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Top Song(s)
• Artie Shaw - Begin the Beguine
• The Andrews Sisters - Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
• Ella Fitzgerald - A-Tisket A-Tasket
• Roy Acuff - Wabash Cannonball
• Larry Clinton - My Reverie
Top Film(s)
• Bringing Up Baby
• The Lady Vanishes
• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• Holiday
• You Can't Take It With You
Best Selling Book(s)
• Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
• The Yearling - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
• Our Town - Thornton Wilder
• The Sword in the Stone - T.H. White
• Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis
Famous Deaths
• January 17 – Vladimir Beneshevich, Soviet scholar, martyr
• February 7 – Harvey Firestone, American tire manufacturer
• March 7 – Andreas Michalakopoulos, Greek politician, 47th Prime Minister of Greece
• April 6 – Khoren I of Armenia, Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church and patriarch
• May 6 – Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, British politician and Governor General of Canada
• July 24 – Pedro Figari, Uruguayan painter, writer and politician
• August 9 – Leo Frobenius, German ethnologist, archaeologist and Africanist
• September 25 – Paul Olaf Bodding, Norwegian missionary to India, creator of the Santali Latin alphabet
• October 28 – Ramón Franco, Spanish aviation pioneer
• December 11 – Christian Lous Lange, Norwegian pacifist, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
Medical/Science/Technology
• A 450-ton meteorite strikes the Earth in an empty field near Chicora, Pennsylvania, United States.
• Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovers a Coelacanth.
• Last known (captive) specimen of Schomburgk's deer is killed.
• Bawden and Pirie publish the first crystal of a spherical virus, Tomato bushy stunt virus.
• Roy J. Plunkett of DuPont accidentally discovers polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon).
• The first patents for nylon are granted in the name of Wallace Carothers to DuPont.
• Lysergic acid diethylamide is first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergotamine.
• Konrad Zuse in Berlin completes his Z1 computer, a floating point binary mechanical calculator.
• Sigmund Freud and his immediate family leave Vienna for exile in London.
• Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini discover electroconvulsive therapy.
Political Events
• January 3 – The March of Dimes is established to combat infant polio by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• February 10 - Carol II of Romania takes dictatorial powers.
• April 16 – The UK and Italy sign an agreement that sees Britain recognise Italian control of Ethiopia.
• May 12 - U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull rejects the Soviet Union's offer of a joint defense pact.
• June 23 - The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the U.S.
• June 25 – Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is signed into law by president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• June 25 – Dr. Douglas Hyde takes office as the first President of Ireland.
• August 18 – The Thousand Islands Bridge, is dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• October 24 – The minimum wage is established by law in the U.S.
• November 8 – Frank M. Dixon is elected the 40th governor of Alabama defeating W. A. Clardy.
National Events
• January 19 - General Motors begins mass production of diesel engines.
• January 27 – The Niagara Bridge at Niagara Falls, New York collapses due to an ice jam.
• March 3 – The Santa Ana River in California spills over its banks during a rainy winter, killing 58 people.
• April 15 - Huey, Dewey and Louie make their first appearance, in the Disney animated short Donald's Nephews.
• April 18 – First appearance of comic book superhero Superman, in Action Comics #1.
• May 12 - USS Enterprise is commissioned.
• June 29 – Olympic National Park is established in Washington state.
• July 14 – Howard Hughes sets a new record, by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world.
• October 10 – The Blue Water Bridge opens, connecting Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario.
• December 16 – MGM releases its successful film version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.
Worldwide Events
• January 13 - The Church of England accepts the theory of evolution.
• March 12 – Anschluss: German troops occupy Austria; annexation is declared the following day.
• May 14 – Chile withdraws from the League of Nations.
• June 11 – Fire destroys 214 buildings in Ludza, Latvia.
• July 1 – The South African Press Association is established.
• September 1 - Benito Mussolini cancels civil rights of Italian Jews.
• September 25 – British Royal Navy is ordered to sea.
• October 2 - Tiberias massacre: Arab raiders murder 19 Jewish immigrants.
• October 16 – Winston Churchill, condemns the Munich Agreement as a defeat.
• December 15 – The Netherlands closes its border to refugees.