1937 CE

The Second Sino-Japanese War erupts after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, as Japan invades China and commits atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre; the Hindenburg disaster shocks the world when the German airship bursts into flames in New Jersey, killing 36 and ending the airship era; the New London School explosion in Texas kills nearly 300, prompting gas safety reforms; aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanish over the Pacific while attempting a global flight; the Ohio River flood of 1937 displaces over a million across multiple states; and Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premieres as the first full-length cel-animated feature film.

In the 1930s, the 20th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua.source
  • January 17: the People's Party votes in favour of a general peasant strike (see 1937 peasant strike in Poland),Polandsource
  • February 19 – The red, white and blue colours of the flag of the Netherlands are confirmed by royal decree.source
  • April 1 – Aden becomes a British crown colony.source
  • May 28 – Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, following the retirement of Stanley Baldwin.source
  • June 8 – The Dáil Éireann passes the Executive Authority (Consequential Provisions) Act, 1937, which abolishes the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State, retrospectively dated to December 1936.source
  • June 21 – The coalition government of Léon Blum resigns in France.source
  • June–July – The Dáil Éireann debates and passes the new draft Constitution of Ireland, which is then submitted for public approval by plebiscite.source
  • July 1 – In a referendum the people of the Irish Free State accept the new Constitution by 685,105 votes to 527,945.source
  • July 7 – The Peel Commission proposes partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.source
  • 7 July – The Peel Commission publishes a report that recommends the end of the Palestine mandate and its partition into separate Arab and Jewish states.Mandatory Palestinesource
  • 9 July: Saadabad Pact reached with Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.Turkeysource
  • July 21 – Éamon de Valera is elected President of the Executive Council (prime minister) of the Irish Free State, by the Dáil (parliament).source
  • 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.source
  • 29 July – a new constitution in force with civil liberties and democracy restored but with a very strong presidency.Estoniasource
  • September 5 – Roberto Ortiz is elected president of Argentina.source
  • September 10 – Nine nations meet in the Nyon Conference, led by the United Kingdom and France, to address international piracy in the Mediterranean.source
  • October 11 – Duke and Duchess of Windsor's 1937 tour of Germany: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor arrive in Berlin to begin a 12-day tour of Nazi Germany, meeting Adolf Hitler on the 22nd.source
  • October 13 – Germany, in a note to Brussels, guarantees the inviolability and integrity of Belgium so long as the latter abstains from military action against Germany.source
  • October 23 – 1937 Australian federal election: Joseph Lyons' UAP/Country Coalition government is re-elected with a slightly increased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by John Curtin.source
  • October 25 – Celâl Bayar forms the new (ninth) government of Turkey.source
  • November 6 – Italy joins the Anti-Comintern Pact.source
  • November 10 – Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas announces the Estado Novo ("New State"), thence becoming dictator of Brazil until 1945.source
  • November 23 - founding of Workers' Party (Bolivia)Boliviasource
  • 12 December — Soviet Union legislative election, 1937Soviet Unionsource
  • December 29 – The new Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hÉireann) comes into force. The Irish Free State becomes "Ireland", and Éamon de Valera becomes the first Taoiseach (prime minister) of the new state. A Presidential Commission (made up the Chief Justice, the Speaker of Dáil Éireann, and the President of the High Court) assumes the powers of the new presidency, pending the popular election of the first President of Ireland in June 1938. The new constitution prohibits divorce.source
  • 29 December – Goga forms a new government which pursues anti-semitic policies, issuing in the first short-lived period of fascism in the kingdom.Romaniasource
  • Slavery in Bahrain is abolished.source
  • 1937 Iranian legislative election.Iransource

