name for June Sylvia Thimblethorpe), British romance novelist; in London (d. 2023)
April 3, 1926 (Saturday) Lord Halifax took office as the new Viceroy of British India, succeeding Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading. In the Republic of China, warplanes of the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin began bombing the portions of Beijing held by the Guominjun paramilitary group, led by Feng Yuxiang. The Italian company Agip (Azienda generale italiana petroli or Italian General Petroleum Company), a petroleum and petrochemical product and sales business, was founded in Italy by decree of the Italian royal government, with Ettore Conti as its first president. Italy's reorganization of the Italian Senate and the Chamber of Deputies into a syndicalist bicameral parliament, with senators appointed for life, and deputies who represented corporate associations and labor unions appointed for 9-year terms, was approved by the King of Italy. the Chamber had approved the change four days earlier. Born: Gus Grissom, American astronaut who served on the Mercury 4, Gemini 3 and Apollo 1 space missions, and the first American to "walk in space"; in Mitchell, Indiana (killed in the Apollo 1 fire, 1967 Joe Steffy, American college football star for the U.S. Military Academy, and member of the College Football Hall of Fame, known for being maimed in the Korean War before he could attempt professional football; in Chattanooga, Tennessee (d. 2011)|
April 4, 1926 (Sunday)
Greek dictator Theodoros Pangalos won the Greek Republic's presidential election with 93.3% of the vote or 782,589 altogether. The only rival candidate, Konstantinos Demertzis, had withdrawn before the vote but remained on the ballot and received 56,126 votes,Dieter Nohlen and Philip Stöver, Elections in Europe: A data handbook (Nomos Publishing, 2010) p.830 with turnout light and the result a foregone conclusion. Italy's national basketball team played its first game, a 23 to 17 win in Milan over the France national team. Martial law was declared in Calcutta (British India) as rioting continued there. Died: August Thyssen, 83, co-founder and majority owner of the German steel manufacturing corporation Thyssen AG since its founding in 1891. He was succeeded by his son Fritz Thyssen.
April 5, 1926 (Monday)
The Harold Lloyd comedy film For Heaven's Sake, which would become the highest-grossing film of the year, premiered in the United States."For Heaven's Sake (1926), Turner Classic Movies, TCM.com Bulgaria was reported to be in the midst of economic crisis, with businesses failing throughout the country and unemployment around 11%. In voting in Liechtenstein for the 15-seats in the Landtag, the Christian-Social People's Party, led by Gustav Schädler, retained its majority of 9 seats .Paul Vogt, 125 Jahre Landtag. Vaduz: Landtag of the Principality of Liechtenstein, 1987)
April 6, 1926 (Tuesday) The Montreal Maroons of the National Hockey League beat the Victoria Cougars of the Western Canada Hockey League, 2–0, to win the Stanley Cup in ice hockey, three games to one."Montreal Maroons Again Trim Cougars and Win Stanley Cup— Nels Stewart Gets Two Smart Goals", The Ottawa Journal, April 7, 1926, p.14 Varney Air Lines, one of the predecessors to United Airlines, began operations as the first regularly scheduled air carrier in U.S. history"Dirt RunwaysElko Airport - The Early Years (1919-1926)", by Howard Hickson As part of a contract between Varney Airlines and the U.S. Department of the Post Office, pilot Leon D. Cuddeback departed from Pasco, Washington with of mail, picked up more at Boise, and then proceeded to Elko, Nevada with a cargo of mail."Pilot Cuddeback Carries Big Load on First Flight"— Start Is Made From Pasco for Elko, Nevada, at 6:22 This Morning", by Ellsworth C. French, Spokane (WA) Chronicle, April 6, 1926, p.1 Both towns had distribution centers at their railway stations. Earlier that day, Franklin Rose had departed from Elko toward Pasco, but was forced down by thunderstorms. The German airline Deutsche Luft Hansa (DLH), whose name and staff were used by and as part of the 1953 creation of the West German national airline Lufthansa, made its first scheduled passenger flight, departing from Berlin to Zurich in Switzerland, with stops along the way in Halle, Erfurt and Stuttgart. The fledgling airline used a Fokker F.II plane. The first recorded instance of a person being killed by a cassowary, a large, flightless bird indigenous to Australia and southern Pacific islands, occurred when 16-year old Phillip McClean bled to death near Mossman, Queensland after being attacked by a large Southern Cassowary while he and his brother were trying to kill it."Killed by Cassowary; Jugular Vein Punctured", The Telegraph (Brisbane), April 9, 1926, p.7 Eusebio Joaquín González allegedly had a vision in which God changed Gonzales' first name to Aarón and told him to leave Monterrey in the Nuevo León state of Mexico, where Gonzalez created La Luz del Mundo, a nontrinitarian charismatic restorationist Christian church. Born: Sergio Franchi, Italian opera tenor; in Codogno (d. 1990) Gil Kane (pen name for Eli Katz), Latvian-born American comic book artist for both DC and Marvel; in Riga (d. 2000) Ian Paisley, Northern Ireland politician and the UK's First Minister of Northern Ireland; in Armagh (d. 2014) Randy Weston, American jazz pianist; in New York City (d. 2018) Robert Simmonds, Canadian law enforcement administrator and Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from 1977 to 1987; in Keatley, Saskatchewan (d. 2023) Died: Gerald Chapman, 38, American criminal who was nicknamed "The Gentleman Bandit", was hanged at the Wethersfield State Prison in Connecticut for the 1924 murder of policeman James Skelly.
