1938
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'''1938''' '''(MCMXXXVIII)''' was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar).
Events
January-March
January 5 - HRH|H.R.H. Prince Juan Carlos I|Juan Carlos of Spain is born.
January 3 - The March of Dimes is established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
January 11 - Frances Moulton is the first woman to become president of a US national bank.
January 20 - Wedding of King Farouk I of Egypt and Queen Farida Zulficar in Cairo
January 28 - The first ski tow in America begins operation in Vermont.
January 31 - Crown princess Beatrix of the Netherlands|Beatrix is born in Netherlands
February 4 - Thornton Wilder's play ''Our Town'' opens (New York City).
February 10 - Carol II of Romania takes dictatorial powers
February 12 - World War II: Germany|German troops enter Austria
February 24 - A nylon bristle toothbrush becomes the first commercial product to be made with nylon yarn.
March 3 - Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.
March 12 - ''Anschluss:'' Germany|German troops occupy Austria; annexation declared the following day.
March 15 - Soviet Union announces officially that Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin|Nikholai Bukharin has been executed
March 18 - Mexico nationalizes all foreign-owned oil properties within its borders.
April-June
April 12 - Edouard Daladier becomes president of France
April 25 - U.S. Supreme Court delivers opinion in ''Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins'' and overturns a century of federal common law.
April 28 - The towns of Dana, Massachusetts|Dana, Enfield, Massachusetts|Enfield, Greenwich, Massachusetts|Greenwich, and Prescott, Massachusetts|Prescott in Massachusetts are disincorporated to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir.
May 5 - Holy See|Vatican recognizes Francisco Franco|Franco's government in Spain
May 25 - Bombing of Alicante, Spain, in the Spanish Civil War, with 313 deads.
June 1 - Action Comics issues the first ''Superman'' comic.
June 11 - Fire destroys 212 buildings in Ludes, Latvia
June 12-June 18|18 - Roma and Sinti in Germany and Austria are rounded up, beaten up and jailed
June 19 - Italy national football team|Italy beat Hungary national football team|Hungary 4-2 to win the Football World Cup 1938|1938 World Cup
June 23 - The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the United States.
June 23 - Marineland of Florida|Marineland opens near St. Augustine, Florida.
June 25 - Dr. Douglas Hyde is elected the first President of Ireland.
June 28 - A 450 metric ton meteorite struck the earth in an empty field near Chicora, Pennsylvania
July-September
July 3 - Steam locomotive "Mallard (locomotive)|Mallard" sets the world speed record for steam by reaching 126 mph.
July 3 - The last reunion of the Blue and Confederate States of America|Gray commemerates the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
July 10 - Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world.
July - Building of the concentration camp Mauthausen
August 18 - The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting the United States with Canada, is dedicated by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt|Franklin D. Roosevelt.
September - European crisis over German demand for annexation of Sudetenland|Sudeten borderland of Czechoslovakia.
September 21 - A large hurricane (the New England Hurricane of 1938) strikes Long Island, killing 600 people.
September 29 - Munich agreement of German, Italian, British and French leaders agrees to German demands regarding annexation of Sudetenland.
September 29 - Republic of Hatay declared in Syria
October 1 - German troops march into Sudetenland
October 5 - Edvard Beneš, president of Czechoslovakia, resigns
October 10 - The Blue Water Bridge opens, connecting Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario
October 17 - Jan Syrovy's government begins in Czechoslovakia
October 27 - Du Pont announced a name for its new synthetic yarn: "nylon".
October 30 - Orson Welles's radio adaptation of ''The War of the Worlds (radio)|The War of the Worlds'' is broadcast, causing mass panic in the eastern United States.
October 31 - Great Depression: In an effort to try restore investor confidence, the New York Stock Exchange unveils a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public.
November 9 - Holocaust: Kristallnacht begins - In Germany, the "night of broken glass" begins as Nazi troops and sympathizers loot and burn Jewish businesses (the all night affair saw 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned, 91 Jews killed, and at least 25,000 Jewish men arrested).
November 10 - On the eve of Armistice Day, Kate Smith sings Irving Berlin's God Bless America for the first time on her weekly radio show.
November 18 - Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
November 30 - Czech parliament elects Emil Hácha as the new president of Czechoslovakia.
