# July 1937
## 1937

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The following events occurred in July 1937:

## July 1, 1937 (Thursday)

* In the Spanish Civil War, the rebel Nationalists of Francisco Franco won the Biscay Campaign against the Republicans of the Spanish Second Republic.
* Roman Catholic bishops in Spain issued a joint letter pledging their support for the Nationalists.
* The Irish general election was held. Fianna Fáil again fell just short of a majority, winning exactly half of the 138 seats in the Dáil Éireann.
* A constitutional referendum was held in Ireland in tandem with the general election; 56% of voters approved the new constitution.
* German authorities arrested Martin Niemöller.
* The MacGregor Arctic Expedition began.

## July 2, 1937 (Friday)

* Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to fly around the world.
* The Holditch Colliery disaster killed 30 men in Chesterton, Staffordshire, England.
* Don Budge of the United States defeated Gottfried von Cramm of Germany in the gentlemen's singles final at Wimbledon.
* The first 24-hour guard for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery was posted at midnight; the changing of the guard has continuously been upheld uninterrupted since.
* Born: Richard Petty, American race car driver; in Level Cross, North Carolina

## July 3, 1937 (Saturday)

* Dorothy Round Little of the United Kingdom defeated Jadwiga Jędrzejowska of Poland in the ladies' singles final at Wimbledon.
* The Marine Parkway Bridge (now the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge) opened in Brooklyn, New York.
* Died:
** May Sybil Leslie, 49, English chemist known for her work with Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford in measuring the decay of the radioactive elements thorium and actinium
** Jacob Schick, 59, U.S. inventor of the electric razor, died of complications following kidney surgery.

## July 4, 1937 (Sunday)

* Sir Oswald Mosley led 7,000 Blackshirts, members of his British Union of Fascists in a march from Kentish Town into London's to Trafalgar Square. A group of anti-fascists tried to push past the 2,383 police on hand, but order was generally maintained amid 27 arrests.
* Born: Queen Sonja of Norway; in Oslo

## July 5, 1937 (Monday)

* Hormel Foods Corporation began selling the canned meat product Spam.
* The Battle of Albarracín began in Spain.
* Born: Wolf von Lojewski, journalist, in Berlin, Germany; Jo de Roo, cyclist, in Schore, Netherlands

## July 6, 1937 (Tuesday)

* The Battle of Brunete began in Spain.
* Born:
** Michael Sata, President of Zambia from 2011 to 2014; in Mpika, Northern Rhodesia (d. 2014)
** Vladimir Ashkenazy, Soviet Russian pianist and conductor; in Gorky, Soviet Union
** Ned Beatty, American actor; in Louisville, Kentucky (d. 2021)
* Died: Carlos Eugenio Restrepo, 69, President of Colombia from 1910 to 1914

## July 7, 1937 (Wednesday)

* The Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred in China, marking the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
* The Peel Commission published a report on the situation in Mandatory Palestine, recommending an end to the British mandate and that the territory be partitioned into an Arab state and a Jewish state.
* The American League defeated the National League 8–3 in the 5th Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C..
* Born:
** Nanami Shiono, Japanese historian and novelist; in Tokyo
** Tung Chee-hwa, Chinese politician and the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong after its transfer from British to Chinese control, from 1997 to 2005; in Shanghai

## July 8, 1937 (Thursday)

* Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan signed the Treaty of Saadabad.
* The Teatro Gran Rex opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

## July 9, 1937 (Friday)

* The Fox vault fire occurred in a film storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, destroying most of the silent films produced by Fox Film Corporation before 1932.
* The Republicans took Quijorna.
* Hotel and café workers in Paris went on strike for a 5-day work week.
* Golfer Henry Cotton won the British Open.
* Born: David Hockney, English artist; in Bradford, West Yorkshire
* Died: Oliver Law, 36, African-American communist and labor organizer, was killed in the Spanish Civil War.

## July 10, 1937 (Saturday)

* Chiang Kai-shek made a radio address to millions announcing the Kuomintang's policy of resistance against Japan.
* As part of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, 24 people were executed in Siberia after having been convicted on charges of sabotaging Soviet railways.

## July 11, 1937 (Sunday)

* Rudolf Hasse of Germany won the Belgian Grand Prix.
* Died: George Gershwin, 38, American composer and pianist, died from a brain tumor.

## July 12, 1937 (Monday)

* The Spanish pavilion opened at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris, featuring Pablo Picasso's mural-sized painting Guernica hanging in the entrance hall.
* American mercenary pilot Harold Edward Dahl was shot down near Madrid and captured by Nationalist forces.
* The comic strip Abbie an' Slats first appeared.
* Born:
** Bill Cosby, African-American television actor and comedian, later convicted of rape; in Philadelphia
** Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002; in Meudon, Seine-et-Oise département (now part of Hauts-de-Seine)

## July 13, 1937 (Tuesday)

* Germán Busch became President of Bolivia for the second time.
* Died: Victor Laloux, 86, French architect

## July 14, 1937 (Wednesday)

* Mikhail Gromov and two other Soviet airmen completed a 6,306 mile flight from Moscow to San Jacinto, California in a Tupolev ANT-25, a new distance record.
* Born: Yoshirō Mori, Prime Minister of Japan from 2000 to 2001; in Nomi, Ishikawa Prefecture,
* Died:
** Joseph T. Robinson, 64, U.S. Senator for Arkansas since 1913 and U.S. Senate Majority Leader since 1933, died two days after experiencing chest pains during a Senate session
** Julius Meier, 62, American banker, department store magnate and politician who served as governor of Oregon from 1931 to 1935

## July 15, 1937 (Thursday)

* The Buchenwald concentration camp opened.
* The German-Polish accord on Upper Silesia signed May 15, 1922 expired. Germany was no longer obligated to provide equality to all citizens in this region and so the Nuremberg Laws immediately went into effect there.

