The following events occurred in August 1927: Monday, August 1, 1927 The Nanchang Uprising began as a pivotal event that created the China's People's Liberation Army, as 20,000 of the Communist members of the Twentieth Army of the Kuomintang revolted and took control of the city of Nanchang, capital of the Jiangxi Province. The rebels dispersed four days later when the Nationalists counter-attacked, but the new Chinese Red Army planned other attacks. Among the participants were future Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, the later to be disgraced Lin Biao, and future Marshals Zhu De, General He Long, Ye Ting, Liu Bocheng, Nie Rongzhen and Luo Ruiqing and Lin Biao. August 1 is still celebrated annually as "Army Day". The Carter Family, led by A.P. Carter and described as "the first band sensation in country music history", recorded the first of many bestselling records. Their debut single, made at a studio in Bristol, Tennessee, was "Bury Me Beneath the Willow". The Japanese minelaying ship Tokiwa was heavily damaged while trying to deactivate armed mines in the Saiki Bay. One of the floating mines exploded, setting off a chain reaction in seventeen other mines. Thirty-five of the crew were killed and another sixty-eight seriously injured. The Leningrad Oblast, one of the largest in Soviet Union, was formed by the consolidation of the lands around Leningrad, Murmansk, Novgorod, Cherepovets, and Pskov. Over the next fifteen years, the oblast would be broken up again. Tuesday, August 2, 1927 While on an extended vacation in Rapid City, South Dakota, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge closed his weekly 9:30 am press conference with a directive to return at noon for a special announcement. When the newspapermen returned to Coolidge's office, located at Central High School, the President told them, "Will you please file past me? I have a little statement for you." Each reporter was handed a folded slip of paper with one typewritten statement: "I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty-eight." A reporter asked, "Does the president care to comment further?" The laconic Coolidge replied, "No", and left the room. The surprise had been timed so that it could not make the news until after the close of trade on the stock markets. Speculation about the Republican candidate for president in 1928 included Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, and former Illinois Governor Frank O. Lowden. Wednesday, August 3, 1927 Sixteen miners were killed