December 23 - Coelacanth, a fish thought to have been extinct, caught off the coast of South Africa near Chalumna River
Unknown dates
Italian mathematician Ettore Majorano disappears
In Québec, the St. Jean Baptiste Society raises a petition of 128,000 names, demanding restrictions on Jews living in Quebec. Lionel Groulx|Abbe Groulx denounces Jews as a race that refuses to be assimilated.
In West Java, Daeng Soetigna tuned pentatonic|traditional angklung to play also diatonic Scale (music)|scale.
The Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg.
Adolf Hitler is Time magazine's "Man of the Year" (as most influential during the course of the year, not as 'best' man of the year)
Enoch A. Holtwick began long political career.
Ongoing events
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
Sino-Japanese_War_(1937-1945)|Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
Births
January-February
January 2 - Hans Herbjørnsrud, Norwegian author
January 2 - Ian Brady, British serial killer
January 5 - King Juan Carlos I of Spain
January 8 - Bob Eubanks, American game show host
January 10 - Donald Knuth, American mathematician and computer scientist
January 10 - Willie McCovey, baseball player
January 14 - Jack Jones (singer)|Jack Jones, American singer and actor
January 18 - Curt Flood, baseball player (d. 1997)
January 23 - Georg Baselitz, German painter and sculptor
January 25 - Etta James, American singer
January 31 - Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands
February 1 - Sherman Hemsley, American comedian and actor
February 8 - Prentice Gautt, American football player
February 11 - Bevan Congdon, New Zealand cricketer
February 11 - Manuel Noriega, Panamanian general and dictator
February 12 - Judy Blume, American author
February 13 - Oliver Reed, English actor (d. 1999)
February 18 - Istvan Szabo, Hungarian director
February 24 - Phil Knight, American sportswear entrepreneur
February 25 - Herb Elliott, Australian runner
March-April
March 4 - Don Perkins, American football player
March 7 - David Baltimore, American biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
March 7 - Janet Guthrie, American race car driver
March 13 - Erma Franklin, American singer (d. 2002)
March 17 - Rudolf Nureyev, Russian-born dancer and choreographer (d. 1993)
March 18 - Charley Pride, American baseball player and musician
March 23 - Maynard Jackson, mayor of Atlanta, Georgia (d. 2003)
March 25 - Hoyt Axton, American musician and actor (d. 1999)
March 26 - Anthony James Leggett, American physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics|Nobel Prize laureate
April 1 - John Quade, American actor
April 4 - A. Bartlett Giamatti, American president of Yale University and baseball commissioner (d. 1989)
April 8 - Kofi Annan, Ghanaian Secretary General of the United Nations, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
April 10 - Don Meredith, American football player and broadcaster
April 11 - Kurt Moll, German bass
April 12 - Roger Caron, Canadian author
April 26 - Duane Eddy, American musician
April 29 - Larry Niven, American author
May-July
May 17 - Jason Bernard, American actor (d. 1996)
May 22 - Richard Benjamin, American actor
May 26 - William Bolcom, American composer
May 26 - Teresa Stratas, Canadian soprano
May 31 - Johnny PayCheck, American singer (d. 2003)
May 31 - Peter Yarrow, American singer
June 5 - Karin Balzer, German athlete
June 7 - Goose Gonsoulin, American football player
June 15 - Billy Williams (baseball player)|Billy Williams, baseball player
June 19 - Wahoo McDaniel, American football player and professional wrestler (d. 2002)
June 28 - Moy Yat, Chinese martial artist
July 4 - Bill Withers, American singer and songwriter
July 6 - Tony Lewis, English cricketer
July 12 - Wieger Mensonides, Dutch swimmer
July 19 - Jayant Narlikar, Indian Astrophysicist
July 20 - Natalie Wood, American actress (d. 1981)
July 23 - Juliet Anderson, American actress
July 23 - Bert Newton, Australian actor and televison show host
July 27 - Gary Gygax, American author
July 28 - Alberto Fujimori, Peruvian president
July 29 - Peter Jennings, Canadian-born television news reporter (d. 2005)
August-October
August 9 - Ezola B. Foster|Ezola Broussard Foster, Vice President of the United States
August 9 - Rod Laver, Australian tennis player
August 15 - Janusz A. Zajdel, Polish writer
August 19 - Diana Muldaur, American actress
August 22 - Paul Maguire, American football player
August 24 - Halldór Blöndal, Icelandic politician