Conflict & Security

  • January 15 – Spanish Civil War: The Second Battle of the Corunna Road ends inconclusively.source
  • January 23 – Moscow Trials: Trial of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center – In the Soviet Union 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.source
  • January 28: anti-Semitic riots at University of Warsaw and Warsaw University of Technology,Polandsource
  • February 8–27 – Spanish Civil War – Battle of Jarama: Nationalist and Republican troops fight to a stalemate.source
  • February 21 – The League of Nations Non-Intervention Committee prohibits foreign nationals from fighting in the Spanish Civil War.source
  • March 8–23 - Battle of GuadalajaraSpainsource
  • March 21 – Ponce massacre: A police squad, acting under orders from Governor of Puerto Rico Blanton Winship, opens fire on peaceful demonstrators protesting at the arrest of Puerto Rican Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos, killing 17 people and injuring over 200.source
  • April 1 – The Bombing of Jaén is carried out in Spain, by the Condor Legion of the Nazi German Luftwaffe.source
  • April 26 – Spanish Civil War: The Bombing of Guernica is carried out in Spain, by the Condor Legion of the Nazi German Luftwaffe, in support of the Francoists. Three-quarters of the town is destroyed and hundreds killed.source
  • May 7 – Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion Fighter Group, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes, arrives in Spain to assist Francisco Franco's forces.source
  • May 21 – As one of the reprisals for the attempted assassination of Italian viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, a detachment of Italian troops massacres the entire community of Debre Libanos in Ethiopia, killing 297 monks and 23 laymen.source
  • May 30 – Memorial Day massacre of 1937: The Chicago Police Department shoot and kill 10 unarmed demonstrators in Chicago.source
  • June — Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military OrganizationSoviet Unionsource
  • July 25–31 – Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Beiping–Tianjin, a series of actions fought around Beiping and Tianjin, result in Japanese victory.source
  • 28 July – Assassination attempt on King George VI in Belfast by the Irish Republican Army.Northern Irelandsource
  • July 29 – Tongzhou Mutiny: Units of the East Hebei Army mutiny and kill Japanese troops and civilians in Tongzhou.source
  • August 5 – The Soviet Union commences one of the largest campaigns of the Great Purge, to "eliminate anti-Soviet elements". Within the following year, at least 724,000 people are fired on order of the troikas, directed by Joseph Stalin. This is an offensive that targets social classes (such as the kulaks or nobles) and Stalin's personal opponents from the Communist Party and their sympathizers.source
  • August 13 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Shanghai opens.source
  • 13 August – 26 November — Battle of ShanghaiChinasource
  • August 13-November 26 - Battle of ShanghaiJapansource
  • August 24 – Spanish Civil War: The government of the autonomous Basque Country agrees to surrender to the nationalists.source
  • September 5 – Spanish Civil War: The city of Llanes falls to the Falangists.source
  • September 25 – Second Sino-Japanese War - Battle of Pingxingguan: The Communist Chinese Eighth Route Army defeats the Japanese.source
  • September 30 – Hedy Lamarr, an Austrian-born actress of Jewish descent, arrives in New York City to flee from her possessive husband, Friedrich Mandl, who made arms agreements with the Nazis, and to begin her Hollywood career.source
  • 1 October – Following the assassination of the British District Commissioner for the Galilee, the British authorities ban all Arab nationalist political organisations and arrests members of the Arab Higher Committee. Four of whom are deported to the Seychelles. Haj Amin al-Husseini and Jamal al-Husseini avoid arrest and leave the country.Mandatory Palestinesource
  • October 2–8 – Parsley Massacre: Under the orders of President Rafael Trujillo, Dominican troops kill thousands of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.source
  • October 3 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese troops advance toward Nanjing, capital of the Republic of China.source
  • October 18–21 – Spanish Civil War: The whole Spanish northern seaboard falls into the Falangists' hands; Republican forces in Gijón, Spain, set fire to petrol reserves prior to retreating before the advancing Falangists.source
  • 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 (recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum).source
  • December 1 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Nanjing begins.source
  • December 13 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Nanjing ends with the Japanese occupying the city. In the Nanjing Massacre which follows, Japanese soldiers kill over 200,000 Chinese in 3 months. A few days previously, the Nationalist government of China had moved its capital to the southwestern city Chongqing.source
  • Nyon Conference, which addresses attacks on shipping in the Spanish Civil WarSwitzerlandsource

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 14 — Wang Jingwei took a German passenger boat to Shanghai.Chinasource
  • 21 March – The founding of the kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan by members of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement from Czechoslovakia and Poland.Mandatory Palestinesource
  • May 21 – A Russian manned ice station becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.source
  • 29 May – Stavanger Airport, Sola is opened by King Haakon VIINorwaysource
  • July 2 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear after taking off from New Guinea, during Earhart's attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world.source
  • August – founding of Bolivian Socialist Falange in Santiago, Chile by Bolivian exilesBoliviasource
  • 19 November – Hubert Opperman completes an epic bicycle ride from Fremantle, Western Australia to Sydney, taking 13 days, 10 hours and 11 minutes.Australiasource
  • First ascent of Mount Lucania (5,226 m), third highest mountain in Canada.Canadasource
  • An England Amateurs team toured, beating the New Zealand side by a resounding 30–1 aggregate in a three-match series.New Zealandsource

