The following events occurred inMarch 1927:

• An explosion at a coal mine inCwm,Wales, killed 52 miners.^[1]
• U.S. PresidentCalvin Coolidge and his family spent their final night in theWhite House, which was set for six months of repairs on the roof and the upper floor. The following day, the family took up residence at thePatterson Mansion on 15 Dupont Circle, owned by Mrs. Ellinor Schlesinger. President Coolidge continued to use the executive offices at the White House.^[2]
• AtMontevideo,Juan Campisteguy was inaugurated to a four-year term as the 25thPresident of Uruguay, succeedingJosé Serrato.^[3]
• Born:
  • Harry Belafonte, African-American singer (Day-O), inNew York City (d. 2023)
  • Robert Bork, American judge, rejected candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court, inPittsburgh (d. 2012)
• Died:George Polley, 28, American daredevil who climbed skyscrapers from the outside under the billing "The Human Fly". Polley, who had risked death on numerous occasions, died inRichmond, Virginia, during an operation at Memorial Hospital for a brain tumor.^[4]

• Babe Ruth signed a new contract with theNew York Yankees, calling for a then-record salary of $70,000 per year.^[5] The next best paid Yankee player wasHerb Pennock, at $17,500 Wayne Stewart,^[6]
• The discovery, by teenagers Frank Horton Jr. and Leonard Taylor, of high grade gold ore in Nevada, set off a modern-day gold rush that attracted thousands of prospectors to the area.^[7] The town ofWeepah, Nevada sprang up nearTonopah. Within three months, the rush was over, and the Weepah was almost totally deserted by August.^[8]

• A violentcyclone struck the island ofMadagascar, with winds at more than 125 miles per hour (201 km/h). An 8-foot (2.4 m) highstorm surge washed over the city ofTamatave, killing almost 600 people, and numerous ships in the harbor were driven inland.^{[citation needed]}
• ArchaeologistGeorge Andrew Reisner and a group of explorers opened the tomb of QueenHetepheres I, the mother of the builder of the Great Pyramid, and found that the sarcophagus was empty.^[9]
• Born:Pierre Aubert, President of Switzerland (Swiss Federal Council) in 1983 and 1987, inLa Chaux-de-Fonds (d. 2016)
• Died:J. G. Parry-Thomas, 42, British auto racer, atPendine Sands, while trying to set a new automobile speed record.Malcolm Campbell had broken Parry-Thomas' world record of 171.02 miles per hour (275.23 km/h) onFebruary 4.^[10][11]

• InSouth Africa, nearPotchefstroom, the government permitted a race for the staking of claims fordiamond mining at the Grasfontein farm. With the firing of a gun as a signal, 25,000 "peggers" (prospectors) "ran nearly three miles over hummocky broken ground, then set to work feverishly to stake as much of the best territory as possible".^[12]
• Born:Dick Savitt, American tennis player, inBayonne, New Jersey; Wimbledon and Australian Open champion, 1951(d. 2023)
• Died:Ira Remsen, 81, American chemist, who in 1879 discoveredsaccharin by accident

• "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place", the finalSherlock Holmesshort story by SirArthur Conan Doyle, was published for the first time inLiberty magazine in the United States.^[13][14]
• Notre Dame defeatedCreighton University, 31 to 17, to finish the 1926-27college basketball season with a record of 19 wins and one loss. TheHelms Athletic Foundation later recognized Notre Dame as the mythical national champion in a 1941 poll.^[15][16][17]
• General Motors introduced theLaSalle, a smaller and more maneuverable luxury automobile.^[18][19]

• AtBattersea,Bertrand Russell delivered his famous address, "Why I Am Not a Christian".^[20]
• San Francisco police shot and mortally wounded Celsten Eklund, a known anarchist, and wounded another man as they attempted to light the fuse to a large dynamite bomb in front of theSaint Peter and Paul Catholic Church.
• Born:
  • William J. Bell, American TV producer, creator ofThe Young and the Restless andThe Bold and the Beautiful, inChicago (d. 2005)
  • Gordon Cooper, American astronaut on Mercury 9 (1963) and Gemini 5 (1965) (d. 2004)
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian author, inAracataca; author ofOne Hundred Years of Solitude, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, 1982 (d. 2014)
  • Wes Montgomery, American jazz guitarist, inIndianapolis (d. 1968)

