This Year in History:
1938
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an adult victim of polio, founds the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which he later renamed the March of Dimes Foundation, on January 3, 1938. A predominantly…
On January 16, 1938, swing jazz music has its high‑brow coming out party at Carnegie Hall, with a concert featuring big band sensation Benny Goodman. Jazz has been called “America’s…
“See for yourself what the genius of Walt Disney has created in his first full length feature production,” proclaimed the original trailer for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released…
On February 7, 1938, automotive industry pioneer Harvey Samuel Firestone, founder of the major American tire company that bore his name, dies at the age of 69 in Miami Beach,…
On February 12, 1938, best‑selling author Judy Blume, known for her children’s books and young‑adult novels, including Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Are You There God? It’s Me,…
On this day in 1938, the former silent film actress Hedda Hopper pens the first installment of what would become her tremendously influential gossip column in the Los Angeles Times.…
On this day in 1938, the entertainment trade newspaper Variety reported that the film studio Metro‑Goldwyn‑Mayer (MGM) had bought the rights to adapt L. Frank Baum’s beloved children’s novel The…
American drive‑in movie theaters experienced their golden era during the 1950s, but some Floridians were watching movies under the stars in their cars even before then: The city of Miami…
The National Dollar Stores Strike begins in San Francisco’s Chinatown on February 26, 1938. The three‑month strike delivered a win for workers and became the neighborhood’s first major organized labor…
On this day in 1938, Janet Guthrie, the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500 races, is born in Iowa City, Iowa. Guthrie was raised in…
On March 12, 1938, German troops march into Austria to annex the German‑speaking nation for the Third Reich. In early 1938, Austrian Nazis conspired for the second time in four…
On this day, Adolf Hitler announces an “Anschluss” (union) between Germany and Austria, in fact annexing the smaller nation into a greater Germany. Union with Germany had been a dream…
On this day in 1938, Cincinnati Red Johnny Vander Meer pitches his second consecutive no‑hit, no‑run game. Vander Meer is the only pitcher in baseball history to throw two back‑to‑back…
On this day in 1938, a flood in Montana kills 46 people and seriously injures more than 60 when it washes out train tracks. Custer Creek is a small winding…
On this day in 1938, Helen Wills Moody defeats a hobbled Helen Jacobs 6‑4, 6‑0 to win her eighth Wimbledon singles title. The victory was the final major championship for…
Douglas Corrigan, the last of the early glory‑seeking fliers, takes off from Floyd Bennett field in Brooklyn, New York, on a flight that would finally win him a place in…
On this day in 1938, Hollywood’s most famous dancing duo, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, are featured on the cover of Life magazine, offering readers a graceful vision at a…
Without warning, a powerful Category 3 hurricane slams into Long Island and southern New England, causing 600 deaths and devastating coastal cities and towns. Also called the Long Island Express,…
On September 27, 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt writes to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler regarding the threat of war in Europe. The German chancellor had been threatening to invade the Sudetenland…
On September 28, 1938, inventor Charles Duryea dies in Philadelphia at the age of 76. Duryea and his brother Frank designed and built one of the first functioning “gasoline buggies,”…
