Events

January–February

• January 6

• *The first diesel engine automobile trip is completed (Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City).

• *The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S. and Canadian merchandising rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works.

• January 13 – The Mickey Mouse comic strip makes its first appearance.

• January 26 – The Indian National Congress declares 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence).

• January 30 – The first radiosonde is launched in Pavlovsk, USSR.

• January 31 – The 3M company markets Scotch Tape.

• February 18

• *While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh confirms the existence of Pluto, a heavenly body considered a planet until 2006, when the term "planet" was officially defined. Pluto is now considered a Dwarf Planet.

• *Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in an airplane, and also the first cow to be milked in an airplane.

March–April

• March 2 – Mahatma Gandhi informs the British viceroy of India that civil disobedience will begin 9 days later..

• March 3 – John Dillinger escapes prison using a wooden gun.

• March 5 – Danish painter Einar Wegener goes through a sexual reassignment surgery and takes the name Lili Elbe.

• March 6 – The first frozen foods of Clarence Birdseye go on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts.

• March 12 – Mahatma Gandhi sets off on a 200-mile protest march towards the sea with 78 followers to protest the British monopoly on salt; more will join them during the Salt March that ends on April 5.

• March 28 – Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara.

• March 29 – Heinrich Brüning is appointed German Reichskanzler.

• March 31 – The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in motion pictures for the next 40 years.

• April 4 – The Communist Party of Panama is founded.

• April 5 – In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi breaks British law after marching to the sea and making salt.

• April 6 – Hostess Twinkies are invented.

• April 17 – Neoprene is invented.

• April 18

• *The Chittagong Rebellion begins in India.

• *The BBC Radio Service from London, somewhat infamously, reports on this day that "There is no news".

• April 21

• *A fire in the Ohio Penitentiary near Columbus kills 320 people.

• *The Turkestan-Siberia Railway is completed.

• April 22 – The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.

• April 28 – The first night game in organized baseball history takes place in Independence, Kansas.

May–June

• May 4/May 5 – Mahatma Gandhi is arrested again.

• May 6 – The Great Salmas Earthquake in Iran (7.3 on the Richter Scale) kills 4,000 people.

• May 10 – The National Pan-Hellenic Council is founded in Washington, D.C..

• May 15 – Aboard a Boeing tri-motor, Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess (the flight was from Oakland, California to Chicago, Illinois).

• May 16 – Rafael Leónidas Trujillo is elected president of the Dominican Republic.

• May 17 – French Prime Minister André Tardieu decides to withdraw the remaining French troops from the Rhineland (they depart by June 30).

• May 20 – Sergei Eisenstein arrives in New York City.

• May 24 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Australia, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).

• May 30

• *Sergei Eisenstein arrives in Hollywood to work for Paramount Pictures; they part ways by October.

• *William "Red" Hill Sr. makes his famous five-hour journey down the Niagara lower rapids.

• June 9 – Chicago Tribune journalist Jake Lingle is shot in Chicago, Illinois. Newspapers promise $55,000 reward for information. Lingle is later found to have had contacts with organized crime.

• June 17 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.

• June 21 – One-year conscription comes into force in France.

July–August

• July 5 – The Seventh Lambeth Conference of Anglican Christian bishops opens. This conference approved the use of artificial birth control in limited circumstances, marking a controversial turning point in Christian views on contraception.

• July 7

• *The Lapua Movement marches in Helsinki, Finland.

• *Building of the Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam) is started.

• July 13 – The first Football World Cup starts: Lucien Laurent scores the first goal, for France against Mexico.

• July 25 – Laurence Olivier marries Jill Esmond.

• July 26 – Charles Creighton and James Hargis of Missouri begin their return journey to Los Angeles, driving 11,555 km using only a reverse gear; the trip lasts the next 42 days.

• July 28 – Richard Bennett defeats William Lyon Mackenzie King in federal elections and becomes the Prime Minister of Canada.

• July 30

• *Uruguay beats Argentina 4–2 in the first association football World Cup Final.

