1930 – 1940s

Events in the 1930s 62

• 1856 – 1939 Freud Father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud founded psychoanalysis and introduced concepts like the unconscious mind, repression, and the Oedipus complex.
• 1865 – 1936 Rudyard Kipling English writer and poet Kipling wrote The Jungle Book and explored themes of empire, duty, and adventure.
• 1875 – 1937 Maurice Ravel French Impressionist composer French composer whose Boléro, La Valse and orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition are among the most recognised works in classical music.
• 1929 – 1939 Great Depression Global economic collapse The 1929 stock market crash triggered the Great Depression — a decade of mass unemployment, poverty, and political instability worldwide.
• 1930 – 2025 Gene Hackman -- the ordinary man in extraordinary roles Eugene Allen Hackman (30 January 1930 - c. 18 February 2025) was an American actor widely regarded as one of the greatest of his generation and a defining figure of the New Hollywood movement. Over a career spanning four decades and more than 100 films, he won two Academy Awards -- Best Actor for The French Connection (1971) and Best Supporting Actor for Unforgiven (1992) -- and received five Oscar nominations in total. He played detectives, villains, coaches, politicians and fathers with a naturalistic intensity that made him one of the most respected and versatile performers in American cinema. He retired from acting in 2004 and lived quietly in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he was found dead alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa at their home in February 2025, aged 95.
• 1930 Pluto discovered Pluto discovered Clyde Tombaugh identified Pluto in February 1930 at Lowell Observatory, comparing photographic plates taken days apart to spot the one point of light that moved. It was named by Venetia Burney, an eleven-year-old in Oxford. Pluto was counted as the ninth planet until the IAU reclassified it as a dwarf planet in 2006.
• 1931 Empire State Building opens Empire State Building opens The Empire State Building opened on 1 May 1931, rising 381 metres in Midtown Manhattan after just 410 days of construction. It was the tallest building in the world for nearly forty years. Opening into the Depression, it stood so empty that New Yorkers called it the Empty State Building.
• 1931 – 2007 Ursula K. Le Guin American novelist Le Guin wrote science fiction and fantasy exploring society, gender, and anthropology.
• 1931 – present Rita Moreno (born 1931) Puerto Rican actress, singer and dancer, the first Latina to win an Oscar and one of few performers with an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
• 1932 Sydney Harbour Bridge opens Sydney Harbour Bridge opens The Sydney Harbour Bridge opened on 19 March 1932 after eight years of building, carrying road, rail and foot traffic across the harbour on a single steel arch. The opening ceremony was hijacked by Francis de Groot, who rode forward on horseback and slashed the ribbon with a sword before the premier could cut it. The bridge became the defining image of the city.
• 1932 – present Gerhard Richter Contemporary · Germany Gerhard Richter (born February 9, 1932) is a German painter who works across photorealism, abstraction and glass. He is widely regarded as the greatest living painter and the most expensive living artist at auction.
• 1932 – 2003 Johnny Cash American singer-songwriter, "The Man in Black" Johnny Cash (1932-2003) was an American singer-songwriter whose stark baritone, songs of faith, hardship and redemption, and lifelong identification with prisoners and the poor made him one of the most influential artists in American music. The only artist inducted into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, Songwriters, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame, he sold over 90 million records across a career spanning five decades.
• 1932 – 2016 Umberto Eco Italian novelist and philosopher Eco wrote The Name of the Rose, combining mystery, semiotics, and historical fiction.
• 1932 – 2019 Jacques Chirac President of France 1995–2007 Jacques René Chirac was a French Gaullist politician who dominated the French right for three decades. He served twice as Prime Minister, eighteen years as Mayor of Paris, and twelve years as President of the Republic, remembered for his charm, his opposition to the 2003 Iraq War, and his recognition of France's role in the Holocaust.
• 1932 – present Abbe Lane American Singer & Actress American singer, actress and dancer who was one of the most glamorous entertainers of the 1950s and 1960s. Once described as 'the swingingest sexpot in show business', she rose to fame as the featured vocalist for Latin bandleader Xavier Cugat, whom she married at the age of 19. She starred on Broadway opposite Tony Randall, made over 20 films in Italy, performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 1932 – present Hiroshi Okuda Toyota President & Chairman Japanese businessman who served as president (1995-1999) and chairman (1999-2006) of Toyota Motor Corporation, leading the company's rise to become the world's largest automaker. The first person from outside Toyota's founding Toyoda family to lead the company in 28 years, he was known for his outspoken style and management credo that 'not changing is evil'. He championed the Prius hybrid, expanded Toyota's global manufacturing footprint, and later served as chairman of Keidanren, Japan's most powerful business lobby.
