March 1930

The following events occurred in March 1930:

March 1, 1930 (Saturday)

• German President Paul von Hindenburg recommended that German centrists support the Hermann Müller government as it attempted to impose a "national sacrifice tax" to eliminate the deficit and pay doles to the unemployed.^[1]
• Júlio Prestes was elected President of Brazil in general elections.
• The British government reconsidered the idea of a Channel tunnel to overcome France's demands to maintain a huge navy that had left the London Naval Conference deadlocked.^[2]
• Died: Giuseppe Calì, 83, Maltese painter

March 2, 1930 (Sunday)

• André Tardieu returned as Prime Minister of France.
• A letter by Joseph Stalin appeared in Moscow newspapers warning communist officials to ease their campaign of collectivization. "We cannot collectivize farmers by force", Stalin wrote. "This is foolish and reactionary. Healthy collectivization must be based upon the active support of the bulk of the peasantry."^[3] The letter was published amid reports that thousands of Russian peasants were fleeing across the border to Poland.^[4]
• Horacio Vásquez resigned as President of the Dominican Republic.^[5]
• Died: D H Lawrence, 44, English writer and painter

March 3, 1930 (Monday)

• 200 people in France were feared dead in flooding in the southwest of the country.^[4]
• Rafael Estrella Ureña became acting President of the Dominican Republic.
• Born: Heiner Geißler, politician, in Oberndorf am Neckar, Germany; Ion Iliescu, 2nd President of Romania, in Oltenița, Romania; K. S. Rajah, Senior Counsel and former Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Singapore, in Perai, Straits Settlements (d. 2010)
• Died: Algernon Keith-Falconer, 9th Earl of Kintore, 77, British politician and colonial governor

March 4, 1930 (Tuesday)

• The London Naval Disarmament Conference reopened after two weeks' adjournment due to the French cabinet crisis.^[6]

March 5, 1930 (Wednesday)

• London stockbrocker Buckmaster & Moore caused a stir in the British banking world when it issued a circular to its clients advising them to sell their shares in British industry and invest in the United States and Canada instead. It expressed the opinion that England's business depression was part of a permanent decline, while "the economic, the political and climatic advantages of the United States and Canada in the next few decades will be so overwhelmingly great that these countries offer the most attractive field for investment."^[7]
• Born: Del Crandall, baseball player, in Ontario, California

March 6, 1930 (Thursday)

• Communists staged an international day of protest against hunger and unemployment. Police and demonstrators clashed in Berlin, New York, London, Paris, Washington and other cities.^[8][9]
• Frozen food was sold for the first time in 18 stores in Springfield, Massachusetts.^[10]
• Born: Allison Hayes, actress and model, in Charleston, West Virginia (d. 1977); Lorin Maazel, conductor, violinist and composer, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France (d. 2014)
• Died: Alfred von Tirpitz, 80, German admiral

March 7, 1930 (Friday)

• Hjalmar Schacht quit as President of the Reichsbank, explaining he could not agree to the ratification of the Young Plan in its present version because it had been "adulterated by politicians in the last fourteen months."^[11]
• President Herbert Hoover said that all evidence indicated "that the worst effects of the crash upon unemployment will have been passed during the next sixty days with the amelioration of seasonal unemployment, the gaining strength of other forces, and the continued cooperation of the many agencies actively cooperating with the government to restore business and to relieve distress."^[12]
• Born: Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, photographer and filmmaker, in London, England

March 8, 1930 (Saturday)

• William Howard Taft died in a coma at 5:15 p.m. President Hoover issued a proclamation that night declaring 30 days of official mourning.^[13]
• Mahatma Gandhi's followers adopted a resolution declaring that they would achieve self-governance for India or go to jail.^[14]
• Babe Ruth reached a contract agreement with the New York Yankees that would pay him $80,000 a year for the next two seasons.^[15]
• Spain denied political asylum to Leon Trotsky.^[16]
• Born: Hector Lombana, sculptor, painter and architect, in Riofrio, Colombia (d. 2008)
• Died: William Howard Taft, 72, 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice

March 9, 1930 (Sunday)

• The political satirical opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht premiered at the Neues Theatre in Leipzig, Germany. Nazis surrounded the opera house protesting the performance, and police had to break up a disturbance near the end of the show.^[17]
• Born: Ornette Coleman, jazz musician, in Fort Worth, Texas

March 10, 1930 (Monday)

• 105 people, almost all children, were killed when a fire broke out in a warehouse showing a film at the Chinkai Guard District in Korea. The movie was about the Battle of Mukden, marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Japanese victory in that battle, and most of the 600 gathered to watch the film were Japanese naval officers and their families.^[18]
• Born: Claude Bolling, jazz musician, in Cannes, France

March 11, 1930 (Tuesday)

• Ex-chancellor Hans Luther was elected the new president of the Reichsbank.^[19]
• The Reichstag approved the modified Young Plan.^[19]
• William Howard Taft was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.^[20]
• Died: Edward Franklin Albee II, 72, American vaudeville impresario

March 12, 1930 (Wednesday)

• Mahatma Gandhi began his "march to the sea" in defiance of India's salt tax.^[21]
• The London Naval Conference was jeopardized when French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand walked out.^[22]
• Born: Vern Law, baseball player, in Meridian, Idaho
• Died: William George Barker, 35, Canadian ace fighter pilot (plane crash)

March 13, 1930 (Thursday)

• German President Paul von Hindenburg signed the Young Plan into law.^[23]
• The discovery of Pluto was announced to the world.^[24]
• Born: Liz Anderson, country musician, in Roseau, Minnesota (d. 2011)

March 14, 1930 (Friday)

• A committee, by a majority of four to one, endorsed constructing of a tunnel from England to France.^[25]

March 15, 1930 (Saturday)

• André Tardieu arrived in London attempting to salvage the London Conference.^[26]
• The Polish cabinet tried to quit, but President Ignacy Mościcki refused to accept their resignations with the national budget still incomplete.^[27]
• Born: Zhores Alferov, physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, in Vitebsk, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union

March 16, 1930 (Sunday)

• Former Spanish dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera was found dead by his son in a Paris hotel room. He had been on his way to the German spa town of Wiesbaden to seek treatment for diabetes.^[28]
• 9 American sailors were wounded in Manila in race riots with Filipinos.^[29]
• Died: Miguel Primo de Rivera, 60, Spanish military officer and dictator

March 17, 1930 (Monday)

• Al Capone was released from a Philadelphia prison after serving ten months for illegal possession of a firearm.^[4][30]
• The adventure comic strip Scorchy Smith first appeared.^[31]
• Poland and Germany signed a trade agreement.^[32]
• The U.S. Supreme Court decided Lucas v. Earl.
• Born: James Irwin, astronaut, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (d. 1991)

March 18, 1930 (Tuesday)

• The U.S. senate restored provisions for censorship of imports of foreign literature.^[33]
• British Ministry of Labour figures showed that 1,563,800 were out of work in the country during the week ending March 10, an increase of over 15,500 over the previous week.^[34]
• Born: Adam Maida, cardinal prelate, in East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania

March 19, 1930 (Wednesday)

• Pope Pius XI opened his campaign of prayer against religious persecution in the Soviet Union before a capacity crowd in St. Peter's Basilica. Similar services were held in Catholic churches worldwide.^[35]
• Born: Ornette Coleman, jazz musician, in Fort Worth, Texas
• Died: Arthur Balfour, 81, British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1902–1905

March 20, 1930 (Thursday)

• Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Kareli during the Salt March where he instructed villagers to refuse to fetch water for the tax collector as long as he worked for the British government.^[36]
• Born: Willie Thrower, American football player, in New Kensington, Pennsylvania (d. 2002)

March 21, 1930 (Friday)

• Wireless service between Germany and Brazil was inaugurated.^[37]
• The Chilean Air Force was founded.

