Directory

1934 CE

A year marked by Hitler's consolidation of power through the Night of the Long Knives, the beginning of Mao Zedong's Long March, devastating Dust Bowl storms, and the deaths of outlaws Bonnie and Clyde.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • The Soviet Union was admitted to the League of Nations in September, as Western powers sought to bring the USSR into collective security arrangements against fascist aggression.
  • Turkey, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia signed the Balkan Pact in February, a mutual defense agreement intended to preserve the territorial status quo in southeastern Europe.
  • The Nazis attempted a coup in Austria on July 25, assassinating Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, but the putsch failed when Italian troops mobilized on the Austrian border.
  • Germany and Poland signed a non-aggression pact in January, temporarily easing tensions between the two countries.
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk continued his modernization reforms in Turkey, with a new law requiring all Turks to adopt surnames.
  • King Alexander I of Yugoslavia was assassinated in Marseille on October 9 by a Bulgarian revolutionary, along with French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou.
  • The Philippines gained a promise of future independence when the U.S. Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act in March, establishing a ten-year transition period.
  • The Soviet Union joined the League of Nations in September, seeking collective security against the growing threat of Nazi Germany and fascist expansionism.
  • Japan renounced the Washington Naval Treaty, signaling its intention to expand its navy beyond the limits agreed upon in 1922.
  • The Sandino affair concluded when Augusto César Sandino was assassinated in February by members of Nicaragua's National Guard under Anastasio Somoza García.

Conflict & Security

  • Hitler ordered the Night of the Long Knives on June 30, a purge in which the Nazi regime murdered SA leader Ernst Röhm and dozens of other political rivals.
  • The Chinese Communists began the Long March in October, retreating from their Jiangxi Soviet base to escape Nationalist encirclement in a 6,000-mile trek across China.
  • The Austrian Civil War erupted in February when government forces attacked Social Democratic strongholds in Vienna and other cities, killing hundreds and crushing the labor movement.
  • The Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay continued with heavy fighting, as Paraguay gained the upper hand in the disputed Gran Chaco territory.
  • Saudi Arabia's forces completed the conquest of the Asir region, consolidating the kingdom's southern borders on the Arabian Peninsula.
  • German president Paul von Hindenburg died on August 2, and Hitler merged the offices of president and chancellor, declaring himself Führer and assuming total power.
  • The failed Nazi coup in Austria resulted in the murder of Chancellor Dollfuss, but the Austrian military and police crushed the uprising within days.
  • Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were killed in a police ambush in Louisiana on May 23, ending the crime spree of one of America's most notorious outlaw pairs.
  • The FBI killed bank robber John Dillinger outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago on July 22, ending a highly publicized manhunt.
  • Japan's expansionist Amau Doctrine, declared in April, asserted Japan's special responsibility for maintaining peace in East Asia, alarming Western powers.

Economy & Finance

  • The U.S. Gold Reserve Act was signed on January 30, nationalizing gold reserves and devaluing the dollar to $35 per ounce of gold.
  • The Securities Exchange Act was signed in June, establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate stock markets and protect investors.
  • The Federal Housing Administration was created in June to insure mortgage loans, making homeownership more accessible to middle-class Americans.
  • The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act was signed in June, authorizing the president to negotiate bilateral tariff reductions without congressional approval for each treaty.
  • New Deal work relief programs, including the Civil Works Administration and the Public Works Administration, employed millions of Americans on public infrastructure projects.
  • The Export-Import Bank was established in February to finance U.S. trade with foreign nations, initially focusing on commerce with the Soviet Union and Cuba.
  • The National Housing Act created the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation to insure deposits at savings institutions.
  • U.S. unemployment remained above 20 percent, though New Deal programs had reduced it from the 1933 peak and provided relief to millions.
  • The Silver Purchase Act was signed in June, directing the U.S. Treasury to buy silver until it constituted one-quarter of monetary reserves.
  • Global trade began a tentative recovery as some countries concluded bilateral trade agreements to reduce the tariff barriers erected during the Depression.

Technology & Infrastructure

  • The Streamliner era began as the Burlington Zephyr completed the first nonstop diesel-powered run from Denver to Chicago on May 26 in a record 13 hours and 5 minutes.
  • The ocean liner RMS Queen Mary was launched on September 26 on the River Clyde in Scotland, designed to be one of the fastest and most luxurious ships afloat.
  • Percy Shaw patented the cat's eye road reflector in Britain, a simple road safety innovation that would be widely adopted worldwide.
  • The Dust Bowl crisis spurred research into dry-land farming techniques and windbreak planting to reduce soil erosion on the Great Plains.
  • Radar technology advanced as several countries, including Britain, the United States, and Germany, conducted early experiments with radio detection and ranging systems.
  • The Chrysler Airflow automobile was introduced as one of the first mass-produced cars with aerodynamic streamline design, though it was a commercial disappointment.
  • The first laundromat, called a washateria, opened in Fort Worth, Texas, offering coin-operated washing machines for public use.
  • Construction of the Hoover Dam neared completion, with the massive concrete structure rising in the Black Canyon between Nevada and Arizona.
  • The Mallard class of steam locomotives was introduced by the London and North Eastern Railway, designed by Sir Nigel Gresley for high-speed passenger service.
  • Fluorescent lighting was demonstrated at a lighting fair, offering a more efficient alternative to incandescent bulbs, though widespread adoption would take several more years.

