1937 General Historical Events

General Historical Events

*****

January 23

*The Moscow show trials began as Stalin made examples of disloyal and prominent party members.

February 8

*In Spain, Franco captured Malaga.

April 26

*The unarmed Basque town of Guernica was destroyed by German bombers, which dropped explosives and incendiaries for three hours while Heinkel fighter planes strafed the surrounding fields, killing civilians trying to escape.

June 3

*The Spanish Civil War continued, in spite of the death of General Mola in a plane crash.

June 12

*In Moscow, Marshal Tukhachevski and seven generals were shot for treason.

July 2

*The aviatrix Amelia Earhart disappeared on a flight from New Guinea to Howland Island.

July 16

*The Buchenwald concentration camp was opened near Weimar.  Over the next eight years, 56,500 people would die in its gas chambers.

August 11

*General Bake Sidqi, Dictator of Iraq, was assassinated by a Kurd.

October 11

*In the Spanish Civil War, Gijon fell to Franco.

October 28

*The Spanish government moved from Valencia to Barcelona.

*****

*Walt Disney's animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered.  

*The Hindenburg dirigible exploded while attempting to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1937 Africa

Africa

*****

November 13

*Tabu Ley Rochereau, a rumba singer-songwriter dubbed the "African Elvis", was born in Bagata, in what was then the Belgian Congo .

November 22

*Nnamdi Azikiwe launched the West African Pilot, a newspaper dedicated to fighting for independence from British rule.

*****

Nnamdi Azikiwe

Nnamdi Azikiwe returned to Lagos, Nigeria, in 1937 and founded the West African Pilot, which he used as a vehicle to foster Nigerian nationalism. He also founded the Zik Group of Newspapers, publishing multiple newspapers in cities across the country.

Central African Republic
(Ubangi-Shari)

*Ange-Felix Patasse, a politician who became the President of the Central African Republic, was born in Paoua, Ubangi-Shari (January 25).


Ange-Félix Patassé (b. January 25, 1937, Paoua, Ubangi-Shari – d. April 5, 2011, Douala, Cameroon) was a Central African politician who was President of the Central African Republic from 1993 until 2003, when he was deposed by the rebel leader Francois Bozize.  Patassé was the first president in the CAR's history (since 1960) to be chosen in what was generally regarded as a fairly democratic election (1993) in that it was brought about by donor pressure on the Kolingba regime and assisted by the United Nations Electoral Assistance Unit. He was chosen a second time in a fair election (1999) as well. However, during his first term in office (1993–1999), three military mutinies in 1996–1997 led to increasing conflict between so-called "northerners" (like Patassé) and "southerners" (like his predecessor President Andre Kolingba). Expatriate mediators and peacekeeping troops were brought in to negotiate peace accords between Patassé and the mutineers and to maintain law and order. During his second term as president, Patassé increasingly lost the support of many of his long-time allies as well as the French, who had intervened to support him during his first term in office. Patassé was ousted in March 2003 and went into exile in Togo.

Chad
(French Equatorial Africa)

*Jean Alingue Bawoyeu, politician and former Prime Minister was born in Fort-Lamy, French Equatorial Africa. 

Jean Alingué Bawoyeu (b. August 18, 1937, Fort-Lamy, French Equatorial Africa), known in French as the vieux sage, which translates as "wise elder", is a Chadian politician who was Prime Minister of Chad from 1991 to 1992. During the 1970s, he served successively as Ambassador to the United States and France. Later, he was President of the National Assembly of Chad in 1990. He served in the government as Minister of Justice from 2008 to 2010 and as Minister of Posts and New Information Technologies from 2010 to 2013.

Democratic Republic of the Congo
(Belgian Congo)
(Zaire)

*Tabu Ley Rochereau, a rumba singer-songwriter dubbed the "African Elvis", was born in Bagata, in what was then the Belgian Congo (November 13).

Pascal-Emmanuel Sinamoyi Tabu (b. November 13, 1937, Bagata, Bandundu, Belgian Congo – d. November 30, 2013, Brussels, Belgium), better known as Tabu Ley Rochereau, was a leading African rumba singer-songwriter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was the leader of Orchestre Afrisa International, as well as one of Africa's most influential vocalists and prolific songwriters. Along with guitarist Dr. Nico Kasanda, Tabu Ley pioneered soukous (African rumba) and internationalized his music by fusing elements of Congolese folk music with Cuban, Caribbean and Latin American rumba. He has been described as "the Congolese personality who, along with [the dictator] Mobutu, [most] marked Africa's 20th century history." He was dubbed the "African Elvis" by the Los Angeles Times. After the fall of the Mobutu regime, Tabu Ley also pursued a political career.

During his career, Tabu Ley composed up to 3,000 songs and produced 250 albums.

Pascal-Emmanuel Sinamoyi Tabu was born in Bagata, in the then Belgian Congo. His musical career took off in 1956 when he sung with Joseph "Le Grand Kallé" Kabasele, and his band L'African Jazz. After finishing high school he joined the band as a full-time musician. Tabu Ley sang in the pan-African hit Indépendance Cha Cha which was composed by Grand Kallé for Congolese independence from Belgium in 1960, propelling Tabu Ley to instant fame. He remained with African Jazz until 1963 when he and Dr. Nico Kasanda formed their own group, African Fiesta. Two years later, Tabu Ley and Dr. Nico split and Tabu Ley formed African Fiesta National, also known as African Fiesta Flash. The group became one of the most successful bands in African history, recording African classics like Afrika Mokili Mobimba, and surpassing record sales of one million copies by 1970. Papa Wemba and Sam Mangwana were among the many influential musicians that were part of the group. He adopted the stage name "Rochereau" after the French General Pierre 

Denfert-Rochereau, whose name he liked and whom he had studied in school.

In 1970, Tabu Ley formed Orchestre Afrisa International, Afrisa being a combination of Africa and Éditions Isa, his record label. Along with Franco Luambo's TPOK Jazz, Afrisa was now one of Africa's greatest bands. They recorded hits such as "Sorozo", "Kaful Mayay", "Aon Aon", and "Mose Konzo".

In the mid 1980s, Tabu Ley discovered a young talented singer and dancer, M'bilia Bel, who helped popularize his band further. M'bilia Bel became the first female soukous singer to gain acclaim throughout Africa. Tabu Ley and M'bilia Bel later married and had one child together. In 1988, Tabu Ley introduced another female vocalist known as Faya Tess, and M'bilia Bel left and continued to be successful on her own. After M'bilia Bel's departure, Afrisa's influence along with that of their rivals TPOK Jazz continued to wane as fans gravitated toward the faster version of soukous.

After the establishment of the Mobutu Sese Seko regime in the Congo, Tabu Ley adopted the name "Tabu Ley" as part of Mobutu's "Zairization" of the country, but later went into exile in France in 1988. In 1985, the Government of Kenya banned all foreign music from the National Radio service. After Tabu Ley composed the song "Twende Nairobi" ("Let's go to Nairobi"), sung by M'bilia Bel, in praise of Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi, the ban was promptly lifted. In the early 1990s, Tabu Ley briefly settled in Southern California. He began to tailor his music towards an international audience by including more English lyrics and by increasing more international dance styles such as Samba. He found success with the release of albums such as Muzina, Exil Ley, Africa worldwide and Babeti soukous. The Mobutu regime banned his 1990 album "Trop, C'est Trop" as subversive. In 1996, Tabu Ley participated in the album Gombo Salsa by the salsa music project Africando. The song "Paquita" from that album is a remake of a song that he recorded in the late 1960s with African Fiesta.

