1938

Benny Goodman’s swing band performs in Carnegie Hall, helping legitimize jazz as a music form.

American novelist Pearl S. Buck wins the Nobel Prize in literature.

Terminally ill, Lou Gehrig retires from baseball after playing 2,130 consecutive major league games with a batting average of 340.

In Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, the U. S. Supreme Court rules that a state’s refusal to provide law school education for a qualified African American was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Vinson Naval Act expands the U. S. Navy in response to the hostilities developing in Europe.

The Civil Aeronautics Act creates a supervisory body to regulate the commercial aviation industry.

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 prohibits the sale of foods dangerous to health as well as foods, drugs, and cosmetics packaged in unsanitary or contaminated containers.

In a widely publicized boxing rematch, African-American Joe Louis knocks out German Max Schmeling in the first round.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 establishes a minimum wage, caps the work week at a maximum of 44 hours, and outlaws employment of individuals under age 16 in the manufacture of materials shipped across state lines.

The United States protests the violation of American treaty rights incurred by the Japanese invasion of China in 1937.

The House Committee on Un-American Activities is formed.

Orson Welles’s radio adaptation of H. G. Well’s War of the Worlds causes a nationwide panic.

Led by John L. Lewis, the 10 unions of the Committee for Industrial Organization break away from the American Federal of Labor (AFL), becoming known as the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Twenty-one countries in North and South America adopt the Declaration of Lima, which asserts Western Hemisphere solidarity against foreign intervention.