Religion & Belief

  • February 19 – Yekatit 12: During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace (the former Imperial residence) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, two Eritrean nationalists attempt to kill viceroy Rodolfo Graziani with a number of grenades. Italian security guards fire into the crowd of Ethiopian onlookers. Authorities exact further reprisals, which include indiscriminately slaughtering native Ethiopians over the next 3 days, detaining thousands of Ethiopians at Danan and slaughtering almost 300 monks at the Debre Libanos Monastery.source
  • March 10 (dated March 14 (Passion Sunday)) – The encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ("With burning concern") of Pope Pius XI is published in Germany in the German language. Largely the work of Cardinals von Faulhaber and Pacelli, it condemns breaches of the 1933 Reichskonkordat agreement signed between the Nazi government and the Catholic Church, and criticises Nazism's views on race and other matters incompatible with Catholicism.source
  • 10 March — The Encyclical Mit brennender Sorge of Pope Pius XI is published in Nazi Germany.Germanysource
  • 11 March – Nicolae Bălan's report to the Romanian Orthodox Church leads to Freemasonry in Romania dissolving itself.Romaniasource
  • March 19 – The encyclical Divini Redemptoris of Pope Pius XI, critical of communism, is published.source
  • April – A Crucifix was hung in the Montreal city council at the initiative of Joseph-Émile Dubreuil. The crucifix would hung there until 2019.Canadasource
  • May 12 – George VI and Elizabeth are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor and Empress of India at Westminster Abbey, London.source
  • 12 May: Kemal Atatürk dedicated his farms to the treasuryTurkeysource
  • 24 June – The Commonwealth Literature Censorship Board replaces the Book Censorship Advisory Committee, and temporarily lifts the ban on Ulysses by James Joyce.Australiasource
  • 30 June – The founding of the kibbutz Tirat Zvi as part of the tower and stockade settlement enterprise. The founders were Jews from Poland, Romania and Germany.Mandatory Palestinesource
  • September 17 – Abraham Lincoln's head is dedicated at Mount Rushmore.source
  • Cyro dos Anjos - O Amauense BelmiroBrazilsource
  • 1937 Swiss freemasonry referendumSwitzerlandsource

Economy & Finance

  • January 15 – The Empire Exhibition, South Africa closes in Johannesburg.South Africasource
  • March 30 – Marui founded as installndnt credit store in Nakano, Tokyo.Japansource
  • 28 May — Volkswagen, state-owned carmaker, is formed to produce the new people's car.Germanysource
  • June 10 - National Democratic Union, ahead of support for the candidacy of Armando Sales de Oliveira for president in the 1938 elections is created.Brazilsource
  • August 2 – The Marijuana Tax Act in the United States is a significant bill on the path that will lead to the criminalization of cannabis. It was introduced to the U.S. Congress by Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics Harry Anslinger.source
  • August 28 – Toyota was incorporated and founded on this day.source
  • 27 October – Harald Pettersen, businessperson and politician (born 1869)Norwaysource
  • December 11 – Italy withdraws from the League of Nations.source
  • December - the Ministry of Basic Industries(Republic of China) was reorganized as the Ministry of Economic Affairs.Taiwansource
  • The Vibora Luviminda sugar plantation trade unions strike on Maui island, Hawaii.source
  • Increase since 31 December 1936: 17,200 (1.09%).New Zealandsource
  • Allianz, a group of Swiss artists, is foundedSwitzerlandsource