• At 6:28 pm local time,an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter magnitude scale struck onJapan'sTango Peninsula in theKyoto Prefecture. The tremors and subsequent fires killed 3,020 people, and destroyed the cities ofToyooka andKinosaki in theHyōgo Prefecture.^[21]
• In the case ofNixon v. Herndon, theUnited States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional aTexas law that barred African-American voters from participating inprimary elections,^[22] rendering similar laws in other states void. The victory was short-lived, as Texas passed a new law that gave political parties the right to set their own rules for participation in a party primary election. Such laws were not held unconstitutional until theApril 1, 1946 ruling inPrimus v. King.^[23]

• The firstdownhill skiing race in theUnited States took place atMount Moosilauke inNew Hampshire, and was won by Charles N. Proctor ofDartmouth College.^[24]
• SingerJimmie Rodgers, celebrated later as "The Father of Country Music", recorded his first hit single,The Soldier's Sweetheart.^[25]

• Signed on September 23, 1926, the1926 Slavery Convention, officially the Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery, entered into force.^[26]
• A neutrality pact was signed betweenLatvia and theSoviet Union, but was not ratified. A subsequent, and weaker, non-aggression pact was finally signed on February 5, 1932. The Republic of Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940.^[27]
• American balloonistHawthorne C. Gray set an unofficial altitude record of 8,230 meters (27,000 feet) over Belleville, Illinois, but passed out in the thin air, regaining consciousness only after the balloon descended on its own. Gray would reach 12,945 meters on May 4, a record that would fail because he parachuted from the craft (at 3,830 m) landing. On November 4, he reached 12,192 meters but did not survive the trip.^[28]
• Adolf Hitler made his first public speech after the Bavarian government lifted a two-year ban against his participation in political events.^[29]

• Zenith Radio Corporation became the first company to obtain a license fromRCA to manufacture radios, followed on May 18 by theCrosley Radio Corporation.^[30]

• Thefirst armored car robbery was committed byPaul Jaworski and the Flatheads Gang nearPittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The gang set off explosions to disable two cars that were transporting cash for the payroll for the Terminal Coal Company, and escaped with more than $104,000.^[31]
• InNew York City, theRoxy Theater was opened bySamuel Roxy Rothafel. With 5,920 seats, it was the largest cinema built up to that time.^[32]
• PCJJ, the first shortwave radio station in Europe and the first dedicated shortwave radio station in the world officially went on air, broadcasting fromthe Netherlands.^[33]
• Born:Ron Todd, British trade union leader; President of TGWU 1985-92; inWalthamstow,London (d. 2005)

• TheKreta Ayer Incident inSingapore turned much of the Chinese community in the British colony against the colonial administration. Demonstrators, observing the anniversary of the death ofSun Yat-sen, were fired upon by police after stopping in front of a precinct station at Kreta Ayer, and six people were killed.^[34]
• Outside theBolshoi Theatre inMoscow, an assassination attempt was made against Soviet Politburo memberNikolai Bukharin. The Soviets claimed that the failed crime had been the work of British intelligence agents, and a group of "counterrevolutionaries" were executed on June 9, 1927. In 1938, Bukharin himself was accused of plotting against the government and was executed.^[35]
• The adventure filmThe Beloved Rogue starringJohn Barrymore was released.
• Born:Emmett Leith, co-inventor of the hologram, inAnn Arbor (d. 2005)

• The leadership of theKuomintang voted to fireChiang Kai-shek from most of his executive positions, except for commander of expeditionary forces. Generalissimo Chiang ignored the demotion and, after capturing Shanghai two weeks later, took absolute control over the Kuomintang.^[35]
• Born:
  • Raúl Alfonsín, 49thPresident of Argentina (1983–89), inChascomús,Buenos Aires (d. 2009)
  • Robert Denning, American interior designer (d. 2005)

