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Key: Politics and Society, Science and Technology, Arts and Culture, World

Year in Review

 

Politics & Society
  • U.S. Senate refuses to participate in the World Court by a vote of 52-36.
  • Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean,
    from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California.
     
  • Soil Conservation Act passed; Soil Conservation Service becomes bureau of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
  • Rural Electrification Administration established to finance production of electricity in areas not served by private companies.
  • U.S. Supreme Court declares National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional; National Recovery Administration (NRA) no longer operational.
  • Works Progress Administration (WPA) formed under authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act.
  • Resettlement Administration moves poor families to Greenbelt towns.
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  • Social Security Act establishes old-age retirement insurance and a federal payroll tax to finance federal-state unemployment insurance.
  • President Roosevelt signs the Public Utilities Act to restrict public utilities monopolies.
  • President Roosevelt signs the Motor Carrier Act, which gives the Interstate Commerce Commission control over bus and truck traffic.
  • President Roosevelt signs the Revenue Act of 1935, also known as the Wealth Tax Act. The act increases income tax rates for wealthy Americans and corporations.
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  • John L. Lewis establishes the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), which advocates the organization of workers in the steel, auto, and rubber industries.
  • Annual auto show held in New York City this month instead of January to help even out employment in auto industry.
  • Aberdeen Gardens, Virginia The Farm Security Administration's town built by blacks, for blacks
Science and Technology
  • World's longest railroad bridge, over lower Zambesi River in South Africa, is completed.
  • Detective Leonard Keeler demonstrates the Keeler polygraph, or lie detector machine.
  • New York Governor Herbert Lehman signs bills allowing blood types to be used as evidence in court cases.
  • The first round-the-world telephone conversation is routed from New York to San Francisco, Indonesia, Holland, England, and back to New York.
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  • First description of an artificial heart appears in Science magazine.
  • Dr. Edward Kendall presents a paper before the joint meeting of the American and Canadian Medical Associations discussing the isolation of cortisone from the adrenal cortex.
  • France's ship, the S.S. Normandie, breaks transatlantic record, crossing the Atlantic in 107 hours 33 minutes.
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  • United States Postal Service begins transpacific air mail service from San Francisco to Manila.
  • The DC-3 (Douglas 1935) travels non-stop across the country in 15 hours.

1935 January 1935 February 1935 March 1935 April 1935 May 1935 June 1935 July 1935 August 1935 September 1935 October 1935 November 1935 December 1935
Arts and Culture
  • Clifford Odets's play, Waiting for Lefty, premieres at the Civic Repertory Theater in New York.
  • Zoë Akins's play, The Old Maid, based on the novel by Edith Wharton, opens at the Empire Theatre in New York City.
  • Robert E. Sherwood's play, The Petrified Forest, starring Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard, opens at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City.
  •   Bruno Hauptmann testifies in his Lindberg kidnapping trial
  •   The 30s Jukebox
  • Clifford Odets's play, Awake and Sing, opens at the Belasco Theatre in New York City.

