December 31, 1930: The Papal encyclical Casti connubii issued by Pope Pius XI stresses the sanctity of marriage, prohibits Roman Catholics from using any form of artificial birth control, and reaffirms the Catholic prohibition on abortion.

January 21st 1931 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

February 3rd 1931 – The Hawke's Bay earthquake, New Zealand's worst natural disaster, kills 258.

February 13th 1931 – The British Raj completes its transfer from Calcutta to New Delhi.

February 28th 1931 - The Canadian Rugby Union adopted the forward pass.

March 3rd 1931 – The United States adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.

March 14th 1931 – Alam Ara, India's first talking film, is released.

March 15th 1931 – SS Viking explodes off Newfoundland, killing 27 of the 147 on board.

March 23rd 1931 – Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar are hanged for the killing of a deputy superintendent of police during the Indian struggle for independence.

March 25th 1931 – The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.

March 25th 1931 - Hal Kemp and his orchestra recorded "Whistles" with Skinnay Ennis.

March 31st 1931 – An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua, killing 2,000.

March 31st 1931 – TWA Flight 599 crashes near Bazaar, Kansas, killing eight, including University of Notre Dame head football coach Knute Rockne.

April 20th 1931 - Louis Armstrong recorded "When It’s Sleepy Time Down South".

May 29th 1931 – Michele Schirru, a citizen of the United States, is executed by Italian military firing squad for intent to kill Benito Mussolini.

June 9th 1931 - Robert H. Goddard patented a rocket-fueled aircraft design.

June 23rd 1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine plane.

June 24th 1931 - The Soviet Union and Afghanistan signed a treaty of neutrality.

June 27th 1931 - Igor Sikorsky filed U.S. Patent 1,994,488, which marked the breakthrough in helicopter technology.

August 28th 1931 - "You Rascal You" was recorded by Henry "Red" Allen with the Luis Russell Band.

September 2nd 1931 - The radio show "15 Minutes with Bing Crosby" debuted on CBS.

September 11th 1931 – Salvatore Maranzano is murdered by Lucky Luciano's hitmen.

September 17th 1931 - The first long-playing record, a 33 1/3 rpm recording, was demonstrated at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in New York by RCA-Victor. The venture was doomed to fail however due to the high price of the record players, which started around $95 (about $1140 in today's dollars) and wasn't revived until 1948.

September 21st 1931 - Japanese forces began occupying China's northeast territory of Manchuria.

September 30th 1931 – Start of "Die Voortrekkers" youth movement for Afrikaners in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

October 1st 1931 – Spain adopted women's suffrage.

October 1st 1931 – The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.

October 21st 1931 – The Sakurakai, a secret society in the Imperial Japanese Army, launches an abortive coup d'état attempt.

November 12th 1931 - Maple Leaf Gardens opened in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was to be the new home of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the National Hockey League (NHL).

December 3rd 1931 - Alka Seltzer was sold for the first time.

December 5th 1931 – Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow was destroyed by an order of Joseph Stalin.

December 9th 1931 – The Constituent Cortes approves a constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.

January 1st 1932 – The United States Post Office Department issues a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth.

January 12th 1932 – Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.

March 19th 1932 – The Sydney Harbour Bridge is opened.

March 20th 1932 - The German dirigible, Graf Zepplin, made the first flight to South America on regular schedule.

May 2nd 1932 - Jack Benny's first radio show debuted on NBC Radio.

May 4th 1932 – In Atlanta, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion.

May 12th 1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Jr., is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.

May 15th 1932 – In an attempted coup d'état, the Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi is assassinated.

June 24th 1932 – A bloodless revolution instigated by the People's Party ends the absolute power of King Prajadhipok of Siam (now Thailand).

August 10th 1932 – A 5.1 kilograms (11 lb) chondrite-type meteorite breaks into at least seven pieces and lands near the town of Archie in Cass County, Missouri.

August 22nd 1932 - The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) began its first TV broadcast in England.

August 24th 1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the U.S. non-stop. The trip from Los Angeles, CA to Newark, NJ, took about 19 hours.

September 5th 1932 – The French Upper Volta is broken apart between Ivory Coast, French Sudan, and Niger.

September 11th 1932 - Joe McCarthy became the first manager to win pennants in both baseball leagues when his New York Yankees clinched the American League pennant.

September 17th 1932 - Sir Malcolm Campbell set a speed record when he reached 276.27 mph over a half mile.

October 3rd 1932: Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom.

October 11th 1932 - First political telecast (Democratic National Committee) at CBS, New York City.

November 3rd 1932 – Panagis Tsaldaris becomes the 142nd Prime Minister of Greece.

November 8th 1932 - "Make Mine Music" debuted on Broadway. The show ran for 342 performances.

November 14th 1932 – Al Shorta SC, one of Iraq's biggest football clubs, are founded as Montakhab Al Shorta.

May 6th 1933 – The Deutsche Studentenschaft attacked Magnus Hirschfeld's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, later burning many of its books.

