1937

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

Years: 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 - 1937 - 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942

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Events

• January 1 - Anastasio Somoza becomes President of Nicaragua
• January 9 - 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.
• February 5 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
• 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.
• March 18 - A natural gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas kills 298 (most are children).
• March 26 - In Crystal City, Texas spinach growers erect a statue of the cartoon character Popeye.
• April 1 - Aden becomes a British crown colony.
• April 26 - Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
• 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 - Dáil Éireann 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 8 - First total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality in over 800 years; visible in the Pacific and Peru.
• 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 - Dáil Éireann debates and passes the draft new constitution of Éire, to be called Bunreacht na hÉireann. The new constitution is then submitted for public approval by plebiscite.
• 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."
• 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.
• 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 13 - Battle of Nanjing ended as the Japanese took the city and began 3 months of atrocities
• December 28 - New Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann comes into force. The Irish Free State becomes Éire. 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 Dáil Éireann 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 1937.
• Japan invades Manchuria. (Some consider this the start of World War II. Most historians disagree).

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
• 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
• 1937 in music
• 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

Births

• January 4 - Dyan Cannon, actress
• January 8 - Shirley Bassey, singer
• January 8 - Bob Eubanks, game show host
• 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 30 - Vanessa Redgrave, actress
• January 30 - Boris Spassky, chess grand master
• January 31 - Suzanne Pleshette, actress
• January 31 - Philip Glass, composer
• February 1 - Garrett Morris, comedian
• February 1 - Don Everly, musician
• February 2 - Tom Smothers, musician, comedian, half of the Smothers Brothers
• February 8 - Manfred Krug, actor
• February 11 - Bill Lawry, Australian cricket player.
• 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 17 - Rita Süssmuth, politician
• February 20 - Nancy Wilson, singer
• February 20 - Roger Penske, automobile racer
• February 21 - Harald V, King of Norway (1991 - )
• February 25 - Tom Courtenay, actor
• March 6 - Valentina Tereshkova, cosmonaut
• March 9 - Mickey Gilly, country music performer
• March 20 - Jerry Reed, country musician
• March 30 - Warren Beatty, actor/director
• April 5 - Colin Powell, US Secretary of State
• April 6 - Merle Haggard, country musician
• April 6 - Billy Dee Williams, actor
• April 22 - Jack Nicholson, actor
• April 28 - Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq
• May 8 - Thomas Pynchon, novelist
• May 6 - Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, boxer
• May 12 - George Carlin, comedian
• May 13 - Roch Carrier, Canadian author of fiction
• May 13 - Roger Zelazny, science fiction author (+ 1995)
• May 15 - Trini López, musician
• May 17 - Hazel R. O'Leary, United States Secretary of Energy
• May 18 - Brooks Robinson, Baseball Hall of Famer
• May 18 - Jacques Santer
• June 18 - Vitali Zholobov, cosmonaut
• July 6 - Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist
• July 9 - David Hockney, artist
• July 12 - Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister of France
• August 4 - David Bedford, musician
• August 8 - Dustin Hoffman, American actor
• August 18 - Robert Redford, American actor
• September 28 - Rod Roddy, television announcer (+ 2003)
• October 10 - Bobby Charlton, English footballer
• November 17 - Peter Cook, comedian, satirist and writer
• November 26 - Boris Yegorov, cosmonaut
• J. M. Barrie, novelist and dramatist
• Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State

Deaths

• January 6 - Brother Andre, Canadian religious figure
• January 23 - Marie Prevost, actress
• February 11 - Walter Burley Griffin, architect and town planner
• March 12 - Charles-Marie Widor, organist and composer
• March 15 - H. P. Lovecraft, horror writer
• March 29 - Karol Szymanowski, composer
• May 23 - John Davison Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist.
• May 28 - Alfred Adler, psychologist
• July 9 - Oliver Law, first African American commander of American troops, killed in battle during the Spanish Civil War.
• August 11 - Edith Wharton, writer
• September 26 - Bessie Smith, blues singer
• Guglielmo Marconi, italian inventor, "the father of radio"

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Clinton Joseph Davisson, George Paget Thomson
• Chemistry - Walter Norman Haworth, Paul Karrer
• Medicine - Albert von Szent-Györgyi Nagyrapolt
• Literature - Roger Martin du Gard
• Peace - Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (Lord Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne Cecil)