## July 16, 1937 (Friday)

* Adolf Hitler opened a major art festival in Munich. He made a preview visit to the Degenerate Art Exhibition where a well-known photograph was taken of him passing the Dada wall along with several other Nazi officials.

## July 17, 1937 (Saturday)

* A train derailment killed 107 people near the town of Bihta in Bihar Province in British India.

## July 18, 1937 (Sunday)

* On the first anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, both Francisco Franco and Manuel Azaña addressed the nation on radio.
* The Haus der Kunst opened in Munich, Germany.
* Born:
** Roald Hoffmann, Polish-born American theoretical chemist and 1981 laureate for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; in Zloczow (now Zolochiv, Ukraine)
** Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and author; in Louisville, Kentucky (d. 2005)
* Died: Julian Bell, 29, English poet, was killed in the Spanish Civil War.

## July 19, 1937 (Monday)

* The Degenerate Art Exhibition opened in Munich.
* Generalissimo Francisco Franco indicated that the Spanish monarchy may be restored in the event of a Nationalist victory.
* Born: George Hamilton IV, country musician; in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (d. 2014)

## July 20, 1937 (Tuesday)

* Player-manager Rogers Hornsby of the St. Louis Browns played in his final major league game, going 0-for-1 in a pinch hitting appearance during a 5–4 loss to the New York Yankees.
* Born:
** Ken Ogata, Japanese film and TV actor, three-time Japan Academy Film Prize winner for Best Actor; in Tokyo (d. 2008)
** Dick Hafer, American conservative author and cartoonist; in Reading, Pennsylvania (d. 2003)
* Died: Guglielmo Marconi, 63, Italian physicist and electrical engineer known for his invention of practical wireless communication in the form of telegraphy by radio waves, 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, died of a heart attack.

## July 21, 1937 (Wednesday)

* Éamon de Valera was re-elected President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State.
* The musical film High, Wide and Handsome starring Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott premiered at the Astor Theatre in New York City.

## July 22, 1937 (Thursday)

* President Roosevelt's Judicial Procedures Reform Bill was defeated 70–20 in the Senate and sent back to committee.
* The biographical film The Toast of New York starring Edward Arnold, Cary Grant, Frances Farmer, and Jack Oakie premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

## July 23, 1937 (Friday)

* British Parliament passed the Matrimonial Causes Act, liberalizing the country's divorce laws.
* The seven-part radio series Les Misérables adapted by Orson Welles began airing on the Mutual Network.

## July 24, 1937 (Saturday)

* In Alabama, four of the nine Scottsboro Boys were set free after six years of legal battles.
* Born: Quinlan Terry, British architect; in Hampstead, London

## July 25, 1937 (Sunday)

* The Battle of Brunete ended inconclusively in Spain.
* Roger Lapébie of France won the Tour de France.
* Rudolf Caracciola of Germany won the German Grand Prix.

## July 26, 1937 (Monday)

* El Salvador quit the League of Nations.
* The Langfang Incident and Guanganmen Incident occurred in China.
* The Orizaba earthquake killed at least 34 people in eastern Mexico.
* Died: Carl Minkley, 70, American socialist politician who was elected alderman of Milwaukee, Wisconsin

## July 27, 1937 (Tuesday)

* The sale of the British newspaper The Morning Post to the rival Daily Telegraph was announced. The Post was discontinued after 165 years in print and absorbed into the Telegraph.
* Born:
** Anna Dawson, English TV actress and singer; in Bolton, Lancashire
** Don Galloway, American TV actor known for being co-star on Ironside; in Brooksville, Kentucky (d. 2009)

## July 28, 1937 (Wednesday)

* The infamous defrocked English priest Harold Davidson was mauled by a lion at the Skegness Amusement Park. He died two days later.
* Northern Ireland was struck by a wave of bombings in reaction to the one-day visit of the King and Queen of England.

## July 29, 1937 (Thursday)

* A train derailment killed 25 people south of Paris.
* The Tongzhou mutiny occurred within the East Hebei Army.
* Japanese forces bombed Tianjin, destroying Nankai University.
* Born:
** Ryutaro Hashimoto, Prime Minister of Japan from 1996 to 1998; in Sōja, Okayama Prefecture (d. 2006)
** Daniel McFadden, American economist and econometrician and 2000 Nobel Prize in Economic Science laureate; in Raleigh, North Carolina

## July 30, 1937 (Friday)

* Japanese forces occupied Tianjin.
* L. Ron Hubbard's first published novel Buckskin Brigades was released.
* Died:
** Harold Davidson, 62, defrocked Church of England priest, died two days after being mauled by a lion while performing a carnival act, ""Daniel in a modern lion's den"
** Hans von Rosenberg, 62, German diplomat, Foreign Minister of Germany from 1922 to 1923

## July 31, 1937 (Saturday)

* Belfast was shaken by a land mine explosion in the West End, 50 yards from a police barracks.