August 24 - David Freiberg, American musician (Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Starship)
August 28 - Maurizio Costanzo, Italian television news reporter
August 28 - Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada
August 31 - Martin Bell, British journalist and politician
September 2 - Clarence Felder, American actor
September 3 - Ryoji Noyori, Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry|Nobel Prize laureate
September 10 - Karl Lagerfeld, German fashion designer and photographer
September 13 - John Smith (UK politician)|John Smith, Scottish politician (d. 1994)
September 22 - Gene Mingo, American football player
September 25 - Jonathan Motzfeldt, Prime Minister of Greenland
September 29 - Wim Kok, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
October 3 - Eddie Cochran, American singer (d. 1960)
October 4 - Kurt Wüthrich, Swiss chemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry|Nobel Prize laureate
October 9 - Heinz Fischer, Austrian politician
October 14 - Farah Diba, Empress of Iran
October 15 - Fela Kuti, Nigerian musician and activist (d. 1997)
October 23 - H. John Heinz III, U.S. Senator (d. 1991)
October 29 - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberian president-elect
November-December
November 2 - Patrick Joseph Buchanan, American journalist and Presidential candidate
November 6 - Mack Jones, baseball player (d. 2004)
November 13 - Jean Seberg, American actress
November 16 - Robert Nozick, American philosopher (d. 2002)
November 26 - Porter J. Goss, American politician and Central Intelligence Agency director
December 4 - Andre V. Marrou, U.S. Presidential candidate
December 4 - Yvonne Minton, Australian soprano
December 15 - Billy Shaw, American football player
December 16 - Liv Ullmann, Norwegian actress
December 17 - Peter Snell, New Zealand athlete
Fictional
September - Freddy Krueger, child murderer (A Nightmare on Elm Street (series)|A Nightmare on Elm Street)
Deaths
January 20 - Émile Cohl, French caricaturist and animator (b. 1857)
January 21 - Georges Méliès, French film director (b. 1861)
January 28 - Bernd Rosemeyer, German racing driver (b. 1909)
February 2 - Frederick William Vanderbilt, American railway magnate (b. 1856)
February 7 - Harvey Firestone, American manufacturer (b. 1868)
February 18 - David King Udall, American politician (b. 1851)
February 19 - Edmund Landau, German mathematician (b. 1877)
March 1 - Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian writer, war hero, and politician (b. 1863)
March 2 - Ben Harney, American composer and pianist (b. 1871)
March 13 - Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Soviet politician (b. 1888)
March 13 - Clarence Darrow, American attorney (b. 1857)
April 8 - Joe "King" Oliver, American musician (b. 1885)
April 12 - Feodor Chaliapin, Russian bass (b. 1873)
April 16 - Steve Bloomer, English footballer (b. 1874)
April 21 - Allama Iqbal, Indian philosopher and poet (b. 1877)
April 26 - Edmund Husserl, Austrian philosopher (b. 1859)
May 4 - Carl von Ossietzky, German pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1889)
May 13 - Charles Edouard Guillaume, French physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics|Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1861)
May 26 - John Jacob Abel, American pharmacologist (b. 1857)
August 1 - Edmund Charles Tarbell, American artist (b. 1862)
August 7 - Konstantin Stanislavski, Russian actor (b. 1863)
August 16 - Robert Johnson, American musician (b. 1911)
September 17 - Bruno Jasienski|Bruno Jasieński, Polish poet (b. 1901)
October 22 - May Irwin, Canadian actress and singer (b. 1862)
October 24 - Ernst Barlach, German sculptor and poet (b. 1870)
October 27 - Lascelles Abercrombie, English poet and critic (b. 1881)
November 10 - Kemal Atatürk, President of Turkey (b. 1881)
December 11 - Christian Lous Lange, Norwegian pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1869)
December 25 - Karel Capek|Karel Čapek, Czech author (b. 1890)
December 28 - Florence Lawrence, Canadian actress (b. 1886)
Nobel Prizes
Nobel Prize in Physics|Physics - Enrico Fermi
Nobel Prize in Chemistry|Chemistry - Richard Kuhn
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine|Medicine - Corneille Jean François Heymans
Nobel Prize in Literature|Literature - Pearl S. Buck
Nobel Peace Prize|Peace - Nansen International Office For Refugees, Geneva.
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