April 7, 1926 (Wednesday)
In Rome, Italian Premier Benito Mussolini was shot by Violet Gibson, sister of Lord Ashbourne, but the bullets only grazed his nose."Mussolini Slightly Wounded by Bullet Fired by an Irish Woman", The New York Times, April 8, 1926, p.1 Mussolini had stepped out to the street in Rome after an opening speech to the Seventh International Congress of Surgery, where he had praised surgeons who had treated him when he was wounded during World War One, and joked that Gibson had "chosen the wrong moment" to shoot him since he was in the presence of "several hundred of the greatest surgical scientists in the world."Frances Stonor Saunders, The Woman Who Shot Mussolini (London: Faber & Faber, 2010) Across Italy, three staffers of anti-Fascist newspapers were murdered, others were beaten, and property was smashed in nighttime "reprisal" attacks following the attempt on Mussolini's life. Born: Prem Nazir, Indian film actor, in Chirayinkeezhu, Travancore Kingdom, British India (now in Kerala state) (d. 1989) Erik Bruun, Finnish graphic designer; in Viipuri (now Vyborg in Russia) (alive in 2026) Miyoko Asō, Japanese voice actress, in Tokyo (d. 2018) Julio Scherer García, Mexican journalist, editor of the Mexico City daily Excélsior, 1968 to 1976, and founder of the magazine Proceso; in Mexico City (d. 2015) Died: Giovanni Amendola, 43, Italian journalist and politician, died from injuries sustained in an attack by Fascists almost a year earlier on July 20, 1925.
April 8, 1926 (Thursday) Ford Motor Company Aktiengesellschaft, the German subsidiary of the American Ford Motor Company, assembled its first vehicle, a Model T, using parts imported from the U.S. in order to circumvent the high tariff on the importation of fully-assembled vehicles. Nikola Uzunović took office as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) following the resignation of Nikola Pašić. Finland composer Leevi Madetoja's Symphony No. 3 was performed for the first time, premiering in Helsinki by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.Riitta Pulliainen, Madetoja Orchestral Works 4: Laurel Wreaths|others=Arvo Volmer & Oulu Symphony Orchestra (Alba, 2001) Following a colorful naval ceremony, Benito Mussolini disembarked in a battleship for Tripoli to make his first visit to the colony of Italian Libya, sporting a large bandage across his nose from the previous day's assassination attempt but displaying no other ill effects. Born: Shecky Greene (stage name for Fred Sheldon Greenfield), American comedian; in Chicago (d. 2023)
April 9, 1926 (Friday) In the first championship of a major professional basketball league in the U.S., the Cleveland Rosenblums won the best 3-of-5 series of the American Basketball League, defeating the Brooklyn Arcadians, 23 to 22, in Game 3 after sweeping the first two games, 36-33 and 37–21."Rosenblooms Clinch Pro Floor Title; Top Brooklyn— Take Third Straight Game by One Point, 23-22", The Pittsburgh Post, April 10, 1926, p.11 An attempt to start a military coup against Greek dictator Theodoros Pangalos was swiftly crushed in Thessaloniki. Born: Hugh Hefner, U.S. adult magazine publisher known for Playboy; in Chicago (d. 2017)