1934

Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

Years: 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 - 1934 - 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939

Events

• January 1 - Alcatraz becomes a federal prison.
• January 26 - The Apollo Theater opens in Harlem, New York City.
• February 12 - The Export-Import Bank is incorporated.
• February 23 - Leopold III becomes King of Belgium.
• April 1 - Bonnie and Clyde kill two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas.
• May 11 - Dust Bowl: A strong two-day dust storm removes massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst dust storms of the Dust Bowl.
• May 15 - The United States Department of Justice offers a $25,000 reward for John Dillinger.
• May 23 - Near their hide-out in Black Lake, Louisiana, bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are ambushed and shot dead by Texas Rangers.
• May 28 - Near Callender, Ontario, the Dionne quintuplets are born to Olivia and Elzire Dionne later becoming the first quintuplets to survive infancy.
• June 30 - The Nazi SA camp Oranienburg becomes national camp, taken over by the SS.
• July 22 - Outside Chicago, Illinois's Biograph Theatre, "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents.
• July 25 - Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
• August 2 - Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany, becoming head of state as well as Chancellor.
• August 19 - The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio.
• September 8 - Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner Morro Castle kills 134 people.
• November 27 - A running gun battle between FBI agents and bank robber Baby Face Nelson results in the death of one FBI agent and the mortal wounding of special agent Sam Cowley, who is still able to mortally shoot Nelson.
• December 1 - In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolayev (it is widely thought that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered this murder).
• December 29 - Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.

• The sonoluminescence effect is discovered.
• First Flash Gordon comic strip is published.
• First Jay Gordon record is made.

Year in topic

• 1934 in film
  • January 26 - Samuel Goldwyn (of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) finally purchased the film rights to The Wizard of Oz from Frank Baum for $40,000.00.
  • It Happened One Night
  • Cleopatra
  • The Thin Man
• 1934 in literature
• 1934 in music
• 1934 in sports
• July 4 - Boxer Joe Louis wins his first professional boxing match.
  • Italy wins Football World Cup on home ground.
  • British Empire Games held in London, United Kingdom.
  • December 29 - The first college basketball game is played, between Notre Dame University and New York University at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
• 1934 in television
  • December - Philo Farnsworth demonstrates a non-mechanical television system.

Births

• January 8 - Bart Starr, American football star
• January 11 - Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada
• January 20 - Tom Baker, actor
• January 22 - Bill Bixby, television actor (d. 1993)
• February 5 - Hank Aaron, Baseball Hall of Famer
• February 11 - Francesco Pennisi, composer
• February 11 - John Surtees, British race car driver
• February 11 - Patrick Holmes Sellors, ophthalmologist
• February 11 - Mary Quant, fashion designer
• February 11 - Tina Louise, actress
• February 12 - Bill Russell, basketball star
• February 13 - George Segal, actor
• February 14 - Florence Henderson, actress
• February 15 - Niklaus Wirth, Swiss computer scientist
• February 17 - Alan Bates, actor
• February 17 - Barry Humphries (aka "Dame Edna Everage"), actor, comedian
• February 18 - Paco Rabanne, fashion designer
• February 20 - Bobby Unser, automobile racer
• February 24 - Bettino Craxi, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 2000)
• February 27 - Ralph Nader, consumer activist
• March 4 - Janez Strnad, Slovene physicist
• March 9 - Yuri Gagarin, cosmonaut, first human in space (d. 1968)
• March 11 - Sam Donaldson, reporter
• March 16 - Ray Hnatyshyn, former Canadian Governor-General
• March 20 - Willie Brown, mayor of San Francisco, California
• March 22 - Orrin Hatch, US senator
• March 26 - Alan Arkin, actor
• March 31 - Shirley Jones, singer, actress
• April 2 - Brian Glover, British actor, wrestler (d. 1997)
• April 2 - Paul Joseph Cohen, mathematician
• April 3 - Jane Goodall, zoologist
• May 13 - Adolf Muschg, author
• May 14 - Siân Phillips, actress
• May 15 - Alvin F. Poussaint, physicist, psychiatrist, educator
• May 19 - James Lehrer, journalist, co-anchor
• May 22 - Peter Nero, musician
• May 23 - Dr. Robert Moog, inventor of Moog synthesizer
• May 27 - Harlan Ellison, US science-fiction writer
• May 28 - Dionne quintuplets, world's first surviving quintuplets
• May 30 - Aleksei Leonov, cosmonaut and first person to walk in space
• June 6 - Albert II of Belgium
• July 11 - Giorgio Armani, fashion designer
• July 13 - Aleksei Yeliseyev, cosmonaut
• July 15 - Harrison Birtwistle, composer
• August 2 - Valery Bykovsky, cosmonaut
• August 18 - Roberto Clemente, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1972)
• September 8 - Peter Maxwell Davies, composer
• September 17 - Maureen Connolly, tennis star (d. 1969)
• September 20 - Sophia Loren, Italian actress
• November 9 - Carl Sagan, US astronomer (d. 1996)
• December 3- Viktor Gorbatko, cosmonaut
• December 16 - Elgin Baylor, basketball great
• December 18 - Boris Volynov, cosmonaut
• December 27 - Larissa Latynina, USSR gymnast

Deaths

• February 17 - Albert I of Belgium
• February 23 - Edward Elgar, composer
• March 29 - Otto Hermann Kahn, millionaire and benefactor
• May 25 - Gustav Holst, composer
• July 4 - Marie Sklodowska-Curie, co-discoverer of radium and polonium
• July 25 - Englebert Dolfuss, Austrian Chancellor (assassinated)
• July 25 - Nestor Makhno, Ukrainian anarchist
• July 28 - Marie Dressler, Academy Award winning actress
• August 2 - Paul von Hindenburg, German general and politician
• November 16 - Alice Pleasance Liddell, inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• December 1 - Sergei Kirov, Soviet leader

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - not awarded.
• Chemistry - Harold Clayton Urey.
• Medicine - George Hoyt Whipple, George Richards Minot, William Parry Murphy.
• Literature - Luigi Pirandello.
• Peace - Arthur Henderson.

Referenced By