April 1930

April 1, 1930 (Tuesday)

The new German chancellor Heinrich Brüning openly threatened the Reichstag with dissolution if it failed to carry out his policies. "The cabinet has been formed for the purpose of solving problems of vital importance to the country in the shortest possible time", he told the parliament. "This is our last effort to solve these problems with the present Reichstag."

The film The Blue Angel starring Marlene Dietrich premiered at Ufa-Palast in Berlin.

Born: Grace Lee Whitney, actress and entertainer, in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Died: Cosima Wagner, 92, daughter of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, wife of German composer Richard Wagner and co-founder of the Bayreuth Festival

April 2, 1930 (Wednesday)

The Japanese ferry ship Wakato Maru capsized in a gale off Kyushu. The ship was overcrowded beyond its normal capacity and about 100 lives were lost.

Ras Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael became the new Emperor of Ethiopia upon the death of Empress Zewditu.

Born: Roddy Maude-Roxby, actor, in London, England

Died: Zewditu, 53, Empress of Ethiopia

April 3, 1930 (Thursday)

The 2nd Academy Awards were held in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Unlike in the inaugural year, the winners were not announced in advance. The ceremony was also broadcast live on the radio for the first time, via the Los Angeles station KNX. The Broadway Melody won the award for Outstanding Picture.

The Montreal Canadiens hockey team won their third Stanley Cup, defeating the Boston Bruins 4–3 to win the Finals two games to none.

Born: Lawton Chiles, politician, in Lakeland, Florida (d. 1998); Helmut Kohl, politician and statesman, in Ludwigshafen, Germany; Wally Moon, baseball player, in Bay, Arkansas

April 4, 1930 (Friday)

Former U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg told a luncheon audience in Chicago that American isolationism was no longer viable. "A great nation like ours, with ten billions a year of foreign commerce, has as much to gain by the establishment of the World Court as any country in the world", he said.

The American Interplanetary Society was founded to conduct rocket experiments. In 1934 the organization changed its name to the American Rocket Society.

Died: Victoria of Baden, 67, Queen of Sweden

April 5, 1930 (Saturday)

A new law made Dutch the only official language of the University of Ghent, against the wishes of Belgium's Flemish minority.

Died: F. Digby Hardy, 62, English writer, soldier and criminal

April 6, 1930 (Sunday)

Mahatma Gandhi ended the Salt March at Dandi, Navsari. Here Gandhi broke the law by picking up a few grains of salt from the beach.

René Dreyfus won the 2nd Monaco Grand Prix.

The Order of the Red Star military decoration was established in the Soviet Union.

The Twinkie snack cake was invented.

Born: Juan Kachmanian, professional wrestler, in San Jose, California

April 7, 1930 (Monday)

The government of the Soviet Union decided to establish a ministry of physical culture.

Born: Andrew Sachs, German-born British actor, in Berlin

Died: William P. G. Harding, 65, American banker

April 8, 1930 (Tuesday)

The war film Journey's End premiered at the Gaiety Theatre in New York City.

Born: Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma, in Paris, France (d. 2010)

April 9, 1930 (Wednesday)

The Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company sold Brunswick Records to Warner Bros.

Born: Wallace McCain, co-founder of the McCain Foods company, in Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada (d. 2011)

April 10, 1930 (Thursday)

Police raided the Indian National Congress headquarters in Bombay and made two arrests.

Born: Frank Lary, baseball player, in Northport, Alabama; Spede Pasanen, filmmaker, inventor and television personality, in Kuopio, Finland (d. 2001)

Died: Alfred Williams, 52, English poet

April 11, 1930 (Friday)

The Tokyo Stock Exchange was suspended early for the day due to a selling panic.

Rioting was reported from Taranto, Italy due to economic conditions.

American scientists predicted that man would land on the moon by 2050.

Born: Anton LaVey, occultist, in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1997)

April 12, 1930 (Saturday)

Germany and Austria signed a trade agreement.

University of Cambridge won the 82nd Boat Race. Cambridge now had an all-time record of 41–40 against Oxford, leading for the first time since 1863.

Born: Johnny Antonelli, baseball player, in Rochester, New York; Michał Życzkowski, technician and engineering professor, in Kraków, Poland (d. 2006)

April 13, 1930 (Sunday)

500,000 Indians held an orderly demonstration in Bombay, illegally making salt and throwing a monstrous effigy representing the salt tax into the sea.

April 14, 1930 (Monday)

Indian independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested and charged with violating the salt law.

On budget day in the United Kingdom, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden presented tax increases on income, death duties and beer.

The Reichstag approved Chancellor Brüning's series of economic bills which included farm relief and an increase in the tax on beer.

Died: Vladimir Mayakovsky, 36, Russian poet, playwright and actor (suicide); John B. Sheridan, 60, Irish-born American sportswriter

April 15, 1930 (Tuesday)

Riots broke out in Calcutta over the imprisonment of Nehru and the city's mayor.

Born: Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, 4th President of Iceland, in Reykjavík

April 16, 1930 (Wednesday)

Britain and the Soviet Union signed a new trade pact granting each other most favoured nation status.

First Lady Lou Henry Hoover suffered a back injury in a fall at the White House. The injury was serious enough to require her to use a wheelchair during her recovery.

Thuringian interior minister Wilhelm Frick of the Nazi Party introduced nationalistic new prayers to be recited in elementary schools. Liberals objected to the propagandistic content of the prayers and challenged their constitutionality in court. One line read, "I believe that thou wilt punish the betrayal of Germany and bless the actions of those who seek to free the Fatherland."