Science & Discovery

  • Enrico Fermi bombarded uranium with neutrons, producing radioactive isotopes; he did not yet realize he had achieved nuclear fission.
  • Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie discovered artificial radioactivity in January, demonstrating that stable elements could be made radioactive through particle bombardment.
  • Pavel Cherenkov observed the blue glow of charged particles traveling faster than light in a medium, an effect later named Cherenkov radiation.
  • Lev Landau published his theory of phase transitions, advancing the understanding of how materials change between states of matter.
  • Clyde Tombaugh continued his systematic survey of the solar system at Lowell Observatory, searching for additional trans-Neptunian objects.
  • Harold Urey won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen.
  • The first practical application of radar was tested by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, detecting an aircraft at a distance of one mile.
  • Fritz Zwicky and Walter Baade coined the term supernova and proposed that neutron stars could form from the collapse of massive stars.
  • George Gamow proposed the theory of quantum tunneling in nuclear reactions, explaining how particles could overcome potential barriers in stellar fusion.
  • Wallace Carothers and his team at DuPont synthesized the first true polyamide fibers, a precursor to the nylon that would be announced later in the decade.

Health & Medicine

  • The sulfonamide drug Prontosil was used to treat a human patient for the first time when Gerhard Domagk administered it to his own daughter, who had a severe streptococcal infection.
  • The grueling conditions of the Dust Bowl continued to cause widespread respiratory illness across the American Great Plains, with dust pneumonia becoming a leading cause of death in affected regions.
  • Poliomyelitis outbreaks continued in the United States, prompting Franklin Roosevelt to lend his support to fundraising efforts for polio research.
  • The Dust Bowl caused severe respiratory illness among Plains residents, with dust pneumonia and silicosis affecting thousands of people exposed to airborne soil.
  • The Nazi regime expanded its forced sterilization program, sterilizing tens of thousands of people deemed genetically unfit under the 1933 law.
  • Research into blood banking and storage advanced, with Soviet scientists developing techniques for preserving donated blood for later transfusion.
  • Vitamin K was identified by Henrik Dam as essential for blood clotting, advancing the understanding of coagulation disorders.
  • John Gruber and others developed improved techniques for treating burn injuries, which would prove critical in future military conflicts.
  • Malaria control efforts expanded in the American South through the Tennessee Valley Authority's programs to drain mosquito breeding sites.
  • Nutritional research identified the importance of trace minerals in the diet, including the role of iodine deficiency in causing goiter.

Climate & Environment

  • Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was approximately 307 parts per million.
  • The Dust Bowl reached catastrophic proportions in May, when a massive dust storm carried an estimated 350 million tons of soil from the Plains eastward, darkening skies as far as New York and Washington.
  • The Great Plains Shelterbelt project was launched under Roosevelt's direction, planting millions of trees in windbreaks from Texas to the Dakotas to combat wind erosion.
  • Severe dust storms swept across the Great Plains throughout the year, stripping topsoil from millions of acres and displacing farming communities across multiple states.
  • A severe heat wave struck the eastern United States and Canada in July, killing hundreds of people and devastating crops.
  • The Soil Erosion Service was established as a temporary federal agency to combat the erosion emergency on the Great Plains.
  • An earthquake in Bihar, India, on January 15 killed over 7,000 people and caused extensive damage across the northern part of the subcontinent.
  • Drought conditions continued across large parts of the United States, Australia, and other regions, compounding the agricultural crisis of the Depression era.
  • The Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act was signed, requiring federal agencies to consult with wildlife agencies when modifying waterways.
  • The Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act was signed by Roosevelt in March, requiring hunters to purchase stamps and directing revenues toward wetland conservation.

Culture & Society

  • Cavalcade won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 6th ceremony held in March.
  • The Dionne quintuplets were born on May 28 near Callander, Ontario, becoming an international sensation as the first quintuplets known to survive infancy.
  • Cole Porter's musical Anything Goes premiered on Broadway in November, featuring hit songs that became jazz standards.
  • Henry Miller's novel Tropic of Cancer was published in Paris by Obelisk Press; it was banned in the United States and Britain for its explicit content.
  • Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff completed his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, which premiered in Baltimore in November.
  • The first Masters golf tournament was held at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia in March, with Horton Smith winning the inaugural event.
  • Socialist realism was proclaimed the official artistic doctrine of the Soviet Union at the First Congress of Soviet Writers in August.
  • Donald Duck made his first appearance in the Walt Disney animated short The Wise Little Hen, released in June.
  • The world population was approximately 2.17 billion.
  • Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night was published in April, a novel exploring the disintegration of a glamorous American couple on the French Riviera.