September 26th 1933 – As gangster Machine Gun Kelly surrenders to the FBI, he shouts out, "Don't shoot, G-Men!", which becomes a nickname for FBI agents.

September 27th 1933 - "Waltz Time" debuted on NBC Radio. It stayed on the network until 1948.

October 22nd 1933 - Bing Crosby recorded "Temptation" with Lennie Hayton's orchestra. He recorded it again in 1945 with John Scott Trotter's Orchestra.

November 7th 1933 - Pennsylvania voters overturn blue law, by permitting Sunday sports.

November 7th 1933 – Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected the 99th mayor of New York City.

December 21st 1933 - US President Franklin Roosevelt issues an Executive Proclamation authorising the US Treasury to coin half of the 97.7 million ounces of silver bullion agreed to be purchased over the next four years.

March 20th 1934 - Rudolf Kuhnold gave a demonstration of radar in Kiel Germany.

April 17th 1934 - The new Fenway Park opens, Washington Senators beat Boston Red Sox 6-5.

April 29th 1934 - Pittsburgh is last Major Baseball League city to play a home game on a Sunday.

April 29th 1934 - Pittsburgh is last Major Baseball League city to play a home game on a Sunday.

May 23rd 1934 – The Auto-Lite strike culminates in the "Battle of Toledo", a five-day melée between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers.

June 9th 1934:

The Disney cartoon character Donald Duck made his debut in The Wise Little Hen.
Jackie Wilson, American singer, was born. (He passed away in January 1984, five months shy of his 50th birthday.) :\'(

June 14th 1934 - Max Baer knocks out Primo Carnera in 11 rounds for heavyweight boxing championship in Long Island City.

June 15th 1934 – The United States Great Smoky Mountains National Park is founded.

June 16th 1934: United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Federal Credit Union Act, which establishes credit unions.

July 3rd 1934 - FDIC pays off first insured depositors, Fon du Lac Bank, East Peoria, Illinois.

July 10th 1934 - First sitting US president to visit South America, Franklin Roosevelt in Colombia.

July 10th 1934 - Carl Hubbell strikes out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx in the All-Star game.

August 7th 1934 - The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling striking down the government's attempt to ban the controversial James Joyce novel "Ulysses."

August 13th 1934 - Al Capp's comic strip "L'il Abner" made its debut in newspapers.

August 22nd 1934 - Boston Red Sox pitcher Wes Ferrell hits two home runs to beat Chicago White Sox 3-2 in 12.

August 31st 1934 - First football all star game-Chicago Bears tie collegians 0-0 in Chicago.

September 15th 1934 - NBC radio debuted "The Gibson Family." The program was the first musical comedy to be broadcast.

September 26th 1934 – Steamship RMS Queen Mary is launched.

October 5th 1934 - "Hollywood Hotel" became the first major network radio to originate from Hollywood, CA.

October 9th 1934 - Two examples of the 1933 Saint-Gaudens gold double eagle coins are sent to the Smithsonian Institution.

October 9th 1934 - Saint Louis Cardinals beat Detroit Tigers, four games to three in 31st World Series of baseball.

October 15th 1934 – The Soviet Republic of China collapses when Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army successfully encircles Ruijin, forcing the fleeing Communists to begin the Long March.

...and on the next day:

October 16th 1934 – Chinese Communists begin the Long March; it ended a year and four days later, by which time Mao Zedong had regained his title as party chairman.

November 10th 1934 - Armand Mondou (Montreal Canadiens) was awarded the first penalty shot in the NHL. George Hainsworth (Toronto) stopped the shot.

November 27th 1934 - The U.S. bank robber George "Baby Face" Nelson was killed by FBI agents near Barrington, IL.

January 11th 1935 - Amelia Earhart Putnam became the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

January 13th 1935 – A plebiscite in Saarland shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Nazi Germany.

January 28th 1935 – Iceland becomes the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.

February 13th 1935 – A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.

February 13th 1935 - First US surgical operation for relief of angina pectoris, in Cleveland, Ohio.

February 26th 1935 – Robert Watson-Watt carries out a demonstration near Daventry which leads directly to the development of radar in the United Kingdom.

March 13th 1935 - Three-thousand-year-old archives were found in Jerusalem confirming some biblical history.

March 15th 1935 - Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda banned four Berlin newspapers.

March 23rd 1925 - Tennessee becomes first state to outlaw teaching theory of evolution.

April 2nd 1935 - Sir Watson-Watt was granted a patent for RADAR.

April 14th 1935 – The Black Sunday dust storm, considered one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl, swept across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring areas.

April 16th 1935 - Babe Ruth's first National League game, for Boston Braves, includes a home run.

April 16th 1935 - The American radio series "Fibber McGee and Molly" premiered on NBC Red Network,

April 18th 1935 - General Sarazen's double eagle on the 15th wins him his second Masters tournament of golf.

May 5th 1935 - Jessie Owens of the US sets long jump record at 26 feet 8.25 inches.