• Jigme Wangchuck was formally crowned asKing of Bhutan, under the authority of the British protectorate.^[36]
• Igor Stravinsky finished the score for the operaOedipus Rex.^[37]
• Died:Jānis Čakste, 67, firstPresident of Latvia and in office since 1922; he was succeeded by Gustavs Zemgals

• InTokyo, the large Watanabe Bank failed a day after Finance Minister Naoharu Kataoka mistakenly said in a speech that the struggling bank had "at last collapsed" and depositors made abank run, withdrawing their cash.Two other banks collapsed by the end of the week and by March 24, twelve banks had crashed and more would follow.^[38]
• Born:Carl Smith, American country musician, inMaynardville, Tennessee (d. 2010)

• The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism was completed byGeorge Bernard Shaw.^[39]
• Born:
  • Vladimir Komarov, Soviet cosmonaut and first human to die during a space mission; inOrenburg (killed 1967 in re-entry ofSoyuz 1)
  • Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senator (D-N.Y.), 1977–2001; inTulsa, Oklahoma (d. 2003)^[40]
  • Georges Séguy, leader of the France's CGT labour union; inToulouse (d. 2016)

• As theTeapot Dome scandal continued to unravel,Harry F. Sinclair, owner of Mammoth Oil Company (later Sinclair Oil), was convicted by a jury of contempt of Congress. The multi-milloniare eventually served a six-month prison term in 1930.^[41] On the same day, President Coolidge issued anexecutive order returning administration of all naval petroleum reserves from theU.S. Department of Interior to theU.S. Department of the Navy.^[42]
• More than one hundred people died when the Chinese shipChongfu was wrecked in theYangtze River nearLuzhou in theSichuan Province.^[43]

• The Royal Australian Navy cruiserHMAS Australia was launched atClydesbank,Scotland. It would be commissioned in 1928.^[44]
• Born:Roberto Suazo Córdova,President of Honduras from 1982 to 1986 (d. 2018)
• Died:Charles Emmett Mack, 26, American silent film actor, in an auto accident

• In theNorthern Expedition in China, GeneralissimoChiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces arrived at the defensive line protecting the city ofShanghai. Instead of defending against the enemy, the garrison commander collaborated with the Nationalists, as well as handing over the plans for city's defense. Though offered a position with Chiang's forces, the officer who betrayed his commander declined to work further with them. One author wrote later, "Stupidly, he went home toShandong, where he was executed^[45]
• A tornado leveled the town ofGreen Forest, Arkansas, killing 16 people and injuring more than 50. In all, 26 people were killed in the storm.^[46]
• Born:George Plimpton, American sportswriter (Paper Lion), inNew York City (d. 2003)

• Balto, the Siberian husky who would later become the subject of an animated1995 film (Amblin Entertainment), was given a parade and a hero's welcome inCleveland, along with six of his canine teammates (Fox, Sye, Billy, Tillie, Moctoc and Alaska Slim). Businessman George Kimble had rescued the animals, two years after the1925 serum run to Nome, after finding that they were being neglected.^[47][48]
• Born:
  • Richie Ashburn, American MLB player and Hall of Fame enshrinee, atTilden, Nebraska (d. 1997)
  • Allen Newell, pioneering computer programmer, inSan Francisco (d. 1992)

• InMahad, Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar began a crusade for the end of discrimination against theDalit caste inIndia, known commonly as "Untouchables".^[49]
• Albert Snyder, a 44-year-old art editor for the magazineBoating, was brutally murdered at his home on 222nd Street inQueens, New York, and his wife,Ruth Snyder, was discovered bound and gagged. A few days later, police arrested Ruth and her lover, Judd Gray, for Albert's murder. After their trial and conviction, Mrs. Snyder and Mr. Gray would both be executed on January 12, 1928.^[50]
• Born:John Joubert, British composer, inCape Town,South Africa (d. 2019)