• 1933 Prohibition ends in US Prohibition ends in US The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on 5 December 1933, ending thirteen years of national prohibition on alcohol. It remains the only amendment to repeal another. Prohibition had cut drinking but handed the trade to organised crime, and the Depression made the lost tax revenue impossible to ignore.
• 1933 – 1945 Adolf Hitler Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler established a totalitarian dictatorship, initiated World War II, and orchestrated the Holocaust.
• 1933 – 1945 F.D. Roosevelt presidency 32nd President — 1933 to 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt served as the 32nd President from March 4, 1933 until his death on April 12, 1945. He implemented the New Deal to combat the Great Depression and led the Allied powers through most of World War II.
• 1933 – present Willie Nelson Singer-songwriter Texan country singer and songwriter — Crazy, On the Road Again — a leader of outlaw country and co-founder of Farm Aid.
• 1933 – present Bernadette Chirac Politician and first lady Bernadette Thérèse Marie Chirac, née Chodron de Courcel, was a French politician and former first lady of France. Refusing to be reduced to a president's wife, she built her own decades-long elected career in the Corrèze, championed children's charities, and was the shrewd driving force behind Jacques Chirac's political ascent.
• 1933 – 2023 Wayne Shorter Jazz Saxophonist & Composer American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of modern jazz. A 12-time Grammy Award winner, he was a foundational member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and co-founder of the fusion band Weather Report. His compositions, including Footprints, Speak No Evil and Nefertiti, became enduring jazz standards.
• 1934 12-ounce bottle for 5 cents Double the size for the same price — 1934 In 1934 Pepsi began selling its drink in 12-ounce bottles for 5 cents — the same price Coca-Cola charged for 6.5 ounces. This "twice as much for a nickel" value proposition was irresistible to Depression-era Americans and sent sales skyrocketing nationally.
• 1934 Alcatraz becomes federal prison Alcatraz becomes federal prison Alcatraz reopened as a federal penitentiary in August 1934, taking the prisoners other prisons could not hold on an island in San Francisco Bay. Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Robert Stroud were among the inmates. No escape was ever confirmed, and the running cost closed it in 1963.
• 1934 – 2024 Dame Maggie Smith (1934–2024) Dame Margaret Natalie Smith (28 December 1934, Ilford, Essex – 27 September 2024, London) was a British actress whose career on stage and screen spanned more than seven decades. She won two Academy Awards -- Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978) -- four Emmy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, three Golden Globes and a Tony Award, making her one of a handful of performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. She worked with Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre, played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, and the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990. King Charles III described her as "a national treasure." She died on 27 September 2024 at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, aged 89.
• 1934 – 2025 Jane Goodall -- the woman who redefined our relationship with animals Dame Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall (3 April 1934 - 1 October 2025) was a British primatologist, ethologist and conservationist whose groundbreaking research on wild chimpanzees in Tanzania transformed scientific understanding of the relationship between humans and animals. Working without formal scientific training, she discovered that chimpanzees use tools, eat meat, and have complex social and emotional lives -- findings that challenged the very definition of what it means to be human. She spent the last three decades of her life as a tireless global advocate for conservation, animal welfare and environmental action. She died of natural causes aged 91 while on a speaking tour in California.
• 1934 – 1935 The Long March Mao Zedong leads the Communist Party on a 9,000 km retreat Surrounded by Nationalist forces, the Chinese Communist Party's Red Army undertook the Long March — a 9,000 km tactical retreat from Jiangxi to Yan'an in Shaanxi province (1934–35). Of the 86,000 who set out, fewer than 8,000 completed the journey. The march became a founding myth of Communist China and established Mao Zedong as the undisputed party leader.
• 1934 – 2023 Barry Humphries Australian Comedian (Dame Edna) Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist best known for creating and performing the characters Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson and Sandy Stone. Over a career spanning more than seventy years, he won a Tony Award, was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia, and was made a CBE. He was also a respected painter, author and art collector.
• 1934 Wimbledon 1934 Men: Fred Perry · Women: Dorothy Round Fred Perry won the first of three consecutive titles — last British men's champion until Andy Murray 2013.
• 1934 – 2025 Brigitte Bardot Cinema Icon Actress and fashion model who became a world-renowned sex symbol and later an animal rights activist.