Born: Carol Bly, author, in Duluth, Minnesota (d. 2007); Herbie Mann, jazz flautist, in Pecos, New Mexico (d. 2003)

April 17, 1930 (Thursday)

27 Indian independence demonstrators were sentenced for breaking the salt laws, including Mahatma Gandhi's son Devdas, who received three months imprisonment. Mahatma Gandhi urged his followers to continue nonviolent forms of protest, saying that riots like the one in Calcutta "will harm our struggle."

The Paraguayan football club Club Sportivo San Lorenzo was founded.

April 18, 1930 (Friday)

The Chittagong armoury raid occurred when Indian revolutionaries led by Surya Sen raided an armoury in the Bengal province of British India, seizing it and setting it on fire. Martial law was proclaimed and troops were called out to quell the uprising.

The 1930 Costești wooden church fire took place in the small Romanian town of Costești during Good Friday services when candles set some drapery on fire.

A typhoon swept through Leyte in the Philippines, causing extensive damage.

Died: Jack Stivetts, 62, American baseball player

The BBC Radio news bulletin stated: "Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news." Piano music followed.

April 19, 1930 (Saturday)

3 were killed and 36 injured in fighting between police and protestors in Warsaw, Poland when 2,000 unemployed textile workers surrounded city hall and threw stones at the building while demanding assistance.

Clarence DeMar won his seventh Boston Marathon.

The drama film The Divorcee starring Norma Shearer was released.

The very first Warner Bros. cartoon short, Sinkin' in the Bathtub was released. It was the very first in the Looney Tunes series and introduced the character of Bosko.

Born: Dick Sargent, actor, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California (d. 1994)

April 20, 1930 (Sunday)

Charles Lindbergh, accompanied by his wife Anne, flew a Lockheed Model 8 Sirius from Los Angeles to New York in 14 hours, 45 minutes and 32 seconds, a new transcontinental record.

April 21, 1930 (Monday)

The war film All Quiet on the Western Front premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.

A fire at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus killed 320 inmates. It remains the worst prison fire in U.S. history.

The Presbyterian General Assembly publicized the findings of a commission appointed to investigate marriage and divorce in America. One section of the study blamed rising divorce rates on cultural tendencies such as jazz due to its "primeval jungle tom tom" which "inspires contortions of dance unfitting to incipient rheumatics", as well as stage plays and films in which adultery was "the fashionable theme".

Born: Silvana Mangano, actress, in Rome, Italy (d. 1989)

Died: Robert Bridges, 85, English poet

April 22, 1930 (Tuesday)

The London Naval Treaty was signed by representatives of the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy and the United States, limiting the tonnage of warships until 1936. France and Italy were exempted from the section that set limitations on total tonnage, but it was hoped that they would sign on to the full treaty at a later date.

57 revolutionaries who participated in the Chittagong raid were surrounded on the Jalalabad range by government forces. 64 British troops and 11 revolutionaries were killed in the ensuing battle.

Died: Jeppe Aakjær, 63, Danish poet and novelist

April 23, 1930 (Wednesday)

The Chicago Crime Commission labeled 28 men as "public enemies", popularizing the use of that term in the general lexicon. Al Capone was named "Public Enemy Number 1". Other names on the list included Terry Druggan, Jack McGurn, Bugs Moran, Joseph Saltis and Jack Zuta.

Born: Alan Oppenheimer, actor, in New York City

April 24, 1930 (Thursday)

Edda Mussolini and Count Galeazzo Ciano were married at the Church of San Giuseppe in Rome.

Born: Richard Donner, director and producer, in the Bronx, New York; José Sarney, 31st President of Brazil, in Pinheiro, Maranhão

Died: Adele Ritchie, 55, American comic opera singer (murder-suicide)

April 25, 1930 (Friday)

Ralph Capone was found guilty on four counts of tax fraud.

Born: Paul Mazursky, film director, screenwriter and actor, in Brooklyn, New York (d. 2014)

April 26, 1930 (Saturday)

Vithalbhai Patel resigned as President of the Central Legislative Assembly of India in sympathy with the independence movement.

Arsenal defeated Huddersfield Town 2–0 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.

April 27, 1930 (Sunday)

For the first time in history, an international radiotelephone call was made from a speeding train. Canadian National Railway President Sir Henry Worth Thornton phoned the U.S. commerce secretary Robert P. Lamont in Washington, then his Canadian counterpart James Malcolm, and finally made a call to the vice president of the company in London during the inauguration of a new train service from Montreal to Chicago.

April 28, 1930 (Monday)

The Turkestan–Siberia Railway opened, connecting the cities of Arys and Novosibirsk. Construction continued until January 1931 and the four-year project cost over 161 million rubles in total.

The Independence, Kansas baseball team of the Class C Western Association hosted the first regular season night game in organized baseball history. The visiting Muskogee Chiefs beat the Independence Producers under the lights by a score of 13–3 before a crowd of 1,000.

Born: James Baker, attorney and government official, in Houston, Texas; Carolyn Jones, actress, in Amarillo, Texas (d. 1983); Richard C. Sarafian, director and actor, in New York City (d. 2013)

Died: Charles Grandmougin, 80, French poet and playwright

April 29, 1930 (Tuesday)

Film producer and executive David O. Selznick married socialite Irene Mayer (daughter of film producer Louis B. Mayer) in a simple ceremony at Mayer's house.

Born: Jean Rochefort, actor, in Paris, France

April 30, 1930 (Wednesday)

Italy decreed that its naval construction program for the next year would consist of 29 new ships totalling 42,900 tons, an increase of 12,000 tons over the previous year.

The Dutch football club Ter Leede was founded.