1937

Events

January

• January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua.
• 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.
• January 15 – Spanish Civil War: The Second Battle of the Corunna Road ends inconclusively.
• 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.
• January 30 – The Moscow Trial initiated on January 23 is concluded. Thirteen of the defendants are sentenced to death, 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 trials

  February

• February 8 – Spanish Civil War: Falangist troops take Málaga.
• February 8–27 – Spanish Civil War – Battle of Jarama: Nationalist and Republican troops fight to a stalemate.
• February 16 – Wallace H. Carothers receives a patent for nylon in the United States.
• February 19
• * Airliner VH-UHH goes down over Lamington National Park, bound for Sydney, killing 5 people.
• * Yekatit 12: During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace 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.
• * The red, white and blue colours of the flag of the Netherlands are confirmed by royal decree.
• February 21 – The League of Nations Non-Intervention Committee prohibits foreign nationals from fighting in the Spanish Civil War.
• February 25 – Hergé's Tintin adventure The Broken Ear concludes serialization in the Belgian weekly newspaper supplement Le Petit Vingtième, and soon afterwards is published as a book in black and white.

  March

• March 10 – The encyclical Mit brennender Sorge 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.
• 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.
• March 19 – The encyclical Divini Redemptoris of Pope Pius XI, critical of communism, is published.
• 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.

  April

• April 1
• * Aden becomes a British crown colony.
• * The Bombing of Jaén is carried out in Spain, by the Condor Legion of the Nazi German Luftwaffe.
• April 9 – The Kamikaze arrives at Croydon Airport in London; it is the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.
• April 12 – Frank Whittle ground-tests the world's first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
• April 20 – A fire in an elementary school in Kilingi-Nõmme, Estonia, kills 17 students and injures 50.
• 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.

  May

• 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.
• 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.
• May 8 – Wydad Athletic Club is established in Casablanca, Morocco; it will be best known for its Casablanca Association football team.
• 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.
• May 21
• * A Russian manned ice station becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.
• * 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.
• May 28 – Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, following the retirement of Stanley Baldwin.
• May 30
• * Spanish Civil War: Spanish ship Ciudad de Barcelona is torpedoed.
• * Memorial Day massacre of 1937: The Chicago Police Department shoot and kill 10 unarmed demonstrators in Chicago.

  June

• June – Picasso completes his painting Guernica.
• June–July – The Dáil Éireann debates and passes the new draft Constitution of Ireland, which is then submitted for public approval by plebiscite.
• June 3 – Wallis Simpson marries the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII, in France.
• June 8
• * The Dáil Éireann passes the Executive Authority Act, 1937, which abolishes the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State, retrospectively dated to December 1936.
• * The first total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality, in over 800 years, is visible in the Pacific and Peru.
• June 21 – The coalition government of Léon Blum resigns in France.

  July

• July 1
• * The Gestapo arrests pastor Martin Niemöller in Germany.
• * In a referendum the people of the Irish Free State accept the new Constitution by 685,105 votes to 527,945.
• 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.
• July 7
• * In the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japanese and Chinese forces exchange fire near Beijing, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War.
• * The Peel Commission proposes partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
• July 9 – 1937 Fox vault fire: The silent film archives of Fox Film Corporation are destroyed
• July 20 – The Geibeltbad Pirna water sports facility is opened in Dresden, Germany.
• July 21 – Éamon de Valera is elected President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, by the Dáil.
• 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.
• July 25–31 – Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Beiping–Tianjin, a series of actions fought around Beiping and Tianjin, result in Japanese victory.
• July 29 – Tongzhou Mutiny: Units of the East Hebei Army mutiny and kill Japanese troops and civilians in Tongzhou.
• July 31 – NKVD Order No. 00447 "Об операции по репрессированию бывших кулаков, уголовников и других антисоветских элементов" is approved by the decision of the Politbureau of the CC of the VKP 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.

  August

• 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.
• 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 and Stalin's personal opponents from the Communist Party and their sympathizers.
• August 6 – Spanish Civil War: Falangist artillery bombards Madrid.
• August 8 – Japan occupies Beijing.
• August 9 – The Polish Operation of the NKVD is signed by Nikolai Yezhov as a continuation of the Great Purge.
• August 13 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Shanghai opens.
• August 24 – Spanish Civil War: The government of the autonomous Basque Country agrees to surrender to the nationalists.
• August 26 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese aircraft attack the car carrying the ambassador of Great Britain during a raid on Shanghai.
• August 28 – Toyota was incorporated and founded on this day.

  September

• September 2 – The Great Hong Kong Typhoon kills an estimated 11,000 persons.
• September 5
• * Roberto Ortiz is elected president of Argentina.
• * Spanish Civil War: The city of Llanes falls to the Falangists.
• 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.
• September 10 – Nine nations meet in the Nyon Conference, led by the United Kingdom and France, to address international piracy in the Mediterranean.
• September 17 – Abraham Lincoln's head is dedicated at Mount Rushmore.
• September 19 – Swiss professional ice hockey club HC Ambrì-Piotta is founded.
• September 21 – George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London publishes the first edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.
• September 25 – Second Sino-Japanese War - Battle of Pingxingguan: The Communist Chinese Eighth Route Army defeats the Japanese.
• September 27 – The last recorded Bali tiger dies.
• 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.