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February 1937

The following events occurred in February 1937:

February 1, 1937 (Monday)

February 2, 1937 (Tuesday)

February 3, 1937 (Wednesday)

February 4, 1937 (Thursday)

February 5, 1937 (Friday)

February 6, 1937 (Saturday)

  • The Battle of Jarama began as the Spanish Nationalists and their allies crossed the Jarama River, the last line of defense on the eastern side of the Spanish capital of Madrid. The Nationalists moved toward controlling the road between Madrid and Valencia, Spain's port on the Mediterranean Sea. The battle lasted for three weeks.
  • Benito Mussolini's 20-year-old son Vittorio married Orsola Buvoli in Rome. About 1,000 people stood in the rain outside the church to view the comings and goings.

February 7, 1937 (Sunday)

February 8, 1937 (Monday)

February 9, 1937 (Tuesday)

February 10, 1937 (Wednesday)

  • The first issue of Detective Comics, which would introduce Batman the following year and would give DC Comics its name, was put on newsstands by the National Allied Publications Company, owned by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, and had a cover date of March 1937.
  • The Leningrad suburb of Detskoye Selo, formerly Tsarskoye Selo, was formally renamed Pushkin in ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the 1837 death of Russian poet, playwright and novelist Alexander Pushkin.
  • A German appeals court ruled that children who failed to live up to the mental and physical standards of Nazi education could be taken away from their families and placed in state-run homes.
  • Born:
  • Roberta Flack, American singer and winner of two consecutive Grammy Awards for Record of the Year; in Black Mountain, North Carolina (d. 2025)
  • Anne Anderson, Scottish reproductive physiologist; in Forres, County of Moray (d. 1983)
  • Died: Ali-Akbar Davar, 51, Iranian jurist who reformed Iran's judicial system, committed suicide with an overdose of opium, after being reprimanded by Reza Shah, the Iranian monarch.

February 11, 1937 (Thursday)

February 12, 1937 (Friday)

February 13, 1937 (Saturday)

February 14, 1937 (Sunday)

  • A Nationalist warship shelled the Republican capital of Valencia for 30 minutes until counterfire from shore batteries forced its retreat.
  • Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg indicated that a referendum on the question of restoring the Habsburg monarchy might be held.
  • The first installment of the newspaper comic strip Prince Valiant, written and drawn by Hal Foster, was printed as a Sunday comics feature in the Hearst newspapers. The fantasy adventure, set in the Middle Ages, has continued weekly as a continuous story.
  • Born: Magic Sam (stage name for Samuel G. Maghett), African-American blues musician; in Grenada, Mississippi (d. 1969)

February 15, 1937 (Monday)

February 16, 1937 (Tuesday)

February 17, 1937 (Wednesday)

February 18, 1937 (Thursday)

February 19, 1937 (Friday)

  • The Yekatit 12 massacre of more than 19,000 Ethiopians began in Addis Ababa shortly after General Rodolfo Graziani, the Governor-General of Italian East Africa was wounded in an assassination attempt by two Ethiopian nationalists, Abraha Deboch and Mogus Asgedom. Ten grenades were thrown onto a reviewing stand where Italian and Ethiopian officials were sitting during a parade. Graziani was rushed to a hospital immediately after 365 fragments from the grenade pierced his body. Italian Air Force General Aurelio Liotta and Archbishop Abuna Qerellos IV, leader of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Vice-Governor General Armando Petretti, were also wounded, along with 25 other people.
  • In reprisal, the Italian colonial government murdered thousands of Ethiopians over the next three days. A detailed examination would conclude later that 19,200 people were killed. The massacre is referred to as "Yekatit 12" based on the date of February 19, 1937, being Yekatit 12, 1929 AM on the Ethiopian calendar.
  • The last of the Ethiopian resistance was crushed on the same day at the Battle of Gogetti, where the last Arbegnoch fighters were encircled near Lake Shala and exterminated.
  • Five of the seven people on an Airlines of Australia flight were killed when the City of Brisbane (VH-UHH), a Stinson Model A, crashed into a mountain in the McPherson Range. The flight had departed Brisbane in Queensland at 1:00 in the afternoon and was on its way to a stop in Lismore, New South Wales, with a final destination of Sydney.
  • The red, white and blue colours of the flag of the Netherlands were confirmed by royal decree.
  • Born: Robert Walker, American blues musician; near Clarksdale, Mississippi (d. 2017)
  • Died: Major General Beyene Merid, 39, Ethiopian Army leader and anti-Fascist resistance leader, killed at the battle of Gogetti.

February 20, 1937 (Saturday)

February 21, 1937 (Sunday)

February 22, 1937 (Monday)

  • Italian Premier Benito Mussolini decreed that any native chieftain or officer who opposed Italian colonial troops, even in territory as yet unoccupied, would be put to death.
  • Born: Tommy Aaron, American professional golfer who won the 1973 Masters Tournament; in Gainesville, Georgia
  • Died:
  • James P. Buchanan, 69, American politician, U.S. Representative for Texas since 1913, died shortly after being sworn in for his 13th term.
  • Robert Hilliard, 32, Irish Olympic boxer, died after being wounded in action five days earlier while fighting in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.
  • Maud O'Farrell Swartz, 57, Irish-born American labor leader who served as the president of the Women's Trade Union League, and who had been New York state secretary of labor since 1931.

