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1932_11 | Section: December (2):
December 1 – Germany returns to the World Disarmament Conference after the others powers agree to accept gleichberechtigung "in principle". Henceforward, it is clear that Germany will be allowed to rearm beyond the limits imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.
December 3 – Hindenburg names Kurt von Schleicher as German chancellor after he ousts Papen. Papen is deeply angry about how his former friend Schleicher has brought him down and decides that he will do anything to get back into power.
December 4 – Chancellor Schleicher meets with Gregor Strasser and offers to appoint him Vice-Chancellor and Reich Commissioner for Prussia out of the hope that if faced with a split in the NSDAP, Hitler will support his government.
December 5 – At a secret meeting of the Nazi leaders, Strasser urges Hitler to drop his "all or nothing" strategy and accept Schleicher's offer to have the Nazis serve in his cabinet. Hitler gives a dramatic speech saying that Schleicher's offer is not acceptable and he will stick to his "all or nothing" strategy whatever the consequences might be and wins the Nazi leadership over to his viewpoint.
December 8 – Gregor Strasser resigns as the chief of the NSDAP's organizational department in protest against Hitler's "all or nothing" strategy.
December 10 – The Emu War in Australia ends in failure.
December 12 – Japan and the Soviet Union reform their diplomatic connections.
December 19 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service using a shortwave radio facility at its Daventry transmitting station in England.
December 24 – 1932 Moweaqua Coal Mine disaster
December 25
The 7.6 Ms Changma earthquake shakes the Gansu Province in China with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Two-hundred and seventy-five people are killed.
IG Farben files a patent application in Germany for the medical application of the first sulfonamide oral antibiotic, which will be marketed as Prontosil, following Gerhard Domagk's laboratory demonstration of its properties as an antibiotic.
King George V delivers the first Royal Christmas Message on the new BBC Empire Service radio from Sandringham House; the text has been written by Rudyard Kipling.
December 27 – Internal passports are introduced in the Soviet Union.
December 28 – The Cologne banker Kurt von Schröder-who is a close friend of Papen and a NSDAP member-meets with Adolf Hitler to tell him that Papen wants to set up a meeting to discuss how they can work together. Papen wants Nazi support to return to the Chancellorship while Hitler wants Papen to convince Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor. Hitler agrees to meet Papen on January 3, 1933.
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1933_0 | 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1933rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 933rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 33rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1930s decade. |
1933_0 | Section: January (2):
January 11 – Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand.
January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wishes of U.S. President Herbert Hoover.
January 28 – "Pakistan Declaration": Choudhry Rahmat Ali publishes (in Cambridge, UK) a pamphlet entitled Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?, in which he calls for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he calls "Pakstan"; this influences the Pakistan Movement.
January 30
Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany by President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg.
Édouard Daladier forms a government in France in succession to Joseph Paul-Boncour. He is succeeded on October 26 by Albert Sarraut and on November 26 by Camille Chautemps.
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1933_1 | Section: February (2):
February 1 – Adolf Hitler gives his "Proclamation to the German People" in Berlin.
February 3 – Adolf Hitler gives a secret speech to his military leaders, outlining his plans to rearm Germany in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles and to adopt a policy of Lebensraum in eastern Europe.
February 5 – A mutiny starts on the Royal Netherlands Navy coastal defence ship De Zeven Provinciën in the Dutch East Indies. After 6 days, it is bombed by a Dutch aircraft, killing 23 men, and the remaining mutineers surrender.
February 6–7 – Officers on the USS Ramapo record a 34-meter high sea wave in the Pacific Ocean.
February 9 – The King and Country debate: The Oxford Union student debating society in England passes a resolution stating, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and country."
February 10 – The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company introduces the first singing telegram.
February 15 – In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead fatally wounds the Mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak. Zangara is executed on March 20 by the electric chair.
February 17 – Repeal of Prohibition in the United States: The Blaine Act passes the United States Senate, submitting the proposed Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. The amendment is ratified on December 5, ending prohibition in the United States.
February 23 – The Imperial Japanese Army invades Rehe province in northern China.
February 27 – Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag building, is set on fire under controversial circumstances. The following day, the Reichstag Fire Decree is passed in response to the Reichstag fire, nullifying many German civil liberties.
February 28 – English cricket team in Australia in 1932–33: The England cricket team wins The Ashes using the controversial bodyline tactic.
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1933_2 | Section: March (2):
March 2 – King Kong: The original King Kong film, starring Fay Wray and directed by Merian C. Cooper, debuts in New York City. The movie is the first feature film to use stop-motion animation models.
March 3 – 1933 Sanriku earthquake: A powerful earthquake and tsunami hit Honshū, Japan, killing approximately 3,000 people.
March 4
Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) is sworn in as the 32nd president of the United States, beginning his "first 100 days". About the Great Depression, he proclaims "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" in his inauguration speech. It is the last time Inauguration Day in the United States occurs on March 4.
The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure; Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates authoritarian rule by decree, an origin of Austrofascism.
March 5
The Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "Bank holiday", closing all United States banks and freezing all financial transactions (the 'holiday' ends on March 13).
March 1933 German federal election: The Nazi Party gains 43.9% of the votes.
March 7 – The real-estate trading board game Monopoly is developed in the United States.
March 10 – The 6.4 Mw Long Beach earthquake shakes Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing 115 people.
March 12 – Great Depression: Franklin Delano Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States, in the first of his "Fireside chats".
March 14 – Indonesian Association football club Persib Bandung is founded as Bandoeng Inlandsche Voetbal Bond.
March 15
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rises from 53.84 to 62.10. The day's gain of 15.34%, achieved during the depths of the Great Depression, remains the largest 1-day percentage gain for the index.
Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss keeps members of the National Council from convening, starting the Austrofascist dictatorship.
March 20
Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed in Germany (it opens March 22 to hold political prisoners).
First of a series of meetings in the United States called by Jewish organizations calling for an international anti-Nazi boycott in response to the persecution of German Jews.
March 22 – President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Cullen–Harrison Act, an amendment to the Volstead Act, allowing the manufacture and sale from April 7 of "3.2 beer" (3.2% alcohol by weight, approximately 4% alcohol by volume) and light wines, 8 months before the full repeal of Prohibition in the United States in December.
March 23 – Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, making Adolf Hitler effectively the dictator of Germany.
March 27 – Japan announces it will leave the League of Nations (due to a cancellation period of exactly two years, the egression becomes effective March 27, 1935).
March 29 – Welsh journalist Gareth Jones makes the first report in the West of the Holodomor famine genocide in Ukraine.
March 31
March revolution in Uruguay: President Gabriel Terra carries out a coup with the support of the civilian population, police officers and firefighters and rules as a dictator until 1938.
The Civilian Conservation Corps is established in the United States as an unemployment relief program.
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1933_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1 – The recently elected Nazis (under Julius Streicher) organize a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany.
April 2 – As a member of the English cricket team touring New Zealand, 1933, batsman Wally Hammond scores a record 336 runs in a test match at Eden Park, Auckland.
April 3
An anti-monarchist rebellion occurs in Siam (Thailand).
The first flight over Mount Everest is made by the British Houston-Mount Everest Flight Expedition, led by the Marquis of Clydesdale, and funded by Lucy, Lady Houston.
April 4 – American airship Akron crashes off the coast of New Jersey, killing 73 of its 76 crewmen. It is the worst aviation accident in history up to this date (and until 1950).
April 5
The International Court of Justice in The Hague decides that Greenland belongs to Denmark, and condemns Norwegian landings on eastern Greenland. Norway submits to the decision.
United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a national emergency and issues Executive Order 6102, making it illegal for U.S. citizens to own substantial amounts of monetary gold or bullion.
April 7 – In Germany, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service is passed, the first law of the new regime directed against Jews (as well as political opponents).
April 11 – Aviator Bill Lancaster takes off from Lympne in England, in an attempt to make a speed record to the Cape of Good Hope, but vanishes (his body is not found in the Sahara Desert until 1962).
April 13 – The Children and Young Persons Act is passed in the United Kingdom. This raises the age of criminal responsibility from 7 to 8, raises the minimum age for capital punishment to 18, places restrictions on the identification in the press of persons under 18 appearing in court, sets a minimum full-time working age of 14 and makes it illegal to sell tobacco products to under-16s.
April 21 – Nazi Germany outlaws the kosher ritual shechita.
April 24 – In Nazi Germany:
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses begins with the seizure of the Bible Students' office in Magdeburg.
Jewish physicians are excluded from official insurance schemes, forcing many to give up their practices.
April 26 – The Gestapo secret police is established in Nazi Germany by Hermann Göring.
April 27 – The Stahlhelm veterans' organization joins the Nazi party in Germany.
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1933_4 | Section: May (2):
May 2 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler prohibits trade unions.
May 3
In the Irish Free State, Dáil Éireann abolishes the oath of allegiance to the British Crown.
Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to be named director of the United States Mint.
May 5 – The detection by Karl Jansky of radio waves from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is reported in The New York Times. The discovery leads to the birth of radio astronomy.
May 8 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 3-week hunger strike because of the mistreatment of the lower castes in India.
May 10 – Chaco War: Paraguay formally declares war on Bolivia.
May 17 – Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form the Nasjonal Samling (the National Gathering Party) of Norway.
May 18 – New Deal: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.
May 26 – The Nazi Party in Germany introduces a law to legalize eugenic sterilization.
May 27
New Deal in the United States: The Federal Securities Act is signed into law, requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
The Century of Progress World's Fair opens in Chicago.
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1933_5 | Section: June (2):
June – The Holodomor famine-genocide in Ukraine reaches its peak, with 30,000 deaths from human-made starvation each day. The average life expectancy for a Ukrainian male born this year is 7.3 years.
June 5 – The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States use of the gold standard, by enacting a joint resolution nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
June 6 – The first drive-in movie theater is opened in Pennsauken Township, near Camden, New Jersey, by Richard Hollingshead, according to his patent granted May 16.
June 12 – The London Economic Conference is held.
June 17 – Kansas City massacre: At the Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, gangsters kill four law enforcement officers and detained fugitive bank robber Frank Nash.
June 22 – Nazi Germany outlaws the Social-Democratic Party (SPD).
June 25 – Wilmersdorfer Tennishallen delegates convene in Berlin to protest against the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany.
June 26 – In the United States:
The American Totalisator Company unveils its first electronic pari-mutuel betting machine, at the Arlington Park race track near Chicago.
Founding of Twentieth Century Pictures as a motion picture production company by Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck in Hollywood.
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1933_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1
The London Passenger Transport Board begins operation.
Business Plot: Smedley Butler becomes involved in a coup attempt led by Gerald MacGuire against the President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt which fails (according to his testimony in 1934).
July 4 – Gandhi is sentenced to prison in India.
July 6 – The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game is played at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
July 8 – The first rugby union test match is played between the Wallabies of Australia and the Springboks of South Africa, at Newlands in Cape Town.
July 14 – In Nazi Germany:
Formation of new political parties is forbidden.
The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring is enacted, allowing compulsory sterilization of citizens suffering from a list of alleged genetic disorders.
July 15
The Four-Power Pact is signed by Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
The International Left Opposition (ILO) is renamed the International Communist League (ICL).
July 20 – Reichskonkordat: Vatican state secretary Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) signs an accord with Germany.
July 22
Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world, landing at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, after traveling eastbound 15,596 mi (25,099 km) in 7 days 18 hours 45 minutes.
"Machine Gun Kelly" and Albert Bates kidnap Charles Urschel, an Oklahoma oilman, and demand $200,000 ransom.
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1933_7 | Section: August (2):
August 1 – The Blue Eagle emblem of the National Recovery Administration in the United States is displayed publicly for the first time.
August 2 – The White Sea–Baltic Canal, Stalin's 227 km ship canal constructed using forced labour in the Soviet Union, opens, connecting the White Sea with Lake Onega and the Baltic.
August 7 – Simele massacre: More than 3,000 Assyrian Iraqis are killed by Iraqi government troops.
August 12 – British politician Winston Churchill makes his first speech publicly warning of the dangers of German rearmament.
August 14 – Loggers cause a forest fire in the Coast Range of Oregon, later known as the first forest fire of the Tillamook Burn. It is extinguished on September 5, after destroying 240,000 acres (970 km2).
August 25 – The Diexi earthquake shakes Mao County, Sichuan, China and kills 9,000 people.
August 30 – German-Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing is shot in Marienbad (Mariánské Lázně), Czechoslovakia, dying the following day.
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1933_8 | Section: September (2):
September 12
Alejandro Lerroux forms a new government in Spain.
Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury (London), conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.
September 26 – 1933 Tampico hurricane: A hurricane destroys the town of Tampico, Mexico.
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1933_9 | Section: October (2):
October 1 – Engelbert Dollfuss, leader of the Fatherland's Front in Austria, is seriously injured in a failed assassination attempt.
October 7 – Air France is formed by the merger of five French airline companies, beginning operations with 250 planes.
October 10 – 1933 United Airlines Boeing 247 mid-air explosion: A bomb destroys a United Airlines Boeing 247 on a transcontinental flight in mid-air near Chesterton, Indiana, killing all 7 on board, in the first proven case of sabotage in civil aviation, although no suspect is ever identified.
October 12 – The United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz is acquired by the United States Department of Justice, which plans to incorporate the island into its Federal Bureau of Prisons as a penitentiary.
October 14 – Germany announces its withdrawal from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference, after the U.S., the U.K. and France deny its request to increase its defence armaments under the Versailles Treaty.
October 14–16 – The new constitution of Estonia is approved only on the third consecutive referendum.
October 16 – Parricides committed in the United States by Victor Licata lead to calls for the legal prohibition of cannabis.
October 17 – Scientist Albert Einstein arrives from Europe in the United States, where he settles permanently as a refugee from Nazi Germany and takes up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.
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1933_10 | Section: November (2):
November 5 – Spanish Basque people vote for autonomy.
November 8
New Deal: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.
Mohammad Zahir Shah becomes King of Afghanistan at the age of 19, following the assassination of his father King Mohammad Nadir Shah.
November 11 – Dust Bowl: In South Dakota, a very strong dust storm ("the great black blizzard") strips topsoil from desiccated farmlands (one of a series of disastrous dust storms this year).
November 12 – Japan Precision Optical Industry, predecessor of the global Canon camera and photocopier brand is founded in Japan.
November 16
The United States and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.
American aviator Jimmie Angel becomes the first foreigner to see the Angel Falls in Venezuela (they are named after him).
November 17 – The Marx Brothers' anarchic comedy film Duck Soup is released in the United States.
November 19 – Second Spanish Republic: General elections result in a victory by the right-wing parties.
November 22 – The Fujian People's Government is declared in Fujian Province, China.
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1933_11 | Section: December (2):
December 5 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, repealing Prohibition in the United States, making production and sale of alcohol legal in the U.S.
December 17 – The first NFL Championship game in American football is played. The Chicago Bears defeat the New York Giants 23–21.
December 21 – Newfoundland returns to Crown colony status, following financial collapse.
December 23 – Lagny-Pomponne rail accident: A train collision near Lagny-sur-Marne in France kills 204.
December 26
Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States is signed by participants in the 7th International Conference of American States; it is significant in the development of the declarative theory of statehood.
The Nissan Motor Company is organized in Tokyo, Japan.
FM radio is patented.
December 29 – Members of the Iron Guard assassinate Ion Gheorghe Duca, prime minister of Romania.