When President Mobutu Sese Seko was deposed in 1997, Tabu Ley returned to Kinshasa and took up a position as a cabinet minister in the government of new President Laurent Kabila. Following Kabila's death, Tabu Ley then joined the appointed transitional parliament created by Joseph Kabila, until it was dissolved following the establishment of the inclusive transitional institutions. In November 2005 Tabu Ley was appointed Vice-Governor of Kinshasa, a position devolved to his party, the Congolese Rally for Democracy by the 2002 peace agreements. He also served as provincial minister of culture. He was said to have fathered up to 68 children, including the French rapper Youssoupha, with different women.

Tabu Ley Rochereau died on November 30, 2013, aged 76, at Saint-Luc hospital in Brussels, Belgium where he had been undergoing treatment for a stroke he suffered in 2008.

*****
Ethiopia
(Abyssinia)

*Ethiopians attempted to assassinate Italian Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani in a grenade attack (February 19). Graziani and several of his staff were wounded. In retaliation, the Italians would massacre 30,000 Ethiopians in reprisal killings over the next three days.

During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace (the former Imperial residence) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, two Eritrean nationalists attempted to kill viceroy Rodolfo Graziani with a number of grenades. The Italian security guard fired into the crowd of Ethiopian onlookers. Authorities exacted further reprisals, which included indiscriminately slaughtering native Ethiopians over the next three days, detaining thousands of Ethiopians at Danan and slaughtering almost 300 monks at Debre Libanos monastery.

Yekatit 12 is a date in the Ethiopian calendar, equivalent to February 19 in the Gregorian calendar, which is commonly used to refer to the indiscriminate massacre and imprisonment of Ethiopians by elements of the Italian occupation forces following an attempted assassination of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, Marchese di Neghelli, Viceroy of Italian East Africa, on February 19, 1937.  The Marchese di Neghelli had led the Italian forces to victory over their Ethiopian opponents in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and was supreme governor of Italian East Africa.  The retaliation of the Italians was one of the worst atrocities committed by the Italian occupation forces.

Estimates of the number of people killed in the three days that followed the attempt on the Marchese di Neghelli's life vary. Ethiopian sources afterwards estimated as many as 30,000 people were killed by the Italians, while Italian sources claimed only a few hundred were killed. Over the following week, numerous Ethiopians suspected or accused of opposing Italian rule were rounded up and executed, including members of the Black Lions, and other members of the aristocracy; most of the 125 young men whom Emperor Haile Selassie had sent abroad to receive college educations, and were still resident in Ethiopia, were killed. Many more were imprisoned, even collaborators like Ras Gebre Haywot, the son of Ras Mikael of Wollo (who had been imprisoned by Emperor Haile Selassie for nine years prior to the Italian invasion), Brehane Markos, and even Ayale Gebre; the latter had helped the Italians identify the two men who made the attempt on General Graziani's life.

*The Italians captured the leader of the Ethiopian resistance, Desta Damtew (February 21).

*Mussolini decreed that any native chieftain or officer who opposed Italian colonial troops, even in territory as yet unoccupied, would be put to death (February 22).

*Desta Damtew, a leader of the Ethiopian resistance, was executed (February 24).

Desta Damtew (Amharic: ደስታ ዳምጠው ; b. ca. 1892,  Maskan, Abyssinia - d. February 24, 1937) was an Ethiopian  noble, an army commander, and a son-in-law army commander, and a son-in-law of Emperor Haile Selassie I.

Born at the village of Maskan (in the contemporary Gurage Zone), Desta Damtew was the second son of Fitawrari Damtew Ketena.  His older brother was Abebe Damtew.  In 1896, Fitawrari Damtew Ketena was killed at the Battle of Adwa.  As boys, Lij Desta Damtew and his brother Lij Abebe Damtew served at the Imperial Palace in Addis Ababa as pages to Emperor Menelik II and Empress Taitu Bitul.  Desta Damtew went on to serve in the Dowager Empress Taitu's household at the Palace on Mt. Entoto after the death of Menelik II.

In 1916, Desta Damtew supported Tafari Makonnen against Lij Iyasu.  Tafari Makonnen was the future Emperor Haile Selassie I.  Lij Iyasu was deposed but escaped. In 1920, Desta Damtew was in the party that captured Lij Iyasu.

In 1924, Desta Damtew married Tafari Makonnen's daughter Leult Tenagnework Haile Selassie.  They had four daughters and two sons.

By 1928, Negus Tafari Makonnen appointed his son-in-law Desta Damtew as Dejazmach and as Shum of Kefa Province.

In 1932, Emperor Haile Selassie I appointed Desta Damtew as a Ras.  In the same year, he was appointed Shum of Sidamo Province and of Borena Province.  He succeeded Birru Wolde Gabriel in Sidamo.

In 1933, Ras Desta Damtew traveled to America to return the visit of the United States representative to the coronation of Haile Selassie. It was his only journey outside Ethiopia.  He arrived in New York and was greeted with royal honors, later lunching with President Roosevelt.

In 1935, Ras Desta commanded troops along the southern border of Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.  In January 1936, he was defeated by the Italian General Rodolfo Graziani at the Battle of Ganale Dorya.  Desta retreated back to his administrative center at Irgalem, where with the help of Dejazmach Gabremariam, he reorganized his surviving supporters to resist the Italian advance.  Desta continued to resist the Italians after the Emperor left the country.

In 1936, after the end of the rainy season, Italian General Carlo Geloso, who had been appointed governor of the Italian province of Galla-Sidamo, advanced from the north to dislodge Ras Desta and Dejazmach Gabremariam. However by the end of October, Geloso had not advanced very far or effectively. It was not until a month later when a second Italian column advanced from the south through the Wadara Forest that Ras Desta at last left Irgalem, which was occupied December 1. With Dejazmach Gabremariam, Dejazmach Beyene Merid (Shum of Bale Province),  and a dwindling number of soldiers, for the next few months Ras Desta eluded the Italians until they were trapped near Lake Shala in the Battle of Gogetti and annihilated. Wounded, Ras Desta managed to escape, only to be caught and executed near his birthplace.

Following the liberation of Ethiopia from Italian occupation in 1941, the remains of Ras Desta Damtew were disinterred from the grave they were buried in by the Italians and moved to the Imperial family tombs in the crypt of Holy Trinity Cathedral. 

*As one of the reprisals for the attempted assassination of Italian viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, a detachment of Italian troops massacred the entire community of Debre Libanos, killing 297 monks and 23 laymen (May 21).

