President Herbert Hoover and the Republicans suffered substantial losses in the U.S. midterm elections. The Republicans, who had held a 270 to 164 majority in 1928, retained only a slim majority of 218 to 216 in the House of Representatives, and their control of the U.S. Senate dropped from a 56-39 majority in 1928 to a 48 to 47 lead.
Nine members of United Artists released a joint statement attacking Fox West Coast Theatres as "an arrogant monopoly" that was fixing low prices to pay to show films, and announcing they would boycott the chain until they changed their policies. Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Al Jolson were among the signees. Fox issued a reply saying their prices were competitive with other west coast theaters and explaining, "Inasmuch as United Artists produce only a small percentage of the films shown in Fox theaters, we are not greatly concerned with their threat to withdraw all their efforts."[5]
The Bank of Tennessee failed and went into federal receivership, triggering a chain reaction of bank closures in and around the American South over the next two weeks as more and more people made bank runs.[7]
Born:Mildred Dresselhaus (née Spiewak), American solid-state physicist and electrical engineer, pioneer in nanotechnology; in Brooklyn (d. 2017)
Died:Caleb R. Layton, 79, American physician and former U.S. Congressman for Delaware who was voted out of office for opposing anti-lynching legislation.
Japanese Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi was shot and seriously wounded in an assassination attempt at Tokyo Station.[13] His wounds were ultimately fatal, and he died of sepsis on August 26, 1931.
A 48-hour general strike began in Madrid protesting police methods in handling demonstrating workmen. Rioters smashed street lights and streetcars while battling police.[15]
The Parliament of Iraq ratified the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty confirming Iraqi independence and providing for Iraq's admission into the League of Nations in 1932.[18]
In Spain, 200,000 workers and students joined the Madrid general strike.[19] Workers in the city of Barcelona also went on strike in sympathy.[20]
College football star Joe Savoldi withdrew from the University of Notre Dame after a scandal broke revealing that he had filed for annulment of a secret marriage.[21]
Fascist Italy reduced the salary of nearly a million government employees by 12%, and in some cases up to 35%, to make up the government's budget deficit. All cabinet ministers, including Mussolini himself, took a 12% pay cut.[23]
The general strike in Barcelona was called off after three days of rioting. Strikes had spread to ten other Spanish cities since the first one was called in Madrid.[20]
Pretty Boy Floyd and an accomplice were sentenced to at least 12 years in prison for robbing a bank in Sylvania, Ohio. Floyd almost escaped an hour before his sentencing by slipping out a side door of the county jail, but police managed to catch him after a short chase.[31]
Born:Bob Friend, U.S. baseball player and pitcher who had the best ERA in the National League in 1955, despite, pitching for the last place Pittsburgh Pirates; in Lafayette, Indiana (d. 2019)
The Nazis won 32 of 120 seats in the Bremen state elections, making them the second-largest party in that German state's legislature, behind the Social Democratic Party, which won 40 seats.[38]