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1934_0 | 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1934th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 934th year of the 2nd millennium, the 34th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1930s decade. |
1934_0 | Section: January (2):
January 2 – Wael Zwaiter, Palestinian writer (d. 1972)
January 4 – Rudolf Schuster, 2nd President of Slovakia
January 5 – Eddy Pieters Graafland, Dutch football goalkeeper (d. 2020)
January 7
Charles Jenkins, American sprinter
Tassos Papadopoulos, Cypriot politician, 5th President of Cyprus (d. 2008)
January 10 – Leonid Kravchuk, President of Ukraine (d. 2022)
January 11 – Jean Chrétien, 20th Prime Minister of Canada
January 14
Richard Briers, English actor (d. 2013)
Pierre Darmon, French tennis player
January 16 – Marilyn Horne, American mezzo-soprano
January 17 – Cedar Walton, American jazz pianist (d. 2013)
January 18 – Raymond Briggs, British writer and illustrator (d. 2022)
January 20 – Tom Baker, British actor
January 21 – Ann Wedgeworth, American actress (d. 2017)
January 24 – Stanisław Grochowiak, Polish poet and dramatist (d. 1976)
January 27 – Édith Cresson, Prime Minister of France
January 30 – Tammy Grimes, American actress (d. 2016)
January 31 – Eva Mozes Kor, Romanian Holocaust survivor and author (d. 2019)
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1934_1 | Section: February (2):
February 7 – Eddie Fenech Adami, 10th Prime Minister of Malta and 7th President of Malta
February 10 – Fleur Adcock, New Zealand poet (d. 2024)
February 11
Manuel Noriega, Panamanian military dictator (d. 2017)
John Surtees, British racing driver (d. 2017)
February 12 – Anne Krueger, American economist
February 13 – George Segal, American actor (d. 2021)
February 14 – Florence Henderson, American actress, singer and television personality (d. 2016)
February 15 – Niklaus Wirth, Swiss computer scientist (d. 2024)
February 17
Sir Alan Bates, British actor (d. 2003)
Barry Humphries, Australian actor, comedian (d. 2023)
February 18
Anna Maria Ferrero, Italian actress (d. 2018)
Paco Rabanne, Spanish fashion designer (d. 2023)
February 21 – Rue McClanahan, American actress (d. 2010)
February 24
Bettino Craxi, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 2000)
Renata Scotto, Italian soprano (d. 2023)
Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawian President, economist (d. 2012)
February 27 – Ralph Nader, American consumer activist and presidential candidate
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1934_2 | Section: March (2):
March 1 – Joan Hackett, American actress (d. 1983)
March 4 – Anne Haney, American actress (d. 2001)
March 5 – Daniel Kahneman, Israeli economist and Nobel laureate (d. 2024)
March 6 – Milton Diamond, American sexologist and professor of anatomy and reproductive biology (d. 2024)
March 9
Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, first human in space (d. 1968)
Joyce Van Patten, American actress
March 14
Eugene Cernan, American astronaut (d. 2017)
Dionigi Tettamanzi, Italian cardinal (d. 2017)
March 16 – Ray Hnatyshyn, Canadian statesman, 24th Governor-General of Canada (d. 2002)
March 18 – Charley Pride, American country musician (d. 2020)
March 20 – David Malouf, Australian writer
March 23 – Ludvig Faddeev, Russian physicist and mathematician (d. 2017)
March 25
Johnny Burnette, American rockabilly singer, songwriter and musician (d. 1964)
Gloria Steinem, American feminist
March 26 – Alan Arkin, American actor (d. 2023)
March 30 – Hans Hollein, Austrian architect and designer (d. 2014)
March 31
Richard Chamberlain, American actor
Shirley Jones, American singer and actress
John D. Loudermilk, American singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
Carlo Rubbia, Italian Nobel physicist
Kamala Surayya, Indian poet and author (d. 2009)
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1934_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1
Vladimir Posner, Russian journalist
Pascal Rakotomavo, 10th prime minister of Madagascar (d. 2010)
April 2 – Paul Cohen, American mathematician (d. 2007)
April 3
Pina Pellicer, Mexican actress (d. 1964)
Jane Goodall, British zoologist
April 5 – Roman Herzog, 9th President of Germany (d. 2017)
April 6 – Anton Geesink, Dutch 10th-dan judoka (d. 2010)
April 11 – Mark Strand, Canadian-born American poet (d. 2014)
April 18 – James Drury, American actor (d. 2020)
April 20 – John Malecela, 6th prime minister of Tanzania
April 24
Jayakanthan, Tamil writer (d. 2015)
Shirley MacLaine, American actress, dancer, writer
April 29 – Pedro Verona Rodrigues Pires, President of Cape Verde
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1934_4 | Section: May (2):
May 3
Henry Cooper, British boxer (d. 2011)
Frankie Valli, American musician (The Four Seasons)
May 4 – Tatiana Samoilova, Russian actress (d. 2014)
May 9
Alan Bennett, British playwright, screenwriter, actor, and author
Lee Hong-koo, South Korean politician, 26th Prime Minister of South Korea
May 21 – Bengt I. Samuelsson, Swedish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2024)
May 23 – Robert Moog, American inventor of the synthesizer (d. 2005)
May 27 – Harlan Ellison, American writer (d. 2018)
May 30 – Alexei Leonov, Russian cosmonaut (d. 2019)
May 31 – Bhagwatikumar Sharma, Indian author and journalist (d. 2018)
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1934_5 | Section: June (2):
June 1 – Pat Boone, American actor and singer
June 4 – Dame Daphne Sheldrick, Kenyan conservationist and author (d. 2018)
June 5 – Chennupati Vidya, Indian politician and social worker (d. 2018)
June 6 – King Albert II of Belgium
June 7
Philippe Entremont, French concert pianist.
Koloa Talake, 7th prime minister of Tuvalu (d. 2008)
June 9 – Jackie Wilson, American singer (d. 1984)
June 11 – Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark, French-born consort of the Danish monarch (d. 2018)
June 15 – Rubén Aguirre, Mexican actor and comedian (d. 2016)
June 16
Dame Eileen Atkins, British actress
William F. Sharpe, American economist and Nobel laureate
June 19 – Désiré Rakotoarijaona, 4th prime minister of Madagascar
June 23 – Virbhadra Singh, Indian politician (d. 2021)
June 28 – Michael Artin, American mathematician
June 29 – Susan George, American and French political, social scientist, activist and writer
June 30 – C. N. R. Rao, Indian chemist
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1934_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1
Ilselil Larsen, Danish actress
Sydney Pollack, American film director (d. 2008)
July 3 – Stefan Abadzhiev, Bulgarian footballer (d. 2024)
July 5 – Adriana Roel, Mexican actress (d. 2022)
July 7
Raphael Owor, Ugandan physician, pathologist, academic and medical researcher
Kedarnath Singh, Indian poet (d. 2018)
July 8
Fred Stewart, Canadian politician (d. 2022)
Ole Lund, Norwegian barrister and industrial leader
Marty Feldman, English comedy writer, comedian and actor (d. 1982)
July 9 – Michael Graves, American architect (d. 2015)
July 10 – Jerry Nelson, American puppeteer (d. 2012)
July 11
Giorgio Armani, Italian fashion designer
Clark R. Rasmussen, American politician (d. 2024)
July 12
Van Cliburn, American pianist (d. 2013)
Ulf Schmidt, Swedish tennis player
July 13
Wole Soyinka, Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate
Aleksei Yeliseyev, Russian cosmonaut
July 14 – Ángel del Pozo, Spanish actor
July 15 – Harrison Birtwistle, British composer (d. 2022)
July 16 – George Hilton, Uruguayan-Italian actor (d. 2019)
July 19 – Francisco de Sá Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal (d. 1980)
July 22
Louise Fletcher, American actress (d. 2022)
Leon Rotman, Romanian sprint canoeist
Oluyemi Adeniji, Nigerian career diplomat, politician (d. 2017)
July 24 – P. S. Soosaithasan, Sri Lankan Tamil politician (d. 2017)
July 28 – Bud Luckey, American voice actor, Pixar animator (d. 2018)
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1934_7 | Section: August (2):
August 2 – Valery Bykovsky, Russian cosmonaut (d. 2019)
August 3 – Jonas Savimbi, Angolan political and rebel leader (d. 2002)
August 5 – Gay Byrne, Irish broadcaster (d. 2019)
August 6 – Edmond Simeoni, Corsican politician and nationalist (d. 2018)
August 11 – Viktor Tolmachev, Russian engineer (d. 2018)
August 15
Nino Ferrer, French singer (d. 1998)
André Bo-Boliko Lokonga, Congolese politician (d. 2018)
August 16 – Angela Buxton, British tennis player (d. 2020)
August 18
Ronnie Carroll, Northern Irish singer (d. 2015)
Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rican Major League Baseball player (d. 1972)
Gulzar, Indian film director, lyricist and poet
August 19 – Renée Richards, American ophthalmologist and tennis player
August 20 – Armi Kuusela, Miss Universe 1952 from Finland
August 22 – Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Army general (d. 2012)
August 24 – Kenny Baker, English actor (d. 2016)
August 25
Zilda Arns, Brazilian pediatrician, aid worker (d. 2010)
Hsiao Teng-tzang, Taiwanese politician (d. 2017)
Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 4th President of Iran (d. 2017)
August 28 – Zeng Shiqiang, Taiwanese sinologist, scholar, and writer (d. 2018)
August 30 – Anatoly Solonitsyn, Russian actor (d. 1982)
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1934_8 | Section: September (2):
September 1 – Léon Mébiame, Gabonese politician (d. 2015)
September 4
Clive Granger, Welsh-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2009)
Juraj Herz, Slovak film director, actor, and scenic designer (d. 2018)
Eduard Khil, Russian baritone singer ("Trololo") (d. 2012)
Zaid ibn Shaker, 3-time prime minister of Jordan (d. 2002)
Jan Švankmajer, Czech filmmaker, artist
September 6 – Marshall Rosenberg, American psychologist and writer (d. 2015)
September 7 – Omar Karami, 29th Prime Minister of Lebanon (d. 2015)
September 8 – Peter Maxwell Davies, English composer (d. 2016)
September 9 – Nicholas Liverpool, Dominican lawyer, politician, and 6th President of Dominica (d. 2015)
September 13 – Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Polish actor (d. 2009)
September 15 – Fob James, American politician and Governor of Alabama from 1979 to 1983, and from 1995 to 1999
September 16
Elgin Baylor, American basketball player and executive (d. 2021)
Ronnie Drew, Irish singer with The Dubliners band (d. 2008)
September 17 – Maureen Connolly, American tennis player (d. 1969)
September 19 – Brian Epstein, British manager of the Beatles, co-founder of Northern Songs (d. 1967)
September 20
Rajinder Puri, Indian cartoonist, veteran columnist and political activist (d. 2015)
Sophia Loren, Italian actress
Takayuki Kubota, Japanese martial artist, founder of the Gosoku-ryu style of karate (d. 2024)
September 21
Leonard Cohen, Canadian poet, novelist, singer and songwriter (d. 2016)
David J. Thouless, Scottish-born condensed-matter physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (d. 2019)
María Rubio, Mexican actress (d. 2018)
September 23 – Ahmad Shah Khan, Crown Prince of Afghanistan (d. 2024)
September 27 – Wilford Brimley, American actor and singer (d. 2020)
September 28 – Brigitte Bardot, French actress, animal rights activist
September 29 – Idowu Sofola, Nigerian jurist (d. 2018)
September 30 – Udo Jürgens, Austrian-Swiss composer, popular music singer (d. 2014)
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1934_9 | Section: October (2):
October 5 – Angelo Buono, American serial killer (d. 2002)
October 7 – Amiri Baraka, African-American poet, playwright and activist (d. 2014)
October 9
Jacobo Majluta Azar, 47th President of the Dominican Republic (d. 1996)
Abdullah Ibrahim, South African pianist and composer
October 12 – Abd Al-Karim Al-Iryani, Prime Minister of Yemen (d. 2015)
October 13 – Nana Mouskouri, Greek popular singer
October 19 – Yakubu Gowon, Nigerian politician
October 30 – Frans Brüggen, Dutch baroque conductor and woodwind player (d. 2014)
October 31 – Princess Margaretha, Mrs. Ambler, Princess of Sweden
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1934_10 | Section: November (2):
November 1 – Umberto Agnelli, Swiss-born automobile executive (d. 2004)
November 2 – Ken Rosewall, Australian tennis champion
November 5 – Kira Muratova, Ukrainian film director, screenwriter and actress (d. 2018)
November 9
Ingvar Carlsson, twice prime minister of Sweden
Hamilton Green, 4th prime minister of Guyana
Carl Sagan, American astronomer, writer, and TV presenter (d. 1996)
Tengiz Sigua, 2nd Prime Minister of Georgia (d. 2020)
November 11 – Elżbieta Krzesińska, Polish athlete (d. 2015)
November 12 – Charles Manson, American cult leader and murderer (d. 2017)
November 13 – Garry Marshall, American film producer, director and actor (d. 2016)
November 23 – Lew Hoad, Australian tennis champion (d. 1994)
November 30 – Lansana Conté, President of Guinea (d. 2008)
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1934_11 | Section: December (2):
December 1 – Billy Paul, African-American singer (d. 2016)
December 3 – Viktor Gorbatko, Russian cosmonaut (d. 2017)
December 5 – Joan Didion, American novelist (d. 2021)
December 8 – Alisa Freindlich, Soviet and Russian actress
December 9
Judi Dench, English actress
Junior Wells, American harmonica player (d. 1998)
December 10 – Howard Martin Temin, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1994)
December 11 – Radha Viswanathan, Indian vocalist, classical dancer (d. 2018)
December 12 – Miguel de la Madrid, 52nd president of Mexico (d. 2012)
December 13 – Richard D. Zanuck, American producer (d. 2012)
December 14 – Shyam Benegal, Indian film director and screenwriter (d. 2024)
December 15 – Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, 6th president of Somalia (d. 2012)
December 17 – Shan Tianfang, Chinese pingshu performer (d. 2018)
December 18 – Boris Volynov, Russian cosmonaut
December 19
Aki Aleong, Trinidad and Tobago-born American actor
Pratibha Patil, President of India
December 24 – Stjepan Mesić, 2nd President of Croatia
December 28
Forough Farrokhzad, Iranian poet, writer and filmmaker (d. 1967)
Maggie Smith, English actress (d. 2024)
Yujiro Ishihara, Japanese actor (d. 1987)
December 30
John N. Bahcall, American astrophysicist and astronomer, co-developed the Hubble Space Telescope (d. 2005)
Joseph Bologna, American actor, director, playwright and screenwriter (d. 2017)
Barry Briggs, New Zealand motorcycle racer and sportscaster
Joseph P. Hoar, American general (d. 2022)
Tony Serra, American criminal defense and civil rights attorney, political activist and tax resister
Del Shannon, American singer (Runaway) (d. 1990)
Russ Tamblyn, American film and television actor
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1935_0 | 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1935th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 935th year of the 2nd millennium, the 35th year of the 20th century, and the 6th year of the 1930s decade. |
1935_0 | Section: January (2):
January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims.
January 12 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to successfully complete a solo flight from Hawaii to California, a distance of 2,408 mi (3,875 km).
January 13 – A plebiscite in the Territory of the Saar Basin shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Germany.
January 24 – The first canned beer is sold in Richmond, Virginia, United States, by Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company.
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1935_1 | Section: February (2):
February 6 – Parker Brothers begins selling the board game Monopoly in the United States.
February 13 – Richard Hauptmann is convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. in the United States.
February 15 – The discovery and clinical development of Prontosil, the first broadly effective antibiotic, is published in a series of articles by Gerhard Domagk and others in Germany's pre-eminent medical journal, Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift.
February 26
In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler orders reinstatement of the air force, the Luftwaffe, in violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
Robert Watson-Watt first demonstrates the use of radar to detect aircraft, at Daventry in the UK.
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1935_2 | Section: March (2):
March 1
1935 Greek coup d'état attempt: Nikolaos Plastiras, Anastasios Papoulas and other Venizelists lead a coup against the People's Party government in Greece. The attempt is suppressed by March 11, and the leaders condemned to death for treason.
İsmet İnönü forms the new government in Turkey (the 8th government; during Atatürk's presidency, İnönü has served seven times as a prime minister).