Debre Libanos (ደብረ፡ሊባኖስ, Däbrä Libanos) is a monastery in Ethiopia, lying northwest of Addis Ababa in the Semien Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region. Founded in the thirteenth century by Saint Tekle Haymanot, according to myth, he meditated in a cave for 29 years. The monastery's chief abbot, called the Ichege, was the second most powerful official in the Ethiopian Church after the Abuna.

The monastery complex sits on a terrace between a cliff and the gorge of one of the tributaries of the Abbay River.  None of the original buildings of Debre Libanos survive.  Current buildings include the church over Tekle Haymanot's tomb, which Emperor Haile Selassie ordered constructed in 1961; a slightly older Church of the Cross; and five religious schools. The cave where the saint lived is in the nearby cliffs, which one travel guide describes as a five-minute walk away. This cave contains a spring, whose water is considered holy and is the object of pilgrimages.

Debre Libanos suffered great destruction during the invasion of Ahmad Gragn when one of his followers, Ura'i Abu Bakr, set it afire on July 21, 1531, despite the attempts of its community to ransom the church.  Although the Ichege intervened to protect the Gambos during the reign of Sarsa Dengel, the buildings were not completely rebuilt until after the visit of Emperor Iyasu the Great in 1699.

In the reign of Emperor Fasilides, after invading Oromos had ravaged the monastery's lands in Shewa the Emperor granted the Ichege his palace at Azazo, where the various Ichege lived.

From the 17th century until the matter was resolved in a synod convened by Emperor Yohannes II, the Ichege and the monks of Debre Libanos were the most important supporters of the Sost Lidet doctrine, in opposition to the House of Ewostatewos.

Emperor Haile Selassie's interest in Debre Libanos dates to when he was governor of the district of Selale.  The Emperor notes in his autobiography that during the reconstruction of the church at Debre Libanos, an inscribed gold ring was found in the excavations, which he personally delivered to then Emperor Menelik II.

Following the attempted assassination on his life on February 19, 1937, governor Rodolfo Graziani  believed the monastery's monks and novices were involved in this attack, and unwilling to wait for the results of the official investigation, ordered Italian colonialists to massacre the inhabitants of this monastery.  On May 21 of that year, 297 monks and 23 laymen were killed. 

*Ethiopian Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen petitioned the Coptic Church Council in Egypt for a divorce from Wolete Israel Seyoum, declaring that he could not live with the daughter of a man who surrendered to the Italian invaders (November 3).

*****
*Ato Nahusenay, a reformist and pioneer of change who made key contributions to the modernization and independence of Ethiopia, died.

Ato Mersha Nahusenay (c.1850 – c.1937) was a reformist and pioneer of change who made key contributions to the modernization and independence of Ethiopia. One of the closest advisors to Emperor Menelik II,  he went on to become the founder and first governor of Dire Dawa, the second largest city in Ethiopia and its environs (1902–1905). Prior to that he was governor of the strategic and frontier town of Jaldessa (Gildessa) where he also held the position of chief of customs. His public career lasted over three decades from the era of Menelik II until the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. He was one of the most educated and recognized Ethiopians of his time. He knew the French language well and was open to European ideas and way of life earning him admiration abroad. Among his important contributions was the prominent role that he played in the construction, maintenance and security of the first railway. Mersha belongs to a generation of Ethiopians who took advantage of the stability created in the late 19th – early 20th century to implement a series of wide-ranging political, economic and social reforms the impact of which continues to be felt to this day.

Kenya

*The memoir Out of Africa by Karen Blixen was published (November 12).

Nigeria
(Colonial Nigeria)

*Olusegun Obasanjo, the President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, was born in Abeokuta, Colonial Nigeria (March 5). 

Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, (b. circa March 5,1937, Abeokuta, Colonial Nigeria) was a Nigerian Army general who served as President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. A Nigerian of Yoruba descent, Obasanjo was a career soldier before serving twice as his nation's head of state, as a military ruler from February 13, 1976 to October 1, 1979 and as a democratically elected president from May 29, 1999 to 29 May 29, 2007. From July 2004 to January 2006, Obasanjo also served as Chairperson of the African Union.

*Nnamdi Azikiwe launched the West African Pilot (November 22).

When Nnamdi Azikiwe ("Zik") launched his West African Pilot in 1937, dedicated to fighting for independence from British colonial rule, the newspaper was an immediate success. Azikiwe, an Ibo, found a ready-audience in the non-Yobura people of Nigeria, including many in Lagos. He introduced Pan-African consciousness to the Nigerian Youth Movement, and expanded its membership with large numbers of people who had previously been excluded. 

When the paper, West African Pilot, was launched its quality and professionalism put it atop other newspapers of the period which generally pandered to colonial authorities or ethnocentric interests. The most prominent newspaper that lost circulation as a result was the Nigerian Daily Times originally owned by the Mirror Group of London.  West African Pilot's lively mix of radical politics and gossip, plus a woman's page, was highly popular. The newspaper played a key role in the spread of racial consciousness and nationalistic ideas in the interior of Nigeria. Its motto was "Show the light and the people will find the way". Azikiwe personally edited the West African Pilot from 1937 to 1947.

The West African Pilot gave birth to a chain of newspapers that were positioned as city newspapers in such places as Port Harcourt, Warri, Enugu, Ibadan, and Kano. All the titles were then owned by "Zik's Press Limited". Titles included the Eastern Nigerian Guardian launched in 1940 in Port Harcourt, the Nigerian Spokesman in Onitsha (1943) and the Southern Defender in Warri. In 1945, Azikiwe's group bought Mohammed Ali's Comet, four years later converting it into a daily newspaper and then transferring it to Kano, where it was the first daily in the north. The Northern Advocate was also launched in 1949, in Jos. On July 8, 1945, the government banned the West African Pilot and the Daily Comet for misrepresenting facts about the general strike. This did not silence Azikiwe, who continued to print articles and editorials on the strike in his Port Harcourt Guardian.

*Shell Oil Company started oil exploration in Nigeria.

Rwanda
(Ruanda-Urundi)

*Juvenal Habyarimana, the third President of Rwanda, was born in Ruanda-Urundi (March 8).

Juvénal Habyarimana (b. March 8, 1937, Ruanda-Urundi – d. April 6, 1994, Kigali, Rwanda) was the third President of the Republic of Rwanda, the post he held longer than any other president to date, from 1973 until 1994. He was nicknamed "Kinani", a Kinyarwanda word meaning "invincible".

Habyarimana was a dictatorial leader, and electoral fraud was suspected for his unopposed re-elections: 98.99% of the vote on December 24, 1978; 99.97% of the vote on December 19, 1983; and 99.98% of the vote on December 19,1988.  During his rule, Rwanda became a totalitarian order in which his MRND (Mouvement Révolutionaire National pour le Développement -- (or National Revolutionary Movement for Development in English) party enforcers required people to chant and dance in adulation of the President at mass pageants of political "animation". While the country as a whole had become slightly less impoverished during Habyarimana's tenure, the great majority of Rwandans remained in circumstances of extreme poverty.

On April 6, 1994, Habyarimana was killed when his airplane, also carrying the President of neighboring Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down close to Kigali International Airport. 

Habyarimana's assassination ignited ethnic tensions in the region and helped spark the Rwandan Genocide. 

South Africa

*The Department of Social Welfare was set up.

By 1927, the number of destitute white South Africans had increased so rapidly that the Carnegie Corporation of New York, on the recommendation of its president and secretary who had recently visited South Africa, decided to fund a commission of investigation into the problem of poor whites.  The Union Government and the Dutch Reformed Church each matched the Carnegie Corporation's grant, and five commissioners were appointed. 

Between 1929 and 1932, the five commissioners travelled around the country, interviewing a cross-section of poor white society, including nomadic trek farmers in the Cape, bywoners (tenants) and laborers in the Karoo, pioneering bushveld farmers in the Transvaal, woodcutters in the Knysna and George areas, diamond diggers, reef miners and others.  The commissioners concluded their investigatory work with a five-volume report on economic conditions, the psychology of the poor whites, education, health and sociological aspects. 

The commission calculated that out of a white population of 1.8 million in 1931 (a million being Afrikaners), more than 300,000 were extremely poor, living as paupers.  A poor white was defined as "a person who had become dependent to such an extent, whether from mental, moral, economic or physical causes, that he is unfit, without help from others, to find proper means of livelihood for himself or to procure it directly or indirectly for his children".

The report stressed that "laziness" was not to blame (as had been suggested by the Transvaal Indigency Commission in 1906-8) but that poverty was in itself a demoralizing influence which often caused loss of self-respect and a feeling of inferiority.  The commission felt that the bywoner, who roamed the country making a precarious existence as a fencer, transport rider or woodseller, seemed to embody the poor white problem.

The commission reported on the high birthrate -- the white population more than doubled between 1904 and 1936 -- and on overcrowding and insanitary conditions which led to disease and death.  In the schools, thousands of children were classified as retarded.  Most children did not even complete primary school. 

The report also contained a study of urban Afrikaners who were finding it hard to adjust to life in the city.  They had to compete for employment with the more skilled uitlanders (foreigners) and could not compete with the cheap African labor favored by the mainly English-speaking mine owners and industrialists.  Afrikaners also suffered psychologically because of their inbred prejudice against doing a job traditionally reserved for Africans.  Even the most poverty-striken bywoner considered himself a master and would not stoop to do "kaffir work".

The commission reported that attempts by the Dutch Reformed Church and the Arme Blanke Verbond (Poor White Alliance) of 1917 to help poor whites seek jobs and obtain suitable training had been insufficient.  For example, the indignation expressed by Daniel Malan, a future South African Prime Minister, that "the children of Afrikaner families were running around as naked as kaffirs in Congoland" was never followed up. 

The commission did not favor state hand-outs, relief work or charity because the commissioners opined that such measures weakened the Afrikaner's sense of initiative and encouraged dependency.  Instead, it suggested that the government concentrate on setting up a department of social welfare, which it did in 1937.  Additionally, in response to the commission's findings, the state tried to protect white workers by introducing what it termed a "civilised labour" policy -- in other words, a system that guaranteed work for whites at the expense of blacks.  Thus, between 1924 and 1933, the percentage of unskilled white workers on the railways rose from 9.5 to 39.3 percent while it dropped for blacks from 75 to 48.9 percent.  


*****
Sudan

*Elijah Malok Aleng, a South Sudanese public servant, general and politician, was born in Bor, Sudan (November 28).

Elijah Malok Aleng (b. November 28, 1937, Bor, Sudan – d. October 30, 2014) was born on November 28, 1937 at Thianwong village when his family was living among the Pen people in Angakuei in Baidit, about 20 miles north east of Bor town in Jonglei State. His family, which is originally from Awulian in Wangulei, Twic East County, migrated back to be with fellow Awulian kinfolks. He attended Malek Primary School (1950–1953), and then Juba Intermediate School and Juba Commercial Senior Secondary.  He then attended Free University of the Congo, in the present Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and later got a scholarship to study at Fribourg Catholic University, Switzerland, from which he obtained a master's degree in Economics in 1972.   In 1975 he obtained another Masters in Development Studies and Economic Planning from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. 

He was elected a Member of Parliament (MP) representing Bor North territorial constituency in the regional parliament of Sudan in May 1982.

Aleng enrolled in the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/SPLA) on December 28, 1983 and became active in its ranks. He started as one of the senior political commissars in June 1984, and then he went to join the Cadet Military College, graduating with the rank of a Major. He was posted in Southern Blue Nile front, where he was the second in command. 

Aleng remained in Francophone Africa until the advent of multi-party democracy in 1991. In June 1991, he was appointed Executive Director of the SRRA where he remained until January 1993, when he was transferred and became the spokesman of the SPLM in East Africa, a duty he carried out for the whole of 1993. In January 1994, he was appointed Secretary of the national Convention Organising Committee (COC), which organized the First SPLM/A National Convention. The convention was successfully held in Chukudum, New Sudan, in April/May 1994. After this convention such SPLM structures as the General Military Council (GMC), National Liberation Council (NLC) and National Executive Council (NEC) were instituted. He was elected member of NLC representing Bor North territorial constituency and he also became a member and Secretary of the First NEC in the portfolio of Co-ordination and Public Service. In 1997, he was reshuffled away from public service and coordination to an advisory role in the Office of Chairman and commander in chief of the SPLM/SPLA. In that capacity, he became the advisor on economic, financial and political affairs. In February 1999, he was again appointed, for the second time, the Executive Director of the SRRA and ex-officio member of the NEC on humanitarian affairs in New Sudan. When peace negotiations began between various Sudan governments and the SPLM between 1985-2005, he was always the Secretary of the SPLM to the Peace Talks continuing until the CPA was signed in January 2005. In 2005 he was appointed Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) and President of the Bank of Southern Sudan (BOSS).

After the independence of South Sudan on July 9, 2011, he became the de facto Governor of the Bank of South Sudan (BSS) until he was dismissed by President Salva Kiir Mayardit and replaced by his deputy Kornelius Koryom Mayiik in August 2011. He introduced the first currency of the country which is the South Sudanese Pound. He co-signed the historic currency with the then Minister of Finance, Deng Athorbei. As a governor, Aleng tried to fight corruption and misuse of public funds .

Aleng was still within the ranks of Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) with the rank of a Lieutenant General when he passed away on October 30, 2014.

Zambia
(Southern Rhodesia)

*Rupiah Banda, the President of Zambia from 2008 to 2011, was born in Gwanda, Southern Rhodesia (February 13), 

Rupiah Bwezani Banda (b. February 13, 1937, Southern Rhodesia), a Zambian politician who was President of Zambia from 2008 to 2011.

During the Presidency of Kenneth Kaunda, Banda held important diplomatic posts and was active in politics as a member of the United National Independence Party (UNIP). Years later, he was appointed Vice-President by President Levy Mwanawasa  in October 2006, following the latter's re-elecation.  He took over Mwanawasa's presidential responsibilities after Mwanawasa suffered a stroke in June 2008, and following Mwanawasa's death in August 2008, he became acting President. As the candidate of the governing Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), he narrowly won the October 2008 presidential election, according to official results.

Opposition leader Michael Sata  defeated Banda in the September 2011 presidential election,  and Sata, accordingly, succeeded Banda as President on September 23, 2011.

