1937

align="center" colspan=2 | Years:
1934 1935 1936 - 1937 - 1938 1939 1940

align="center" colspan=2 | Decades:
1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s

align="center" | Centuries:
19th century - 20th century - 21st century

1937 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January

January 1 - Anastasio Somoza becomes President of Nicaragua
January 11 - The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States.
January 19 - Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
January 23 - In Moscow, 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 31 - Ohio river floods
January 31 - 31 people executed in the Soviet Union for "Trotskyism"

February

February 5 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
February 8 - Falangist troops take Malaga
February 11 - A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognises the United Automobile Workers Union
February 16 - Wallace H. Carothers receives a patent for nylon.
February 21 - Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile.

March

March 10 - The Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge of pope Pius XI is published in Nazi Germany
March 18 - The New London School explosion kills three hundred.
March 26 - In Crystal City, Texas spinach growers erect a statue of the cartoon character Popeye.
March 26 - William Henry Hastie becomes the first African-American appointed to federal judgeship.

April

April 1 - Aden becomes a British crown colony.
April 17 - Release of the animated short Porky's Duck Hunt, directed by Tex Avery for the Merrie Melodies series, featuring the debut of Daffy Duck.
April 26 - Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.

May

May 1 - General strike in Paris, France
May 6 - In United States, the German airship Hindenburg bursts into flame when mooring to a mast in Lakehurst.
May 7 - Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion Fighter Group, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes arrive in Spain to assist Francisco Franco's forces.
May - Dil ireann passes the Executive Authority (Consequential Provisions) Act, 1937 which retrospectively abolished the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State. The abolition was retrospectively dated back to December 1936.
May 12 - Coronation of King George VI.
May 27 - In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushes a button in Washington, DC signaling the start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge.

June

June 8 - First total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality in over 800 years; visible in the Pacific and Peru.
June 14 - Pennsylvania becomes the first (and only) of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.
June 21 - Coalition government of Leon Blum resigns in France.

July

July 1 - Gestapo arrests priest Martin Niemller.
July 1 - In a referendum the people of the Irish Free State accept the new Constitution by 685,105 votes to 527,945.
July 5 - Highest recorded temperature in Canada, at Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan: 45 °C.
July 7 - Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lugou Bridge - Japanese forces invade China.
June/July - Dil ireann debates and passes the draft new constitution of ire, to be called Bunreacht na hireann. The new constitution is then submitted for public approval by plebiscite.
July 21 - Eamon de Valera elected president of Eire
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 24 - Alabama drops rape charges against the so-called "Scottsboro Boys."
July 28 - IRA bombing against the king of England in Belfast

August

August 6 - Falangist artillery bombards Madrid.

September

September 21 - George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London published the first edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.
September 25 - Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Pingxingguan.

October

October 1 - Marijuana Tax Act in USA.
October 3 - Japanese troops advance toward Nanking.
October 21 - The whole Spanish northern seaboard in the Falangists' hands.
October 21 - Roberto Ortiz elected president of Argentina.
October 27 - Spanish Civil War - Republican forces in Gijon, Spain, set fire to petrol reserves before they retreat before the advancing Falangists.

November

November 5 Spanish Civil War - Massacre of Republican supporters in Piedrafita de Babia, near Leon. Possibly 35,000 executed.
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.
November 9 - Japanese troops take Shanghai.

December

December - The Marijuana Tax Act is signed, killing the US hemp industry just as it was about to benefit from a mechanised brake and compete with cotton and wood pulp.
December 3 - The Dandy, the world's longest running comic, was first published.
December 12 - Panay incident
December 13 - Battle of Nanjing ends and the Nanjing Massacre begins. Japanese troops would slaughter over 250,000 civilians and prisoners over three months.
December 29 - New Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hireann comes into force. The Irish Free State becomes ire. Eamon de Valera becomes the first Taoiseach (prime minister) of the new state. A Presidential Commission (made up the Irish Chief Justice, the Speaker of Dil ireann and the President of the High Court) assumes the powers of the new presidency of Ireland pending the election of the first president in June 1938.

Unknown dates

Japan invades Manchuria. (Some consider this the start of World War II. Most historians disagree).
New Irish constitution bans divorce.
First science fiction convention in Leeds, United Kingdom.
Italy joins Antikomintern Pact.
The National House Builders Registration Council (now the NHBC) was formed in the United Kingdom.
Donald Goines (1937 - 1973)

Ongoing events

Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)

Year in topic

1937 in film

The Life of Emile Zola
A Star Is Born
Snow White, first feature-length animated movie, and Disney created it.

1937 in literature

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer
U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street! by Dr. Seuss

1937 in music
1937 in rail transport
1937 in sports

January 1 - The first Cotton Bowl game is played in Dallas, Texas.

1937 in television

May - Gilbert Seldes becomes the first television critic, with his Atlantic Monthly article, the "Errors of Television".
May 15 - RCA demonstrates projection television, with images enlarged to 8 by 10 feet, at the Institute of Radio Engineers convention.
CBS announces their efforts to develop television broadcasts.

1937 in theatre

Orson Welles draws loud comment with his 'Fascist' production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

1937 Inventions
The shopping cart is invented.

Births

January

January 4 - Dyan Cannon, actress
January 8 - Shirley Bassey, singer
January 15 - Margaret O'Brien, actress
January 17 - Troy Donahue, actor
January 18 - John Hume, politician, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998
January 27 - John Ogdon, English pianist (d. 1989)
January 30 - Vanessa Redgrave, English actress
January 30 - Boris Spassky, Russian chess grand master
January 31 - Suzanne Pleshette, actress
January 31 - Philip Glass, American composer

February

February 1 - Garrett Morris, comedian
February 1 - Don Everly, musician
February 2 - Tom Smothers, musician, comedian, half of the Smothers Brothers
February 2 - Magic Sam, Blues musician and guitarist
February 8 - Manfred Krug, actor
February 11 - Lodewijk Boer, Dutch violinist/playwright
February 11 - Marilyn Butler, Rector of Exeter College, Oxford University
February 11 - Peter Lashley, West Indies cricket player
February 11 - Bill Lawry, Australian cricket player
February 12 - Charles Dumas, American high jumper
February 17 - Rita Sssmuth, politician
February 20 - Roger Penske, automobile racer
February 20 - Nancy Wilson, singer and actress
February 21 - Harald V, King of Norway (1991 - )
February 25 - Tom Courtenay, actor

November

November 8 - Paul Mackintosh Foot, British radical investigative journalist, political campaigner, and long time member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
November 15 - Yaphet Kotto, actor ()
November 17 - Peter Cook, comedian, satirist and writer
November 26 - Boris Yegorov, cosmonaut

December

December 3 - Bobby Allison, NASCAR driver
December 8 - Arne Nss Jr., Norwegian mountaineer, businessman (d. 2004)
December 26 - Katharine Dickson Dukakis, wife of Michael Dukakis (or 1936).
December 26 - Gnassingbe Eyadema, former President of Togo (d. 2005)
December 29 - Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, President of the Maldives
December 30 - Jim Marshall, American football player

Deaths

January

January 6 - Brother Andre, Canadian religious figure
January 23 - Marie Prevost, actress

February

February 11 - Walter Burley Griffin, architect and town planner

March

March 12 - Charles-Marie Widor, organist and composer
March 15 - H. P. Lovecraft, horror writer
March 29 - Karol Szymanowski, composer

April

April 19 - William Martin Conway, British art critic and mountaineer
April 21 - Saima Harmaja, Finnish poet (b. 1913)
April 25 - Michał Drzymała, famous Polish peasant fighting with German bureaucracy (b.1857)