March 2 – King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) of Siam abdicates the throne; he is succeeded by his 9-year-old-nephew Ananda Mahidol (Rama VIII).
March 16 – Adolf Hitler announces German re-armament in violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
March 19 – Harlem riot of 1935: A race riot breaks out in Harlem (New York City), after a rumor circulates that a teenage Puerto Rican shoplifter in the S. H. Kress & Co. department store has been brutally beaten.
March 21 – Reza Shah of Iran asks the international community to formally adopt the name "Iran" to refer to the country, in place of the name "Persia".
March 22 – The world's first regular television program (by Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow) is transmitted from the Funkturm in Berlin, Germany.
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1935_3 | Section: April (2):
April 11 – The 1935 Danish general election is held, resulting in Thorvald Stauning becoming the first Social Democratic Prime Minister of Denmark.
April 14 – Dust Bowl: "Black Sunday", the great dust storm in the United States hits eastern New Mexico and Colorado, and western Oklahoma the hardest (it will be made famous by Woody Guthrie, in his "dust bowl ballads").
April 15 – The Roerich Pact, a Pan-American treaty on the protection of cultural artefacts, is signed in Washington, D.C.
April 17 – Sun Myung Moon, a teenage Presbyterian convert in Korea under Japanese rule, claims to have a revelation from Jesus, telling him to complete his mission from almost 2,000 years ago.
April 24 – William Christian Bullitt Jr., the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, hosts the elaborately prepared Spring Ball of the Full Moon, which is said to have surpassed all other embassy parties in Moscow's history.
April 27 – Sheffield Wednesday beat West Bromwich Albion 4–2 at Wembley Stadium in England to win the FA Cup final.
April 29 – The first edition of the Vuelta a España is raced, and goes on to become one of the 3 Grand Tours of road bicycle racing.
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1935_4 | Section: May (2):
May 13 – T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") is involved in a motorcycle accident, near his home in Dorset, England, resulting in his death a few days later.
May 14 – Northamptonshire County Cricket Club gains (over Somerset at Taunton by 48 runs) what proves to be their last victory for 99 matches, easily a record in the County Championship. Their next Championship win is not until May 29, 1939.
May 15 – Joseph Stalin opens the Moscow Metro to the public.
May 21 – In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler announces the reintroduction of conscription to the Wehrmacht, in violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
May 27 – Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (the "Sick Chicken Case"): The Supreme Court of the United States declares that the National Industrial Recovery Act, a major component of the New Deal, is unconstitutional.
May 29 – The French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique ocean liner SS Normandie sets out on her maiden voyage from Le Havre to New York, which she will reach in 4 days, 3 hours and 14 minutes, taking the Blue Riband; she gains the eastbound record on her return passage.
May 31
1935 Quetta earthquake: A 7.1 magnitude earthquake destroys Quetta in modern-day Pakistan, killing 40,000.
Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Corporation combine to form 20th Century Fox Film Corporation.
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1935_5 | Section: June (2):
June 9 – He–Umezu Agreement: China's Kuomintang government concedes Japanese military control of north-eastern China.
June 10 – Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by William G. Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith.
June 12 – The Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia ends.
June 13 – James J. Braddock defeats Max Baer at Madison Square Garden Bowl, to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.
June 18 – Anglo-German Naval Agreement: Britain agrees to a German navy equal to 35% of her own naval tonnage.
June 24 – Ten people, including musician Carlos Gardel, are killed in a collision between two Ford Trimotor airplanes at Olaya Herrera Airport in Medellín, Colombia.
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1935_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1 – RMS Mauretania (1906) sails from Southampton to Rosyth to be broken up.
July 22 – Inauguration of the Brazilian radiophonic program A Voz do Brasil.
July 25–August 20 – The seventh and last congress of the Comintern is held.
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1935_7 | Section: August (2):
August 2 – The Government of India Act is passed by the British Parliament, making provision for the establishment of a "Federation of India" and a degree of autonomy.
August 13 – An estimated 250 people are killed when a dam bursts near Ovada, Italy.
August 14 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law.
August 16 – Representatives of France, Britain and Italy meet in Paris in an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate a solution to the Abyssinia Crisis.
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1935_8 | Section: September (2):
September 2 – 1935 Labor Day hurricane: The strongest hurricane ever to strike the United States landfalls in the Upper Florida Keys as a Category 5 storm with 185 mph winds, killing 423.
September 3 – English driver Sir Malcolm Campbell becomes the first person to drive an automobile at 300 miles per hour in Blue Bird, establishing a new absolute land speed record of 301.337 mph (484.955 km/h) on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
September 13 – American aviator Howard Hughes, flying the Hughes H-1 Racer, sets an airspeed record of 352 mph (566 km/h).
September 15 – The Nuremberg Laws go into effect in Germany, removing citizenship from Jews.
September 17 – Manuel L. Quezon is elected 2nd President of the Philippines.
September 24 – Earl W. Bascom and his brother Weldon produce the first night rodeo held outdoors under electric lights, at Columbia, Mississippi.
September 29 – The London and North Eastern Railway's first A4 Class streamlined steam locomotive A4 2509 Silver Link makes her inaugural journey, from London King's Cross.
September 30
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Hoover Dam.
The London and North Eastern Railway commences the Silver Jubilee, Britain's first streamline train service.
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1935_9 | Section: October (2):
October 2–3 – The Second Italo-Ethiopian War begins, as Italian General Emilio De Bono invades Ethiopia.
October 6 – The wreckage of the RMS Lusitania is discovered.
October 10 – A tornado destroys the 160 metre tall wooden radio tower in Langenberg, Germany. As a result of this catastrophe, wooden radio towers are phased out.
October 14
1935 Canadian federal election: The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King wins a majority government, defeating the Conservative Party of Prime Minister R. B. Bennett.
The Turkish government had all Masonic lodges in the country abolished on the ground that Masonic principles are incompatible with nationalistic policy and their property transferred to the state.
October 21 – Grant v Australian Knitting Mills, a landmark case in consumer law, is decided on appeal in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the U.K.
October 22 – The Chinese Communist Party settles in Shaanxi after the Long March.
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1935_10 | Section: November (2):
November 3 – A Greek monarchy referendum is held by self-proclaimed Regent Georgios Kondylis. Almost 98% of the votes favor restoration of the monarchy, although the referendum's integrity is dubious.
November 14 – 1935 United Kingdom general election: Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin returns to office at the head of a National Government led by the Conservative Party, with a large but reduced majority.
November 22 – The flying boat China Clipper takes off from Alameda, California, United States, to deliver the first airmail cargo across the Pacific Ocean; on November 29 the aircraft reaches its final destination, Manila, and delivers over 110,000 pieces of mail.
November 23 – Jacques and Thérèse Tréfouël, Daniel Bovet and Federico Nitti, in the laboratory of Ernest Fourneau at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, discover that sulfanilamide is the active component of Prontosil.
November 25 – After 11 years in exile, George II returns to Greek soil as King of Greece at Corfu, from London.
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1935_11 | Section: December (2):
December 10 – Hanshin Tigers, a well known professional baseball club of Japan, is founded in Osaka.
December 12
The Lebensborn program in support of Nazi eugenics is founded by Heinrich Himmler in Germany.
The De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill-on-Sea, designed by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, a pioneering example of International Style architecture, opens in England.
December 17 – The Douglas DST, prototype of the Douglas DC-3 airliner, first flies in the United States. More than 16,000 of the model will eventually be produced.
December 18
Samuel Hoare resigns as British foreign secretary, and is replaced by Anthony Eden.
The socialist party of Sri Lanka, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, is founded.
December 27
In China, Mao Zedong issues the Wayaobu Manifesto, On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism, calling for a National United Front against the Japanese invasion.
In Germany, Regina Jonas becomes the first woman ever to receive semikhah (ordination) as a rabbi within Judaism. She will be killed in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 and the next such ordination will be in 1972.
December 28 – Pravda publishes a letter from Pavel Postyshev, who revives the New Year tree tradition in the Soviet Union.
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1936_0 | 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1936th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 936th year of the 2nd millennium, the 36th year of the 20th century, and the 7th year of the 1930s decade. |
1936_0 | Section: January (2):
January 2 – Roger Miller, American singer-songwriter, musician and actor (d. 1992)
January 6
Darlene Hard, American tennis player (d. 2021)
Alejandro Maldonado, 37th President of Guatemala
Julio María Sanguinetti, 2-time President of Uruguay
January 8 – Robert May, Australian scientist (d. 2020)
January 10
Stephen E. Ambrose, American historian and biographer (d. 2002)
Robert Wilson, American physicist and radio astronomer, Nobel laureate
January 11 – Eva Hesse, American artist (d. 1970)
January 12 – Émile Lahoud, 15th President of Lebanon
January 14 – Reiner Klimke, German equestrian (d. 1999)
January 19 – Ziaur Rahman, 7th President of Bangladesh (d. 1981)
January 20 – Edward Feigenbaum, American computer scientist
January 22
Alan J. Heeger, American physicist
Ong Teng Cheong, 5th President of Singapore (d. 2002)
January 25 – Diana Hyland, American actress (d. 1977)
January 27
Barry Barish, American gravitational physicist, Nobel laureate
Troy Donahue, American actor (d. 2001)
Samuel C. C. Ting, American physicist
January 28
Waldyr Boccardo, Brazilian basketball player (d. 2018)
Alan Alda, American actor, director, screenwriter, comedian and author
Ismail Kadare, Albanian writer (d. 2024)
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1936_1 | Section: February (2):
February 3 – Bob Simpson, Australian cricketer
February 4 – David Brenner, American actor and comedian (d. 2014)
February 6
Kent Douglas, Canadian ice hockey player, coach (d. 2009)
Stompin' Tom Connors, Canadian country and folk singer-songwriter (d. 2013)
February 9 – Clive Swift, British actor (d. 2019)
February 11 – Burt Reynolds, American actor, director and producer (d. 2018)
February 14 – Anna German, Polish singer (d. 1982)
February 16 – Carl Icahn, American businessman, investor and philanthropist
February 17 – Jim Brown, African-American football player and actor (d. 2023)
February 21 – Barbara Jordan, African-American lawyer, educator, politician and civil rights activist (d. 1996)
February 24 – Carol D'Onofrio, American public health researcher (d. 2020)
February 26 – Adem Demaçi, Albanian politician, writer (d. 2018)
February 29
Alex Rocco, American actor (d. 2015)
Jack Lousma, American astronaut and politician
Henri Richard, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2020)
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1936_2 | Section: March (2):
March 4
Jim Clark, Scottish race car driver (d. 1968)
Kim Yong-chun, North Korean soldier, politician (d. 2018)
Aribert Reimann, German composer (d. 2024)
March 5
Canaan Banana, 1st President of Zimbabwe (d. 2003)
Dean Stockwell, American actor (d. 2021)
March 6
Marion Barry, African-American civil rights activist and politician (d. 2014)
Choummaly Sayasone, 5th President of Laos
March 7
Loren Acton, American astronaut
Julio Terrazas Sandoval, Bolivian cardinal (d. 2015)
March 9 – Mickey Gilley, American country singer (d. 2022)
March 10 – Sepp Blatter, Swiss sports administrator, president of FIFA
March 11
Harald zur Hausen, German virologist (d. 2023)
Takis Mousafiris, Greek composer and songwriter
Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 2016)
March 13 – Mónica Miguel, Mexican actress, director and singer (d. 2020)
March 17 – Ken Mattingly, American astronaut (d. 2023)
March 18 – F. W. de Klerk, 7th and last State President of South Africa (d. 2021)
March 19
Ursula Andress, Swiss actress
Birthe Wilke, Danish singer
March 20 – Lee "Scratch" Perry, Jamaican musician (d. 2021)
March 21 – Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabaei, Iranian politician (d. 2018)
March 27 – Banwari Lal Joshi, Indian politician (d. 2017)
March 28
Bill Gaither, American musician
Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian writer, politician, journalist and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate
Amancio Ortega Gaona, Spanish business tycoon
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1936_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1
Jean-Pascal Delamuraz, 2-time President of Switzerland (d. 1998)
Leo Posada, Cuban baseball player (d. 2022)
April 7 – Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav princess, Serbian princess, Serbian presidential candidate
April 9
Gloria Grosso, Italian former politician
Valerie Solanas, American feminist writer who attempts to kill Andy Warhol (d. 1988)
Ferdinando Imposimato, Italian judge (d. 2018)
April 10 – John Madden, football coach (d. 2021)
April 12 – Charles Napier, American character actor (d. 2011)
April 13 – Choi In-hun, South Korean writer (d. 2018)
April 14 – Dilbagh Singh Kler, Malaysian Olympic athlete (d. 2012)
April 15
Pen Sovan, Cambodian politician (d. 2016)
Raymond Poulidor, French road-bicycle racer（d. 2019）
April 17 – Urs Wild, Swiss chemist (d. 2022)
April 20 – Alfonso, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz (d. 1989)
April 21 – Bob Cleary, American ice hockey player (d. 2015)
April 22 – Glen Campbell, American singer and actor (d. 2017)
April 23 – Roy Orbison, American singer-songwriter (Pretty Woman) (d. 1988)
April 24
Akwasi Afrifa, 3rd Head of State of Ghana (d. 1979)
Jill Ireland, English actress (d. 1990)
April 28 – Tariq Aziz, Iraqi politician (d. 2015)
April 29 – Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, British financier and aristocrat (d. 2024)
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1936_4 | Section: May (2):
May 1 – Danièle Huillet, French filmmaker (d. 2006)
May 2
Norma Aleandro, Argentinian actress
Engelbert Humperdinck (b. Arnold George Dorsey), British singer
May 4 – El Cordobés, Spanish matador
May 5 – Trần Đức Lương, 5th President of Vietnam
May 7 – Jimmy Ruffin, African-American singer (d. 2014)
May 9
Albert Finney, English actor (d. 2019)
Glenda Jackson, English actress and politician (d. 2023)
Ernest Shonekan, 9th Head of State of Nigeria (d. 2022)
May 12
Klaus Doldinger, German musician
Guillermo Endara, 32nd President of Panama (1989–1994) (d. 2009)
Manuel Alegre, Portuguese politician
May 13 – Rafael Campos, Dominican actor (d. 1985)
May 14 – Bobby Darin, American singer (d. 1973)
May 16
Philippe de Montebello, American museum director
Karl Lehmann, German Catholic cardinal (d. 2018)
May 17 – Dennis Hopper, American actor and director (d. 2010)
May 20
Nickey Iyambo, Namibian politician, 1st Vice-President of Namibia (d. 2019)
Antanas Vaupšas, Lithuanian athlete (d. 2017)
May 21 – Günter Blobel, German-American biologist, academic and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2018)
May 23 – Charles Kimbrough, American actor (d. 2023)
May 25 – Tom T. Hall, American country singer-songwriter (d. 2021)
May 27 – Louis Gossett Jr., African-American actor (d. 2024)
May 28 – James B. Goetz, American radio broadcaster, politician and Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota from 1967 to 1971 (d. 2019)
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1936_5 | Section: June (2):
June 2 – Volodymyr Holubnychy, Soviet Olympic athlete (d. 2021)
June 3 – Colin Meads, New Zealand rugby union player (d. 2017)
June 4
Bruce Dern, American actor
Nutan Samarth, Indian actress (d. 1991)
June 8
James Darren, American actor and singer (d. 2024)
Kenneth G. Wilson, American Nobel Prize-winning physicist (d. 2013)
June 15 – William Levada, American cardinal (d. 2019)
June 17 – Ken Loach, British film director
June 18
Denny Hulme, New Zealand racing driver (d. 1992)
June 19 – Takeshi Aono, Japanese actor (d. 2012)
June 22
Kris Kristofferson, American actor and singer-songwriter (d. 2024)
Izatullo Khayoyev, 1st Prime Minister of Tajikistan (d. 2015)
Ferran Olivella, Spanish footballer (d. 2023)
Hermeto Pascoal, Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist
June 23 – Costas Simitis, Greek politician, 78th Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2025)