• 1935 – 2024 Donald Sutherland (1935–2024) Donald McNichol Sutherland (17 July 1935, Saint John, New Brunswick – 20 June 2024, Miami, Florida) was a Canadian actor whose career spanned six decades and encompassed more than 200 films and television productions. From the countercultural cool of M*A*S*H and Klute in the early 1970s to the menacing President Snow in The Hunger Games four decades later, he was one of cinema's most protean and compelling performers -- tall, angular, unsettling, capable of shifting from warmth to menace within a single scene. He won an Emmy and two Golden Globes but was never nominated for a competitive Academy Award, a slight rectified in 2017 when the Academy presented him with an Honorary Oscar "for a lifetime of indelible characters, rendered with unwavering truthfulness." He died on 20 June 2024, aged 88.
• 1935 Monopoly board game released Monopoly board game released Parker Brothers published Monopoly in 1935 after buying the rights from Charles Darrow, whose version was adapted from The Landlord's Game, patented by Lizzie Magie in 1904 to demonstrate how rent enriches landlords. The streets are those of Atlantic City. It became one of the best-selling board games ever made.
• 1935 – 1977 Elvis Presley (1935-1977) American singer and actor, known as the King of Rock and Roll. His mix of country, blues and gospel made him the defining star of early rock and roll, and he remains one of the best-selling solo artists in history.
• 1935 – present Geraldine de Haas American Jazz Singer & Impresario American jazz singer and concert organiser known as the Jazz Lady, who was the driving force behind the creation of the Chicago Jazz Festival. Born in Newark, New Jersey, she performed internationally as part of the vocal trio Andy and the Bey Sisters before settling in Chicago and devoting her life to promoting jazz. She founded Jazz Unites, Inc. and the Jazzfest at the South Shore Cultural Center, and received the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Hero Award.
• 1935 – present Roger Sweet Toy designer, creator of He-Man, 1935–2026 Roger Sweet (1935–2026) — the American toy designer who created He-Man and the Masters of the Universe franchise at Mattel, generating over $1.2 billion in worldwide sales from a prototype built from a Big Jim action figure and a handful of clay. He died on 28 April 2026, just weeks before the release of a new live-action He-Man film.
• 1935 – present Pat Oliphant Political Cartoonist Australian-born American political cartoonist who was the most widely syndicated editorial cartoonist in the world for decades, with his work appearing in over 500 newspapers. He won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1967 and revolutionised the art form by introducing a cinematic horizontal format and a devastating satirical wit. His trademark penguin, Punk, offered sardonic commentary from the margins of his cartoons. He skewered every president from Lyndon B. Johnson to Donald Trump across a career spanning over fifty years.
• 1935 – present Arvo Pärt Estonian minimalist composer Estonian composer who developed the tintinnabuli style, a meditative minimalist approach. His Spiegel im Spiegel and Für Alina are widely beloved.
• 1936 BBC TV launches World's first regular TV service The BBC launched the world's first regular high-definition television service from Alexandra Palace, London, in November 1936.
• 1936 Berlin Olympics Berlin Olympics Berlin hosted the Olympic Games in August 1936, staged by the Nazi government as a showcase and broadcast on television for the first time. Jesse Owens won four gold medals in front of Hitler. The torch relay from Olympia, now a fixture of every Games, was invented for this one.
• 1936 – 1939 Spanish Civil War Franco victorious A brutal conflict between Republicans and Nationalists, serving as a proxy war for fascist and communist powers, ending with Franco's dictatorship.
• 1936 – 2015 Margaret Atwood Canadian novelist Atwood wrote The Handmaids Tale, exploring dystopian society, gender, and political control.
• 1937 Hindenburg disaster Hindenburg disaster The airship Hindenburg caught fire while mooring at Lakehurst, New Jersey on 6 May 1937, and was destroyed in about half a minute. Thirty-six of the ninety-seven people aboard died. Newsreel film and Herbert Morrison's radio commentary ended public confidence in passenger airships.
• 1937 – 1945 Second Sino-Japanese War Japan invades China — the Nanjing Massacre and 15 million dead Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China in July 1937. The Nanjing Massacre (December 1937) saw Japanese forces kill an estimated 200,000–300,000 civilians and prisoners of war. The war merged with World War II in 1941 and ended with Japan's surrender in 1945. An estimated 15 million Chinese died. The war accelerated the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power.
• 1937 – 2026 Harald V of Norway King of Norway (1991-2026) King of Norway for 35 years, an Olympic yachtsman and the last European monarch born before World War II. Born at a time when no prince had been born in Norway for 567 years, he fled to the United States as a child during the Nazi occupation and returned to a country that would become one of the world's wealthiest. He defied convention by insisting on marrying a commoner, Sonja Haraldsen, after a nine-year courtship his father initially opposed. He modernised the Norwegian monarchy and was beloved for his warmth, humour and a landmark 2016 speech celebrating diversity that went viral worldwide.
