Events 201 - 304 of 304
- Sep 16 British racing driver George Eyston sets world auto speed record at 357.5 MPH
Chamberlain Leaves Munich
Sep 17 British premier Neville Chamberlain leaves Munich
- Sep 18 Chicago Bears beat Green Bay Packers 2-0
- Sep 18 Despite losing a double header (4-3, 8-7) to the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park III, the New York Yankees clinch their 10th AL pennant
- Sep 20 Emlyn Williams' semi-autobiographical comedic play "Corn is Green," premieres in London; runs for 600 performances
Annexation of Czechoslovakia Condemned
Sep 21 British politician Winston Churchill condemns Germany's Adolf Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia
- Sep 21 RKO film comedy "Room Service", starring the Marx Brothers, based on Allen Boretz and John Murray's play, premieres in NYC
- Sep 21 The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500-700 people.
- Sep 23 British premier Neville Chamberlain flies to Munich
- Sep 23 Time capsule, to be opened in 6939, buried at World's Fair in NYC (capsule contained a woman's hat, man's pipe & 1,100' of microfilm)
'I Have Heard The Voice of Adolf Hitler . . .'
Sep 24 Adolf Hitler issues ultimatum to the government of Czechoslovakia, demanding Sudetenland be ceded to Germany
- Sep 27 British ocean liner "Queen Elizabeth" launches at Clydebank, Scotland
- Sep 27 Jewish lawyers forbidden to practise in Germany
- Sep 27 League of Nations declares Japan the aggressor against China
- Sep 28 Clare Boothe's "Boys Goodbye" premieres in NYC
- Sep 28 Dutch Prime Minister Hendrikus Colijn sends radio message "No war coming"
- Sep 28 Homer in the Gloamin' - famous walk-off home run hit by Gabby Hartnett of the Chicago Cubs against the Pittsburgh Pirates
- Sep 29 1st archival course is offered at Columbia University in NYC
- Sep 30 Treaty of Munich signed by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Édouard Daladier and Neville Chamberlain, forces Czechoslovakia to give territory to Germany. Chamberlain infamously declares "Peace for our time" on his return to London.
Annexation of Sudetenland
Oct 1 Germany annexes Sudetenland (1/3 of Czechoslovakia) following the Munich Agreement
Bob Feller
Oct 2 Future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller strikes out record 18 Detroit Tigers; his Cleveland Indians still lose 4-1 at Cleveland Stadium
- Oct 7 Germany requires all Jewish passports be stamped with letter J
Shostakovich's 1st String Quartet
Oct 10 Premiere performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's 1st String Quartet
- Oct 14 Nazis plan Jewish ghettos for all major cities
Billy the Kid
Oct 16 Aaron Copland's & Eugene Loring's ballet "Billy the Kid" premieres in Chicago
- Oct 21 Japanese troops occupies Canton
- Oct 22 Chester Carlson has 1st successful experiment in electrophotography, later sold to the Haloid Company and dubbed "Xerox copying"
- Oct 22 President of Czechoslovakia Edvard Beneš goes into exile in London, in the aftermath of the Munich agreement and German annexation of Sudetenland
- Oct 24 US forbids child labor in factories
- Oct 25 American Archbishop of Dubuque (Iowa), Francis J. L. Beckman, denounces Swing music as "a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away at the moral fiber of young people", warning that it leads down a "primrose path to hell".
- Oct 25 Japanese troops occupies Hankou & Wuhan
- Oct 27 DuPont announces its new synthetic polyamide fiber will be called "nylon"
- Oct 28 Farewell parade of International Brigade (Barcelona)
Panic Over War of the Worlds
Oct 30 A radio broadcast of H. G. Wells "The War of the Worlds", narrated by Orson Welles, allegedly causes a mass panic
MVPs Named
Nov 1 NL batting champion Ernie Lombardi of the Cincinnati Reds is named National League MVP; first catcher to win award; Boston Red Sox 1st baseman Jimmie Foxx takes AL award
- Nov 1 Seabiscuit, with George Woolf aboard, beats 1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral by 3 lengths in Pimlico track record time to win $15,000 in what is regarded as one of the greatest match races in horse racing history
- Nov 2 Boston Red Sox first baseman Jimmie Foxx is voted Most Valuable Player of the American League for the third time
- Nov 5 Ottawa Roughriders score on 5-man, 4-lateral, 65-yard punt return
- Nov 5 Rugers beats Princeton 1st time in 60 yrs as Rutgers Stad dedicated
- Nov 6 3 DiMaggio brothers play together for 1st time, in a charity all-star game
- Nov 8 1st African American woman legislator, Crystal Bird Fauset of Philadelphia
- Nov 9 Al Capp, cartoonist of Li'l Abner, creates Sadie Hawkins Day
- Nov 9 Kristallnacht begins: pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria - first large-scale physical act of anti-Jewish violence, begins