      • Books Released in 1935
    • Butterfield 8 by John O'Hara
    • Of Time and the River by Thomas Wolfe
    • The Last Puritan by George Santayana
    • They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy
    • Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
  • Academy Award winners (for 1934 films):
    • Best Film: It Happened One Night
    • Best Actress: Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night
    • Best Actor: Clark Gable, It Happened One Night
    • Best Director: Frank Capra, It Happened One Night
    • Best Cinematography: Victor Milner, Cleopatra
    • Best Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons and Frederic Hope, The Merry Widow
    • Best Song: "The Continental," The Gay Divorcee
    • Special Award: Shirley Temple
  • "Your Hit Parade," a weekly radio show featuring hit songs, debuts on NBC.
  • "Fibber McGee and Molly," a radio comedy starring Jim and Marian Jordan, debuts on the Blue Network.
  • "Flash Gordon," the science fiction radio program starring Gale Gordon, debuts.
  • Pulitzer Prize winners:
    • Drama: Zoë Akins, for adaptation of Edith Wharton's The Old Maid
    • Fiction: Josephine Winslow Johnson, for Now in November
    • Poetry: Audrey Wurdemann, for Bright Ambush
    • History: Charles McLean Adres, for The Colonial Period of American History
    • Biography: Douglas Southall Freeman, for R. E. Lee
  • Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies play the first major league night baseball game at Crosley Field, Cincinnati, Ohio.
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  • Babe Ruth retires from professional baseball, with 714 home runs, 5,973 bases, and a .342 batting average.
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    Films released in 1935
    • Alice Adams
    • A Midsummer Night's Dream
    • A Night at the Opera
    • After the Thin Man
    • Becky Sharpe
    • Bride of Frankenstein
    • Gold Diggers of 1935
    • Les Miserables
    • Magnificent Obsession
    • Mutiny on the Bounty
    • Naughty Marietta
    • Ruggles of Red Gap
    • The Informer
  • "Girl Alone," the radio soap opera starring Betty Winkler, debuts on NBC.
  • Actor Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post die in an airplane crash near Point Barrows, Alaska. Eulogy by Eddie Rickenbacker.
  • Benny Goodman, "the King of Swing," opens at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles.
  • "Backstage Wife," a radio show starring Vivian Fridell, debuts on Mutual.
  • Hallie Flanagan assumes leadership for Federal Theatre Project.
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  • Maxwell Anderson's play, Winterset, inspired by the Sacco-Vanzetti case, opens at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York City.
  • "Popeye the Sailor," a radio drama based on the comic strip by Elzie Segar, debuts on NBC.
  • Henrietta Leaver of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, wins the Miss America title.
  •   1935 as seen from 1960: newsreel compilation
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  • George and Ira Gershwin's musical, Porgy and Bess, opens at the Alvine Theatre in New York City; runs for 16 weeks, followed by a 3-month road tour.
  • Jubilee, a play starring Melville Cooper, Mary Boland, and Montgomery Clift, opens at the Imperial Theater in New York.
  • WPA begins The Index of American Design project that will continue until 1942 and yield 18,000 images of American decorative and folk objects
  • Jumbo, starring Jimmy Durante and featuring a live elephant, opens at the New York Hippodrome.
  • Boy Meets Girl, a play starring Jerome Cowan, Garson Kanin, and Everett Sloane, opens at New York's Cort Theater.
  • Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger named first Heisman Trophy winner.
  • New York's Frick Gallery opens.
  • Detroit Lions defeat the New York Giants, 26-7, in the NFL Championship.

Songs released in 1935
World
     
  • Italy sends troops to East Africa.
  • Earthquake in Quetta, India, kills approximately 50,000 people.
  • Citizens of Great Britain celebrate the silver jubilee of King George V.
  • German-British Naval Treaty signed, increasing strength of German navy.
  • Heinrich Himmler begins the Society for Research into the Spiritual Roots of Germany's Ancestral Heritage in Berlin. Himmler institutes a breeding program to produce Aryans.
  • President Roosevelt asks Italian leader Benito Mussolini to preserve peace in East Africa.
  • British Parliament passes the Government of India Act, which provides Delhi with a federal legislature.
  • The March of Time
  • Italy rejects League of Nations com promise on Ethiopia crisis.
  • Italian troops invade Ethiopia.
  • League of Nations imposes sanctions on Italy for the invasion.
  • Religious leaders discourage Americans from participating in Berlin Olympics.
  • Greek monarchy is restored under King George II.
  • The March of Time: The Persecution of European Jewry and the emergance of a new Jerusalem in Palestine
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  • Nazi government revokes German citizenship of Jews.
  • Church of England officially condemns Nazi persecution of Jews.
  • United States makes the Philippines a commonwealth.
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