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Clipper History |
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Notable Events
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1934
The Sikorsky S-42 was introduced in August (only 3 months after the DC-2's inaugural). |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) First Freeways: The Autobahn in Germany
![](images/maroonline.gif) Drive-in movie theatre opens in New Jersey
![](images/maroonline.gif) Half of the homes in the U.S. have radios
![](images/maroonline.gif) Austrian Chancellor assassinated by Nazis
![](images/maroonline.gif) Bonnie and Clyde killed in police ambush
![](images/maroonline.gif) Severe drought turn Great Plains into Dust Bowl (to 1936)
![](images/maroonline.gif) Box Office draws: Will Rogers, Clark Gable, Janet Gaynor
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1935
First Martin M-130 delivered on September 9th. Pan Am inaugurates trans-Pacific airmail service from November 22 to 29 with the Martin M-130 China Clipper. The 8,210-mile flight was made in 59 hours and 48 minutes of actual flying time.
![China Clipper over Macau](images/ccmacau.jpg) China Clipper over Macau |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) Douglas Aircraft unveils the new DC-3 with a flight range of 1500 miles - the longest of any commercial airliner.
![](images/maroonline.gif) Radar device built by Robert Watson Watt
![](images/maroonline.gif) Eastman-Kodak introduces KODACHROME Film, becoming the first commercially successful amateur color film
![](images/maroonline.gif) Edwin Armstrong demonstrates FM radio
![](images/maroonline.gif) Hoover Dam completed
![](images/maroonline.gif) First night baseball game played in Cincinnati, Ohio
![](images/maroonline.gif) FDR signs U.S. Social Security Act
![](images/maroonline.gif) Persia changes name to Iran
![](images/maroonline.gif) John Steinbeck: Tortilla Flat
![](images/maroonline.gif) George Gershwin's musical Porgy and Bess opens
![](images/maroonline.gif) Box Office draws: Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Will Rogers
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1936
The M-130 Hawaii Clipper initiated the first trans-Pacific passenger service on October 21. The San Francisco-Manila airfare was $799.00 (over $10,000 today) one-way. |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) BBC inaugurates television service
![](images/maroonline.gif) Top U.S. tax rate raised to 79%
![](images/maroonline.gif) Prince Albert becomes King George VI of Britain
![](images/maroonline.gif) Spanish Civil War Begins (to March 1939)
![](images/maroonline.gif) Henry Luce begins publication of LIFE magazine
![](images/maroonline.gif) Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind is published
![](images/maroonline.gif) Film:Modern Times starring Charlie Chaplin
![](images/maroonline.gif) Box Office draws: Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Will Rogers
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1937 |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) Focke builds Helicopter
![](images/maroonline.gif) Golden Gate Bridge opens
![](images/maroonline.gif) Amelia Earhart disappears over South Pacific
![](images/maroonline.gif) Hindenburg airship disaster at Lakehurst, New Jersey
![](images/maroonline.gif) Chamberlain becomes British Prime Minister
![](images/maroonline.gif) Film: La Grand Illusion
![](images/maroonline.gif) Disney's first full-length cartoon: Snow White
![](images/maroonline.gif) LOOK magazine begins publication
![](images/maroonline.gif) Box Office draws: Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Will Rogers
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1938 |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) Ball point pen invented by two brother named Biro from Hungary
![](images/maroonline.gif) Hitler annexes Austria
![](images/maroonline.gif) Hungary annexes southern Slovakia
![](images/maroonline.gif) Music: Benny Goodman brings new style to jazz music
![](images/maroonline.gif) Radio drama, War of the Worlds, narrated by Orson Wells, causes national panic
![](images/maroonline.gif) Art: Guernica by Picasso
![](images/maroonline.gif) Box Office draws: Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Will Rogers
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1939
Boeing delivers the first two B-314's on January 27th First scheduled trans-Atlantic airline passenger service began on June 28th on board the Dixie Clipper. Airfare was $375 (over $4000 today) one-way or $675 ($8000 today) round-trip. Air Mail service across the Atlantic began on May 20th (Yankee Clipper) |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) Using a cyclotron, John Dunning splits an atom in his lab at Columbia University, suggesting that nuclear fission is possible
![](images/maroonline.gif) Regular TV broadcasts begin
![](images/maroonline.gif) New York World's Fair shows television to public
![](images/maroonline.gif) The Depression is ending worldwide as nations prepare for the coming hostilities
![](images/maroonline.gif) German troops invade Poland on September 1
![](images/maroonline.gif) Britain and France declare war on Germany — World War II begins
![](images/maroonline.gif) John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath published
![](images/maroonline.gif) Films: Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, The Roaring Twenties
