January 1931

January 1, 1931 (Thursday)

The Alabama Crimson Tide beat the Washington State Cougars 24-0 in the 17th Rose Bowl Game.

150,000 coal miners went on strike in South Wales.

The kidnapping of Adolphus Busch Orthwein, the 13-year-old grandson of Anheuser-Busch CEO August Anheuser Busch, Sr., ended after 20 hours. The Busch family said no ransom had been demanded or paid.

Benito Mussolini made an English-language radio address to the United States, offering a message of friendship and saying that Italy did not want war. "I should like to contradict many rumors spread abroad on the attitude taken by Fascism and the danger it is supposed to represent for the peace of the world", Mussolini said. "Neither I nor my government nor the Italian people desire to bring about war."

In a lecture in Cleveland, sociology professor William Fielding Ogburn predicted that the society of the future would eradicate poverty, greatly increase education and control its birth rate based on demand.

The Road Traffic Act came into effect in the United Kingdom.

January 2, 1931 (Friday)

President of Panama Florencio Harmodio Arosemena was overthrown and imprisoned by a military junta.

José María Reina Andrade became the acting President of Guatemala.

Born: Frank Marocco, accordionist, in Joliet, Illinois (d. 2012)

January 3, 1931 (Saturday)

Nels Stewart of the Montreal Maroons scored two goals just four seconds apart in a game against the Boston Bruins, the first player to ever accomplish the feat in NHL history.

The Howard Hawks-directed crime film The Criminal Code, starring Walter Huston, was released.

Died: Joseph Joffre, 78, French general

January 4, 1931 (Sunday)

Father Coughlin's weekly radio sermon was banned from broadcast over CBS. The sermon for the week was titled "Prosperity" and discussed unemployment – the network asked Coughlin to moderate his attacks on the Hoover Administration's economic policies.

Died: Art Acord, 40, American actor (suicide by poison); Roger Connor, 73, American baseball player; Louise, Princess Royal, 63, British princess

January 5, 1931 (Monday)

Adolf Hitler appointed Ernst Röhm as Stabschef of the Sturmabteilung (SA).

The United States Supreme Court decided O'Gorman & Young, Inc. v. Hartford Fire Insurance Co..

Born: Alvin Ailey, African-American choreographer and activist, in Rogers, Texas (d. 1989); Alfred Brendel, Austrian pianist, in Wiesenberg, Czecheslovakia; Robert Duvall, actor and director, in San Diego, California

January 6, 1931 (Tuesday)

U.S. President Herbert Hoover addressed the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce in New York from Washington, saying, "The despondency of some people over the future is not borne out by the statistical evidence of prospects in respect to the automobile industry."

The Norwegian government granted Leon Trotsky permission to enter the country to give a series of lectures.

Born: Fern Battaglia, baseball player, in Chicago, Illinois (d. 2001); E. L. Doctorow, author, in the Bronx, New York (d. 2015)

January 7, 1931 (Wednesday)

The funeral of French general Joseph Joffre was held at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The remains were then placed in a vault in Les Invalides where they were to be kept until a mausoleum could be constructed at his estate in Louveciennes.

January 8, 1931 (Thursday)

Ex-Charlie Chaplin wife Lita Grey and former boxer Georges Carpentier were kidnapped by four gunmen as they left a theatre in New York. The two were driven more than a mile and then dumped out; Ms. Grey reported being robbed of $14,000 in jewelry.

Germany's total of unemployed was estimated at 4.5 million.

Born: Bill Graham, German-born American concert promoter, in Berlin (d. 1991)

January 9, 1931 (Friday)

The Spanish Air Corps was temporarily abolished for one month by King Alfonso XIII as punishment for the failed December 15 revolt. When the month was up the department was to be completely reorganized with less autonomy.

Born: Princess Theresa of Bavaria, in Schloss Wallsee, Austria

Died: Jean Schopfer, 62, Swiss-born French tennis player

January 10, 1931 (Saturday)

A three-member arbitration court in Germany cut the wages of 300,000 Ruhr miners by 6 percent.

Born: Peter Barnes, playwright and screenwriter, in Bow, London, England (d. 2004)

Died: James Milton Carroll, American Baptist pastor, 79, historian and author

January 11, 1931 (Sunday)

Four Catholic priests and nine students were arrested in Lithuania on charges of disseminating anti-government propaganda.

After a week of negative publicity and an estimated 200,000 angry letters from listeners, CBS relented and allowed Father Coughlin's "Prosperity" sermon to be broadcast.

Chicago gangster James Belcastro was shot five times by would-be assassins, but survived.

Died: Nathan Straus, 82, American merchant and philanthropist

January 12, 1931 (Monday)

Agricultural experts from 26 countries met in Geneva to discuss the world's grain production problem.

Born: Roland Alphonso, Cuban-born Jamaican saxophonist, in Havana (d. 1998)

January 13, 1931 (Tuesday)

In Szolnok, Hungary, the executions of the convicted Angel Makers of Nagyrév began with the hanging of Marie Kordos.

The Philip Barry play Tomorrow and Tomorrow opened at Henry Miller's Theatre on Broadway.

Born: Charles Nelson Reilly, actor, comedian and director, in South Bronx, New York (d. 2007)

January 14, 1931 (Wednesday)

Chicago mobster Terry Druggan was sentenced to a year in prison for contempt of court, but his attorneys immediately secured a writ of habeas corpus that got him freed on $5,000 bail.