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 10: two paved highways are opened by the Minister of Communication: Kraków - Wieliczka (12 km) and Kraków - Katowice (64 km). Warsaw police arrest 13 activists of National Radical Camp (1934),Polandsource
  • February 11 – Hasegawa Builder Corporation, as predecessor of Haseko Corporation founded in Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture.Japansource
  • February 16 – Wallace H. Carothers receives a patent for nylon in the United States.source
  • April 9 – The Kamikaze arrives at Croydon Airport in London; it is the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.source
  • April 12 – Frank Whittle ground-tests the world's first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.source
  • 6 May – Historic radio link up to cover the arrival of Airship Hindenburg at New Jersey (and hence its destruction by fire). This is probably the first direct international radio broadcast of this nature from such a distance.New Zealandsource
  • 17 May: Divriği iron ore, the largest in Turkey was spottedTurkeysource
  • July 7 – In the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japanese and Chinese forces exchange fire near Beijing, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War.source
  • July 7–9 — Marco Polo Bridge IncidentChinasource
  • 15 July — Buchenwald Concentration Camp openedGermanysource
  • July 20 – The Geibeltbad Pirna water sports facility is opened in Dresden, Germany.source
  • September 7 – CBS broadcasts a two-and-a-half hour memorial concert nationwide on radio in memory of George Gershwin, live from the Hollywood Bowl. Many celebrities appear, including Oscar Levant, Fred Astaire, Otto Klemperer, Lily Pons and members of the original cast of Porgy and Bess. The concert is recorded and released complete years later in what is excellent sound for its time, on CD. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is the featured orchestra.source
  • December 12 – Mae West makes a risqué guest appearance on NBC's Chase and Sanborn Hour, which eventually results in her being banned from radio.source
  • The Allen Organ Company, builder of church, home and theatre organs, is founded in Macungie, Pennsylvania.source
  • Switzerland begins construction of its Border Line defences.source
  • Soviet industry produces about four times as much as it had in 1928.source
  • The first of thirty-four Class NG G16 narrow gauge 2-6-2+2-6-2 Double Prairie type Garratt locomotives.South Africasource
  • 1937 Swiss Grand Prix, won by Rudolf CaracciolaSwitzerlandsource

Science & Discovery

  • 1 February – The 1937 New Year Honours are announced.New Zealandsource
  • February 1 – The Aliens Act No. 1 is promulgated, restricting and regulating the entry of certain aliens into the Union of South Africa and regulating the right of any person to assume a surname.South Africasource
  • February 14: first competition takes place at a new ski jumping hill at Skalité near Szczyrk,Polandsource
  • June 8 – The first total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality, in over 800 years, is visible in the Pacific and Peru.source
  • July 14 – Transpolar flight of Gromov, Yumashev and Danilin lands near San Jacinto, CaliforniaUnited Statessource
  • December 4 – The Dandy comic is first published in Scotland; it continued until 2012 as a physical publication, then online until 2013.source
  • Sunbaker by photographer Max DupainAustraliasource
  • A. G. Macdonell publishes My Scotland.Scotlandsource
  • 12–14 July — A world-record non-stop Transpolar flight of Gromov, Yumashev and Danilin, by the crew led by Mikhail Gromov, from Moscow to San Jacinto, CaliforniaSoviet Unionsource
  • Summer - Literary magazine Wales first published, edited by Keidrych Rhys.Walessource

Health & Medicine

  • 28 February – Population census in Northern Ireland.Northern Irelandsource
  • March 18 – New London School explosion: In the worst school disaster in American history in terms of lives lost, the New London School in New London, Texas, suffers a catastrophic natural gas explosion, killing in excess of 295 students and teachers. Mother Frances Hospital opens in Tyler, Texas, a day ahead of schedule, in response to the explosion.source
  • March 18 – Mother Frances Hospital opens in Tyler, Texas in response to the New London School explosion.United Statessource
  • 17 April – A crowd of 149,415 spectators officially (and at least 20,000 more unofficially) watch the Scotland national football team defeat England 3-1 at Hampden Park, Glasgow, an all-time European record for an international match.Scotlandsource
  • July 6 – According to Japanese government official confirmed report, a caught fire in Handa Mental Rescue Hospital in Hiroshima City, kills 23 persons.Japansource
  • 20 July — The Geibeltbad Pirna is opened in Dresden, Germany.Germanysource
  • October 5 – Roosevelt gives his famous Quarantine Speech in Chicago.source
  • October–December – Croydon typhoid outbreak of 1937: 341 cases of typhoid fever (43 fatal) result from a polluted well.United Kingdomsource
  • 14 November – Harald Stormoen, actor (born 1872)Norwaysource
  • Italian psychiatrist Amarro Fiamberti is the first to document a transorbital approach to the brain, which becomes the basis for the controversial medical procedure of transorbital lobotomy.source
  • Estimated population as of 31 December: 1,601,800.New Zealandsource