May 6th 1935 – New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration.

May 14th 1935 - Los Angeles' Griffith Planetarium opens, third in the US.

May 14th 1935 – The Philippines ratifies an independence agreement.

May 19th 1935 - T.E. Lawrence "Lawrence of Arabia" died from injuries in a motorcycle crash in England.

May 19th 1935 - The National Football League (NFL) adopted an annual college draft to begin in 1936.

May 25th 1935 - Babe Ruth hits his last three home runs, in a game of Boston Braves versus Pittsburgh Pirates.

Yesterday:

May 25th 1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

May 27th 1935 – New Deal: The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495).

May 27th 1935 - The U.S. Supreme Court declared that President Franklin Roosevelt's National Industrial Recovery Act was unconstitutional.

June 1st 1935 - The Ingersoll-Waterbury Company reported that it had produced 2.5 million Mickey Mouse watches during its 2-year association with Disney.

June 2nd 1935 - George Herman "Babe" Ruth announced that he was retiring from baseball.

June 3rd 1935 – One thousand unemployed Canadian workers board freight cars in Vancouver, British Columbia, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa, Ontario.

June 4th 1935 - "Invisible" glass was patented by Gerald Brown and Edward Pollard.

June 10th 1935 - Alcoholic Anonymous was founded by William G. Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith.

June 10th 1935 – Chaco War ends: A truce is called between Bolivia and Paraguay who had been fighting since 1932.

June 11th 1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.

June 25th 1935 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Colombia are established.

July 6th 1935 - Helen Wills Moody wins her 7th Wimbledon championship.

July 9th 1935 - Norman Bright ran the two mile event in the record time of 9 minutes, 13.2 seconds at a meet in New York City.

July 16th 1935 - The world's first parking meter is installed, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

July 24th 1935: The Dust Bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109 °F (43 °C) in Chicago and 104 °F (40 °C) in Milwaukee.

September 24th 1935 – Earl and Weldon Bascom produce the first rodeo ever held outdoors under electric lights.

September 30th 1935:

The Hoover Dam, astride the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated.
Traditional-pop singer Johnny Mathis was born.

October 20th 1935 – The Long March, a mammoth retreat undertaken by the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party a year prior, ends.

November 3rd 1935 – George II of Greece regains his throne through a popular, though possibly fixed, plebiscite.

December 5th 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune founds the National Council of Negro Women in New York City.

December 10, 1935: The British newspaper The Times published its own report of leaked details of the Hoare–Laval Pact. As public anger about the proposal grew, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin responded to a question in the House of Commons by saying it would be "premature to make a statement on the subject at present" because he was not sure if the proposal had been finalized.

December 21, 1935: Anthony Eden informed Prime Minister Baldwin that Turkey, Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia would aid Britain in the event of war with Italy.

January 3, 1936: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented the annual State of the Union address to Congress. The president spoke at length about the international situation and warned that "a point has been reached where the people of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers — a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war." Roosevelt asserted that if another age of war was at hand, "the United States and the rest of the Americas can play but one role: through a well-ordered neutrality to do naught to encourage the contest, through adequate defense to save ourselves from embroilment and attack, and through example and all legitimate encouragement and assistance to persuade other Nations to return to the ways of peace and good-will."

January 10, 1936: General elections were held in Cuba. Miguel Mariano Gómez was elected the country's new president.

January 20th 1936 – King George V of the United Kingdom dies. His eldest son succeeds to the throne, becoming Edward VIII. The title Prince of Wales is not used for another 22 years.

January 29th 1936 - The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced.

March 8th 1936, the first oval stock-car race is held at Daytona Beach and Road Course.

March 16th 1936 - Warmer-than-normal temperatures rapidly melt snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, leading to a major flood in Pittsburgh. :o

April 3rd 1936 – Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the baby son of pilot Charles Lindbergh.

April 15, 1936: Italian troops occupied Dessie.

May 28th 1936 - Alan Turing submits On Computable Numbers for publication.

June 15th 1936 – First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.

June 30th 1936 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appeals for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country.

November 11, 1936: The Peel Commission arrived in Palestine to investigate the causes of the recent Arab unrest and recommend solutions.

May 12th 1937 - The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey.

June 3, 1937 - The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson.

July 2nd 1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.

July 9th 1937 – The silent film archives of Fox Film Corporation are destroyed by the 1937 Fox vault fire. :\'(

August 10th 1937 – Spanish Civil War: The Regional Defence Council of Aragon is dissolved by the Spanish Republic.

August 28th 1937 – Toyota Motors becomes an independent company.

October 15th 1937 - The novel To Have And Have Not by Ernest Hemingway was published.

February 11th 1938 - BBC Television produces the world's first ever science fiction television programme, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Čapek play R.U.R., that coined the term "robot".

March 3rd 1938 - Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.

May 2nd 1938 - Ella Fitzgerald records her rendition of "A-Tisket A-Tasket" with Chick Webb and His Orchestra.