* Michael Sata, the fifth President of Zambia, was born in Mpika, Northern Rhodesia (July 6).

Michael Chilufya Sata (b. July 6, 1937, Mpika, Northern Rhodesia [Zambia] – d. October 28, 2014, London, England) was a politician who was the fifth President of Zambia,  from September 23, 2011 until his death on October 28, 2014. A social democrat, he led the Patriotic Front (PF), a major political party in Zambia. Under President Frederick Chiluba, Sata was a minister during the 1990s as part of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) government.  He went into opposition in 2001, forming the PF. As an opposition leader, Sata – popularly known as "King Cobra" – emerged as the leading opposition presidential contender and rival to President Levy Mwanawasa in the 2006 presidential election, but was defeated. Following Mwanawasa's death, Sata ran again and lost to President Rupiah Banda in 2008.

After ten years in opposition, Sata defeated Banda, the incumbent, to win the September 2011 presidential election with a plurality of the vote. He died in London on October 28, 2014, leaving Vice President Guy Scott as Acting President until a presidential by-election was held on January 20, 2015.

1937 The Americas

The Americas

British Guiana

*A. J. Seymour, published the first of five collections of his poetry, Verse.

Canada

Zanana L. Akande (b. 1937) was a New Democratic member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1994 who represented the downtown Toronto riding (electoral district) of St. Andrew - St. Patrick. She served as a cabinet minister in the government of Bob Rae. She was the first woman of African descent elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and the first woman of African descent to serve as a cabinet minister in Canada.

A daughter of immigrants from the Caribbean, she became a teacher and school principal in the Toronto public school system. After her election in 1990, she was appointed to cabinet as Minister of Community and Social Services but resigned because her private financial arrangements appeared to violate cabinet guidelines. A subsequent review cleared her of any wrongdoing. In 1992, she was named parliamentary assistant to Premier Bob Rae. In 1994 she quit politics after a dispute over the handling of an investigation and firing of Ontario civil servant Carlton Masters.

After retirement, Akande continued to be involved in the community, serving as a volunteer on boards and committees of local organizations including the YWCA and Centennial College. 

Akande was born in downtown Toronto in the Kensington Market district. Her parents came from St. Lucia and Barbados, where they had worked as teachers. They were prevented from continuing their careers in Canada because, at the time, people of African descent were not allowed to hold teaching positions. She attended Harbord Collegiate before studying at the University of Toronto.  There she received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Education degrees. She also attended the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She was a longtime member of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario. Following in her parents footsteps, she worked as a teacher and a school principal for the Toronto District School Board. During her educational career she designed programs for students with special needs.

Akande was a co-founder of Tiger Lily, a newspaper for visible minority women, and once co-hosted a Toronto Arts Against Apartheid Festival. She was a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in her youth and was friends with future New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Stephen Lewis and his siblings, and was a longtime member of its successor, the New Democratic Party. 

Akande was elected for the NDP in the Toronto riding of St. Andrew—St. Patrick in the 1990 election. Akande won the riding in a tight three-way race between incumbent Liberal Ron Kanter and Conservative candidate Nancy Jackman. The NDP won a majority government and Akande was named Minister of Community and Social Services in Bob Rae's first cabinet on October 1, 1990.  As minister, Akande presided over an increase in welfare benefits to Ontarians at the lowest income level. She raised the social assistance rate from 5% to 7% and increased the shelter allowance from 5% to 10%. She also announced $1 million in funding for food banks in an apparent contradiction to NDP policy against supporting such agencies. She recognized that the realities of the time meant the food banks were a necessity. In 1991, Akande was caught in an apparent conflict of interest situation. In December 1990, Rae announced strict guidelines which prohibited cabinet ministers from owning rental properties which included Akande. However, in February 1991, Rae wrote a private memo which softened the guidelines because he felt that a sell-off of these properties during tough economic times may cause undue hardship to ministers.

On October 10, 1991, Akande resigned as minister due to an accusation of rent-gouging in properties she owned in Toronto. The charges were eventually dismissed in 1993.

On May 4, 1992, the so-called "Yonge Street Riot" occurred in Toronto due to media reports surrounding a celebrated court case in the United States about the beating of Rodney King by police and the ensuing riots in Los Angeles. While the damage along Yonge Street was relatively minor, it was a major event for Toronto. In order to manage the fallout from this episode, Rae appointed Akande as his parliamentary assistant. One of her accomplishments was the creation of the Jobs Ontario Youth Program which created summer employment for youth from 1991 to 1994.

Akande continued as a parliamentary assistant until August 31, 1994, when she resigned from the Legislature in protest against Rae's handling of the Carlton Masters controversy. After resigning from the government she returned to her former job as school principal. 

*****

*Everett Farmer, the last person to be executed in Nova Scotia, was hanged from the gallows of Shelburne, Nova Scotia (December).

On the evening of August 1, 1937, Everett Farmer (b. 1902 in Shelburne, Nova Scotia – d. December 11 or 14 or 15, 1937 in Shelburne, Nova Scotia) shot and killed his half-brother Zachariah, then walked into town and turned himself in to police. Farmer said that the killing had been in self defense, claiming that after a drunken argument, Zachariah had refused to leave Farmer's home, and had threatened to kill him.

Since Farmer was unable to afford legal representation, and the province of Nova Scotia had no legal aid system at the time, Vincent Pottier was appointed to represent Farmer free of charge.

The trial began on September 28, 1937, with Justice William F. Carroll presiding.

At the conclusion of the trial, the jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding Farmer guilty.

In December of that year, Farmer was hanged from a gallows that had been constructed in the Shelburne County Courthouse where his trial had taken place.

The case against Farmer was suspect, in terms of how the prosecution, conviction and execution of Farmer may have been influenced not only by Farmer's inability to afford proper legal representation, but by the fact that he was black.

In 2005, Farmer's case served as the basis for Louise Delisle's play The Days of Evan.

*****

Cuba

*Mike Cuellar, the 1969 Cy Young Award winner, was born in Santa Clara, Cuba (May 8).

Miguel Ángel Cuellar Santana (b. May 8, 1937, Santa Clara, Cuba – d. April 2, 2010, Orlando, Florida) was a Cuban left-handed starting pitcher who spent fifteen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Astros, Baltimore Orioles and California Angels.  His best years were spent with the Orioles, helping them capture five American League East Division  Division titles, three consecutive American League (AL) pennants and the 1970 World Series Championship.  He shared the AL Cy Young Award in 1969 and won 20-or-more games in a season four times from 1969 to 1974.  In 1971, he was a part of the last starting rotation to feature four pitchers (Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Pat Dobson and Mike Cuellar) with at least twenty victories each in one season. Cuellar, nicknamed "Crazy Horse" while with the Orioles, ranks among Baltimore's top five career leaders in wins (143), strikeouts (1,011), shutouts (30) and  innings pitched (2,028), and trails only Dave McNally among left-handers in wins and shutouts.

*The Cuban band Orquesta de la Playa recorded "Bruca manigua", Arsenio Rodriguez's first hit (June 17).

Arsenio Rodríguez (b. Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull, August 31, 1911, Guira de Macurijes in Bolondron [Pedro Betancourt], Matanzas Province, Cuba – d. December 30, 1970) was a Cuban musician, composer and bandleader. He played the tres, as well as the tumbadora, and he specialized in son, rumba and other Afro-Cuban music styles.  In the 1940s and 1950s, Rodríguez reorganized the son conjunto ('son group') and developed the son montuno, the basic template of modern-day salsa. He claimed to be the true creator of the mambo and was an important and prolific composer who wrote nearly two hundred songs.

Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull was born in Guira de Macurijes in Bolondrón (Pedro Betancourt), Matanzas Province as the third of fifteen children, fourteen boys and one girl, to Bonifacio Travieso, a veteran of the Cuban War of Independence who worked as a farmer, and Dorotea Rodríguez Scull.  His family had Kongo origins, and both his grandfather and great-grandfather were practitioners of Palo Monte.  In 1918, at around 7 years of age, Arsenio was blinded when a horse kicked him in the head after he accidentally hit the animal with a broom. In 1926, his family moved from Guines to Havana, where he started playing in local groups around Marianao.  By 1928, he had formed the Septeto Boston which often performed in third-tier, working-class cabarets in the area. His father died in 1933 and sometime in the early 1930s, Arsenio changed his stagename from Travieso (which means "mischievous" or "naughty") to his mother's maiden name, Rodríguez, a fairly common Spanish surname. After dissolving the unsuccessful Septeto Boston in 1934, Rodríguez joined the Septeto Bellamar, directed by his uncle-in-law José Interián and featuring his cousin Elizardo Scull on vocals. The group often played at dance academies such as Sport Antillano.

*Diego Segui, a baseball player who played for both of Seattle's Major League Baseball teams, was born in Holguin, Cuba (August 17).

Diego Pablo Seguí González (b. August 17, 1937, Holguin, Cuba) was a Major League Baseball pitcher.  Listed at 6' 0" (1.83 m), 190 lb. (86 k), Seguí batted and threw right handed. He was born in Holguin, Cuba.  His son, David Segui, was a major league first baseman.

A forkball specialist, Seguí pitched for the Kansas City Athletics, Washington Senators, Oakland Athletics, Seattle Pilots, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners in all or part of 16 seasons spanning 1962–1977.

In 1970 with Oakland, Seguí won 10 games as a  reliever and a starter, while leading the American League pitchers with a 2.56 ERA (earned run average). 

Interestingly, Seguí holds the unique distinction of having pitched for both of Seattle's major league baseball teams, the Pilots and the Mariners, in the first game ever played by each franchise. In these contests, he earned a save for the Pilots in 1969, and absorbed the opening-day loss for the Mariners in 1977.

Segui's most productive season came in 1969 for the Pilots, when he posted career-highs in wins (12) and saves (6), against only six losses. At the end of the season, his teammates voted him the Pilots' Most Valuable Player.

After he started the Mariners' inaugural game in 1977, he was dubbed "the Ancient Mariner".  And, although he set a Mariner single-game record with 10 strikeouts early in the season on May 5, he failed to get a win the rest of the way. After compiling a 0–7 record with a 5.69 ERA, he was released at the end of the season.

After his release, Segui  continued pitching in the Mexican League for another 10 years, tossing a no-hitter for the Cafeteros de Cordoba in the 1978 season. During his Mexico stint, he amassed a 96–61 record with a 2.91 ERA and 1025 strikeouts in 193 pitching appearances.

Seguí also pitched for four different teams in the Venezuelan Winter League during 15 seasons between 1962 and 1983. He posted a 95–58 record and a 2.76 ERA in 213 games, setting a league's all-time record with 941 strikeouts, to surpass Aurelio Monteagudo (897) and Jose Bracho (748). Additionally, Segui ranks second in wins behind Bracho (109), third in complete games (68), and is fourth both in ERA and innings pitched (1249⅔).

Seguí was inducted into the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2003. He also gained induction into the Hispanic Heritage Museum Hall of Fame on August 19, 2006 in San Francisco, California.  

Dominican Republic

*The Parsley Massacre began in Hispaniola when Dominican President Rafael Trujillo made an inflammatory speech against Haitans (October 2).

The Parsley Massacre, also referred to as El Corte ("the cutting") in Spanish and as Kout kouto a ("the knife blow") in Creole, was a genocidal massacre carried out in the Fall of  1937 against the Haitian population living in the borderlands of the Dominican Republic with Haiti at the direct order of Dominican President Rafael Trujillo.  Estimates of the total number of deaths vary considerably and range from a low of 547 to a high of 12,166.

The popular name for the massacre came from the shibboleth that the dictatorial Trujillo had his soldiers apply to determine whether or not those living on the border were native Afro-Dominicans or immigrant Afro-Haitians.  Dominican soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley to someone and ask what it was. How the person pronounced the Spanish word for parsley (perejil) determined their fate. The Haitian languages, French and Haitian Creole, pronounce the r as an uvular approximant or a voiced velar fricative, respectively so their speakers can have difficulty pronouncing the alveolar tap or the alveolar trill of the Dominican Republic language, Spanish.  Also, only Spanish but not French or Haitian Creole pronounces the j as the voiceless velar fricative.  If they could pronounce it the Spanish way the soldiers considered them Dominican and let them live, but if they pronounced it the French or Creole way they considered them Haitian and executed them.

The term Parsley Massacre was used frequently in the English-speaking media 75 years after the event, but most scholars recognize that it is a misconception, as research indicates that the explanation is based more on myth than on personal accounts.

Rafael Trujillo, a proponent of anti-Haitianism, made his intentions towards the Haitian community clear in a short speech he gave October 2, 1937, at a dance in his honor in Dajabon. He said,

"For some months, I have traveled and traversed the border in every sense of the word. I have seen, investigated, and inquired about the needs of the population. To the Dominicans who were complaining of the depredations by Haitians living among them, thefts of cattle, provisions, fruits, etc., and were thus prevented from enjoying in peace the products of their labor, I have responded, 'I will fix this.' And we have already begun to remedy the situation. Three hundred Haitians are now dead in Banica. This remedy will continue."

Trujillo reportedly was acting in response to reports of Haitians stealing cattle and crops from Dominican borderland residents. According to some sources, the massacre killed an estimated 20,000 Haitians living in the Dominican border—clearly at Trujillo's direct order. However, estimates of the number of victims vary widely. For approximately five days, from October 2, 1937 to October 8. 1937, Dominican troops killed Haitians with guns, machetes, clubs, and knives. Some died while trying to flee to Haiti across the Artibonite River, which has often been the site of bloody conflict between the two nations.

The Dominican Republic,  formerly the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, is the eastern portion of the island of Hispaniola and occupies five-eighths of the land while having ten million inhabitants. In contrast, Haiti, the former French colony of  Saint Domingue, is on the western three-eighths of the island and has almost exactly the same population, with an estimated 500 people per square mile.

This over-population has forced many Haitians onto land too mountainous, eroded, or dry for productive farming. Instead of staying on lands incapable of supporting them, many Haitians migrated to Dominican soil, where land hunger was lower. While Haitians benefited by gaining farm land, Dominicans in the borderlands subsisted mostly on agriculture, and benefited from the ease of exchange of goods with Haitian markets.