Crime & Justice

  • January 4 - Two plates containing 58 scales are stolen off of the kinshachi (a kind of dolphin fish) affixed to the top of the castle tower of Nagoya Castle. The culprit was apprehended 23 days later.Japansource
  • January 30 – The Moscow Trial initiated on January 23 is concluded. Thirteen of the defendants are sentenced to death (including Georgy Pyatakov, Nikolay Muralov and Leonid Serebryakov), while the rest, including Karl Radek and Grigory Sokolnikov are sent to labor camps and later murdered. They were initially spared for implicating others, including Rykov, Bukharin and Tukhachevsky, setting the stage for further trialssource
  • May 7 - One of the leaders of the communist revolution, Luis Carlos Prestes, is sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison.Brazilsource
  • July 1 – The Gestapo arrests pastor Martin Niemöller in Germany.source
  • 27 July – Hans Dahl, painter (born 1849)Norwaysource
  • July 31 – NKVD Order No. 00447 "Об операции по репрессированию бывших кулаков, уголовников и других антисоветских элементов" ("The operation for repression of former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements") is approved by the decision of the Politbureau of the CC of the VKP(b) of the Soviet Union, initially as a 4-month plan for 75,950 people to be executed and an additional 193,000 to be sent to the Gulag.source
  • August 9 – The Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937–38) is signed by Nikolai Yezhov as a continuation of the Great Purge.source
  • October 1 – The Marihuana Tax Act becomes law in the United States.source
  • René Magritte, La Reproduction InterditeBelgiumsource
  • Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application ActIndiasource
  • Canterbury: Technical OB, Western (shared)New Zealandsource
  • The Return of Maxim — directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid TraubergSoviet Unionsource
  • 1937–38 Nationalliga, won by Grasshopper Club ZürichSwitzerlandsource

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 31 – February 2: The 25th Congress of the Polish Socialist Party takes place in Radom. Four people die in a rail crash near Mikołów,Polandsource
  • 15 February – An explosion kills 13 men at the State Coal Mine in Wonthaggi, Victoria.Australiasource
  • February 19 – Airliner VH-UHH (Stinson) goes down over Lamington National Park, bound for Sydney, killing 5 people.source
  • April 20 – A fire in an elementary school in Kilingi-Nõmme, Estonia, kills 17 students and injures 50.source
  • May 6 – Hindenburg disaster: In the United States, the German airship Hindenburg bursts into flame when mooring to a mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Of the 36 passengers and 61 crew on board, 13 passengers and 22 crew die, as well as one member of the ground crew.source
  • 6 May — Hindenburg disaster: In the United States, the German airship Hindenburg bursts into flame when mooring to a mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirteen passengers, 22 crew and one member of the ground crew were killed.Germanysource
  • May 6 – Hindenburg disaster: The German airship Hindenburg bursts into flame when mooring to a mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey.United Statessource
  • July 9 – 1937 Fox vault fire: The silent film archives of Fox Film Corporation are destroyedsource
  • 25 July – Tour de France ends, won by Roger Lapébie.Francesource
  • November 11 – The Kogushi Sulfur Mine collapse, in western Gunma, Japan, kills at least 245 people.source
  • November – A strike over safety concerns at the Ocean Coal Company's collieries originates at Risca.Walessource
  • December 12 – USS Panay incident: Japanese bombers sink the American gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze in China; the United States accepts the Japanese statement that this was unintentional.source
  • December 20 – According to former Japan Education Ministry official confirmed report, a caught fire in South Tonda Primary School, Wakayama Prefecture, kills 81 persons, mostly school children.Japansource
  • 30 December – Einar Johan Rasmussen, ships engineer and ship owner.Norwaysource