• *New York station W2XBS is put in charge of NBC broadcast engineers.

• July 31 – The radio drama The Shadow airs for the first time.

• August 6 – Judge Joseph Force Crater steps into a taxi in New York and disappears.

• August 7 – Richard Bennett becomes Canada's eleventh prime minister.

• August 9 – Betty Boop premiers in the animated film Dizzy Dishes.

• August 12 – Turkish troops move into Persia to fight Kurdish insurgents.

• August 21 – Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret,was born. The younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen, and sister to The Princess Elizabeth NB.King George VI and his Queen Elizabeth were not crowned until May 1937.

• August 27 – A military junta takes over in Peru.

September–October

• September 6 – José Félix Uriburu carries out a successful military coup, overthrowing Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina.

• September 8 – 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape.

• September 12 – Cricket player Wilfred Rhodes ends his 1,110-game first-class career by taking 5 for 95 for H.D.G. Leveson Gower's XI against the Australians.

• September 14 – National Socialists win 107 seats in the German Parliament (18.3% of all the votes), making them the second largest party.

• September 20 – The Eastern Catholic Rite Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is formed.

• October 5 – British Airship R101 crashes in France en-route to India on its maiden voyage.

• October 24 – Revolution of 1930: Getúlio Dornelles Vargas takes power in Brazil.

November–December

• November 2 – Haile Selassie is crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

• November 3 – Getúlio Vargas becomes president of Brazil.

• November 25 – An earthquake in the Izu Peninsula of Japan kills 223 people and destroys 650 buildings.

• December – Turkish women are given the right to vote.

• December 2 – Great Depression: U.S. President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.

• December 7 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts broadcasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The broadcast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.

• December 19 – Merapi volcano in Indonesia erupts, killing 1,300.

• December 24 – In London, Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his device to project pictures to the clouds.

• December 28 – Mohandas Gandhi leaves for Britain for negotiations.

• December 29 – Sir Muhammad Iqbal's presidential address in Allahabad introduces the Two-Nation Theory, outlining a vision for the creation of Pakistan.

Undated

• The British White Paper demands restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine.

• The Federal Bureau of Narcotics replaces the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit.

• A Jake paralysis outbreak occurs in United States.

• Bernhard Schmidt invents the Schmidt camera.

• A massive hurricane in the Caribbean almost demolishes the city of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

• W9XAP in Chicago, Illinois, broadcasts the U.S. senatorial election returns, which is the first time a senatorial race, with non-stop vote tallies, is ever televised.

• 1930–1931 – Crazy Horse's lifelong friend, He Dog, is interviewed by journalist Eleanor Hinman and Nebraska writer Mari Sandoz.

• Sudbury, Ontario, Canada is incorporated as a city.

• 1935 – The Giant Aye-aye an extinct species is classified.

• Europeans are 38% of world population.

Births

January

• January 1 – Gaafar Nimeiry, President of Sudan

• January 2

• *Julius LaRosa, American singer

• *Robert Loggia, American actor

• January 4 – Sorrell Booke, American actor (d. 1994)

• January 6

• *Charles Kalani, Jr., Asian-American actor (d. 2000)

• *Vic Tayback, American actor (d. 1990)

• January 10 – Roy E. Disney, American film and television executive

• January 12 – Jennifer Johnston, Irish writer

• January 19 – Tippi Hedren, American actress

• January 20 – Buzz Aldrin, American pilot and astronaut, second person to set foot on the Moon

• January 23 – Derek Walcott, West Indian writer, Nobel Prize laureate

• January 24 – Rita Lakin, American author

• January 26 – John Straffen, British serial killer

• January 27 – Bobby Bland, American singer

• January 30 – Gene Hackman, American actor

February

• February 10 – Robert Wagner, American actor

• February 22

• *Marni Nixon, American singer and actress

• *James McGarrell, American painter

• February 27

• *Joanne Woodward, American actress

• *Peter Stone, American writer (d. 2003)

• February 28 – Leon Neil Cooper, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

