Year by year · 20th century

1937

1937 in world history: 18 events, 11 births, 21 deaths, 1 work, 5 states founded and 9 that came to an end. 716 recorded states existed that year.

Events

19 January
Howard Hughes sets a transcontinental air speed record
Hughes flew his H-1 racer from Burbank, California, to Newark, New Jersey, in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds. The record stood for seven years.
16 February
Wallace Carothers's nylon is patented
DuPont received the patent for nylon, invented by a team led by Wallace Carothers. The first fully synthetic fibre, it was used for stockings and then wartime parachutes.
26 April
German and Italian aircraft bomb Guernica
The Condor Legion, with Italian support, bombed the Basque town on market day, killing hundreds of civilians. The attack inspired Picasso's painting Guernica.
French Empire Legion
3 May
Margaret Mitchell wins the Pulitzer for Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell's novel of the Civil War and Reconstruction won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A huge bestseller, it was filmed in 1939, though its portrayal of slavery is now widely criticised.
6 May
Hindenburg airship bursts into flames at Lakehurst
The German airship Hindenburg caught fire while mooring in New Jersey, killing 36 people. Newsreel film and radio coverage of the disaster ended public faith in passenger airships.
27 May
Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrians
Some 200,000 people walked across the new bridge on its opening day before cars were allowed the next. Its main span was then the longest of any suspension bridge.
2 July
Amelia Earhart disappears over the Pacific
Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished while searching for tiny Howland Island on the last long legs of their round-the-world flight. Despite a vast search, their fate has never been conclusively established.
7 July
Marco Polo Bridge Incident sparks war between China and Japan
A night-time clash between Japanese and Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing escalated into full-scale war. The Second Sino-Japanese War merged into the Second World War and cost millions of Chinese lives.
Second World War Marco Polo Beijing
13 December
Japanese troops capture Nanjing
Japanese forces took China's capital, Nanjing, and began weeks of mass killing, rape and looting. Estimates of the dead range from tens of thousands to over 300,000, and the massacre remains bitterly contested.
Event
Greater Hamburg Act
The Greater Hamburg Act was a Nazi German law of 1937 that redrew the boundaries of several northern German states.
Battle
Battle of Shanghai
The Battle of Shanghai was fought from August to November 1937 in and around Shanghai, the first major battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Crisis
Barcelona May Days
The Barcelona May Days were street fighting in Barcelona from 3 to 8 May 1937 between anarchists and the POUM on one side and Republican and Communist forces on the other.
Event
Cohen Plan
The Cohen Plan was a forged document, presented as a communist plan to seize power in Brazil, that the government of Getúlio Vargas made public in September 1937.
Event
Parsley Massacre
The Parsley Massacre was the killing of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent in the Dominican borderlands in October 1937, on the orders of the dictator Rafael Trujillo.

ProfileState661 states with a known seat in 1937Open the atlas at 1937 →

In the profiles

Republic of ChinaWar with Japan begins after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident

Wars and longer events

Born in 1937 11

Died in 1937 21

Works 1

Constitution of IrelandWork / monument

States founded 5

States that came to an end 9

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APA: The Epoch Institute. (2026). 1937. In The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1937
MLA: “1937.” The Epoch Institute, Year by Year, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1937. Accessed .
Chicago: The Epoch Institute. “1937.” The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1937.
Harvard: The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘1937’, The Epoch Institute, Year by Year. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/years/1937 (Accessed: ).