Timeline of United States history (1930–1949)

1930s

Presidency of Herbert C. Hoover

• 1930 – The Motion Picture Production Code becomes set of industry censorship guidelines governing production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios; is effective for 38 years
• 1930 – Frozen vegetables, packaged by Clarence Birdseye, become the first frozen food to go on sale
• 1930 – The Democrats take Congress in the Midterms. Will keep it until 1946.
• 1931 – Empire State Building opens in New York.
• 1931 – Japanese invasion of Manchuria, start of World War II in the Pacific.
• 1931 – The Whitney Museum of American Art opens to the public in New York City.
• 1932 – Stimson Doctrine
• 1932 – Norris-La Guardia Act
• 1932 – Hans Hofmann – influential artist and teacher emigrated to the United States from Germany.
• 1932 – Bonus Army marches on DC
• 1932 – Reconstruction Finance Corporation
• 1932 – Ford introduces the Model B, the first low-priced car to have a V-8 engine
• 1932 – U.S. presidential election, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt elected president, John N. Garner elected vice president
• 1933 – Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak killed during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Roosevelt.
• 1933 – 20th Amendment, establishing the beginning and ending of the terms of the elected federal offices on January 20.

  Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt

• 1933 – Roosevelt becomes the 32nd President and Garner Vice President. They are the last president and vice president to be inaugurated on March 4.
• 1933 – President Roosevelt establishes the New Deal, a response to the Great Depression, and focusing on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform
• 1933 – Sweeping new programs proposed under President Roosevelt take effect: the Agricultural Adjustment Act, Civil Works Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, Farm Credit Administration the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Public Works Administration, the National Industrial Recovery Act
• 1933 – Giuseppe Zangara assassinates Chicago mayor Anton Cermak; the intended target was President-elect Roosevelt, who was not wounded.
• 1933 – Frances Perkins appointed United States Secretary of Labor
• 1933 – 21st Amendment, ending Prohibition
• 1934 – Glass–Steagall Act
• 1934 – U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission established
• 1934 – Dust Bowl begins, causing major ecological and agricultural damage to the Great Plains states; severe drought, heat waves and other factors were contributors.
• 1934 – Federal Housing Administration
• 1934 – Johnson Act
• 1934 – Philippine Commonwealth established
• 1934 – Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
• 1934 – Tydings–McDuffie Act
• 1934 – John Dillinger killed
• 1934 – Indian Reorganization Act
• 1934 – Share the Wealth society founded by Huey Long
• 1935 – Works Progress Administration
• 1935 – The F.B.I. is established with J. Edgar Hoover as its first director.
• 1935 – Neutrality Act
• 1935 – Motor Carrier Act
• 1935 – Social Security Act
• 1935 – Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States
• 1935 – National Labor Relations Act
• 1935 – Huey Long assassinated
• 1935 – Congress of Industrial Organizations formed
• 1935 – Alcoholics Anonymous founded
• 1935 – Revenue Act of 1935
• 1936 – Robinson-Patman Act
• 1936 – Life magazine publishes first issue
• 1936 – United States v. Butler, which ruled that the processing taxes instituted under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act were unconstitutional
• 1936 – Second London Naval Treaty
• 1936 – U.S. presidential election, 1936: Franklin D. Roosevelt reelected president, John N. Garner reelected vice president
• 1937 – Look magazine publishes first issue
• 1937 – Neutrality Acts
• 1937 – President Roosevelt and Vice President Garner begin second terms
• 1937 – Hindenburg disaster, killing 35 people and marking an end to airship travel
• 1937 – Panay incident, a Japanese attack on the United States Navy gunboat while anchored in the Yangtze River outside of Nanjing
• 1937 – Golden Gate Bridge completed in San Francisco
• 1938 – Wheeler-Lea Act
• 1938 – Fair Labor Standards Act
• 1938 - The comic book superhero Superman debuts in Action Comics #1
• 1938 – Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds broadcast
• 1939 – Hatch Act, aimed at corrupt political practices and prevented federal civil servants from campaigning
• 1939 – Nazi Germany invades Poland; World War II begins
• 1939 – Cash and carry proposed to replace the Neutrality Acts
• 1939 – President Roosevelt, appearing at the opening of the 1939 New York World's Fair, becomes the first President to give a speech that is broadcast on television. Semi-regular broadcasts air during the next two years

