The following events occurred in March 1937:
March 1, 1937 (Monday) Former Prime Minister Kyösti Kallio was sworn into office as the fourth President of Finland after being selected by a vote of Finland's 300-member Electoral College on February 15. The Camp of National Unity political party (OZN or Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego) was founded in Poland. The government of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied puppet state formed from the three northeastern provinces of the Republic of China, passed a law on royal succession making Puyi's brother Pujie the next in line for the throne. Puyi, the last Emperor of China, had been married for 14 years but had no children. The French steamer Marie-Thérèse le Borgne hit a naval mine in the same area where the British ship Llandovery Castle was damaged a week previously. The ship was able to make port at Palamós. Born: Eugen Doga, Moldovan composer; in Mocra, Moldavian ASSR, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (d. 2025) Jimmy Little, Australian aboriginal musician; at the Cummeragunja Reserve in New South Wales (d. 2012) Anis Ud Dowla, Bangladeshi businessman and chairman of the conglomerate ACI Limited; in Faridpur, Bengal Province, British India Died: Major General John Antill, 71, Australian Army officer whose command decisions during the Battle of the Nek in the Gallipoli campaign of World War I helped contribute to the casualty rate of 372 killed or wounded of 600 members of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade. DeWitt Jennings, 65, American stage and film actor
March 2, 1937 (Tuesday) The British House of Commons voted, 243 to 134, to endorse the government's rearmament program. Italy replied by ordering every male in the country between 18 and 55 to be fit for "integral militarization". In the U.S., the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), led by Philip Murray, signed a collective bargaining agreement with the United States Steel Company, recognizing the SWOC as the sole bargaining agent for U.S. Steel employees.Zieger, Robert H., The CIO, 1935–1955 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1995) pp.54-65 Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas announced that the government would take over control of the country's oil resources.Oil Dictatorship Decreed in Mexico; President Cardenas Creates a New Body to Rule Industry Under His Guidance", The New York Times, March 3, 1937, p.9 A re-editing of the Frank Capra-directed drama-fantasy film Lost Horizon starring Ronald Colman premiered in San Francisco"'Lost Horizon,' Film Epic, Has Premiere at Geary", by Ada Hanifin The San Francisco Examiner, March 2, 1937, p.17 after a trial run of a longer version on February 18 in Miami."Notables Attracted to World Premiere— Social and Theatrical Leaders Throng Lincoln Theater For Picture 'Lost Horizon'", The Miami Herald, February 19, 1937, p.5 Cecilia Colledge of the United Kingdom won the ladies' competition of the World Figure Skating Championships in London. Born: Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria from 1999 to 2019; in Oujda, French Morocco (d. 2021)
March 3, 1937 (Wednesday) The Holmes Foundry Riot occurred in Sarnia, Ontario, in Canada. Workers engaging in a sitdown strike were attacked by non-striking employees who wanted to go back to work. Fifty people were injured, including 9 who were hospitalized. Lieutenant-Colonel Germán Busch, Chief of the General Staff of Bolivia, announced his resignation to President David Toro as a test of Busch's support within the military. Toro refused the resignation and would be forced out of office on July 13, with Busch becoming the new president. New York City's Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia made a speech to a Jewish women's group proposing that the 1939 World's Fair include a "Hall of Horrors" with a figure of "that brown-shirted fanatic who is now menacing the peace of the world." The next day, the German newspaper Der Angriff dedicated its entire front page to attacking Mayor La Guardia, calling him a "scoundrel" and an "impudent Jew" who governed New York with "the terror of the revolvers and clubs of his gangster friends." The German government directed its Ambassador to Washington Hans Luther to make a formal protest against La Guardia's remarks. Born: Bobby Driscoll, child actor; in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (d. 1968) Tsukasa Hosaka, Japanese footballer with 19 caps for the Japan national team; in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture (d. 2018)
March 4, 1937 (Thursday) The 9th Academy Awards were held in Los Angeles. The Great Ziegfeld won for Best Picture; Frank Capra won Best Director for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town; Paul Muni and Luise Rainer for Best Actor and Best Actress; Walter Brennan and Gale Sondergaard for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, respectively. The Greek freighter Loukia sank after hitting a mine floating in the sea off the coast of Cape San Sebastian in Spain, killing all but one of the 24 men aboard. Born: Graham Dowling, New Zealand cricketer; in Christchurch Leslie H. Gelb, American political scientist and newspaper columnist; in New Rochelle, New York (d. 2019) Yuri Senkevich, Soviet and Russian doctor, adventurer and scientist; in Choibalsan (Mongolia) (d. 2003) Barney Wilen, jazz saxophonist; in Nice, France (d. 1996) Died: Alice Cooper, 62, American sculptor best known for her statue Sacajawea and Jean-Baptiste John A. Gilruth , 66, controversial Australian Administrator of the Northern Territory and former veterinarian, died of a respiratory infection.
