1930s

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Millennium: 2nd millennium
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s
Years: 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939
Categories: Births - Deaths - Architecture
Establishments - Disestablishments

In Western Europe Australia and the United States, more progressive reforms occurred as opposed to the extreme measures sought elsewhere. Roosevelt's New Deal attempted to use government spending to combat large-scale unemployment and severely negative growth. In Europe, multiple countries turn to authoritarian, nationalist, and fascist governments such as in Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Multiple countries in Europe reject the borders established after the Treaty of Versailles such as Germany, Hungary, Italy, and the Soviet Union which sought expanding their territories in the decade. In Africa, the last non-colonized country, Ethiopia is occupied by Italian military forces. Entities in the British Empire experience an increase in power after being decentralized by the United Kingdom in 1931 with the Statute of Westminster, while Mohandas Gandhi continues his peaceful protests to demand independence for India from British colonial rule. East Asia has a number of major conflicts, including civil war in China between communists and nationalists, the invasion and occupation of Manchuria by Japan, and war between China and Japan.

Contents

[edit] Technology

Many technological advances occurred in the 1930s, including:

1931: Empire State Building is opened.

[edit] International issues

[edit] Africa

  • Ethiopia is invaded by Italy during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War from 1935 to 1936 which results in the Italian occupation of Ethiopia with Ethiopia being forced to become a colony of Italy.

[edit] Americas

Emblem of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) of the United States, an organization created as part the "New Deal".
Paraguayan soldiers during the Chaco War.
  • The Chaco War takes place from 1932 to 1935 between Bolivia and Paraguay over the disputed territory of Gran Chaco resulting in an overall Paraguayan victory in 1935. An agreement dividing the territory was made in 1938, officially ending outstanding differences and bringing an official "peace" to the conflict.
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected President of the United States in November 1932. Roosevelt initiates a widespread social welfare strategy called the "New Deal" to combat the economic and social devastation of the Great Depression. The economic agenda of the "New Deal" was a radical departure from previous laissez-faire economics.
  • Canada and other countries under the British Empire sign the Statute of Westminster in 1931 establishing effective parliamentary independence of Canada from the parliament of the United Kingdom.
  • United States Marine Corps general Smedley Butler confesses to the U.S. Congress in 1934 that a group of industrialists contacted him, requesting his aid to overthrow the U.S. government of Roosevelt and establish what he claimed would be a fascist regime in the United States.
  • Newfoundland voluntarily returns to British colonial rule in 1934 amid its economic crisis during the Great Depression with the creation of the Commission of Government, a non-elected body.
  • Canadian Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King meets with German Führer Adolf Hitler in 1937 in Berlin. King is the only North American head of government to meet with Hitler.
  • Multiple countries in the Americas including Canada, Cuba, and the United States controversially deny asylum to hundreds of Jewish German refugees on the SS St. Louis who are fleeing Germany in 1939 which under the Nazi regime was pursuing a racist agenda of anti-Semitic persecution. In the end, no country accepted the refugees and the ship returns to Germany with most of its passengers onboard, while some commit suicide based on the prospect of returning to Nazi-run Germany.

[edit] Asia

Mohandas Gandhi on the Salt March in 1930.
Japanese marines at Guangdong in the Battle of Wuhan in 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