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1940
British Purchasing Commission bought 2 of Pan Am's B-314's for the War effort. |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) CBS demonstrates color Television
![](images/maroonline.gif) Fantasia introduces stereo sound to the American public
![](images/maroonline.gif) Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of Britain
![](images/maroonline.gif) FDR re-elected for an unprecedented third term
![](images/maroonline.gif) Battle of Britain
![](images/maroonline.gif) Ernest Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
![](images/maroonline.gif) Film: Grapes of Wrath, The Great Dictator
![](images/maroonline.gif) Bugs Bunny is seen for the first time
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1941 |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) CBS and NBC start commercial transmission
![](images/maroonline.gif) Aerosol spray can is introduced
![](images/maroonline.gif) Mount Rushmore Memorial completed in South Dakota
![](images/maroonline.gif) Joe DiMaggio hits 56 games in a row
![](images/maroonline.gif) Japanese bomb the Japanese attack the main American naval base in the Pacific at Pearl Harbor
![](images/maroonline.gif) The United States declares war on the Japanese and enters WWII; Japanese take Guam, Hong Kong, Wake and the Philippines
![](images/maroonline.gif) Films: Citizen Kane with Orson Wells; The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart; Dumbo
![](images/maroonline.gif) William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary is released
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1942
The B314 Berwick flies Winston Churchill from a meeting with Roosevelt. Churchill even tried his hand at piloting the aircraft. |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) Atanasoff, Berry build the first electronic digital computer
![](images/maroonline.gif) Magnetic recording tape is invented
![](images/maroonline.gif) Atomic research: Manhattan Project begins; First self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction achieved
![](images/maroonline.gif) Sugar and gas rationing begins in the U.S. (One pound of sugar every two weeks and 25 to 30 gallons of gas per month per motorist.)
![](images/maroonline.gif) Final Solution: At a secret conference in Berlin, top Nazi leaders decide on a policy to liquidate all European Jews
![](images/maroonline.gif) Film: Casablanca with Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart; Road to Morocco with Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, and Bing Crosby; Bambi
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1943
Franklin Roosevelt flies to the Conference in Casablanca in January on board the B314 Dixie Clipper.
![FDR on Dixie Clipper](images/dcfdr43.jpg) President Roosevelt celebrated his 61st birthday aboard the Dixie Clipper on the return flight from the secret meeting at Casablanca. |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) Betty Smith's A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is published
![](images/maroonline.gif) Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma opens
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1944 |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) NBC presents the first U.S. network newscast
![](images/maroonline.gif) First jet airplanes operational (Me 262)
![](images/maroonline.gif) D-Day: American-led Allies storm the beaches of Normandy and sweep through Europe, liberating Paris.
![](images/maroonline.gif) W. Sommerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1945 |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) FDR dies at Warm Springs Georgia from a cerebral hemorrhage. Vice President Harry Truman is sworn in as America's 33rd President.
![](images/maroonline.gif) The top U.S. tax rate is now 91%. It will drop no lower than 88% until when in 1963, it is lowered to 70%.
![](images/maroonline.gif) United Nations is established at conference in San Francisco
![](images/maroonline.gif) VE-Day: Victory in Europe on May 7
![](images/maroonline.gif) Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in an effort to bring an end to the Pacific War. Japanese surrender 5 days later.
![](images/maroonline.gif) George Orwell's Animal Farm is published
![](images/maroonline.gif) Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie is performed
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![](images/gldline.gif) 1946 |
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![](images/maroonline.gif) Jukeboxes go into mass production
![](images/maroonline.gif) J. Mauchly and J. Eckert build ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer), the first fully electronic computer
![](images/maroonline.gif) Benjamin Spock offers American parents advice in his very influential book Baby and Child Care
![](images/maroonline.gif) Albania, Hungary, Transjordan and Bulgaria become independent states
![](images/maroonline.gif) Nuremberg Tribunal: 13 Nazis are convicted of crimes against humanity
![](images/maroonline.gif) Cold War Declared: Winston Churchill, speaking in Fulton, Missouri, warns of communist expansion and the formation of an iron curtain dividing Europe
![](images/maroonline.gif) Film: Frank Capra produces the feel-good movie of a generation, It's a Wonderful Life
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