• As the Nationalist Chinese troops ofChiang Kai-shek approachedShanghai during theNorthern Expedition, Chinese Communist Party leaderZhou Enlai led the Shanghai Uprising to aid Generalissimo Chiang. A strike was called and 600,000 workers left their jobs. Rebels then seized police stations and armories, cut power and telephone lines, and obeyed Zhou's orders to not harm foreigners in the city.^[51]
• Born:Hans-Dietrich Genscher,Vice-Chancellor of West Germany and the nation'sForeign Minister from 1974 to 1990; following reunification with East Germany, Genscher would serve asVizekanzler and Foreign Minister until May 17, 1992; inReideburg (d. 2016)

• At a meeting at the Biltmore Hotel in New York, Zionist leaderChaim Weizmann and a supporter from the Jewish community, attorneyLouis Marshall, reached an agreement to fund a survey ofPalestine and the "Holy Land". A commission headed by Lee Frankel delivered its report later in the year.^[52]
• Forty-three Russian peasants, on their way to church inOrenburg, drowned when their ferry boat sank.^[53]
• Died:Charles Sprague Sargent, 85, creator of theArnold Arboretum in Boston.

• After the troops supportingShanghai's warlords retreated toNanking, Nationalist troops pursued, andattacks on foreigners began. Six foreign residents, including Professor John E. Williams of Nanjing University, were killed.^[54]
• Died:Paul César Helleu, 67, French painter

• After six foreigners had been killed inNanjing andit appeared that Kuomintang troops would overrun the foreign consulates atNanjing, the American consul, John K. Davis, asked for military intervention.^[55] The American destroyersUSSNoa andUSSPreston, and the British cruiserHMSEmerald, fired shells into the Chinese city to clear the streets, then dispersed the attackers with gunfire.^[56]
• Born:
  • Martin Walser, German author, inWasserburg am Bodensee (d. 2023)
  • Gerald D. Aurbach, American biochemist, inCleveland (d. 1991)

• The Japanese aircraft carrierAkagi was commissioned into theImperial Japanese Navy. After taking part in the 1941attack on Pearl Harbor, theAkagi was damaged and sunk six months later at theBattle of Midway.^[57]
• After a day of shellingNanking, the United States and Britainagreed to a one-day ceasefire in return for the Kuomintang allowing the hundreds of foreigners in the city to be safely evacuated.^[58] Six foreigners, three of them British, had been killed by Chinese forces. Chinese histories estimate that there were more than 2,000 Chinese casualties from the bombardment.^[59] The French Communist newspaperCommunite reported that 7,000 Chinese had been killed in the bombardment ofNanjing, while the U.S. State Department placed the total number of deaths and injuries "at less than 100".^[60]
• Born:
  • Bill Barilko, Canadian NHL player for Toronto Maple Leafs, inTimmins, Ontario (killed in plane crash, 1951)
  • Leslie Claudius, Indian field hockey star and three time Olympic gold medalist (d. 2012)

• MarshalChiang Kai-shek, Commander in Chief of the Cantonese armies, capturedShanghai "without firing a shot", and arrived at the city on the gunboatZhongshan, after sailing fromHankou. At the French Concession, Chiang met with local political and business leaders, who pledged their financial support if he would end his alliance with the Communists who had helped him gain control of the city.^[61]

• Anatol Josepho, a 31-year-old Russian who had arrived in the United States penniless in 1925, became a millionaire with the sale of the rights to his invention, thephoto booth, to the newly organized Photomaton Corporation.^[62]
• $350,000 Fire inGlace Bay,Nova Scotia, destroyed seven buildings and damaged several more. The flames, started by an electric iron in a tailor's shop,^[63] and fanned by anortheastblizzard, levelled an entire block of buildings as firemen were unable to contain the blaze. It was the worst fire the town ever experienced with the losses approaching half a million dollars. In all, seven buildings were completely destroyed, with a number of others receiving damage.^{[63][64][65][66][67]} The loss was quite a heavy one to John Connor, owner and operator of theSavoy Theatre. The Savoy Theatre building was valued at $65,000, while Connor had only about $25,000 insurance.^[64] Nevertheless, John Connor quickly rebuilt its replacement.
• Henry Ford, at the time the world's wealthiest man, was hospitalized after he struck a tree. The auto magnate had been driving his coupe when it was run off the road by a larger Studebaker on Michigan Avenue inDetroit. Reports of the crash were kept from the press for several days^[68] and the matter was later investigated as "an attempted assassination",^[69] but the case was later dropped.^[70] Researcher Jim Morris concluded that the accident was the motivating reason for the inclusion ofsafety glass in all Ford automobiles thereafter.^[71]
• Born:
  • Mstislav Rostropovich, Russian cellist and conductor, inBaku,Azerbaijan SSR,USSR (d. 2007)
  • Anthony Lewis, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, inNew York City (d. 2013)
• Died:
  • Joe Start, 84, American first baseman from 1871 to 1886
  • William Healey Dall, 81, American naturalist
  • Will H. Dilg, 56, American conservationist