Due to inadequate roadways connecting the borderlands to major cities, "Communication with Dominican markets was so limited that the small commercial surplus of the frontier slowly moved toward Haiti." This threatened Trujillo's regime because of long-standing border disputes between the two nations. If large numbers of Haitian immigrants began to occupy the less densely populated Dominican borderlands, the Haitian government might try to make a case for claiming Dominican land. Additionally, loose borders let contraband pass freely, and without taxes between nations, depriving the Dominican Republic of tariff revenue.

Furthermore, the Dominican government saw the loose borderlands as a liability in terms of possible formation of revolutionary groups that could flee across the border with ease, while at the same time amassing weapons and followers.

Despite attempts to blame Dominican civilians, evidence indicates that bullets from Krag rifles were found in Haitian bodies, and only Dominican soldiers had access to this type of rifle. Therefore, the Haitian Massacre, which is still referred to as el corte (the cutting) by Dominicans and as kouto-a (the knife) by Haitians, was, "...a calculated action on the part of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo to homogenize the furthest stretches of the country in order to bring the region into the social, political and economic fold," and rid his republic of Haitians.

Thereafter, Trujillo began to develop the borderlands to link them more closely with urban areas. These areas were modernized, with the addition of modern hospitals, schools, political headquarters, military barracks, and housing projects—as well as a highway to connect the borderlands to major cities.

Additionally, after 1937, quotas restricted the number of Haitians permitted to enter the Dominican Republic, and a strict and often discriminatory border policy was enacted. Dominicans continued to deport and kill Haitians in southern frontier regions—as refugees died of exposure, malaria and influenza.

In the end, United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt and Haitian president Stenio Vincent sought reparations of $750,000, of which the Dominican government paid $525,000 (US$ 8,641,840.28 in 2016 dollars). Of this 30 dollars per victim, survivors received only 2 cents each, due to corruption in the Haitian bureaucracy.
Despite the number of reported deaths by Haitian, American and British officials, and following over half a century of agricultural expansion and population growth which may have led to accidental unearthing of human remains, no mass grave containing the bodies of murdered Haitians has ever been found.

Nonetheless, the lack of graves does not prove that the killings did not take place; however, it does suggest that the number of dead was in reality much less than those commonly reported. Reports from the day have numbers ranging from as little as 1,000 dead up to 12,000. 

*Juan Marichal, a Hall of Fame baseball player, was born in Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic (October 20).

Juan Antonio Marichal Sánchez (b. October 20, 1937, Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic) played as a right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball most notably for the San Francisco Giants.  Marichal was known for his high leg kick, pinpoint control and intimidation tactics, which included aiming pitches directly at the opposing batters' helmets.

Marichal also played for the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers for the final two seasons of his career.  Although he won more games than any other pitcher during the 1960s, he appeared in only one World Series game and he was often overshadowed by his contemporaries Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson in post-season awards. Nevertheless, Marichal was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.  He had career statistics of 243 wins with 142 losses and a 2.89 career earned run average (ERA).  He also had 2,303 strikeouts.

Puerto Rico 

*Juan Pizarro, a baseball player who played for 18 seasons in Major League Baseball, was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico (February 7).  

Juan Ramon Pizarro Cordova a.k.a. "Terín" (b. February 7, 1937, Santurce, Puerto Rico) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher.  He played for 18 seasons on 9 teams, from 1957 through 1974. In 1964, he won 19 games (19–9) and pitched 4 shutouts for the Chicago White Sox.  He also was an All-Star player in 1963 and 1964.

*The Ponce massacre occurred in Ponce, Puerto Rico when police opened fire on a peaceful civilian march. Twenty-one were killed and more than 200 wounded (March 21).

The Ponce massacre was an event that took place on Palm Sunday,  March 21, 1937, in Ponce, Puerto Rico, when a peaceful civilian march turned into a police shooting in which 19 civilians and two policemen were killed, and more than 200 others wounded. Most of the dead were reportedly shot in their backs. The march had been organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to commemorate the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873, and to protest the United States Government's imprisonment of the Party's leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, on sedition charges.

An investigation led by the United States Commission on Civil Rights put the blame for the massacre squarely on the United States-appointed Governor of Puerto Rico, Blanton Winship. Further criticism by members of the United States Congress led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to remove Winship in 1939 as governor.

Governor Winship was never prosecuted for the massacre and no one under his chain of command - including the police who took part in the event, and admitted to the mass shooting - was ever prosecuted or reprimanded.

The Ponce massacre remains the largest massacre in post-Spanish imperial history in Puerto Rico.  It has been the source of many articles, books, paintings, films, and theatrical works.

*Orlando Cepeda, a Hall of Fame baseball player, was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico (September 17).

Orlando Manuel "Peruchin" Cepeda Pennes (b. September 17, 1937, Ponce, Puerto Rico) was a Major League Baseball first baseman who became a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  The 1958 National League Rookie of the Year, Cepeda was voted the National League Most Valuable Player in 1967, the year his team, the St. Louis Cardinals,  won the World Series.  Overall, Cepeda appeared in three World Series and was the first winner of the American League's Outstanding Designated Hitter Award in 1973. Cepeda batted .300 or better 9 times in his 16 seasons.

Cepeda was born to a poor family. His father, Pedro "Perucho" Cepeda, was also a baseball player in Puerto Rico, an upbringing that influenced Cepeda's interest in the sport from a young age. His first contact with professional baseball was as a batboy for the Santurce Crabbers of Puerto Rico. Pedro Zorilla, the team's owner, persuaded his family to let him attend a New York Giants tryout. He played for several Minor League Baseball teams before attracting the interest of the Giants, who had just moved to San Francisco.

During a career that lasted sixteen years, Cepeda played with the San Francisco Giants (1958–66), St. Louis Cardinals (1966–68), Atlanta Braves (1969–72), Oakland Athletics (1972), Boston Red Sox (1973), and Kansas City Royals (1974). Cepeda was selected to play in seven Major League Baseball All-Star Games during his career, becoming the first player from Puerto Rico to start one. In 1978, Cepeda was sentenced to five years in prison on drug possession charges, of which he served ten months in prison and the rest on probation. In 1987, Cepeda was contracted by the San Francisco Giants to work as a scout and "goodwill ambassador." And, in 1999, Cepeda was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. 

Uruguay

*The Black Native Party of Uruguay was recognized by the Electoral Court. 

On January 5, 1937 the party was recognized by the Electoral Court. In March 1937 a new manifesto was issued, following similar lines as the original party manifesto.

On July 5, 1937 a local committee of the party was established in Rivera. On December 4, 1937 a General Assembly of the party was organized. On December 18, 1937 a local committee was set up in the town of Melo.

The party published the journal Pan ('Bread') as its organ. The first issue was published on April 15, 1937. Nine issues were published until December 1937. Sandalio del Puerto was the editor of Pan, until being replaced by Carmelo Gentile in October 1937.