June 24 – Robert Downey Sr., American actor, filmmaker and father of actor Robert Downey Jr. (d. 2021)
June 25 – B. J. Habibie, Indonesian politician, 3rd President of Indonesia (d. 2019)
June 26
Hal Greer, African-American professional basketball player (d. 2018)
Lee Ming-liang, Taiwanese geneticist
Jean-Claude Turcotte, Canadian cardinal (d. 2015)
June 27
Geneviève Fontanel, French stage, film actress (d. 2018)
Joe Doyle, Irish politician (d. 2009)
June 28 – Leon O. Chua, American electrical engineer and computer scientist
June 29
David Jenkins, American figure skater
Eddie Mabo, Australian Indigenous rights activist (d. 1992)
Kigeli V of Rwanda, last king of Rwanda (d. 2016)
June 30 – Assia Djebar, Algerian writer (d. 2015)
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1936_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1 – Antonio Salines, Italian actor and director (d. 2021)
July 4 – Günter Vetter, Austrian politician (d. 2022)
July 5
Sir Frederick Ballantyne, Governor-General of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (d. 2020)
Shirley Knight, American actress (d. 2020)
Sir James Mirrlees, Scottish-born economist, winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (d. 2018)
July 7
Hammoudi Al-Harithi, Iraqi actor (d. 2024)
Anatoly Kirov, Soviet wrestler
Nikos Xilouris, Greek singer (d. 1980)
July 8 – Johan Du Preez, Rhodesian-Zimbabwean sprinter
July 14 – Marisa Allasio, Italian actress
July 16
Miria Obote, former First Lady of Uganda
Venkataraman Subramanya, Indian cricketer
Leo Sterckx, Belgian cyclist (d. 2023)
Yasuo Fukuda, 58th Prime Minister of Japan
July 23 – Anthony Kennedy, US Supreme Court justice
July 26 – Neelu, Indian actor (d. 2018)
July 30
Infanta Pilar, Duchess of Badajoz, Spanish royal (d. 2020)
Buddy Guy, African-American blues singer and guitarist
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1936_7 | Section: August (2):
August 1
Yves Saint Laurent, Algerian-born French fashion designer (d. 2008)
Chadlia Fahrat Essebsi, Tunisian consort, 5th First Lady of Tunisia (d. 2019)
August 4 – Joaquim Roriz, Brazilian politician (d. 2018)
August 12
Kjell Grede, Swedish film director (d. 2017)
André Kolingba, President of Central African Republic (d. 2010)
August 17 – Margaret Hamilton, American computer scientist, systems engineer and business owner
August 18 – Robert Redford, American actor and film director
August 21
Wilt Chamberlain, African-American basketball player (d. 1999)
Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, 21st Duchess of Medina Sidonia, (d. 2008)
August 23 – Rudy Lewis, American rhythm and blues singer (d. 1964)
August 25 – Giridharilal Kedia, Indian former Working President of KVK (d. 2009)
August 26 – Benedict Anderson, American academic (d. 2015)
August 27 – Lien Chan, Taiwanese politician
August 28 – Bert Schneider, Austrian road racer (d. 2009)
August 29 – John McCain, American politician, U.S. Senator (R-Az.) (d. 2018)
August 31 – Fabrizia Ramondino, Italian author (d. 2008)
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1936_8 | Section: September (2):
September 1 – Valery Legasov, Soviet inorganic chemist (d. 1988)
September 2 – Andrew Grove, Hungarian-American businessman, engineer and author (d. 2016)
September 3 – Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, 2nd President of Tunisia (d. 2019)
September 4 – Kamuta Latasi, 4th Prime Minister of Tuvalu
September 7
Buddy Holly, American rock-and-roll singer-songwriter and musician (d. 1959)
George Cassidy, jazz musician and music teacher of Van Morrison (d. 2023)
Jorge Porcel, Argentine-American actor (d. 2006)
September 14 – Walter Koenig, American actor (Star Trek: The Original Series)
September 15 – Ashley Cooper, Australian tennis player (d. 2020)
September 19 – Al Oerter, American Olympic athlete (d. 2007)
September 21 – Yury Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow (d. 2019)
September 23 – Valentín Paniagua, President of Peru (d. 2006)
September 24 – Jim Henson, American puppeteer, filmmaker and television producer (The Muppets) (d. 1990)
September 25 – Moussa Traoré, President of Mali (d. 2020)
September 26 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 2018)
September 27 – Joselo, Venezuelan actor, comedian (d. 2013)
September 28 – Robert Wolders, Dutch actor (d. 2018)
September 29 – Silvio Berlusconi, 50th Prime Minister of Italy, media entrepreneur (d. 2023)
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1936_9 | Section: October (2):
October 1 – Duncan Edwards, English footballer (d. 1958)
October 3 – Steve Reich, American composer
October 5 – Václav Havel, Czech playwright, writer and politician, 10th President of Czechoslovakia and 1st President of the Czech Republic (d. 2011)
October 6 – Lin Yu-lin, Taiwanese billionaire real estate developer (d. 2018)
October 7 – Fereydoun Farrokhzad, Iranian entertainer (d. 1992)
October 8 – Rogelio Guerra, Mexican actor (d. 2018)
October 9 – Brian Blessed, English actor
October 10 – Gerhard Ertl, German physicist, Nobel laureate
October 11 – Tom Zé, Brazilian Singer
October 13 – Christine Nöstlinger, Austrian writer (d. 2018)
October 18 – Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Cuban cardinal (d. 2019)
October 19 – Tony Lo Bianco, American actor (d. 2024)
October 22 – Bobby Seale, American political activist
October 24 – Bill Wyman, English rock guitarist
October 25 – Masako Nozawa, Japanese actress and voice actress
October 26
Etelka Kenéz Heka, Hungarian writer, poet, singer (d. 2024)
Shelley Morrison, American actress (d. 2019)
October 28 – Charlie Daniels, American country singer-songwriter (d. 2020)
October 30 – Polina Astakhova, Soviet artistic gymnast (d. 2005)
October 31 – Michael Landon, American actor, director, producer and writer (d. 1991)
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1936_10 | Section: November (2):
November 3 – Roy Emerson, Australian tennis player
November 4
Didier Ratsiraka, 3rd President of Madagascar (d. 2021)
C. K. Williams, American poet (d. 2015)
November 5
Ivan Stambolić, Serbian politician (d. 2000)
Uwe Seeler, German football player and manager (d. 2022)
November 8 – Virna Lisi, Italian actress (d. 2014)
November 9
Mary Travers, American singer-songwriter (d. 2009)
Stephanie Rothman, American film director
November 11 – Susan Kohner, American actress
November 17
Lazarus Salii, 3rd President of Palau (d. 1988)
Dahlia Ravikovitch, Israeli poet (d. 2005)
November 18
Ennio Antonelli, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family from 2008 to 2012.
Ante Žanetić, Croatian professional footballer (d. 2014)
November 19 – Dick Cavett, American talk show host, television personality
November 20 – Don DeLillo, American author
November 23 – Lazarus Salii, 3rd President of Palau (d. 1988)
November 30
Abbie Hoffman, American political and social activist (d. 1989)
Eric Walter Elst, Belgian astronomer (d. 2022)
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1936_11 | Section: December (2):
December 4 – América Alonso, Venezuelan actress (d. 2022)
December 5 – James Lee Burke, American author
December 7 – Martha Layne Collins, American businesswoman and politician
December 8 – David Carradine, American actor, director and martial artist (d. 2009)
December 9 – A. B. Yehoshua, Israeli writer (d. 2022)
December 11 – Hans van den Broek, Dutch politician and diplomat
December 12
Iolanda Balaș, Romanian high jumper (d. 2016)
Reggie Young, American musician and guitarist (d. 2019)
December 14 – Robert A. Parker, American physicist, astronomer and astronaut
December 17
Pope Francis, Argentine-born Catholic Pontiff
Klaus Kinkel, German politician (d. 2019)
Tommy Steele, British entertainer
December 20 – Niki Bettendorf, Luxembourgish politician (d. 2018)
December 21 – Barbara Roberts, American politician
December 22 – Héctor Elizondo, American actor
December 23
La Lupe, Cuban singer (d. 1992)
Frederic Forrest, American actor (d. 2023)
December 25
Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy
Ismail Merchant, Indian film director and producer (d. 2005)
December 27 – Alex Miller, Australian novelist
December 29
Mary Tyler Moore, American actress, producer and diabetes awareness activist (d. 2017)
Peep Janes, Estonian architect
Ray Nitschke, American football player (d. 1998)
December 31 – Siw Malmkvist, Swedish singer
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1937_0 | 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1937th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 937th year of the 2nd millennium, the 37th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year of the 1930s decade. |
1937_0 | Section: January (2):
January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua.
January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into February, leaving 1 million people homeless and 385 people dead.
January 15 – Spanish Civil War: The Second Battle of the Corunna Road ends inconclusively.
January 20 – Second inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt: Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States. This is the first time that the United States presidential inauguration occurs on this date; the change is due to the ratification in 1933 of the Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
January 23 – Moscow Trials: Trial of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center – In the Soviet Union 17 leading Communists go on trial, accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime, and assassinate its leaders.
January 30 – The Moscow Trial initiated on January 23 is concluded. Thirteen of the defendants are sentenced to death, while the rest, including Karl Radek and Grigory Sokolnikov are sent to labor camps and later murdered. They were initially spared for implicating others, including Rykov, Bukharin and Tukhachevsky, setting the stage for further trials.
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1937_1 | Section: February (2):
February 8 – Spanish Civil War: Falangist troops take Málaga.
February 8–27 – Spanish Civil War – Battle of Jarama: Nationalist and Republican troops fight to a stalemate.
February 16 – Wallace H. Carothers receives a patent for nylon in the United States.
February 19
Airliner VH-UHH (Stinson) goes down over Lamington National Park, bound for Sydney, killing 5 people.
Yekatit 12: During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace (the former Imperial residence) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, two Eritrean nationalists attempt to kill viceroy Rodolfo Graziani with a number of grenades. Italian security guards fire into the crowd of Ethiopian onlookers. Authorities exact further reprisals, which include indiscriminately slaughtering native Ethiopians over the next 3 days, detaining thousands of Ethiopians at Danan and slaughtering almost 300 monks at the Debre Libanos Monastery.
The red, white and blue colours of the flag of the Netherlands are confirmed by royal decree.
February 20 – Roberto Ortiz is elected president of Argentina.
February 21 – The League of Nations Non-Intervention Committee prohibits foreign nationals from fighting in the Spanish Civil War.
February 25 – Hergé's Tintin adventure The Broken Ear (L'Oreille cassée) concludes serialization in the Belgian weekly newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième, and soon afterwards is published as a book in black and white.
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1937_2 | Section: March (2):
March 10 (dated March 14 (Passion Sunday)) – The encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ("With burning concern") of Pope Pius XI is published in Germany in the German language. Largely the work of Cardinals von Faulhaber and Pacelli, it condemns breaches of the 1933 Reichskonkordat agreement signed between the Nazi government and the Catholic Church, and criticises Nazism's views on race and other matters incompatible with Catholicism.
March 18 – New London School explosion: In the worst school disaster in American history in terms of lives lost, the New London School in New London, Texas, suffers a catastrophic natural gas explosion, killing in excess of 295 students and teachers. Mother Frances Hospital opens in Tyler, Texas, a day ahead of schedule, in response to the explosion.
March 19 – The encyclical Divini Redemptoris of Pope Pius XI, critical of communism, is published.
March 21 – Ponce massacre: A police squad, acting under orders from Governor of Puerto Rico Blanton Winship, opens fire on peaceful demonstrators protesting at the arrest of Puerto Rican Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos, killing 17 people and injuring over 200.
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1937_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1
Aden becomes a British crown colony.
The Bombing of Jaén is carried out in Spain, by the Condor Legion of the Nazi German Luftwaffe.
April 9 – The Kamikaze arrives at Croydon Airport in London; it is the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.
April 12 – Frank Whittle ground-tests the world's first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
April 20 – A fire in an elementary school in Kilingi-Nõmme, Estonia, kills 17 students and injures 50.
April 26 – Spanish Civil War: The Bombing of Guernica is carried out in Spain, by the Condor Legion of the Nazi German Luftwaffe, in support of the Francoists. Three-quarters of the town is destroyed and hundreds killed.
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1937_4 | Section: May (2):
May 6 – Hindenburg disaster: In the United States, the German airship Hindenburg bursts into flame when mooring to a mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Of the 36 passengers and 61 crew on board, 13 passengers and 22 crew die, as well as one member of the ground crew.
May 7 – Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion Fighter Group, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes, arrives in Spain to assist Francisco Franco's forces.
May 8 – Wydad Athletic Club (WAC)(Arabic: نادي الوداد الرياضي; Berber: Wydad Dar al-Beida; commonly: Wydad al ouma) is established in Casablanca, Morocco; it will be best known for its Casablanca Association football team.
May 12 – George VI and Elizabeth are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor and Empress of India at Westminster Abbey, London.
May 21
A Russian manned ice station becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.
As one of the reprisals for the attempted assassination of Italian viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, a detachment of Italian troops massacres the entire community of Debre Libanos in Ethiopia, killing 297 monks and 23 laymen.
May 28 – Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, following the retirement of Stanley Baldwin.
May 30
Spanish Civil War: Spanish ship Ciudad de Barcelona is torpedoed.
Memorial Day massacre of 1937: The Chicago Police Department shoot and kill 10 unarmed demonstrators in Chicago.
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1937_5 | Section: June (2):
June – Picasso completes his painting Guernica.
June–July – The Dáil Éireann debates and passes the new draft Constitution of Ireland, which is then submitted for public approval by plebiscite.
June 3 – Wallis Simpson marries the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII, in France.
June 8
The Dáil Éireann passes the Executive Authority (Consequential Provisions) Act, 1937, which abolishes the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State, retrospectively dated to December 1936.
The first total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality, in over 800 years, is visible in the Pacific and Peru.
June 21 – The coalition government of Léon Blum resigns in France.
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1937_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1
The Gestapo arrests pastor Martin Niemöller in Germany.
In a referendum the people of the Irish Free State accept the new Constitution by 685,105 votes to 527,945.
July 2 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear after taking off from New Guinea, during Earhart's attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world.
July 7
In the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japanese and Chinese forces exchange fire near Beijing, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The Peel Commission proposes partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
July 9 – 1937 Fox vault fire: The silent film archives of Fox Film Corporation are destroyed
July 20 – The Geibeltbad Pirna water sports facility is opened in Dresden, Germany.
July 21 – Éamon de Valera is elected President of the Executive Council (prime minister) of the Irish Free State, by the Dáil (parliament).
July 22 – New Deal: The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
July 25–31 – Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Beiping–Tianjin, a series of actions fought around Beiping and Tianjin, result in Japanese victory.
July 29 – Tongzhou Mutiny: Units of the East Hebei Army mutiny and kill Japanese troops and civilians in Tongzhou.
July 31 – NKVD Operative Order 00447 "Об операции по репрессированию бывших кулаков, уголовников и других антисоветских элементов" ("The operation for repression of former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements") is approved by the Politburo of the Soviet Union, initially as a 4-month plan for 75,950 people to be executed and an additional 193,000 to be sent to the Gulag.
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1937_7 | Section: August (2):
August 2 – The Marijuana Tax Act in the United States is a significant bill on the path that will lead to the criminalization of cannabis. It was introduced to the U.S. Congress by Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger.
August 5 – The Soviet Union commences one of the largest campaigns of the Great Purge, to "eliminate anti-Soviet elements". Within the following year, at least 724,000 people are killed on order of the troikas, directed by Joseph Stalin. This is an offensive that targets social classes (such as the kulaks), ethnic or racial backgrounds which are seen as non-Russian, and Stalin's personal opponents from the Communist Party and their sympathizers.