• 1937 – 2026 David Hockney Painter, photographer, printmaker David Hockney was an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. A leading figure in the 1960s pop art movement, he became famous for his sun-drenched depictions of Los Angeles swimming pools before returning to Yorkshire to paint the landscape of his youth, and later embraced digital tools including the iPad as a drawing medium.
• 1937 – present David Hockney Contemporary · England David Hockney (born July 9, 1937) is a British Contemporary painter, draughtsman and photographer. His California swimming pool paintings and Yorkshire landscape series are among the most celebrated British artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries.
• 1937 – 2023 Bobby Charlton English Footballer English footballer widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the game. A survivor of the 1958 Munich air disaster, he spent his entire club career at Manchester United, scoring 249 goals in 758 appearances. He won the Ballon d'Or in 1966, the same year he helped England win the World Cup. He was knighted in 1994 and became a director of Manchester United.
• 1938 – present Samsung Samsung Group — founded in 1938 by Lee Byung-chul as a small trading company in Suwon, Korea — has grown into one of the world's largest conglomerates, encompassing electronics, semiconductors, shipbuilding, construction and life insurance. Its electronics division, Samsung Electronics, is the world's largest manufacturer of smartphones, memory chips and television sets. The Samsung brand is present in virtually every country on earth and generates revenues exceeding South Korea's entire state budget.
• 1938 Superman first appears Superman first appears Superman appeared in Action Comics #1 in June 1938, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who sold the rights for $130. The issue established the costumed superhero as a genre and made DC Comics the industry leader. Siegel and Shuster spent decades fighting for credit and compensation.
• 1938 Australian Open 1938 Men: Don Budge · Women: Dorothy Bundy Budge completed the calendar Grand Slam in 1938.
• 1938 French Open 1938 Men: Don Budge · Women: Simone Mathieu Budge won all four Grand Slams in 1938 — the first ever calendar Grand Slam.
• 1938 Wimbledon 1938 Men: Don Budge · Women: Helen Wills Moody Budge completed the calendar Grand Slam in 1938 — first ever.
• 1938 US Championships 1938 Men: Don Budge · Women: Alice Marble Budge completed the calendar Grand Slam in 1938.
• 1938 – 2016 The 27 Club Artists who died at 27 Musicians and artists who died at the age of 27 — Robert Johnson, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and others. A coincidence that became a legend.
• 1939 First televised baseball game First televised baseball game NBC televised a college game between Columbia and Princeton on 17 May 1939, then the first major league game, Reds against Dodgers at Ebbets Field, on 26 August. A single camera covered the whole field and only a few hundred sets could receive it. Regular baseball broadcasts resumed after the war and reshaped the sport's finances.
• 1939 – 1945 Manhattan Project Atomic bomb developed The secret US-led Manhattan Project developed the world's first nuclear weapons, tested at Trinity in New Mexico in July 1945.
• 1939 – 1945 World War II Deadliest conflict ever The deadliest conflict in human history, killing an estimated 70–85 million people and reshaping the entire global political order.
• 1939 – 1945 World War II under George VI Britain during World War II King George VI became a symbol of British resistance during the war.
• 1939 – present Ileana Cotrubas Romanian Soprano Romanian operatic soprano whose sweet timbre, dramatic intensity and command of opera in multiple languages made her one of the most admired sopranos of the 1970s and 1980s. Born in Galati, she rose from a children's radio choir to perform on the world's greatest stages alongside Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Her signature roles included Violetta in La Traviata, Mimi in La Boheme and Gilda in Rigoletto. She was named an Austrian Kammersangerin and an Honorary Member of the Vienna State Opera.
• 1939 Jet Harris born Kingsbury, Middlesex Terence Hawkins — later Jet Harris — was born on 6 July 1939 in Kingsbury, Middlesex. He would become the original bassist of The Shadows, known for his striking stage presence.
• 1939 – 2026 Susumu Tonegawa Japanese Molecular Biologist Japanese molecular biologist who was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering V(D)J recombination, the genetic mechanism by which the immune system generates millions of different antibodies from a limited set of genes. Born in Nagoya, he solved one of biology's oldest puzzles while working in Switzerland, then spent over 40 years at MIT, where he reinvented himself as a neuroscientist pioneering the use of optogenetics to identify and manipulate memory cells in the brain.
• 1939 – 2023 Tina Turner Queen of Rock 'n' Roll American-born singer, songwriter and actress widely known as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll. She rose to fame in the 1960s as part of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, then rebuilt her career as a solo artist in her forties with the landmark album Private Dancer (1984). She won twelve Grammy Awards, sold over 100 million records worldwide, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice.