Celebrating 100 Years of STV
- Historical Context in the 1930s
- February 18, 1930 - American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers the planet Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
- The analog computer is invented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston by Vannevar Bush. Bush is also considered a pioneer in the development of the concept for the World Wide Web, with his idea for the memex.
- August 26, 1930 - American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth patents his complete electronic Television system.
- December 2, 1930 - In order to combat the growing depression, President Herbert Hoover asks the U.S. Congress to pass a $150 million public works project to increase employment and economic activity.
- March 3, 1931 - The Star-Spangled Banner, by Francis Scott Key, is approved by President Hoover and Congress as the country's national anthem.
- May 1, 1931 - Construction is completed on the Empire State Building in New York City and it opens for business.
- January 22, 1932 - The Reconstruction Finance Corporation is established to stimulate banking and business.
- March 1, 1932 - The infant son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnapped. He is found dead on May 12 not far from his home in Hopewell, New Jersey.
- November 8, 1932 - Democratic challenger Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats incumbent President Hoover in the presidential election for his first of an unprecedented four terms.
- March 4, 1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated for the first time. His speech with its hallmark phrase, "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself" begins to rally the public and Congress to deal with great depression issues.
- March 9 - June 16, 1933 - The New Deal social and economic programs are passed by the United States Congress is a special one hundred day session to address depression era economics.
- December 5, 1933 - The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed, ending prohibition.
- 1934 - The Master's golf tournament is held for the first time at Augusta National Golf Club, founded by the legendary amateur golfer Bobby Jones, in Augusta, Georgia. The 1934 winner was Horton Smith, of the United States, at four under par.
- June 6, 1934 - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is established with the signing of the Securities Exchange Act into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- June 1, 1935 - Babe Ruth retires from Major League Baseball.
- August 14, 1935 - The Social Security Act is passed by Congress as part of the New Deal legislation and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- September 30, 1935 - Hoover Dam is dedicated by President Roosevelt.
- May 12, 1936 - The Santa Fe Railroad inaugurates the all-Pullman Super Chief passenger train service between Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California.
- August 1, 1936 - The Summer Olympics Games open in Berlin, Germany under the watchful eye of German leader Adolph Hitler. The star of the games was Jesse Owens, a black American, who won four gold medals.
- November 3, 1936 - Franklin D. Roosevelt overwhelms his Republican challenger, Alfred Landon, for a second presidential term.
- December 1936 - Gone with the Wind is published by Margaret Mitchell.
- May 6, 1937 - At Lakehurst, New Jersey, the German airship Hindenburg bursts into flames while mooring. The fire consumes the largest airship in the world, 804 feet long, within one minute, causing the death of thirty-six people.
- May 27, 1937 - The Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic and one day later, after a ceremonial press of a button from Washington, D.C. by President Roosevelt, receives its first vehicles.
- June 28, 1938 - The National Minimum Wage is enacted within the federal legislation known as the Fair Labor Standards Act. It established a minimum wage of $0.25 at the time.
- July 18, 1938 - "Wrong Way" Douglas Corrigan, with his faulty compass, lands his plane in Dublin, Ireland, after departing from Brooklyn, New York on a trip to the west coast of the United States.
- October 30, 1938 - A nationwide scare develops when Orson Welles broadcasts his War of the Worlds radio drama, which included fake news bulletins stating that a Martian invasion had begun on earth.
- April 30, 1939 - The New York World's Fair at Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York opens for its two-year run.
- August 2, 1939 - Albert Einstein alerts Franklin D. Roosevelt to an A-bomb opportunity, which led to the creation of the Manhattan Project. Einstein had arrived as a fugitive from Nazi Germany six years earlier on October 17, 1933.
- September 5, 1939 - The United States declares its neutrality in the European war after Germany invaded Poland, effectively beginning World War II after a year of European attempts to appease Hitler and the aims of expansionist Nazi Germany.
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