August 6 – Spanish Civil War: Falangist artillery bombards Madrid.
August 8 – Japan occupies Beijing.
August 9 – The Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937–38) is signed by Nikolai Yezhov, as a continuation of the Great Purge.
August 13 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Shanghai opens.
August 26 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese aircraft attack the car carrying the ambassador of Great Britain, during a raid on Shanghai.
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1937_8 | Section: September (2):
September 2 – The Great Hong Kong Typhoon kills an estimated 11,000 persons.
September 5 – Spanish Civil War: The city of Llanes falls to the Falangists.
September 7 – CBS broadcasts a two-and-a-half hour memorial concert nationwide on radio in memory of George Gershwin, live from the Hollywood Bowl. Many celebrities appear, including Oscar Levant, Fred Astaire, Otto Klemperer, Lily Pons and members of the original cast of Porgy and Bess. The concert is recorded and released complete years later in what is excellent sound for its time, on CD. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is the featured orchestra.
September 10 – Nine nations meet in the Nyon Conference, led by the United Kingdom and France, to address international piracy in the Mediterranean.
September 17 – Abraham Lincoln's head is dedicated at Mount Rushmore.
September 19 – Swiss professional ice hockey club HC Ambrì-Piotta is founded.
September 21 – George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London publishes the first edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.
September 25 – Second Sino-Japanese War - Battle of Pingxingguan: The Communist Chinese Eighth Route Army defeats the Japanese.
September 27 – The last recorded Bali tiger dies.
September 30 – Austrian born actress of Jewish descent, Hedy Lamarr arrives in New York City to flee from her possessive husband Friedrich Mandl who made arms agreements with the Nazis, and to begin her Hollywood career.
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1937_9 | Section: October (2):
October 1 – The Marihuana Tax Act becomes law in the United States.
October 2–8 – Parsley Massacre: Under the orders of President Rafael Trujillo, Dominican troops kill thousands of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
October 3 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese troops advance toward Nanjing, capital of the Republic of China.
October 5 – Roosevelt gives his famous Quarantine Speech in Chicago.
October 9 – Jimmie Angel lands his plane on top of Devil's Mountain; however, the plane gets damaged, and he has to trek through the rainforest for help.
October 11 – Duke and Duchess of Windsor's 1937 tour of Germany: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor arrive in Berlin to begin a 12-day tour of Nazi Germany, meeting Adolf Hitler on the 22nd.
October 13 – Germany, in a note to Brussels, guarantees the inviolability and integrity of Belgium, so long as the latter abstains from military action against Germany.
October 15 – Ernest Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not is first published, in the United States.
October 18–21 – Spanish Civil War: The whole Spanish northern seaboard falls into the Falangists' hands; Republican forces in Gijón, Spain, set fire to petrol reserves, prior to retreating before the advancing Falangists.
October 23 – 1937 Australian federal election: Joseph Lyons' UAP/Country Coalition government is re-elected with a slightly increased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by John Curtin.
October 25 – Celâl Bayar forms the new (ninth) government of Turkey.
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1937_10 | Section: November (2):
November 5 – World War II: In the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "living space" for the German people (recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum).
November 6 – Italy joins the Anti-Comintern Pact.
November 9 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese troops take Shanghai.
November 10 – Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas announces the Estado Novo ("New State"), thence becoming dictator of Brazil until 1945.
November 11 – The Kogushi Sulfur Mine collapse, in western Gunma, Japan, kills at least 245 people.
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1937_11 | Section: December (2):
December 1 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Nanjing begins.
December 4 – The Dandy comic is first published in Scotland; it continued until 2012 as a physical publication, then online until 2013.
December 11 – Italy withdraws from the League of Nations.
December 12
USS Panay incident: Japanese bombers sink the American gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze in China; the United States accepts the Japanese statement that this was unintentional.
Mae West makes a risqué guest appearance on NBC's Chase and Sanborn Hour, which eventually results in her being banned from radio.
December 13 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Nanjing ends with the Japanese occupying the city. In the Nanjing Massacre which follows, Japanese soldiers kill over 200,000 Chinese in 3 months. A few days previously, the Nationalist government of China had moved its capital to the southwestern city Chongqing.
December 16 – The original production of the musical Me and My Girl opens at the Victoria Palace Theatre, in London's West End. A later revival will win an award.
December 21 – Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first feature-length cel animated film, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.
December 25 – At the age of 70, conductor Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra on radio for the first time, beginning his successful 17-year tenure with that orchestra. This first concert consists of music by Vivaldi (at a time when he is seldom played), Mozart, and Brahms. Millions tune in to listen, including U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
December 29 – The new Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hÉireann) comes into force. The Irish Free State becomes "Ireland", and Éamon de Valera becomes the first Taoiseach (prime minister) of the new state. A Presidential Commission (made up the Chief Justice, the Speaker of Dáil Éireann, and the President of the High Court) assumes the powers of the new presidency, pending the popular election of the first President of Ireland in June 1938. The new constitution prohibits divorce.
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1938_0 | 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1938th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 938th year of the 2nd millennium, the 38th year of the 20th century, and the 9th year of the 1930s decade. |
1938_0 | Section: January (2):
January 1 – State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS).
January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Safinaz Zulficar, who becomes Queen Farida, in Cairo.
January 27 – The Honeymoon Bridge at Niagara Falls, New York, collapses as a result of an ice jam.
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1938_1 | Section: February (2):
February 4
Adolf Hitler abolishes the War Ministry and creates the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), giving him direct control of the German military. In addition, he dismisses political and military leaders considered unsympathetic to his philosophy or policies. General Werner von Fritsch is forced to resign as Commander of Chief of the German Army following accusations of homosexuality, and replaced by General Walther von Brauchitsch. Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath is dismissed, and replaced by Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first cel-animated feature in motion picture history, is released in the United States, following a premiere on December 21 of the previous year.
February 6 – Black Sunday at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia: 300 swimmers are dragged out to sea in 3 freak waves; 80 lifesavers save all but 5.
February 10
Carol II of Romania takes dictatorial powers.
Second Sino-Japanese War: Bombing of Chongqing begins.
February 12 – Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg of Austria meets Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden and, under threat of invasion, is forced to yield to German demands for greater Nazi participation in the Austrian government.
February 22 – The Battle of Teruel ends in a Nationalist victory with recapture of the city, a turning point in the Spanish Civil War.
February 24 – A nylon bristle toothbrush becomes the first commercial product to be made with nylon yarn.
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1938_2 | Section: March (2):
March 1 – Lee Byung-chul establishes a trucking business in Daegu, Korea, which he names Samsung Trading Co, the forerunner to Samsung.
March 3
The Santa Ana River in California, United States, spills over its banks during a rainy winter, killing 58 people in Orange County, and causing trouble as far inland as Palm Springs.
Sir Nevile Henderson, British Ambassador to Germany, presents a proposal to Hitler for an international consortium to rule much of Africa (in which Germany would be assigned a leading role), in exchange for a German promise never to resort to war to change her frontiers; Hitler rejects the British offer.
March 12 – Anschluss: German troops occupy Austria; annexation is declared the following day.
March 14 – French Premier Léon Blum reassures the Czechoslovak government that France will honor its treaty obligations to aid Czechoslovakia, in the event of a German invasion.
March 17 – Poland presents an ultimatum to Lithuania, to establish normal diplomatic relations that were severed over the Vilnius Region.
March 27 – Italian mathematician Ettore Majorana disappears suddenly under mysterious circumstances, while travelling by ship from Palermo to Naples.
March 28 – At a meeting with Hitler in Berlin, Konrad Henlein is instructed to make increasing demands concerning the status of the Sudetenland, but to avoid reaching an agreement with Czechoslovak authorities.
March 30 – Italy's Duce Benito Mussolini is granted equal power over the Italian military to that of King Victor Emmanuel III, as First Marshal of the Empire.
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1938_3 | Section: April (2):
April 10
Édouard Daladier becomes prime minister of France. He appoints as Foreign Minister a leading advocate of the policy of appeasement, Georges Bonnet, effectively negating Blum's reassurances of March 14.
In a result that astonishes even Hitler, the Austrian electorate in a national referendum approves Anschluss by an overwhelming 99.73%.
April 16 – The UK and Italy sign an agreement that sees Britain recognise Italian control of Ethiopia (formally on November 16), in return for an Italian pledge to withdraw all its 10,000 troops from Spain, at the conclusion of the civil war there.
April 18 – Superman first appears in Action Comics #1 (cover date June). The date is established in court documents released during the legal battle over the rights to Superman (on April 18, 2018, DC Comics released Action Comics #1000).
April 24 – Konstantin Päts becomes the first President of Estonia.
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1938_4 | Section: May (2):
May 5
The Vatican recognizes Francisco Franco's government in Spain.
General Ludwig Beck, Chief of the German Army's General Staff, submits a memorandum to Hitler opposing Fall Grün (Case Green), the plan for a war with Czechoslovakia, under the grounds that Germany is ill-prepared for the world war likely to result from such an attack.
May 12 – U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull rejects the Soviet Union's offer of a joint defence pact, to counter the rise of Nazi Germany.
May 14 – Chile withdraws from the League of Nations.
May 19 – May Crisis 1938: Czechoslovak intelligence receives reports of menacing German military concentrations (it later appears the reports are false).
May 20 – Czechoslovakia orders a partial mobilization of its armed forces along the German border.
May 21 – Tsuyama massacre: Matsuo Toi kills 30 people in a village in Okayama, Japan, in the world's worst spree killing by an individual until 1982.
May 23 – No evidence of German troop movements against Czechoslovakia is found, and the May Crisis subsides. Germany is, nevertheless, perceived to have backed down in the face of Czechoslovak mobilization and international diplomatic unity, but the issue of the future of the Sudetenland is far from resolved.
May 25
Spanish Civil War: Alicante is bombed by fascist rebels, resulting in 313 deaths.
The Soviet ambassador to the United States, A. A. Troyanovsky, declares Moscow ready to defend Czechoslovakia.
May 28 – In a conference at the Reich Chancellery, Hitler declares his decision to destroy Czechoslovakia by military force, and orders the immediate mobilization of 96 Wehrmacht divisions.
May 30 – Hitler issues a revised directive for Fall Grün ("Case Green") – the invasion of Czechoslovakia – to be carried out by October 1, 1938.
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1938_5 | Section: June (2):
June 5 & 7 – The 1938 Yellow River flood is created by the Nationalist government in central China, breaching embankments during the early stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War, in an attempt to halt the rapid advance of Japanese forces. The flood kills at least 400,000, covers and destroys thousands of square kilometers of farmland, and shifts the mouth of the Yellow River hundreds of kilometers to the south.
June 11 – Fire destroys 214 buildings in Ludza, Latvia.
June 15 – László Bíró patents the ballpoint pen in Britain.
June 19 – Italy beats Hungary 4–2, to win the 1938 FIFA World Cup.
June 22 – Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis knocks out Max Schmeling in the first round of their rematch, at Yankee Stadium in New York City.
June 25 – Dr. Douglas Hyde takes office as the first President of Ireland.
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1938_6 | Section: July (2):
July – The Mauthausen concentration camp is built in Austria.
July 1 – The South African Press Association is established, with offices in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Bloemfontein and Pretoria.
July 3
The steam locomotive Mallard sets the world speed record for steam, by reaching 125.88 mph on the London and North Eastern Railway.
The last reunion of the Blue and Gray commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
July 5 – The Non-Intervention Committee reaches an agreement to withdraw all foreign volunteers from the Spanish Civil War. The agreement is respected by most Republican International Brigades, notably those from England and the United States, but is ignored by the governments of Germany and Italy.
July 6 – The Evian Conference on Refugees is convened in France. No country in Europe is prepared to accept Jews fleeing persecution, and the United States will take only 27,370.
July 14 – Howard Hughes sets a new record, by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world.
July 18 – Wrong Way Corrigan takes off from New York, ostensibly heading for California. He lands in Ireland instead.
July 22 – Britain rejects a proposal from its ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson, for a four-power summit on Czechoslovakia consisting of Britain, France, Germany and the U.S.S.R., as London will under no circumstances accept the U.S.S.R. as a diplomatic partner.
July 24 – The north face of the Eiger in the Alps is first ascended.
July 28
1938 Greek coup d'état attempt: A revolt against the Ioannis Metaxas dictatorship in Greece is put down in Chania.
Pan Am flying boat Hawaii Clipper disappears with 6 passengers and 9 crew members, en route from Guam to Manila.
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1938_7 | Section: August (2):
August – In the face of overwhelming Japanese military pressure, Chiang Kai-shek withdraws his government to Chungking.
August 10 – At a secret summit with his leading generals, Hitler attacks General Beck's arguments against Fall Grün, winning the majority of his senior officers over to his point of view.
August 18 – Colonel General Ludwig Beck, convinced that Hitler's decision to attack Czechoslovakia will lead to a general European war, resigns his position as Chief of the Army General Staff in protest.
August 23 – Hitler, hosting a dinner on board the ocean liner Patria in Kiel Bay, tells the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Horthy, that action against Czechoslovakia is imminent and that "he who wants to sit at the table must at least help in the kitchen", a reference to Horthy's designs on Carpathian Ruthenia.
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1938_8 | Section: September (2):
September – The European crisis over German demands for annexation of the Sudeten borderland of Czechoslovakia becomes increasingly severe.
September 5 – Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš invites mid-level representatives of the Sudeten Germans Hradčany Palace, to tell them he will accept whatever demands they care to make, provided the Sudetenland remains part of the Republic of Czechoslovakia.
September 6 – What eventually proves to be the last of the "Nuremberg Rallies" begins. It draws worldwide attention because it is widely assumed that Hitler, in his closing remarks, will signal whether there will be peace with or war over Czechoslovakia.
September 7 – The Times publishes a lead article, which calls on Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Germany.
September 10 – Hermann Göring, in a speech at Nuremberg, calls the Czechs a "miserable pygmy race" who are "harassing the human race". That same evening, Edvard Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia, makes a broadcast in which he appeals for calm.
September 12 – Hitler makes his much-anticipated closing address at Nuremberg, in which he vehemently attacks the Czech people and President Beneš. American news commentator Hans von Kaltenborn begins his famous marathon of broadcast bulletins over the CBS Radio Network, with a summation of Hitler's address.
September 13 – The followers of Konrad Henlein begin an armed revolt against the Czechoslovak government in Sudetenland. Martial law is declared and after much bloodshed on both sides order is temporarily restored. Neville Chamberlain personally sends a telegram to Hitler, urgently requesting that they both meet.
September 15 – Neville Chamberlain arrives in Berchtesgaden, to begin negotiations with Hitler over the Sudetenland.
September 16 – Lord Runciman is recalled to London from Prague, in order to brief the British government on the situation in the Sudetenland.
September 17 – Neville Chamberlain returns temporarily to London, to confer with his cabinet. The U.S.S.R. Red Army masses along the Ukrainian frontier. Rumania agrees to allow Soviet soldiers free passage across her territory to defend Czechoslovakia.
September 18
During a meeting between Neville Chamberlain, the recently elected Premier of France, Édouard Daladier, and Daladier's Foreign Minister, Georges Bonnet, it becomes apparent that neither the British nor the French governments are prepared to go to war over the Sudetenland. The Soviet Union declares it will come to the defence of Czechoslovakia only if France honours her commitment to defend Czechoslovak independence.
Mussolini makes a speech in Trieste, Italy, where he indicates that Italy is supporting Germany in the Sudeten crisis.
September 21
In the early hours of the day, representatives of the French and British governments call on Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš, to tell him France and Britain will not fight Hitler if he decides to annex the Sudetenland by force. Late in the afternoon, the Czechoslovak government capitulates to the French and British demands.
Winston Churchill warns of grave consequences to European security, if Czechoslovakia is partitioned. The same day, Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov makes a similar statement in the League of Nations.
