Jan 1 Italy joins two of its colonies, Tripoli and Cyrenaica, into what will be known as Libya.
Jan 1 By now, unemployment in the United States has fallen from its high of around 25 percent down to around 17 percent, but it is more than three times Sweden's and still a long way from its 1929 level of 3.2 percent. Since 1932, farm income has increased by more than 50 percent.
Jan 11 Amelia Earhart flies solo from Honolulu to Oakland, California, in 17 hours and 7 minutes.
Jan 13 A plebiscite is held in Germany's coal producing region, Saarland, which has been under League of Nations jurisdiction. The results show that 90.3 percent of those voting wish to rejoin Germany.
Jan 16 The FBI kills Fred and "Ma" Barker. The myth is to prevail that "Ma" Barker, an elderly grandmother, was the mastermind and an active member of the Barker gang criminal activities. The FBI is to report that she died with a Thompson machine gun at her side, to justify the FBI killing her in a shootout.
Jan 20 The Soviet Union signs a secret accord with Japan, recognizing Japan's control over the South Manchurian Railway (which links to Liaodong Peninsula) and Japan's recognition of full Soviet authority over the Chinese Eastern Railway (which links to Vladivostok). The Revolution's leaders had promised the world never to engage in secret diplomacy.
Jan 28 Iceland becomes the first country to legalize abortion on medical grounds.
Feb 10 Hitler describes the Soviet Union as a menace to peace.
Feb 22 In the US, civilian aircraft are prohibited from flying over the White House.
Feb 26 The Soviet Union is doesn't want in hostile Japan to its east while facing fascist Germany to its west. The Soviet Union's ambassador to China secretly recognizes the validity of Japan's 1915 Twenty-One Demands on China, an anathema to the Chinese.
Mar 1 Saarland officially rejoins Germany. Hitler has announced that Germany has no more territorial claims against France (in other words no claim on Alsace and Lorraine) and he has spoken of the Saarland as a decisive step on the road to gradual reconciliation among First World War belligerents.
Mar 10 Hitler in recent days has said that the British should get used to dealing with Germany on an equal footing. Hermann Göring (Goering), Minister of Aviation, announces the existence of an air force, a German violation of the Versailles Treaty.
March The National Council of Jewish Women in New York City describe Hitler as a "world menace."
Mar 13 President Roosevelt grants Pan Am Airways permission to build runways on the islands of Wake, Midway and Guam. Japanese military analysts complain.
Mar 16 The Versailles Treaty allows Germany to have no more than 100,000 men under arms. Adolf Hitler orders conscription for all able-bodied men reaching the age 19, violating the Versailles Treaty.
Mar 21 Persia is renamed Iran.
April 1 Near the Aleutian and Midway islands, the US is holding naval exercises called Fleet Problem V – a simulated response to an attack on the Hawaiian Islands – with 160 warships and 450 aircraft. An American peace group, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, sends a letter to the Japanese people and a copy to Roosevelt saying they are opposed to these maneuvers. The Japanese admiralty complains about the maneuvers. "That's too damn bad," says Admiral Standley, Chief of Naval Operations. (Human Smoke, p 54-55.)
Apr 14 In the American West, dust storms have been occurring occasionally since November 1933. Today a dust storm covering eastern New Mexico and Colorado, and western Oklahoma, turns day into night.
May 2 With Hitler's Germany in mind, the Soviet Union and France sign a treaty promising to join the other should either be the victim of unprovoked aggression.
May 6 Democrats in Congress and President Roosevelt create the Works Progress Administration (WPA), an economic stimulus program that is to continue until 1943. It is to cost billions and to employ millions. Conservatives dislike the spending and refer to WPA project inefficiency as "We Poke Along." Some conservatives describe Roosevelt as taking the US down the road to Communism.
May 24 The first night-time Major League Baseball game is played – between the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies.
May 27 A conservative US Supreme Court declares the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional.
Jun 10 Three years of war between Bolivia and Paraguay ends. The settlement is to Paraguay's advantage. Paraguay gets control over most of the Gran Chaco, which does not have the oil it was thought to have. Paraguay has suffered 43,000 casualties, Bolivia 57,000. A final treaty clearly marking the boundaries between the two countries will not be signed until April 28, 2009.
Jun 18 Britain and Germany sign an agreement that allows the German navy to be 35 percent the size of Britain's in naval tonnage.
Aug 14 President Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act. Up to now children were obliged to support their elderly parents.
Aug 20 The Seventh Comintern Congress ends and confirms Stalin's change in strategy. The Comintern demands that member communist parties to drop attacks on Social Democrats and other reformists and forge antifascist coalitions.
Sep 8 Carl Weiss murders Louisiana's Senator Huey Long.
Sep 13 Howard Hughes sets an airspeed record of 352 miles (566 kilometers) per hour.
Sep 15 The Nuremberg Laws go into effect in Germany. Jews are denied the rights of German citizenship. Marriage and extramarital relations between Jews and "Aryans" are prohibited.
Sep 30 President Roosevelt dedicates Boulder (Hoover) Dam.
Oct 2-3 Mussolini's Italian army invades Ethiopia. The League of Nations declares Italy to be in violation of the League's sanctions against aggression. Time magazine will describe the invasion as a "civilizing mission" and ridicule the Ethiopians.
Oct 25 About 20,000 survivors of the Long March arrive at Yenan, in the far north of China, where they are able to recuperate. The Communist Party has been reduced to about 40,000, and Mao Zedung has emerged at the top of the Party's leadership.
Nov 1 New York's governor, Herbert Lehman, asks President Roosevelt to increase the immigration quota for Jews. Roosevelt says there is no quota specifically for Jews. The request is denied.
Nov 3 Non-secret balloting run by a military regime in Greece produces 95 percent in favor of restoring Greece's monarchy. Time magazine will write that a voter "could drop into the ballot box a blue vote for [King] George II and please General George Kondylis... or one could cast a red ballot for the Republic and get roughed up."
Nov 14 A general in Britain allows Stanley Baldwin to return as prime minister. His Conservative Party has a large but reduced majority.
Nov 22 Pan Am begins airmail service from San Francisco to Manila. The plane is a Martin M-130 flying boat with a wingspan of 130 feet, the largest aircraft in world service.
Nov 25 George II, who had been living in London, returns to Greece.
Dec 9 At Tiananmen Square, students and others protest Chiang Kai-shek's continued “nonresistance” against the Japanese. City police use violence to suppress the students, turning fire hoses on them in the near-freezing weather. The demonstration inspires anti-Japanese resistance groups to sprout up around elsewhere in China.
Dec 27 Mao Zedong issues the Wayaobu Manifesto, calling for a National United Front against Japanese imperialism.
Dec 31 Soviet manufacturing is more than five times what it was in Russia in 1913. Russia's world share in manufacturing is 13 percent, compared to 33 percent for the United States. Germany is third at 11 percent.
Dec 31 A best-selling book by Walter Millis, Road to War, has been giving people a new vision about World War I. Some in the US are saying that Americans had been "saps" or "suckers."
Copyright © 1998-2018 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.