1937 History, Trivia and Fun Facts

Quick Facts from 1937:

• World Changing Event: Television publicly debuted in America at the New York World’s Fair.
• Pop Standards include: They Can’t Take That Away From Me, I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm, Harbor Lights and Once in a While
• The Movies to Watch include Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, A Day at the Races, Captains Courageous, Lost Horizon, Angel, The Awful Truth, and a Girl, Stage Door and Shall We Dance
• The Most Famous Person in America was probably Shirley Temple
• Notable books include: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• Price of Metropolitan Opera La Traviata tickets in 1937: $2 to 5.00
• The photocopier was invented by Chester F. Carlson.
• The Funny Guy was: Jack Benny
• The Mystery: Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared after taking off from New Guinea during Earhart’s attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world.

Firsts, Inventions, and Wonders:
From the family home recipe of Giovanni and Assunta Cantisano, Ragu Spaghetti Sauce hit the store shelves.

Porky’s Duck Hunt, directed by Tex Avery, for the Looney Tunes series, featured the debut of Daffy Duck.

Look Magazine debuted.

The Prince Valiant comic strip, by Hal Foster, debuted.

The first issue of Detective Comics was published. Issue #27 featured the first appearance of Batman.

The Lincoln Tunnel opened to traffic in New York City.

The world’s first shopping cart was used at Humpty Dumpty supermarket, in Oklahoma City.

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge opened.

Spam was introduced by the Hormel company.

The world’s first emergency call telephone service was launched in London, using the number 999.

Bras with four cup sizes (A, B, C, and D) were introduced. Before long, these cup sizes got nicknames: egg cup, teacup, coffee cup, and challenge cup.

John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, was published.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was published

To Have and Have Not, by Ernest Hemingway, was published.

The Hindenburg Disaster

On May 6th, 1937, the Hindenburg disaster occurred. The LZ 129 Hindenburg was an airship that caught fire and exploded during its attempt to dock at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in Manchester Township, New Jersey. This tragedy claimed the lives of 35 people including 13 passengers and 22 crewmen who were on board for this voyage. An additional person died as a result of the explosion on the ground.

One notable thing about this disaster was that it occurred because hydrogen gas, which is highly flammable, had been used to keep the airship afloat instead of helium which is not flammable and therefore safer for passengers. In order to help prevent situations like these from happening again, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was created in 1958. This agency is responsible for regulating and overseeing all aspects of aviation in the United States. They work to ensure that all passengers are safe when flying and set safety standards for aircrafts, pilots, and air traffic controllers. The Hindenburg disaster serves as a reminder that even though new technologies can seem exciting and promising, they need to be tested for safety before being put into use. The FAA helps us to learn from past mistakes so that tragedies like this one don’t happen again.

Pop Culture News:
After 4 years, on May 28, 1937, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge opened. Pedestrians were allowed a day earlier, on May 27th.

Hewlett-Packard was founded. The first big job for the young company was Disney, for Fantasia. Although initially a manufacturer of measurement instruments, they entered the computer industry in the 1960s.

Hector Boiardi started canning his great pasta sauce in 1937.
You probably know him better as Chef Boyardee.

The original film A Star Is Born was released in 1937 and there have been 3 remakes since; in 1954, 1976 and 2018. The original film plot was not centered around singer/musicians as the successors were.

Ray-Ban sunglasses were made for U.S. Air Force pilots in 1936, and were such a hit that they began to be sold to the public in 1937. The brand has been featured in many films.

They say that Picasso’s greatest work was Guernica, which he painted in 1937. It was over 11 feet high and 25 feet wide.

The 1937 Best Supporting Actress Oscar went to Alice Brady for her role in In Old Chicago, but she couldn’t attend the ceremony, so a man walked up and accepted the award on her behalf. After the show, he and the stolen Oscar were never seen again.

The silent film archives of Fox Film Corporation were destroyed by the 1937 Fox vault fire.

The Tomb of the Unknowns has been continuously guarded without interruption since 1937.

Lou Thesz beat Everett Marshall in St Louis, to win National Wrestling Association (NWA) World heavyweight title.

Snow Whites and the Seven Dwarfs:
Disney’s Snow White became the biggest film of all time (at least until Gone With The Wind Came out in 1939.) The previous holder for that title was the controversial Birth of a Nation (1915).

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered December 21, 1937, just 2 months after The Hobbit by J.R. R.Tolkien (which prominently features 13 dwarves) was published. #dwarfs or #dwarves

Adriana Caselotti was only paid $970 ($15,913 today) to voice Snow White.

Snow White was the highest-grossing animated film until Aladdin came out in 1992.

Adriana Caselotti and Harry Stockwell, the voices of Snow White and Prince Charming, were not invited to the premiere of the 1937 film, so they snuck into the theater to watch it.

Walt Disney won an honorary Oscar with 7 little Oscars on it, for Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs.

Tragedies:
The worst school disaster in American history in terms of lives lost was the New London School in New London, Texas, there was a catastrophic natural gas explosion, killing in excess of 295 students and teachers.

The German airship Hindenburg burst into flame when mooring to a mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Of the 36 passengers and 61 crew on board, 13 passengers and 22 crew died, as well as one member of the ground crew.