Following the capitulation of the Czech government to Germany's demands, both Poland and Hungary demand slices of Czech territory where their nationals reside.
The 1938 New England hurricane in the United States strikes Long Island and southern New England, killing over 300 along the Rhode Island shoreline and 600 altogether.
September 22
Unable to survive the previous day's capitulation to the demands of the English and French governments, Czechoslovak premier Milan Hodža resigns. General Jan Syrový takes his place.
Neville Chamberlain arrives in the city of Bad Godesberg, for another round of talks with Hitler over the Sudetenland crisis. Hitler raises his demands to include occupation of all German Sudeten territories by October 1. That night after a telephone conference, Chamberlain reverses himself and advises the Czechoslovaks to mobilize.
September 23
The Czechoslovak army mobilizes.
As the Polish army masses along the Czech border, the Soviet Union warns Poland that if it crosses the Czech frontier, Russia will regard the 1932 non-aggression pact between the two countries as void.
September 24
Sir Eric Phipps, British Ambassador to France, reports to London, "all that is best in France is against war, almost at any price", being opposed only by a "small, but noisy and corrupt, war group". Phipps's report creates major doubts about the ability and/or willingness of France to go to war.
At 1:30 AM, Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain conclude their talks on the Sudetenland. Chamberlain agrees to take Hitler's demands, codified in the Godesberg Memorandum, personally to the Czech Government. The Czech Government rejects the demands, as does Chamberlain's own cabinet. The French Government also initially rejects the terms and orders a partial mobilization of the French army.
September 25 – British Royal Navy is ordered to sea.
September 26 – In a vitriolic speech at Berlin's Sportpalast, Hitler defies the world and implies war with Czechoslovakia will begin at any time.
September 28 – As his self-imposed October 1 deadline for occupation of the Sudetenland approaches, Adolf Hitler invites Italian Duce Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edourd Deladier and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to one last conference in Munich. The Czechs themselves are not invited.
September 29
Colonel Graham Christie, former British military attaché in Berlin, is told by Carl Friedrich Goerdeler that the mobilization of the Royal Navy has badly damaged the popularity of the Nazi regime, as the German public realizes that Fall Grün is likely to cause a world war.
Munich Agreement: German, Italian, British and French leaders agree to German demands regarding annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government is largely excluded from the negotiations, and is not a signatory to the agreement.
The Republic of Hatay is declared in Syria.
September 30 – Neville Chamberlain returns to Britain from meeting with Adolf Hitler, and declares "Peace for our time".
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1938_9 | Section: October (2):
October – The Imperial Japanese Army largely overruns Canton.
October 1 – German troops march into the Sudetenland. The Polish government gives the Czech government an ultimatum, stating that Trans-Olza region must be handed over within twenty-four hours. The Czechs have little choice but to comply; Polish forces occupy Trans-Olza.
October 2
Tiberias massacre: Arab raiders murder 19 Jewish immigrants.
Disgusted with Neville Chamberlain's conduct at Munich, Duff Cooper resigns his post as First Lord of the Admiralty. With his resignation, formal debate begins in the Parliament of the United Kingdom on the Munich Agreement, but with Chamberlain at the peak of his popularity, there can be little doubt His Majesty's Government will receive a vote of confidence.
October 4 – The Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War begin withdrawing their foreign volunteers from combat, as agreed on July 5.
October 5
Edvard Beneš, president of Czechoslovakia, resigns.
Nuremberg Laws: In Nazi Germany, Jews' passports are invalidated, and those who need a passport for emigration purposes are given one marked with the letter J ("Jude" – "Jew").
October 16 – Winston Churchill, in a broadcast address to the United States, condemns the Munich Agreement as a defeat, and calls upon America and western Europe to prepare for armed resistance against Hitler.
October 18 – The German government expels 12,000 Polish Jews living in Germany; the Polish government accepts 4,000 and refuses admittance to the remaining 8,000, who are forced to live in the no-man's land on the German-Polish frontier.
October 21 – In direct contravention of the recently signed Munich Agreement, Adolf Hitler circulates among his high command a secret memorandum stating that they should prepare for the "liquidation of the rest of Czechoslovakia" and the occupation of Memel.
October 24
French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet carries out a major purge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dismissing or exiling a number of anti-appeasement officials such as Pierre Comert and René Massigli.
At a "friendly luncheon" in Berchtesgaden, German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop tells Józef Lipski, the Polish ambassador to Germany, that the Free City of Danzig must return to Germany, that the Germans must be given extraterritorial rights in the Polish Corridor, and that Poland must sign the Anti-Comintern Pact.
October 27 – DuPont announces a name for its new synthetic yarn: "nylon".
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1938_10 | Section: November (2):
November 2 – Arising from The Munich Agreement, Hungary is "awarded" the Felvidek region of South Slovakia and Ruthenia.
November 7 – Ernst vom Rath, the Third Secretary at the German Embassy in Paris, is assassinated by Herschel Grynszpan.
November 9 – Holocaust – Kristallnacht: In Germany, the "night of broken glass" begins as Nazi activists and sympathizers loot and burn Jewish businesses (the all night affair sees 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned, 91 Jews killed and at least 25,000 Jewish men arrested).
November 10 – İsmet İnönü becomes the second president of Turkey.
November 11 – Celâl Bayar forms the new government of Turkey (10th government; Celal Bayar had served twice as a prime minister).
November 12 – French Finance Minister Paul Reynaud brings into effect a series of laws aiming at improving French productivity (thus aiming to undo the economic weaknesses which led to Munich), and undoes most of the economic and social laws of the Popular Front.
November 16 – LSD is first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergotamine, at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel.
November 18 – Trade union members elect John L. Lewis, as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the United States.
November 25 – French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet informs Léon Noël, the French Ambassador to Poland, that France should find an excuse for terminating the 1921 Franco-Polish alliance.
November 30
The Czechoslovak parliament elects Emil Hácha as the new president of Czechoslovakia.
Benito Mussolini and his Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, order "spontaneous" demonstrations in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, demanding that France cede Tunisia, Nice, Corsica and French Somaliland to Italy. This begins an acute crisis in Franco-Italian relations, that lasts until March 1939.
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, leader of the Romanian fascist Iron Guard, is murdered on the orders of King Carol II of Romania. Officially, Codreanu and the 13 other Iron Guard leaders are "shot while trying to escape".
A general strike is called in France by the French Communist Party, to protest the laws of November 12.
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1938_11 | Section: December (2):
December – Adolf Hitler is Time magazine's "Man of the Year", as the most influential person of the year.
December 1 – Slovakia is granted the status of an autonomous state, under Catholic priest Fr. Joseph Tiso.
December 6 – German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop visits Paris, where he is allegedly informed by French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet that France now recognizes all of Eastern Europe as being in Germany's exclusive sphere of influence. Bonnet's alleged statement (he subsequently always denies making the remark) to Ribbentrop is a major factor in German policy in 1939.
December 11 – Kingdom of Yugoslavia parliamentary election: The opposition gains votes but not seats.
December 13 – The Neuengamme concentration camp opens near Hamburg.
December 15 – The Netherlands closes its border to refugees.
December 17 – Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of uranium, the scientific and technological basis of nuclear power, which marks the beginning of the Atomic Age.
December 23 – A coelacanth, a fish thought to have been extinct, is caught off the coast of South Africa, near the Chalumna River.
December 24 – Leading Korean dancer Choi Seung-hee arrives in Le Havre, France after her tour in the United States. This is to begin her European tour in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. She is the first Korean Wave entertainer.
December 27 – A massive avalanche of snow hits a construction worker dormitory site in Kurobe, Japan, killing 87 people.
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1939_0 | 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1939th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 939th year of the 2nd millennium, the 39th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1930s decade. This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. |
1939_0 | Section: January (2):
January 1
Coming into effect in Nazi Germany of:
The Protection of Young Persons Act, passed on April 30, 1938, the Working Hours Regulations.
The small businesses obligation to maintain adequate accounting.
The Jews name change decree.
With his traditional call to the New Year in Nazi Germany, Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler addresses the members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP).
The Hewlett-Packard technology and scientific instruments manufacturing company is founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, in a garage in Palo Alto, California, considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley.
Philipp Etter takes over as President of the Swiss Confederation.
The Third Soviet Five Year Plan is launched.
January 5 – Pioneering U.S. aviator Amelia Earhart is officially declared dead, eighteen months after her disappearance.
January 6 – Otto Hahn's discoveries in the field of nuclear fission are published in Naturwissenschaften.
January 7 – French physicist Marguerite Perey identifies francium, the last chemical element first discovered in nature.
January 14 – Norway claims Queen Maud Land in Antarctica.
January 23 – "Dutch War Scare": Admiral Wilhelm Canaris of the Abwehr leaks misinformation to the effect that Germany plans to invade the Netherlands in February, with the aim of using Dutch air-fields to launch a strategic bombing offensive against Britain. The "Dutch War Scare" leads to a major change in British policies towards Europe.
January 24 – 1939 Chillán earthquake: An earthquake in Chile kills an estimated 30,000 people and razes about 50,000 sq mi (130,000 km2) of land.
January 25 – Refik Saydam forms the new (11th) government of Turkey.
January 26
Spanish Civil War: Spanish Nationalist troops, aided by Italy, take Barcelona.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet, in response to rumours (which are true) that he is seeking to end the French alliance system in Eastern Europe, gives a speech highlighting his government's commitment to the cordon sanitaire.
January 27 – Adolf Hitler orders Plan Z, a 5-year naval expansion programme intended to provide for a huge German fleet capable of crushing the British Royal Navy by 1944. The Kriegsmarine is given the first priority on the allotment of German economic resources.
January 30 – Hitler gives a speech before the Reichstag calling for an "export battle" to increase German foreign exchange holdings. The same speech also sees "Hitler's prophecy", where he warns that if "Jewish financiers" start a war against Germany, "the result will be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe".
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1939_1 | Section: February (2):
February 6
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain states in the House of Commons that any German attack on France will be automatically considered an attack on Britain.
In a response to Georges Bonnet's speech of January 26, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, referring to Bonnet's alleged statement of December 6, 1938, accepting Eastern Europe as being in Germany's exclusive sphere of influence, protests that all French security commitments in that region are "now off limits".
February 18 – The Golden Gate International Exposition opens in San Francisco.
February 27 – The United Kingdom and France recognize Franco's government in Spain.
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1939_2 | Section: March (2):
March – The 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine ends.
March 1 – An Imperial Japanese Army ammunition dump explosion on the outskirts of Osaka kills 94.
March 2 – Pope Pius XII (Cardinal Pacelli) succeeds Pope Pius XI to become the 260th pope, holding office until 1958.
March 3 – In Durban, South Africa the Timeless Test begins between England and South Africa, the longest game of cricket ever played. It is abandoned 12 days later, when the English team has to catch their ship home.
March 13 – Adolf Hitler advises Jozef Tiso to declare Slovakia's independence, in order to prevent its partition by Hungary and Poland.
March 14 – The Slovak provincial assembly proclaims independence; priest Jozef Tiso becomes president of the independent Slovak government.
March 15 – German troops occupy the remaining part of Bohemia and Moravia; Czechoslovakia ceases to exist. The Ruthenian region of Czechoslovakia declares independence as Carpatho-Ukraine.
March 16
Hungary invades Carpatho-Ukraine; final resistance ends on March 18.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gives a speech in Birmingham, stating that Britain will oppose any effort at world domination on the part of Germany.
March 17 – The nationalist governments of Spain and Portugal sign the Iberian Pact in Lisbon, pledging mutual defence of the Iberian Peninsula and neutrality in the event of a general European war.
March 20
1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania, requiring return of the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory) to Germany.
At an emergency meeting in London to deal with the Romanian crisis, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet suggests to Lord Halifax that the ideal state for saving Romania from a German attack is Poland.
March 22 – Following the March 20 ultimatum, Nazi Germany is granted the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory, Memelland) by Lithuania; on the following day German forces occupy the territory.
March 23 – The Slovak–Hungarian War begins.
March 26 – Final offensive of the Spanish Civil War launched by the Nationalists.
March 28
General Francisco Franco assumes power in Madrid, remaining in power until his death in 1975.
American adventurer Richard Halliburton delivers a last message from a Chinese junk, before he disappears on a voyage across the Pacific Ocean. In 1945, some wreckage identified as a rudder, and believed to belong to the junk, washes ashore in San Diego, California.
March 31 – Neville Chamberlain gives a speech in the House of Commons, offering the British "guarantee" of the independence of Poland.
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1939_3 | Section: April (2):
April 1 – The Spanish Civil War comes to an end when the last of the Republican forces surrender.
April 3
Adolf Hitler orders the German military to start planning for Fall Weiß, the codename for the invasion of Poland.
Refik Saydam forms the new government in Turkey (12th government; Refik Saydam has served twice as a prime minister).
April 4
The Slovak–Hungarian War ends, with Slovakia ceding eastern territories to Hungary.
Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Józef Beck, in London, signs a treaty designed to bilateralize Neville Chamberlain's "Polish Guarantee" of March 31.
Faisal II becomes King of Iraq aged three, following the death of his father, Ghazi, in an automobile incident.
April 7
Italian invasion of Albania begins; King Zog flees into exile, initially in Greece, with his wife and Crown Prince Skander (born April 5).
Joseph Lyons, 10th Prime Minister of Australia, dies in office from a heart attack at the age of 59. He is briefly replaced by his deputy Earle Page, who serves as the 11th Prime Minister, until a UAP leadership election is held to replace Lyons.
April 9 – African-American singer Marian Anderson performs before 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after having been denied the use both of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, and of a public high school by the federally controlled District of Columbia. First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt resigns from the DAR because of their decision.
April 11 – Hungary leaves the League of Nations.
April 14 – At a meeting in Paris, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet meets with Soviet Ambassador Jakob Suritz, and suggests that a "peace front" comprising France, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Poland and Romania would deter Germany from war.
April 18
The Soviet Union proposes a "peace front" to resist aggression.
Robert Menzies is elected leader of the United Australia Party, and consequently becomes the 12th Prime Minister of Australia, defeating former Prime Minister Billy Hughes. However, he will not be sworn in until April 26, due to Earle Page and his Country Party refusing to serve under him.
April 25 – The Federal Security Agency (FSA) is founded in the United States, along with the Civilian Conservation Corps and Public Health Service.
April 28 – In a speech before the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler renounces the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish declaration of non-aggression.
April 30 – The 1939 New York World's Fair opens.
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1939_4 | Section: May (2):
May 3 – Vyacheslav Molotov succeeds Maxim Litvinov, as Soviet Foreign Commissar.
May 6 – German anti-Nazi Carl Friedrich Goerdeler tells the British government that the German and Soviet governments are secretly beginning a rapprochement, with the aim of dividing Eastern Europe between them. Goerdeler also informs the British of German economic problems which he states threaten the survival of the Nazi regime, and advises that if a firm stand is made for Poland, then Hitler will be deterred from war.
May 9 – Spain leaves the League of Nations.
May 14 – Lina Medina, a 5-year-old Peruvian girl, gives birth to a baby boy, becoming the youngest confirmed mother in medical history.
May 17
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom arrive in Quebec City, to begin the first-ever tour of Canada by Canada's monarch.
The British government issues the White Paper of 1939, sharply restricting Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine.
Sweden, Norway, and Finland refuse Germany's offer of non-aggression pacts.
May 18 – The Hòa Hảo religious sect is established in Vietnam, by Huỳnh Phú Sổ.
May 20 – Pan American Airways begins transatlantic mail service with the inaugural flight of its Boeing 314 flying boat Yankee Clipper from Port Washington, New York, to Marseille.
May 22 – Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.
May 24 – The first issue of Fashizmi is published in Tirana, Albania.
May 29 – Albanian fascist leader Tefik Mborja is appointed as member of the Italian Chamber of Fasces and Corporations.
