Year 1936 Fun Facts, Trivia, and History Events

This quick read presents a collection of fun facts, trivia, and history events from the year 1936. Discover the year’s top news stories, most influential people, sports facts, historic firsts, entertainment trivia, and much more.

Take a journey through history in just minutes.

1. In 1936, President Roosevelt, Gone with the Wind, and America's high unemployment rate were all on center stage. Potato soup and peanut butter sandwiches were crowd-pleasers, and Paul and Patricia were popular baby names.
2. For a nickel, you could buy a bottle of Coke, a Hershey's bar, or an ice cream cone. You could also buy two loaves of raisin bread for 25 cents, a Monopoly board game for $1.98, or a DeSoto car for $695.00.
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, and John Nance Garner was the nation’s vice president.
4. The average annual household income was $1,713, the average cost of a new house was $3,925, and the average retail price for a gallon of gas was 19 cents.
5. Americans were slowly and painfully digging their way out of the Great Depression. For the year, the GDP growth rate was an impressive 12.9 percent, inflation was a modest 1.46 percent, but unemployment remained stubbornly high at 16.9 percent. Over nine million Americans were out of work and could not find a job.
6. In 1936, the U.S. auto industry manufactured 4.4 million passenger cars and trucks. This was a major improvement over 1932, when only 2.3 million vehicles were manufactured. Nevertheless, the 1936 figures were still below the 5.4 million cars and trucks that were manufactured in 1929—"a production level that the auto industry would not achieve again until 1949.”
7. American companies and brands established in 1936 included the Boyer Candy Company, GEICO, Goya Foods, Harris Teeter, Ray-Ban, and the Solo Cup Company.
8. Consumer products launched during the year included the 5th Avenue chocolate bar, the Aalto Vase, Alpo dog food, Fiestaware, the Mallo Cup, Rebel bourbon, and Spry vegetable shortening.
9. January 29: Stephen Carleton Clark established the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The first five MLB players inducted into the group were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner.
10. March 5: At the 8th Academy Awards, Mutiny on the Bounty won an Oscar for Best Picture, and John Ford (The Informer) won an Oscar for Best Director. Victor McLaglen (The Informer) won an Oscar for Best Actor, and Bette Davis (Dangerous) won an Oscar for Best Actress.
11. March 7: Adolf Hitler "sent over 20,000 troops back into the Rhineland, an area that was supposed to remain a demilitarized zone." According to the Treaty of Versailles, "the Rhineland, a strip of land inside Germany bordering on France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, was to be demilitarized. That is, no German troops were to be stationed in that area or any fortifications built."
12. March 11 to 19: A combination of melting snow and heavy rain caused significant flooding throughout Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, DC, and West Virginia.
13. March 17 to 18: Pittsburgh's St. Patrick's Day flood was the worst in the city's history. A combination of melting snow and two days of steady rain caused the Steel City's three rivers to overflow their banks. Steel mills that were in the vicinity of the three rivers suffered devastating damage, and nearly 60,000 steelworkers were temporarily without jobs.
14. March 17 to 18: By nightfall on St. Patrick's Day, one-third of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was under 17 feet of water. A combination of melting snow and three days of steady rain caused the Conemaugh and Stony Creek Rivers to overflow their banks. Two dozen people lost their lives, and over 3,000 homes and buildings were severely damaged. (Just so you know, Johnstown is 67 miles east of Pittsburgh.)
15. April 3: Richard Hauptmann, the convicted abductor and murderer of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's 20-month-old son, was executed in New Jersey.
16. April 5: The fourth deadliest tornado in U.S. history ravaged Tupelo, Mississippi, killing 216 people and injuring 700 more. The next day, two deadly tornadoes struck Gainesville, Georgia, killing 203 people and injuring 1,600 more.
17. May 20: President Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act into law, which brought much-needed electricity to rural America.
18. May 27: The RMS Queen Mary, a British luxury liner, began her maiden voyage across the Atlantic.