March

• March 2 – Tom Wolfe, American author and novelist

• March 3 – Heiner Geissler, German politician

• March 6

• *Allison Hayes, American actress (d. 1977)

• *Lorin Maazel, French-born conductor

• March 7 – Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon

• March 10 – Claude Bolling, French jazz pianist and composer

• March 13 – Liz Anderson, American country music singer-songwriter

• March 15 – Zhores Ivanovich Alferov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

• March 17 – James Irwin, American astronaut (d. 1991)

• March 19 – Ornette Coleman, American musician

• March 20 – Willie Thrower, American football player

• March 22

• *Pat Robertson, American televangelist

• *Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist

• March 24

• *David Dacko, first President of the Central African Republic (d. 2003)

• *Steve McQueen, American actor (d. 1980)

• March 25 – John Keel, American author

• March 26 – Sandra Day O'Connor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1981–2006)

• March 27 – David Janssen, American actor (d. 1980)

• March 28 – Jerome Isaac Friedman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

• March 30

• *John Astin, American actor

• *Rolf Harris, Australian-born entertainer

April

• April 1 – Grace Lee Whitney, American actress

• April 3

• *Lawton Chiles, U.S. Senator and the Governor of Florida (d. 1998)

• *Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany

• April 8 – Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, Duke of Parma

• April 10 – Spede Pasanen, Finnish television personality (d. 2001)

• April 11 – Anton LaVey, American Satanist (d. 1997)

• April 12 – Michał Życzkowski, Polish Professor of Engineering (d. 2006)

• April 15 – Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, President of Iceland

• April 16 – Herbie Mann, American jazz flutist (d. 2003)

• April 16 – Carol Bly, Teacher, award-winning American author of short stories, essays, and nonfiction (d. 2007)

• April 19 – Dick Sargent, American actor and gay activist (d. 1994)

• April 21 – Silvana Mangano, Italian actress (d. 1989)

• April 24 – Richard Donner, American film director and producer

• April 25 – Paul Mazursky, American director and writer

• April 28 – Carolyn Jones, American actress (d. 1983)

• April 29 – Jean Rochefort, French actor

May

• May 3 – Bob Havens, American musician

• May 4 – Roberta Peters, American soprano

• May 8 – Heather Harper, Irish soprano

• May 9 – Joan Sims, English actress (d. 2001)

• May 10 – Pat Summerall, American football player and broadcaster

• May 11 – Bud Ekins, American stuntman (d. 2007)

• May 15 – Jasper Johns, American painter

• May 19 – Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright (d. 1965)

• May 21 – Malcolm Fraser, 22nd Prime Minister of Australia

• May 22

• *John Barth, American writer

• *Harvey Milk, American politician and civil rights activist (d. 1978)

• May 31 – Clint Eastwood, American actor, director, and producer

June

• June 2 – Charles Conrad, American astronaut (d. 1999)

• June 8 – Robert Aumann, German-born mathematician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics

• June 9 – Monique Serf, French musician (d. 1997)

• June 11 – Charles B. Rangel, African-American politician

• June 12 – Jim Nabors, American actor, musician, and comedian

• June 17 – Brian Statham, English cricketer (d. 2000)

• June 19 – Gena Rowlands, American actress

• June 22 – Yuri Artyukhin, Russian cosmonaut (d. 1998)

• June 24 – William B. Ziff, Jr., American publishing executive (d. 2006)

• June 27 – Ross Perot, American billionaire and politician

• June 28 – Itamar Franco, President of Brazil

July

• July 2 – Carlos Menem, President of Argentina

• July 3 – Carlos Kleiber, Austrian conductor# (d. 2004)

• July 4

• *Frunzik Mkrtchyan, Armenian actor

• *George Steinbrenner, American big businessman and then baseball team owner

• July 9 – Buddy Bregman, American musical arranger

• July 11 – Harold Bloom, American literary critic

• July 15 – Jacques Derrida, Algerian-born French literary critic (d. 2004)