• TheMajestic Theatre opened in New York with the productionRufus LeMaire's Affairs. TheBroadway theatre would premiere numerous successful plays and musicals, includingCarousel,South Pacific,The Music Man,Camelot,The Wiz, and Andrew Lloyd Webber'sThe Phantom of the Opera, which has played at the Majestic since 1988.^[72]
• Died: Alfred Klausmeyer, 66, co-founder and operator of theAnchor Buggy Company, which had been the world's largest manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages from 1887 until 1915.^[73]

• Henry Segrave became the first person to drive a car at more than 200 miles per hour (320 km/h), reaching 203.79 miles per hour (327.97 km/h) in the 1,000-horsepower (750 kW)SunbeamMystery. Racing on the sands ofDaytona Beach,Florida, Segrave brokeMalcolm Campbell's world record, set inFebruary 1927, by almost 30 miles per hour (48 km/h).^[74][75]
• Hubert Wilkins andBen Eielson became the first people to make an airplane landing on a floating icepack, after having engine trouble. Landing in theArctic Ocean, further north than any previous airplane had been, Wilkins and Eielson made their repairs and took off again, flew back south, made another forced descent onto ice, and had to hike ten more days across the ice to return to the shores ofBarrow, Alaska.^[76]
• Born:
  • John McLaughlin, American political commentator (The McLaughlin Group), inProvidence, Rhode Island (d. 2016)
  • John Robert Vane, British pharmacologist and 1982 Nobel Prize laureate, inTardebigge,Worcestershire (d. 2004)

• Followingthe worst financial panic in Japanese history, that nation's Diet passed an emergency banking law, the Ginko Ho, immediately increasing the amount of capital that banks were required to keep in reserve. As a result, the number of banks decreased over the next five years from 1,417 to 680^[77] and Japan's five largest banks (Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Yasuda and Dai-Ichi) doubled their share of the nation's deposits, from 17% to 31%.^[78]
• Coal mine explosions in Pennsylvania and Illinois killed five and eight miners respectively, but hundreds more were rescued the next day after being trapped underground. AtEhrenfeld, Pennsylvania, it appeared that nearly 500 miners had been trapped, but all but five came out the next day.^[79] An explosion the same day nearLedford, Illinois trapped 300 men, but all but 8 were saved.^[80]
• Died:Ladislas Lazaro, 54, U.S. Congressman (D-La.) since 1913

• At midnight, members of theUnited Mine Workers of America began a strike of American bituminous coal mines after the expiration of their 1924 contract with union mines, with 200,000 miners across the United States walking off of their jobs.^[81] Coal mining continued with strikebreakers, and the strike came to an end on July 18, 1928.^[82]
• Vladimir K. Zworykin received British Patent No. 255,057 for an all cathode ray television system. U.S. Patent No. 1,691,324 was issued on November 13, 1928.^[83]
• Born:
  • César Chávez, American labor leader, founder ofUnited Farm Workers; inYuma, Arizona (d. 1993)
  • William Daniels, American film and television actor (voice of KITT inKnight Rider; Dr. Mark Craig inSt. Elsewhere); inBrooklyn (alive in 2026)

• March 1927
• March by year
• Months in the 1920s

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