March 22, 1930 (Saturday)

• A memorial service was held for Arthur Balfour in Westminster Abbey while he was buried in Whittingehame, Scotland. A rough farm cart decorated with leaves and ivy served as his hearse.^[38]
• The comedy film Free and Easy, starring Buster Keaton in his first talkie, was released.^[39]
• Born: Pat Robertson, televangelist, in Lexington, Virginia; Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist, in New York City

March 23, 1930 (Sunday)

• Fascist Italy abolished customs laws dating back to medieval times which had given municipalities the right to levy a tax on farmers entering city gates with their produce.^[40]

March 24, 1930 (Monday)

• Dino Grandi, head of the Italian delegation at the London Naval Conference, proposed that negotiations be adjourned for six months due to talks being deadlocked.^[41]
• Born: David Dacko, 1st President of the Central African Republic, near Mbaiki (d. 2003); Steve McQueen, actor, in Beech Grove, Indiana (d. 1980)
• Died: Eugeen Van Mieghem, 54, Belgian artist

March 25, 1930 (Tuesday)

• The Hamburg America Line and Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company announced a 50-year merger to end competition due to difficult business conditions.^[42]
• American Federation of Labor President William Green published a report saying that the rise of unemployment had been checked, but in eleven American cities unemployment was "still at a very high figure of 20 percent or more out of work."^[43]
• Born: John Keel, journalist and UFOlogist, in Hornell, New York (d. 2009)

March 26, 1930 (Wednesday)

• The musical drama film Mammy, starring Al Jolson, was released.
• Born: Sandra Day O'Connor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, in El Paso, Texas

March 27, 1930 (Thursday)

• Hermann Müller resigned as Chancellor of Germany over disagreements with his coalition government on the issue of unemployment insurance for the country's 3 million jobless.^[44]

March 28, 1930 (Friday)

• Turkey officially requested that all countries stop referring to its largest city as Constantinople and call it Istanbul instead.^[45]
• Persia adopted the gold standard.^[46]
• The British government decided to abolish capital punishment for four crimes in the British army: misbehaviour before the enemy in such a manner as to show cowardice, leaving a guard, picket, patrol or post without orders, intentionally sounding a false alarm and leaving a post when acting as a sentinel. The death penalty for mutiny, treason and desertion was maintained.^[47]
• In a speech in Toronto, the Governor General of Canada Viscount Willingdon suggested that Canada take over the British West Indies, explaining that the West Indies had a "feeling of enormous gratitude for the steps taken by Canada following the recent trade agreement" and that they wanted to be "linked directly with Canada."^[48]
• Born: Robert Ashley, composer, in Ann Arbor, Michigan (d. 2014); Jerome Isaac Friedman, physicist and Nobel Laureate, in Chicago, Illinois

March 29, 1930 (Saturday)

• The French Chamber of Deputies ratified the Young Plan by an overwhelming vote of 530 to 55.^[49]

March 30, 1930 (Sunday)

• Paul von Hindenburg appointed Heinrich Brüning to be the new German chancellor.^[50]
• Australian Prime Minister James Scullin laid out the seriousness of the country's economic problems, including a 13% unemployment rate, at a conference of state premiers in Canberra. "Australia must realize she must export in the next few years as much produce as she can", Scullin said. "This means Australia must do with fewer luxuries and with less of foreign-made goods."^[51]
• Born: John Astin, actor, in Baltimore, Maryland; Rolf Harris, entertainer, in Bassendean, Western Australia

March 31, 1930 (Monday)

• The Motion Picture Association of America agreed to abide by the new Motion Picture Production Code, more popularly known as the Hays Code, which laid out a set of moral guidelines for the content of films.^[52]
• The Battle of Anchem was fought in Ethiopia between two factions of the country's royal family.

References