• July 22 – Jeremy Lloyd, British actor and screenwriter

• July 25

• *Maureen Forrester, Canadian contralto

• *Murray Chapple, New Zealand cricketer (d. 1985)

• July 28 – Jean Roba, Belgian comics author (d. 2006)

August

• August 1 – Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist

• August 5 – Neil Armstrong, American astronaut, first person to set foot on the Moon

• August 6 – Abbey Lincoln, American singer

• August 12 – George Soros, Hungarian-born investor

• August 13 – Don Ho, Hawaiian singer (d. 2007)

• August 17 – Ted Hughes, English poet (d. 1998)

• August 19 – Frank McCourt, Irish-American writer (d. 2009)

• August 21 – Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (d. 2002)

• August 23 – Mickey McMahan, American big band musician (d. 2008)

• August 25 – Sean Connery, Scottish actor

• August 27 – Gholamreza Takhti, Iranian wrestler (d. 1968)

• August 30 – Warren Buffett, American investor

September

• September 3 – Cherry Wilder, New Zealand author (d. 2002)

• September 9 – Frank Lucas, African-American drug lord

• September 7

• *King Baudouin I of Belgium (d. 1993)

• *Sonny Rollins, American jazz saxophonist

• September 11

• *Cathryn Damon, American actress (d. 1987)

• *Renzo Montagnani, Italian actor (d. 1997)

• September 13 – Bola Ige, Nigerian politician (d. 2001)

• September 16 – Anne Francis, American actress

• September 23

• *Ray Charles, American singer and musician (d. 2004)

• *Colin Blakely, English actor (d. 1987)

• September 24 – Angelo Muscat, Maltese actor (d. 1977)

• September 25 – Shel Silverstein, American author, poet, and humorist (d. 1999)

• September 26

• *Philip Bosco, American actor

• *Fritz Wunderlich, German tenor (d. 1966)

October

• October 1

• *Richard Harris, Irish actor (d. 2002)

• *Philippe Noiret, French actor (d. 2006)

• October 5

• *Anne Haddy, Australian actress (d. 1999)

• *Pavel Popovich, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 2009)

• *Reinhard Selten, German economist, Nobel Prize laureate

• October 6 – Hafez al-Assad, President of Syria (d. 2000)

• October 8 – Tōru Takemitsu, Japanese composer (d. 1996)

• October 10

• *Yves Chauvin, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

• *Harold Pinter, English playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)

• October 11 – Sam Johnson, American politician

• October 14 – Schafik Handal, Salvadoran politician (d. 2006)

• October 17

• *Robert Atkins, American nutritionist (d. 2003)

• *Jimmy Breslin, American newspaper columnist and author

• October 28 – Bernie Ecclestone, English auto racing tycoon

• October 29

• *Puck Brouwer, Dutch athlete (d. 2006)

• *Natalie Sleeth, American composer (d. 1992)

• October 30

• *Clifford Brown, American jazz trumpeter (d. 1956)

• *Timothy Findley, Canadian author (d. 2002)

• October 31 – Michael Collins, astronaut, second person to fly around the Moon solo, Command Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first human lunar landing

November

• November 3 – D. James Kennedy, American evangelist (d. 2007)

• November 4 – Doris Roberts, American actress

• November 14

• *Shirley Crabtree ("Big Daddy"), British professional wrestler (d. 1997)

• *Edward White, American astronaut (d. 1967)

• November 15 – J.G. Ballard, English writer (d. 2009)

• November 16 – Chinua Achebe, Nigerian writer

• November 24 – Bob Friend, American baseball player

• November 25 – Clarke Scholes, American freestyle swimmer

• November 27 – Rex Shelley, Singaporean author (d. 2009)

December

• December 1 – Joachim Hoffmann, German historian (d. 2002)

• December 2 – Gary Becker, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate

• December 4 – Jim Hall, American jazz guitarist

• December 6 – Daniel Lisulo, Prime Minister of Zambia (d. 2000)

• December 8 – Stan Richards, English actor (d. 2005)

