December 1937 calendar

Events

• 01 Dec 1937 Japan recognizes Franco government of Spain.
• 04 Dec 1937 ''The Dandy'' comic is first published in Scotland it will still be running .
• 07 Dec 1937 Russian chess player Aljechin recaptures world title from Max Euwe.
• 09 Dec 1937 Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanjing : Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing.
• 10 Dec 1937 Dollar Line's SS President Hoover runs aground off Japanese island of Formosa. All passengers are transferred to the SS President Pierce after four days. The ship is scavenged by the Japanese in 1939.
• 11 Dec 1937 Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy leaves the League of Nations.
• 12 Dec 1937 Japanese aircraft shell and sink US gunboat Panay on Yangtze River in China. (Japan apologizes and eventually pays US $2.2 million in reparations).
• 13 Dec 1937 Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanjing : Nanjing, defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command of General Tang Shengzhi, falls to the Japanese.
• 14 Dec 1937 Japanese troops conquer / plunder Nanjing
• 16 Dec 1937 Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.
• 21 Dec 1937 1st feature-length color and sound cartoon premieres
• 22 Dec 1937 Lincoln Tunnel (New York City, New York) opens to traffic.
• 23 Dec 1937 First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.
• 24 Dec 1937 Dutch government recognizes Italian king Emanuel III as emperor of Abyssinia.
• 25 Dec 1937 Arturo Toscanini conducts 1st Symphony of the Air over NBC Radio
• 27 Dec 1937 Mae West performs Adam and Eve skit that gets her banned from NBC radio
• 28 Dec 1937 Fascist Octavian Goga becomes Prime Minister of Romania; begins spread of Judaism.
• 29 Dec 1937 Pan Am starts San Francisco-to-Auckland, New Zealand service

Famous Birthday

• Anthony Hopkins

  Welch actor who is an outstanding international player in both films and TV.

• Jane Fonda

  American actress who at times has been a sexpot, a feminist, a political activist, a maker of exercise videos, businesswoman, philanthropist...

• Ratan Tata

  Indian industrialist.

• Ernest-Antoine Seillière

  French entrepreneur and the heir to the Wendel empire (representing €730 million).

• Roberto Benzi

  French orchestral conductor.

• Kerry Packer

  Australian businessman founded World Series Cricket (d. 2005).

• Jim Harrison

  American writer.

• Claire Motte

  French dancer who joined Paris Opera in 1952 but often appeared abroad.

• Claude Érignac
• Marcel Maréchal

  French actor, director and writer.

• Alain Chapel

  French Michelin 3 starred chef, credited with being one of the originators of Nouvelle Cuisine.

• Gordon Banks

  English footballer and manager.

• Corinne Marchand
• Vaira Vike-Freiberga

  6th President of Latvia.

• James MacArthur

  American actor (Born 1937).

• Jeanne-Marie Sens
• Gil Jouanard
• Claude Wilquin
• Ed Ruscha
• Paul Stookey

  American musician, a singer and composer, best known as a member of the folk group, "Peter, Paul and Mary.

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Famous Deaths

• Alfred Abel

  German film producer and actor, called the "Lewis Stone of German pictures.

• Gerard Vissering

  banker/president of Dutch Bank, dies at age 72.

• Frank Kellog

  US foreign minister (Nobel Prize 1929), dies at age 80.

• Maurice J Ravel

  Swiss/French composer ("Bolero"), dies in Paris, France at age 62.

• Hans Niels Andersen

  Danish businessman, founder of the East Asiatic Company (Born 1852).

• Ivor Gurney

  Composer, dies at 47.

• Prosper Poullet

  Belgian politician and former Prime Minister.

• Maurice Ravel

  French composer, a leader in the French musical impressionist movement and considered one of the modern masters of orchestration, known for...

• Erich Ludendorff

  German general and politician (d. 1937).

• Don Marquis

  American writer and journalist, famed for his "archy and mehitabel," an autobiography written by a cockroach (archy) and his friend, an...

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Top #5 songs in the USA

1. Larry Clinton & His Orchestra - True Confession
2. Maxine Sullivan - Nice Work if You Can Get It
3. Horace Heidt & His Orchestra - There's a Gold Mine in the Sky
4. Horace Heidt & His Orchestra - Sweet Someone
5. Leo Reisman & His Orchestra - In the Still of the Night