Born: Caterina Valente, French-born Italian musician, dancer and actress, in Paris

Died: Hardy Richardson, 75, American baseball player

January 15, 1931 (Thursday)

An earthquake struck the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, resulting in 114 fatalities.

11 Italian seaplanes led by Italo Balbo touched down at Botafogo Bay in Brazil, ending a 6,000 mile flight from Italy that began on December 17. The pilots were greeted by Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas.

January 16, 1931 (Friday)

Ricardo Joaquín Alfaro Jované became President of Panama.

Born: Ellen Holly, actress, in New York City; Johannes Rau, President of Germany, in Wuppertal (d. 2006)

January 17, 1931 (Saturday)

250,000 weavers in the Lancashire cotton mills were locked out by the mill owners.

A special House investigative committee recommended legislation to check the activities of American communists.

Born: James Earl Jones, actor, in Arkabutla, Mississippi

January 18, 1931 (Sunday)

Germany celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the German Empire. President Paul von Hindenburg gave a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast in front of 12,000 former officers and soldiers.

Born: Chun Doo-hwan, general and politician, in Yulgok-myeon, Korea

January 19, 1931 (Monday)

The first London Round Table Conference on India broke up with the Indian delegates having secured a pledge from Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to allow India to advance towards self-government.

During an address in Philadelphia, Major General Smedley Butler recounted a story which he claimed to have been told by a friend who supposedly witnessed Benito Mussolini run over and kill a child while driving recklessly in Italy. Butler claimed that when his unnamed friend riding in the car screamed, Mussolini continued driving and said, "What is one life in the affairs of a state?" Butler's remarks led to a diplomatic row between Italy and the United States.

Born: Pat Hunt, politician, in Auckland, New Zealand; Robert MacNeil, Canadian-born American novelist, news anchor and journalist, in Montreal

January 20, 1931 (Tuesday)

President Hoover made the findings of the Wickersham Commission public. The report opposed repealing the Eighteenth Amendment but found that enforcement remained inadequate.

The German film 1914 premiered.

Born: David Lee, physicist and Nobel laureate, in Rye, New York

January 21, 1931 (Wednesday)

German Foreign Minister Julius Curtius spoke before the council of the League of Nations, accusing Poland of persecuting German minorities and reaffirming Germany's hopes to someday recover the territory lost to Poland in the Treaty of Versailles.

British MPs defeated the Education Bill, which would have raised the minimum school-leaving age from 14 to 15.

Died: Alma Rubens, 33, actress (lobar pneumonia and bronchitis)

January 22, 1931 (Thursday)

The government of French Prime Minister Théodore Steeg fell after less than six weeks when it was defeated in a vote on a plan to stabilize the price of wheat.

The adventure film Trader Horn premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Born: Sam Cooke, singer-songwriter, in Clarksdale, Mississippi

January 23, 1931 (Friday)

A mob of unemployed Germans tried to attack Chancellor Heinrich Brüning as he arrived in Chemnitz to deliver a speech before industrialists. Mounted police charged and dispersed the rioters.

Died: Anna Pavlova, 49, Russian ballerina (pleurisy); Ernst Seidler von Feuchtenegg, 68, Austrian politician and statesman

January 24, 1931 (Saturday)

The results of a survey conducted by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company were announced, estimating that 4.5 million Americans were out of work.

Born: Lars Hörmander, mathematician, in Mjällby, Sweden (d. 2012)

January 25, 1931 (Sunday)

Chancellor Brüning told the German people to forget about reparations revisions and concentrate on putting public and private finances in order. "It is not only through reparations burdens that we have fallen into finanicial misfortune, but to a very large measure through letting ourselves imagine that despite a lost war, despite huge sacrifices in blood and treasure, both state and individual could live better than in pre-war times", he stated.

January 26, 1931 (Monday)

Mahatma Gandhi was freed from prison.

The Western film Cimarron starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne premiered at the Globe Theatre in New York City.

Born: Alfred Lynch, actor, in Whitechapel, London, England (d. 2003)

January 27, 1931 (Tuesday)

Benito Mussolini sent a telegram to the Italian embassy in Washington, denying Smedley Butler's story that he had run over and killed a child. "I've never run over children or women or men. If such misfortune had happened to me it is superfluous to state that I would have done what one must do in such cases: Namely, I'd have stopped and rendered assistance. It is really unworthy of the American general to tell such ignoble falsehoods", Mussolini stated. The Italian ambassador lodged a protest with the U.S. Department of State against Butler's "untrue and slanderous allegations".

Pierre Laval became Prime Minister of France.

Born: Mordecai Richler, writer, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (d. 2001)

January 28, 1931 (Wednesday)

A coal mine explosion in Linton, Indiana killed 28 of the 38 workers on site.

January 29, 1931 (Thursday)

Winston Churchill quit the Shadow Cabinet of the Conservative Party due to disagreement with Stanley Baldwin over the party's pledge to support the implementation of a new constitution for India.

Smedley Butler was ordered court martialed over the Mussolini affair.

Born: Ferenc Mádl, President of Hungary, in Bánd (d. 2011)

January 30, 1931 (Friday)

Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett visited the White House to hold informal talks with President Hoover.

The Charlie Chaplin comedy film City Lights was released.

The P. G. Wodehouse novel Big Money was first published.

Born: Allan W. Eckert, historian, novelist and naturalist, in Buffalo, New York (d. 2011)

January 31, 1931 (Saturday)

A federal judge revoked the American citizenship of Chicago gangster James Belcastro.

Born: Ernie Banks, baseball player, in Dallas, Texas (d. 2015)