Climate & Environment

  • January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into February, leaving 1 million people homeless and 385 people dead.source
  • 9 February – Cairns is hit by a tropical cyclone.Australiasource
  • June 14 - President Getúlio Vargas signed the decree establishing the Itatiaia National Park, the first national park in Brazil.Brazilsource
  • July 5 – Midale and Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan, record the highest temperature ever in Canada, with a record high of 113 °F.Canadasource
  • September 2 – The Great Hong Kong Typhoon kills an estimated 11,000 persons.source
  • 14 December – Many documents from the National Archives of Denmark, the Royal Danish Library and Copenhagen University Library relating to Norwegian conditions are transferred to Norway.Denmarksource
  • Raymond Lemaire, Institute of Agriculture, HeverleeBelgiumsource
  • Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) ActIndiasource
  • Chatham Cup competition not held this year.New Zealandsource
  • A flash flood destroys 20 houses in the Sima Valley, Hordaland. No lives are lost.Norwaysource

Culture & Society

  • 5 January – The founding of the kibbutz Sde Nahum by members of the Sadeh group from the Mikveh Israel agricultural school, as well as Jewish immigrants from Austria, Germany and Poland.Mandatory Palestinesource
  • January 21: the premiere of the film “Pani Minister Tanczy” (“Miss Minister Dances”), directed by Juliusz Gardan. On the same day, composer Zbigniew Bargielski is born in Łomża,Polandsource
  • 13 February – The funerals of Ion Moța and Vasile Marin take place in Bucharest.Romaniasource
  • February 25 – Hergé's Tintin adventure The Broken Ear (L'Oreille cassée) concludes serialization in the Belgian weekly newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième, and soon afterwards is published as a book in black and white.source
  • March 31-July 1 - Biscay CampaignSpainsource
  • May 8 – Wydad Athletic Club (WAC)(Arabic: نادي الوداد الرياضي; Berber: Wydad Dar al-Beida; commonly: Wydad al ouma) is established in Casablanca, Morocco; it will be best known for its Casablanca Association football team.source
  • June 3 – Wallis Simpson marries the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII, in France.source
  • June – Picasso completes his painting Guernica.source
  • September 19 – Swiss professional ice hockey club HC Ambrì-Piotta is founded.source
  • September 21 – George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London publishes the first edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.source
  • October 15 – Ernest Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not is first published, in the United States.source
  • December 16 – The original production of the musical Me and My Girl opens at the Victoria Palace Theatre, in London's West End. A later revival will win an award.source
  • December 21 – Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world's first feature-length cel animated film, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.source
  • December 25 – At the age of 70, conductor Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra on radio for the first time, beginning his successful 17-year tenure with that orchestra. This first concert consists of music by Vivaldi (at a time when he is seldom played), Mozart, and Brahms. Millions tune in to listen, including U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.source
  • In 1937, the National Theatre of Iceland was established.Icelandsource
  • Louis MacNeice writes the poem Carrickfergus.Northern Irelandsource
  • Mem Martins Sport Clube foundedPortugalsource
  • An Answer from the Silence, a novel by Max Frisch, is published in SwissSwitzerlandsource

Births

Deaths

  • 3 February – Thomas Moles, Ulster Unionist politician and journalist (born 1871).Northern Irelandsource
  • March 15 – H. P. Lovecraft, American writer (born 1890)source
  • March 29 – Karol Szymanowski, composer (born 1882)Polandsource
  • April 27 – Antonio Gramsci, Italian Communist writer, politician (born 1891)source
  • May 23 – John D. Rockefeller, American industrialist, philanthropist (born 1839)source
  • May 28 – Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist (born 1870)source
  • June 7 – Jean Harlow, American actress (born 1911)source
  • 11 June – Hando Mugasto, Estonian graphic designerEstoniasource
  • July 2 – Amelia Earhart, American aviator (missing on this date) (born 1897)source
  • July 11 – George Gershwin, American composer (born 1898)source
  • July 20 – Guglielmo Marconi, Italian-born American inventor (born 1874)source
  • August 26 – Andrew Mellon, American banker, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (born 1855)source
  • October 19 – Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand physicist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient (born 1871)source
  • November 9 – Ramsay MacDonald, British statesman, 2-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1866)source
  • 20 November — Joseph Petrovykh, bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and spiritual writer (born 1872)Soviet Unionsource
  • December 9 – Lilias Armstrong, British phonetician (born 1882)source
  • December 20 – Erich Ludendorff, German general (born 1865)source
  • December 28 – Maurice Ravel, French composer (Boléro) (born 1875)source