February 21, 1934. Nicaraguan rebel leader Augusto César Sandino is assassinated in Managua, Nicaragua by the National Guard controlled by General Anastasio Somoza GarcÃa, who will go on to seize power in a coup d’état two years later, establishing a family dynasty that would rule Nicaragua for over forty years.
March 1, 1934. The Japanese install Pu-yi, once Emperor of China, as puppet emperor of Manchukuo (Manchuria). The young emperor will only be allowed to carry out Japanese policies for the former province of China called by its new Japanese name, Manchukuo.
May 23, 1934. Outlaw bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are shot dead by police in an ambush in Louisiana. The couple had been engaged in a crime spree across Texas, robbing banks, small stores and gas stations. They also killed at least nine police officers and several civilians.
May 28, 1934. In Canada, the Dionne quintuplets are born, the first set of quintuplets to survive birth. After four months with their family, they are made wards of the King for the next nine years under the Dionne Quintuplets’ Guardianship Act, 1935. The government and those around them begin to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction in Ontario.
June 30, 1934. Hitler arrests and executes the leaders of the German Storm Troopers (SA or “brown shirts”) in what is called “The Night of the Long Knives.” Hitler has been worried about Brownshirt leader Ernst Rohm’s independence and lack of allegiance to Hitler alone. (The picture shows Hitler with Rohm who was executed on Hitler’s orders.)
July 25, 1935. Austrian Nazis assassinate chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss during a failed coup attempt.
August 2, 1934. Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany, becoming head of state as well as Chancellor.
August 18, 1934. Alcatraz Prison, built on a large rock in the middle of San Francisco Bay, opens as an “escape-proof” federal penitentiary, designed to house the most dangerous of federal criminals.
October 9, 1934. King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French foreign minister Louis Barthou are assassinated in Marseilles by a Croatian nationalist.
October 16, 1934. The Long March of the Chinese Communists begins. After breaking through a Nationalist Chinese blockade, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai lead the Communist First Front Army on a 600-mile journey across southwestern China. Pursued by the Nationalist Chinese Army (Kuomingtang) and dogged by poor weather conditions, food, clothing and equipment shortages, and hostile local tribes, the Communists will escape to Shaanxi Province but will lose nine-tenths of their army on the way.