19. In June, the first PPC (Presidents' Conference Committee) streetcar—built by the St. Louis Car Company—went into service in Pittsburgh.
20. A deadly heat wave was responsible for the hottest July ever recorded in the United States. The Plains, Upper Midwest, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, and Deep South all reported record-high temperatures for the month. Nationally, over 5,000 people died from the scorching heat.
21. July 11: The Triborough Bridge, which connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx, opened to vehicular traffic.
22. August 14: Rainey Bethea became the last person in the United States to be "publicly" executed. Bethea was publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, for the rape and murder of a 70-year-old woman.
23. November 3: In the 1936 presidential election, incumbent President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to a second term by defeating Alf Landon, the Republican candidate who was also the governor of Kansas. Roosevelt won by a landslide and carried 46 of the 48 states. (Just so you know, Maine and Vermont were the only two states that Roosevelt did not carry.)
24. November 12: The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened to vehicular traffic, six months before the Golden Gate Bridge was completed.
25. November 23: Life magazine (1936-72) began publishing as a weekly news magazine. It was America's "first all-photographic news magazine and dominated the market for decades." At one point, Life had a weekly circulation of 13.5 million copies.
26. December 29: The United Auto Workers (UAW) began the infamous Flint Sit-Down Strike, which lasted until February 11, 1937.
27. In 1936, Henry Phillips, a businessman and NIHF (National Inventors Hall of Fame) inductee, received patents for the Phillips-head screw and screwdriver.
28. Sylvan Goldman, a businessman who owned the Humpty-Dumpty grocery store chain in Oklahoma, invented the shopping cart.
29. Fiesta dinnerware was introduced at the Pittsburgh China & Glass Show.
30. The Cobb salad was invented by Robert Cobb at his Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles. (Just so you know, the Cobb salad—generally served as a main course—is made with avocados, bacon, blue cheese, chicken breast, chives, chopped salad greens, hard-boiled eggs, red wine vinaigrette, and tomatoes. Wikiwand adds that “The ingredients are laid out separately, often in neat rows.”)
31. General Foods introduced Jell-O pudding in regional markets. Chocolate-flavored pudding came out first, followed by vanilla and butterscotch. One year later, all three flavors were available nationwide.
32. The 32-ounce bottle of beer first appeared in the marketplace.
33. In 1936, there were 616 radio stations in the United States, and nearly 75 percent of Americans owned a radio receiver. Between 1934 and 1936, the number of American passenger cars with radios jumped from 1.5 million to over 3.5 million.
34. Gone with the Wind was the most popular fiction book, the Major Bowes Amateur Hour was the most popular radio program, and Pennies from Heaven was the most popular song.
35. Here are some sports facts from 1936: The Green Bay Packers were the NFL champs, the Detroit Red Wings clinched the Stanley Cup, and the New York Yankees won the World Series. In addition, Louis Meyer won the 24th Indianapolis 500.
36. In 1936 as well, the words "all-points bulletin," "blabbermouth," "curveball," "den mother," "Earl Grey," "falafel," "gift wrap," "Ivy League," "learning disability," "masking tape," "PA system," "shortstop," "talent scout," and "worrywart" all appeared in print for the first time.

References:

1. https://popculturemadness.com/1936-trivia-history-and-fun-facts/
2. https://www.infoplease.com/year/1936
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_in_the_United_States
4. https://www.american-rails.com/pccs.html
5. https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/1936
6. https://thesurvivalmom.com/great-depression-meals/
7. https://www.moviefone.com/movies/1936/western/
8. https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/biggest-box-office-hits-of-1936/
9. https://www.foodreference.com/html/html/food-history-1936.html
10. https://onetuberadio.com/2021/08/11/1936-grocery-prices/
11. https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1936
12. https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1936
13. https://playback.fm/charts/top-100-songs/1936
14. https://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1936.html

© 2026 Gregory DeVictor