*****

Europe

France

*The French Colonial Ministry confirmed reports that it was studying plans to offer land on Madagascar and other French colonies for settlement by Jews (January 16).

*Josephine Baker married a Jewish Frenchman, Jean Lion, and became a French citizen. 

Germany

*The encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ("With burning concern") of Pope Pius XI was published in Germany in the German language (March 10). Largely the work of Cardinals von Faulhaber and Pacelli, it condemned breaches of the 1933 Reichskonkordat agreement signed between the Nazi government and the Catholic Church, and criticized Nazism's views on race and other matters incompatible with Catholicism.

Mit brennender Sorge (English: With Burning Concern) On the Church and the German Reich is an encyclical of Pope Pius XI, issued during the Nazi era on March 10, 1937 (but bearing a date of Passion Sunday, March 14, 1937). Written in German, not the usual Latin, it was smuggled into Germany for fear of censorship and was read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches on one of the Church's busiest Sundays,  Palm Sunday (March 21 that year).

The encyclical condemned breaches of the 1933 Reichskonkordat agreement signed between the German Reich and the Holy See.  It condemned "pantheistic confusion", "neopaganism",  "the so-called myth of race and blood", and the idolizing of the State. It contained a vigorous defense of the Old Testament out of belief that it prepared the way for the New. The encyclical states that race is a fundamental value of the human community which is necessary and honorable but condemns the exaltation of race, or the people, or the state, above their standard value to an idolatrous level. The encyclical declares "that man as a person possesses rights he holds from God, and which any collectivity must protect against denial, suppression or neglect."  National Socialism, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party are not named in the document. The term "Reich Government" is used. 

The large effort to produce and distribute over 300,000 copies of the letter was entirely secret, allowing priests across Germany to read the letter without interference. The Gestapo raided the churches the next day to confiscate all the copies they could find, and the presses that had printed the letter were closed. An intensification of the general anti-church struggle began around April in response to the encyclical. The regime further constrained the actions of the Church and harassed monks with staged prosecutions. Though Hitler is not named in the encyclical, it does refer to a "mad prophet" that some claim refers to Hitler himself.

The Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli (later elected as Pope Pius XII), wrote to Germany's Cardinal Faulhaber  on April 2, 1937 explaining that the encyclical was theologically and pastorally necessary “to preserve the true faith in Germany.” The encyclical also defended baptized Jews, considered still Jews by the Nazis (but not by the Church) because of racial theories that the Church could not accept. The encyclical does not discuss the Jewish people in general; however, the Nazis framed their position against the Jewish people in terms of the Germanic race and the Jewish race, i.e., racism. It was reported at the time that the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge was somewhat overshadowed by the anti-communist encyclical Divini Redemptoris which was issued on March 19 in order to avoid the charge by the Nazis that the Pope was indirectly favoring communism.

 *In the years of 1937–1938, Eugen Fischer and his colleagues analyzed 600 children in Nazi Germany who were descended from French-African soldiers who occupied western areas of Germany after World War I.  The children derogatorily called the "Rhineland Bastards" were subsequently subjected to sterilization afterwards.

Eugen Fischer (b. July 5, 1874 – d. July 9, 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology and eugenics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics between 1927 and 1942. He was appointed rector of the Frederick William University of Berlin by Adolf Hitler in 1933, and later joined the Nazi Party. 

In 1908, Fischer conducted field research in German Southwest Africa (now Namibia). He studied the Basters, offspring of German or Boer men who had fathered children by the native women (the Khoi) in that area. His study concluded with a call to prevent a "mixed race" by the prohibition of "mixed marriage" such as those he had studied. His study was based unethical medical practices on the Herero and Namaqua people. He argued that while the existing Mischling -- mixed race -- descendants of the mixed marriages might be useful for Germany, he recommended that they should not continue to reproduce. His recommendations were followed and by 1912 interracial marriage was prohibited throughout the German colonies. As a precursor to his experiments on Jews in Nazi Germany, Fischer collected bones and skulls for his studies, in part from medical experimentation on African prisoners of war in Namibia during the Herero and Namaqua Genocide.  

The ideas expressed in Fischer's study, related to maintaining the purity of races, influenced future German legislation on race, including the Nuremberg laws.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler appointed Fischer rector of the Frederick William University of Berlin (now Humboldt University). Fischer retired from the university in 1942.

Eugen Fischer did not officially join the Nazi Party until 1940. However, he was influential with National Socialists early on. A two-volume work, Foundations of Human Hereditary Teaching and Racial Hygiene published 1921 and 1932, and in 1936 published under Human Heredity Theory and Racial Hygiene, co-written by Erwin Baur and Fritz Lenz, served as the scientific basis for the Nazis' eugenic (race purification) policies. Fischer also authored The Rehoboth Bastards and the Problem of Miscegenation among Humans (1913) (German: Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen), a field study which provided context for later racial debates, which influenced German colonial legislation, and which provided scientific support for the Nuremberg laws.  

Under the Nazi regime, Fischer developed the physiological specifications used to determine racial origins and developed the so-called Fischer-Saller scale, a scale used to determine shades of hair color. He and his team experimented on Gypsies and African Germans, taking blood and measuring skulls to find scientific validation for his eugenic theories.

Efforts to return the Namibian skulls taken by Fischer were started with an investigation by the University of Freiburg in 2011 and completed with the return of the skulls in March 2014.  Additionally, in 1985, the United Nations' Whitaker Report classified the aftermath of the Herero rebellion as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, and therefore being one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century. In 2004 the German government recognized and apologized for the events, but ruled out financial compensation for the victims' descendants. Finally, in July 2015, the German government and parliament officially called the events a "genocide" and "part of a race war".

Great Britain

*Shirley Bassey, a singer best known for singing the theme song for the James Bond film Goldfinger, was born in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales (January 8).  

Shirley Veronica Bassey, (b. January 8, 1937, Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales) is a Welsh singer whose career began in the mid-1950s. She is best known for recording the theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979).

In 2000, Bassey was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts. In 1977 she received the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist in the previous 25 years. Bassey has been called "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century."

*Paul Robeson made an important speech on the Spanish Civil War at the Royal Albert Hall in London during a benefit to raise funds for Basque refugee children (June 24). "There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers", Robeson said. "The liberation of Spain from the oppression of fascist reactionaries is not a private matter of the Spaniards, but the common cause of all advanced and progressive humanity."

Italy

*Italy banned interracial marriage in its African colonies (January 9).

*Italy protested to Britain for inviting Haile Selassie to send an envoy to the king's coronation ceremony (February 23).

*In Italy, the Ministry of Popular Culture ordered all foreign words and names to be Italianized (June 1). Louis Armstrong, for example, was to be known as Luigi Fortebraccio.

Liechtenstein

*Liechtenstein added a crown to its national flag so it would no longer be identical to the flag of Haiti (June 24).

Soviet Union

*From 1937 to 1938, Jack Chen organized an international art exhibition in the Soviet Union, European countries and the United States, bringing the works of the Chinese artists who were opposed to the Japanese aggression in China. It was the first time that the revolutionary art of China was introduced to the world.

Switzerland

*Switzerland recognized the Italian conquest of Ethiopia (June 15).