1936

In United States v. Butler et al., the U. S. Supreme Court invalidates another piece of New Deal legislation, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.

The U. S. Congress passes the Walsh-Healey Government Contracts Act of 1936, which specifies working conditions and wages for employees of companies that had U. S. government contracts greater than $10,000.

Playwright Eugene O’Neill is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

Construction begins on architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, a modernist-style country house.

German dictator Adolf Hitler is infuriated when African - American athlete Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the Olympic games in Berlin.

The U. S. Congress passes the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936 to control soil erosion and limit agricultural production.

British economist John Maynard Keynes asserts the importance of government spending in fostering full-production, full-employment prosperity in his book General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.

Ty Cobb becomes the first player elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

In one of the largest landslide victories in American political history, Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected to the presidency over Republican challenger Alfred M. Landon. Scientific public opinion polls are used to accurately predict this outcome.

Life magazine begins weekly publication November 19; the first photojournalistic magazine in America, it is an immediate success.

The United Automobile Workers (UAW) conducts a sit-down strike at General Motors’ Flint, Michigan, plant; after 40 days, GM recognizes the UAW in February 1937, setting a precedent for the automobile and steel industries.