• *Kishor Raval, Editor of Kesuda, writer of Gujarati literature

• December 11

• *Jean-Louis Trintignant, French actor

• *Jim Williams, American antique dealer and preservationist

• December 15 – Edna O'Brien, Irish writer

• December 21

• *Adebayo Adedeji, Nigerian UN official

• *Kalevi Sorsa, prime minister of Finland (d. 2004)

• December 27 – Wilfrid Sheed, English-born American writer

• December 31

• *Odetta, American singer (d. 2008)

• *Jaime Escalante, American teacher

Unknown

• Barney Glaser, American sociologist

Deaths

January–June

• January 9 – Edward Bok, American author (b. 1863

• February 14 – Sir Thomas MacKenzie, New Zealand Prime Minister and High Commissioner (b. 1854)

• February 15 – Giulio Douhet, Italian air power theorist (b. 1869)

• February 21 – Ahmad Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia (b. 1898)

• February 23 – Mabel Normand, American actress (b. 1895)

• February 23 – Horst Wessel, Nazi ideologue and composer (b. 1907)

• February 28 – Sir Perceval Maitland Laurence, English classical scholar, South African judge and a benefactor of the University of Cambridge (b. 1854)

• March 2 – D. H. Lawrence, English writer (Lady Chatterley's Lover) (b. 1885)

• March 6 – Alfred von Tirpitz, German politician and admiral (b. 1848)

• March 8 – William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States, 10th Chief Justice of the United States (b. 1857)

• March 12 – William George Barker, Canadian pilot

• March 19 – Arthur James Balfour, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1848)

• March 24 – Eugeen Van Mieghem, Belgian painter (b. 1875)

• April 2 – Empress Zawditu of Ethiopia (b. 1876)

• April 21 – Robert Bridges, English poet (b. 1844)

• April 14 – Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian poet (b. 1893)

• April 22 – Jeppe Aakjær, Danish poet and novelist (b. 1866)

• May 13 – Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1861)

• May 17 – Herbert Croly, American political author (b. 1869)

• May 25 – Randall Thomas Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1848)

• June 5 – Pascin, Bulgarian painter (b. 1885)

• June 13 – Henry Segrave, British racer and speed record holder (b. 1896)

July–December

• July 7 – Arthur Conan Doyle, British author (Sherlock Holmes) (b. 1859)

• July 8 – Sir Joseph Ward, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1856)

• June 15 – Leopold Auer, Hungarian violinist (b. 1845)

• July 23 – Glenn Curtiss, American aviation pioneer (b. 1878)

• July 28 – Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1862)

• July 30 – Joan Gamper, Swiss-born businessman and founder of FC Barcelona (b. 1877)

• August 15 – Florian Cajori, Swiss-born historian of mathematics (b. 1859)

• August 26 – Lon Chaney, Sr., American actor (b. 1883)

• August 29 – William Archibald Spooner, British scholar and Anglican priest (b. 1844)

• September 1 – Peeter Põld, Estonian pedagogical scientist and politician (b. 1878)

• September 15 – Milton Sills, American actor (b. 1882)

• September 21 – John T. Dorrance, American chemist (b. 1873)

• September 24 – William A. MacCorkle, Governor of West Virginia (b. 1857)

• October 2 – Gordon Stewart Northcott, serial killer, was hung.

• October 15 – Herbert Dow, Canadian-born chemical industrialist

• October 26 – Harry Payne Whitney, American businessman and horse breeder (b. 1872)

• November 5 – Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician and pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1858)

• November 30 – Mary Harris Jones, American labor leader (b. 1837)

• December 9

• *Andrew "Rube" Foster, American Negro League baseball player

• *Laura Muntz Lyall, Canadian painter (b. 1860)

• December 12 – Nikolai Pokrovsky, Russian politician and the last foreign minister of the Russian Empire (b. 1865)

• December 13 – Fritz Pregl, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1869)

• December 14 – F. Richard Jones, American director (b. 1893)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

• Chemistry – Hans Fischer

• Physiology or Medicine – Karl Landsteiner

• Literature – Sinclair Lewis