- Nov 10 8.3 earthquake shakes East of Shumagin Islands, Alaska
- Nov 10 Nobel for literature awarded to Pearl Buck (Good Earth)
- Nov 10 Second day of Kristallnacht: pogrom against the Jews in Germany and Austria after assassination of a German diplomat in Paris
- Nov 11 German & Austrian Jewish suffer 1 billion Mark damage in nazi
Madagascar A Jewish Homeland
Nov 12 Hermann Goering announces he wants Madagascar as a Jewish homeland
LSD
Nov 16 LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland
- Nov 17 Italy passes its own version of anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws
- Nov 18 Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
- Nov 20 1st documented anti-semitic remarks over US radio (by Father Coughlin)
- Nov 21 Belgian king Leopold III, King of the Belgians begins 3-day visit to Netherlands
- Nov 21 Nazi forces occupy western Czechoslovakia and declare inhabitants to be German citizens
- Nov 24 Clifford Odets' "Rocket to the Moon" premieres in NYC
- Nov 24 National Semi-Pro Basketball Congress authorizes yellow basketball
Police Head Yezhov Executed
Nov 25 Lavrentiy Beria succeeds Nikolai Yezhov as the head of the Soviet secret police, NKVD, after Yezhov was executed on Joseph Stalin's orders
Frank Sinatra Arrested
Nov 27 Bergen County (New Jersey) sheriff's department arrests American singer Frank Sinatra (23) on charge of "seduction", later withdrawn and amended to adultery, and shortly thereafter case dismissed
- Nov 28 4th Heisman Trophy Award: Davey O'Brien, Texas Christian (QB)
- Nov 28 Dmitri Shostakovich's Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 premieres in Moscow, USSR
- Nov 29 Mayor Oud of Rotterdam forbids soccer match between Netherlands and Germany
- Nov 30 Fascist coup in Romania fails
- Nov 30 Germany bans Jews being lawyers
- Dec 1 School bus & train collide in Salt Lake City Utah
- Dec 2 The first 'Kindertransport' carrying Jewish refugee children from Nazi Germany arrives in Britain
- Dec 3 AAUs decides to continue linear measuring system over metric
- Dec 6 117 Spanish knights under capt Piet Laros return to Netherlands
- Dec 6 French-German friendship treaty drawn up (Ribbentrop-Bonnet Pact)
- Dec 7 Philip Barry's play "Here Come the Clowns" premieres in NYC
- Dec 7 W9XZY broadcasts facsimile of St Louis Post-Dispatch by radio
- Dec 8 Highest temperature for December in US recorded in La Mesa Calif
- Dec 9 1939 NFL Draft: Ki Aldrich from TCU first pick by Chicago Cardinals
- Dec 9 State of California uses gas chamber instead of hanging for 2nd time in a week: Wesley Eudy and Fred Barnes executed for roles in Folsom Prison escape attempt resulting in murder of warden and guard (San Quentin State Prison, Marin County)
Fermi Awarded Physics Nobel
Dec 10 Italian scientist Enrico Fermi receives the Nobel Prize for Physics (work on reduced radioactivity)
Standard Ball for MLB
Dec 14 Major League Baseball agrees on use of a standard ball; disagrees on increasing rosters from 23 to 25 players, although Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis eventually decides on 25
- Dec 14 Will Harridge is elected to a 10-year-term as AL president
- Dec 15 Groundbreaking begins for Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Cross of Honour of the German Mother
Dec 16 Adolf Hitler institutes the state decoration and civil order of merit, Cross of Honour of the German Mother
- Dec 16 State of California executes Ed Davis (38), leader of Folsom Prison escape attempt resulting in murder of warden and guard (San Quentin State Prison, Marin County)
- Dec 17 Discovery of nuclear fission using uranium by Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann
- Dec 17 Utrecht Central Station destroyed by fire
- Dec 20 Boston Bruins rookie goalie Frankie Brimsek records his 3rd straight shutout with a 3-0 win over the New York Americans, making it his incredible sixth shutout in his first 8 NHL games
- Dec 23 Discovery of the first modern coelacanth in South Africa
Wizard of Oz Costume Catches Fire
Dec 23 Margaret Hamilton's costume catches fire while filming "The Wizard of Oz"
Vivian Leigh to Play Scarlet O'Hara
Dec 25 George Cukor announces Vivien Leigh will play Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind"
- Dec 26 Tom Goddard takes a cricket hat-trick for England v South Africa
- Dec 28 Paul Gibb scores 106 on Test Cricket debut v South Africa
- Dec 29 Construction on Lake Washington Floating Bridge, Seattle, begins
- Dec 31 Daniel Sternefeld conducts premiere of his ballet "Pierlala" at the Royal Flemish Opera of Antwerp; choreographer Wladimir Karnetzky also danced the title role
- Dec 31 Dr R N Harger's "drunkometer", 1st breath test, introduced in Indiana
- Dec 31 Dutch national debt hits ƒ3,986,629,805.70
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