February 23, 1937 (Tuesday)

  • Britain's battleship came under attack for a second time during the Spanish Civil War and was accidentally struck by an anti-aircraft shell fired from the Republican side that was defending Valencia from an attack by Francisco Franco's Nationalists. Captain T. B. Drew and four other men on Royal Oak were injured.
  • Italy protested to Britain for inviting Haile Selassie to send an envoy to the king's coronation ceremony.
  • A portion of the dismembered body of the seventh known victim of the Cleveland Torso Murderer was found on Euclid Beach at 156th Street, after having been washed up from Lake Erie. As with several of the killer's prior victims, the body of "Jane Doe #1" had been mutilated, with head and limbs removed, with only the torso remaining. Another portion of the torso would be found three months later, but the identity of the victim was indeterminable.
  • Murray Murdoch of the New York Rangers became the first player in NHL history to appear in 500 consecutive games.
  • Born: Claude Brown, African-American author known for his 1965 autobiographical book Manchild in the Promised Land; in Harlem, New York City (d. 2002)

February 24, 1937 (Wednesday)

February 25, 1937 (Thursday)

February 26, 1937 (Friday)

  • The John Steinbeck novella Of Mice and Men was released. A review in the Chicago Daily Tribune said that the book was written "so simply, so movingly, so factually that only when its last page is finished does the reader realize what a remarkable feat John Steinbeck has performed."
  • The play The Ascent of F6, by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, premiered at the Mercury Theatre in London. In the two-act drama, "F6" was a mountain that had yet to be climbed and which was on the border of a British colony and the fictional nation of "Ostnia", both of which were attempting to be the first to reach the mountain's summit. Auden dedicated the play to his brother John Bicknell Auden, who was working on a British plan to ascend K2, located on the border between British India and China, as well as the second-highest mountain on Earth.
  • Polish mountaineers Stefan Osiecki and Witold Paryski became the first persons to ascend the mountain Nevado Tres Cruces Central, a dormant volcano located in the South American nation of Chile.
  • On the same day, Polish made first persons to ascend the dormant volcano Ojos del Salado, the highest volcano on Earth and the highest mountain in Chile.
  • Born:
  • Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Chukwuma Nzeogwu, Nigerian Army officer who led the failed attempt to overthrow the President of Nigeria in 1966; in Kaduna, British Nigeria (executed 1967)
  • Alejandra Meyer, Mexican film and television actress; in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas state (d.2007)
  • Noureddine Diwa (Noureddine Ben Yahmed), Tunisian footballer with 23 caps for the Tunisia national team; in Tunis (d.2020)
  • Died: General Géraud Réveilhac, 86, French Army officer relieved of command during World War One for the "Souain corporals affair", his order for the execution of four corporals randomly selected from 24 in 1915.

February 27, 1937 (Saturday)

  • Alexei Rykov and Nikolai Bukharin became the latest former Soviet Politburo members to be arrested as part of the Great Purge conducted by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin. The two men were taken into custody after being summoned to appear before the Party's Central Committee, and were charged with conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state. Rykov had been the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1930, while Bukharin had been the General Secretary of Communist International from 1926 to 1929. Both had been full members of the Communist Party's Politburo until 1930. The two would both be executed a year later, on March 15, 1938, after being convicted of treason in the trial of 21 of the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution.
  • The French government passed a new defense plan extending the Maginot Line.
  • The Battle of Jarama ended after three weeks with the Army of the Second Republic having prevented the rebel Nationalists from seizing the road between Madrid and Valencia, but still controlling the west bank of the Jarama River. Both the Nationalists and the Republicans had sustained thousands of dead and wounded in the battle in the Spanish Civil War.
  • Canada won the World Ice Hockey Championships, held in London, the day after handing Great Britain its only loss, 3 to 0, and finishing with a record of 3-0-0 in a 2 to 1 win in overtime over Switzerland in the four-team round robin finals.
  • Born:
  • David Goldman, British entrepreneur and co-founder of the Sage Group, the UK's largest software company and its second largest technology company; in Sunderland, County Durham(d. 1999)
  • Barbara Love, American feminist writer and LGBT rights activist; in Ridgewood, New Jersey(d. 2022)
  • Died:
  • Charles Donnelly, 22, Irish poet and activist, was killed in the Spanish Civil War.
  • Edward Nockels, 67, American labor union organizer and leader of the Chicago Federation of Labor since 1903

February 28, 1937 (Sunday)

  • Spanish Foreign Minister Julio Álvarez del Vayo scolded the European democracies for "lamentable weakness ... in the face of the tactics of Fascist nations to make themselves masters of the continent." Álvarez del Vayo declared that "the defense of Madrid is the defense of Paris and London tomorrow."
  • Died:
  • Harrington Mann, 72, Scottish painter
  • John Grimshaw Wilkinson, 81, British botanist who "was visually impaired and was able to recognise individual plants by using his tongue to detect shape and texture."

References