[edit] Europe

German dictator Adolf Hitler (right) and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (left) pursue agendas of territorial expansion for their countries in the 1930s, eventually leading to the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
  • The Spanish monarchy abdicates and Spain becomes a republic in 1931.
  • Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party (Nazi Party) rise to power in Germany in 1933, forming a fascist regime committed to repudiating the Treaty of Versailles, persecuting and removing Jews and other minorities from German society, expanding Germany's territory, and opposing the spread of communism.
  • In the Soviet Union, agricultural collectivization and rapid industrialization take place.[1]
  • More than 25 million people migrate to cities in the USSR.
  • Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dolfuss is assassinated in 1934 by Austrian Nazis. Germany and Italy nearly clash over the issue of Austrian independence despite close ideological similarities of the Italian Fascist and Nazi regimes.
  • King Alexander of Yugoslavia is assassinated in 1934 by a radical Macedonian nationalist.
  • Anglo-German naval agreement is signed in 1935, removing the Treaty Versailles' level of limitation on the size of the German navy, allowing Germany to build a larger navy
  • Spanish Civil War occurs from 1936 to 1939. Germany and Italy back anti-communist nationalist forces of Francisco Franco. The Soviet Union backs the left-wing republican faction in the war. The war ends in April 1939 with Franco's nationalist forces defeating the republican forces. Franco becomes dictator of Spain.
  • Éamon de Valera introduces a new constitution for the Irish Free State in 1937, effectively ending its status as a British Dominion.
  • The "Great Purge" of "Old Bolsheviks" from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union takes place from 1937 to 1938, as ordered by Soviet Union leader Josef Stalin, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people being killed.
  • Germany and Italy pursue territorial expansionist agendas. Germany demands the annexation of Austria and German-populated territories in Europe. From 1935 to 1936, Germany receives the Saar, remilitarizes the Rhineland. Italy initially opposes Germany's aims on Austria but the two countries resolve their differences in 1936 in the aftermath of Italy's diplomatic isolation after its invasion of Ethiopia which only Germany supported. Germany and Italy improve relations by forming an alliance against communism in 1936 with the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact. Germany annexes Austria and then the Sudetenland after negotiations which resulted in the Munich Agreement in 1938. Italy invades and annexes Albania in 1939 and Germany receives the Meuse territory from Latvia, occupies Czecholslovakia, and finally invades Poland which results in the outbreak of World War II.

[edit] Oceania

  • Australia and New Zealand sign the Statute of Westminster in 1931, establishing effective parliamentary independence from the parliament of the United Kingdom.

[edit] Economics

  • The Great Depression occurred during the 1930s.
  • Economic interventionist policies increase in popularity as a result of the Great Depression in both authoritarian and democratic countries. In the western world, Keynesianism replaces classical economic theory.
  • Rapid industrialization takes place in the Soviet Union.

[edit] Literature and Art

[edit] Popular culture

Amelia Earhart in 1935.
  • Radio becomes dominant mass media in industrial nations.
  • First intercontinental commercial airline flights.
  • Amelia Earhart receives major attention in the 1930s as the first woman pilot to conduct major air flights. Her disappearance for unknown reasons in 1937 while on flight prompted search efforts which failed.
  • Height of the Art Deco movement in North America and western Europe.
  • Major international media attention follows Mohandas Gandhi's peaceful resistance movement against British colonial rule in India.
  • "Swing" music starts becoming popular (from 1935 onward). It gradually replaces the sweet form of Jazz that had been popular for the first half of the decade.
  • Triumph of the Will - Leni Riefenstahl's ground-breaking Nazi propaganda film.
  • The 1937 World's Fair in Paris, France displays the growing political tensions in Europe. The pavilions of the rival countries of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union face each other. Germany at the time was internationally condemned for its air forces bombing of the Basque town of Guernica in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, which Spanish artist Pablo Picasso depicted in his masterpiece painting Guernica at the World Fair, which was a surrealist depiction of the horror of the bombing.

[edit] Disasters

The German dirigible airship Hindenburg exploding in 1937.

[edit] Others

Military Enigma machine


[edit] World leaders

Adolf Hitler forms a totalitarian regime and dictatorship in Germany whose expansionist ambitions lead to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, as President of the United States initiates major economic reform in the United States.
Hailie Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia faces his country being invaded and occupied by Italy and is forced into exile.

[edit] Sports figures

[edit] Global

[edit] United States

[edit] References

  1. ^ A. L. Unger (January 1969). "Stalin's Renewal of the Leading Stratum: A Note on the Great Purge". Soviet Studies 20 (3): 321–330. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-5859%28196901%2920%3A3%3C321%3ASROTLS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S. Retrieved on 2007-05-29. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930s"
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