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1939_5 | Section: June (2):
June 3 – The Soviet government offers its definition of what constitutes "aggression", upon which the projected Anglo-Soviet-French alliance will come into effect. French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet accepts the Soviet definition of aggression at once. The British reject the Soviet definition, especially the concept of "indirect aggression", which they feel is too loose a definition, and phrased in such a manner as to imply the Soviet right of inference in the internal affairs of Eastern European nations.
June 4 – The St. Louis, a ship carrying a cargo of 907 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, only a few passengers had been allowed to enter Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, many of its passengers later die in Nazi death camps during The Holocaust.
June 14 – Tientsin Incident: The Japanese blockade the British concession in Tianjin, China, beginning a crisis which almost causes an Anglo-Japanese war in the summer of 1939.
June 17 – In the last public execution in France, murderer Eugen Weidmann is guillotined.
June 23 – Talks are completed in Ankara between French Ambassador René Massigli and Turkish Foreign Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu, resolving the Hatay dispute in Turkey's favor. Turkey annexes Hatay.
June 24 – The government of Siam changes the country's name to Thailand, which means 'Free Land'.
June 29 – The Ford 9N tractor, with the Ferguson hydraulic three-point hitch, is first demonstrated at Dearborn, Michigan.
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1939_6 | Section: July (2):
July 4 – The Neuengamme concentration camp becomes autonomous.
July 6 – The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed by the Nazis.
July 8 – The Pan American Airways Boeing 314 flying boat Yankee Clipper inaugurates the world's first heavier-than-air North Atlantic air passenger service, between the United States (Port Washington, New York) and Britain.
July 23 – Mahatma Gandhi writes a personal letter to Adolf Hitler from India, addressing him as "My friend", requesting him to prevent any possible war.
July 27 – The first recorded snow falls in Auckland, New Zealand, since records began in 1853.
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1939_7 | Section: August (2):
August 2 – The Einstein–Szilard letter is signed by Albert Einstein, advising President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt of the potential use of uranium to construct an atomic bomb. It is delivered on October 11 and leads to the first meeting on October 21 of the Advisory Committee on Uranium.
August 4 – Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain dismisses the Parliament of the United Kingdom until October 3.
August 19 – Adolf Hitler, after evaluating the pace of non-aggression negotiations with the Soviet Union, orders the Kriegsmarine to begin the opening operations for Fall Weiß, the invasion of Poland. The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, along with the German pocket battleship Deutschland, as well as dozens of U-boats, cast off for their advance positions. Hitler spends the next few days worrying that the Russians will not come to terms in time for the rest of the invasion plans to unfold as scheduled.
August 20 – Armored forces under the command of Soviet General Georgy Zhukov deliver a decisive defeat to Imperial Japanese Army forces in the Japanese-Soviet border war in Inner Mongolia.
August 23 – The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is signed between Germany and the Soviet Union, a neutrality treaty that also agrees to division of spheres of influence (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, eastern Poland and Bessarabia (modern-day Moldova), north-east province of Romania to the Soviet Union; Lithuania and western Poland to Germany). Its annex reassigns Lithuania to the Soviet Union.
August 24 – As details of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact become public, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain recalls the Parliament of the United Kingdom several weeks early. In a burst of legislation, the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 gives full authority to defence regulations, the British Royal Navy is to be put on a war footing, all military leave is to be cancelled, military reserve forces are to be called up, especially coast defence, radar and anti-aircraft units, and Civil Defence workers are placed on alert. In addition, the last British and French private citizens in Germany are advised to return home by their respective Governments.
August 25
The German Foreign Ministry cuts off all telegraph and telephone communication with the outside world, in accordance with the plan for Fall Weiß. At approximately 1830 Central European time, Adolf Hitler postpones Fall Weiß for 5 days, after receiving a message from Benito Mussolini that he will not honor the Pact of Steel if Germany attacks Poland, and because Chamberlain's government has not fallen as a result of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. Some units already in their forward positions (the attack is scheduled for 0430 the next day) do not get the word in time and attack various targets along the border. This same day, Neville Chamberlain gives Edward Rydz-Śmigły his "ironclad guarantee" of assistance if Poland is attacked by Germany.
1939 Coventry bombing: An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes in the centre of Coventry, England, killing 5 people.
August 26
The first televised Major League Baseball games are shown on experimental station W2XBS in the United States: a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.
The Kriegsmarine orders all German-flagged merchant ships to head to German ports immediately, in anticipation of the invasion of Poland.
August 27 – A Heinkel He 178, the first turbojet-powered aircraft, flies for the first time, with Captain Erich Warsitz in command.
August 28 – French ocean liner SS Normandie heads into New York Harbor, where she will be interned on September 3, and cut up for scrap, beginning in 1946.
August 30 – Poland begins a mobilization against Nazi Germany.
August 31 – Operation Himmler: Nazi German troops posing as Poles stage a series of false flag operations on the border (including the Gleiwitz incident), giving a pretext for the invasion of Poland.
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1939_8 | Section: September (2):
September 1 – Beginning of WWII:
Opening shots of World War II and invasion of Poland: At 4:45 Central European Time, under cover of darkness, the German WWI-era battleship Schleswig-Holstein quietly slips her moorings at her wharf in Danzig Harbor, drifts into the center of the channel, and commences firing on a Polish military installation on Westerplatte at the northeastern mouth of the port of the internationalized Free City of Danzig, beginning the Battle of Westerplatte and Battle of Danzig Bay. Polish soldiers defended there for 7 days. Five minutes previously, the bombing of Wieluń in the western part of Poland had commenced, beginning the Battle of the Border. Shock-troops of the German Wehrmacht begin crossing the border into Poland.
The Reichstag passes a statement, stating that Adolf Hitler's second-in-command Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring should be appointed as Hitler's successor as Führer, should Hitler die during the war. Rudolf Hess is to be appointed in Göring's place, should anything befall Göring.
Britain and France deliver ultimatums to Germany. Norway, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland declare their neutrality. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt states that "every effort" would be made by his administration to stay out of the war. Italy is advised that Germany does not expect to need its military support at present.
September 2 – WWII:
Following the invasion of Poland, the Free City of Danzig (modern-day Gdańsk, Poland) is annexed to Nazi Germany.
Spain and Ireland declare their neutrality.
September 3 – WWII:
The United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Australia and India (by its Viceroy) declare war on Nazi Germany. Prime Minister of Canada Mackenzie King, in English, and Justice Minister Ernest Lapointe, in French, give an international radio address stating the Dominion's intention to declare war also.
United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt advocates neutrality, in a nationwide radio address.
Ocean liner SS Athenia becomes the first British civilian casualty of the war, when she is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-30 in the eastern Atlantic. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew are killed.
Chamberlain offers the war cabinet post of First Lord of the Admiralty to Winston Churchill, who returns to government for the first time since June 4, 1929.
September 4 – WWII:
The first bombing of Wilhelmshaven in World War II is carried out, by the British Royal Air Force (RAF).
The Defense of Katowice by irregular Polish militia fails and the city is secured by German Wehrmacht forces who carry out the Katowice massacre.
Nepal declares war on Germany.
September 5 – WWII: The United States declares its neutrality in the war.
September 6 – WWII: South Africa declares war on Germany.
September 8
WWII: Forward elements of General Hoeppner's XVI Panzerkorps take up positions outside Warsaw. The world is stunned by the rapidity of the German advance, and the Polish High Command is effectively isolated, but lack of infantry support and effective civilian resistance cause Hoeppner to halt outside the city itself.
WWII: Battle of Westerplatte ends when Polish troops on the Westerplatte are forced by lack of food and ammunition to surrender. The garrison of about two hundred had held out against thousands of German forces (many of them naval officer cadets from the Schleswig-Holstein) for seven days.
The Little Sisters of Jesus is founded in Algeria, by Little Sister Magdeleine.
September 9 – WWII: Troops of the Polish Poznań Army under the command of General Kutrzeba open the Battle of the Bzura, the largest and best organized counter-attack mounted by the Polish forces in the campaign of 1939. For the first few days all goes well, and the Germans are forced to retreat; but quick reaction by mechanized units and the Luftwaffe soon take their toll, and the operation bogs down.
September 10 – WWII: Canada declares war on Germany, the only declaration of war by Canada.
September 13–14 – WWII: Zambrów massacre – German Wehrmacht soldiers shoot more than 200 Polish prisoners of war.
September 15 – WWII: Diverse elements of the German Wehrmacht surround Warsaw, and demand its surrender. The Poles refuse, and the siege begins in earnest.
September 16 – A ceasefire ends the Battles of Khalkhin Gol, the undeclared border war between the Soviet Union (and Mongolian allies) and Japan.
September 17 – WWII:
The Soviet Union invades Poland, and then occupies eastern Polish territories.
Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Courageous is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-29 in the Western Approaches with the loss of 519 crew (the first British warship loss of the war).
September 18 – WWII: Orzeł incident: Polish submarine ORP Orzeł escapes internment from Tallinn Harbour, Estonia, leading both the Soviet Union and Germany to question Estonia's neutrality.
September 19 – WWII: The Poznan pocket collapses, and the Germans capture, according to many sources, over 150,000 men. Many elements of General Tadeusz Kutrzeba's forces work their way into Warsaw, under extreme difficulty.
September 21
Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Security Police, sends a directive, the Schnellbrief, explaining that Jews living in towns and villages in the Polish occupation zones are to be transferred to ghettos, and Jewish councils, Judenräte, will be established to carry out the German authorities' orders.
Assassination of Armand Călinescu: Prime Minister of Romania Armand Călinescu is shot in Bucharest by members of the fascist Iron Guard.
September 22 – WWII: A joint victory parade is staged by the Wehrmacht and Red Army in Brest-Litovsk, at the end of the Invasion of Poland.
September 24 – WWII: The Soviet Union issues an ultimatum to Estonia to allow Soviet military bases on its territory, which Estonia accepts on September 28. Similar ultimatums are issued to Latvia on October 5 and to Lithuania on October 10, who are forced to accept them as well.
September 28 – WWII:
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree on a division of Poland, after their invasion.
Warsaw surrenders to Germany; Modlin surrenders a day later; the last Polish large operational unit surrenders near Kock 8 days later.
September 30 – General Władysław Sikorski becomes Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile.
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1939_9 | Section: October (2):
October 6 – WWII: The Battle of Kock ends the Polish Campaign. Polish resistance moves underground.
October 7 – WWII: British Royal Navy cruiser HMS Emerald departs Plymouth in convoy for Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying £2M in gold bar to be used for purchase of military materiel in North America, a predecessor of Operation Fish.
October 8
WWII: Germany annexes Western Poland.
The Holocaust: Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, the first Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe, is proclaimed in German-occupied Poland.
October 14 – German submarine U-47 sinks the British battleship HMS Royal Oak at anchor in Scapa Flow (Scotland), with the loss of 833 crew.
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1939_10 | Section: November (2):
November 1–2 – WWII: Physicist Hans Ferdinand Mayer writes the Oslo Report on German weapons systems, and passes it to the British Secret Intelligence Service.
November 4 – WWII: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons to non-belligerent nations.
November 4 – Stewart Menzies is appointed head of the British Secret Intelligence Service.
November 6
Hedda Hopper's Hollywood debuts on radio in the United States with gossip columnist Hedda Hopper as host (the show runs until 1951, making Hopper a powerful figure among the Hollywood elite).
WWII: Sonderaktion Krakau – Germans take action against scientists from the University of Kraków, and other Kraków universities.
November 8
WWII: In Munich, an attempt to kill Adolf Hitler is made by Georg Elser while Hitler is celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.
CBS television station W2XAB resumes test transmission, with an all-electronic system broadcast from the top of the Chrysler Building in New York City.
November 9 – WWII: Venlo Incident: Two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans.
November 14 – In Washington, D.C., U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
November 16 – Al Capone is released from Terminal Island, due to deteriorating health caused by syphilis.
November 17 – WWII: To punish protests against the Nazi occupation of the Czech homeland, the Nazis storm the University of Prague and murder 9 Czech graduate students, send over 1,200 to concentration camps, and close all Czech universities, an event which will be commemorated as International Students' Day.
November 23 – WWII: British armed merchantman HMS Rawalpindi is sunk in the GIUK gap, in an action against the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
November 26 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Union's Red Army shells the Russian village of Mainila, then claims that the fire originated from Finland, giving a casus belli for the Winter War.
November 30 – WWII: Winter War – Soviet forces attack Finland and reach the Mannerheim Line, starting the war. Sweden declares itself a non-belligerent in the Winter War.
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1940_0 | 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1940th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 940th year of the 2nd millennium, the 40th year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 1940s decade. A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. |
1940_0 | Section: January (2):
January 4 – WWII: Luftwaffe Chief and Generalfeldmarschall Hermann Göring assumes control of most war industries in Germany, in his capacity as Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan.
January 6 – WWII: Winter War – General Semyon Timoshenko takes command of all Soviet forces.
January 7 – WWII: Winter War: Battle of Raate Road – Outnumbered Finnish troops decisively defeat Soviet forces.
January 8 – WWII:
Winter War: Battle of Suomussalmi – Finnish forces destroy the Soviet 44th Rifle Division.
Food rationing in the United Kingdom begins; it will remain in force until 1954.
January 9 – WWII: British submarine HMS Starfish is sunk in the Heligoland Bight.
January 10 – WWII: Mechelen incident – A German plane carrying secret plans for the invasion of Western Europe makes a forced landing in Belgium, leading to mobilization of defense forces in the Low Countries.
January 19 – The Three Stooges' You Nazty Spy!, the first Hollywood anti-Nazi comedy film, is released.
January 27 – WWII: A peace resolution introduced in the Parliament of South Africa is defeated 81–59.
January 29 – Three gasoline-powered trains carrying factory workers crash and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi Station, Yumesaki Line (Nishinari Line), Osaka, Japan, killing at least 181 people and injuring at least 92.
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1940_1 | Section: February (2):
February 2–11 – Scheduled dates for the 1940 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, cancelled in November 1939 due to WWII (originally allocated to Sapporo, Japan).
February 1 – WWII: Winter War – Soviet forces launch a major assault on Finnish troops occupying the Karelian Isthmus.
February 2 – Vsevolod Meyerhold is executed in the Soviet Union on charges of treason and espionage. He is cleared of all charges fifteen years later, in the first waves of de-Stalinization.
February 15 – Paul Creston's Saxophone Sonata was officially premiered at the Carnegie Chamber Hall by saxophonist Cecil Leeson, who had commissioned it, and the composer.
February 16 – WWII: Altmark incident – British destroyer HMS Cossack pursues German tanker Altmark into the neutral waters of Jøssingfjord in southwestern Norway and frees the 290 British seamen held aboard.
February 22 – In Tibet, province of Ando, 4-year-old Tenzin Gyatso is proclaimed the tulku (rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama.
February 27 – The radioactive isotope carbon-14 is discovered by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben at the University of California, Berkeley.
February – The last mounted charge by a British cavalry regiment is made when the Royal Scots Greys are called to quell Arab rioters in Mandatory Palestine.
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1940_2 | Section: March (2):
March 5 – Katyn massacre: Members of the Soviet Politburo (Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Voroshilov and Lavrentiy Beria) sign an order, prepared by Beria, for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs.
March 11 – Ed Ricketts, John Steinbeck and six others leave Monterey, California, United States, for the Gulf of California, on a marine invertebrate collecting expedition.
March 12 – Moscow Peace Treaty: The Soviet Union and Finland sign a peace treaty in Moscow, ending the Winter War; Finns, along with the world at large, are shocked by the harsh terms.
March 13 – Indian nationalist Udham Singh assassinates Sir Michael O'Dwyer (in revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre) at Caxton Hall in London, for which he is hanged on 31 July at HM Prison Pentonville.
March 18 – WWII: Axis powers – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at Brenner Pass in the Alps. After being informed by Hitler that the Germans are ready to attack in the west, Mussolini agrees to bring Italy into the war in due course.
