General
Population: 2.20 Billion*
- Entertainment: Gershwin releases Porgy and Bess
Fred Astaire dances in film Top Hat
Rumba becomes fashionable
Popular musicians include Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire, Glen Gray (Blue Moon), (You're The Top) Cole Porter
Bride of Frankenstein debuts
Writers include TS Eliot, Sinclair Lewis, Graham Greene, George Santayana, John Steinbeck
Art includes Salvador Dali (Giraffe on Fire)
Films include Anna Kerenina (Garbo), David Copperfield, Mutiny on the Bounty (Clark Gable), Becky Sharp,
The 39 Steps (Hitchcock), The Informer
Count Basie starts the Big Band jazz sound
Music includes Gershwin (Porgy and Bess), Stravinsky
Jazz fades and Swing becomes popular
- Science: Joliot-Curie for synthesis of new radioactive elements
Radar equipment to detect aircraft built by Watson and Watt
German chemist Gerhard Domagk announced discovery of Prontosil the first sulfa drug for treating strep
Nylon invented
Charles Richter invents earthquake scale
- Technology: GE introduces fluorescent lights
- Deaths: Botanist Hugo De Vries, GW Russell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, TE Lawrence (of Arabia) age 47
Africa
- General: Longest bridge in world opened iver the lower Zambesi
- Ethiopia: Mussolini, Italy attacks and controls Ethiopia - League of Nations fails to take action
- Uganda: Plague
Americas
- General: End of Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia with Paraguay winning
- Brazil: Malarial jungle fever
- Canada: Newfoundland hurricane
Bank of Canada founded
Earthquake 6.2
- Haiti: Hurricane
Flooding
- Honduras: Hurricane
- Mexico: Clash between president and former president
- Venezuela: Death of Gómez
Asia
- China: Survivors of China's Long March under Mao Zedong reach Yan'an
Continuation of Chinese civil war
Yellow and Yangtzee flood kills 145,000
Explosion at arsenal in Lanchow kills 2000
Chiang Kai-shek named president of Chinese executive
- India: British reform Indian administration with "Government of India Act"
Government creates new constitution
Quake kills 56,000
Anglo-Indian trade pact signed
- Java: 80 die from sweetmeat poisoning
- Philippines: Commonwealth formally established
- Taiwan: 7.1 Quake kills 3279
- Thailand: Rama VIII Ananda Mahidon becomes King of Siam
Europe
- Austria: Schuschnigg and Starhemberg stage anti-Heimwehr coup in Vienna
Anti-Hapsburg laws abolished
- Czechoslovakia: Milan Hodza becomes premier of Czechoslovakia
TG Masaryk resigns as president and is succeeded by Eduard Benes
Samuel Hoare resigns and Eden appointed British Foreign secretary
- France: Leftists take control
Allegiance with Russia
Fascist organization Corix de Feu founded in France
Laval elected French Premier
- Germany: Nazis repudiate Versailles treaty and reintroduce compulsory military service
Nuremberg Laws further persecutions in Germany of Jews
Luftwaffe formed
- Great Britain: George V Silver Jubilee
Strengthening of British military
Stanley Baldwin forms National Government In Britain
London publisher Victor Gollancz founds Left Book Club
Exhibition of Chinese art at Burlington House in London
British Council founded
- Greece: King George II returns to Greece restoring monarchy
- Soviet Union: Show trials take place
USSR concludes treaties with France, Czechoslovakia and US and Turkey
Moscow subway opens
Middle East
- General: Oil pipelines between Iraq Haifa and Tripoli opened
- Iran: Persia officially changes name to Iran
- Pakistan: Earthquake
- Turkey: Hagia Sophia transformed into a museum (Turkey)
Mt Ararat erupts
Mustafa Kemal President adopts name Kemal Ataturk
Pacific
- New Zealand: Labour government elected