  1940s

• 1940 – Selective Service Act, establishing the first peacetime draft in U.S. history
• 1940 – Alien Registration Act
• 1940 – Oldsmobile becomes the first car maker to offer a fully automatic transmission
• 1940 – Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry and Woody Woodpecker make their cartoon debuts
• 1940 – Billboard magazine publishes its first music popularity chart, the predecessor to today's Hot 100
• 1940 – U.S. presidential election, 1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected president to a record third term, Henry A. Wallace is elected vice president
• 1941 – Regular commercial television broadcasting begins; CBS and NBC television networks launched.
• 1941 – President Roosevelt begins third term; Wallace becomes Vice President
• 1941 – Lend-Lease, which supplies the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material during World War II
• 1941 – Operation Barbarossa
• 1941 – Attack on Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters World War II by declaring war on Japan the next day on December 8; and three days later against Germany and Italy.
• 1941 – Atlantic Charter, drafted by the UK and U.S., to serve as the blueprint for the postwar world after World War II
• 1942 – Japanese American internment begins, per executive order by President Roosevelt; the order also authorizes the seizure of their property.
• 1942–1945 – Automobile production in the United States for private consumers halted.
• 1942 – Casablanca released
• 1942 – Office of Price Administration
• 1942 – Cocoanut Grove fire kills 492 people, leads to vast reforms in fire codes and safety standards
• 1942 – Congress of Racial Equality
• 1942 – Revenue Act of 1942
• 1942 – Doolittle Raid
• 1942 – Battle of the Coral Sea
• 1942 – Battle of Midway
• 1942 – Guadalcanal Campaign
• 1942 – Operation Torch
• 1942 – U.S.-controlled Commonwealth of the Philippines conquered by Japanese forces
• 1943 – Office of Price Administration established
• 1943 – Oklahoma! the first musical written by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II opens on Broadway
• 1943 – Detroit, Michigan race riots
• 1943 – Allied invasion of Sicily
• 1943 – Allied invasion of Italy
• 1943 – Cairo Conference
• 1943 – Casablanca Conference
• 1943 – Tehran Conference
• 1944 – Battle of Monte Cassino
• 1944 – Dumbarton Oaks Conference
• 1944 – G.I. Bill
• 1944 – D-Day
• 1944 – Bretton Woods Conference
• 1944 – Battle of Peleliu
• 1944 – Battle of Leyte
• 1944 – Battle of the Bulge
• 1944 – U.S. presidential election, 1944: Franklin D. Roosevelt reelection for a fourth term, becomes the only U.S. president elected four times. Harry S. Truman is elected vice president
• 1945 – President Roosevelt begins fourth term; Truman becomes Vice President
• 1945 – Yalta Conference
• 1945 – Battle of Iwo Jima
• 1945 – Battle of Okinawa
• 1945 – Nationwide labor strikes due to inflation; OPA disbanded

  Presidency of Harry S Truman

• 1945 – President Roosevelt dies, Vice President Truman becomes the 33rd President
• April 12, 1945 - Vice president Truman takes over after being Roosevelt's VP for only 88 days.
• 1945 – Germany surrenders, end of World War II in Europe
• 1945 – Carousel opens on Broadway
• 1945 – Potsdam Conference
• 1945 – Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Days later, Japan surrenders, ending World War II
• 1945 – United Nations Conference on International Organization; United Nations established
• 1945 – United Nations Charter signed in San Francisco, establishing the United Nations; it replaces the League of Nations
• 1945–1949 – Nuremberg Trials and Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
• 1946 – Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech
• 1946 – Benjamin Spock's The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care published
• 1946 – Employment Act
• 1946 – United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946
• 1946 – President's Committee on Civil Rights
• 1946 – Philippines regain independence from the U.S.
• 1946 – Republicans take control of Congress for the first time in 16 years.
• 1947 – Presidential Succession Act
• 1947 – Taft Hartley Act
• 1947 – U.F.O. crash at Roswell, New Mexico
• 1947 – National Security Act of 1947
• 1947 – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
• 1947 – The Marshall Plan
• 1947 – Polaroid camera invented
• 1947 – Truman Doctrine establishes "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures"
• 1947 – Federal Employee Loyalty Program
• 1947 – Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier in baseball
• 1947 – Studebaker becomes the first automobile manufacturer to introduce a "post-war" model; most automakers wait until 1948 or 1949
• 1947 – Jackson Pollock begins painting his most famous series of paintings called the drip paintings in Easthampton, New York
• 1947 – First broadcast of Meet the Press; the World Series is broadcast live on television for the first time
• 1948 – The Texaco Star Theater, starring Milton Berle, becomes the first major successful U.S. television program; The Toast of the Town also debuts
• 1948 – Berlin Blockade
• 1948 – U.S. presidential election, 1948: Harry S. Truman is elected president for a full term, Alben W. Barkley is elected vice president
• 1948 – Truman desegregates armed forces
• 1948 – Selective Service Act of 1948: Passed after first such act expired
• 1948 – Organization of American States: Alliance of North America and South America
• 1948 – Alger Hiss Case
• 1949 – President Truman begins full term, Barkley becomes Vice President
• 1949 – North Atlantic Treaty Organization formed
• 1949 – In China, Communists under Mao Zedong force Chiang Kai-shek's KMT government to retreat to Taiwan
• 1949 – Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb
• 1949 – Department of War becomes the Department of the Army and becomes subordinate to the new Department of Defense
• 1949 – Germany divided into East and West
• 1949 – Truman attempts to continue FDR's legacy with his Fair Deal, but most acts don't pass