March 21 – Édouard Daladier resigns as Prime Minister of France; Paul Reynaud succeeds him.
March 23 – Pakistan Movement: The Lahore Resolution, calling for greater autonomy for what will become Pakistan in British India, is drawn up by the All-India Muslim League during a three-day general session at Iqbal Park, Lahore.
March 30 – WWII: Former Kuomintang member and Chinese foreign minister, Wang Jingwei, announces the creation of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China in Nanjing.
March 31 – WWII: Commerce raiding German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis leaves the Wadden Sea for what will become the longest warship cruise of the war (622 days without in-port replenishment or repair).
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1940_3 | Section: April (2):
April 3 – WWII: Operation Weserübung – German ships set out for the invasion of Norway.
April 4 – Neville Chamberlain, UK Prime Minister, in what proves to be a tragic misjudgment, declares in a major public speech that Hitler has "missed the bus".
April 7 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
April 8 – WWII: Operation Wilfred: The British fleet lays naval mines off the coast of neutral Norway.
April 9 – WWII: Germany invades the neutral countries of Denmark and Norway in Operation Weserübung, opening the Norwegian Campaign. The British Royal Navy attempts to attack elements of the German fleet off Norway. Vidkun Quisling proclaims a new collaborationist regime in Norway. The German invasion of Denmark lasts for about six hours, before that country capitulates.
April 10 – WWII: First naval Battle of Narvik – The British Royal Navy attacks the German fleet in the Ofotfjord. At Bergen, German cruiser Königsberg is sunk by British Fleet Air Arm Blackburn Skua dive bombers, flying from RNAS Hatston in Orkney.
April 12
The Faroe Islands are occupied by British troops, following the German invasion of Denmark. This action is taken to avert a possible German occupation of the islands, with serious consequences for the course of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Opening day at Jamaica Race Course features the use of parimutuel betting equipment, a departure from bookmaking heretofore used exclusively throughout New York. Other tracks in the state follow suit later in 1940.
April 13
WWII: Second naval Battle of Narvik – The British Royal Navy sinks all 8 defending German destroyers in the Ofotfjord.
The New York Rangers win the 1940 Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey. It will be another 54 years before their next win in 1994.
April 14 – WWII: Norwegian Campaign – The first British ground forces land in Norway, at Namsos and Harstad.
April 16 – In American baseball, the Cleveland Indians, behind Bob Feller's Opening Day no-hitter, defeat the Chicago White Sox, 1–0.
April 23 – The Rhythm Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, United States, kills 198 people.
April 27 – Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon play an association football friendly; it is Lebanon's first official match, and Mandatory Palestine's last before they become Israel in 1948.
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1940_4 | Section: May (2):
May 10 – WWII:
The Battle of France begins.
German forces invade the Low Countries:
The Battle of the Netherlands begins.
The Battle of Belgium begins.
The Invasion of Luxembourg begins.
The British invasion of Iceland begins.
With the resignation of Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
May 13 – WWII:
Winston Churchill, in his first address as Prime Minister, tells the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, "I have nothing to offer you but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
German armies open a 60-mile (97 km) wide breach in the Maginot Line at Sedan, France.
May 13–14 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and her government are evacuated to London, using the British destroyer HMS Hereward.
May 14 – WWII:
Rotterdam is subjected to savage terror bombing by the Luftwaffe; 980 are killed, and 20,000 buildings destroyed. General Henri Winkelman announces the surrender of the Dutch army (outside Zeeland) to German forces.
Recruitment begins in Britain for a volunteer home defence force: the Local Defence Volunteers, later known as the Home Guard.
May 15
WWII: The Dutch Army formally signs a surrender document.
Women's stockings made of nylon are first placed on sale across the United States. Almost five million pairs are bought on this day.
May 16 – President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress, asks for an extraordinary credit of approximately $900,000,000 to finance construction of at least 50,000 airplanes per year.
May 17 – WWII:
Brussels falls to German forces; the Belgian government flees to Ostend.
Zeeland is overrun by German forces, ending the Battle of the Netherlands and beginning full German occupation of the Netherlands (Noord-Beveland surrenders on May 18, and the remaining Dutch troops are withdrawn from Zeelandic Flanders on May 19).
May 18 – Marshal Philippe Pétain is named vice-premier of France.
May 19 – General Maxime Weygand replaces Maurice Gamelin as commander-in-chief of all French forces.
May 20
WWII: German forces (2nd Panzer Division), under General Rudolf Veiel, reach Noyelles on the English Channel.
The Holocaust: The Nazi concentration camp and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German concentration camps, opens in occupied Poland, near the town of Oświęcim. From now on until January 1945, around 1.1 million people will be killed here.
May 22 – WWII: The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939, giving the government full control over all persons and property.
May 24 – WWII:
The Anglo-French Supreme War Council decides to withdraw all forces under its control from Norway.
Hitler issues Der Halte Befehl, a stop order preventing his Panzer divisions advancing on Dunkirk.
May 25 – The Crypt of Civilization time capsule at Oglethorpe University, Brookhaven, Georgia in the United States, is sealed shut, with a projected opening date of 8113 CE.
May 26
WWII: The Dunkirk evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France begins.
The first free flight of Igor Sikorsky's Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 helicopter is made in the United States.
May 27 – WWII: Le Paradis massacre: 97 retreating British soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment are executed by German troops of 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf after surrendering in France.
May 28 – WWII:
King Leopold III of Belgium orders the Belgian forces to cease fighting, ending the 18-day Battle of Belgium. Leaders of the Belgian government on French territory declare Leopold deposed.
Land battle of Narvik: German forces retire, giving the Allies their first victory on land in the war; however, the British have already decided to evacuate Narvik.
Winston Churchill warns the House of Commons of the United Kingdom to "prepare itself for hard and heavy tidings."
The Wormhoudt massacre (or Wormhout massacre) takes place with the mass murder of 80 British and French POWs by Waffen-SS soldiers from the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler during the Battle of France.
May 29 – The Vought XF4U-1, prototype of the F4U Corsair U.S. fighter later used in WWII, makes its first flight.
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1940_5 | Section: June (2):
June 1 – WWII: Rear Admiral Sir W. Frederic Wake-Walker's flagship, the destroyer Keith, is sunk by Stukas at Dunkirk.
June 3
WWII: Paris is bombed by the Luftwaffe for the first time.
The Holocaust: Franz Rademacher proposes the Madagascar Plan.
The Weather Bureau is transferred to the United States Department of Commerce.
June 4 – WWII:
The Dunkirk evacuation ends: The British and French navies, together with large numbers of civilian vessels from various nations, complete evacuating 300,000 troops from Dunkirk, France to England.
Winston Churchill tells the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, "We shall not flag or fail. We shall fight on the beaches... on the landing grounds... in the fields and the streets.... We shall never surrender."
June 7 – King Haakon VII of Norway and his government are evacuated from Tromsø to London, on HMS Devonshire.
June 10 – WWII:
Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounces Italy's actions with his "Stab in the Back" speech during the graduation ceremonies of the University of Virginia.
Canada declares war on Italy.
The Norwegian Army surrenders to German forces.
The French government flees to Tours.
June 11 – WWII: The Western Desert Campaign opens, with British forces crossing the Frontier Wire into Italian Libya.
June 12 – WWII: 13,000 British and French troops surrender to Major-General Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division, at Saint-Valery-en-Caux.
June 13 – WWII: Paris is declared an open city.
June 14 – WWII:
The French government flees to Bordeaux, and Paris falls under German occupation.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Naval Expansion Act into law, which aims to increase the United States Navy's tonnage by 11%.
A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first residents of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Soviet ultimatum to Lithuania: The Soviet Union demands that its Red Army be allowed to enter Lithuania and form a pro-Soviet puppet "People's Government of Lithuania".
June 15 – WWII:
Occupation of the Baltic states: The Soviet Union occupies Lithuania.
Verdun falls to German forces.
June 16
The Churchill war ministry in the United Kingdom offers a Franco-British Union (inspired by Jean Monnet) to Paul Reynaud, Prime Minister of France, in the hope of preventing France from agreeing to an armistice with Germany, but Reynaud resigns when his own cabinet refuses to accept it.
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is held for the first time, in Sturgis, South Dakota.
June 17 – WWII:
Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France, and immediately asks Germany for peace terms.
Occupation of the Baltic states: The Soviet Union occupies Estonia and Latvia.
Operation Aerial begins: Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.
RMS Lancastria, serving as a troopship, is bombed and sunk by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 aircraft, while evacuating British troops and nationals from Saint-Nazaire in France, with the loss of at least 4,000 lives, the largest single UK loss in any World War II event, immediate news of which is suppressed in the British press. Destroyer HMS Beagle (H30) rescues around 600.
June 18 – WWII:
Winston Churchill tells the House of Commons of the United Kingdom: "The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin... if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour."
Appeal of 18 June: General Charles de Gaulle, de facto leader of the Free French Forces, makes his first broadcast appeal over Radio Londres from London, rallying the French Resistance, calling on all French people to continue the fight against Nazi Germany: "France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war."
June 20 – WWII: Evacuation of civilians from the Channel Islands to England begins.
June 21 – WWII: The unsuccessful Italian invasion of France begins with an offensive in the Alps.
June 22
WWII: Second Armistice at Compiègne: The French Third Republic and Nazi Germany sign an armistice, ending the Battle of France in the Forest of Compiègne, in the same Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits railroad car used by Marshal Ferdinand Foch to conclude the Armistice with Germany in 1918. This divides France into a Zone occupée in the north and west, under the Military Administration in France (Nazi Germany), and a southern Zone libre, Vichy France.
Albert Einstein gives a public address in the "I'm An American" series, on becoming an American citizen.
June 23 – WWII: German leader Adolf Hitler surveys newly defeated Paris, in now-occupied France.
June 24
WWII: Vichy France signs armistice terms with Italy.
WWII: Operation Fish – British Royal Navy cruiser HMS Emerald sails from Greenock (Scotland) in convoy for Halifax, Nova Scotia (arriving July 1), carrying a large part of the gold reserves of the United Kingdom and securities for safe keeping in Canada.
United States politics: The Republican Party begins its national convention in Philadelphia, and nominates Wendell Willkie as its candidate for president.
June 25 – WWII: After the defeat of France, Hitler plans for an invasion of Switzerland, known as Operation Tannenbaum.
June 26 – Soviet calendar: The Soviet Union reverts to a seven-day week for all purposes.
June 28
General Charles de Gaulle is officially recognized by Britain as the "Leader of all Free Frenchmen, wherever they may be."
Romania cedes Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, after an ultimatum.
June 30
WWII: German forces land in Guernsey, marking the start of the 5-year Occupation of the Channel Islands.
Federal government of the United States reorganisation:
The Civil Aeronautics Administration is placed under the Department of Commerce.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is placed under the Federal Security Agency.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is placed under the Department of the Interior.
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1940_6 | Section: July (2):
July 1 – The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opens for business, built with an 8-foot (2.4 m) girder and 190 feet (58 m) above the water, as the third-longest suspension bridge in the world.
July 2 – WWII: British-owned SS Arandora Star, carrying civilian internees and POWs of Italian and German origin from Liverpool to Canada, is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-47 off northwest Ireland, with the loss of around 865 lives.
July 3 – WWII: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir: British naval units sink or seize ships of the French fleet anchored in the Algerian ports of Mers-el-Kebir and Oran, to prevent them from falling into German hands. The following day, Vichy France breaks off diplomatic relations with Britain.
July 5 – WWII: Operation Fish – A British convoy including HMS Batory sails from Greenock (Scotland) for Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying gold bar and other valuables worth $1.7 billion for safe keeping in Canada, the largest movement of wealth in history.
July 6
Story Bridge opens in Brisbane.
WWII: British submarine HMS Shark is sunk.
July 10 – WWII: The Battle of Britain air offensive of the German Luftwaffe against the British RAF Fighter Command begins.
July 11 – WWII:
British destroyer HMS Escort is torpedoed and sunk by an Italian submarine.
Vichy France begins with a constitutional law which only eighty members of the parliament vote against. Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France.
July 14 – WWII: Winston Churchill, in a worldwide broadcast, proclaims the intention of Great Britain to fight alone against Germany whatever the outcome: "We shall seek no terms. We shall tolerate no parley. We may show mercy. We shall ask none."
July 15 – U.S. politics: The Democratic Party begins its national convention in Chicago, and nominates Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term as president.
July 19 – WWII:
Battle of Cape Spada: HMAS Sydney and five destroyers sink the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni.2
Adolf Hitler makes a peace appeal ("appeal to reason") to Britain, in an address to the Reichstag. BBC German-language broadcaster Sefton Delmer unofficially rejects it at once and Lord Halifax, the British foreign minister, flatly rejects peace terms in a broadcast reply on July 22.
July 20–August 4 – Scheduled dates for the 1940 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, cancelled in November 1939 due to WWII (originally allocated to Tokyo, Japan).
July 21
After rigged parliamentary elections in the three occupied countries on July 14–15, the parliaments proclaim the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics.
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft enters service, so named as 1940 roughly corresponds to the year 2600 on the Japanese Imperial calendar.
July 23 – Welles Declaration: United States Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles announces that the U.S. will not accord diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union's occupation of the Baltic states.
July 25 – General Henri Guisan addresses the officer corps of the Swiss army at Rütli, resolving to resist any invasion of the country.
July 27
Eleven British nationals, including Melville James Cox, are arrested on suspicion of spying for military intelligence by the secret police in Japan. Cox commits suicide in Tokyo on July 29, according to a report by the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
Bugs Bunny makes his debut in the Oscar-nominated cartoon short, A Wild Hare. However, it is not until 1941 that his name is adopted.
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1940_7 | Section: August (2):
August 1 – WWII: British submarine HMS Spearfish is sunk in the English Channel, by what is much later discovered to be a mine.
August 3 – The Lithuanian SSR is annexed into the Soviet Union, followed by the Latvian SSR on August 5 and the Estonian SSR August 6, just seven weeks after their occupation. Ethnic Germans will be deported to Germany.
August 3–19 – WWII: The Italian conquest of British Somaliland is completed.
August 4 – U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing, in a nationwide radio broadcast, urges all-out aid to Britain in order to defend the Americas, while Charles Lindbergh speaks to an isolationist rally at Soldier Field in Chicago.
August 8 – WWII: German general Wilhelm Keitel signs the Aufbau Ost directive, which eventually leads to the invasion of the Soviet Union.
August 10 – WWII: British armed merchant cruiser HMS Transylvania is torpedoed off Malin Head, Ireland, by German submarine U-56.
August 13 – WWII: Luftwaffe Adlertag ("Eagle Day") strike on southern England occurs, starting the rapid escalation of the Battle of Britain.
August 15 – Italy, without having declared war on Greece, sinks the Greek boat Elli (Έλλη).
August 18
WWII: "The Hardest Day" in the Battle of Britain: Both sides lose more aircraft combined on this day than at any other point during the campaign, without the Luftwaffe achieving dominance over RAF Fighter Command.
The Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, is installed as Governor of the Bahamas.
August 20
WWII: Winston Churchill pays tribute in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom to the Royal Air Force fighter pilots: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
Leon Trotsky is attacked with an ice axe in his Mexico home by NKVD agent Ramón Mercader.
August 24 – Howard Florey and a team including Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, publish their laboratory results showing the in vivo bactericidal action of penicillin. They have also purified the drug.
August 25 – WWII: The first Bombing of Berlin is carried out, by the British Royal Air Force.
August 26 – WWII: Chad is the first French colony to proclaim its support for the Allies.
August 30 – Second Vienna Award: Germany and Italy compel Romania to cede half of Transylvania to Hungary.
August 31
WWII: Texel Disaster: Two British Royal Navy destroyers are sunk by running into a minefield off the coast of the occupied Netherlands with the loss of around 400 men, 300 of them dead.
British film stars Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh are married at the San Ysidro Ranch in California.
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Subsets and Splits