March 5, 1937 (Friday) The Battle of Cape Machichaco was fought off the coast of Spain, when the Spanish Nationalist cruiser Canarias intercepted the transport ship Galdames and its 173 passengers, engaging the escort of four Basque Auxiliary Navy trawlers in battle. The Basque ships Bizcaya, Gipuzkoa, Donostia and Nabarra had set sail with Galdames from Bayonne in France toward Bilbao. The trawler Nabarra was sunk, with the loss of 29 men, while 20 others were treated and then imprisoned. Four passengers on Galdames were killed and one, Catalan legislator Manuel Carrasco Formiguera, was imprisoned and would be executed in 1938. The Communist Party of Spain demanded that POUM be eliminated. The Hungarian government revealed a plot by the National Socialist Party and arrested its leader Ferenc Szálasi. The U.S. Department of State officially apologized to the German government for Fiorello La Guardia's remarks. Born: Olusegun Obasanjo, President of Nigeria from 1976 to 1979 and 1999 to 2007; in Ibogun-Olaogun, Colonial Nigeria Died: Sir Frederic Lang, 85, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1913 to 1922 Jujiro Wada, 65, Japanese adventurer and entrepreneur in Alaska, co-creator of the Iditarod Trail Charles "Blondy" Wallace, 57, early American pro football player for the Canton Bulldogs in 1905 and 1906, college football All-American, later convicted of tax evasion. Hong Taechawanit (Zheng Ziyong), 69, Chinese and Thai philanthropist
March 6, 1937 (Saturday) The Battle of Pozoblanco began in Spain. A two-question referendum was held in Australia. Neither proposal to alter the Australian Constitution was carried. The Belgian student association "Academicus Sancti Michaëlis Ordo" was founded. Born: Valentina Tereshkova, Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in space, on Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963; in Bolshoye Maslennikovo, Yaroslavl Oblast, USSR Cyriaco Dias, Indian actor in tiatr stage productions and Konkani cinema; in Raia, Goa, Portuguese India
March 7, 1937 (Sunday) Voting was held in Chile for all 146 seats of the Cámara de Diputados and for 20 of the 45 seats of the Chilean Senate. The Liberal Party and the Conservative Party each won 35 seats in the Cámara, with the Radical Party close with 29 and the new Socialist Party having 19. At the end of the election of 20 seats, the 45-seat balance in the Senate was 12 Liberals, 12 Conservatives, 11 for Radicals, and the other 10 divided among four parties. The Percy Grainger composition Lincolnshire Posy was first performed, premiering in the U.S. in Milwaukee. Born: Aby Har Even, Romanian-born Israeli scientist and Director General of the Israeli Space Agency from 1995 to 2004; in Rociu (killed in a fire, 2021)
March 8, 1937 (Monday) The Battle of Guadalajara began in Spain, as 35,000 men of Italy's Corpo Truppe Volontarie, with 81 tanks, attacked troops of the Spanish Republic."The Battle of Guadalajara, 8–22 March 1937" by John Coverdale, in Journal of Contemporary History, January 1, 1974, p.59 Because of heavy rains, the Italian troops were limited by heavy mud and under bombardment by the Spanish Air Force. The steamship Mar Cantabrico, carrying war material from the United States to the Spanish Republic, was intercepted in the Bay of Biscay by the Nationalists who shot 26 members of the crew. The title of Duke of Windsor was created for the former King Edward VIII. The title would exist until Edward's death, without issue in 1972. Born: Juvénal Habyarimana, the second President of Rwanda from 1973 to 1994; in Gisenyi Ruanda-Urundi (assassinated 1994) Died: Howie Morenz, 34, Canadian ice hockey player, died of a coronary embolism caused by complications from an injury during an NHL game on January 28.
March 9, 1937 (Tuesday) Germany's Interior Minister Heinrich Himmler ordered the arrest of "professional criminals" who had committed two or more crimes but were now free after serving their sentences. Over the next few days some 2,000 people were arrested without charges and sent to concentration camps. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a fireside chat on his judicial reform bill, asking listeners the rhetorical question, "Can it be said that full justice is achieved when a court is forced by the sheer necessity of its business to decline, without even an explanation, to hear 87% of the cases presented by private litigants?", prompting a response and denial by U.S. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, but also leading to a perceived shift by the Court in favor of Roosevelt's New Deal policies. The Soviet Union began its first experimental television broadcasts, using broadcast and receiving equipment manufactured by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) for the 343-line television system that was the standard in the U.S. at the time. The U.S. would move to the 525 lines system for analog television by 1941. Born: Harry Neale, Canadian ice hockey coach and commentator; in Sarnia, Ontario Bernard Landry, Canadian politician and premier of the province of Quebec from 2001 to 2003; in Saint-Jacques, Quebec (d.2018) Paul Hunt, British author and disability rights activist; in Angmering, Sussex (d.1979) Azio Corghi, Italian composer; in Cirié (d.2022) Died: Paul Elmer More, 72, American journalist, essayist and Christian apologist
March 10, 1937 (Wednesday) Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (German for "With deep anxiety"), with a publication date of March 14, condemning breaches of the Reichskonkordat by the Nazi regime in Germany. Unlike most papal encyclicals, the publication was written in German rather than Latin.Sidney Z. Ehler and John B. Morrall, Church and State Through the Centuries (Biblo & Tannen, 1988) pp. 518–519 German and Italian POWs who fought for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War were interviewed in Valencia by a correspondent of the British newspaper The Times. The captured fighters confirmed they were regular soldiers of their country's army and not civilian volunteers. Italy's Premier Benito Mussolini sailed for Libya to conduct an inspection tour and review the Italian fleet. Jersey Airport opened in the Channel Islands. Born: Joe Viterelli, American character actor known for portraying organized crime henchmen, supporting actor in the films Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That; in New York City (d.2004) Died: Yevgeny Zamyatin, 53, Russian dissident in the Soviet Union and author, known for the 1921 science fiction novel We, died of a heart attack while in exile in Paris.