1936 Trivia, History and Fun Facts

Quick Facts from 1936:

• North American Weather Changing Event: A major heatwave struck North America and thousands of people died.
• Influential Songs include: He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, Summertime and It Ain’t Necessarily So
• The Movies to Watch include Modern Times, Show Boat, Reefer Madness, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Swing Time, Things to Come, Sabotage and My Man Godfrey
• The Most Famous Person in America was probably Jesse Owens
• Notable books include: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• Price of a Monopoly Board Game 1936: $1.98
• The Funny Guy was: Jack Benny
• The Conversation: The United Kingdom’s Edward VIII abdication crisis. He gave up the British throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

Firsts, Inventions, and Wonders:
Geico (the Government Employees Insurance Company) was founded.

The Green Hornet radio show debuted.

Life Magazine debuted.

Billboard Magazine (founded in 1894) began publishing it’s ‘Music Hit parade’ popular music chart.

The first superhero to wear a skin-tight costume and mask, The Phantom, made his first appearance in newspaper comic strips.

The Volkswagen Beetle (the People’s Car, aka the Käfer/Beetle) was introduced.

Professor Quiz, the first radio quiz show premiered.

The Boulder (now Hoover) Dam was fully completed

The first movie that had zombies caused by an engineered plague (“walking disease”) was Things to Come.

Pop Culture News: 
The Baseball Hall of Fame was founded in Cooperstown, New York. Ty Cobb got more votes than Babe Ruth in the inaugural Hall of Fame roster. Ty was a great player, but apparently not well-liked by his peers. Only four members of the Baseball community went to his funeral.

1936 was the last year that was a mathematical square. The next will be 2025.

Margaret Mitchell’s historical romance Gone with the Wind was published.

In Raynham Hall in England, photographers Indre Shira and Captain Provand took a picture of ‘The Brown Lady,’ one of the most famous ghost pictures in the world.

Pennsylvania still charges its citizens an 18% tax on alcohol to pay for damages of the 1936 Johnstown flood. The budgeted funds were gained in about 6 years.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) began (radio) in Canada.

Fiesta dinnerware was founded, only to be discontinued in 1973. The antique after-marker for the products was so hot that the company was founded again in 1986. It now discontinues/changes colors and product lines, keeping a ‘collectability’ most brands do not have.

In the 1936 Presidential Election, Franklin D. Roosevelt won 523 electoral votes, while his opponent Alf Landon only won 8.

Alan Turing published On Computable Numbers, in which he set out the theoretical basis for modern computers.

The Great Sphinx of Giza was once abandoned and buried by sand up to its shoulders. It was not completely excavated until 1936.

The 1936 Olympics:
At the 1936 Olympic games, boxer Thomas Hamilton-Brown lost his opening bout so went on an eating binge to console himself. A math error was later discovered and it turned out he didn’t lose but was disqualified from the competition because he had gained so much weight from binge eating.

At the 1936 Summer Olympics, Haiti and Liechtenstein’s flags were identical; this was not known until the event. The following year, a crown was added to Liechtenstein’s to distinguish the flags.

Mack Robinson, brother of Jackie Robinson, (Silver) medaled in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Upon returning home to California, the only work he could find as an African American was sweeping streets, which he did while wearing his Olympic ‘USA’ sweatshirt.

The idea of having the Olympic torch run from ancient Olympia to the host country was invented by the Nazis for the 1936 Berlin Summer Games.

The Odd:
30 Toronto men were arrested for removing the tops from their bathing suits, showing their nipples.

The Half Way to Hell Club was an exclusive club organized by the 19 men who fell from the Golden Gate Bridge during its construction in 1936 and 1937 and were saved by the safety nets.

Bronislaw Huberman’s rare million-dollar Stradivarius violin was stolen from virtuoso Hall Huberman. The thief, a café musician named Julian Altman, became famous and performed for presidents. 49 years after the theft, he confessed to the theft on his deathbed and his wife received $263k finder’s fee.

RIP:
William Cruickshank was killed by a kangaroo. The kangaroo “broke the jaw” and inflicted “extensive head injuries” on the man, who was attacked after attempting to rescue his two dogs. It is the only documented case of a fatal kangaroo attack.

The United Kingdom’s King George V was euthanized by his doctor so he would die in time for the announcement to make the morning papers.